“I had the same thought,” the ghost said. When he spoke, he seemed to flicker out, so that only his voice lingered. “But then I figuredImight be the reason you’re still alive.”
Alfie smirked. Joe always tried to take credit for his accomplishments. On their twelfth birthday, Alfie had won an essay contest at school, and Joe claimed the competition between them had been what caused his brother to excel. There were similar declarations on the football pitch, where Alfie admitted there might be a grain of truth. Friends often remarked about the strange intimacy they observed between the twins, the balance between love and hate. They needed one another, and sometimes resented that need. As with all things, Joe eventually pushed too far, insisting that Alfie’s intended, Moira, only fell in love with him because Joe had intrigued her first.I softened her up for you, Joe had teased.
Fists had followed.
“I’m alive in spite of you,” he whispered, “not because of you.”
Joe smiled. How could his smile be so insinuating, so infuriating, when it was the same smile that Alfie saw in the mirror?
“Quiet. Drive,” a voice said from the back.
It wasn’t Root this time but Elias. Alfie didn’t know how all ofthis worked, but by all accounts, Elias had been a bastard long before Root had a taste of him.
Fat snowflakes had begun to fall. Alfie turned on the panel truck’s windshield wipers. They worked impressively well. Somehow that small detail put a spike of sadness through him. All the world’s little epiphanies would escape him from now on. One way or another, he’d be dead soon. Whatever strings of fate kept him suspended in this life, they would snap before too long. Of that he was certain.
“Why are you doing this?” Joe asked.
Alfie shifted in his seat, flexing his fingers on the wheel. The blood had stiffened his coat and shirt, and this time skin and cloth stuck together.
Joe refused to be ignored. “Root released his hold on you. He left you to die.”
But Alfie hadn’t died.I’m still here.
Elias had control of him now, but it didn’t feel the same as when Root had been pulling the strings. That might have been because Elias had never hijacked a person before, or because he didn’t yet have the strength to do it properly. Alfie thought pain and blood loss and grief and sheer rage made it harder for Elias to keep him reined in.
“Or it’s me,” Joe said.
Alfie sniffed. The closest to a laugh he could manage now. “Maybe,” he said softly.
If the ghost were really there with him, he supposed anything was possible. Whatever spark of Joe remained in the world, maybe his brother had loaned it to him, just for a little while, to get him back on his feet. If so, it would end up a wasted effort. Whatever had given him this extra juice, it wouldn’t last. He had too many holes in him.
“Whatever little spark you got left,” Joe said, “if you can shake loose from Elias’s control, you really oughta kill some of these motherfuckers.”
Alfie clucked his tongue. “Language, Joseph.”
This time, there was no reply from the back of the truck. Nightfall wasn’t far away, but for now, the monsters were at rest.
“Well?” Joe demanded.
Oh, I agree, Alfie thought.I agree until the last beat of my heart.
39
Malcolm took it slow, worried about keeping the Frazer’s tires on the road. He didn’t like traveling slowly. The things behind them were fast when they needed to be. The snow made it difficult to make out the writing on road signs, but they had passed the New Hampshire border a while ago, and he wondered how long it would be before they entered the state of Maine.
Violet had tried to take his hand several times, but the wind forced him to keep both of his hands on the wheel. She played with the hair at the back of his head for a few minutes, but that made him sleepy. Malcolm caught Jennie’s eye in the rearview mirror and knew she had been paying attention. He was grateful that she had decided to stay silent on the matter. They had other conflicts to worry about.
The road rumbled beneath them, muffled by packed snow. Plows were out, but not enough. The tires on the Frazer seemed adequate, but if the snow kept up, that wouldn’t remain true forever.
“She sleeping?” Jennie said.
The dashboard light cast Violet in a spectral glow. Malcolm glanced at her, then into the rearview. “I think so. I’m struggling to stay awake myself.”
Jennie’s eyes flared. “Don’t joke. Watch the road.”
He obeyed, sitting a bit straighter. Jennie had been gone a long time, but some things were simply ingrained in him, like believing his big sister had a certain wisdom he would never possess.
As tired as they all were, it had surprised him that Violet couldfall asleep. They had wrapped Maggie’s body in the canvas and rubber as best they could, but they didn’t have Paxson Keates’s tools or his skills. She wasn’t sewn inside her shroud anymore but bundled in the fetal position on the seat right behind Malcolm. If the peculiar weight of the presence of the dead had not been enough to unnerve him, the smell did the job. Dead things stank when they began to decay, but Maggie hadn’t been dead long enough for that. Still, there was a smell like milk beginning to spoil, along with an acrid chemical stink, and the knowledge that these odors came from his mother’s remains made it all seem somehow more real and more tragic. Maggie Wise would never have the chance to understand why her children kept her at a distance, sometimes physical and sometimes emotional. She’d never have the chance to close that distance.
