"There's no way."

"Why did you guys come back here?" he asks again.

"To get away from my father."

"Really? Why here? Why Solitary?"

"Because that's the only place my mom knows. She wanted to find Uncle Robert."

"Did you ever think that maybe she knew he was already gone?"

I sit in silence. The wind howls, and I feel like finding the nearest blanket and burying myself under it. I don't want to go outside anymore. I don't want to go anywhere.

"All I know is that your mother knows, Chris. I'm just searching for my father. And I'm worried-I'm worried that he still might be alive. For now."

I shake my head. The world feels dizzy.

This isn't really happening, is it?

"I don't get it," I said. "What's going on here? With this town? With everything?"

"I think it all got worse with that pastor. Pastor Marsh. When he came back, things started to happen."

"Came back from where?"

"I don't know-from exploring the world or something. He moved back to this town with ideas and plans. Big plans."

"For what?" My voice sounds hoarse.

"I think that an evil has hovered around this area for a long time. And he was the reason why it suddenly came back. With a vengeance."

"Why haven't you gone for help? Gotten out of this town and tried to get help?"

"Because my dad is missing, man. Plus, I tried. I went a few towns over to a guy that I know. Who's been in our house and eaten at our table. A guy I knew I could trust. And they'd gotten to him. I told him everything I knew-this was half a year ago. I told him about my father missing and then my mother taking off. And about others missing-high school students. The stories-stories that are shared in the middle of the night when nobody else is around. I told him all this, and what does the guy do? He ends up reporting a break-in at his house and claims it was me."

"What?"

"Yeah. And I-there's nowhere to go. Not yet. If I knew my father wasn't alive, then I'd leave here. But that's what they do, Chris."

I think about what they told me. The warning on New Year's Eve.

That's what they do, Chris.

"So what are we going to do?" I ask.

"Listen to me, okay? You have to lie low. For a while."

"Have you been leaving me notes at school?"

He looks surprised at my question, then shakes his head. "What kind of notes?"

"Just notes saying the same thing. To keep to myself. To stay out of trouble."

"Not everyone around this town is like that pastor. The problem is that you don't know who you can trust."

"Yeah, I know."

Jared shifts in his seat and hovers on the edge of it. "Listen, Chris. You gotta trust me. We have to trust each other. Okay?"

For a moment I'm spiraling, doing somersaults down the side of the mountain.

Then I nod.

I have to trust someone.

5. The Ghost in You.

This should be our conversation: "Where've you been?" Mom asks.

"I tried to go into town to reach the authorities to tell them about the ritualistic killing of the only girl I've ever loved in my sixteen years."

"And how'd that work out for you?"

"The big guy guarding the town sent his dog to attack me. Knocked me out, and when I came to I met my cousin, who told me not to trust you."

"Is that right? Hmm. What would you like for dinner? Campbell's soup or a bologna sandwich?"

Instead, our conversation goes something like this: ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."

Because when I come home, Mom is sleeping.

I think she was sleeping when I left.

Of course, in the world I'm living in, I check to make sure she's breathing. She is. I can smell that sweet sickly scent in her bedroom. The bottle of wine must've gone really well with her lunch.

Maybe that's why she's drinking so much. Guilt.

It's late afternoon, and the snow has died down. Jared drove me back home on his snowmobile, which should've been a lot more fun to ride. He didn't say much after we left his place or after we stopped at my driveway. Whatever sun is behind those clouds is already starting to fade away.

Like hope. Like peace.

I'm starving and think that soup and a sandwich sounds really awesome. For an appetizer.

I go into the kitchen. It's really narrow. I think back to our house in Libertyville. The one with the large island in the middle of the kitchen. The new appliances and the open area that fed into the family room. Perfect for entertaining.

This place is perfect for hibernating.

Back in our old house, I could escape my parents by going into the basement, which had a big television with a big couch in front of it. Even though this cabin is resting on what looks like stilts on the side of a mountain, there's no basement to escape to. There is no escape, not from here.

The silence gets to me. I don't remember there ever being a time when it was so dang quiet up north. The television was always on. I was always playing a video game or watching a show or listening to music or talking to my friends. Now the only echoes I hear are my own thoughts. And they're ones I really want to shut up.

The burner is the kind that slowly turns red instead of lighting up with gas. For a long time, I stand and stare at it. The silence feels like Styrofoam packaging surrounding me. I only wish I could be FedExed to a place far away.

My hope comes in Midnight.

The Shih Tzu belonged to Jocelyn, who kept her in an abandoned barn and went out once a day to check on her.

It's a wonderful thing, hope.

I can't believe she said that. And I still can't believe she's gone.

I hold the puppy as I lie in my room, listening to music. Still no Internet, no cable since it went out again, no lifeline to the rest the world. But I can lie on my bed with the angle of the ceiling showing just how narrow our rooftop really is, and I can listen to songs. I can escape with them. Or at least try to play them louder than my thoughts.

The album that's playing is The Psychedelic Furs' Mirror Moves. The lead singer has a heavy English accent, so heavy that it's hard to understand half of what he's saying. That's okay. I'll make up some lyrics that talk about an evil little town in the Smoky Mountains where ghosts whisper and zombies stroll about.

"Chris?"

Mom is standing at the door.

She's got a knife get out of here get out now!

My ludicrous thoughts are surely a result of some old cheese on my sandwich along with lack of sleep and lack of sanity.

I turn down the stereo.

"Where'd you go today?"

"Out."

She glances at me.

Mom doesn't look any different. Yet now all I can think about is what that guy Jared told me. It's crazy, but I really kinda believe him.

"Did you see Jocelyn?"

Her question seems honest and innocent.

I study her to see if I can detect anything.

If she knew, why would she ask that?

I nod.

"I'm surprised she can get around with the roads," Mom says.

"She has four-wheel drive in her Jeep."

She had four-wheel drive. She also had another four decades to live, if not more.

She had a life and a love and something special, and it was all taken away.

It was slit and cut out.

"Did you have enough for dinner?"

The subject of Jocelyn is passed over. Just like the storm outside. Just like everything in life.

"Yeah, I'm full."

"They'll probably call off school tomorrow."

"We won't know because our phone lines are down."

"Are they?"

I look at Mom. She really is clueless.

Maybe she knows something and maybe she doesn't. But this act of hers is no act. This is the booze show, and it's been showing up quite a bit. Slightly out of it, incredibly slow, massively disappointing. She makes some conversation that doesn't go anywhere, then says she'll be downstairs.

That's good, because I'm going to be here.

Right here in my room.

6. Echoes.

I dream of Jocelyn while I'm wide awake.

The wind whines outside while I'm stuck in this tiny raft in the middle of an ocean of darkness. I don't want to look at the clock to remind me how slowly time is passing. I can't imagine another day of this, let alone another year.

I remember riding next to her in her Jeep and listening to her talk over the music on the radio. I remember the day she drove me to the site where the old church once sat and where her parents were buried. I remember standing on the edge of the hill at the Grove Park Inn and looking out over the city and kissing her on the cheek and feeling like we were the only ones in the entire universe.

Something she said pricks me like a rosebush.

It's done I told her.

I thought it had been silly teen games and banter, but she was trying to tell me that it was more.