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Toward a Secret Sky by Heather Maclean (8)

The old man had a sweet face, like Santa Claus, with his red cheeks and bushy white beard. His clothes were ragged, though, and dirty. So was his face.

He smiled at me. It was a sad smile. I felt sorry for him. He knew, like I did, that he was going to die.

I heard the dogs before I saw them. Barking fiercely. Madly. They seemed to come out of nowhere, jumping on the old man, tearing first at his clothes, and then at his flesh. He reached out his hand to me, but there was nothing I could do. He slumped to the ground, and the dogs covered him completely, their mouths now dripping with red foam.

I couldn’t go back to sleep after my latest nightmare. The baby deer had become a helpless old man, and I was worn out watching him die every night.

I’d curled myself on the window seat in my room, watching the dawn break, a blanket of crocheted roses wrapped around my legs. Outside a cold, wet wind blew, soaking everything in sight. It was technically raining, but the drops were so small, you couldn’t see them. It was more like a constant mist. Smirr, my grandfather called it. A fitting name.

I cradled a warm cup of tea against my chest. My mother had introduced me to tea when I was young. It was one of the ways she tried to incorporate my dad’s Scottish heritage into our American lives. My grandmother couldn’t understand why I didn’t want milk or sugar in my tea, how I could stand it “black,” but it’s how I’d been drinking it forever. Milk and sugar were for cereal. I didn’t want anything to get in the way of the pure, earthy liquid.

The leather journal from the box of my mom’s stuff sat on my lap. I’d been flipping through the pages, examining the drawings, trying to make sense of them. It was comforting to look at her sketches and little notes to herself; it made me feel connected to her. I still had no idea what Arcēs Daemonium meant, although I had an odd feeling that I should know.

Although the window was closed, a breeze blew past and ruffled the pages of the journal, sending the vellum envelope I had tucked inside it fluttering to the floor. I set my teacup next to me, and picked it up. I opened and unfolded the letter to examine it again. The date was definitely written in her handwriting, but the rest of the page was empty. Why would my mom seal a blank page inside an envelope addressed to some place in France? Was that where I was supposed to deliver the journal? Or was it part of what she was warning me about?

All I had were questions, and the white paper wasn’t giving me any answers. I balanced the page on top of my teacup and returned to the journal.

I had figured out that the hundreds of pages of floor plans, room layouts, and what looked like secret passages all belonged to just three buildings—none of which I recognized despite a strong sense of déjà vu every time I looked at them. One was so large and ornate, I imagined it was the summer home of a royal family. Another resembled a library built around the turn of the century. The last was a fairly simple, perfectly square castle with a turret at each corner, although I noticed three of the towers were square and one was round. The buildings could be in any European country; maybe they weren’t even still standing.

Why was my mother so interested in these buildings? She wasn’t an architect—at least as far as I knew—she was a systems analyst. What systems was she analyzing? The buildings she’d been drawing would be lucky to have electricity, let alone high-tech anything.

Frustrated, I reached for my tea.

The empty page setting on top of my cup was no longer blank. In the middle, a perfect circle had appeared, cluttered with my mother’s frantic writing:

tercepted comm

Dangerous experiments a

animals first, then hum

I picked it up, and the writing disappeared, leaving the page blank once again. I blinked. Had I really seen words? I laid the paper back over the steaming mouth of my teacup, and the message reappeared. Invisible ink!

Suddenly, memories from my youth came rushing back. A doodle pad with a big, green plastic pen. I was crying because it had run out. My mom, with her love of encryption, had gotten me a kiddie spy kit with an invisible ink pen. She wiped my tears away, and told me that the pen itself wasn’t that special, it was the process. She showed me how regular household things could also “write” on paper invisibly: lemon juice, baking soda, even spit. Whatever you wrote would darken when it was heated, making it magically show up.

The heat from my tea must have activated whatever was covering the blank letter. I had to find a way to heat the entire piece of paper.

I tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen. The house was still quiet. I turned a sticky, round knob on the oven. As I waited impatiently for it to warm up, I contemplated what I had already read. Dangerous experiments involving animals? I thought Mom worked on computers . . . What else didn’t I know about her?

The oven beeped, and I carefully laid the paper on the middle rack. I switched on the oven light and stared through the smeared glass door. I needed enough heat to reveal the message, but not enough to set the paper on fire.

Slowly, words started to form. I waited as long as I could, until the outer edges of the paper began turning brown, then I lifted it out. I could now read the entire letter. It was signed by my mom, and addressed to something called the “High Council”:

To: High Council

Re: Project 666

The intercepted communications have been cracked. Dangerous experiments are set to start this week—on local animals first, then humans. They are rolling out the program in small, rural towns, beginning alphabetically. We must get additional soldiers on the ground in these locations immediately, or there will be great loss of life.

Anna Hamilton, Agent

#ROM1221  

Soldiers? Great loss of life? Anna Hamilton, agent? Who exactly was my mom? Did she work for the CIA or something? Was she a spy? And more importantly, how did I not know any of this? How could she not tell me?

According to the date on the letter, the “dangerous experiments” had already started, at least on animals. What had Jo said about a dog? Stuart’s dog had died, and so had a bunch of others. No, I was being insane. That was just a coincidence. Besides, my mother was based out of Missouri. What in the world would she have to do with Aviemore, Scotland?

Although Aviemore did start with an A, I realized with a chill—the top of the alphabet. It was definitely a small town and definitely rural. My mom did work for an international company, and the envelope had been addressed to some place in France . . .

I ran back upstairs to get a pen and write the message down before it disappeared. The drawings and the letter were connected, and I was going to find out how. I had to. I sensed my life depended on it.

Two hours later, I was driving my grandparents’ tiny car along the narrow, deserted road that led to Speybridge, the next town over, twenty miles away. Proof that Aviemore was one of the most remote towns on Earth: no one had an Internet connection in their house, and any Wi-Fi was blocked by the mountains. You could get online at the high school, but it was Saturday, and Kingussie was closed. I told my grandparents I had a project to work on and headed to the nearest public library to translate the Latin phrases in my mom’s journal so I could start to figure out how it all fit together.

Even though the car was a stick shift and completely backward, driving it with my left hand wasn’t as hard as I assumed it would be. And I loved the freedom of revving around the bends of barely paved roads.

It was still misting, but more clouds had rolled in, making it darker now than it had been at dawn. I was well past any signs of civilization, zipping by the thick, dark forest. The car, like everything in Scotland, didn’t have air conditioning, and I couldn’t get the defroster to work correctly, so I drove with the windows halfway down to keep the windshield from steaming up. The cool air stung my cheeks.

I was driving up a fairly steep hill when an old man bolted across the road, right in front of my car. I screamed and slammed on the brakes, pulling my foot off the clutch at the same time. The car screeched to a stop, sputtered, and stalled. I missed hitting him by less than an inch.

The bald, bushy-bearded man leaned on the hood for just a second, his eyes wide with fear. Bertie! I screamed again, and he ran to the other side of the road and crashed through the underbrush, stumbling then disappearing into the trees.

Dream or no dream, I was not going to stick around in the middle of nowhere to see where he was going. My heart thumped in my chest as I fumbled with the pedals, trying to restart the car. Since I was on an incline, every time I tried to get the gas and clutch pedal just right, I got it all wrong and started rolling backward. After three tries, I stopped, afraid I would flood the engine. I sat behind the wheel, shaking, when I saw more movement out of the corner of my eye. A stream of animals—deer, foxes, rabbits—darted across the road, flanking my car on all sides as they ran the same direction Bertie had gone. What were they all running from? A forest fire?

A soupy fog rolled out of the woods, and my windshield started to steam up. I furiously rubbed at it with my fist, trying to swallow my fear. A high-pitched screeching echoed overhead—a beyond-the-grave scream that gave me instant goose bumps. Panicked, I rolled up the windows.

A sickening, cracking sound rippled through the air, followed by a gigantic thud that made the entire car shake. I looked at the sky, my Midwest instincts searching for a tornado. The thick, gray clouds were unmoving. A creaking moan and the sound of splintering wood made me look to the left as a giant pine tree crashed down from the forest and onto the road, landing not two feet from the front of my car. My head almost hit the ceiling of the car as it jumped.

I was so terrified, I lost my ability to scream. My mind was racing. I couldn’t think clearly. I didn’t want to get out of the car, but I didn’t want to die in it, either. The thought of running into the forest seemed like the kind of bad idea the heroine in a horror movie gets . . . right before she’s killed. I fiddled with the door handle, unsure of what to do.

As the moisture started clouding the windshield again, I saw another person dart across the road. He was young, muscular, and dressed in a kilt. It was Gavin! He didn’t stop or even glance in my direction, but leapt over the small bushes on the opposite side like he was jumping hurdles on a racetrack. Another ghastly scream echoed through the valley like the call of a giant, prehistoric bird. My blood ran cold.

I jumped out of the car. Following Gavin was my safest bet.

The foliage had been flattened by the recent stampede, so it was easy to find their trail. I tore through the woods, wet ferns smacking against my jeans, my shoes skidding on the damp earth. My ears strained in anticipation of another ungodly wail, or a warning that another tree was going to fall.

Suddenly, I saw him. Gavin was standing near a fallen log fifty feet ahead. I slipped to a halt.

“Gavin!”

At the sound of my voice, four pig-like animals with slippery, crimson backs darted out of the bushes near him and galloped away, squealing. He searched for the reason and spotted me. Even in the forest, his beauty was overwhelming. He seemed to be almost glowing. It took me a second to stop staring at his face and the bulge of muscles in his chest to notice his hands were dripping with blood. At his feet was a motionless lump of torn clothing.

Bertie.

My stomach lurched. My nightmare had come true again, and I hadn’t been able to stop it. Another person had died, I’d known it was going to happen, and instead of telling someone, I did nothing.

A second wave of shock brought me to my knees. Not only was Bertie dead, Gavin had killed him. Like he’d tried to kill the baby deer. Like he’d killed how many others?

How could I have ever liked a murderer? No wonder he told me to stay away from him. I fought back the urge to throw up. It couldn’t be. Gavin couldn’t be. He had been cold the other day, but a killer?

“Get out of here!” Gavin yelled. The ferocity of his command forced me to stand up, to pay attention. “Now!” he snarled. “Get out of here, Maren! Run back to your car and go!”

I didn’t even think about it. I turned and ran. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I tore open the car door and flung myself inside. I let the car coast down the hill in reverse until I could swing it around, then I engaged the clutch correctly, gunned the engine, and sped away as fast as I could.

I was still shaking when I drove back up to my grandparents’ house. No one was home; my grandparents must have been out on one of their morning walks. For the first time, I actually wished they were around. I didn’t want to be alone.

I bounded up the stairs to my room, slammed and locked the door behind me, and jumped into bed. I pulled the covers up under my chin and tried to calm down. I was home. I was safe. It was over. I couldn’t have seen what I thought I’d seen.

I had to talk to someone.

I reached for my phone and called Jo.

“Hello?” she mumbled.

“Hi, it’s me,” I said.

“What are you doing up so early on a Saturday?” she yawned. “It’s not even nine.”

“I’ve been up for a while,” I answered. “I had this terrible nightmare . . .”

That seemed to wake her up. “Oooh, tell me about it! I love scary stories!”

“It’s not funny, Jo—this is serious. I think I saw that bum you were talking about get killed.”

“In your dream?”

“Yes, in my dream, and in real life!”

“Are you kidding?” she asked.

“No, I saw him. In the forest. Gavin killed him.”

“Are you asleep right now?” she asked. “Did you dream-and-dial?”

“No, I’m not asleep. I told you, I’ve been up since before dawn. I took my grandparents’ car to go to Grantown Library, but the car died on a hill, and that’s when I saw it.”

“Saw what, exactly?”

“Bertie. He ran across the road, I almost hit him, then all these animals were chasing him . . .”

“Rabid dogs?” she breathed.

“No, deer and rabbits and stuff.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.

“Then Gavin ran across the road, and a tree fell and almost smashed the car, and I couldn’t get it started, so I ran into the woods after them.”

“A tree fell on your car?” Her voice was laced with worry.

“No, next to the car,” I assured her.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I mean, as fine as I could be after running into the woods and seeing Gavin covered in blood . . .”

“Hang on, slow down,” Jo soothed. “One thing at a time. Take a breath. Where were you when this all happened?”

“On the road to Speybridge.”

“The A95?”

“No, I missed my turn. I was on the, what is it, the B970?”

“How long had you been driving?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “About thirty minutes, maybe.”

“And you’ve been up all night?”

“Pretty much,” I said. I was beginning to see where she was going.

“Are you sure you didn’t fall asleep at the wheel?” Jo asked.

“No. At least, I don’t think so.”

“Most people don’t think they did. They just close their eyes for a second, and bam!

“But I didn’t crash,” I protested. “There was a tree in the road.”

“I’m sure there was,” Jo said. “It happens all the time when the wind gets going. But as for the other stuff . . . I don’t know . . . It sounds like you had a rough night.”

“You think I just imagined it all?”

“Honestly? Yeah,” she answered, yawning.

I sunk back into the bed. She was right. It didn’t make any sense. I must have imagined it. As the tension started to drain out of me, my body got heavy with sleepiness.

“Maren? Are you still there?”

“Yes,” I said. My eyelids weighed a hundred pounds each. I struggled to keep them open. “I’m here.”

“Do you want me to come over?”

“No, I’m good. I think I’m going to go back to sleep.”

I glanced out the window. The brightness burned my eyes. They wanted to be closed. “Now that it’s light out, I shouldn’t have any more bad dreams, right?”

“Right,” Jo cooed. “You won’t have any more. Get some rest, and call me later.”

As I drifted off to sleep I tried not to think about the strange road-trip dream: the giant tree almost crushing me in the car, the bum and his scraggly beard, the blood shimmering as it pooled under his body. As soon as the images popped into my head, I shoved them out. But the one thing I couldn’t get out of my mind, the picture that hovered behind my eyelids as I drifted off to sleep, was the same as the first day I’d met him: Gavin.

Whether he was smiling or scowling, flirting with me or angry, innocent or guilty, it didn’t matter. I was completely and utterly smitten.

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