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  “Could be,” Leda said.

  “The Grey Lady jumped off this roof and the woman in the café said she’s often seen here, so her portal is likely here too. Maybe the Wisp is somewhere in this building.”

  “Perfect,” I said, genuinely relieved. “Let’s search the rest of the building.”

  Harold and I picked up our bags of salt and the three of us walked toward the door. I stopped suddenly.

  “What is it?” Harold asked, his voice a few octaves higher than usual. “V? Do you see another ghost?” He tightened his grip on the wrench.

  I shook my head and picked up what I’d seen that had stopped me in my tracks.

  “A shovel?” Harold said.

  I nodded. “An iron shovel.”

  ***

  We walked through the entire building, all three floors, but found nothing unusual. There were a few off-limits rooms we couldn’t open, but after listening at the doors for a few minutes none of us could hear a sound from the other side. With every passing minute I grew more and more determined to find the Wisp and stop her before she could summon a single ghost, but I was also growing frustrated.

  Think, V. If you were a wisp, where would you go?

  “We saw three ghosts as we approached,” I said. “There are probably two other portals.”

  Leda nodded. “The Wisp could be hiding near one of the other two.”

  “So where’d they die?” I asked. “Do you remember anything, Harold?”

  He shrugged with a frown. “The guide said something about the Sergeant falling down a well, but I have no idea where that could be.”

  I had one of those moments where it felt like a lightbulb had been switched on above my head. “I know someone who might know.”

  I led Harold and Leda back to the café; Harold agreed to take the wrench and shovel and meet me outside in a few minutes. I didn’t think the woman who worked there would be too impressed that we’d borrowed them from the museum, even if I told her they’d saved our lives. Inside, the patrons who had been there before were gone and Maggie was putting the chairs up on the tables.

  “We’re open, dearie,” she said, her voice still sweet as honey. “Just thought I’d get a jump on my closing duties since it’s so quiet today. Did you have any luck finding your ghost?”

  “No,” I lied. “But that’s kind of why I came here. My friend and I heard that maybe there’s another ghost lingering around the well.” I’d gone out on a limb and made that up, of course, but I figured it was worth a shot.

  She shook her head. “Sorry, love. I’ve worked here for over twenty years and I’ve never seen a well.”

  But how could that be? I wanted to scream. Harold was told the Sergeant …

  My eyes settled on the large old-fashioned map on the wall where the customers had sat before.

  I noticed a small circle across the courtyard from the Cavalier Building. The circle was south of the front gate and the noon gun. Beneath the circle, written in calligraphy, was the word Well.

  “Well I’ll be,” Maggie said, then chuckled at her own joke. “I’ve never noticed that before. They must’ve taken out the well and covered the hole years ago.”

  “Thanks for all your help,” I said over my shoulder as I raced out the door.

  I met back up with Harold and Leda and we searched the grounds near the front gate, hoping to find the Wisp before the Sergeant showed up. We raced around most of the courtyard, widening our search, but still didn’t find anything. After a few minutes we circled back to the front gate. Just then, a man materialized out of the fog. My body tensed before I realized it was one of the patrons from the café. He was followed by the other three. They gave Harold and me odd looks — I guessed that was probably because of the shovel and large wrench we now held — as they passed and then were swallowed up by the fog as they exited the fort.

  “Either the Sergeant isn’t here,” I said once we were alone, “or we’re in the wrong place.”

  “Could the map have been wrong?” Leda asked.

  “I doubt it,” Harold said. “It was a military map and—”

  I held up my hand and said, “Wait. What’s that?”

  I thought I had seen some movement, some shadow through the fog — something dark and wide. I couldn’t tell what I thought I’d seen, or if I’d actually seen anything at all. The fog acted like a blanket that cut out all background noise — traffic, birds, wind. It was like we were in a cocoon without any of the safety of the chrysalis, and I suddenly felt very exposed.

  “V?” Harold whispered.

  I continued to stare ahead.

  “V?” Harold whispered again, a little louder and a lot more panicked.

  I took a step forward.

  The shadow slowly revealed itself.

  It was a well — an old, stone water well covered in moss that had definitely not been there a moment ago.

  “What the …?” Leda said.

  A hand slipped over the top row of rock, gripped the lip of the well and pulled up a waterlogged body.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I’d grown mostly accustomed to the sight of ghosts during the past two years. Mostly. But when I watched the Sergeant crawl out of the phantom well and land on the ground of the parade square, all thought left my head.

  He was dressed in a military uniform with a three-bar chevron on each sleeve. On his head was a beret and his boots were black. His clothes were drenched and dripping water, but his body … his body simultaneously repulsed and fascinated me. I couldn’t look away.

  His face was bloated and bluish in colour. His stomach was swollen and stretched his shirt to its breaking point — I supposed his internal organs had soaked up as much water as they could. And the skin of his hands and face was covered in wrinkles. I imagined that his entire body, head to foot, looked like a giant, pale blue raisin. The thought made me feel like throwing up.

  “You cannot stop the Wisp. We will make sure of that,” the Sergeant said. Brackish, bloody water bubbled out of his mouth and dribbled down his chin as he spoke.

  “That’s disgusting,” Harold said.

  I steadied my nerves and raised my chin, wishing I had a giant megaphone with me. “By ‘we’ do you mean you and the other two ghosts in the fort?”

  The Sergeant nodded.

  “I’ve got news for you,” I said, feeling a little like an actor playing a part on a TV show like Screamers. “We’ve already beaten the Grey Lady.”

  A brief look of shock passed over the Sergeant’s face. “No matter. There’s still me … and the girl.”

  I gripped the shovel a little tighter and stood up straighter. “We’re not afraid of you,” I said, trying my best to sound convincing.

  A crooked smile spread slowly across the Sergeant’s face. “You should be afraid. If not of me, then definitely of her.”

  I laughed once. “She’s what? Eight years old? I’m pretty sure we can handle her.”

  The Sergeant didn’t respond. His sick smile stretched wider. I realized that his gaze had shifted from me to something to my left.

  Harold and Leda turned around and looked at whatever held the Sergeant’s full attention.

  I didn’t turn to look. I had a feeling, and it wasn’t good.

  “She’s right behind me, isn’t she?” I said.

  “Tick-tock.” It was a young, high-pitched voice at my back. She sounded close. Too close.

  I turned around slowly. It felt like I was moving underwater, like I was fighting a gentle resistance in the air.

  Standing a metre or two away was the Cuckoo Girl. She had round cheeks, dark eyes and the top of her head came up to my chin. Her dress was black, her skin glowed faintly and her hair was white — but it didn’t look like it had always been that shade. She didn’t look angry or intimidating or vengeful. She looked sad.

  Just then the Cuckoo Girl’s face flickered, as if she had two faces — one visible, one hidden. The eyes on this second face, which I’d only seen for a heartb
eat or two, burned with anger; her lips pulled back, revealing her teeth like a wolf on the prowl.

  For a moment I felt like giving up. I considered tossing my shovel and salt to the ground, raising my hands in the air and slowly walking away. But how much time would that buy me? Enough to find Grandma and tell her I loved her one last time before the Wisp emptied the Netherrealm and her spirits killed us all?

  And besides, I was far too competitive to admit defeat or to give up. I looked at Harold and Leda; they didn’t look like warriors, but we’d made it this far and we had beat the Grey Lady together. If either was considering giving up, their stony faces didn’t show it.

  We could do this.

  We would do this.

  “You two take the Sergeant,” I said to Harold and Leda. I didn’t bother trying to conceal my words. We were past that. “I’ll take her.”

  “I have all the time in the world,” the Cuckoo Girl said in a sweetly innocent tone. “But your time is about to end.”

  I charged.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I swung the shovel. The Cuckoo Girl ducked it easily, using her size to her advantage. I had hoped that by charging her so suddenly she’d be caught off guard and I could end the fight before it had begun, but no such luck.

  “Nice try,” she said, “but you’ll have to do better than that.”

  That was my plan. I swung again the moment she finished speaking, but she flew backwards out of my reach. She was clearly scared of the shovel and hadn’t taken her eyes off it since I’d first charged her.

  “I was there, you know,” she said. “I saw what happened to the Grey Lady when your friend, that boy, hit her with the wrench.”

  She pointed at Harold when she said “that boy.” He and Leda were doing a good job keeping the Sergeant on his toes, circling him on opposite sides so that he couldn’t attack them at the same time. Don’t get too close, Harold, I thought. Be careful.

  “You were in the museum,” I said, turning my attention back to the Cuckoo Girl, “and you didn’t do anything to stop us from hurting the Grey Lady?”

  “I don’t care about her,” she said with a sneer.

  “Then why are you helping the Wisp?”

  “Simple: I want to watch the world burn.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the world did nothing to save me.” Her face fell again, only this time I suspected her sadness wasn’t a mask. “One minute I’m here with my parents, the next I’m dead and I have no idea how. All I know is no one protected me — not my parents, not the soldiers — no one! Everyone moved on. I was left behind. So I watch. And I follow. Sometimes I grab people’s hands. Sometimes my touch hurts them. Sometimes …” Her eyes were glassy and unfocused. “Sometimes my touch kills them.”

  I tried not to imagine all the people who the Cuckoo Girl had killed over the years, people who had likely been suspected of dying from other causes, like a heart attack or a stroke.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said. Maybe I could get her to change her mind. Maybe it wasn’t too late. But those were a couple of big maybes. “What the Wisp wants … is good for no one. Not you or me or my friends. Once we’re all ghosts, she’s going to use us however she wants.”

  The Cuckoo Girl cocked her head to the side and considered this for a moment. I started to think my words had actually gotten through to her, but then she shrugged.

  “I don’t care,” she said.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Harold throw his wrench at the Sergeant. It sailed wide and missed the ghost by half a metre.

  I felt doubt roll into my mind like a thundercloud. It made me wonder if this was a game I couldn’t win. No, it was worse than wondering. The feeling was closer to knowing.

  I knew I wouldn’t be able to save myself. I knew I wouldn’t be able to save my friends. I knew I wouldn’t be able to save anyone, just like I couldn’t save my parents.

  “Enough,” I said, startling myself a little with the sound of my voice. I hadn’t meant to speak out loud.

  “What?” the Cuckoo Girl asked. She paced left and right, keeping her eyes on the shovel, looking, I knew, for a weakness, some way she could attack me.

  “I said ‘enough.’ Your parents are gone.”

  The Cuckoo Girl gave me a curious look, her eyes narrowed. There was anger in her stare.

  I didn’t know my parents appearing the night before they died was anything but a dream, so how could I have helped them? I couldn’t have. But this time, if I allowed doubt to convince me that I couldn’t save myself, my friends or anyone else, I wouldn’t get to walk away — if I got to walk away at all — with a clear conscience. Because I did have the chance to help. I did have the ability to do something. I just had to let go of my guilt, the same guilt that made me quit sports and spend most of my free time the past two years pressing buttons and “living” in one fictional world after the other.

  Enough, I told myself one more time.

  I lunged at the Cuckoo Girl and her eyes went wide. Maybe she finally saw me as a threat or maybe she just thought I was as crazy as she was, but she flew away. Not just a few metres, but all the way to the top of the wall above the front entrance.

  I turned to see how Harold and Leda were doing. My heart sank. They weren’t doing well.

  Unarmed, Harold had no defence against the Sergeant. He tried to dodge an attack but the Sergeant wrapped his arms around Harold’s shoulders. Harold yelled out in pain — it sounded like he was being burned alive.

  The Cuckoo Girl had said she’d killed people simply by touching them, and from the sounds that were coming out of Harold it was clear the Sergeant could do the same.

  Harold was going to die. They were far away. I raised the shovel and began to run, hoping I would make it in time.

  But I didn’t need to.

  Leda looked from the Sergeant to the wrench Harold had thrown. It had landed close to her feet.

  The Sergeant dragged Harold backwards to the well. Harold yelled and moaned, gut-wrenching sounds that began to dwindle as he lost strength. His arms fell limp at his sides and he stopped kicking his feet.

  Harold was completely at the Sergeant’s will. The ghost pulled Harold onto the edge of the well.

  Leda bent down. She reached out her hand. She paused, but only for a brief second. And then she grabbed the iron wrench and quickly stood back up. She yelled out in pain and her body began to dissolve almost immediately.

  “No!” I yelled, willing my legs to run faster.

  Leda threw the wrench with the last of her strength. It flew through the air, end over end, with a whoosh-whoosh-whoosh sound and struck the Sergeant’s forehead as he pulled Harold down into the well.

  Both Leda and the Sergeant turned into the same smoke-like light as the Grey Lady, and their dust swirled in the air for a moment before streaming down into the earth. The Sergeant’s well did the same, and Harold fell through the air a short distance and landed on the ground. He lay on his back, unmoving.

  I stopped running with a halt. Not because I didn’t know if my friend was dead or alive. Not because the ghost who had helped us make it this far had sacrificed herself to save Harold. Because an explosion had filled the air above my head. It was so loud that I thought the Wisp had blown up the world, but then I remembered something Leda had written in her notebook:

  Finally, a noise loud enough to be heard down in the depths of the Netherrealm needs to be created, signalling to all that it is time to rise.

  I looked up and saw the Cuckoo Girl. She was standing atop the Citadel’s wall, beside a smoking canon. The noon gun.

  She was smiling like a kid on Christmas morning.

  The ground trembled slightly. The tremble turned into a shake. The shake became a quake. A terrible sound of rocks splitting and grinding and tumbling filled the air.

  I spun around just in time to see the centre of the Citadel’s courtyard split in half. A haze of foggy blue light filtered out of the earth and lit the fort.<
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  And then the first ghost crawled out of the jagged hole, followed by a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth … Soon there were ten, twenty, fifty …

  Hundreds.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The ghosts filled the parade square, each one more nightmarish than the last.

  Most might have passed for living, except for the telltale blue glow surrounding them and their dead eyes. But then there were the others …

  There was a man who more closely resembled a skeleton than a spirit; a woman with no lips and exposed blood-stained teeth; a skinny man nearly seven feet tall with no face — just a thick membrane of skin where his eyes, nose and mouth should’ve been. A young girl — not the Cuckoo Girl — whose hair was on fire; a pair of identical twins who crawled across the ground like spiders; a sad clown, his face paint smeared and his colourful outfit torn to shreds; a person — I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman — whose body inexplicably looked like it had been turned inside out.

  And still they kept on coming.

  There was nothing we could do. We were trapped.

  “Listen, Harold,” I said, feeling oddly at peace. “If you want to run I won’t blame you. I’ll hold them back as long as I can and give you a head start.”

  He looked like he might cry or throw up or pass out — maybe one after the other — but he shook his head. “No. I’m staying with you.” He picked up the wrench and stood close to my side.

  I nodded. “Good. We might not stand a chance, but let’s take down as many of these creatures as possible.”

  Harold returned my nod, but then he frowned. “Wait,” he said, and ran a few metres away.

  “Harold? What are you doing?”

  The first ghost — Skeleton Man — was closing in fast and would be at my throat in seconds.

  Harold grabbed our Pete’s Fine Foods bags and raced back to my side. He dropped them, took out a box of salt, opened it and poured its contents in a circle around us. He closed the circle just as Skeleton Man reached us. The ghost stopped as suddenly as if he’d run face first into an invisible force field.