Earthbound

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The door’s still ajar. Just how I left it.

“See?” Benson says when I point that out. “He’s totally a ghost. Can’t touch anything.”

“Whatever,” I say, not wanting to encourage him. Benson’s insufferable when he knows he’s right.

And he usually is.

But I love that about him.

Love? I try not to dwell on that.

“Do you think anyone else has been here?” I ask, my voice a hushed whisper—as though we were encroaching on sacred ground.

“No footprints,” Benson notes. “And it stopped snowing in the middle of the night last night. So unless they snuck in right after you left, I suspect we’re safe.”

“We’re not staying long,” I say, pulling my coat a little closer.

“No arguments here,” Benson says dryly.

I start to slip through the open doorway, but Benson stops me and examines the locking mechanism instead. “This is seriously brilliant,” he says when I explain how it works. “It’s like a combination lock. This Quinn guy is—was—smart.”

I blush. Why does it feel like he’s complimenting me?

Reaching into a messenger bag hanging from his shoulder, Benson pulls out the huge Mag flashlight we acquired half an hour ago. So much better than my lame cell phone light.

The cell phone that’s eighty miles away, in pieces on a sidewalk. Probably smashed by a brick as well. That tiny, simple thought makes me feel less afraid, if only a bit.

The dank smell hits me as soon as we enter the small burrow. With it come memories of last night in startling clarity–Quinn’s face close to mine, not looking ghostly in the least. “Hey, aren’t ghosts supposed to be see-through?” I ask as Benson shines the flashlight around.

“I don’t think anyone knows that for sure.”

“He looked so real,” I say, and I’m a little embarrassed by the longing in my voice.

“Come over here,” Benson says with a wave, beckoning me to the table where I found the journal.

“Paintings,” I breathe as he turns over a few curling bits of paper. “I didn’t really explore when I came down here last night.” The paintings are small, casual watercolors of Quinn as I’ve never seen him before; smiling up at the artist, his hair loose and tousled, looking into a fire in a cozy hearth in contemplation. My breath catches as Benson turns over the last one.

Quinn with a woman.

It portrays the two of them from the back, walking hand in hand. I can’t see her face, just a tall, slim form and brown hair bound into a braid. A roiling possessiveness that makes no sense whatsoever rolls over me, filling me with an odd hostility that makes me sick to my stomach.

“Rebecca?” Benson suggests from over my shoulder.

I swallow hard and answer in a weak voice, “Probably.” I’ve never understood what it means to truly hate someone, but as I stare at that painting, my fingers gripping the corners so hard they’re turning white, I think this must be what it feels like.

“Holy crap!” Benson holds up a dirty coin and blows some dust from it. “There’s a bunch of them.”

“Take ’em,” I say. “I think Quinn owes me that much for blowing my life all to pieces.”

While Benson’s trying to decide how much this cavern is worth, I start poking around. “Think we can use your flashlight to smash into these crates?” I ask.

“Why don’t you just make a crowbar?” Benson suggests.

I suck in a breath. I don’t want to. It feels superstitious, but every time I use my powers, something bad happens. But what else am I supposed to do? Ask Benson to tear the lid off with his bare hands?

My fingers shake as I hold up my hand and picture the tool in my head. An instant later I’m holding a rather short crowbar. I avert my eyes as Benson takes it from me. After that it’s a matter of seconds before he’s pried the lid off.

We both drop to our knees to peer into the box.

“Sweet,” Benson says, lifting a heavy pouch that jingles with the clink of metal. A quick look inside and he whistles. “Damn, this Quinn guy was seriously loaded.”

“Give me that,” I scold, snatching it away. “We’re not grave-robbing.”

“This is not a grave,” Benson says. “And that pouch has got to be worth five figures. At least.” He grins. “Think about how much gas and trail mix that is.”

I glare at him and put it on the ground beside me.

Though I do love trail mix …

“Ooh, check it,” I say, pulling out a book with a familiar triangle pressed into the leather cover. “It’s another journal.” I flip it open, expecting Rebecca’s flowery script, but a bold, masculine hand greets me instead. “I think this was Quinn’s.”

There’s no name on the front cover, but the second page has a list of names and dates, with Quinn’s name at the top. There are no repeating surnames and there doesn’t seem to be a pattern—though they do go backward until 1568. Then there are three more names without dates.

I turn the page and hold the book out at arm’s length as I’m greeted with words three times the size of the precise list on the previous page.

If you are not friend to me, then the gods have mercy on your damned soul if you read on.

My eyes are wide as I reread the words. “Benson?”

“There’s a painting and a pocket watch in here too. Weird.”

“Benson?”

“Hey, this painting has a house on it. What do you want to bet it’s the—”

“Benson!”

He looks up and I turn the book to him. “Am I a friend?” Friend to a ghost?

Benson raises an eyebrow. “Do you think it really matters? He’s dead.”

“He’s already haunted me for a week!” I retort shrilly, though haunting isn’t really the right word for it.

Still, Benson freezes. “You’ve got a point.” He purses his lips. “He did show you the combination. I think that’s a pretty good sign that he doesn’t mind if you read this.”

I nod, but adrenaline makes my fingers tremble as I turn the page and the writing returns to normal.

I am Quinn Avery. I am Earthbound. I am a Creator. If you are reading these words, I pray thou be a trusted friend or mine own reborn. Within this box find ye the tools needed to restore me. But when ye have, seek and find Rebecca. Nothing in this wide world is of greater import. Find her. Give her the necklace.

“Rebecca.” I whisper her name quietly, feeling it burn on my tongue. He wants me to find her? Her ghost, I guess. Why? So they can live ghostily ever after? I force my fingers to relax when I realize I’m gripping the journal so hard I’m beginning to bow the covers.

“So—” Benson hesitates. “So you were right. He’s also an Earthbound. Was. You know.”

I ignore the unspoken declaration that that means I’m an Earthbound too. I don’t know what that means and I’m not sure I’m ready to find out.

“I wonder if his stuff also disappears,” I muse quietly.

“Well, next time you see Quinn’s ghost, you should ask him,” Benson says, peering back into the crate.

“He doesn’t answer questions,” I say, flipping through the journal only to find that it’s blank after about the first ten pages.

“You said you had conversations with him.”

“I thought they were conversations, but everything he ever said to me I can find in Rebecca’s diary. It’s like …” I let the journal rest in my lap. “Like he’s not a ghost so much as an echo of the past. I think that’s why he called me Becca, even though I told him my name was Tavia.” I remember how angry it made me. Now I feel strangely apathetic.

Briefly I wonder what that means about me, but I have too many other questions to answer first. Bigger questions. Much bigger.

I turn my attention back to the journal. “Hey, look!”

Benson turns to peer over the pages with me as I point to two carefully drawn symbols.

“It’s the one from the files in Reese’s office,” I say, pointing to a drawing of the feather and the flame with the word Curatoria written beneath it. “That’s the word Elizabeth used. I guess it’s a name, not a word.”

“Makes sense,” Benson says quietly.

“I wonder. I don’t have my phone anymore, but a couple days ago I took a picture of a really worn-down symbol on a building in Portsmouth. It was so faded I could only see something round over something with wavy lines. But it definitely could have been this symbol.”

I move my finger to the opposite page. “But not this one. It’s totally the wrong shape.” This one is an ankh, but instead of the circle at the top connecting, one side curves out and makes the shape of a shepherd’s crook instead. “Reduciata,” I say. “Jay and Elizabeth both said that one.” I try to read, but Benson keeps moving the light back to the box he broke into.

“Look at this,” he says, tilting a small framed painting up for me to see. It’s clearly done by the same artist as the others on the table, but this one is much smaller and it’s the only one we’ve found in a frame. It’s of a yellow house nestled in a grove of trees that are about halfway through the autumn change. “I bet it’s the house he was killed in.”

“He wasn’t killed there.” The words are out of my mouth before I have a chance to consider them.

I gape at Benson—how did I know that?—and reach for the painting. As soon as my fingers touch the brittle edges of the oil paint, I’m bombarded by an avalanche of distorted images and blended sensations.

“It was a trick,” I manage to say as the barrage of sensation breaks my focus. My fingers wrap around the frame, gripping it tighter as words pour from my mouth and I can almost feel Quinn again, somewhere in the distortion and noise, but I’m nearly deafened by a scratching buzz, blinded by billowing fog. “They were never really in danger—not from the guns—but they had to … had to … I can’t! Help me, Benson!” I’m holding the painting out to him, but I can’t make my fingers let go as the sensation of fire licks up my arms and rattling static fills my ears.

Benson yanks the painting away from me and tosses it on the ground behind him before wrapping his hands around my upper arms. I almost collapse against him but manage to wring the last vestiges of strength from my weary muscles in time to catch myself.

“What happened?”

“I—I don’t know. I touched the painting and it was … like I knew what happened to Quinn. Or, what didn’t happen, I guess.” Black dots swim in front of my eyes and I’m afraid I’m about to faint. I feel like I’ve just run a marathon on an empty stomach.

“I can’t stay here any longer,” I say, my hands covering my eyes.

“No problem. We can come back another day.”

I nod mutely—not wanting to come back ever—and Benson reaches for the painting and tosses it back into the crate, pushing it into the darkness. He gathers up several of the other objects and packs them into a leather bag he brought along. I lean against the crumbly dirt wall and avert my eyes so I don’t have to see the painting again. Even the thought of it makes me a little queasy, like I’m riding a bad roller coaster.

It’s not supposed to be this way. The thought comes unbidden to my mind.

The journal starts to slide off my lap and I slap both hands down on top of it.

“It’s just me,” Benson says.

“I want to take this.”

“Whatever you say. As long as it’s not going to mess you up like the picture.”

“It won’t,” I insist. I have no reason to assume that, but somehow, I know it’s true. “I need it.”

The words come out of my mouth, but they don’t sound like mine.