“Jessica, wake up. Jessica, can you hear me?”

He tapped her cheeks, hoping for a response. “I need some light in here!” he shouted.

Rusty said, “I’ll look for candles.” He ransacked the kitchen drawers, finding several and a box of matches. He lit them, placing them around the breakfast room where most of them had gathered.

“Oh my sweet Jesus,” Rusty whispered, taking in every square inch of the room.

The house was rotting before their eyes. Wallpaper faded, peeled, cracked and turned to dust. Jagged cracks broke through the ceiling, a falling domino procession of fault lines zig-zagging down the walls. Paint flecked off in great sheets.

Whatever magic had held the interior in a space and time of its once magnificent wonder was gone now. The interior rapidly degenerated to finally match the weathered exterior.

Eddie had to save Jessica. If she went, there was no telling how far the decay and rot would go before it stopped. He certainly wouldn’t be able to make good on his promise to the Ormsby EBs, and that could be catastrophic.

Energy.

They were taking her energy.

He’d just have to give some of his own to her. His head hurt so bad, the slightest puff of wind felt like hot needles against his eyes and flesh.

Suck it up, Eddie. There is no way in hell you’re letting her go.

Placing his hands on the sides of Jessica’s face, he knelt over her, his nose touching hers.

“Come back to me,” he said, his heart heavy as an anvil, tears threatening to sluice over his lower lids.

He’d twice connected Jessica to himself psychically, which made this time that much easier. Eyes closed, he saw the glowing yellow filaments of his own life force flow into her.

Thump-thump-thump, thump-thump-thump.

Jessica’s heart jumped with the onrush.

They were connected now, more intimate than any two people could ever be. Eddie poured his life into her, willing her to revive. He felt the EBs trying to sap away his strength, to break their bond, but he wouldn’t let them. If he lost his mind or life completely in the process, he would not let them in.

“Oh,” Jessica whispered.

Eddie’s eyes flew open, meeting her own

“That was weird,” she said, the makings of a pained smile on her lips.

If it wouldn’t have hurt too much, he would have laughed. “Weird is what we do best. Now, I need you to close your eyes again.”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to sleep again.”

He brushed his fingers over her forehead. “It won’t be like that, I promise. I need to be the middle-man for a moment. The children have their mothers’ names. They needed to realize this isn’t their home. Their mothers are their homes.”

“H-h-how?”

“I took them to the source. All of them have passed, Jess. The Ormsbys paid them off and shipped them out when they were done with them. But no amount of money could cure their guilt, their sadness. If they didn’t die by their own hands, they passed away young of natural causes. I’m going to have the children give you their names and then I’ll call them here. Once I do, I need you to send the mothers away. They’ll take their children with them.”

She grabbed his arm. “But what if you’re wrong? What if it doesn’t work?”

“We’re here for a reason. If we don’t try, Alice and Jason will be next. Once the EBs have taken everything from you, they’ll turn to the kids. And then they’ll all be trapped here. We can’t let that happen, Jess. You can’t let that happen.”

Her eyelids fluttered closed and she caressed his cheek. “We can do it. Come on, bring them home.”

All eyes in the room were on them. Tobe slouched against the wall, mindless of the savage wound in his leg. Rusty stood at the ready, prepared to do whatever was asked of him while Daphne cradled her sleeping children.

He looked at Rusty. “Wish us luck.”

“If I could cross my toes, I would.”

Eddie lay beside Jessica on the table, her hand wrapped within his. He went to his psychic totem, the open barn, its paint restored since his last visit. For the first time in years, the doors were shut and locked. Jessica sat beside him on the bale of hay, smiling.

“So this is where you go,” she said.

“Home away from home. Come on, help me with those doors. They’re heavy as hell.”

Sharp sunlight warmed their faces as the doors swung wide.

Over a hundred Ormsby children stood in the wheat fields, waiting.

“Tell us about your mommies,” Jessica said. She leaned back, feeling the rush of love and loss as the children spoke as one, a field of Babel only she and Eddie could decipher.

Twenty-four women, all young and beautiful and stunning in their auras, emerged from the tall grass. The children ran to greet them. Jessica couldn’t hold back her tears.

“It looks just like when I would come home from summer camp. Busloads of kids and carloads of parents running toward each other. I never felt more love in one place than in those moments.”

Eddie draped an arm over her shoulders. “Well, now you have this. Time to wake up so you can do your thing. Send them all home, Jess. Send them home.”

They woke at the same time. Jessica still felt weak, but Eddie had given her enough to get off the table and stand on her own. Rusty held his hands out, ready to catch her should she fall.

She looked at Alice and Jason, so peaceful in repose, though she knew the EBs would easily drain them of everything if she didn’t do it now.

“I’m going to send them all away,” she said to Daphne. “It’s nothing dramatic. In fact, you may not be able to tell at all. But it will happen.”

Daphne nodded. “Please, give them all peace.”

Taking a long, deep breath, Jessica once again closed her eyes, recalling each mother’s face as she was reunited with her lost children. Especially the three women who had given birth to the Last Kids, the final Ormsby line that had been burned alive by a mad Alexander Ormsby who couldn’t face the total failure of his family’s generations-long vision.

She spoke their names softly, saying between each, “You can go now, be with your children forever.”

As she’d said, there were no great displays, no flashing lights or parting sounds, pleas of mercy or shouts of happiness. Instead, the silence seemed to grow deeper, the darkness lighter as dawn crept closer.

When she was done, the room looked as it should, part of a long abandoned house that never once knew love.

Chapter Forty-Three

Renae waited an entire hour for Nelson to sober up, pouring cups of coffee down his throat until his head cleared and he could walk a straight line without falling down. Six in the morning was not a time of the day he saw very much of.

Since her encounter with the old reporter, she hadn’t been able to sleep.

No news is good news. Maybe we were all wrong.

It was true, she hadn’t heard anything from the Harpers out on Ormsby Island. But what if that was a bad thing? A very bad thing.

Nelson reluctantly got his ass, and his boat, the bigger one that could seat ten, in gear. Thinking about the Harper’s children out there, on an island where horrible things had happened to children in the past, she had to see for herself.

“Maybe we are all wrong,” she said.

“What was that?” Nelson said over the motor.

“Nothing. How much longer to the island?”

Rubbing his eyes, Nelson checked the horizon. “Another five minutes.”

When they got in sight of the island, then closer to the dock, Renae asked, “Do you have a first aid kit?”

True sobriety washed through Nelson. He pointed at a white, metal box.

“Holleeee crap,” he said, pulling up alongside the dock. A man and a woman helped tie it up.

The dock was filled with people, two of them little kids. Renae spotted the Harpers. Tobe Harper leaned against a wood rail, a knife sticking out of his leg. His pants were stained with blood.