Page 54 of Some Kind of Haunted

He gestures out a different exit than the one the customers use. I realize this is how he snuck up on me in the hall the other day. He came out from the kitchen, not the regular door. It puts us closer to the antique store.

Better yet, he puts his hand on my back as if to guide me toward it.

I want to lean into his palm, and not only because it seems to light me up. I want to do a lot of things—I am not one to wait for someone else to make the first move, because joy is fleeting and fun—but the guillotine of this notebook can’t be in my hands if I want to be that woman.

Especially if I want to be that woman with this man.

We walk into the hallway and I feel like I need to hand over the notebook before we meet up with Harrison. So Jack understands. So he sees that I trust him. With this notebook. With this record of these things that have tormented me. With this whole bizarre situation.

With me, I think, and then I hand it to him.

I don’t say anything. But he takes it with a gravity that makes me feel both relieved that he really does understand . . . and terrified that I am leading him on a fool’s errand.

There are a million caveats I want to throw out about how pointless and unhelpful the mess in my head probably is, but I remind myself Jack doesn’t think that way. He might actually understand my dreams better than I do.

I remind myself that I have a choice, and that I’ve made it.

I don’t have to be Lexi Darling, a party girl clearly hiding the crackpot underneath. I can be a Darling here, and it can mean something. A member of a founding family. The granddaughter of someone well respected and much missed.

We stand in the hallway and I can feel the clock tower. It’s like an entity pressing into me from outside, like it’s trying to shove me somewhere, maybe.

But my back is to it so I don’t have to look.

I can look at Jack instead.

He flips through the pages of the notebook and he shakes his head vaguely. “Jesus, Lexi,” he mutters.

I desperately want to know what he’s reacting to, but I also don’t want to ask. Surely that will look too needy for someone who’s supposed to be soberly recording information like an academic, nothing more.

He looks up at me again. “Don’t mention this to Grandpa,” he says, giving the notebook a little shake.

This surprises me more than anything. “I thought you didn’t want to keep secrets.”

“It isn’t keeping secrets,” he says, but carefully, like he isn’t certain that’s true. “I know what my grandfather thinks about dreams in connection with the Feed. He doesn’t always trust everything that’s the purview of the foundlings. It’s not prejudice,” he says quickly, defending his grandfather to me like I understand any of the layers to this. “It’s just . . . A wariness, I’d call it. Anyway, I think this is important. I think your dreams could potentially help us figure this all out. So I’m going to take a look and see if they lead us anywhere.”

When he says it, it feels like a kind of gift that I’ve had these dreams all my life. But that’s such a reversal that I can’t really hold on to the thought. It feels more like an earthquake. I promise myself I’ll think more about it later. “And while you’re doing that, I’m going to . . . ?”

“Learn about your hometown.”

It’s a kneejerk reaction to tell him that no matter what, Midas, Iowa, is hardly my hometown. It’s hardly anything to me. But I bite my tongue.

Because that would be a lie.

His hand finds my back again, I try not to swoon, and then he walks me into the back of the antique store to sit with his grandfather. I don’t mention my dream notebook to Harrison. I try not to look directly at any of the horrible old dolls. I spend the rest of my morning with Harrison, learning what the historical record says about the deal with the demons.

It’s kind of like history class. Read: boring. And it’s a tale as old as time. A bunch of rich white guys took over land that wasn’t theirs, then made a deal that required everyone else to pay for that choice forever while they mostly got off scot-free.

What else is new?

Well, the demon part, I guess. Foundlings and dreams and evil clock towers.

But all these people are trying to stop those things, and I might be able to help.

Harrison is opining about the various founders and their contributions to the initial deal, though it was Bellamys and Darlings who sealed it, but I feel that earthquake in me again. That little inkling of a thought that my dreams could be a gift. A secret weapon.

That means this isn’t a situation of maybes or mights or any other equivocations.

Harrison decides we need a different old book and starts paging through it, but I feel that seismic shift inside me. I let it shake straight through.