First published in the USA in 2014 by HarperCollinsPublishers Inc.
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2014
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
77-85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London, W6 8JB.
Copyright © 2014 by HarperCollinsPublishers
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
GIRL © 2014 by Carmen Gonzalez/Trevillion Images; Texture © 2014 by Naoki Okamoto/Getty Images; Photo borders © 2014 by iStock Photo; KEYS © 2014 by Dougal Waters/Getty Images; Doctors Library of Congress, G. Eric and Edith Matson; Photograph Collection; ROOM INTERIOR Library of Congress, Prints & Photograph division, HABS PA, 51-PHILA, 354-106; FORCEPS © 2014 Vadim Kozlovsky/Shutterstock.com
Jacket design by Cara E Petrus and Sammy Yeun Hand lettering by Cara E Petrus
Madeleine Roux asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007538263
Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007538270
Version: 2014-08-04
For my family, who never fail to amaze with their belief, support, and love. If there are better people on earth, I haven’t met them.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Acknowledgments
About the Publisher
It was a fantasy of lights and sounds and smells, crooked candy-striped tents, and laughter that burst like cannon fire out of the winding paths. Curiosities lurked around every corner. A man belched flames from a podium. The scent of fried cakes and popcorn hung sweet and heavy on the air, tantalizing until it became sickening. And in the very last tent was a man with a long beard—a man who didn’t promise riches or oddities or even a glimpse into the future. No. The man in the last tent promised the one thing the little boy wanted most of all.
Control.
You guys are not even going to believe this, Dan typed, shaking his head at the computer screen. A “memory manipulation expert”? Is that even a real thing? Anyway, just watch the video, and let me know what you think!
His cursor hovered over that last line—it sounded so desperate. But whatever, Dan was starting to get desperate here. His last three messages had gone unanswered, and he wasn’t even sure if Abby and Jordan were still reading them.
He hit send.
Dan leaned away from his laptop, rolling his neck and listening to the soft pops of his spine adjusting. Then he closed the thing—maybe a little too sharply—and stood up, shoving the computer into his book bag between loose papers and folders. The bell rang just as he finished packing, and he filed out of the library into the hall.
The students in the wide corridor surged forward in one long column. Dan spotted a few kids from his third-period calculus class, and they waved at him as he approached their bank of lockers. Missy, a short brunette with freckles splattered across her nose, had decorated the door of her locker with just about every Doctor Who sticker and postcard she could get her hands on. A tall, gangly boy named Tariq was grabbing books from the locker next to hers, and beside him stood the shortest guy in twelfth grade, Beckett.
“Hey, Dan,” Missy greeted him. “We missed you at lunch. Where’d you run off to?”
“Oh, I was in the library,” Dan said. “I just had to finish something for AP Lit.”
“Man, you guys have to do so much work for that class,” Beckett said. “I’m glad I stuck with regular English.”
“So, Dan, we were just talking about Macbeth when you walked up. Were you planning on going?”
“Yeah, I heard the set is amazing,” Tariq said, shutting his locker with a clang.
“I didn’t even know we were doing Macbeth,” Dan said. “Is it like a drama club thing?”
“Yes, and Annie Si is in it. That’s reason enough to go right there.” Beckett shot the boys a mischievous smile, one Dan only barely returned, and then the group started down the hallway. Dan couldn’t remember what classes the rest of them had next, but even if he hadn’t been doing any work in the library, he really was headed to the second floor for AP Lit. It wasn’t his favorite class, but Abby had read most of the books on the syllabus and had promised to give him a rundown at some point, which made it better.
“We should check it out,” Tariq said. He was wearing a sweater three times too big for him and skinny pants. It made him look a little like a bobblehead. “And, Dan, you should join us. I might be able to get us free tickets. I know the lead techie.”
“I don’t know, I’ve never really liked Macbeth. It hits too close to home for OCD people like me,” Dan deadpanned, rubbing furiously at an invisible stain on his sleeve.
Both Missy and Tariq stared back at him blankly.
“You know?” He chuckled weakly. “‘Out, damned spot’?”
“Oh, is that from the play?” Tariq asked.
“Yeah, it’s … It’s like one of the most famous lines.” He frowned. Abby and Jordan would’ve gotten it. Didn’t everyone have to read Macbeth for school? “Anyway, I’ll see you guys later.”
Dan peeled off from the group and headed upstairs. He pulled out his phone and sent off a quick text to both Jordan and Abby: “Nobody here gets my sense of humor. Help!” Twenty minutes later, when he was sitting bored in class, Jordan still hadn’t texted back and Abby had sent a lukewarm “LOL.”
What was wrong? Where had his friends gone? It wasn’t like they were that busy … Just last week, Jordan had been telling him on Facebook chat how insanely tedious his classes were. Nothing was challenging, he’d said, after the classes at the New Hampshire College Prep program. Dan sympathized, but honestly, the classes were the last thing he remembered from their summer in New Hampshire. What he couldn’t stop thinking about was what had happened in their dorm, Brookline—formerly an insane asylum run by a twisted warden, Daniel Crawford.
When he wasn’t thinking about that small detail, though, he was thinking about Jordan and Abby. When they’d first returned from the college campus, he’d gotten texts and emails from them constantly, but now they hardly talked. Missy, Tariq, and Beckett were okay, he supposed, but Jordan and Abby were different. Jordan knew how to push his buttons, but it was always good-natured and made the three of them laugh. And if Jordan pushed a little too hard, Abby was there to call him out and restore the balance. Really, she was the linchpin that held their group together—a group that in Dan’s mind seemed worth keeping up.
So why were his friends ignoring him?
Dan glanced at the clock, groaning. Two more hours until the end of the day. Two more hours until he could dash home and get online to see if his friends wanted to chat.
He sighed and scooted down into his seat, reluctantly putting his phone away.
Strange to think that a place as dangerous as Brookline had brought them together, and normal life was pulling them apart.
A half-eaten peanut butter sandwich sat on the plate next to his laptop. At his feet, his AP History textbook collected leaves. The crisp fall air normally helped him focus, but instead of doing homework, like he really ought to, he was busy going through the file he had made about Brookline. After the prep program ended, Dan had made sure to organize the notes he’d made, the research he’d done, and the photographs he’d collected, and turn it into one neat file.
He found himself returning to browse through it more than he should. Even with all these original documents, so much of the warden’s history was still missing. And after learning that he might actually be related to the warden through his birth parents—that this horrible man might be his great-uncle and even his namesake—Dan felt like this was a hole in his personal history, a mystery that he very much needed to solve.
At the moment, though, the file was just a distracting way to pass the time while he waited for Jordan and Abby to log on. What was that phrase his dad always liked to use? Hurry up and wait …
“Could I be any more pathetic?” Dan muttered, pushing both hands into his dark, messy hair.
“I think you’re just fine, sweetheart.”
Right. Better to keep the gloomy asides silent in the future. Dan looked up to see his mom, Sandy, standing on the porch, smiling at him. She was holding a steaming cup of cocoa, one he hoped was for him.
“Hard at work?” she asked, nodding to the forgotten textbook on the floor at his feet.
“I’m almost done,” he replied with a shrug, taking the cocoa from her with cupped hands, his sweater sleeves pulled over his fingers. “I think I’m allowed a break every once in a while.”
“True,” Sandy said, offering him an apologetic half smile. “It’s just … well, a few months ago, you seemed so excited about applying early decision to Penn, but here we are in October and that deadline’s coming up fast.”
“I’ve got plenty of time,” Dan said unconvincingly.
“Maybe for the essay, but don’t you think the admissions people will find it odd that you stopped doing all your extracurriculars your senior year? Couldn’t you get an internship? Even if it was just one day on the weekends, I think it would make a big difference. And maybe you should visit some other campuses, too—you know, early decision isn’t the best choice for everyone.”
“I don’t need more extracurriculars as long as I keep my four point oh. And besides, NHCP will look great on my apps.”
Sandy’s pale brow furrowed, a chilly wind ruffling her shoulder-length hair as she looked away from him, staring out at the trees surrounding the porch. She hugged herself and shook her head. This was how she always reacted when NHCP came up; unlike Jordan and Abby, who had been able to spin and massage the truth for their parents when it came to Brookline, Dan’s parents more or less knew the whole story. They had been there when the police questioned Dan; they had listened as he recounted being attacked, pinned to the ground … Just mentioning that place in their presence was like whispering a curse.
“But sure,” Dan said, blowing on the hot chocolate, “I could look for an internship or something. No sweat.”
Sandy’s face relaxed and her arms dropped to her sides. “Would you? That would really be amazing, kiddo.”
Dan nodded, going so far as to open a new browser window on his laptop and Google something. He typed in “zookeeper internship” and tilted the laptop slightly away from her.
“Thanks for the cocoa,” he added.
“Of course.” She ruffled his hair, and Dan breathed a sigh of relief. “You haven’t gone out much lately. Doesn’t Missy have a birthday coming up soon? I remember you going to her party around Halloween last year.”
“Probably,” he said with a shrug.
“Or your other … your other friends?” She stumbled over the word friends. “Abby, was it? And the boy?”
She always did that, asking about Abby as if she didn’t remember exactly what her name was. It was like she couldn’t believe or accept that he had actually gotten a sort-of girlfriend. To be fair, Dan could hardly believe it sometimes himself.
“Yeah,” he said with a noncommittal grunt. “They’re busy, though, you know … school and work and stuff.”
Dynamite job, Dan. Your Oscar’s in the mail.
“Work? So they have jobs?”
“Subtle, Mom,” he muttered. “I can take the hint …”
“I’m sure you can, sweetheart. Oh, before I forget—the mail came. There was something in there for you …”
That was unusual. He never got snail mail. Sandy flicked through the various envelopes that had been tucked in her jacket pocket before dropping one in his lap. The letter looked like it had gotten run through a washing machine and then dragged through the dirt. Dan checked the return address and a cold pain shot through his stomach.
Sandy hovered.
“It’s probably junk mail,” Dan said lightly, tossing the envelope onto his books. She took the hint, giving him a thin-lipped smile before turning away. He hardly heard the door close as Sandy disappeared back into the house. Dan scrambled for the letter.
Lydia & Newton Sheridan
Sheridan? As in Felix Sheridan? As in his former roommate, the one who had tried to kill him over the summer, either because he went crazy or because he was, what, possessed? When he closed his eyes Dan could still see Felix’s maniacal grin. Possessed or not, Felix had absolutely believed he was the Sculptor reincarnated.
Dan’s hands shook as he tore open the envelope. Maybe it was just an apology, he thought—it was entirely possible that Felix’s parents wanted to reach out to him and say they were sorry for all the trouble their son had caused him.
Dan drew in a deep breath and double-checked to make sure he was alone. Through the half-open window he could hear Sandy washing the dishes in the kitchen.
Dear Daniel,
You’re probably surprised to hear from me, and I’d hoped to avoid sending this letter, but it’s become clear that this is the only option.
I really have no right to ask this of you, but please give me a call as soon as you receive this letter. If you don’t get in touch … Well, I can’t say I would blame you.
603-555-2212
Please call.
Regards,
Lydia Sheridan
Dan couldn’t decide whether to chuck the letter in the garbage or dial the number right away. Inside, he could still hear the quiet clinking of his mother washing and drying the dishes. He read the letter over again, tapping the paper against his knuckles as he weighed his options.
On the one hand, he would be perfectly happy to forget Felix altogether. On the other …
On the other hand, it would be a lie to say that he wasn’t curious about his old roomie’s condition. They had left everything so unresolved. The cold sensation in his stomach refused to go away.
Felix probably needs your help. You needed help, too. Is it really fair to say that anyone is a lost cause?
He looked to the window on his right. His mother was humming now, and the music of it drifted softly out to where he was sitting. A few leaves floated down from the maple tree that lorded over the porch. No matter how many times Paul cut back the branches on it, it kept reaching for the house. But that didn’t stop his dad from trying.
Dan picked up his mobile and dialed Lydia Sheridan’s number before he could think of an excuse not to.
It rang and rang, and for a moment he was certain she wouldn’t pick up. He almost hoped she wouldn’t.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Lydia? I mean, Mrs. Sheridan?” His own voice sounded high and strange to his ears.
“That’s me … Who is this? I don’t recognize the number.”
She had Felix’s same soft-spoken manner, but hers was a more relaxed and more feminine version of the voice he could still recall.
“This is Dan Crawford. You sent me a letter asking to get in touch. So … Well, I’m getting in touch.”
The line went quiet for what felt like a lifetime. Finally, he could hear Felix’s mother drawing in ragged breaths on the other end.
“Thank you,” she said, sounding like she was on the edge of tears. “We’re just … We don’t know what to do anymore. It seemed like he was getting better. The doctors treating him really thought he was improving. But now it’s like he’s hit a wall. All he does is ask for you, day in and day out—Daniel Crawford, Daniel Crawford.”
This news was more than a little unnerving.
“I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m not sure what you want me to do about it,” Dan said. Maybe that was cold, but what was he supposed to do? He wasn’t a doctor. “It’ll probably pass. I bet it will just take time.”
“What about for you?” Lydia demanded.
Dan jerked his head back, startled by the sudden chill in her voice.
“Has it passed?” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m … I’m not sleeping. I’m just so worried about him. I really hate asking this of you …”
“But?” Dan prompted. He didn’t need to. He saw the question coming from a mile away.
“If you could just go to Morthwaite. See him. See … I don’t know. I’m begging at this point, do you understand? Begging. I just want him to get better. I just want this to be over.” Dan could hear the tears cracking through in her voice again. “It’s not over for him, Dan. Is it over for you?”
He had to laugh. Did it feel over? No, not by a long shot. The dreams persisted, as terrifying as ever, often featuring the warden himself. It wasn’t over, and as twisted as he knew it was, Dan felt a little relieved to hear that he wasn’t the only one for whom that was true.
“This might not work,” Dan said slowly. “It could make him worse. You realize that, right?” I don’t want that on my head. I can’t have that on my head.
He felt guilty enough for having dragged Abby and Jordan into the mess at Brookline. At least with Felix, he’d been able to tell himself that he was blameless—that that two-faced Professor Reyes had all but admitted to luring Felix down to the basement, where his mind—well, where his mind had stayed, is what it sounded like.
“But you’ll go?” Mrs. Sheridan sounded so happy. So hopeful. “Oh, thank you, please, I just … Thank you.”
“So where exactly am I going?” Dan asked, his stomach still one giant knot of dull fear. “And how am I getting there?”
The following Saturday, Dan found himself sitting in the passenger seat of Lydia Sheridan’s charcoal Prius. Tall and willowy, she hunched over the steering wheel as she clung to it. Tight brown ringlets kept escaping from a tortoiseshell butterfly clip that struggled to keep a grip on her hair. Thin-rimmed spectacles crept down the steep slope of her nose.
“Are you sure your parents are all right with this?” Mrs. Sheridan had asked when Dan walked up to her car that afternoon.
“Yeah, of course,” he’d replied, waiting for her to unlock the passenger side door. “It’s just, they’re remodeling the house. Trucks everywhere. We can’t even park in the driveway right now. But they were happy to hear I was headed to see Felix.”
After these awkward pleasantries—exchanged in a McDonald’s parking lot—Dan had gotten in the car, and the ride had been silent ever since.
Not that he wasn’t dying to know more about what he was in for, exactly. He just couldn’t muster up the nerve to ask.
Instead he stared at his phone, reading responses from Abby and Jordan to a message he’d sent that morning, informing them both that he was going to visit Felix. This proved they were still reading his messages, at least. But right now, Dan was wishing he had gotten their responses sooner, before he was trapped in someone else’s car.
Lipcott, Jordan
to me, avaldez
So I read your message and thought, “Are you sure about this?” And that was before my mom brought in the mail. Somebody mailed me a photo, Dan. Abby got one, too. It feels like some kind of sick joke. Circuses and sideshows and crap. I’ll attach the picture for you, but there was no return address. What the hell is going on?
—J
PS Wait until you see the back, blegh.
[Download Attachment 2/2]
And Abby’s response proved even more surprising …
Valdez, Abby
to me, jlipcott
I’ve been trying to move on, Dan, but I got a picture in the mail, too. I really, really don’t want to rehash the past, but … I don’t know. Did you get a photo? It seems weird that only Jordan and I did. This is freaking me out, Dan. It feels like someone is targeting us. Be careful, okay? Let us know how it goes with Felix so I don’t worry so much.
Why can’t we just be allowed to move on?
Abby
[Download Attachment 2/2]
It was all well and good to want to move on, but that was such an abstract, nothing phrase in his head. How was he supposed to forget that he had been strapped down to a gurney and almost killed? Forget that after he broke free, he was almost the one doing the killing? How did a person move on from something like that? Abby’s use of the word just was especially cruel. Just decide to move on. Just decide to forget. Just stop having nightmares. As if it were as simple as unpacking a bag of groceries and putting the milk and juice away in the fridge.
Dan tapped on the two attachment links and waited for the network to kick in and download the images. His foot shook anxiously as he watched the black-and-white pictures fill his screen—first Jordan’s, then Abby’s.
He squinted, turning them this way and that. They looked like they could have been taken on the same day at the same place—they were even torn as if maybe they had been ripped from the same photo. When he examined the backs of the photos more closely, he understood why Jordan was so creeped out.
A single word in black ink was scrawled on the back of each picture. Jordan’s read, “You’re,” and Abby’s read, “finished.”
You’re finished.
Dan glanced up and away, then focused on Felix’s mother. She didn’t notice his darting eyes. Why did they get photos and not me? If it’s some kind of warning, why would I be left out?
That’s a good thing, Dan, he reminded himself wryly. Nobody should want to get a note saying “You’re finished.”
Though it was orange and red now instead of green, the densely wooded terrain outside the car triggered a memory. He could practically smell the cheap air freshener from the cab that had first brought him to New Hampshire College.
“How much farther?” Dan asked, glancing up from his phone.
“Half an hour,” Mrs. Sheridan said. “Maybe forty minutes.”
Dan’s knee bounced; they had been driving for an hour already. The only way to Morthwaite Clinic, apparently, was through miles and miles of forest far from any main traffic arteries.
A text message arrived from his mother.
Hope you are having fun with Missy and Tariq. Please be responsible but call if you need a ride after the party tonight! Love you.
At last there came a break in the trees and Dan pressed himself closer to the window, watching as they drove up a steep climb that brought them to a wide-open field, fenced and gated. Dan had hoped to find a cheerful, modern clinic, but Morthwaite looked like it could be Brookline’s twin. It was cleaner, at least, although nobody had bothered to clear the vines overtaking the stone facade. Gray and tall, the building perched like a weary sentinel on the hill, and even at this distance Dan could make out grates protecting the windows.
Mrs. Sheridan stopped the Prius at the gate and a security guard asked to see both of their IDs. The pimply, heavyset guard scrutinized Dan’s license with hooded eyes, looking skeptically from the card to Dan’s face before finally calling up to the main building to confirm their appointment.
“Looks like you check out. Here’s your guest badge,” the guard said, practically tossing Dan’s ID and a plastic name card back through the window. “Have a nice day.”
Dan tucked his license away and clipped the visitor badge to his coat. The car slowly navigated the gravel driveway, then idled under the stone overhang that enclosed the entrance to the clinic. Dan wiped his slick palms on his jeans and looked across the center console to Mrs. Sheridan.
“So this is it,” Dan murmured.
“If you need a minute …”
“No,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”
Gravel crunched under Dan’s shoes as he got out and stared ahead into the clinic. He shuddered, struck by the same sense of foreboding he’d felt when he first set foot in Brookline. He couldn’t believe this was an actual, functioning mental hospital, where people still went for treatment and even, in some cases, long-term stays. Maybe this summer he had been one more fainting spell away from just such a fate. He put his hand in his jeans pocket and closed it around the familiar shape of his pill bottle. It felt like an anchor, like a ward. He was seeing a counselor and keeping up with his meds; there was no reason he couldn’t live a normal life.
Why couldn’t Felix do the same?
Right. Normal. Because having nightmares every night and obsessing over your dead great-uncle is completely normal. And bonus! Your best friends are receiving threatening messages.
As he walked up the driveway to the front entrance, Dan glanced at the windows on the first floor. A face peered out at him, stark and white, and for a second he could swear it was Warden Crawford’s, smug smile and all. But another step closer, Dan realized it was only a docile old man.
A nurse in tidy blue scrub pants and a chunky-knit sweater greeted them just inside the door. There was another series of gates here, though smaller, and the nurse asked Dan to empty his pockets and step through a metal detector. He handed over his wallet, his keys, and his water bottle, then gave her his medicine quickly, hoping she wouldn’t ask him about it. The nurse just took his things and put them in a plastic bag, then labeled it.
“You can have these back when you’re all done,” she said.
Another wave of dread overcame him, this one harsher than the last. Without his things, Dan felt that much closer to being a patient instead of a visitor. But the nurse smiled and directed him through the security gate, chatting amiably as she led him down the brightly lit halls.
“I’ll wait here in the lobby,” Mrs. Sheridan told him. “You go on ahead.”
Dan paused. “Are you sure? He probably wants to see you.”
She shrugged her tiny shoulders and looked anywhere but at him. “No. He’s seen enough of me. He only wants to see you, I think.”
“You’re the one Felix keeps asking for?” The nurse furrowed her brow, giving Dan a closer look. Her name tag said “Grace.”
“I am, yeah. We know each other from summer school.”
“He was doing so much better,” she said with a sigh. They rounded a corner, leaving behind the lobby and Mrs. Sheridan. “Nobody really comes to see him except his parents and the occasional teacher. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see a friend. His room is just down this way. You’re Daniel, right? He talks about you all the time.”
“Dan,” he corrected instinctively, “but … yeah. He does? That’s … really something. What does he say about me?”
The nurse was slightly shorter than him, and had to look up to meet his eyes. She leaned against the doorframe and chuckled. “All good things. That you were always so kind to him, and one of the only real friends he’s ever had.”
Dan’s face burned. Felix rarely entered his mind these days, and when he did, it wasn’t for pleasant reasons. His pace slowed, his hands sweating again as he hid them in his pockets. Maybe he should’ve visited sooner, cared more.
Nurse Grace coughed politely, nodding toward the door.
“Ready to go in?”
“Sure …”
“There are a few rules, obviously,” she said, taking out her passkey. “Don’t touch the patient, don’t accept anything from him to take out of here. We’ll be observing, of course, in case he becomes overstimulated or upset. I need verbal confirmation that you understand these rules.”
“I understand,” Dan said.
He swallowed uneasily. The last time he had seen Felix face-to-face, it had been in an operating theater, and there’d been a scalpel flashing between them. The door beeped softly as the nurse used the passkey over the electronic lock. A soft hiss, a click, and the heavy white door swung open. They stepped into a small antechamber with a few plastic chairs and a glass window that looked into the adjoining patient room. There was Felix, sitting behind the observation panel, dressed in crisp white flannels with blue pinstripes. His hands were folded in his lap, resting on a checkered blanket. He was looking out the actual window, the one with bars over it, his eyes far away.
This was not the same tidy, upright Felix Dan remembered—it seemed as though he had shrunk, now just a frail husk of the muscle jock he had become over the summer. All the weight Felix had put on from his strict diet and exercise regimen seemed to weigh him down now, his whole body drooping toward the floor.
Pulsuz fraqment bitdi.