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“Seems like that would make us awfully valuable,” Evie said.
“And dangerous, like I said,” Sam chimed in. He jerked his head toward the hallway. “Looks like we got company.”
Conor Flynn stood in the open doorway, twirling a piece of his hair. “I need to draw,” he said, marching to his spot at the table and taking out his paper and the pencil Isaiah had given him.
“If these ghosts are a hive mind being controlled, then who’s the puppet master? Somebody has to be whipping them up,” Ling said from her spot on the divan.
The scratching of Conor’s pencil distracted Evie.
“What are you drawing, Conor?” she asked.
Conor didn’t answer. He drew as if he was channeling, his pencil moving with quick strokes. The others crowded around, watching in horror as the picture took shape. On Conor’s page, an army of hungry ghosts advanced on a boy in a boater hat just like the one Henry wore.
The lights winked. On. Off. On. Off. As if blinking out a message.
“The Hell Gate?” Sam asked.
Memphis shook his head. “Nobody’s blasting in this storm.”
“Maybe it’s the storm, then,” Sam said.
Conor’s head snapped up. “They’re coming. Onetwot’reefourfiveseven…”
Memphis, Sam, and Evie raced to the windows. Dusk had given way to dark very quickly. Lightning arced violently above Ward’s Island. A giant hand of blue-gray fog reached over the top of the Hell Gate until they could no longer see the bridge at all.
“You ever seen fog move like that before?” Memphis asked.
“No,” Evie whispered.
“Onetwot’reefourfivesevenOnetwot’reefourfiveseven…”
Memphis hurried from window to window, checking to be sure that they were tightly latched. And then he backed away from the view of the fog spreading across the island like an avalanche.
“Henry’s outside in that,” Ling said.
“One two… One. Two. T’ree… onetwot’reefourfiveseven…”
“We can’t go out there now,” Sam said.
“And we can’t leave him there!” Ling insisted. She swiped Conor’s picture and held it up to prove her point.
“What about Isaiah and Theta?” Memphis said. “I should’ve stayed with him!”
“… Fivesevenonetwot’reefourfivesevenone…”
“All right. We go back to the main building for Isaiah and Theta. And then we get Henry,” Sam said.
There was a breath of sudden quiet in the room.
“Why has he stopped counting?” Ling asked.
Conor’s eyes were huge and he was breathing in short bursts like a frightened pup. A cacophonous burst squawked from the radio, as if it were moving rapidly through stations in search of a signal. There followed a long hiss, and then, softly at first but growing ever louder, a buzzing like a swarm of flies.
“Turn it off,” Evie said.
Sam did but the sound persisted. Shrieks and sobs burst through the buzz as if the history of the asylum itself was trying to make itself heard through the machine. The flickering lights bounced shadows over them all. Through the open door, the Diviners could see bewildered attendants rushing frantic patients into their rooms, soothing them as best they could. “It’ll be just a moment; I’m shutting the door.”
At a desk, one nurse pressed the bar on the candlestick phone repeatedly. “Hello? Hello! Gee, I can’t get anyone to answer. It’s gone dead!”
