Tim followed Martin’s quiet instructions without question. After everything they’d been through in the last few months, but especially tonight, he felt like Martin deserved that.
The car was otherwise silent. Tim found himself glancing at the rearview mirror periodically to check on Jon and Sasha, like they’d somehow disappear from the backseat if he didn’t keep looking. Like it would turn out one or both of them had actually died during the attack, hugs notwithstanding, and that if he didn’t keep watching them they would reach their destination and they’d be gone. It was stupid, and he knew that, but it still made him feel better every time he looked up and saw them still clutching their respective tape recorders and watching the other occupants of the car intently.
At last they pulled up to a house Martin seemed to think was their destination. It didn’t seem like there was anything special about it, but Martin dragged himself up the front walk and beckoned the others to follow. He looked down at the ground for a moment—Tim wasn’t sure why—then shook his head minutely and knocked on the door instead.
Tim didn’t know why he was surprised when the door opened and exposed Melanie King, looking a little annoyed until she saw Martin and the look shifted into one of mingled surprise and worry. She skimmed the other three, then shook her head and stepped back, opening the door wider. “Get in here.”
Martin led them in. As soon as the door closed behind them, Melanie hugged him tightly, then eased back when he gave a small groan of pain. “Come on. Make yourselves comfortable. I just put the kettle on a couple minutes ago.”
Tim trailed after the group until they reached a comfortable living room. Melanie waved at an arrangement of seats before disappearing through another door; Martin followed her, and the sounds of clinking and cabinets opening came to them faintly. Jon sank slowly onto the sofa, looking after Martin, and Sasha perched on the other end of it. Tim, though, had too much restless energy and couldn’t sit still, so he paced around the living room, taking it in.
There were blank spots on the walls and shelves, like someone else had been living there and had taken things with them and nobody had bothered to fill the spaces yet. The books on the shelves were a mix of nonfiction about the paranormal, most of which Tim had read in the last few years, and horror novels, with an unexpected detour into a handful of battered classics and a beautiful but well-loved book of Hans Christian Andersen’s stories. There were a couple of odd knickknacks, a few candles scattered about, a truly gorgeous painting of a sunset over a river, and a row of framed photographs.
Tim drifted over to look at them. At one end was a picture of a little girl, maybe seven or eight, in a purple helmet and elbow- and kneepads, laughing with delight as she tried to balance on a pair of hot pink roller skates, supported by a woman with matching eyes and a slouch hat pulled low over her ears. At the other end was Melanie King, sporting a grin identical to the first picture—save that her front teeth had grown back in—and the woman’s hat as she held up a clapperboard announcing the first take of the first shot of Ghost Hunt UK, surrounded by people he vaguely recognized as being the remainder of the show’s crew.
All of the other pictures had Martin in them, too.
It was like Tim hadn’t believed they really knew each other, let alone were stepsiblings, until he saw it. But no, here was visible, tangible proof. There was a picture of the two of them in formal wear, not more than ten years old, Melanie holding a basket full of rose petals and Martin carefully balancing a white satin pillow in his hands, both looking slightly uncomfortable but delighted nonetheless. Another showed them both astride a camel, Martin’s arms locked around Melanie’s waist and Melanie clinging to the pommel of the saddle in front of her for dear life. A third showed Melanie in what looked like a pastel Victorian-style gown, draped dramatically across the stern of a rowboat with her hand pressed to the back of her forehead, while Martin, wearing a white-and-red striped coat and a flat straw hat that somehow suited him (and certainly suited him better than Melanie’s gown suited her), pulled at the oars and laughed at her. Still another showed the pair of them beaming in triumph as they displayed what closer inspection proved to be acceptance letters into their chosen study programs.
Other pictures, about a dozen in all, also featured a third person. Taller than Melanie but not quite so tall as Martin, fair-skinned and with long hair dyed black—ruddy roots showed in a couple of the photos—he seemed like he would be out of place in his tattered jeans and black leather duster, but he just looked…natural with Melanie and Martin, even in pictures where Martin dressed like a middle-aged man and Melanie dressed like a stolen car. There was a picture of the three of them rollerskating, another of them crouched around a campfire, still another of them in a park of some kind, with Melanie sitting on a sort of perch formed by the other two’s outstretched arms, her own arms looped around their shoulders—they went on and on. In all the pictures, all three of them were smiling and laughing. It was clear they were close.
Tim turned around at the sound of footsteps and saw Melanie and Martin coming back in, Martin with a mug in each hand and Melanie carrying three. She handed one to Sasha, then held one out to Tim, who accepted it automatically, then hesitated before settling down in between Sasha and Jon. Martin sat opposite them on a loveseat; Melanie lit a candle on one shelf, then joined him. For a few moments, none of them spoke.
At last, Melanie set her mug down on the coffee table, rather heavily. “So where do we start? Or do you want me to bugger off?”
“No. No, Martin…implied you know what’s going on. Better than we do, at any rate.” Jon sighed heavily. “I—I have questions, but…we should start with a full picture of what happened tonight. Statements. I guess.”
Sasha held up her tape recorder. “I’ve got this. Elias suggested I turn it on, so we’d have a record, and…well, it at least will tell you what I was up to. Then you can fill in for me.”
“We’ve got this one as well.” Jon slid his own recorder forward. “I rewound it in the car, but…”
“Oh. I didn’t think of that. You play yours first, then.”
Jon pressed PLAY. Tim listened, his heart in his throat, first to Jon’s agonized cries as Martin used a corkscrew to extract a worm, then to his friends’ panic over him. Martin’s confession to Jon caught him off-guard—not because he didn’t know most of it, but because he hadn’t expected Martin to admit it—and he guessed that was part of the reason for the look Melanie threw him. After all, she of all people had to know. He heard himself burst through the wall and lure Jon and Martin into the tunnels, and then he heard the conversation they’d had some time later—he hadn’t realized Jon had turned the recorder back on, and from the look on Jon’s face, neither had he. Mentally, he began ticking off all the questions they still needed answers for.
His breath caught when Martin and Jon emerged into the Archives to be confronted by Jane Prentiss. He wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or annoyed that the recording cut out immediately after that.
There was a split-second of silence before Melanie spoke in a carefully controlled voice. “Is that why you wanted me to meet you for lunch?”
“Well, ‘lunch.’ I didn’t figure we’d want to eat much,” Martin said softly. “But yeah.”
“Desolation?”
“Corruption.”
“Fuck.”
Tim looked back and forth between the two of them. “What are you talking about?”
Melanie rubbed a hand over her face. “My dad was a patient at Ivy Meadows. He…he was still there when it, um, burned down. They told me he died peacefully, but…” She looked at Martin.
“Tell you later,” Martin mumbled.
Sasha looked at the recorder, then at her own. “Well. This is ready.”
The first part of the tape was Jon recording that statement they’d been investigating about what the assistants had privately termed “the homophobic vase”. Melanie frowned at the recorder, then looked up at Martin and mouthed something Tim couldn’t quite catch; whatever it was, Martin simply nodded.
The others were all staring at the recorder, but Tim found himself watching Martin and Melanie. When Jon told Sasha he’d been trying to kill a spider and subsequently damaged the wall, Melanie’s nostrils flared and Martin’s lips pursed; Tim figured them both for spider-lovers. The scowl on Melanie’s face when Elias started talking wasn’t much of a surprise, after Martin’s revelation on the other tape that he’d threatened Jon the day she’d come to make her statement.
Tim was momentarily distracted by Sasha’s monologue about being in Artifact Storage, and he flinched when the other voice spoke. Martin and Melanie both sat bolt upright; when Tim looked up, he saw that Martin had gone pale behind the bandages and Melanie’s eyes were wide.
“Is that…?” she murmured.
“Can’t be,” Martin said, barely moving his lips. He neither looked nor sounded convinced.
They both seemed incredibly affected by what was on the tape, even more than the rest of them—and Tim was plenty affected by Sasha’s scream of fear—but neither spoke another word. Tim’s resolve to watch them faltered when Sasha and her mysterious benefactor ran into Elias, who seemed to believe—or pretended to believe, and Tim had good reason to suspect the latter—that Jon and Martin were both dead and tried to convince Sasha to leave them to be eaten by worms. The smack of fist on flesh was satisfying, although Elias’ roar of pain was disproportionately loud, and then Sasha and the mystery man were on their way. And then there was another spider, which even Tim could tell was stretching the bounds of credibility to call a coincidence, and then the voice spoke in a dark, cryptic tone. “Mother, may I?”
There was a thunk, a hiss, and a click as the recorder shut off, followed by a moment of silence.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear…” Melanie finally said.
“Yeah. Me, too.” Martin rubbed a hand over his face. Jon flinched at the rasp of bandage against bandage. “If it was, I might’ve had to kill him for that last bit.”
“Whoever it is, he’s an idiot.”
Jon took a deep, shaky breath. “Who was that?”
It took Tim a second to realize that was directed at Sasha, and evidently it took her a second, too. “You know as much as I do. He appeared out of nowhere when I was in Artifact Storage, stopped me from getting killed by…something, I can’t describe it…gave Elias a black eye, and set off the CO2 system. He had another weird pain spell or seizure or…something before we went down to the Archives and went out to get fresh air.”
“So you have no way of getting a hold of him,” Jon said. “Or any way to…did he just disappear?”
“No. He was still there when I came out.” Sasha hit the rewind button on both recorders. “He was being all…mysterious and creepy, but he said none of you were dead, and he was right about that, at least. He said he’d be back to give you a statement.”
“Did he say when?”
“No, just that it wouldn’t be tonight. Something about keeping promises?” Sasha shrugged. “The way he was talking, though, I think he knew you.”
Jon shook his head slowly. “The voice didn’t sound familiar, I—”
Melanie held out a hand to stop him, her spine stiffening and her head tilting. Tim paused, and then he heard it, too—the sound of the front door shutting with a quiet snick. Someone had just come into the house.
Martin and Melanie both rose to their feet. Tim, looking up at Martin, saw the same expression he’d had on his face when Tim had burst through the wall of the document storage room—afraid, but determined—as he put himself between the door and the rest of them. He brushed his fingers quickly against Melanie’s; she stayed firmly behind him, but raised her voice. “Who’s there?”