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“We… found her car.”
The words hung for a moment, as I tried to take them in.
“And she wasn’t in it?”
“No. It was pulled over on the shoulder of the road about a mile outside of town. The keys were gone, but her phone was in the cupholder, and her suitcase was still in the trunk.”
I felt the air leave my lungs. I’d forgotten how to breathe, to think. My brain was just a blank buzzing of panic.
“Wren?”
I forced a breath. “I’m here.”
“Honey, let’s not jump to any conclusions, okay? We still don’t—”
“I have to go,” I squeaked, and ended the call.
I could feel three sets of eyes on me and turned to see all three of my friends standing in the doorway of the Archive, staring at me with expressions ranging from curiosity to pity. I sucked in another ragged breath, fending off the howl of a sob that was trying to force its way up from my chest.
“They… found her car. She wasn’t in it.”
I swayed, my vision dimming, and all three of them shot forward to grab me before I hit the floor.
“Breathe, Wren, honey, you’ve got to breathe,” Eva said in a soothing voice, rubbing my back in a slow, circular motion.
Zale rubbed my back and pulled a water bottle from his bag. “Here, drink some of this.”
“Something’s happened to her. Someone’s done something to her, I know it!” I gasped. I was having a full-on panic attack and I knew it, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. Zale moved the water bottle to the back of my neck.
“She needs air,” Zale said.
“I’ll see if I can open the window,” Nova said, dragging a stool over to the only window, set high in the wall.
“It’ll be okay, Wren,” Eva said. “We’ll… we’ll find something!”
“Of course we will!” Zale chimed in. “We’re still looking, there’s got to be—Nova?”
The confusion in his voice cut through my panic. I glanced up to see that Nova was standing on the stool, one hand frozen in midair near the window latch, and her eyes fixed on a painting on the wall.
“Nova? What is it, what’s wrong?” Eva called, her voice strained even as she continued to rub my back.
“I… I think I found something.”
I jumped up so fast that Eva yelped and almost fell over. Still trying to get control of my breathing, I flew across the room to where Nova still stood on the stool.
“What? What is it?”
Wordlessly, she pointed to the painting on the wall.
It was a rendering of the beach looking north to where the lighthouse stood. The light shone out of the top of the lighthouse into the gloom of an oncoming storm, the ocean roiling in the shadows below it. And there, on the beach, staring out over the water—
The Gray Man.
There was no mistaking him. His form had the same abnormally stretched proportions, his features blurred out. One of his arms was raised, reaching out, as though waiting for someone to come and take his hand…
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “It’s him. It’s the Gray Man.”
Eva and Zale came running over, jostling in next to me so they could get a glimpse of him, too.
