She waited a beat, let the words float. Then, “What do you want, Dr. Arkmann?”
“I want what everybody wants,” he said. “To be understood. To be seen. To be known.”
“Why are you chasing me?” she asked.
“I’m not, Claire,” he said gently. “The real question is: Why are you chasing me?”
She felt a rush of defensiveness, was about to protest, but he went on.
“All your research. All those damaged, deranged men. You peered inside their heads, looking for reasons, trying to understand why they did the things they did. But, really, you were just looking for me, calling me. You kept searching, peering into all those broken psyches. You wanted to know if the bogeyman was real. Or if you were the crazy one.”
“I saw you,” she said, her heart rate jumping. “I saw you in the basement at Merle House. I know what you did to Amelia.”
He shook his head, smiling at her as if she were a terribly slow student whom he liked just the same.
“I can only do what someone wants me to do. I only exist if someone wants me to exist.”
Was that true?
“I don’t want you to exist,” she said. “I never asked you for anything, and I want you to let me go.”
He lifted his palms; they were slick with blood. “Are you sure? There’s nothing you want, Claire? Nothing I can offer you?”
Was there something she wanted? She wanted to be free. She wanted to love someone. She wanted a child, a family. She wanted to stop peering into the darkness to see what was there. But maybe she could have those things, just under her own power. She didn’t need to make a deal with the Dark Man.
“I don’t like your terms,” she said firmly.
He smiled, teeth sharp and pointed, eyes dead.
“Like I said,” he said, rising. “Always such a smart girl.”
He took a little bow; then he drifted toward the door. She almost called after him. There were still so many questions.
I want to know what happened to Amelia. She didn’t mean to think it, but the question bounced around inside her mind.
He turned back to her with a knowing smile. “You already have the answer. You’ve known it all along.”
“Mason.”
“Look again.”
He walked toward the door, disappearing into dust and creating a swirl of fog that surrounded her and filled the room.
So what do you think, Claire? Am I real?
It was a question without an answer, like so many things.
13.
Young Mason waited in the trees for Amelia, hoping to follow her the rest of the way home. He was shaking, from the cold, from the things he’d seen and heard. He huddled in the dark and watched as the teenagers filed out, heading their separate ways, some whooping and laughing, others quiet.
The moon disappeared behind the clouds, and he started to think maybe he’d missed her. Maybe she’d gone out another way. Or maybe the Dark Man had come for her. Which was stupid, because there was no such thing. Bad is bad—that was what his father always said. It’s in our genes.
Finally he saw Amelia. And she was alone.
She walked quickly, arms wrapped around her middle as if against a chill. It looked like she was crying. He was about to run up to her, to try to help, but another figure came up quickly behind her.
“Hey,” the other guy said. “Are you okay?”
It took Mason a second to recognize him. He was much taller than he had been the last time they’d hung out; he even had some stubble on his jaw. When did he get into town? School wasn’t even out yet.
The young man and Amelia walked into the woods, and Mason stayed. Anger, sadness, a kind of jealous sickness roiled in his stomach.
That rich fuck. He got everything he wanted and even things he didn’t want. Why was the world like that? Why did some people, the worst people, get everything? And some people got nothing.
That feeling, the one that he couldn’t quite control, rose up. It was a mean heat, an ache in his throat, a roar in his ears. There was a blankness, a kind of heaviness on his brain, that seemed to block out rational thought. And he was in that space as he followed Amelia into the woods.
Avery relit the candles, and as the room filled with light again, Ian held Claire on the floor, and Mason sat on his haunches against the wall.
“What happened?” asked Avery of no one in particular. “What was that noise?”
No one answered. She turned around in the middle of the room.
“Where is he?” she asked, her voice a desperate mewl. “How does this work?”
“It doesn’t work,” said Mason. “It’s bullshit. A total lie.”
“In all my years, ghost hunting, clearing spaces, balancing energies, healing traumatized properties,” said Ian, “I’ve never seen anything that I couldn’t explain—until recently. In the last house I visited, I saw the Dark Man, and I asked him to bring Liz back to me.”
“Grief,” said Mason. “It’s the most powerful trickster of all. More than anything else grief makes us see things that aren’t there.”
Claire stirred on Ian’s lap, groaning softly, then pushing herself to sitting.
“What happened?” she asked Ian.
“I think you fainted,” he said, putting a hand to her forehead. “You’re ice cold.”
“So what did you think?” asked Mason. “That Liz was just going to come walking back through the door? And you’ll live happily ever after?”
“I wasn’t worried about logistics, Mason,” said Ian sharply.
“People always talk about the dead haunting the living,” said
