“The pictures.”
She stopped what she was doing to eye me. “The drawings? Why is he mad at you over them?”
I thought about telling her he was clearly just a nutjob, that she was right. But I trudged forward toward my revelations of the truth. It would feel good to confide in someone else and to perhaps have someone of sound mind to ground me in reality.
“He wants me to take the rest of them.”
“You mean you took some already? Jessica, this isn’t wise. You’re feeding into his disillusionment by taking them.” Her eyes were kind and warm but her voice stern, as if she were a mother chiding a daughter for stealing a cookie from the cookie jar when her back was turned.
A moment of indecision. Should I retreat and keep it hidden? Or should I press forward and perhaps get the answers I sought to put an end to it all? In other circumstances, certainly I wouldn’t admit the truth. But Redwood was different. It had proven that. The walls talked, the spirits mingled with the living, and everyone knew the icy forest island had rules of its own.
“He’s not disillusioned. The pictures, the drawings—they’re real. I’ve seen them.”
“What do you mean they’re real?” She dropped my arm, properly bandaged, but didn’t move a muscle. The room was silent, water dripping in the stony corner the only sound. I breathed in.
“The kids he’s drawing. I’ve seen them.”
“Here?” she asked, incredulously, and for a moment, I wondered if I’d imagined it all. Josephine, the spirits, the screams in the walls. The haunted legends. Shit, maybe I was losing my grip—
“No. Well. Sort of. But not just here. When I take the drawings home. They come with me. It’s like they’re linked to the drawing.”
Anna blinked slowly, then reached up and twirled a piece of hair. I noticed that her chin rose slightly, and she peered down her perfectly straight nose at me.
“I’m serious.” Two words to seal the deal, to secure the fact that either it was real and Anna would help me, or that I’d gone mad for all intents and purposes.
Anna exhaled loudly, shaking her head.
“And what have they been doing, Jessica? What are their interactions with you?”
Encouraged by her questions, I ignored the scathing tone of her voice. I told her about Red, about Brown. About my suspicions that 5B had something to do with their deaths.
“Unless they were residents here and died. Have you heard anyone else talk about them?”
“No.” Her word was firm and direct. Iciness ran through my veins as I chilled at the prospect she was angry.
She softened her face, offered a weak smile. “No, Jessica. I’ve never heard of these. Other than from his drawings, of course. We assumed he’d gone mad. But it scares me. I’m worried for you.”
“Why do you say that? People see weird things here all the time,” I added, my chest heaving. I tried to remind myself to steady my breath, to stay calm. I wasn’t on trial here.
“I told you the activity has increased with you around, and it hasn’t been harmless, Josephine kind of stuff. What you’re telling me is terrifying, Jessica. They seem violent with you, especially the kids from 5B. I’ve never heard of these red and brown character you talk of, other than in his crazy drawings. And no one sees any of the presences at home. The ones troubled by this place are trapped here. Why would they follow you? Why would they latch on to you?”
The air between us thickened, like a hazy, red fog. I steadied my gaze and my resolve, shoving down memories from the past, the connection that was beginning to strengthen with the man in 5B.
“I don’t know. But 5B told me when I came that I was the only one who could help him. I’m wrapped up in it all now, and I don’t know where to start. I don’t know who the kids are or if he actually killed them. And what do they want?” I focused my eyes above Anna, memories of red and brown coming to me like a haunted dream. I’d hoped for answers from Anna. Instead, I’d found more questions and doubts. It felt like things were unravelling, and I was already barely hanging by a thread.
Anna stood now, towering over me. Her soft demeanor had hardened, and her voice was quiet but forceful all the same.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you, Jessica. I don’t know. But I do know this. You need to leave it alone. The whole business with 5B. The whole picture thing. Leave it be, and they’ll let you alone too. I’ve seen some good people go bad when they let this place creep into them, and we wouldn’t want that.” She stared at me intently, a palpable confidence settling on the ground between us like dust after a windstorm. Particles of it blew across to me, her assuredness brushing against my skin and making me shrivel backward.
I was suddenly certain I was losing favor with her. I’d experienced that sort of thing before. I’d worked my share of jobs where no one liked me. I’d spent my time on the fringes, and since I left Mercy, I’d learned sometimes it was better to be alone. Still, the reality of it isn’t always easy to swallow in the moment, in real time. My chest ached a bit.
“I’ll handle 5B from now on,” she announced, interrupting my introspective analyses. I sensed that the offer wasn’t kindness on her part but something else entirely. She stalked away, prancing down the hallway. Her heels clicking on the tile floor, I sat in the room alone. The dissonance of the clicks mingled with moans from somewhere beyond as I picked at the skin on
