Forests of the Night Read online

  Macy got down on her hands and knees and felt with the palms of her hands, but couldn’t feel the quarter. Part of her—a very small part—wanted to run into the Door and see what would happen. It was the same part of her that wondered what it would be like to drink Drano or put her hand in a moving fan. It didn’t mean she was going to do it. But she couldn’t help what thoughts went through her head.

  As she searched for the coin, the Door began to move. Ghosts always came out of the side closest to the school. Macy was crouched on the other side, still feeling around for the quarter. As the Door bulged away from her, she froze. She had never witnessed a ghost coming out of the door from the other side before. The Door was slightly see-through, and she watched the trees distort and ripple on the other side.

  Macy pulled her knife out of her pocket and flipped it open. When she had to stab a ghost to focus her energy, she’d always done it up close—actually pushing the blade into the ghost. She’d never thrown it before and she wondered if that was even possible. Could you take care of a ghost by throwing a knife at it or by shooting it with a gun? Or did a person’s hand have to be touching the weapon for it to work? Macy had a lot of questions about ghost combat and ghosts in general, but Dom didn’t always have enough answers.

  When the ghost stepped through the Door, he didn’t run. She could see enough through the Door to tell that it was a guy. He looked so familiar—tall, with thick hair. Something about the shape of his shoulders made her cry out, “Nick?”

  She bit her cheek where it was already bloody and ragged. That was so stupid, saying Nick’s name. But when he turned and looked at her through the wall of light, she was so certain. This was what Macy had been waiting for—the reason she had come here all those mornings and sat in the rain. Why she came alone. So she would be ready when Nick came back.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Nick!” Macy called out again, this time on purpose. Her hood was making her feel claustrophobic so she threw it off, letting the water that dripped off the trees run down her face. The ghost just stood there, watching her through the Door. Macy started to slowly walk to that side of the Door, stepping gently on the brambles and soggy leaves. She felt like the ghost was a bird that would startle the moment she made a sound. Nick, please, she thought. Then she wondered what she would see. Would he look like he did in the hospital? Or would he look like himself?

  When Macy first saw her brother after the accident, she was so sure that it wasn’t him. His face was red and puffy, with a bandage covering his missing eye. His forehead was lumpy and looked as shiny and purple as an eggplant—so swollen that Macy thought it might split open as she stood there, trying not to scream. Not him not him not him. Those were the words she kept saying over and over in her head. She could feel the words in her mouth—the muscles of her tongue trying, but failing, to say them aloud.

  Now, as she took the few steps around the Door, all Macy could think was Let it be Nick, let it be Nick. She was so sure that when she saw his light brown hair—so like her own—and dark jeans, she almost threw her arms around the ghost. But when she wiped the rain out of her eyes with the back of her wrist—the knife still clasped firmly in her hand—she knew she was wrong. It wasn’t Nick. It was just another strange ghost that she’d have to kill.

  Macy pulled her hood back up and inspected the ghost. He was very close to her brother’s build—in between Dominick and Jackson’s heights, but broader. His hair was shorter than Nick’s and was actually quite a bit darker. Almost black. She didn’t know why she had thought his hair was Nick’s color. She had just seen what she wanted to see, she supposed.

  She couldn’t tell what color the ghosts’ eyes were, but he was watching her. He tracked her movements as she took a final step and stood directly in front of him. The ghost wore jeans and a plaid button-up shirt with a few buttons open at the neck. He either looked very retro or had been dead for a few decades. It was hard to tell, since people were always wearing shabby-chic crap they found in thrift stores. There was something off about his clothes, however, and she soon realized what it was—he wasn’t wearing a coat. But the rain fell straight through him, so he probably didn’t mind.

  It had only been about thirty seconds since the ghost passed through the Door. In that time he had only stood there, as though waiting for Macy to make a move. His eyes asked her a question, but she didn’t think she knew the answer yet. Not an answer she wanted. Macy took a step toward the ghost and held out her hand. Stupid, stupid, said the inner voice that sounded a bit like Claire. So stupid. Macy wanted to know how real he was—if he was just an echo. Also, it was easier for her to dispatch a ghost if she could lay her hands on him. With the hand not gripping her butterfly knife, Macy tried to touch the ghost’s shoulder.

  Her hand went right through the plaid fabric. Macy tried not to be disappointed, because that would make her a crazy person. She shouldn’t be disappointed that the ghost she was trying to destroy was weak and couldn’t touch her. Even though she knew the ghost wasn’t Nick, those few moments when she had thought it might be her brother had shaken her. A small, tiny part of her thought that maybe—if this ghost wasn’t just an echo—it might mean that her brother could still come back. That he might still know her. It was as dumb as thinking that if you stepped on a crack you’d actually break your mother’s back.

  Macy took a step back and prepared to dissolve this young man, just as she had the little boy who was sitting in the rain. It should have been easy, like flicking the rain off the brim of her hood. He was only an echo. Macy closed her eyes and felt her mind latching into him, feeling for the edges of him—the outline of his being. Sometimes this part felt strangely intimate, like she could feel the inside of the ghosts’ heads, or like she was reaching her hand into their chests like that creepy fuck from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom who had pulled out a guy’s beating heart.

  This time, as she reached out towards the ghost, it felt different. Instead of just catching a firm hold of the wispy edges of the ghost, Macy felt like something was pushing back at her—a pulsing that filled her concentration like a steady, beating heart.

  She opened her eyes. The ghost was still watching her and his hand was raised. “Wait,” he said. His voice was soft, like leaves rustling down an empty road. “Just wait a minute.”

  Macy’s first instinct was not to wait, but rather to plunge the knife into his neck. That’s what smart girls did—girls who didn’t end up murdered in a soggy, depressing patch of trees. But the ghost was just an echo. A shadow. He couldn’t actually hurt her. So she did wait. While Macy stared at his throat, trying to decide what to do, she noticed that she could sort of see through the ghost. Earlier, when she was standing behind the Door, Macy had been able to see the ghost through the pulsing curtain of the Door. Now she could faintly see the Door throb and ripple behind him. What if more ghosts came out of the Door while she hesitated? What if there were too many and they swarmed her? Macy hadn’t actually heard of ghosts working together. She didn’t even know if one ghost could see another. How horrible if all of the ghosts that roamed the world thought they were the only ones. How lonely.

  Macy knew she was stalling. She didn’t want to kill this ghost, who was looking her in the eye and asking for mercy.

  “Who are you?” she finally said.

  He looked up, into the rain. Then he looked back at her. “I . . . I need to do something.” He didn’t answer her question. Had he even heard her? When the rain fell through the ghost he appeared to flicker, like the TV did when her mom vacuumed too close to it. The way he spoke to her, he didn’t sound like an echo. Dominick had told her about stronger ghosts—ones who could carry on a conversation—but she had never met one. Even the man with the goggles, who was strong enough to burn down a building if he chose, hardly seemed to speak. But her hand had gone right through this boy. What was he?

  “What’s your name?” She tried again.

  He blinked, as though trying to remember. Macy hop
ed that when she died she wouldn’t come back. She didn’t want to be a shadow. She didn’t want to forget herself.

  “Henry,” he said at last. His voice was getting louder, more real sounding. “Henry Grey.”

  “Oh shit.” Macy brushed the rain out of her face again, almost stabbing herself in the cheek. She put the knife back in her pocket, knowing she could get it back out and open in less than three seconds if she needed to. Jackson had timed her.

  “Grey?”

  He paused, raising one hand to his collarbone. Macy didn’t know if he realized he was doing it. “I think . . . yes. That’s my name. Henry Grey.” He shook his head. “I’m really here? It feels so . . . foggy. I can see you, but it’s like you’re down a tunnel or something.” He took a step closer. “Too far away. Do I know you?”

  “No.” Macy took a step back. Her heel hit a rotting log and she almost tripped. “You’re dead. You know that, right?”

  He blinked, then rubbed his face. “I guess. I mean, yeah . . . I know. I died, and then I was . . . somewhere else. For a long time. I’m not sure where that was. I was waiting for something, you know? Like I had a test to take or I had a doctor’s appointment. But I just kept waiting.”

  Stab him! her Claire-voice said. It also sounded a bit like Jackson. This isn’t a fucking meet-and-greet!

  “You have to hide,” she heard herself say.

  The ghost’s eyes widened. “Why?” He let his hands fall to his sides. Macy couldn’t see anything wrong with him. No bruises, no broken bones. His face was pale with dark eyebrows and a small, delicate nose. He would have been cute if he was alive. One of those brooding boys in movies who think really deep thoughts, and, like, pine for things.

  Macy shook her head in reply, but she didn’t really know what she would do yet. She should just do it—get rid of him so she wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. But he just didn’t look dead. And he was talking to her.

  “I have to do something,” the ghost—Henry—continued. “I have to stop something. It’s why I died—I remember pieces of it. I remember running. I remember there wasn’t enough time and I needed to find something. There was something I had to do, and then I died. I think . . . I think it was terrible. I think I was afraid.” He spoke in a rush, but also in a kind of matter-of-fact tone, like he was just reading from a list of things to do today.

  “Do you remember how you died?” Macy asked. She shivered and folded her arms across her chest. She could feel her heart beating in her throat.

  “No. I remember that I was alive . . . and then I wasn’t. I just . . . I wasn’t . . . anymore.”

  You burned to death fifty years ago, Macy almost said, but she held her tongue. What if ghosts really were like sleepwalkers? You weren’t supposed to wake a sleepwalker, right? Maybe you weren’t supposed to tell a ghost how he died. She remembered the story of Henry Grey, but when she first saw the ghost she hadn’t connected him to the picture she’d seen at the school. Principal Grey standing next to his nephew, his arm around the young man. It was up in one of the glass cabinets in the school hallway, next to some old trophies. If they had both died as the building collapsed, then why did Henry look so perfect? Why didn’t he look like how he died, like the little broken girl from the church? Like Dom’s poor sister? Why wasn’t he crushed or burned? Did that mean that Nick could be okay when he came back? Could he be normal?

  Macy tried to think of a question to ask him—something that would help her decide what to do. Finally, she asked “What do you want?”

  Henry flickered again, the light of the Door pulsing behind him. “I want . . . ” He rubbed his face again, like he was exhausted. Could a ghost even feel his own skin? “I just want to remember. I just want time.”

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” Macy whispered.

  “I know.” He turned his green eyes to her. At least, she thought they were green. It was hard to tell in the shadows, and with the light of the Door behind him. “I . . . I think I used to be like you. I think I used to know what ghosts were. What I am. I’m a ghost.” He frowned and looked down at his shoes. “How strange.”

  He looked back at Macy. “I just need to remember. It’s important. I need to do something, then I’ll go. I just need a little more time.” Macy hadn’t said that she was going to make him . . . go away. Kill him. She hadn’t said those words. But he seemed to know. Though he said everything so calmly, Macy could hear the pleading in his voice. He was asking her permission. He was asking her for more time.

  Time. Could Macy give him time? Was that something a person had the power to give? She thought about Nick, and how his birthday meant nothing now. He had no more time.

  “Okay,” Macy said. “Tomorrow. I’ll come back tomorrow.” Henry was just another echo, like the girl in the church or that woman in the movie theater. He was harmless. Henry couldn’t even touch her. What could he do in one day?

  “A day,” Henry said, looking up to the tops of the trees. “It’s been years, hasn’t it? I didn’t recognize it at first, but this is where the school was. It burned, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Macy watched him, wondering how he’d react. He seemed so calm. “I’m sorry. You’ve been dead for . . . um . . . fifty years.”

  He nodded, like he’d expected her to say that. “These trees weren’t here before. They’re so tall.”

  Macy didn’t know what to say. He reminded her of a movie she saw once, where coma patients wake up, and they don’t recognize anything. Or The Shawshank Redemption, where an old man got out of jail after decades and decades of being locked up and he didn’t understand how the world worked anymore. She was pretty sure that character ended up killing himself.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow. Just . . . just stay here, okay?”

  Henry nodded and began to drift among the trees, looking around. Macy could barely see his feet move—he just seemed to float, like a twig caught in a stream. When she walked away, he was still looking out toward where the trees thinned and you could see all the way to the water.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The next day Macy woke up at 4:30 a.m. She was quiet leaving the house. Hopefully she’d be back before her parents noticed she was gone. Her mom had thrown a fit yesterday. She had forgotten to text her mom after she left the funeral—and after Henry—well, Macy sort of forgot all about brunch. By the time she came home it was mid-afternoon and her mom was furious.

  “It was disrespectful to me, and to your grandparents.” Her mom had sat her down at the kitchen table and started boiling water for tea. “They came all this way to spend time with you, and then you just ditch us?”

  Macy winced. When her mom said things like “ditch,” it was like she was trying to sound younger than she was. Not that her mom was that old. But still, it sounded weird.

  “I was just really upset after the—after Nick’s thing, and I wanted to go see Claire. She’s always there when I need to talk.”

  Macy didn’t like to say funeral in front of her mom. It felt like she was saying lines from an after-school special about grief, but she thought her mom would buy it.

  Her mom poured two mugs of peppermint tea. Macy’s dad was in the other room watching football. He didn’t like confrontation and hadn’t really looked up from the TV when Macy walked in. She could hear her dad groan. The Seahawks must have fumbled the ball or something.

  Her mom set a mug in front of Macy. “You’re soaking wet. After you drink this you should go take a hot bath.”

  She could tell that her mom’s anger was already fading. Macy didn’t usually do anything wrong, so being scolded was probably an equally bewildering experience for both of them.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.” Macy took a hesitant sip. It was still so hot that it burned the tip of her tongue. Her mom used to make her peppermint tea when she stayed home from school with a cold. The smell made her feel tiny, like she could fit in her mom’s pocket. It wasn’t a bad feeling.

  “Why don’t you take off your gloves? They mus
t be soaked through.” Her mom reached out for her daughter’s hand. Macy jerked away, spilling scalding tea on her mom’s hand. Her mom sucked in her breath and stood up, staring at Macy for an instant before turning and running her hand under the faucet.

  “Jesus. Mom? You okay?” Macy set down her tea and stood behind her mom.

  “Fine. Just a little burn.” Her mom’s voice wavered, just like it did at the church when she talked about the flowers.

  Macy felt something inside her chest crumble. She hugged her mom around the waist. Her mom froze for a moment and then relaxed and patted Macy’s arm with her dry hand. “I’ll be fine. Finish your tea and I’ll go up and run you a bath. Then we’ll have an early dinner with Grandma and Grandpa. We can go out for Indian food—your favorite.”

  When her mom walked up the stairs and disappeared from sight, Macy had whispered, “Nick’s favorite.”

  As Macy walked down the street at four thirty a.m., she was surprised to find that it wasn’t raining. It was foggy though, and dark in that uncomfortable not-quite-night-but-not-quite-morning kind of way. Like the day didn’t exist yet.

  Macy was so tired that she felt like she didn’t quite exist. The alarm on her phone (she had turned the volume way down and set it next to her head so her parents wouldn’t hear) had woken her out of a deep sleep. She was so full of adrenaline from being jolted awake that her stomach was in a knot, and she had a sharp headache right between her eyes.

  Macy should have called Jackson right away and told him about Henry. And she certainly should have told Dom. But she hadn’t told anyone. She didn’t know how.

  It felt wrong to expose Henry when all he wanted was time to think—time to remember himself. But now Macy knew she had to take care of it. She had given him a day, or most of it, and she just couldn’t let him stay any longer. She would handle this herself.