Fade by Chad West Page A

and Cynthia shrugged with her own half-smile, finding herself sort of interested in what the woman might say. She didn’t believe in that sort of crap, but it was the closest thing to fun she’d gotten since being pulled into the lady’s room.
    Cynthia poked her flattened hand out, and Pret sat up, taking it like it was food and she hadn’t eaten in weeks. She stared at it, serious, examining each crease and curve, and then began to explain. “This line here,” she dragged a thin, bone-white finger down the arch of the line closest to her thumb, “is your life line.” She moaned in dulcet tones to herself. “Far too long, child.”
    “What does that—?”
    “This here,” she poked a long, thick, yellow nail into another line. “Well, you’ve had a hard life. It will get harder. I promise you that.”
    “Wow, a little morbid for a parlor trick, Pret.” She joked, but something about the way Pret’s eyes gobbled up her hand shook her.
    Her almost white eyes lifted to Cynthia’s. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to enjoy a kill like this.”
    Cynthia stood, pulling her hand with her as she took a step back.
    Pret smiled. “Some of my people think it’s pointless. But they don’t understand that ripping someone apart from the inside out is just as fun as the other way.”
    Cynthia was crying now. She turned, confused, ran to the door, which was a wall now.
    “You don’t even know Jonas, do you?” She clucked her tongue. “I don’t understand that. He didn’t die. He’s how we found you.” Her head shook. The bed was gone, and Pret stood where it had been. “ But that’s a question for him .” Her chest jumped up and down like someone were trying to escape from inside as the old woman laughed.
    Cynthia beat against the wall until it felt like her bones would break. The walls began to creak. Dust from the drywall puffed out. The room closed in on her like a hand. Blue light began to show through the cracks that became gaps that became a foggy real world, cast in cobalt. The last thing she saw before she passed into unconsciousness was the thing from the hall at school. The last thing she saw was its jittering, horrible face.
    ***
    A cool palm seemed to caress Jonas’ throbbing forehead. Coming in and out of wakefulness, he imagined that it was Elizabeth who’d somehow found him, across worlds, and would smile that smile of hers if he opened his eyes. But they were so heavy, and he didn’t want her to stop touching him. It had been far too long since he’d felt that. He could have sworn that he heard her whisper her love right before full consciousness rushed at him like a possessing spirit and he opened his eyes.
    His head rested half in the mud and half in a slough, its water rocking into his face due to a quartet of ravens bathing several feet away. He moved. They fled. A few squawks and the sound of beating wings against the air followed them. There was no Elizabeth, and he frowned, weakening. Sitting up, he flung his long, wet hair out of his face, then wiped at a wad of mud on his cheek. A deep breath. It was the sole sound to be heard in the woods aside from the low, chirping buzz of locusts. The time he had spent in these woods was a fuzzy mess, in and out of reality. But as he sat there, he felt stable. The mind-quakes were over and he was himself again. How he had gotten there in the first place was still a mystery though. He had a vague impression of teenagers standing in the back of a truck, laughing down at him. But the memory felt untethered, frustratingly without context, like a half-remembered dream that seemed important.
    There was a sloppy sound of wet clothes coming unglued from the muddy ground as he got to his feet. A stone dug into his hand as he pushed himself up and he winced. He held the hand up to examine it. Then, he brought the other up beside it. Neither looked right. They were calloused, thinner, stained. How long had he been gone? Then a more important