Skye reached out and grabbed her hand, but that didn’t make Alex any less nervous. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Duvall let out an indignant huff. “You doubt me? There is no other way for you to get there.”
“It’s up to you, Alex,” Skye said. “Do you really think they need our help?”
Yes. She couldn’t allow anything to happen to Chase. She’d only just gotten him back. And for him, she’d do anything. “Professor, why are you helping us break the rules?”
“Because you’re supposed to be there. And sometimes fate needs a little nudge.”
Alex didn’t quite understand, but she placed her free hand on the computer before she could chicken out.
“Allow it to pull you in,” Duvall ordered.
Alex tightened her grasp on Skye and leaned into the computer.
32
To say it was uncomfortable was an understatement. Alex didn’t know if the constricting dizziness in her mind was a result of the form of travel or a reaction to her panic. She never did anything crazy like this unless the Lasalles were there to catch her if she fell.
She mentally clung to Skye’s presence. They zipped around the bends of the roller coaster ride, yelping each time the electricity zapped them. They jolted and jerked through a silver tunnel of sparks, and Alex concentrated with all her might, picturing herself and Skye as one to avoid losing her friend. Finally, Alex saw a rainbow of colors, and she braced herself as they picked up speed and burst through the screen.
They landed awkwardly in a heap on the floor, which was smothered in a Pepto-Bismol pink carpet. Sitting up, Alex inhaled the familiar scent of Febreze and Abercrombie perfume and smiled at the room where she’d spent so many of her childhood sleepovers. Liv’s phone had been left on the floor next to a binder predictably sprinkled with black cookie crumbs. No doubt she was retrieving more snacks from the cupboard where her mother kept an endless supply. Posters of teenage celebrities and pictures of high school cluttered the walls: scenes from football games, dances, field trips, and boat rides. All with Alex. More than she remembered, and in most of them, Chase stood beside her. Liv had captured snapshots of a life lost, framing a note scrawled amongst the photos. Where did you go? she asked of the memories haunting her.
“Alex,” Skye whispered.
Right. No time for this. Skye leaped through the window, which revealed a murky sky concealed by a veil of clouds. Alex climbed onto the sill and took one last fleeting glance at the room before plummeting into the flowerbeds below.
Liv’s backyard bordered the Parrish woods. If they trekked far enough, they would be in the Eskers territory, and that’s where they would find the old asylum, the one Alex knew Chase was searching for.
“Are you ready?” Alex asked, preparing to dart in the direction of the woods.
Skye nodded, but her eyes grew wide as a voice drifted through the yard. “Alex?” It clung to the air around them like a prayer. Liv Frank craned her head around the windowpane and squinted into the darkness.
“She can see us,” Alex whispered in surprise.
“Alex,” Skye said with warning in her voice. “We need to go.” She glanced at Liv guardedly. “That could get us into more trouble than we can handle.”
She was right. Alex desperately wanted to see her old friend and wondered how Liv knew she was there, but there were more pressing matters at hand.
The girls hurried off into the trees which seemed so undersized to Alex compared to the redwoods she'd grown so used to seeing. They didn’t slow their pace until they reached a narrow road snaking its way through the underbrush.
“Okay,” Alex said. “It’s off this path somewhere.”
Skye had one hand closed around the nearest branch, and she used her free hand to hold Alex in place. “Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“It sounds like … ” Skye tilted her head towards the darkness. “It sounds like bells.”
Fear still had the ability to make Alex’s throat tighten.
A child’s voice twisted through the air around them like an exhale of cigarette smoke. “Does she remember me? No screams this time?”
Alex spun around, but it was impossible to tell where the voice was coming from.
“Who is that?” Skye asked.
The bells jingled again. “Answer my question and I’ll show you who I am. He who makes it sells it. He who buys it doesn’t use it. He who uses it doesn’t know it. What is the object?”
Skye shrugged. She didn’t seem fazed by their present company at all. “It’s a coffin,” she replied easily.
“Smart girl,” the voice noted. “You look like a Gossamer.”
A figure appeared between two distant trees, and he was far less intimidating than Alex expected. He was stick-figure thin with white hair and young laugh lines. Alex had assumed the squeak in his voice was due to insanity, not adolescence. He didn’t wear the jester’s hat, but it hung from his waistband. His defiant eyes curled up at the edges like he’d been caught doing something wrong. He reminded Alex of Huckleberry Finn.
“You’re the Jester?” Alex asked.
“I knew you’d be back here.”
“What do you mean?”
The boy shrugged, shooing the air with his hand. “Once you’ve been a spirit as long as I have, you get a sense for the soon-to-be deceased.” He grinned widely at Alex. “You stank of death.”
“Thanks for the flattery.”
“You’re quite far from the others.” The Jester tut-tutted. “Lost, are you?”
“No, the old Eskers building isn’t far, right?” Alex asked. “The west end?”
“Oh.” The boy pursed his lips. “Yes.” He glanced in the opposite direction, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
“Have you seen two boys?”
“Only two? Yes,” he replied in a sing-song voice. “They look the same, similarities misleading, one is so honest and the other deceiving.”
This kid has lost his mind, Alex thought.
“Can you show us where they are?” Skye asked.
“I wouldn’t go near that building if I were you. Insanity isn’t something to meddle with.”
“They’re our friends. We’re going to find them.”
For the first time, the Jester’s smile faded. “Okay, fine, have it your way. I was hoping you’d stay and play awhile.”
“Wait,” Alex said, remembering the rumors. “Are there other spirits living there in that building? Will they hurt us?”
“They’re hiding right now,” he replied, “for obvious reasons.” He pointed to the left. “Follow the sounds of screaming.”
Alex watched him float away to the ringing of bells. “What a whack-job.”
“I thought he was interesting,” Skye said.
They turned in the direction to which he’d pointed. Within minutes, they came to a large, rusty steel gate labeled The Eskers.
“It looks like a concentration camp,” Skye commented, wrinkling her nose.
No birds chirped, and the light even kept its distance, tucked safely behind the darkening clouds. Alex’s residence had been the newer version of the facility, which was built on the opposite end of the woods. This side of the Eskers had an entirely different vibe. Half the building remained intact. The leftovers, however, comprised a mountain of singed bricks and blackened debris. Alex could smell the burning of the rotten embers like charcoal sitting for hours after the grill had died.
“Charming place,” Skye noted, slipping through a hole in the gate.
“I don’t hear any electricity, do you?”
Skye shook her head. “But that’s only when spirits move at an exhaustingly fast pace. Banshees aren’t reasonable enough to know better, so it wears them out, but you might not know it’s there until it's hovering behind you.”