Page 78 of Some Kind of Haunted

“Why does this all fall to you, Jack?” I ask him.

He doesn’t look at me at first. I think he’s trying to find a way to wave it off, pretend that he doesn’t act like he and he alone can find the answer to stop a demon horde.

When he looks at me, though, something changes. And I think, as he speaks, soft and serious, he is offering nothing but the truth.

“My ancestor made that deal—it was his bright idea, and he brought the others along. It starts with him, so it has to end with him, in some way. He did seem to have realized his mistake after the fact. He passed down tips and tricks to survive, theories on how to break the demon deal, and theorized that ending the deal ends the suffering. Every generation of Bellamys has tried to break the deal ever since, but it started with his idea and his mistake.”

He speaks like that is somehow his mistake, and I wonder what would make someone so dedicated to fixing someone else’s mistake. It makes my heart ache, more than it already does, for Jack Bellamy and all these weights he carries that don’t seem fair.

“What about the Darlings? My ancestor was there, too, right? It’s not like a Bellamy forced a Darling’s hand.”

He looks away then. “I can’t speak for you, Lexi. Your dad got out, but he took you and Logan with him. He wasn’t saving himself, not according to any explanation I ever heard. He was trying to save you.”

“And because your parents got out to save themselves, you feel added pressure to be what they weren’t?”

He looks over at me, in a startled kind of way. Like he never expected anyone to understand that, when it seems clear as day to me.

For a few moments, we’re just looking at each other in the dim light. Understanding each other, I think. And when his gaze drops to my mouth this time, I’m not thinking about anything besides what it would feel like to have Jack’s mouth on mine.

But then he sighs, looks down at his work, so I do, too. He’s got an arm over what appears to be a spiral notebook, almost like he’s trying to hide it, so of course, I look more closely.

I’d recognize my own handwriting anywhere. My notebook. My accounts of my dreams—and it’s open to an account of one I had long ago in New York. Is he only just reading them now? When I thought he found no value in them weeks ago and, really, was just giving me something to do in the mornings?

I don’t know what I feel. I shouldn’t be offended. He never said he read them. He acted like they were important, but he never promised anything. And I haven’t asked about it in all these weeks, so this is on me. “I thought you read that already,” I say flatly.

He looks at me like I said something bizarre.

“I did read it,” he replies. “All of it, a few times, and the new entries, too.” He moves his arm and I can see he’s made a lot of notes just on this one page.

It’s weird—his handwriting over mine.

And I feel a little breathless when I see just how seriously he takes my dreams. It makes something in me go shivery, deep within.

“Oh,” is all I can manage to say.

Jack swallows like he’s making a presentation. “At first, I was really focused on the clock tower stuff. It’s new, and different from any previous accounts or journals that discuss the Feed. The clock tower has never been associated with demons, except in your dreams.”

We’re back to business, away from the personal. I figure I could push us back there, but . . . Well, soul-sucking demons should probably take prominence. “Maybe my dreams are wrong.”

He fixes me with a hard look. “You’re the harbinger. You’re from a founding family. Your mother was a foundling. Your dreams are not wrong, Lexi. They’re one of the best resources we have.”

I don’t know how to react to that. It’s so . . . validating.

And terrifying.

He taps the journal page in front of him, looking down at it, away from me. “Virginia said the end is in the beginning. I can’t get it out of my head. So I went back to the beginning.” He flips a few pages in the journal, then hands that to me.

I’ve read this. It was the first recounting of a deal with the demons. “Harrison had me read this first. The three founders go to the river, meet with what they thought were a group of French fur trappers who’d been harassing their townspeople. And the fur trappers turned into demons.”

“Yes. Down by the river. Beyond the flood wall. Beyond Midas proper. On a big boulder.” Jack leans in, holding my gaze. “A big boulder that all children of Midas—founding family descendants or not—are taught to stay away from and have been taught that in every record I’ve ever read. A place by the river that would have been great for a bridge or a mill or a million other things, but oddly enough, no one wants anything to do with that piece of land. It’s not even incorporated. I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never gotten close.”

I swallow. The words boulder and river stick out at me like a fleeting memory, but I can’t quite catch it. Something about claws on rock.

He flips a few pages in the notebook, then hands it to me. I see he’s underlined the word rock.

I skim what I wrote. It’s odd because there’s no clock tower, no black or slurping noises. It’s a dream I’ve only had once.

I had it the night Amelia died, though I didn’t know that then. I didn’t know it until I got here. August fifteenth. Before I even knew she existed.