Velocity (The Gravity Series) Read online

  “I spoke with Phillip today,” Hugh explained, tension in his voice. “Called me right in the middle of my work day. Told me that if I wasn’t going to make it easy for myself, I was inviting difficulty.”

  “That definitely sounds like he wants to make good on his threat. But Henry isn’t a part of it.”

  “How much did you tell him?” Hugh asked, ignoring my defense of my boyfriend.

  “I just mentioned going to Luke’s and the grounding stone,” I said, wondering if I’d said too much.

  “Ariel!” Hugh admonished me, shooting to his feet. “You shouldn’t have told him anything! The grounding stone might be our one good chance of figuring out exactly what their plans are. What if he runs and tells his father?”

  “He won’t,” I insisted.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I know him better than anyone.” That’s what he’d said, after all. I tried to shut up the nagging doubts, but they wouldn’t be silenced. “Is that your serious business?”

  Hugh drummed his knuckles on the table, apparently giving me a pass. “I talked to Callie about the grounding stone. She has this weekend off, and she’s more than willing to come and assist us. As long as Phillip doesn’t come storming over here to destroy the stone, I thought you could try experimenting with it again.”

  My excitement was renewed. “That’s great. Can we look at Eleanor’s diary in the meantime? We should probably figure out points in time that I should check up on, not just those in the recent past.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  He went to retrieve it from his room. He was keeping both the diary and the grounding stone hidden from me, even though I wasn’t planning on looking at them. I was trying to cooperate, not wanting to rebel this time.

  He came back out and handed me the red book. I cracked the creaky spine and looked it over.

  “She has really nice handwriting,” I commented. Hugh peered over.

  “Yeah, she did. Your mom always did, too.” His words hung in the air.

  As I read through the diary, I had a pad of paper nearby to take notes. I didn’t end up taking many, though, too swept up in Eleanor’s remembrances.

  My family has started only coming once every few weeks, she’d written. I feel abandoned. I think they are ready to let me go.

  Eleanor was lonely and even though she’d been adopted by a good family, she felt like they’d given up on her when she’d had her breakdown. She saw the spirits of dead former asylum patients, and those around town.

  What freaked me out was the frequency of which she saw them―nearly every day. Surely it wouldn’t get like that for me. I looked up and at the shadows in the room. They’d been staying pretty still since they took my mother, but I almost thought I saw them start to quiver.

  I just wish I could talk to them. A few of them seem to hear me speak―there was a girl in the great room yesterday who seemed to listen to my every word. But when she opened her mouth all she could do was scream without noise. Oh God, I just wish if I have to see these spirits, that I could find out why. I can’t stand to see them without being able to help them find peace.

  Eleanor sounded fluid and rational. She didn’t sound crazy at all.

  I found a few entries about the necklace, readjusted in my seat, honing in my focus.

  When I came here, I vowed to only use the pendant if I absolutely had to. But of course, it still calls to me. I wish I had the strength to let it go, but it’s the only real thing of value that came with me from the orphanage where I grew up.

  I put it on the other day and walked the halls, just having a look around. There are so many shadows in the corners, and sometimes they follow me, but disappear when I turn around. I peeked in some of the patient’s rooms, but I didn’t see any spirits. For once.

  The necklace grows hot when it’s against my skin. I think it’s because of the energy it emits. The more I use it, the stranger I feel when I return to my body.

  It was late by then, and Hugh was watching the tail end of a Red Wings game. I shut the diary and he peered at me, TV light flickering across his curious face.

  “Anything good?” he asked.

  “Why did mom give me that necklace? The one for my fifteenth birthday?”

  He sat up. “She kept saying she just felt like she had to give it to you. That necklace was actually very important. But she didn’t realize what it was when she gave it to you.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose I can’t. But there’s no logical reason for her to give it to you if she knew it would end up with Thornhill. She told me later that she realized it was a mistake. I didn’t fully understand until our group researched it more. It’s called a Mortius Pendant. Your grandma was a sweet lady, but the woman had more jewels than the Tower of London. She told me specifically, ‘I really feel like Ariel should have this.’”

  “That’s kind of what I thought,” I admitted. “That she didn’t know. I heard her talking to Deana Ford about it after that stupid Christmas party. It allowed me to walk in Dark.”

  “That’s why I wish we could find it,” Hugh admitted.

  “Is that why you rushed out the night that you found out McPherson might have it?”

  Hugh nodded. “That necklace was used by John Dexter at the original ritual. People close to him wrote about it afterward. It’s what would have triggered his ascension to dark master. Then the necklace seemed to disappear. Claire found it among her mother’s things―this is going to sound gruesome, honey, but don’t judge where it came from―from the hospital after she died in the car accident. She told me she just felt like there was something special about it. I didn’t realize what it was until right before Christmas, because Callie and I were doing research. That necklace is invaluable.”

  “But they don’t have it?”

  “Most likely not.”

  “I’ve been seeing grandma. As a Dark spirit,” I said. He looked at me with interest. “But she looks like a teenager, she’s wearing this old-fashioned dress and her hair is cut short.”

  “Your grandmother was powerful…more so than we realized. After all, if her blood has Luminos’s power in it, too, then she’s part angel. Maybe she can manipulate herself even in death.”

  I looked out the window. A huge, black crow landed on the sill. I jumped to my feet and crept closer. The crow’s bright, red eyes stared at me knowingly.

  “Everything okay?” Hugh asked, his brow creased in a frown as he got up and walked next to me.

  I pointed to the crow but it had already taken flight.

  CHAPTER 9

  I DREAMED I was wandering through a white wood. The sky was dark gray, nearly black, and white clouds hung suspended in the air. I was wearing the white dress I’d worn previously in my dreams, my skin pale and bloodless. I wandered through the dead trunks, calling Jenna’s name, but my voice was distorted. My own name boomeranged back to me.

  Then I realized someone actually was calling me. Ashes from the orphanage’s eternal fire carried on the wind and floated down like dusty snow. A red stain started to seep from the center of my dress, getting bigger and bigger. I grabbed my torso, but I wasn’t hurt. This was old blood, the blood that ran through my veins. Angel blood.

  I called to Jenna again as I wandered. I felt like I was playing the old hot and cold game―I would feel her nearby, getting so close, but then I’d lose the trace.

  I looked up to the sky and saw that a long crack ran across it. I could sense eyes looking through, but they were so vast I couldn’t comprehend them. Luminos was on the other side. I could sense the wall in between us. If I looked too close, I knew I would go mad.

  In front of me, I heard the ground crunch. I looked down past the white tree trunks and saw the black dog step into view, his huge back raised in a hump. He sat down and watched me with serious, intense black eyes. He knew.

  ###

  “Are you comfortable?” Callie asked. The weekend had ar
rived, and we’d gotten together to try out the grounding stone as planned. Hugh and a few others from the opposition group were there, as well as Theo. Mr. Golem didn’t want to be there, because it reminded him too much of Marnie.

  We were at Callie’s pretty apartment, decorated with vases of flowers and paintings, some of which she’d bought from the gallery. There were white bookshelves full of romance novels, and she’d shown me her impressive closet stocked with gorgeous, fashionable clothes.

  I’d settled on her comfortable couch, awaiting further instructions.

  “Yep, I’m comfortable,” I said. I was hooked up to a finger pulse meter, and had leads attached to my chest to check my respiration and heart rate. Although all the medical gadgetry was distracting, I didn’t mind. I was mostly just determined and excited to walk in the past again.

  Callie was crouching beside the couch, taking my blood pressure. “110/70. Good. If you’re ready to start Ariel, let’s begin.”

  Hugh was biting his nail, staring at me with an intentionally flat expression. Joe Reed stood beside him, his arms crossed, staring just as intently at me.

  “You’re sure everything is hooked up right?” Hugh asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know, this is only my job,” Callie teased, sticking her tongue out at him. He shook his head, smiling for just a second. From his pocket, he pulled out the grounding stone and handed it to me. I laid down and held it to my heart. It seemed slightly heavier than the last time, but it could have been my nerves.

  “Is there a reason why you always lie like Dracula?” Theo teased me.

  “I don’t want it to fall off,” I said.

  I shut my eyes and tried to imagine the Thornhill members standing in their office. But every time I tried to focus on them, my thoughts scattered. I opened my eyes.

  Callie looked at me. “Having trouble?”

  I nodded.

  “How about trying something else? I brought your parents’ school yearbook for you to look at,” she said, handing it to me. I flipped through it, and found the picture of my father on the chess team.

  “That’s good. Thanks.” I handed the yearbook back.

  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the day when Claire came to my dad, worried about Deana’s rabbit. All of the chess members had been playing games on their separate tables. I imagined someone knocking on the door.

  The firmness of the couch beneath me disappeared, and I was falling again. Then I was staring at my teenage mother standing nervously in the doorway. Her hair was loose and free around her made up face, and she was clutching her purse the way she would many years later.

  All of the boys around the table stood up. Hugh wasn’t kidding about how nerdy he had looked. His plaid shirt was tucked into pants that almost came up to his chin, and his coke bottle glasses made his eyes shrink to the size of peas.

  “Hughie?” she asked meekly, her eyes scanning the room and resting on him. Oh my god, his nickname was Hughie? I laughed inside my head. HUGHIE?

  “Wait, guys,” he said, holding his hand out. He slicked his hair back with a comb, stowing it in his hip pocket, then slid around and strutted over to her.

  “Hey, honey, how are you?” he purred. I rolled my eyes.

  “I’m just fine.” She peered back at the other boys over his shoulder suspiciously. The others had been watching the pair like hawks, but they turned back to their chess boards. Claire caught Hughie’s enraptured gaze again. “I was wondering if you’d meet me somewhere more private after school.”

  He looked like he was going to swallow his tongue. “My place or yours?” he asked. God, dad, you were Velveeta.

  “Yours. I have no one to confide in. I don’t know what it is about you, but I feel like I can talk to you.”

  His face softened, and I saw that his cool dude facade was mostly for his friends. “Sure, Claire. I feel the same way.”

  “I’d prefer Phil not to know what I’m up to,” she said.

  “That’s all right. About five-thirty okay with you?”

  “Sure.” Then she tilted her head, assessing him. “You’re a strange duck, Hughie.” She poked him on the chin and whisked out the door.

  His face had gone beet red, like he might jump for joy. He turned back to the others and pumped his hands up and down. “I think she likes me, boys!”

  The others boys whooped. I couldn’t help but giggle.

  I wanted to get directly to their little date. I didn’t know if I could, but it was worth a shot. It was a good idea to figure out my limits with the grounding stone. I pictured my paternal grandparents’ home―a small, neat house the color of a robin’s egg with a white picket fence. At least it had been before a construction company had leveled it for condos.

  I imagined my teenage parents meeting up in the yard. I hoped I was doing it right, focusing on the details I could know versus what I couldn’t. The darkness held stubbornly around me, but then light stirred in it like cream in coffee, and I felt myself drawing closer to an image.

  Then I was in the greenery of the back yard, the blue house in the distance. Hugh was sitting in a tire swing suspended from a tall maple, and Claire was crossing the lawn towards him, the wind blowing her gorgeous honey hair.

  It was the first time I’d gone to a point in time without a photo or memory for reference, so I felt fleetingly proud.

  “You actually showed up,” Hughie said, seeming surprised.

  Claire rolled her eyes. “Of course I did. I’m the one who set this up.”

  “So, what’s this all about? Because I get the feeling that it’s not because you want to go steady.”

  “No,” Claire said softly. “I don’t mean for you to get the wrong idea. It’s just, I feel like I can trust you.” She turned away from him, her face conflicted and her arms crossed tightly across her chest. I recognized it as a common gesture from later in her life and my throat closed up.

  “What’s the secret?” Hugh pried.

  “You’re going to think I’m a lunatic. I’m so scared of telling anyone.” She shut her eyes and rocked back on the balls of her feet.

  “You’re nothing less than extraordinary, Claire, but not in a bad way. I could never think badly of you.”

  Her eyes opened, sparkling a little from the compliment. I saw her steady her resolve. “I see the spirits of the dead. In my dreams, and sometimes when I’m awake. My mother claims that when she was younger she used to see them, but she also spent years in a lunatic asylum. I don’t want to be a crazy person.” A tiny tear rolled down her cheek.

  Hugh jumped off of the tire swing, whipping his hand through his hair, pacing the lawn.

  “Please, please, don’t freak out,” Claire said desperately.

  He stopped, his look intense and oddly mature. “I’m not freaking out, Claire. Not in the way you think. I see ghosts, too.”

  She struggled for a minute with what to say. “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “I..I had this feeling…that maybe you did.” She looked down at the grass.

  “But I never thought it meant I was crazy,” Hugh said excitedly. “It’s such a cool feeling, like a gift. A sixth sense.”

  “I don’t know how you can think that way. It feels like a curse to me.”

  “Is that all you wanted to tell me?” Both of us could sense that she had more to say.

  Claire went to the tire swing and sat down, wobbling a little but regaining her balance. “Phil is into the occult. He’s the only other person I’ve told, and he thought it was a good thing, too. The spiritual club…we…we practice these rituals after school. At first I thought it was going to be like Ouija parties, no big deal. I’ve been to those, people just pushing around the little pointer. For laughs. But this is serious. They’re going to kill my friend Deana’s pet, and that’s just the beginning.”

  Hughie paused, taking in her words.

  “And after the rabbit, their next victim is a girl,” Claire finished, the strength leaving her voice. “Stephani
e. She thinks she’s going to join the prayer group, but it’s a trick. She’s one of Cheryl’s best friends.”

  “Why?” Hughie asked. “Why is he doing this.”

  “He feels like he can gain this great power.” She gestured big with her hands. “Harness this evil energy from a realm called Dark. I know it’s hard to believe. He thinks that he can use my spirit sense as some kind of alarm to help him with it. I don’t want to participate.”

  “And you want me to…what? I can’t exactly beat the guy up.”

  “I know that,” Claire said, sighing. She pushed the swing a little. “I don’t really know how you can help me. I just can’t keep it to myself anymore.”

  A new determination showed on Hughie’s face as he looked at her. “I’ve got some good friends. None of them like Phillip Rhodes, and we’ve all been talking about how the air has been strange lately. I don’t know if I can convince them of ghosts or energy, but I can definitely convince them that Rhodes is a nutcase. Somehow we’ll stop that girl from getting hurt. Don’t worry, Claire.”

  She was suddenly on her feet, throwing her arms around him. He stumbled back, surprised, and then hesitantly joined his arms around her back.

  “Thank you so much,” she whispered.

  She pulled back, and he cradled her chin, timidly kissing her.

  “I know you said you don’t feel that way. But you have to feel the connection we have,” he said softly.

  “I do,” she said, gazing up at him. “That’s why I’m here.”

  And that’s when I felt myself pulled up. I left them behind as they kissed again, shrinking to a speck and then disappearing.

  CHAPTER 10

  I OPENED MY eyes and Callie’s patient face was right beside me. The reality of where I was, who I was, took a second to settle. The sad pang upon realizing my mother was gone was sharp for a second, but then it faded. I sat up on the couch, pushing my hair back.

  “Are you okay?” Hugh asked, leaning down.

  “I’m fine,” I said. I did feel more weary than after the last attempt, but I tried not to give it away. Callie handed me a drink of water and started checking my vitals. My heart monitor beeped steadily.