Blackwood Page 5

  That wasn't the only thing worrying him. Where were the voices? He wasn't willing to risk trying to call them. Not yet. He'd summoned the voices intentionally just once, and the response had left him muttering in bed for two days, struggling to mute the overwhelming chaos chorus.

  But he couldn't help wondering if he'd been gone for three years for no reason. The voices had felt real. That they started the day his gram died and stopped when he left seemed to confirm they were – and that they were tied to the island, somehow. Maybe not, though. Maybe he had some brain disorder and the timing had been a coincidence.

  Phillips found a spot in front of the Pioneer Theater. The box office was dark, despite the fact the movie theater prided itself on always being open. He needed to get back to Miranda.

  The courthouse square consisted of a wide lawn with a fountain and a gazebo, shaded by the white courthouse with grand two-story columns and a wide front porch. Phillips kept his head down as he waded through the lunatic fringe clogging the square, hoping no one would recognise him and flag him down. Unfortunately, the reputation he had to earn in order to leave made him memorable.

  He passed uninterrupted through the crowd and stopped near the bottom of the broad set of steps that led to the courthouse entrance. He hesitated, not eager to face his dad.

  So when the professor type coming off the steps barreled into Phillips, he knew it was partly his fault. Still, he said, "Watch out–" before he realised who the klutzy professor was.

  The man in front of him hadn't changed a tweed fiber. He was wearing the same fussy style suit he always did, no matter the weather, and had a familiar leather binder clasped under his arm. He was known around town as Dr Roswell, so christened because about the only theory on the lost colonists he hadn't held at some point was alien abduction. He really was an M.D., and to Phillips he was also Dr Whitson, the shrink he'd seen to keep his parents happy. Better, he was the shrink who'd spent most of their time together talking history and ephemera while Phillips poked through his personal library.

  Phillips smiled despite the hold-up. "Doc."

  Dr Roswell's beard and mustache took on a friendly walrus shape when he grinned back in recognition. "You magically appear in front of me and now I know I'm officially going mad," he said.

  Phillips gestured at the mob scene. "What do you think all this is?"

  "CNN got my name from Bitty Reynolds, and they thought I'd know." Dr Roswell leaned in, growing serious. "But, Phillips, I don't think what this is can be easily explained. All I know is that it happened once before."

  CNN might not be so far off base. Dr Roswell did know a lot of things that regular history buffs ignored. "I have to go, Doc. There's a girl I have to…" Phillips swallowed, unsure how to finish. "Is it OK if I drop by later? Talk over some explanations that aren't easy?"

  Dr Roswell nodded, "You're always welcome. And good luck."

  "Good luck with–?"

  But Dr Roswell continued on, waving off the calls of the locals now all too eager for his theories. Phillips watched him parting the sea of townspeople, and then walked up the broad limestone steps that would take him to his father.

  At the top, Phillips met the nod of the beefy cop on security, and the guy recognised him instantly. "Your dad's been wondering when you'd turn up. And your mom's pissed. Get in there."

  Great. He headed to the courthouse's revolving door, deciding how best to handle his dad. He was out of practice at being in trouble.

  Despite the sweep of the building's exterior, inside no grand vista waited. The lobby's scuffed marble floor was filled with a crowd of people who weren't usually there. A few tables had been set up, outfitted with phones for a call bank. Phillips' dad had an office on the first floor, up one of the hallways branching off the lobby. He preferred not to work in the jail when he could avoid it.

  Phillips spotted Miranda hovering off to the side of the entrance. He hung back for a second, watching her watch his dad. She must be waiting for his dad to notice her, and all the buzzing activity meant that hadn't happened yet.

  Phillips wasn't sure why his dad had summoned Miranda here, but it bothered him. There was no reason for him to have called her personally.

  His dad stopped to talk to a state trooper and a pasty guy in a black suit. He looked even more tired than he had in the glimpse Phillips got on TV in the airport. Dark circles hung under his eyes like he'd gone weeks instead of less than twenty-four hours without sleep. He responded to something the guy in the suit said, body language dismissive. His dad's mouth fell open mid-sentence as he stared at Miranda.

  Make that past Miranda. Phillips waved.

  Miranda turned her head, frowning when she spotted him. "Thanks for the ride. But you didn't have to come in."

  "I wanted to." He shrugged in his dad's direction. Phillips could tell from El Jefe's scowl as he shot across the lobby that he hadn't even noticed Miranda. Phillips talked fast, "I'm sorry. I don't think any of this is your fault. I'm just worried for you. I did a crap job of explaining before, but you can trust me. I promise."

  "I should…" Miranda hesitated, tilted her head to give him a closer look. Then she stepped between him and his father. Phillips didn't know why she'd decided to delay his moment of reckoning, but he was grateful anyway. She said, "Hey, Chief Rawling. You called me?"

  His dad looked from Miranda to Phillips and back again, finally seeing her. "Yes, I did. You better step into my office." He motioned for her to follow him before he spoke to Phillips, "You wait here." Then he added, "Until I come back."

  Miranda looked puzzled. "Where's my dad? Is he in your office?"

  His dad said, "You'd better come with me." He touched Miranda's arm, extended his other one to indicate which direction for her to go.

  Miranda dealt Phillips another surprise, when she hesitated and said, "If it's OK, can Phillips come with us?"

  His dad's forehead wrinkled in confusion, but he said, "I guess."

  Phillips trailed Miranda across the lobby and along the hallway into his dad's office. The space hadn't changed much. His dad closed the blinds on the tall, narrow windows to the outside, turning the room into a cave. He peered at Phillips from the other side of his desk. "How are you holding up? Any… problems?"

  "Good, actually," Phillips said. "Fine."

  "When we finish here, call your mother. You can drive the car home to her. She'll bring you back here."

  Phillips ignored the part where his dad was allowing him to drive the car, and instead bristled at the command. "What am I supposed to do here?"

  His father lowered his voice. "You know. What you do."

  "There's nothing," Phillips said. "Not since I got back."

  That wasn't what his dad wanted to hear.

  Miranda coughed to interrupt. "Where is he?" she asked, the question small in the high-ceilinged room.

  Phillips didn't fully understand why he wanted to protect Miranda, but he did. It just didn't make sense that his dad would want to see her in person with everything that was happening, not to release her father on a drunk and disorderly or a public intoxication charge.

  "You might want to…" Phillips' father trailed off as he sat, and Miranda and Phillips slid into the chairs in front of the desk. Phillips tried to catch Miranda's eye, but she was staring straight ahead.

  "I have some news," he went on.

  "Where is he?" Miranda asked.

  "I understand this is hard–"

  "What's hard? You found him, right? He wasn't missing."

  Phillips touched her arm. She flinched. He said, "Miranda, you have to let him tell you."

  Miranda gulped in air, and said, "No, you don't understand. I promised to take care of him."

  Father and son exchanged a glance.

  "Well," his dad said. "You've had a tough time of it, Miranda. You have been a devoted daughter, and this news will not be easy. I'm glad that my son is here with you." He paused. Phillips figured he wanted to know why the two of them had come together.
"I hadn't wanted to tell you alone, but there's no one to call… Our social worker's among the missing and I know you wouldn't want that anyway. You've been running your household for a while now and you deserve to know, especially with everything going on. There's no easy way to say this."

  Miranda remained motionless. Phillips wasn't even sure she kept breathing.

  "Your father was murdered."

  Phillips had expected injured, maybe even dead, but not… "Murdered?"

  "His body was discovered in an alley downtown this afternoon. He's the only one of the missing we've recovered so far. But he brings the reported number down to one hundred and fourteen. Meaning his death is probably not related to the missing persons."

  Miranda put her head down, her hair falling forward. Phillips wanted to do something, to comfort her. He didn't know how. So he sat there in shock, fixating on the number, teasing out his father's logic. Miranda's dad was probably unrelated because now it was a hundred and fourteen people gone. The same number John White had left behind in 1587.

  "The coroner is having some difficulty determining what happened to him, but it's not anything that could be considered accidental or self-inflicted. We've ordered an autopsy, and we'll know more once that's finished. If you want to see the body, we can arrange that. I'm sorry, Miranda."

  "I'm sorry, too," Phillips said, the only words that made sense. He had questions for his father, but they'd wait.

  Miranda lifted her face.

  "I understand," she said, steady as a flatline on a hospital monitor.

  Phillips had heard his dad talk to his mom about notifications before. How most people fell apart before you even got through the facts. How the ones who didn't were the ones that took it hardest.

  Miranda rose, then seemed to think better of it and dropped back into the chair. "Do you need me to sign anything?"

  6

  Mothers

  While Phillips drove her home, Miranda stared out the car window feeling lost. As lost as the missing people, maybe. Chief Rawling had agreed to let Phillips take her, but he was supposed to end up back at the courthouse. Phillips had told his dad again that there was nothing he could do to help there. For some reason, he seemed reluctant to leave her.

  She didn't know what she should feel, or what she should say.

  But Phillips didn't have much to say either. He kept his eyes on the road, his knuckles tight in a death grip on the steering wheel.

  "What your dad was asking you before… you hear voices still?" she asked.

  He didn't as much as glance over. "You remember."

  The grass blurred to a soft green outside the car window. "Yeah."

  Of course, she remembered. He'd heard the voices talking about her. She'd been in eighth grade, thirteen years old. It was the first day of school, not long after the Rawling family moved in from Nags Head. They took possession of the house belonging to the chief's mother – aka the Witch of Roanoke Island – after she died of cancer. To Miranda, it seemed like everyone eventually died of cancer. Phillips had possessed the glow of celebrity all new kids have in a small town. She'd been standing against the section of lobby wall that belonged to loner misfits. He walked toward her like he was in a trance. The other kids in the lobby laughed as he reached out a hand and touched her hair. He said things to her, about her. Things that didn't make any sense, but that scared her. He called her a bad thing. He called her a liar. A traitor. A carrier. A snake.

  The other kids loved that – a snake. They thought he was being funny. The funny new kid, picking on the Blackwood girl, something most of them had wanted to do for a long time.

  The principal had stepped in to pull Phillips away, and called her dad to pick her up. What people whispered about their family was bad enough, and had gotten worse since her mom died. Their curse had been confirmed. Her dad ripped through a half-case of beer when they got home, getting angry. He loaded her in the car at midnight and drove to the Rawlings' house. Two months later and he wouldn't have been able to – that was when his license got grabbed for good, and he sold the car for drinking money.

  Chief Rawling tolerated her dad yelling and taking a swing at him, though he didn't let it connect. Phillips came downstairs and stood at the screen door. When he saw Miranda, he ran outside and whispered to her, "There were voices talking in my head. They said things about you. But they're just voices." And then he gave her that look. She could tell he was sorry. Even then, she didn't believe he'd done it on purpose.

  Chief Rawling sent Phillips back inside. Then he drove her and her dad home in their Oldsmobile. His pretty wife with the black hair followed them in his police cruiser. Miranda had been surprised that Phillips didn't turn up at school the next day. His mother home-schooled him for half the year, rumors of his escapades around the island traveling the halls anyway.

  She studied his profile, just inches away. She'd always wanted to ask him if his voices had said anything else about her. She wanted to know. Maybe. But she didn't ask that. Instead she asked, "Do you mind if we stop by there?"

  A thick black fence thrust from the ground like jagged teeth, a forbidding boundary made of painted iron. The evening light made shadow spears that thrust toward the gentle slope of ground the fence protected.

  "I can't believe I'm about to say this," he said. "But, why not?"

  He turned up the dirt drive and drove them into the graveyard, dust ghosts trailing the car.

  Miranda got out first and wandered through the chalky white tombstones, some carved with angels or winged skulls. There weren't many recent burials in this part of the cemetery. Phillips didn't follow her. He stayed in the car. She figured he'd join her if he felt like it.

  She was alone now. Alone in the world.

  She walked up the slope, grass that could have used mowing tickling her ankles. She turned back and saw Phillips still inside the car. She started down the other side of the small hill, leaving his sight. The markers changed to reddish marble and gleaming black. There were plain gray stones mixed in, but not many of the oldest pale ones.

  Miranda didn't care for modern headstones. When her mom died, they'd only been able to afford a smallish marble rectangle to mark her grave. She had wished for something large and sweeping that captured her mother's spirit. Or at least something small and noble, like those old ones. She was pretty sure the guy at the Outer Banks Monument Company who sold them their stone had already cut them a deal though. There hadn't been any way to ask for something more.

  She reached the not-so-special gray stone. Kneeling, she traced the letters of her mother's name with her fingertips. Anna-Marie Blackwood. Miranda leaned against the stone, and said, "I didn't forget my promise, but I wasn't able to keep it."

  Miranda didn't ask for her mom's forgiveness, but she wanted it all the same. She eased down on the hillside next to the headstone and pulled up a yellow dandelion growing on the top of the grave. She shivered at the idea of her mom down there in the cold, damp dark.

  The tombstones on either side were close. There'd be no room for her dad's marker to go next to her mom's. Not that they – not that she – could afford one.

  She heard Phillips climbing down the hill to join her. He must have been stomping as loud as he could through the grass, to give her fair warning to compose herself. He wasn't turning out to be anything like she expected.

  She patted the ground beside her. He kicked at the grass, then sat down.

  "Phillips Rawling, meet Anna-Marie," Miranda said.

  Phillips didn't say anything.

  "She was great," Miranda said.

  "I'm sorry."

  "You say that a lot."

  "Sorry," he said, then, "Last one, promise."

  They stayed like that for a few minutes, not talking. Low, gray clouds passed overhead. The rolling hills of the cemetery grounds were dotted with purple-flowering bushes and a few trees. This was a peaceful place, even with the highway so nearby.

  "I can't believe he's gone," she said. "I still
can't believe she is."

  "What was he like?"

  Miranda shrugged. Before her mom had gotten sick, he'd been different. Quieter, not so much of a crazy talker or drinker. Able to hold a steady job. Her mom could make him smile with such little effort. She read Miranda book after book, Narnia and Alice and the first couple of Spiderwicks, while he drank a beer or two, no more, content to listen.

  She plucked another dandelion, this one already transformed to a head of white cotton spokes. "He wasn't able to be himself anymore. Not after she died… Losing someone, sometimes it's too much. He felt it too much. He couldn't shut out the dark."

  She blew on the dandelion, scattering the white particles all over Phillips' shirt.

  "Thanks," he said, brushing them off. "You have a thing for coating me with random substances you want to tell me about?"