“I think so. Maybe not in the days before I came along. She never wanted children. My dad did, but not her.”
“Did she tell you that?”
He chuckled and flicked a small green bug that had landed on his leg.
“Yep. On my thirteenth birthday. My birthdays were always hard for her. She talked about her labor and how painful it was. ‘Your dad wanted you, he should have carried and given birth to you. Except he couldn’t have, because he was weak. All of you men are weak,’ Stephen said her words in a shrill voice that made Liv’s heart give a little throb. She wanted to hug him, and almost did, but he’d turned away and his body had grown as rigid as the trees beside them.
“My mother is throwing a costume party on Halloween. Will you come?” he asked.
Liv started at the abrupt change in subject.
“A costume party?”
Stephen nodded, some of the anger draining from his expression.
“She hosts one every year. I’ve never been allowed to go. I’m usually away at school. I want you to come. We’ll wear costumes. She’ll never know.”
Liv had never been to a costume party. Once in a while, Liv heard her mother reading about dress-up parties in New York City, but such affairs seemed to happen in another world.
“I thought she didn’t like people in the house?”
“She doesn’t allow me to bring people into the house. She has people over all the time. She throws parties, hosts dinners, entertains men.”
Liv blinked at him, trying to make sense of this mysterious mother who was throwing parties while the rest of the world ate cabbage and wore shoes that flapped when they walked. And abused her son, let’s not forget that, she thought.
“We’ll do the curse, too,” Stephen added. “I’ll invite Veronica. I mean, what better night than Halloween?”
Stephen’s face lit at the suggestion, but Liv’s heart sank.
“Sure, a costume party and a curse. This will be quite a Halloween.”
Chapter 28
Mack
Mack’s first morning in the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane dawned like many others, except his bed was narrow, his room cold, and a large man with a lazy eye and a habit of grinding his teeth woke him repeatedly in the night asking if he’d brought the sandwiches.
Mack had gotten loaded the night before and stumbled into the psychiatric hospital, crooning about his lost love and insisting he be committed.
They complied.
He’d woken once in the night to Corey’s ghost hovering over his bed, glaring down at him from empty black eyes. Mack’s roommate had howled like he was on fire, and an orderly had rushed in to calm the man. The patient continued to blubber and stare into the corner where Corey had been.
Mack wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake.
Each hour that had passed since his night in the dead man’s cabin took him further from the clarity of those moments.
George Corey had told him what he must do, and yet… had the man really been there at all? Or was he merely a hallucination from the fear of being lost in the forest?
“Mack Gallagher?” an orderly with arms bulging beneath his white uniform called across the room. “It’s time to meet with your doctor.”
Mack followed the man out of the ward and down the hall. They stepped into an office as sterile and bland as Mack’s own room.
A man with startling pale blue eyes looked up from his desk.
“Have a seat,” the doctor told him.
He was tall and thin, with hair as black as coal and pale, unblemished skin. He reminded Mack, rather uneasily, of Dracula. He’d watched the film with his mother at the marquee as a boy. For weeks after, each time he stood before a mirror, he’d spin around expecting to see the Count standing behind him, clawed hands raised and pointed teeth bared.
Mack glanced at the small gold placard on the man’s desk. It read Dr. Stephen Kaiser, PhD.
Mack sat in the chair. His head pulsed behind his eyes, and he wanted to crawl into a dark hole and sleep for three days.
“Mr. Gallagher, my name is Dr. Kaiser. I’ll be your psychiatrist here at the Northern Michigan Asylum. Explain to me briefly why you committed yourself.” Kaiser opened a folder and lifted his pen.
“I have a problem with drinking,” Mack told him, pressing a finger hard into his right temple.
Kaiser arched an eyebrow but said nothing.
He asked several other questions, and then slid a series of ink-splattered pages to Mack.
“Tell me what you see on the first page.”
“A bird.”
“And this one?” Kaiser held up the second page.
“A man riding a bicycle.”
“And this.” Kaiser held up the third.
“A hag stone,” Mack murmured, because that was what he saw in the dark blot with the hole in its center.
Kaiser looked up sharply and gazed at him for several long seconds.
“And this one?” Kaiser asked, pushing the next in front of Mack.
“A mountain.”
“I’m curious about your third answer. What is a hag stone?” Kaiser asked, linking his fingers together on his desk.
Mack sighed, clenched his eyes shut against the pounding in his head. The lights were getting to him.
“It’s a rock with a hole in the middle.”
“That’s it? A rock with a hole in it? Interesting. Tell me, where did you hear of such a thing?”
Mack glanced behind him, but the orderly had left. He considered the truth, but he was in an insane asylum. He didn’t want the doctor to order electro-shock therapy if Mack suggested he was being haunted.
“My grandmother. She used to collect rocks by the river, and she called the ones with a hole in them hag stones.”
Kaiser’s eyes remained fixed on Mack.
“Are you in pain, Mack?” Kaiser asked.
“I had a few too many last night. Feels like a horse and buggy ran right across here.” Mack drew a line across his forehead.
Kaiser shuffled the ink blots into a folder.
“You’re here to dry out,” Kaiser said finally. “I’ll advise morphine and rest.”
Mack studied the man’s hands. They were long and slender, his fingernails so pale they almost looked purple.
Kaiser stood and opened the door, sticking his head out.
“Edmund, the patient is ready to return to Ward Six.”
Mack sat in a wooden chair near the window. His head throbbed and his guts felt as if someone had reached inside and twisted them in his fist.
Two days without a drink had him ready to keep the ghost, if he could walk into town and get a shot of whiskey.
A man beside him shuffled a deck. Each time he flipped the top card, the ace of spades appeared.
“Ace of spades,” the man muttered.
In the corner of the room, a patient gently bumped his head against the wall. When Edmund, the orderly, attempted to steer the patient away, the man screamed as if Edmund had sliced him with a razorblade.
Mack closed his eyes. He needed to retrieve the wooden box and hag stones, which he’d hidden on the grounds before checking himself in to the world’s most deranged hotel.
George Corey had been clear about Mack’s need of the stones. Without them, he would be unable to recognize George’s daughter — and more, the man who murdered him.
“I need some fresh air,” Mack told another orderly, Marvin.
Marvin shook his head and gestured at one of the tall windows. Rain gusted against the glass, obscuring the world beyond.
Mack tried to read, attempted a game of checkers with a man who preferred to stack the black and red pieces into little towers and then flick them over yelling, ‘Take that, Larry, you one-eyed son of a bitch!’