Chapter 8: Tailspin

Emily

I wish I could say the last eight months have passed in a blur, but that would be a lie. Each day has passed in excruciating clarity since the police escorted me from the hotel, promising to hold onto my sister’s clothes until she showed up again.

Until. Not if.

And I’m willing to bet hard cash those suitcases are still somewhere in the police precinct, completely forgotten. By everybody but me.

I’m not the same girl I was eight months ago. Everything I’ve been through has changed me. Made me more—resilient? Or maybe it’s made me more careless. 

Less willing to mold to what society once wanted me to be. 

I refuse to conform. Not when my sister is gone and I’m left here forced to pretend that what happened that night didn’t happen. That a monster didn’t snatch her into the shadows and leave me to deal with the authorities who saw me as nothing but a drunk lunatic who completely lost the plot. 

I know what I saw that night. What I went through… and I’m going to find her.

One way or another.

Researching New Orleans has tipped over into a full-on obsession. Because it turns out Raya isn’t exactly a special case. The Big Easy sees dozens of disappearances each year—many of them right around Mardi Gras. Theories range from serial killers to satanic cults. Anybody who brings up black magic is immediately branded a crackpot, so I’ve kept the details of my story a secret.

Because I’m not looking to wind up in a psych ward. Not again, anyway.

My phone buzzes, and the name on the screen hollows me right out.

Speak of the Devil.

“Hey, Dr. Carpenter. What’s up?”

“Good afternoon, Emily. Did you forget our phone appointment this morning? It’s time for our weekly check-in.”

I cringe, clicking off the conspiracy theory webpage like she’s actually in the room looking over my shoulder.

“Oh, man,” I say. “Is it Thursday already? I had a paper due this Monday and I’ve been a day off ever since. You know how it goes.” God, I can hear her pencil scratching the pad over the phone.

“I see…” She finishes making her note. “And how have studies been going?”

“Fine,” I lie. “Couldn’t be better.” Which is a crock of shit. I know I shouldn’t lie to my psychiatrist, but what am I supposed to say? That I’m flunking out? That my entire world turned upside down when Raya left and everybody’s treating me like I’m the crazy one?

That kinda thing plays hell with the studies, I can tell you. So can three months locked up in the psych ward for ‘observational study.’ Which is a fancy way of saying drugged up and interrogated.

“Glad to hear it,” Dr. Carpenter says, but it’s hard to imagine her ever being glad about anything. “And are the nightmares persisting?”

Constantly.

“Nope! The medication you prescribed me has really made a difference.” I look at the row of untouched pill bottles on the corner of my desk. All they did was make me feel like a zombie. They didn’t make me miss my sister any less, they just made everything the same level of meaningless. No, thanks.

“And how about your sister? Have you heard anything from Raya?” She asks so calmly it blows my mind. As if she hasn’t heard the detailed account of exactly what happened at least a dozen times. But nothing can convince this lady I was the literal witness to a kidnapping. Dr. Carpenter says the same thing everyone else does.

Raya ran off with some man. Took herself a lover and danced off into the night. Surely I’ll hear from her when her feet touch the ground again.

Bullshit. That’s not real life, and it’s damn sure not my sister. Raya might skip off for a night in some rando’s apartment, but shacking up for eight months without so much as a text? Not a chance.

“Emily?”

Crap. I drifted off for a second.

“Sorry,” I reply. “Something on the news grabbed my attention. No, Raya hasn’t reached out yet, but I’m sure she will. To be honest, I’ve stopped worrying so much about it.” Just saying that makes me want to retch. But if it’s what gets all the headshrinkers off my back, I’ll just have to swallow the bile.

“Will you promise to contact me when she does touch base? I think your responses to that would be invaluable to your case.”

“Of course. I bet you’re right.” My case? If I ever hear Raya’s voice again, it’s going to change my life. Maybe I’ll finally be able to breathe again.

“Alright. I just wanted to follow up after missing you this morning. Don’t hesitate to reach out if anything happens, or if you feel another nervous breakdown coming on. Emily?” She lets my name hang in the air the way doctors do. It’s a trick to entrap you into an answer.

“Yeah?”

“I’m here to help. You know that, right?”

“Of course.” I fake a smile so broad I know she can hear it on the other end of the line.

“Just remember that. And mark your calendar for next Thursday. Nine sharp.”

“Already written down.” I hang up the phone and slump over to put my head on the edge of my desk. How long am I going to have to keep playing this fucking game? There’s a letter from the state somewhere mandating my terms, but I can’t be bothered to dig it out. It’s not going to tell me anything I want to hear.

Looking back up at the computer screen, I’m struck by how amateurish the website looks. That cheap, blood dripping font for the header and a garish background.

God. Maybe I am going nuts.

If this is what I’ve resorted to, no wonder everyone in my life is worried about me.

Fuck this trash. I need to get out of the online rabbit holes and get back to the kind of research that actually matters. Something that might actually yield results instead of filling my head with bullshit ghost stories.

When I was a kid, it was easy to get wrapped up in stuff like this, but now that I’ve stared the supernatural dead in the face, it’s easy to spot the phony shit. Problem is, it’s all phony. Which doesn’t help my case.

Exiting the tabs, I change into clothes I haven’t worn for three days straight and grab my bag. My student ID is in there somewhere. Even if it technically expired when I dropped out of classes, it should be enough to get me into the building. Hopefully, the feel of actual paper between my fingers will put my feet on the ground again.

It’s almost closing time, so hopefully the work study behind the desk will be too bored to give a damn about me one way or the other. It doesn’t hurt that I should have the place to myself.

When I get there, there’s nobody behind the desk at all. It feels like the whole place is deserted, which suits me just fine. The last thing I want is to run into one of my former classmates. I’ve seen enough sympathetic faces to last me a lifetime.

A quick keyword search points me straight to the section on state histories, and I climb the steps to the next level. Half the lights are off, and a strange prickle races up my spine. It’s that special kind of quiet that always makes me uneasy. The kind of silence that only comes when you’re sure someone is doing their best not to make a sound.

It’s nothing, I tell myself over and over again. Just like I have for the better part of a year. Any time the lights go out and I see those yellow, inhuman eyes glaring at me from the shadows. Or hear the petrifying snarling of whatever beast ripped those creatures apart.

Finally reaching the row I’m looking for, I run my finger over the spines of books, skimming titles. Of course, the ones about New Orleans are on the bottom shelf, and I crouch low to read them in the dim light.

From La Nouvelle-Orleans to The Big Easy, Manhattan on the Mississippi, title after title so generic, they almost put me to sleep on the spot. Then one peeks out among the rest that makes my hair stand on end.

The Dark Birth of the French Quarter.

I slip the hefty volume off the shelf, turning it over in my hands as I take it to one of the study tables. The cover is loose, and when I flip it open, I see a discard stamp on the title page. Somehow, this musty old tome managed to escape the dust bin, loitering on the lowest shelf to wait for me.

I bet nobody even knows this book is still in circulation. I could walk right out with it and there’s not a soul who would give a damn.

Flipping the brittle pages, dust and the smell of antique paper rise up to meet me. There’s an insert of photographs at the middle of the book and I skip to them, hoping to see an image that might jog my memory. A piece of architecture, or a painted sign that might still hang somewhere on those historic streets.

I come across a photo of the building just across from our hotel. It must have been taken from the colonnade Raya and I walked under to check in, and I trace my finger over the black-and-white image. There’s no date on the picture, but the streets are still unpaved so it has to be from before the 1840s.

Goosebumps spring up along both arms, and I squint at the page. It’s like my body saw the figure before my brain could register it. Leaning so close my nose almost touches the paper, I gaze at the face of a man on the second-floor balcony. He’s got two or three companions with him, all sticking out their chests and posing for the camera. They all look preposterous except one.

A man who appears to be in his early thirties. Lean, tall, and darkly handsome in an unmistakably familiar way.

It’s Thomas.

Impossible as it is, I’m utterly certain. God knows I’ve seen more impossible things in my time. If this is him—and I’m sure of it—that means the man I met in the hotel lobby would have to be hundreds of years old.

“Oh, my God,” I mutter. “He’s one of them.” He has to be. No matter how I scrutinize the picture in this antique book, there’s no getting around the fact that the man in the picture is the same one I met.

The revelation dawns inside me, spreading through my body with a blinding light. If he’s one of those things, then it would explain the strange magnetism I felt from him.

“I have to go back.” The words are past my lips before I have the chance to fully understand what they mean. But now that I’ve said it aloud, my resolution grows with each passing heartbeat.

I have to find Raya. And something tells me that means I have to find Thomas. There’s only one place I can do that. The thought of going back there, of retracing my steps in a place that had completely destroyed my life terrifies me. But there isn’t a way around it. 

Looks like I’m going back to New Orleans.