Page 114 of Some Kind of Haunted

What an act. I hold on to Logan and remind myself to believe, to love.

“Help me,” Harrison wails.

“I’d like to, Grandpa,” Jack says. Too close to the shadows for my taste, but he’s not in them. Yet. “But if you were good, you wouldn’t need an invitation into the light. Because the dark would already have taken you.”

The fake pain turns into a cry of anger, but Jack kicks out, knocking the lantern over and shattering the glass so the flame spreads out quickly across dry leaves and glass. It illuminates Harrison’s grotesquely demon-possessed face, but Jack doesn’t see it. Only Logan and I do, and I think that’s a kind of mercy.

Jack has already turned and is striding toward me. He doesn’t stop when he gets here, he just grabs my arm and pulls me over to the rock.

The pretty pre-hour melody is done. The first of twelve bongs sounds out through the night.

“You don’t have time,” Harrison is shrieking from the shadows, standing now despite his ruined body—but he can’t cross the line of fire.

We scramble up the rock with an assist from Logan. Jack tosses him a lighter and his phone. “Keep whatever light you can going,” he orders.

Then Jack and I are on the top of the rock. Just like my dream. My dream was the key all along.

But that’s not quite right. I am the key.

In my dream I stood right here. Was Jack here? I try to picture it, but all I remember in the dream was that there was a rush of wind. I was saying something. I was waiting for someone. Maybe it was him.

Maybe I’ve always been waiting for him.

It’s a frustrating blur, but I don’t have time for the blur. I have to act. Before Harrison reaches Logan. Before the clock strikes twelve.

I reach out and lace my fingers with his. We look right at each other, like we’ve done this before. Then we say it together.

“The beginning is the end.”

The rock rumbles beneath us, maybe the whole earth is shaking, but Jack and I keep holding on to each other. The slurping around us increases, but it’s different now.

Desperate, I think. They’ve put out some of the fire, but Harrison can’t seem to get past Logan’s tiny swath of light as the sixth and seventh bongs ring out over the town.

Jack and I are making something happen, but I don’t know what. Then I remember my dream about the rock. That settlers gave their blood and the demons gave theirs. That was the original deal.

That was the choice.

And Virginia told us that only blood can stop it. “We need blood,” I tell Jack. “Mr. Over Prepared, you got a pocketknife or something sharp?”

My heart is pounding in my throat. My hands are sweaty. But Jack produces something from his pocket, because of course, he does. He slides a blade out, then hands it to me.

It has to be about blood. It has to be about the beginning and we are the beginning, Jack and me. Bellamy and Darling with some foundling thrown in, melded all together. Here at this place where our ancestors made the first deal.

The wrong deal.

But then someone put forth something good. And I am the result of that.

It means something, I know it does.

With a wince, I cut my palm with the blade. Then I hand it to Jack. He curses under his breath, but nods, then slashes his own palm. He mimics what I do, which is crouch down and press the bloody part of my palm to the rock.

And then we say it again. “The beginning is the end.”

There’s a bigger rumble, and I can feel the rock cracking beneath us, but it’s still not over. I can feel it. There’s a kind of electricity in the air.

Something is coiled, waiting.

The tenth bong echoes around us, loud and reverberating in my ears. The wall is nearly closed. Just a sliver of light shows between door and wall.