The branch slipped harmlessly from Tobe’s fingers, clattering behind him.
Rusty moaned, pushing himself to all fours, a barrier between father and children.
The kids are safe. The kids are safe, Jessica thought. If she was going to die, at least it would be knowing that Jason and Alice were unharmed, though the psychological scars from a night like this would forever change them. No one knew that better than her.
The cool brick felt wonderful against her cheek. She closed her eyes.
Time to sleep.
Daddy, please, come take me.
Whatever force had been holding the library doors shut suddenly disappeared. They gave way easily on oiled hinges. Daphne ran from the room, nearly hysterical from worry. My babies! Where are my babies!
She slammed hard into someone in the dark, the other person hitting the floor. They felt too big to be one of the children.
“Go home, go home, go home, go home.”
It was Nina.
“What do you mean?” she asked, not sure in the absolute pitch where the woman lay.
“Time to go home. Go home. Go home.”
She didn’t have time for babbling. Whatever had happened must have short-circuited the psychic. A part of Daphne hoped it was more than a temporary affliction.
Daphne was startled when people came rushing in through the back door. One of them held a flashlight.
“Rusty, clear that table,” Eddie spat. By the wavering light, she could see Jessica in his arms. Alice and Jason were glued to Rusty’s sides. Rusty looked like a far older version of himself. His nose was a bloody mess. He swept the few plates and fruit bowl off the table.
“Alice! Jason!” Daphne cried.
The moment they saw her, they pulled away from Rusty, running into her arms. She squeezed them as hard as she could, burying her face in their hair, raining kisses on cheeks and foreheads.
“I was so worried about you,” she wept.
“We wanted to stop the bad man,” Jason said.
“But we hurt daddy instead,” Alice said.
Both kids went limp in her arms.
“I’m so tired, Mommy,” Alice said, her eyelids fluttering.
“Me too,” Jason said with a yawn.
At that moment, Tobe came staggering into the room. Daphne let out a sharp breath when she saw the knife in his thigh and the river of blood collecting in his shoe.
And though it seemed they had all taken a quick detour to hell, she knew it was not over.
Jessica looked terrible. Her skin had gone waxy and pale, her lips and eyelids tinting bluer by the second. Eddie checked her airways to make sure she wasn’t choking to death.
But he knew that wasn’t it.
The Ormsby EBs had drawn so much from her, there was barely enough left to keep her heart and lungs moving. Looking over at Jason and Alice, unable to keep their eyes open, he knew they wouldn’t be far behind.
“Jessica, wake up. Jessica, can you hear me?”
He tapped her cheeks, hoping for a response. “I need some light in here!” he shouted.
Rusty said, “I’ll look for candles.” He ransacked the kitchen drawers, finding several and a box of matches. He lit them, placing them around the breakfast room where most of them had gathered.
“Oh my sweet Jesus,” Rusty whispered, taking in every square inch of the room.
The house was rotting before their eyes. Wallpaper faded, peeled, cracked and turned to dust. Jagged cracks broke through the ceiling, a falling domino procession of fault lines zig-zagging down the walls. Paint flecked off in great sheets.
Whatever magic had held the interior in a space and time of its once magnificent wonder was gone now. The interior rapidly degenerated to finally match the weathered exterior.
Eddie had to save Jessica. If she went, there was no telling how far the decay and rot would go before it stopped. He certainly wouldn’t be able to make good on his promise to the Ormsby EBs, and that could be catastrophic.
Energy.
They were taking her energy.
He’d just have to give some of his own to her. His head hurt so bad, the slightest puff of wind felt like hot needles against his eyes and flesh.
Suck it up, Eddie. There is no way in hell you’re letting her go.
Placing his hands on the sides of Jessica’s face, he knelt over her, his nose touching hers.
“Come back to me,” he said, his heart heavy as an anvil, tears threatening to sluice over his lower lids.
He’d twice connected Jessica to himself psychically, which made this time that much easier. Eyes closed, he saw the glowing yellow filaments of his own life force flow into her.
Thump-thump-thump, thump-thump-thump.
Jessica’s heart jumped with the onrush.
They were connected now, more intimate than any two people could ever be. Eddie poured his life into her, willing her to revive. He felt the EBs trying to sap away his strength, to break their bond, but he wouldn’t let them. If he lost his mind or life completely in the process, he would not let them in.
“Oh,” Jessica whispered.
Eddie’s eyes flew open, meeting her own
“That was weird,” she said, the makings of a pained smile on her lips.
If it wouldn’t have hurt too much, he would have laughed. “Weird is what we do best. Now, I need you to close your eyes again.”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to sleep again.”
He brushed his fingers over her forehead. “It won’t be like that, I promise. I need to be the middle-man for a moment. The children have their mothers’ names. They needed to realize this isn’t their home. Their mothers are their homes.”
“H-h-how?”
“I took them to the source. All of them have passed, Jess. The Ormsbys paid them off and shipped them out when they were done with them. But no amount of money could cure their guilt, their sadness. If they didn’t die by their own hands, they passed away young of natural causes. I’m going to have the children give you their names and then I’ll call them here. Once I do, I need you to send the mothers away. They’ll take their children with them.”
She grabbed his arm. “But what if you’re wrong? What if it doesn’t work?”
“We’re here for a reason. If we don’t try, Alice and Jason will be next. Once the EBs have taken everything from you, they’ll turn to the kids. And then they’ll all be trapped here. We can’t let that happen, Jess. You can’t let that happen.”
Her eyelids fluttered closed and she caressed his cheek. “We can do it. Come on, bring them home.”
All eyes in the room were on them. Tobe slouched against the wall, mindless of the savage wound in his leg. Rusty stood at the ready, prepared to do whatever was asked of him while Daphne cradled her sleeping children.
He looked at Rusty. “Wish us luck.”
“If I could cross my toes, I would.”
Eddie lay beside Jessica on the table, her hand wrapped within his. He went to his psychic totem, the open barn, its paint restored since his last visit. For the first time in years, the doors were shut and locked. Jessica sat beside him on the bale of hay, smiling.
“So this is where you go,” she said.
“Home away from home. Come on, help me with those doors. They’re heavy as hell.”
Sharp sunlight warmed their faces as the doors swung wide.
Over a hundred Ormsby children stood in the wheat fields, waiting.
“Tell us about your mommies,” Jessica said. She leaned back, feeling the rush of love and loss as the children spoke as one, a field of Babel only she and Eddie could decipher.
Twenty-four women, all young and beautiful and stunning in their auras, emerged from the tall grass. The children ran to greet them. Jessica couldn’t hold back her tears.
“It looks just like when I would come home from summer camp. Busloads of kids and carloads of parents running toward each other. I never felt more love in one place than in those moments.”