Page 52 of A Heart So Haunted
The beast’s body stiffened as the older man started toward the doorway. I attempted to step aside, but he held me fast. Just as Momma had when she’d touched Haddy, the father vaporized in the doorway the moment he brushed against my shoulder. The mist lingered for only a moment, a chill with it. Haddy still sat in the corner, hunched over his knees, facing the circular window. Silent hiccups shook his shoulders.
I tried to pull away.
The monster held tight. “Leave the child.”
My hair fell in my face when I turned to glare. Creases marred the space between his brows. His attention flitted from my mouth to my throat, then back.
“He needs help,” I said with another tug. I glanced to his opened chest. A single drip of black ran the expanse of his torso, thick as molasses.
“How many times do I need to tell you that the child does not really exist? ”
“I touched him last time.” I had to try—I had to see it for myself. He could be lying—
He merely growled at me. “Trust that I know more of this than you. He is a memory. He will not be the same tonight, tomorrow, or the day after. He will change, he will not remember you, and he will not be solid—you saw your own self and you do not believe me? You watched yourself disappear before your own eyes, and you lean into ignorance? Forwhat?” Our faces only inches apart, so close that the waft of his breath made me recoil.
The gears in my mind began churning. He was right—whatever happened in the maze, he was more experienced in. If I touched Haddy or even lured him out … what if it only made his existence worse? What if he’d only end up back here, stuck?
What if he really was a memory? I’d heard of spiritual echoes before. Their energy stayed after a traumatic event, and it took more than breaking the cycle for them to be put to rest.
But this—he wasn’t a spirit, was he? This creature—this man—called him a memory, like what I’d seen of myself.
“And if I leave without him … what will happen to him?” The thought was nauseating. I wouldn’t want to be left to relive an abusive father for years on end.
What I didn’t like to consider was that Aunt Cadence might have known about the boy and done nothing to help him.
“Why the desperation to help someone that cannot be helped?” he whispered. He released my wrist.
“He’s a child.”He’s like me.
“That child is dead.”
I shook my head. “Then I need to find a way to let his spirit pass.”
A bitter laugh. Something passed over the creature’s expression. I couldn’t pin it—a mix of frustration and pity, maybe. “A memory cannot be released by someone who does not hold it, dearest.”
I searched his eyes. He stepped back, the shadow of his body arching menacingly over the wall, the ceiling. The distance between us felt cavernous.
“You know things about this place,” I said, flat. “About him.”
His lip pulled back, his words thick with sarcasm. “Observant, are we?”
“I mean—how long have you been here?”
His shoulder brushed the wall as he turned. Coils of lean muscle ran down his spine, the back of his neck, gnarled like the roots of an ancient tree. “Decades.”
How could this man listen to this child for so long and not want to stop the cycle? How could—
A memory.
He is a memory. You saw yourself, and you do not believe me?
Like an echo chamber for memories—or people.
Wayward puzzle pieces clicked together, one by one. The hair coloring. The sloped shape of the creature’s shoulders like Haddy’s father. How he spoke about the boy. How I’d seen myself, younger, real but not real.
I stared at the monster, mouth slightly agape. How had I missed it?
Over the creature’s shoulder, Haddy continued to rock in place on the floor. His bare toes splayed to keep himself steady, oblivious to our conversation. As if heexistedin the same space, but not at the same time or on the same plane, not truly. Just as my memory had.
