Fog Descending (House of Crows), Lisa Unger [best summer books .TXT] 📗

in his arms was just the plush pillows made from New Zealand lamb’s wool (according to Astrid).

He put his head on one and wept like a baby.

“You can have her back.”

He looked up from the pillows to find that a kind of fog had filled the room—gray and thick as smoke, obscuring shapes. In the corner of the room was the slim, faceless form of a man. Ian’s heart seized.

“You can have her back,” the shadow said again. “You just have to do something for me.”

Ian had no words; they were lodged in his throat. He could only gasp for air in the smoke. All the time he’d spent looking for this, he’d never once believed he’d find it, not really. He thought that whatever they’d experienced the summer he turned sixteen was available only to a child’s mind. It was another dimension not available to adult sensibilities, so dulled by reality, by responsibilities, by the message of a culture that despised the unexplainable. He thought the doorway, briefly open, had slammed shut.

Finally, he managed to croak, “What do you want me to do?”

A kind of laughter filled his head. “I thought you’d never ask.”

There was whispering inside his brain, a hissing, the sound of snakes and wind. He listened, and the more he listened, the less himself he was, feeling himself lift from his body. The smoke swirled and surrounded him, a great cocoon.

“Dude, what are you doing?”

The voice was hard and powerful. Ian became aware of himself again, crashing back into his body with a jolt. The shadow was gone, and Josh was standing in the doorway. The younger man paused, seemed to assess the situation, then moved in quickly.

“Ian, man, the smudge stick.”

It wasn’t on the hearth but smoldering on the bed, filling the room with smoke. Josh grabbed a throw blanket and smothered the flames that had started leaping up from the covers. Almost immediately the smoke began to dissipate, and the air filled with the acrid scent of sage and burned cotton.

“What the fuck, Ian?” They locked eyes, and Josh’s expression morphed quickly from confusion, fear, and that little flush of anger that comes from fear to concern.

“What did you see?” Josh asked. He pulled away the blanket, and the smudge stick was out. There was a big circular burn mark on the bed. Ian pushed himself up to sitting.

“I—” He almost couldn’t say it.

“What?” pressed Josh.

“I saw the Dark Man.”

7.

They all followed Mason into the woods, deeper and deeper. The sky was bruising above them, shadowing from the bright, crystalline blue of the day turning to the late afternoon. They all had to be in by dinner, which was officially at seven. At Merle House, Penny, the eternal housekeeper and cook, would have supper waiting for them. If they didn’t come back for it, she’d call all the parents. Old Man Merle didn’t know if they were alive or dead. Ian’s parents were working, wouldn’t notice he was not home until about eight or nine. Claire’s mom and stepdad wouldn’t notice until later either. But Penny was keeping watch.

It seemed like they’d been walking for hours, Mason and Matthew up ahead, Claire trailing. Ian kept stopping to make sure Claire didn’t get left behind. He didn’t want her to give up and go home. She’d been reluctant to begin with, and now must be growing tired. Truth was, things could get a little edgy when it was just Mason, Matthew, and Ian. Claire was a calming influence; everyone secretly had a crush on her, so they were all the best version of themselves when she was around.

When she was gone, they bickered. There was an escalation of dangerous activities—climbing the taller, older trees; jumping into the quarry lake—not the lake behind the house with the swinging rope, known to be safe. There was a new development being built, one that had been abandoned due to loss of financing. So there were big, empty, partially built houses to explore, the fence around the aborted neighborhood down in at least three places. When Claire wasn’t with them, they usually wound up there.

Ian heard the hooting of a barred owl and stopped to look up in the trees, but couldn’t catch sight of it. Claire caught up with him while he stood looking. He heard owls all the time, but he’d never seen one in the wild.

“This is stupid,” she said, a little breathless. “I want to go home.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Okay.”

He was about to head back with her. Then, “It’s over here,” yelled Mason, making a big gesture with his arm.

Matthew had also stopped, halfway between where Mason stood on the rise and where Claire and Ian were about to turn around. Matthew was the unofficial leader. Even Claire usually did what he did. Ian suspected that she might have a crush on Matthew. Who could blame her? Ian was awkward, big, kind of a brainiac. Mason was just—weird. But Matthew was one of those kids—just cool, good-looking, fun. The kind of boy that boys liked, and girls crushed on—athletic, smart, funny. He was a chameleon, fit in with any group—the brains, the jocks, the goths. Matthew gave a shrug, then kept going.

“Five more minutes,” said Claire. “Then I’m gone.”

Ian nodded and they kept walking. The slope of the hill increased, and they were slipping in the detritus on the forest floor. Claire grabbed for Ian’s arm and he steadied her. She leaned on his strength to make it up the rest of the rise. That alone, no matter what they found, made it worth it. Girls. If they only knew how much power they had. His heart swelled, and he practically floated up the rest of the hill.

At the top, they saw it. Ian almost couldn’t believe his eyes. Had it always been here? There were rumors about a place out in the woods where people went on dares, to get high, to get laid. But Ian never