Virginia Coast Psychiatric Detention Center sits atop a hill, a wide three-story brick building that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. The majority of the dark roof is hidden beneath pregnant gray clouds that threaten to break at any given moment, and lawn lights flash onto the building, revealing cracks and chips to prove just how old the building is.
We passed a gate where a security guard stood in a security box and asked for identification. Now, after four hours of being on the road, I’m driving into the parking lot, the wipers on the windshield swinging every few seconds to combat the light drizzle.
It’s a gray day, cast with rain and fog, and of course it would rain today, when I’m already paranoid and don’t know what to expect. I normally love rain, but not when it comes to visiting a place like this. What the hell was I even thinking by coming here? I should just drive away right now.
I breathe as evenly as possible and find myself parking. When the car is still, I glance at Caz who has his eyes trained on the building. I look over my shoulder at Faye who is chewing her bottom lip so hard she’ll probably make it bleed.
“Stop doing that,” I hiss at her.
Her eyes swing to mine, and she stops chewing immediately. “Sorry. Lost in thought.”
“Are we ready?” I ask, shutting the engine off.
Caz drops his eyes to his coat, lifting one side of it and revealing the Blackwater gun. “You’re sure I can’t take my gun?”
“I’m positive you can’t take it. They’re most likely going to check us for weapons and other things.”
“Which, by the way, you shouldn’t take personally, okay?” Faye adds, as if she’s talking to a toddler. “Security checks are protocol in places like this.”
Caz removes the gun from the inside pocket of his coat and slides it beneath the passenger seat. “Don’t patronize me,” he grumbles over his shoulder. “There’d better not be any funny business going on.”
“We’ll talk to Phil, get the information we need, and then get out,” I assure him.
I say the words, but even as I get out of the car and peer up at the building, I feel an uncomfortable buzz ride through me, and my gut forms into a block of lead. I shake it off though and shut the car door behind me as Faye leads the way to the building.
We approach the door, where Faye pushes her thumb on a large button next it. The double doors clink and spread apart, groaning on the hinges, and we walk inside to a sterile white lobby. Ahead are two security guards—a man and woman—dressed in black and standing with metal detector wands in hand, and to our right is the check-in desk, where a woman in all white with red hair sits in a chair behind it, clacking away on a computer.
Her green eyes flicker up to us, and she does a double take as she rises from her chair. Her name badge reads Elana.
“Can I help you?” she asks with a practiced smile.
“Hi, yes. We’re here to visit Phil Patterson. I’m his cousin, Faye.” Faye trots toward the desk, smiling, just as she practiced. Because that’s one thing she didn’t find out until we were already on the road—that the only visitors who come here must be family or with a family member.
The woman cocks her head. “Hmm. That’s interesting. Mr. Patterson has never had visitors before.”
Caz stiffens next to me, but Faye continues a smile with a sappy sigh. “I know. Sad right? See, here’s the thing,” she says, folding her arms on the countertop. Elana almost frowns at the gesture. “I’ve been so upset with Phil—for years, really. I just…I hate that he’s in here. We weren’t just cousins growing up, we were best friends, and I couldn’t bear seeing him in this place. But I’ve had a life change—you know how that goes, right? And I’ve realized life is way too short to be selfish with my time.”
Elana raises her chin, studying Faye a moment before swinging her eyes to Caz and me. “And you brought others with you for a first-time visit?”
“They’re friends. We all used to hang out together.”
“Only family is allowed, I’m afraid.”
“Sure, but can’t you allow a mild exception? As you stated, Phil never has visitors. I can’t guarantee that I’ll make it all the way out here to see him again. I’d hate for him to miss out on seeing all of us.”
Elana’s eyes twitch as she studies all of us again. “Just a moment.” She sits in her chair, picking up a corded cream phone from the receiver and punching numbers into the base. She cuts her eyes at all three of us again with a suspicious onceover, then says into the phone, “Do you have a list of approved relatives for Phil Patterson?” She pauses. “There is a young woman here named Faye saying she’s his cousin, but I don’t recall him ever having visitors.”
Oh, fuck.
I stare at the back of Faye’s head, hoping she’ll turn to look at me so we can get the hell out of here. Clearly, this woman knows we aren’t family and are wasting her time. But Faye doesn’t break. She continues looking at the woman with a confident smile. Caz shifts on his feet, peering around the lobby with unease. I bet he’s wishing he had his gun.
The woman’s eyes round as she lowers her gaze. “Oh—uh, really? Are you sure? All right. I’ll send them back.” Elana hangs up the phone then pastes on a smile as she gestures to the sign-in sheet on the counter. “Please sign in and I’ll show you the way.”
Wait…what?!
When we’re signed in and past security, Elana meets us on the other side. It’s clear she’s not satisfied with Faye seemingly telling the truth by the smile she wears that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“How did you just do that?” I whisper to Faye.
“Remember Kaiden?”
“The guy who hacked into your Instagram account?”
“Yeah, well, he owed me a favor—the jackass. I may or may not have asked him to hack into the files here to put my name on Phil’s visitor list. He said it was pretty easy, actually.”
My eyebrows are nearly touching my forehead. “Shit.”
“See?” She smirks. “I’m not completely useless.”
“A professional liar though, I see,” Caz mumbles next to me.
Faye cuts her eyes at him with stitched brows.
Elana approaches a white door, swiping her badge across a black box to unlock it. She holds the door open for us, and we step into a bright room that smells like bleach and Pine-Sol. The walls are painted a pale shade of green, and ahead is a floor-to-ceiling window revealing the ocean and a miniature black and white lighthouse in the distance. There can’t be any more than four or five tables centered throughout the room, each with two or three plastic, blocky seats beneath them. A single green leather sofa is against the far-right wall, shining heavily beneath the lights like it’s been wiped cleaned more than once today.
This room is spotless, yet nothing about it is welcoming. There are no portraits on the walls, no TVs (which makes sense), not even any flowers to show a little cheerfulness. It’s all so empty and lifeless.
“We’ve let Phil know you’re here. Security will be bringing him along. For your safety and Phil’s, we lock the door from the outside, but when you’re ready to go, just push the buzzer right here—” She taps at a black box on the wall— “and someone will let you out.” Elana holds steady for a moment, eyeing each of us again, then she huffs before leaving the room. When she’s gone, her heels click-clacking in the distance, I take a look around with a relieved sigh.
“For your information, Caz, I’m not a liar,” Faye blurts out when Caz approaches one of the windows. “What I did back there was a white lie, which helped us, by the way.”
“If that’s what you believe, so be it,” Caz says.
“Why do you even care?” she hisses. “I may have lied, but you’re violent. You kill people for a living.”
Caz frowns over his shoulder. “Are those more lies you feed yourself to feel better?
“Jesus Christ.” Frustrated, Faye slips out of her pink teddy coat and sits on one of the plastic chairs. I’m glad she stops arguing because I can’t stand the bickering. They’ve been taking verbal jabs at each other since the car ride started. Faye, though she was rooting for Garrett’s demise, clearly isn’t pleased about Caz’s rash decision or leaving me stranded in the parking lot. And Caz is just…well, Caz. He doesn’t like anyone outside his clan.
“You put her in danger,” Faye had argued during the drive. “Someone could’ve blamed her for what you did! What if someone saw you stuff him in your trunk?”
“No one saw us,” Caz shot back.
Their arguing went on and on for thirty minutes—on and off. They kept talking about what was good for me, what I needed, what worse could have been done, until I told them both to kindly shut the hell up. To my luck, Faye shoved her AirPods into her ears to tune everything out, and Caz huffed and grumbled about how he’d do it again as he stared out the window.
They’re at odds, which I find a bit comical because Faye for me is just like Killian for Caz—overprotective and defiant. She’s only looking out for her friend, just as Killian was only looking out for his cousin. I can’t even imagine Faye and Killian in the same room. They’d have each other in a headlock, I bet.
I take the seat across from Faye, looking her up and down. “Are you two gonna argue the whole time you’re around each other?”
“No,” she quips. “Only when he messes up. If he’s your mate and you’re bound to him or whatever, he needs to make sure he doesn’t do stupid shit like that ever again. If you die because of that hijo de puta, I swear I’ll find a way to that Vakeeli place and strangle him myself. I’m not even kidding. You’re my best friend, and no one is gonna take that from me.” She turns her head, throwing daggers at Caz’s back with her eyes. I look at Caz, and when he glances over his shoulder, I’m surprised to see him smirking. Though annoyed, he also finds her protectiveness amusing.
“This coming from the one who says violence isn’t the answer,” he laughs.
“Whatever. Where is this guy?” Faye sits up in her seat, and as she does, a buzzer goes off and double doors on the opposite side of the room spread apart.
Two men stand there, one in a security uniform and the other dressed in a dingy beige sweatsuit. The man in beige is short with a bald head and wiry glasses on the bridge of his nose. His skin is sable, his lips plump, wrinkles on his forehead from scrunching his face to see us. It’s Phil, though he looks nothing like the video anymore. It seems he’s aged ten years, and the glasses don’t help his case.
He looks at me and Faye, and then at Caz who remains standing by the window.
“Let me know when you’re ready to head back,” the security guard says to Phil, then he leaves the room, shutting the doors and conjuring another loud buzz.
“Now, wait a minute.” The man places his hands on his hips, eyeing all three of us again. “I should’ve known this was a setup. I ain’t ever seen y’all a day in my life.” The man’s voice is slightly high-pitched, and he has a southern accent, just like the videos.
“You must be Phil.” I stand to fully face him.
“That’d be me.” He drops his arms. “And who the hell are you?”
I look around the room at the cameras before putting my focus on him again. “Would you like to sit?”
“I will, when you tell me who you are.”
“You know me.” I laugh, widening my eyes, and he angles his head. Then he glances at the cameras, and his eyes narrow the moment it registers. For a split second, it seems he’s going to call for security with the way he shifts on his feet and tosses me a wary look, but then he nods and points a finger at me.
“Right—you’re the ol’ girl from the theater.” He walks closer to me, and as he does, Caz turns fully, watching his every move.
Noticing the motion, Phil looks back at Caz, twists his lips, then makes his way to the table where Faye is. I pull up an extra chair as he sits. Caz remains standing, keeping an observant eye.
“Tell me who the hell y’all really are and what the hell y’all want from me,” Phil says in a low voice, his elbows on the table. His elbows are ashy, and I have the urge to take the hand lotion out of my bag and squirt some into his hand so he can use it.
“I’m Willow, and this is my best friend, Faye.”
“And that angry man in the corner?” Phil inquires, pointing a thumb back.
“That’s Caz…and he’s the reason we’re here,” I inform him. “We, um…we read about you and your fiancée. About the reason you’re here, in this place.”
Phil straightens in his chair then, his brown eyes turning serious behind his glasses. “If y’all are journalists or these new social media reporters or whatever, you can get the hell out right now. I already told my story, and I ain’t repeating it.”
“No, no, we believe you,” Faye says, raising a hand to calm him.
Phil cocks a brow.
“We drove from North Carolina to come talk to you in person after hearing your story.” Faye glances at me for reassurance, and I bob my head. “We’re hoping you can tell us what you saw that day.”
Phil is quiet as he looks between us. “Why you wanna talk to me about it? Did it happen to you too?”
“Sort of,” I answer with a shrug.
“We read your blog posts. We’re just trying to put the pieces together about all of this portal stuff.” Faye crosses her arms on the table. “Can you tell us what all happened that day?”
Phil narrows his eyes. “What you got on you?”
I look from him to Faye, mildly confused. “Um…what do you mean?”
“Got anything sweet on you? I ain’t had nothing sweet in a long time. They never give us treats. Says it messes with our brain chemistry or something like that, but something sweet here and there ain’t gone kill us.” He scratches the scruff on his chin. “Wish I had a Snicker or something.”
Faye’s eyes swing to me, and she lifts her hands in the air, the gesture screaming I’ve got nothing.
“Um…” I bring my tote bag onto my lap and dig through it. To my luck, I find a watermelon Jolly Rancher and an Andes mint. Both have probably been in the bottom of my bag for months, but he won’t know that. I place them on the center of the table. “That’s all I’ve got.”
Phil’s eyes drop to the candies, then he glances at me before collecting them swiftly, hiking his shoulders, and peering around the room, like this is a drug-dealing situation. I can’t help looking at Faye again. Her eyes are wide and lips are pressed, and she’s probably thinking what I’m thinking: this may not have been a good idea.
“All right, so where do I start? Let me see…” He unravels the sticky wrapper of the Jolly Rancher and pops it into his mouth. “Mmm. Damn. I ain’t had one of these in years. It’s good.”
Caz steps closer. “Tell us what happened.”
“All right, all right. Hold on, man. Let me savor this shit. I just told you we ain’t allowed to have sugar in this place.”
Caz refrains from rolling his eyes.
“All right, so yeah, you read the blog posts, so you know the story about Marney. How is my blog doing anyway? Never mind. Look, I ain’t lying about it. She really did disappear out of nowhere. We were hiking, right? And it was mad early in the morning. She wanted to go to McAfee Knob to see the stars at four in the damn morning and then watch the sun rise, and I would’ve done anything for her, so I went. We were walking a trail that leads to the top of a hill and chilled for a second. Then the sun came up and we took pictures, ate a couple of sandwiches and snacks, but when we came back down, that’s when we saw it.” He leans in, ashy elbows on the table. “It didn’t look real at first. It was like blue glitter or something floating in the air. And Marney, man, she was nosy as hell. Always so damn adventurous and wanting to know everything, and I told her to leave it alone, ’cause I ain’t gone lie to you. I believe in aliens and shit. Like those motherfuckers are out there, probably watching us, and all I could think in that moment was that some alien was about to pop up and abduct our asses. But Marney, she kept going toward it, even though I kept yelling for her to come back.” He shakes his head, defeat washing over him. “She tried to touch it, and the next thing I know, she’s gone.” He spreads his fingers, eyes widening. “Just disappeared out of nowhere. And when she did, all that glitter disappeared too. Wasn’t even there no more. I looked all around that forest for her, spent hours calling her name, going back to that spot, trying to see if it would take me too, but nothing happened, and I didn’t know what to do, so I called the cops. But they didn’t buy my story. They kept interrogating me, asking if we argued, had a fight—crazy shit, you know? Always wanna assume a black man hurt his woman, but I never laid a finger on Marney, or any woman for that matter. I’m a good man.” He adds the last sentence with more gumption, like he needs us to believe it.
I nod, waiting for him to continue.
“Nobody could help me, and her family—man, she has this brother, Antoine, who always picked on me. He was an asshole, so you know he blamed me, started calling me all kinds of names, said he was gonna kill me because I did something to his sister. And I couldn’t sleep after what happened. I kept going back to McAfee, hoping I’d find her, but I never did. So, I started doing some research about what I saw, thinking maybe that would help me get some answers. And when I tell you I fell down a rabbit hole, I did. Did you know there are people out here selling organs they don’t need for two hundred dollars, sometimes less? And that some people worship jellyfish? I’m talking, capture the jellyfish, place them in a tank on an altar, and bow down to them. That’s crazy, right?”
“Stick to the point,” Caz says, irritation lacing his voice.
“Ay, man. What’s your problem?” Phil snaps, but it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s sucking so hard on that Jolly Rancher. “Why you so mad?”
“I’m not mad. We simply don’t have time to sit here listening to you talk about organs and jellyfish,” Caz tells him.
“All right, all right, Fine. Whatever. So anyway, I did my digging, and I came across this website about a man who got his legs.”
“A man who got his legs?” I repeat, confused.
“Yeah. This man said he found a woman who helped him walk. He was a paraplegic, legs didn’t work. Wheelchair bound, you know the deal. But he wrote about how he met this woman in New Orleans during a trip. Said the woman saw him and promised she could make him walk. He didn’t believe her, but he kept thinking about what she could offer, so he went back to her. She recited a whole bunch of mumbo-jumbo, told him to close his eyes, and he’d see a blue light. When he saw it, she told him to go to the light, and he’d walk. And he did. He said he saw the light and felt like he’d been suctioned into another place. The man walked—only he wasn’t walking here, on Earth. He swears he was somewhere else. Somewhere where the world was richer, the trees greener—he was free, and he said he was running. He could feel his legs, his feet on the ground, the grass between his toes, all that. He said it was the best experience of his life, and you know it was because he kept paying this woman just to feel himself walking. He became addicted to the feeling. He swears it was real. The man went into debt because he kept going back to her.” He shifts the Jolly Rancher to his right cheek.
“Anyway, it wasn’t the fact that she helped him feel like he could walk that got my attention. It was how he mentioned being sucked into a blue light, like a portal or something, and it reminded me of the glitter I saw. I reached out to him, and he kept telling me to trust the portals—that the portals are our friends—that we’re capable of all things through them. Some mad shit that I didn’t really care about. I asked for the woman’s information, and he gave it to me, and I went all the way to New Orleans to see her…and I shit you not, she showed me the portal too.” Phil’s eyes are nearly bulging through his glasses. “I was so close to it, but she closed it up right when I was about to reach it, said I had to pay her $5,000 if I wanted to see Marney again.”
Faye gasps. “Seriously?”
“Yep. And I was willing to do anything for Marney, but I ain’t have the money then, right? So, I took the money out of Marney’s bank account. Her brother caught me and started accusing me of crazy stuff—about how I hired someone to take her, get rid of her, just to have her money. Cause Marney was a big shot—I forgot to tell y’all that. She owned this Tex-Mex restaurant called Bodega’s. Big in the V.A. Made good money. And her brother thought I set her up just to take her money.”
“Well? Did you?” Caz probes, and Phil frowns, turning in his chair to glare at him.
“Fuck you, man! I’d never do anything like that! Marney was gonna be my wife!”
“Caz,” I snap, glaring at him before focusing on Phil again. “Please don’t take anything he says personally, Phil. He’s…still learning.”
Phil’s anger radiates off of him, and I turn my head to shoot a glare at Caz again. If he doesn’t stop with the snark, we’ll never get this woman’s information. Caz raises a hand, as if he gets the point.
“Listen, Phil. Caz isn’t from here,” I say, putting my attention on him again. “He’s from another universe. A place called Vakeeli.”
Phil’s eyes stretch as he observes Caz deeper. “Shit.”
“Yeah, and right now he’s in a lot of danger. We both are, actually. We’re just trying to find someone from here who can help us. This woman who showed you the portal…what was her name?”
Phil tugs on his bottom lip, thinking about it. “She went by Effie, I think.”
“And do you know where exactly in New Orleans we can find her?”
“When I went, she had a shop close to the French Quarter. A place called Yakaree, or something like that—smelled like incense and fish in there, and she had these little animal skulls—”
“Did you just say Yakaree?” Caz moves in closer, eyes locked on Phil. His face is paler, the blueness seeming to have melted away from his eyes. I frown. What’s gotten into him?
“Yeah, that. You say it just like her.” Phil chuckles, but Caz is not laughing. His face is grim.
“Caz, what’s going on?” I ask.
“Whoever this woman is, we can’t go to her.” His words come out without hesitation. “We’ll have to find someone else.”
“Why?” I counter. He can’t be serious. “We’re so close to a possibility. We don’t have time to look anywhere else, Caz.”
His eyes swing to mine. “Yakaree is a Vakeeli term for someone who will soon meet their demise. This woman…her energy can’t be good if that’s the title she’s running around with.” He looks at Phil. “What happened to the man who got his legs?”
“Last I heard, he was living with his mother. Lost his job. Drowning in a bunch of debt. Probably gave everything he had to that woman just to keep feeling like he was walking,” says Phil.
Caz points his gaze to me. “Willow, I’m not sure about this.”
“Do you think she’ll hurt us?”
Caz blinks, then lowers his head. “I don’t know.”
“But who else can we go to?”
A pause. Then another, “I don’t know.”
I release a frustrated sigh.
“Yakaree can mean so many things. Perhaps she means a financial demise, or mental,” Caz goes on, pacing a bit. “Phil here was caught taking money so he could give it to her, and the man who found his legs lost all his money by giving it to her.” Caz rubs his forehead, trying to wipe away the frown.
“We have to try,” I tell him. “She could be from Vakeeli, which could help us. If Beatrix got us here, then maybe this woman tried what Beatrix did on herself and ended up here.”
“It’s possible, but why the hell would she be hiding here, on Earth?” he asks.
“We can only find out if we meet her.” I turn to Phil. “Thank you, Phil. We won’t bother you anymore.”
“Yeah, and sorry about your fiancée,” Faye adds, standing.
“Y’all really going to that Effie woman?” Phil probes.
I look at Caz hesitantly. His brows are puckered, forehead wrinkled as he stares out the window. He doesn’t want to do this, but we have no choice. What other option do we have? Someone here has a link to Vakeeli, and we can use it.
“Well,” Phil says when we don’t respond. “Good luck to you on that one. But if it were me, I wouldn’t go anywhere near that money hungry witch again.”
