I couldn’t look at her for too long, given the need to focus on the road. I pulled onto the highway, double and then triple checking there weren’t any cars coming.
Rose kept talking. “The lawyer, Beasley, he was cleaning up. Picking up books and stuff that Molly left lying around. When I asked what was going on, he said you were next in line, for custody of the house. After you, it’s Kathy, then Ellie, then Roxanne, then Ivy, then Paige.”
“Paige is last?” I asked. Okay, I got that maybe Kathryn would fit. She was a mom, a professional. A serious personality. Maybe a bit cutthroat, but I could get that.
“Paige is last,” she said.
Placing the two and twelve year old in the list before Paige? Placing me in the running?
“Doesn’t make sense,” I said.
“Yeah. I don’t know. I didn’t stay for explanations. Depending on how things went, he said, we could run down that list really quickly. He said it depends on how fast people can get to the house, and how fast they can get to grips with all this. He said I should find you, and I found you.”
Far less in the way of answers than I’d hoped for.
I drove in silence for a few minutes.
The answers only raised more questions. How did Paige fit into this? How did I fit into it? Most confusing of all… Rose.
“What I’m wondering is… you,” I said.
“I’m wondering about me too,” she said. “Trust me, if you’re wondering if I’m suspicious, if there’s a catch here, I’m wondering too.”
“How do your memories line up? Molly got picked, but… you were at the house?”
“I was home, with mom and dad. They’re mad, you know, obviously, because I didn’t get Hillsglade House, and they thought it was as close to a given as you could get. Mad at me, especially. I was in bed, mostly asleep, and then I was at the house. I remember everything about my life, but I don’t feel like I experienced any of it. You know?”
“Not really,” I said. I watched the tail lights of a truck ahead of me disappearing into the snowy fog, further down the arrow-straight highway. I was driving slower, because I didn’t have much winter driving experience, and I didn’t want to total Joel’s car. Noting a silence that had followed my response, I tried to keep the discussion going. “You still live with mom and dad?”
“While I’m going to school,” she said.
“You didn’t leave?”
“No. Why? When did you move out?”
Move out. She didn’t know about me leaving home.
“A bit ago,” I said, noncommittal. No use volunteering unnecessary information.
What’s the magic loophole?
If Rose was a failsafe, who or what was it trying to work around? If it was a trap, then who was the supposed victim? Was there an enemy? Or was it a trap aimed at me?
Was there a chance this was all a lie?
I could wonder if I was losing my mind, but… I felt lucid.
While that wasn’t a guarantee I was sane, I knew, but I felt lucid, and it was hard to sell myself the idea that I was insane, if there weren’t any clear symptoms.
I was seeing things, but having two points of reference would have made it a lot easier, giving me a kind of perspective on it all.
My hands were clutching the wheel so hard that it was painful. I had to consciously will myself to relax.
“Rose, talk to me,” I said. “There isn’t nearly enough information to piece things together, and I’m not going to make it through this drive if I’ve only got my own worries and paranoia to fill the time.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“You seemed to know something was up, with the power going out.”
“There was a presence. Like… almost as if there was a patch of something lighter in the darkness, or a sound I could barely hear, or a movement of the air, here, where the air doesn’t move at all. Something was there.”
Something.
“This isn’t helping the paranoia,” I said.
“I’m not any happier,” she said. “If something chases us, you can run. Where can I run? There isn’t much room, on this side.”
“Yet you broke the mirror. Speaking of, how did you know you could break it?”
“I didn’t. That was an accident, and I wish I hadn’t done it. It hurt, and I feel drained, and I feel tired. It took something out of me, doing that, and I’m not sure I have that much to give.”
“Rose, are you understanding what I’m getting at? There’s a few things here that aren’t making sense. Crazy hallucinations or whatever else.”
“You had the visions too?”
“Rose,” I said, speaking a little firmer, to keep her on track. “The more time I have to think about all this, the less I feel like I can trust you. How did you know how to get from the light at the house to me? Considering that this all supposedly started less than an hour ago, you’re picking it up pretty damn fast.”
“It’s not- no. Blake, the lawyer told me to go. He pointed in a direction, and told me to take a leap of faith if I wanted to help you. I did what he said, and now I’m here. I’m jumping from mirror to mirror, and I’m worried I’m going to jump and I’ll miss, and I’m not sure what happens when I do.”
“You left out that part,” I said. “About him telling you how to jump. That’s context I could have used.”
“I’m not your enemy, here,” she said, and her voice was harder, angrier.
If I was planning to press the subject, the plan had to go on hold.
I saw a figure standing in the middle of the highway, in the distance.
I slowed the car.
“What is it?” Rose asked.
It was a person, tall, dressed in a long cloak or layered garment of some sort. Right in the middle of the road. The cloth had been white to begin with, it looked like, but it was badly stained. He –or she– wore a mask or a helmet shaped like an overlarge bird’s skull, with a pair of antlers.
I didn’t have a lot of time to take it in. Even though I was driving slowly, even though I was slowing down, I was closing the distance. I didn’t want to stop, but…
I turned to go around, giving the white thing as much clearance as I could. It stayed where it was, standing in place. There were no other cars on the highway, coming or going. Woods on one side, field on the other. Not that I could see all that far. Snow flurries made vision past a point a little difficult.
“I can feel it,” Rose said. When I glanced up, she was looking over one shoulder. “I can see it, almost, standing between the patches of light.”
We flew past it. I could see its head turn to follow us. The drape it wore had no sleeves. It wore hides, almost white, except where the slush and dirt had marred it.
I had to move the rearview mirror to get a better view of it as we left it behind.
A sign of things to come? A harbinger?
My heart was pounding.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Something wearing a bird skull mask and tanned skins.”