Page 44 of Some Kind of Haunted

Logan and Nora are still staring at each other. “So,” I say brightly to Nora, “you dream like me? About the slurping and the demons, but you don’t sleepwalk?”

“No, I don’t. It’s not safe to sleepwalk in Midas.” Nora clearly remembers that I was wandering around last night and offers an apologetic smile. “Over the years, in between Feeds, things have gotten more dangerous.” I do not like the sound of that, but she keeps going. “Harrison has always made sure I’m . . . secured. He says that based on his research, the foundlings are always the dreamers, susceptible to sleepwalking. More . . . in tune with the demons.”

“What the hell is a foundling?” Logan asks.

I figure it’s at least a little self-explanatory, but Logan has never been a fan of labels.

Jack gestures at the map. “Midas has a history of missing children. And also found children.” The idea of missing children gives me a chill. “The foundlings are always girls. There’s only one per generation. And they always show up in various places around town.”

He looks at Nora, and her eyes are a little wide. Cleo makes a small sound.

“The clock tower,” they all mutter in unison.

“I was found at the clock tower,” Nora says after a beat of silence that neither Logan nor I break, because I’m guessing we both feel the intensity at the table. And besides, her hand is over her heart and she rubs that spot like something hurts.

“But Logan and I aren’t foundlings,” I say, wanting to take that hurt look off her face. “We’ve always had our dad. Always.”

“Your mother was a foundling, though,” Nora says quietly, and I see Logan stiffen at that. But it settles differently in me. “It makes you part foundling, in a way. You’re connected to us, anyway. By blood.”

Part foundling. Part founding family. Somehow, that dichotomy makes sense without actually making sense to me. Everything I learn is like little missing pieces of a puzzle that make up who I am. I can almost see the full picture.

Except I don’t like the way Nora said blood.

“Was our mother found at the clock tower?” Logan asks. His voice is raw, no attorney in it, but that tracks. It’s about Mom.

Nora bites her lip and shakes her head. “No. If . . . If memory serves, your grandmother found her at the mine.”

These places being the locations children are found does not fill me with a comforting feeling. At all. I can tell it has the same effect on everyone in this hangar. Including Logan, who was drawn to that mine in a way that still creeps me out to think about.

“Who else is a foundling?” I ask. “If they dream, too, then they must know all this is happening. Or maybe they’re like me and—”

“Nora is the only foundling since your mother,” Cleo says matter-of-factly. “There hasn’t been another one since, and the one before your mother never had children and died a few years back. If there are other foundling descendants, we’ve lost them somewhere along the way.”

This is met with another wave of silence. And because my head is reeling, I go over to the kitchen area, open the minifridge, and find my own drink. A sad little wine cooler—but it’s better than a beer that I know in advance will make me feel gross. I grab a beer for Logan, who loves to feel gross, and hand it to him.

He takes it and stares at it but doesn’t open it.

“The Feed happens at Halloween,” Jack is saying now. Back to business. “People come in from all around to attend all our fall festivals, culminating on Halloween, and the demons take their fill. I was hoping we’d have years yet.”

He doesn’t glance at me, but of course, I’m the reason it’s not years.

“Luckily, Nora and I have spent our lives researching this with our grandfather,” he continues. “I’ve worked up some theories.”

“Why don’t you just cancel all the festivals?” Logan glares at the map. “Everyone stays inside their houses, protected in whatever way keeps Nora from sleepwalking, and we call it a day?”

“Not everyone sees what’s happening, even if it’s right in front of their eyes,” Nora replies, also staring intently at the map. I swear it looks like they’re both looking at the mine. “Even if they do, they think the town is haunted, maybe. Or they think it’s in their own head. In Feeds throughout history the people who knew what was coming have tried all kinds of things to get the town to fight back, or at least hide, but it never works. There are too many people who don’t buy in to it.”

“Okay, so what are we working with?” Logan sounds impatient now, like it’s his job to walk into this and solve it. Classic Logan. “Just how many people do we think both see what’s happening and are willing to try to stop it with Jack’s theories?”

There is a very, very uncomfortable beat of silence. Then another. Cleo looks at the ceiling. Nora frowns at her hands. Jack scowls into the dark distance outside the hangar doors.

It’s ominous. Like . . . there isn’t anyone else.

Cleo is the first to look at us again. She clears her throat. “Well, my dad believes the stuff I tell him, but he doesn’t see anything himself and anyway, he likes to tinker with engines and watch videos of airshows. He’s not a fighter. My mom is the Darling descendant, but . . . She’s not here.” She shrugs. “My grandma is fully on board, but she hasn’t quite been the same since Amelia died. You know how close they were.”

This is clearly directed at Jack and Nora, since I certainly don’t know much about either woman, but I can’t help but look at Logan. He’s always been there. I’ve never considered the possibility of his not being there. No matter how old we get, I expect our twinness to continue, but that’s not guaranteed, is it? Someday, one of us will have to deal with the loss of the other.

I hate even thinking about it.