Taken at Dusk Page 78

"What did she say?"

"Nothing. But she got that look again."

"What look?" Holiday asked.

"Like I'd jogged her memory or something. Whenever that happens, she disappears on me."

"Maybe she doesn't want to remember," Holiday said. Kylie heard the implication in the camp leader's voice: that Jane Doe didn't want to remember because she'd murdered innocent children.

"I think she's scared to remember," Kylie said, "but not for the reasons you believe."

"Then why is she so scared?"

Kylie hesitated. "Maybe it's the same reason I'm scared."

Holiday glanced over at her. "What are you scared of?"

"Of discovering the truth. Discovering what I am."

"Why?" Holiday asked as if confused.

"Because it's the unknown. Because it's been kept a secret from me all this time. Because it will probably change my life forever." Kylie sat up straighter. "It's not that I don't want to know the truth. I do. I want to know it so bad I can taste it. Sometimes it's all I can think about. But I'm still scared. The day the Brightens, or the people we thought were the Brightens, came here, I was so scared my insides shook. I almost ran away. If Lucas hadn't come along, I probably would have."

Kylie swallowed hard. And that's when she decided to ask the question she'd longed to ask Holiday and hadn't had a chance to. "Have you seen any new spirits? Do you know if the elderly couple that came here that day died?"

"Their spirits haven't come to me, if that's what you're asking," Holiday answered.

Kylie bit down on her lip. "I can still remember how the old lady's hand felt on mine. For some reason, I don't think they were here to hurt me."

"Why else would they have been here, then?"

"I don't know." Kylie closed her eyes. "But just like I know that Jane Doe isn't a murderer, I kind of know that they weren't bad."

Holiday sat up and pulled her knees to her chest. "Maybe this is just your way of refusing to see the bad in people."

Kylie considered the theory for a second. Then she recalled the two times she'd seen the eagle and then the deer. She wasn't blind to evil. She could recognize it when she saw it, and it wasn't there with the faux Brightens. "Nope," she said. "That's not it."

Kylie's mind went back to Jane Doe. "Last night I remembered parts of the vision, and I recalled what the nurse told the doctor. That her husband-Jane Doe's husband-had just woken up and was asking about her."

"And you think that means something?" Holiday asked.

"Berta Littlemon was never married. And the vision makes me believe Jane Doe's husband had the same type of operation she had."

Holiday hesitated and then said, "Sometimes visions are hard to decipher."

"But all the other times I've had this type of vision, where I'm actually the person, they weren't puzzles that I had to piece together in order to figure out what they meant. They were scenes that actually took place."

"But the visions are from their perspective. And if Jane Doe is crazy, then..."

Kylie shook her head. "I don't think she's crazy. Or evil."

"I hope you're right," Holiday said.

"Me too."

They sat in silence for a long moment or two, just listening to the rush of water and the sound of calm. Kylie looked at Holiday again and felt the slightest bit of worry whisper across her mind. "What am I going to say to Sara when she comes here on Sunday?"

"You don't tell her anything, except how happy you are that she's well."

"It's going to be so weird having her here. She's from my old world, and my old world shouldn't be in my new world. It's like running into your Sunday school teacher at a kegger."

Holiday chuckled. "Or your gynecologist at the grocery store. I did that once. It was so weird." She reached over and rested her hand on Kylie's.

Normally, Holiday's touch brought nothing but calm, but not this time. This time, everything went black.

Chapter Twenty-seven

For a second, it felt as if someone had turned the lights off. Kylie could feel Holiday's hand on hers, but the cave was pitch black.

Then the lights came back on. Kylie looked around, feeling confused. They were no longer in the falls. Instead, she sat in an uncomfortable folding metal chair outside in a clearing under some kind of dark-colored awning. The wind smelled like rain. It was a cloudy day, and she felt sad. So much sadness.

What happened to the serenity of the falls? What the heck had just happened?

It took her a second to realize this was a vision. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to see this time, but she didn't care. She didn't want to see it.

Kylie tried to pull herself out of it. She wanted to be back, back where everything felt right, where calm was all around her, where the sound of water soothed her mind.

When that didn't work, she tried to figure out where she was. Her breath caught when she saw a casket sitting in front of the enclosure. Quiet tears filled her eyes, and she knew someone she cared about lay in that box.

"No," she whispered. "Please, no."

Someone touched her hand. Kylie recognized Holiday's touch before she looked over to see the camp leader sitting next to her. She wore somber black clothes, no makeup, and unshed tears made her sad green eyes look brighter than usual.

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