Chapter 39
Going Home
Brooke
Brooke thought finding Connie would be the easy part. Not so much. Perhaps the caster had grown tired of looking for them night after night and gone back to her solitary haunts. Brooke could all too easily imagine how she felt. After having grown accustomed to hooking up nightly, she’d be feeling abandoned all over again. That sucked. But how could she not? It had been days and days since they’d been out, thanks to Mrs. Betts’ watchful eyes, and the snow, not to mention the long hours spent at Alex’s bedside, relieving Alex’s exhausted mom.
Oh, crap. They hadn’t been out since before the attack on Alex. Which meant the task of telling Connie would fall to Brooke. Great. Add that to the things she was ill equipped to do, like persuading Connie to come back to the house.
Maryanne should be here right now. She’d be so much better at this. But no way was Brooke gonna give in. No way would she hang around that dirty basement standing guard over something that was already dead.
Sighing, Brooke called Connie’s name again, as she had been doing for the last fifteen minutes. And why not? No one else could hear her but Connie. Unless there were other casters out and about... Oh, man, wouldn’t that be neat? What if there were others like them who—
“Brooke? Is that you?”
Brooke whirled to see Connie floating toward her across the meadow, the same one the three girls had chased that moose across so many weeks ago.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Alex?” Connie asked, coming to a stop a few yards away. “Maryanne?”
“Maryanne’s back at the house. But about Alex... Connie, there’s something I have to tell you.”
Connie shot forward until she was practically right up on Brooke. “What’s wrong with Alex?”
“She’s in the hospital. In a coma, actually.”
Connie fell back as though stricken. “Coma?”
“They think she’ll recover,” Brooke hastened to assure. “Probably. I mean, with any luck. But the longer it goes on, the trickier it gets. We’ve been sitting by her bedside these evenings, talking to her and trying to get a response.”
Connie made a small, wounded cry.
“Don’t worry,” Brooke said. “I’m sure she’ll be all right. Apparently her head injuries aren’t as bad as we first thought when we found her.”
“Head injuries?” Connie zoomed close again. “Tell,” she commanded. “Everything.”
Brooke shrugged. “There’s not a helluva lot to tell. One night last week—actually, the last night we’d come out to see you—Alex cast out again, this time by herself, after Maryanne and I had gone to bed. She snuck up to the attic and cast out on her own. At least that’s what we think happened. That’s where we found her, anyway. At first, we thought she just hit her head, you know? From the force of casting back in. But then we saw the bite mark on her shoulder, we knew—”
Before Brooke could get another word out, Connie started keening. Not Heller shrieking, but wailing, as in weeping and moaning.
Great.
“It’s okay, Connie.” Brooke laid a clumsy hand on Connie’s back, feeling the strange solidity and weird heaviness of the other caster’s form beneath her own hand. “He didn’t rape her, if that’s what you’re thinking. She fought him hard. Hard enough to wake us up with the noise of the struggle. I think we might have scared him away when we came to investigate, but damned if I can figure out how he got out of there without going down the stairs. There’s only one door.”
“Dumbwaiter,” Connie said dully.
Brooke’s eyes widened.
“For sending things up and down.”
“Crap! Of course! That’s the noise we heard as we climbed the stairs. We had no idea.”
“I’m going to the hospital,” Connie said. “Brooke, show me the room with Alex.”
Brooke shook her head. “She’s comatose, Connie. She’d never be able to hear or feel you. Besides, it’s too risky. Her mother stays in that room every night, and you’d never get there in the daytime. Even if you could, there’s so much traffic—nurses coming and going, testing her reflexes and writing on charts. Therapists who come to do stuff to her muscles.”
Connie was silent a moment as she absorbed this. When she spoke again, she said, “The attic... not safe.”
“Yeah, we pretty much got that memo,” Brooke allowed. “No more going up there alone. No casting out alone.” Unless you really, really need to.
“That whole house... not safe.”
“Ah, speaking of the house,” Brooke said. “That’s why I’ve come. To bring you back. We’re ready, Connie. It’s time to come back to the house.”
Connie shot away, as if Brooke might handcuff her in iron and compel her to come.
“Hey, wait,” she called. “Hear me out. Remember Alex talked about you casting back in?” To Brooke’s relief, Connie stopped her retreat. “We’ve unearthed the body... your body. It’s time to try.”
“No.” Connie shook her head vigorously. “Don’t want to go back to that house. It’s a bad place. I... I can’t go back without Alex. I can’t! Alex said no one would hurt me. And if she’s not there... I can’t!”
Dammit! Maryanne would know what to do here. What to say to ease her worries. But Maryanne wasn’t here, was she? It was up to Brooke.
“It’s okay,” she said in her most soothing voice. “We can’t wait for Alex to get better, Connie. That may... that may take some time. But the house is safe. The house is empty. I promise. Everyone has gone away for the American Thanksgiving weekend. The students, the house mother, Mrs. Betts. The caretaker, John Smith, only comes twice a day, and he’s due at 7:30 or so. Even that old futz C. W. hasn’t been puttering around.”
“C. W.?” Connie’s voice was sharp. “Charles William? Billy?”
Brooke shrugged. “Could be. He’s just C. W. Stanley to me.”
Connie’s form stiffened. “Where’s Maryanne?”
“Funny you should ask. She’s standing guard over your open grave right now.”
“Quick!” Connie cried the word from over her shoulder as she sped off toward Harvell House. “We have to get back there, now!”
Oh, crap. This could not be good. Not if it upset Connie enough to make her voluntarily return to her own personal house of terrors.
Back in the attic, Brooke’s arm flopped spontaneously in panic as she heard the door downstairs open and close with a bang.
Something was wrong!
Brooke put on a surge of speed, catching Connie before they cleared the meadow.
Hang on, Maryanne. We’re coming!