“Where do you think it went?” Mia asked, as if having heard Sineada’s unasked question.
“I don’t doubt for a moment it’s still down there,” Sineada sighed, again deciding the girl deserved the truth. “Or would be the moment we set foot on the ladder.”
“Are you hearing anything from the spirits?”
“Not since this morning,” Sineada replied, shaking her head. Then she decided to ask the question she’d wanted to ask for hours.
“Has that happened to you before?”
“The voices?” Mia asked. “Yeah, here and there, I guess.”
“For how long?”
“As long as I can remember.”
“Did it scare you?”
“No, because I always knew what it was. Also, I mentioned it to Grandma once when I was really little, and she explained it to me. She told me that you had it, too.”
Good for you, Clara, Sineada thought.
Clara had died of breast cancer two years before Katrina. Sineada had known from the time her daughter was a little girl that she was a frail little thing who probably wouldn’t outlive her. Perhaps that made her over protective when she should’ve just let her do with her life what she wanted. Maybe she’d been selfish.
“Do you have any questions about the voice?” Sineada asked.
“Not really,” Mia shrugged. “It’s there, it’s not there. Sometimes it’s helpful, sometimes it’s a surprise. I tried to use it to cheat on a quiz once, but it tangled up my thoughts so much I couldn’t answer any of the questions. I can’t really control it. I think it’s been happening more lately, just letting me know it’s there.”
“That’s because you’re getting older,” Sineada replied. “You start to realize that intuitions are actually signals for a contact, and you train your mind how to open itself up to it. Or, as some people do, you train your mind how to turn your back on it completely. Some people who don’t have anyone in the family to tell them what it is take pills to make it go away completely.”
“I’d worry that I might miss out on something important or would need it one day.”
That’s my girl, thought Sineada.
Mia hesitated for a moment. Sineada realized there was something she wasn’t sure she could ask.
“What is it?”
“Do you really think you’re going to die today?”
“Could be,” Sineada said, trying not to sound rattled by the question. “Does that scare you?”
“A little. But you’d still be able to talk to me after, right? Maybe even more than we talk now.”
“That’s a good way to look at it,” Sineada replied. “You can never tell what’s going to happen, though.”
That was when the light began to dim in the attic. At first, they thought the clouds had darkened, dulling the little bits of sun that emerged through the storm wall. Now, the attic was going completely black, starting on the far side of the room, as if night had fallen.
Sineada and Mia came to the same realization in the same span of breath. It had made it onto the roof.
• • •
“That’s your plan?” Scott asked, incredulous.
Big Time had led the others to the back of the building and was pointing down to the flooded loading dock.
“You’ve got a better one?”
Backed up against the garage doors at the rear of the factory were four eighteen-wheelers. The dock was on a grade so that the truck would line up to the concrete lip extending out from the building. This allowed forklifts to drive straight into the trailer without having to be elevated or lowered to the proper height. It also meant that the truck trailers were now almost completely submerged. Only the cabs, further up the ramp, were mostly out of the water.
“First off, the flooding’s so bad that it’ll be in the cab in no time, which means it’ll be in the engine, too,” Scott retorted. “On top of that, if the trailer’s filled with water, it’ll be dead weight.”
“I’ve driven a truck. They make them pretty watertight. Not saying it’s perfectly dry in there, but they’re not flooded.”
“All right,” Scott said, shouting over the rain. “Say it’s dry. Say the thing turns over. How the fuck are you going to get down there?”
“Climb. Also, I’ve got an idea.”
Big Time laid out his idea to Zakiyah, Muhammad, and Scott. It was simple, it was plausible, but it was also crazy.
“If you’re wrong, you’re dead,” Scott said.
“I know. But probably so are we all anyway.”
Scott extended his hand and Big Time shook it, then embraced his wiry friend.
“Good luck, dickhead.”
Big Time nodded and walked over to the edge of the building. A window ledge stood seven feet below, and the idea was to lower himself as far as he could and, hopefully, drop down onto this. From there, he’d secure his position and then lower himself down again, push himself away from the wall, and land on the roof of one of the tractor trailers.
Easier said than done.
He sat and swept both his legs over the edge before letting his weight do the work for him. The rain had decided that this was the moment to pick up. It hammered at his fingers, though Muhammad and Scott were holding his wrists. Big Time knew if he slipped, however, they’d be able to do little. The wind was blowing, too, and his sopping-wet shirt was pressed against his already frigid skin. His teeth chattered and he forced himself not to shiver. One wrong move and he was dead seven different ways.
“Your feet are about four inches off the ledge,” Scott called. “Can you bend your toes down and feel the ground?”
Big Time did as Scott suggested. Although he couldn’t see it, his toes scraped first the glass window and then the ledge itself.
“I think
