Where Darkness Blooms, page 21
Follow me, the whisper said again, and this time, Whitney could hear the lilt of Eleanor’s voice within it.
She flung herself out the front door. A single petal twirled on an invisible breeze just beyond the entrance to the Nursing Care Center. In wonder, Whitney walked toward it.
She followed it around the corner and into the small cul-de-sac behind Main Street. Whitney knew where the petal was taking her before she reached the third house on the left. Some part of her had known she’d end up here eventually, one way or another.
As she approached Eleanor’s old house, the petal floated gently into the empty flower bed next to the porch. Another family lived here now—the Jacobsons. Instead of puffy peonies, the beds were pocked with toy cars, an air pump, and a deflated football. But the oak tree still stood.
There were no acorns nestled beneath it like there had been in the card. But Whitney remembered the exact spot where the cops had found Eleanor’s body. She’d been walking home in the middle of the day, they’d said. She’d just dropped dead ten feet from her porch steps, right beneath the oak tree. Her grandmother had found her facedown in the grass the next morning. Whitney had rode by the house on her bike more than a dozen times in the week after. Sometimes she even stopped across the street and watched the police tape flicker in the wind.
Whitney stood in that same spot now. There was no police tape marking off the area, but she knew. She could feel Eleanor’s last breaths in the air, her body rigid in the soil beneath her feet. The police tape, the “investigation” afterward—it was all a joke. Whitney was sure no one had tried to figure out how Eleanor died. They just pretended in order to appease Susannah.
Whitney glanced up at the dark house. She dropped to her knees and ran her palm over the parched grass. Okay, Eleanor, she thought. What do you want me to see?
Whitney started to dig. She clawed at the grass with her bare hands, yanking up fistfuls of dirt and tossing them to the side. She dug until her palms ached and black crescent moons were caked under her fingernails. Moonlight stained the dark earth. Beads of sweat slid down her forehead and clung to her eyelashes like gnats in a web.
Her fingers bumped up against something solid.
She glanced up at the house. The windows were still dark, the shadows inside unflinching. She plunged both hands into the earth and pulled.
The dirt fell away as she lifted the object out of the ground. It was rectangular, thick, heavy. Whitney blew away the last of the debris.
It was a book. Not just any book, but the one her mother always assigned her ninth-grade advanced English class: The Handmaid’s Tale.
Her mom always got shit for it, to which she explained to the PTA that advanced English was optional and students could choose another, thematically similar book if they wanted. But most didn’t—not the girls, anyway. Whitney opened the cover and read the inside flap.
Eleanor Craft
9th—advanced English
Ms. Montgomery
She let out a breath. Eleanor had been in her mom’s class. Had Eleanor ever mentioned it before? All those fever-pitched conversations in the peachy glow of the bonfire had blurred with time. Whitney tried to flip through the pages.
But there were no pages in the center.
Eleanor had glued the center of the pages together before cutting a big hole through thousands and thousands of Margaret Atwood’s words. Tucked in the center was a lighter and a plastic bottle. Whitney carefully finessed the bottle out of the hole and read the faded label.
Lighter fluid.
Tires squealed as a car rolled up beside her. A man with bushy eyebrows and a splotchy red face rolled down his window. Mr. Jacobson. “Hey, what are you doing to my lawn?”
Whitney shoved the bottle back into the book. “I—” Whitney started to respond, but it was too late. He’d already thrown the car in park and started to open the door.
Run.
Whitney didn’t know if that voice came from Eleanor, or the sunflowers, or something else entirely, but she didn’t care. She shoved the book under her arm and ran, leaving a trail of dirt behind her.
“HEY!” Footsteps pattered behind her. She picked up speed as she turned the corner. They started to fade.
She slowed for a second to catch her breath. If she kept going straight, she’d wind up on Main Street, and she could take it down a couple blocks to the station. And then she could …
What?
Whitney opened the book. The lighter and plastic bottle winked up at her. Eleanor had been saving these for something, hiding them away in her old English book so no one would catch on. Maybe she even had this book with her the night she died.
Or she’d been trying to get to it.
Whitney’s stomach hitched as she thought of Eleanor walking home in the dark from the bonfire, her clothes still smoky and her lips raw and pink from their kisses. Someone following her in the dark. Eleanor’s heart thrumming in her veins as she hid beneath the oak, digging up the book she’d hidden—the plan she’d made—with her bare hands. Maybe she had even planned to tell Whitney about it the next day when they met in the clearing.
Not getting very far before someone had come back to finish the job.
Tires squealed as Mr. Jacobson’s car swung around the corner. Whitney snapped the book shut and bolted toward the street. Shit, shit, shit. The engine growled as the car picked up speed. “Hey! What did you take from my yard?”
When she reached Main Street, she headed toward town hall. The police station was right next door. Alma had to be in there somewhere. She had to be.
People had just begun to poke their heads out of the shops and restaurants they had been trapped in during the storm. Roof shingles littered the street like oversized dinner plates, and the tendrils of errant branches draped over sidewalks and lampposts. Whitney hopped over the debris and kept running. She only had a minute before Mr. Jacobson would be able to turn and follow her.
The station loomed just up ahead. Whitney slowed long enough to pull out the lighter and fluid from inside the book. She pulled in a deep breath.
And pictured Eleanor.
That last night together, knees touching, fingers threaded together behind a wall of smoke at the bonfire. The tiny silver flame charm that Whitney had slipped onto her bracelet. The night she’d decided that she was in love with Eleanor Craft.
Burn it all down, a voice whispered.
Tires caressed the cement as Mr. Jacobson’s car turned down the street. Whitney’s hands shook as she doused The Handmaid’s Tale in clear fluid. She tossed the empty bottle onto the street and ran.
The lobby was mostly empty except for two cops sitting at small wooden desks, and Alma, who was slumped over in a plastic folding chair in the corner.
All three snapped their heads up. The tallest one stood. “Miss, what are you—”
Whitney flicked the lighter and touched it to the book. It burst into flames. She tossed the book at the desk in front of her.
The cops yelled something at her, but her heart was roaring too loud in her ears to hear. This was it. She’d never be able to come back from this. She was a felon. There was no way Sheriff Ableman wouldn’t press charges and drop her at the county jail to rot.
She’d have to make this worth it.
“Alma, let’s go!” she yelled. Alma hopped out of the chair, eyes wild with panic, and ran toward her. Whitney grabbed her hand and pulled her through the front door.
The fire alarm had started to wail, but the truck wasn’t ready. It was still parked back at the Nursing Care Center, trying to deal with sick patients and downed power lines. They might actually make it out of here.
“Where to?” Alma asked, breathless.
Whitney paused, trying to think. They could go back to the house, start up her mom’s old sedan, try to get out of this place before the car broke down on the highway. They could—
Something slammed into Whitney with such force that it felt like a hammer to the chest. She stumbled back, her arms pinwheeling, grasping for Alma. Someone grabbed her wrists and wrenched them behind her back. Pain streaked across her injured shoulder. Cold metal snapped onto her wrists in quick succession. Snap, snap.
“We’ve got them,” Sheriff Ableman said breathlessly into the phone tucked against his ear. “We’re bringing them to you now.”
The wind started to pick up, howling with disapproval.
Whitney’s heart sank.
They were trapped.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Jude pulled at the zip ties around her wrists until her skin bled.
Outside of Bennett’s room, the rest of the world was quiet. The wind had softened into a tepid breeze, and Delilah’s screams had all but vanished behind the cellar doors. Bile rose into her throat at the thought of Delilah, trapped behind those steel doors. But as much as she tried, she couldn’t free herself. After a while, she stopped fighting and pressed her forehead against the bedpost.
“I messed up,” she whispered to the empty room.
Her mother had always told her that mistakes could be fixed. Jude, baby, you don’t have to be so hard on yourself, she’d say, lifting Jude’s chin until she looked her mother in the eye. There’s always another way.
Jude looked at the bedpost in front of her. Bennett had tied her wrists so tightly around it that her nose was almost brushing against the nicks and notches in the wood. If there was another way out of this, she couldn’t see past the post in front of her to find it. She half-heartedly pulled at the zip ties. They didn’t budge.
She closed her eyes. As much as she tried to push it down, there was a tiny part of her that whispered in her head. This is just the way it is, the voice said. This is the best you’ll ever get.
She knew it wasn’t her mother’s voice, but it didn’t feel like it totally belonged to herself, either. It felt a bit like a curse, something that had latched onto her that night when she’d been born during a vicious storm. Maybe if she hadn’t screamed so much, it would have passed her by, carried away like petals in the wind.
But she had, and it was still there, pressing on her throat, choking her voice. Reminding her that of all the girls, she was the least important. She wasn’t gorgeous like Whitney or brave like Bo or confident like Delilah. She was just soft—too soft. Too quiet. Too plain. Outside Bishop, there was zero chance that someone like Bennett would notice her, fall in love with her. Want her to stay.
Jude gritted her teeth. No.
Her eyes snapped open. There had to be a way.
She slid her wrists down to the floor, her cheek pressing hard against the bedpost. If she could just adjust herself, tilt her neck a bit so she could wedge the post against her shoulder, she might be able to lift it and—
The post groaned as Jude lifted it, barely an inch, off the floor. She yanked her wrists out from beneath it and let the bed drop with a thud.
She sat back, trying to catch her breath. She’d done it. At least she could move around Bennett’s room now, even if she was locked in.
“Get off her!” a voice screamed from outside.
Whitney. Jude crawled to the window and peeked out. One of the storm cellar doors had been opened, but all she could see was a black pit beneath it. No sign of Delilah.
Her sister stumbled into view first, followed by another girl. Jude squinted. It was the girl from the front desk at the Nursing Care Center—Alma? She watched as the girl grabbed Whitney’s arm to keep her upright.
“Don’t touch her!” Whitney yelled again as another person came into view. It was Sheriff Ableman wearing his camel-colored button-up as he marched behind them. Something glinted in his hand.
A pistol.
Jude let out a guttural scream. Ableman pushed them toward the open cellar, knocking over a watering can and an old shovel propped against the brick. From the side of the house, all three Hardings, including Bennett, ran toward them. The wind kicked up as if it had been summoned, blowing Whitney’s wild curls over her eyes. She stumbled.
“I can’t. I have to…” Jude didn’t finish her thought. She pulled herself up, careful to avoid the window, and snuck toward Bennett’s desk. There had to be something that could break her free.
The desk was mostly empty except for a Rubik’s Cube and a stack of worn notebooks from last year’s classes. Jude glanced at the shelf hovering above it. A few books, a pile of track and field medals Bennett had never bothered to hang up, and a single picture frame. She stood on her tiptoes to look.
Jude remembered when this photo had been taken. It was the last day of school in late May, and the weather had already turned oppressively hot. Bennett stood on his front porch steps, sunburnt, one arm wrapped around his brother and the other around Delilah. Whitney had been there, too, just to the side of the porch, and so had Jude. They’d all decided to meet up at the Harding house before heading to the clearing for an end-of-the-year bonfire.
Jude’s face was half hidden by the shade of the porch, but even from here she could see now how clear it was. Her body language said everything she’d tried so hard to keep concealed. Her head tilted in Bennett’s direction, almost as if he were a magnet and she couldn’t help being drawn to him. Her eyes looked at the camera, but not really. She had one eye on Bennett at all times, as if she couldn’t stand waiting one more second to jump back into his orbit after the camera went snap.
Jude’s cheeks flushed with heat. She couldn’t believe how naive she had been. She couldn’t believe she’d done that to Delilah—to them all, really.
A burst of wind rattled the house. Outside, the screaming had started up again, this time laced with panic instead of rage. Alma was yelling now, too, but Jude couldn’t make out the words.
She reached both hands over her head and smacked the frame from the shelf. It tumbled onto the desk with a loud crack, and then to the floor, where the glass shattered. Jude bent down and grabbed the largest shard of glass. Her fingers shook as she inched it between her palms, careful not to cut herself.
Another scream, this time slightly muffled. If Whitney and Alma weren’t already in the cellar, they were close.
Pressing her palms together like a prayer with the glass between them, Jude pushed her hands into the floor. It was just enough pressure for the glass to cut through the zip tie, freeing her wrists. She set the glass down and raced for the door. It was locked.
Jude let go of the doorknob. Think, think, think. She scanned the room.
The extra key. Bennett might have clicked the lock shut on his way out, but he hadn’t taken the spare key with him. Jude knew there was another. He’d shown it to her one night when he’d snuck her into his house after his uncle had gone to bed. In case you ever want to surprise me when I’m not here, he’d said, delivering his best farm-boy grin before tucking it in a small box inside his desk. Maybe get under the covers and wait for me?
Ugh. The thought made her stomach lurch because she knew that Past Jude would have actually done it. She would have shown up and waited for him for hours, with the door locked in case his brother or uncle tried to come in. But he met Delilah only three days later, and that had been the end of that.
She opened the desk drawers and fumbled through their contents until she found the box. She cracked it open. The key stared back at her.
“Thank god,” she whispered, jamming it into the door. With a quick click, she was finally free. She raced down the stairs, her pulse running wild in her veins. Jude reached the back door and flung herself onto the grass.
Whitney and Alma were gone.
But Bo was standing in their place.
Jude’s heart climbed up her throat as she watched Bo, circling the storm cellar like a rabid wolf. She was covered in blood—so much blood—and one eye was swollen completely shut. “Let them go,” she growled.
William stood on the other side of the cellar, watching as Bo slowly reached toward her pocket. He let out a laugh. “I wouldn’t try it if I were you. What do you have there—a Taser? Pepper spray? A knife? That won’t get you very far here, little girl.”
William calmly lifted his arm, palm open to the sky. As if it had been waiting for his signal, the wind roared on cue. He smirked. “This whole town only listens to me. You’re just like your pathetic mother, trying to fight against something ancient, so much bigger than you. This is the way we’ve always done it. This is the way it’s going to be.” He flicked his hand toward Bo, and the wind followed.
It raged, lashing Bo from every direction. She wobbled before hitting the ground—hard. Jude saw something glint as it fell out of her pocket.
The weapon. It must have been something Bo planned to use.
She gasped. It was the knife.
The one Bo had tucked into the kitchen drawer beside the oven when she thought Jude wasn’t paying attention. Bo had saved it just in case.
Of something like this.
Jude crouched down and crawled toward the sunflower fields pressing against the edge of the yard. If she could just slip between the stalks, she could loop around closer to the cellar, help Bo, and grab the knife.
As soon as she reached the fields, she stood and ran, weaving through the stalks toward the cellar. Beyond the flowers, Bo was yelling, but the words were lost on the wind. Jude slowed as she got closer.
William’s enormous hands were wrapped around Bo’s bare ankles as he dragged her through the grass. She was barely moving anymore. Her hands hung limp above her head as a trail of fresh blood followed her to the open cellar doors.
BO! Jude thought it, but when she opened her mouth to scream, her throat closed up like a river dam. She crouched near the ground and reached for the knife still nestled in the grass.
You won’t use it, a voice hissed. The wind lashed her skin. You’re not strong enough.
“Yes, I am,” Jude whispered, gritting her teeth. Her fingers grazed the handle. She wrapped her hand around it and slid it toward her. I can do this.
Bo let out a groan as William easily lifted her onto his shoulder. She dangled like a limp dishrag as he carried her down the cellar stairs.
