I managed to get on a jitney by pretending I was with a large family. The ride was uneventful. I’d expected the jitney to be crawling with Proctors, but not only were there no black-uniformed officers, even the notice from the Bureau of Proctors had been torn down, replaced with an ad for toothpaste.
I fell asleep soon after boarding, and didn’t wake until it was time to sneak off with the family at Springfield.
The village of Arkham lies tucked up against the mountains like a sleeping cat curled in a hidden place, bordered on all sides by granite hills and primeval forests. I was able to hitch a ride within a few miles, and now I walked.
I confess that I didn’t walk quickly. I didn’t know what I was going to find when I got to my father’s house. I hoped it would be empty, that my father and his fiancee, Valentina, would still be at her home on Cape Cod. Then I could figure out what I was going to do, and avail myself of Graystone’s library to find out more about the Deadlands.
I felt guilty for not wanting to see my father, but I couldn’t imagine facing him after what he was sure to see as me running off to live in Thorn with Nerissa. My father wasn’t exactly the warm and fuzzy type who offered sage advice and comforting pats on the hand. He was more of a drill sergeant.
Still, he was my father. I loved him, and I didn’t want him to be angry with me. I didn’t want him to look at me differently because I’d gone with my Fae blood rather than the human Grayson blood, even if I had had a choice.
Although, it was the human blood that gave me my Weird. My human blood that made me into something considered an abomination by those good people who populated the Iron Land. I couldn’t blame them entirely. The Proctors had lied to them for a long time, and people were afraid of what they didn’t understand. I got that. I just wished I didn’t have to live with the constant, twitchy fear that somebody would see under my skin, see the two kinds of blood in my veins. See that I wasn’t like them, would never be like them.
Graystone, the Grayson family estate, sat on the top of the mountain overlooking Arkham. I could have cut through the fields around the village and avoided people, but I decided instead to walk up the broad cobble road. I didn’t want to sneak into my own home like I was a thief.
Arkham Village was protected by gates, high iron gates like two skeletal hands, folded in prayer. They stood askew, and I watched a few scraps of newspaper flutter across the cobbles as I passed through.
Where was everyone?
A piece of yellow parchment blew up against my foot, and I picked it up, smoothing it out and reading the bold black type.
EVACUATION ZONE
CITIZENS OF ARKHAM ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO VACATE
AND MOVE TO THE NEAREST DESIGNATED SAFE ZONE.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STAY IN YOUR HOMES!
ARKHAM VALLEY HAS BEEN DECLARED UNSAFE.
I read the words twice, not understanding what had happened. Arkham was deserted—a few windows had been broken by vandals, but mostly it was silent. A white cat hopped up on a windowsill a few feet from me and meowed.
I scooped the cat up, and he immediately started purring and nestled against my chest. “Where is everyone?” I asked him.
“Gone.”
I shrieked and whirled toward the voice, clutching the cat to me. He hissed and squirmed. My heart thudded so violently it felt like a kick in the ribs.
An old woman stood a short distance from me, leaning heavily on a cane. Her pink skirt and shapeless gray sweater were streaked with dirt and some rust-colored substance that I sincerely hoped was gutter water and not blood.
“You scared me,” I said.
“All gone,” she cackled. “Guv’mint came and rounded them up.”
I looked back at the evacuation notice, and saw that the Bureau of Proctors symbol was missing. The woman made me jump again when she snatched the paper from my hand.
“Ain’t no Proctors round here no more,” she wheezed, stamping the paper under her bare foot. It was black, scabbed and caked with grime. Up close, she smelled sour as a room long shut, and my stomach flipped. She bothered me in a way I couldn’t quite define. The cat hissed again and his claws dug into my flesh.
“Who’s there?” I said, taking a step back. I scanned for escape routes from the corner of my eye, but the street was narrow and only the door of a house across the street, hanging off its hinges and creaking back and forth in the slight breeze, offered a possible exit.
“Me,” the old woman croaked. She pointed upward conspiratorially and leaned in. “Them.”
Overhead, I saw rows and rows of crows arrayed on rooflines. They were silent, not even ruffling a feather, and all stared toward the east, as if waiting for something.
That, a thousand times more than the old woman, caused a chill to race through me.
“They’re comin’,” the old woman hissed. “From the sky and from the sea. From the places you can only dream about, little girl. They’re comin’, the old things, the dark things, and the powers that be don’t like folk round here sayin’ so. Rounded ’em up, took ’em to a hospital.” She turned her head and spit, and I edged backward another step, toward the village gates. I’d seen enough mad people to know the dangerous ones, and this woman was about two clock ticks away from scratching my eyes out.
“Hospital!” she hissed. “Ain’t no hospital! They want to stop us dreamin’!”
I paused in my microscopic retreat. “What?” It couldn’t be—that had been just a dream, just something I’d hallucinated while attempting to get control of my Weird before I realized such a thing was impossible.
“We all dreamed,” the woman mumbled. “All the folk in Arkham, the same thing, night after night. The arrival, the things on the shore, crawling through our houses and through our heads.” She shuddered, dirty hair the color of muddy snow flying away from her face. “And then the men came and took us off. Said it was for our safety. Never is. Never, never is.”
“Do you know anything about the house on the hill?” I whispered. My father’s home could have easily been looted, or torn through by Proctors, and if they found some of the things I knew were there, my father was in certain danger, not to mention Valentina, Conrad and my friends.
The woman’s eyes fairly bugged out of her skull. The cat snarled at her, and I felt my heartbeat accelerate. “Oh, I
She made a move for me, and I didn’t hesitate any longer. I ran, and her ragged nails only tangled themselves in my hair, ripping strands free and leaving a stinging patch on my scalp.
“Demon!” the woman howled. “Go back to hell, where ya came from!”
My breath rattled, and I broke for the gates, stumbling through a welter of glass and furniture in the street, smashed dishes and toys and all the other remnants of someone’s life.
I didn’t stop. That was the most important thing when you were running; I’d learned that long ago, as a child other children loved to torment. Run until your lungs burn and your legs give out. Don’t stop, because if you can just run long enough, your tormentors will give up, get tired and find someone else to throw rocks and chant names at.
The gates let me out of the village proper and I cut through the gardens of a few outlying cottages until I found the back path, the steep rocky trail up the hill to Graystone.
Before, I’d had some idea of what I’d find when I got there—empty house, cold bed, possibly a stray raccoon or two that’d made themselves at home.
Now, I had no idea. If the government, Proctors or not, had come to Arkham and evacuated it, my home could have been burned to the ground. And if that old woman
