“You came, Daddy,” Holly said. “I love that you came, crazy Daddy.”
“Of course I came,” he said, sitting back, holding his little girl in his lap even though she was getting too big for that, pushing her hair away from her eyes and wiping tears from her face, smearing dirt.
“Mommy said you would,” Holly said proudly. She frowned and reached up to touch the blood trickling from the slice on her neck. “I’m cut.”
“It’s okay, honey. It’s going to be okay.”
“It stings,” Holly informed him. And then she turned to look at the others. Her eyes widened as she got her first good look at Jennifer, and then she frowned in confusion when she saw Anne.
“Mommy?” Holly said, hopeful but unsure.
“No, honey,” Jim said. “These ladies are… they’re relatives of Mommy’s.”
Holly’s disappointment seemed mixed with a sort of relief, as if instinct had told her neither of the women was her mother.
Holly studied Sally for a second, and then beckoned to Trix. “Aunt Trixie, c’mere.”
Trix went over and knelt down beside them. She hugged them both, and Jim felt such love for her then that he sobbed again. Trix kissed Holly on the top of the head and then, seemingly on impulse, kissed Jim’s cheek.
“Aunt Trixie,” Holly whispered, looking suspiciously beyond her, toward Jennifer and Anne. “Those ladies who look like my mom are staring at me.”
Trix laughed and Jim chuckled softly, shaking his head. He let out a long breath.
“They can see how amazing you are,” Trix told Holly.
“Why do you look like my mom?” Holly asked, bending over to peer at them more closely. “She doesn’t have any twin sisters or anything, ’cause she would have told me. Unless she didn’t know, like that movie with the two girls whose parents never told them they were twins. I can’t remember the name.”
“Holly, listen to me, baby girl,” Jim said, holding her cheeks and forcing her to focus. Sweet and funny as she was, she was definitely in shock. “You need to tell me what happened to your mom. When did you see her last?”
Pain creased his daughter’s face, and Jim hated being the cause of that. But they needed to know. “A long time ago,” Holly said. “Like, hours. I slept for a while, and then there was the earthquake-did you feel that earthquake, Daddy? I was totally freaked out! After the earthquake, they took Mommy away.”
“Where?” Trix asked, gripping Jim’s arm to steady him. “Where’d they take her, Holly?”
Holly pointed at the wall. “Right there. Right through the wall, like Mommy was a ghost or something.”
Jim felt his insides turn to lead. He turned to look at Sally. “Into the In-Between?”
Sally nodded.
“Oh, Jesus,” Jim whispered. He kissed Holly’s forehead and then looked up at the Oracle again. “How long? How much time are we talking about for this transformation?”
Trix looked at him. “What transformation?”
Jim stroked Holly’s hair, wishing she didn’t have to be here for this. “Into one of them,” he said. “If she’s in there long enough, she’s going to turn into one of the Shadow Men.”
Jennifer covered her mouth in horror. Trix sank back on her haunches, then sat down hard on the floor.
“So we go in after her,” Anne said. “How long do we have?”
They all looked at Sally. The Oracle seemed to have drifted far away in her mind, but now her eyes focused again and she nodded. “It may not be too late,” the girl said, looking at Jim and Trix. “But if you’re going into the In-Between, you’ll have to have an anchor to lead you back, and it must be someone to whom you all have a connection. Someone to stay behind with me.”
Jim looked at Jennifer and Anne. “You two… you don’t even know her. You don’t have to-”
Jennifer laughed. “Don’t know her? We are her!”
Anne stared at him. “It would be like letting myself die.”
“Jim,” Trix said. “It should be Holly.”
“Me?” Holly perked up. “I can help get Mommy back?”
“No,” Jim said quickly. “I’m not going to leave her behind now. No way.”
“Leave me behind?” Holly said, her eyes going wide. “I don’t want to be alone again. Those bad guys might come back!”
But Jim knew, even as she spoke, that there was no other choice. Jennifer and Anne might not be anchor enough to guide them back here.
“Holly, sweetie, I think we need to,” he said, and she stared at him, her eyes welling again. “No, no, don’t cry. You’ve been so brave, but you need to be brave a little while longer so we can get Mommy back. We’re going to go where they took her, and you’re going to stay right here with our friend Sally. She’ll protect you.”
Dubious, Holly glanced sidelong at Sally. “But she looks like a kid, Daddy. How’s she going to protect me if those guys come back?”
Sally smiled. “Holly, do you see those tall ghost guys over there?” she asked, pointing to the No-Face Men lingering in the corner of the room, awaiting her orders. “They take their orders from me. They’ll make sure nobody can hurt us.”
Holly looked warily at the No-Face Men, as afraid of them as she was of the ones who had held her prisoner. Their faces flickered, fleeting images of a thousand faces they might one day be. “Dad,” she said, sounding very grown-up, “this is a terrible idea.”
Jim took a breath, sinking down onto his knees in the stones of the Zen garden. He wasn’t going to force Holly to do this, but every passing second might mean there would be less and less of Jenny to bring home. Even now, she might be only a shadow of herself. An echo.
Then, in a small voice, Holly spoke up again. “Can you really bring Mommy back, Aunt Trixie?”
Trix nodded. “I think we can. If we hurry.”
Holly sighed, stood up, and went to take Sally’s hand. “Okay. Hurry, then,” she said. “And Aunt Trixie…?”
“Yes?”
Holly grinned. “I like your hair.”
Jim laughed. Trix smiled and touched her hair, apparently having forgotten for a while that it was a vivid pink.
“I have a question,” Jennifer said, addressing Sally. “If this is happening to… to Jim’s Jenny… what’s to stop it from happening to us? I mean, if we go in there, won’t we start to be changed, too?”
Sally was a girl older than her years, but from time to time an even deeper wisdom seemed to light her eyes. Jim saw it there now. “There is a way,” Sally said. “You won’t be the first people to have explored the In-Between. Richard Vernon was the Oracle of Boston-my Boston-before the job landed in my hands. In the short time I knew him, he told me stories. So, yes, there’s a way. You might not like it, but if you’re careful and quick, it should keep you safe.”
“Let’s do it,” Jim said. “Come on. Time’s wasting. Every second counts.”
But he saw the troubled expression on Trix’s face and knew there was something more. “Why Jenny?” Trix asked.
“What do you mean?” Jim said.
“Why take Jenny into the In-Between and not Holly?” Trix looked at Anne and Jennifer, then at Sally. “Why hold Holly captive? Why not just kill her?”
“Bait for me,” Sally said. “When their original plan didn’t work, the Shadow Men acted under their own volition and held off killing her. Luring me into the trap. We’re here, aren’t we?”
“Maybe,” Trix said. “But we know part of Veronica’s plan, right? The Shadow Men follow our marks, we deliver those letters-hexed, cursed, whatever-and then they kill you and O’Brien so the three Bostons collide. You’ve gotta figure it’s all because she wanted to be the one and only Oracle of the one and only Boston, right?”
“Makes sense,” Jim said.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. But I don’t get this thing with Holly. And are we supposed to go after Jenny? Is that all part of Veronica’s plan?”
“Does it matter?” Anne asked. “We’re going, aren’t we?”