The call from the police takes your quartet west of town, to Plumtree Road. The very name fills you with dread, for it's a road that winds into a hilly part of the countryside, and is notorious for its dangerous switchbacks. "Accident" and "Plumtree" are two words you never want to hear in close proximity to each other.
It's near just such a switchback that you find a cluster of patrol cars, and your heart plunges when you see the ambulance. Paramedics are just stepping onto the road, heaving a gurney up the hillside with them.
Something is resting on it. Robert puts his hand in yours, and you squeeze it back.
Frank parks, and with a curt word orders the rest of your party to wait in the cab as he goes out to speak to an officer. You watch anxiously as he has a long conversation with the man. They talk and point, down the hillside, up the road, and at the truck at you. The officer at one point takes Frank to the ambulance and lets him climb into the back. He's there for only a minute, though, before he climbs back out. There's more talk, which lasts until after the ambulance, lights flashing, has departed.
Frank looks very grim as he trudges back over to the truck. He climbs in, starts the truck, buckles himself in, and backs into the road to return to town before he speaks.
"Well, it's your family's SUV", he says. "What's left of it. The cops say it's a total loss down there in the ravine. But the license plate matches. Oh, by the way", he adds, "Joe and I are cousins of yours. That's what I told Officer Mueller."
"Get to the point, Frank", Joe snaps. "You're not sparing anyone by dragging it out."
"There was one occupant in the car", Frank says. "It wasn't your mom and it wasn't your dad, at least not by the looks of it. It wasn't the professor, either. Though, again, looks can be deceiving."
"Well, who the fuck was it?", Joe demands, speaking for you as well.
"It was a male. Early teens." Frank touches the tip of his tongue to his lips, and squints at the road. "They let me look at him, and I identified him. I had to, because they'd have identified him anyway. I identified him as Robert Prescott."
You're too stunned to say anything. Even Joe takes a moment to find his tongue. "The one who knocked us out yesterday and ran off?", he says.
"I assume so."
"So it was the professor!"
"We can't assume that, Joe."
Your chest is starting to hurt, but you force out the question anyway. "Why did you tell them it was Robert?", you demand. "I mean ... Robert's right here! If they take him to the— Where are they taking him?"
"Keyserling Memorial. He appears to be in a coma."
"Well, how can my brother be at Keyserling and with us at the same time?", you demand. "How are we going to explain—? I've got an aunt and an uncle in town! And a cousin! A real one!"
"That's why I had to identify him. Because if I didn't, they would. And you're going to have to talk to the cops about your mom and dad, Prescott", Frank concludes. "You're going to have to tell them they've gone missing. Because they are not going to be coming out to see 'Robert', are they?"
The world reels, and you want to faint.
--
Frank drives you all back to the place he shares with Joe, and he remains there with a dumbstruck Robert while Joe drives you up to the hospital. You give your name at the front desk, but are intercepted there by two uniformed policemen who ask you to give them a statement. Fortunately, on the drive up, Joe had given you a simple cover story you could relate to the police. It's close enough to the truth that you don't stumble and contradict yourself as you relate it:
I came home Sunday afternoon after studying with friends. They came home with me and found the house empty. My parents and brother were gone. I didn't have any texts from them, and there wasn't a note. When I got worried I tried calling them, but they never answered. I stayed overnight with one of my cousins while another cousin stayed at my house to watch for them. The SUV was gone, and we called to report it stolen so maybe the police would start looking for it and for them. We were killing time when we heard about the accident.
You replay the reality in your mind as you give this story, and it feels like the scene from a horror movie.
The cops go over it with you again, and they ask about your parents and what they do. When they ask why you didn't call your aunt and uncle, you stammer and blush and tell them that you were confused and didn't know whether you should alarm them.
Finally, they let you leave so you can see your brother – or whatever's passing off as him. Joe follows you up. You're quietly debriefing him on what you told the police, when around the corner come two people that you know very well.
One is your Aunt Mary, who is dabbing at her reddened eyes with a crumpled-up Kleenex. The other is your Uncle Scott, who has his arm around hers. You mutter a bad word and spin around to put your back to them.
"Bad news?", Joe asks you in a low voice.
"My aunt and uncle. I don't want to talk to them."
"You're going to have to", Joe says. "Sooner or later. Hate to say it, Prescott, but you're going to be moving in with them, probably."
Moving in with them. And with Umeko. A month ago, that would have been a consolation in the current disaster. Now it means nothing.
Joe grips you by the arm. "Don't make this harder than it has to be", he tells you. "Turn around. It'll look awful if you're trying to hide."
But I do want to hide, you think as you spin slowly around again. And, fiercely to yourself, you pray, Don't see me, don't see me, walk on past, don't see me. But you raise your eyes to look them in the face.
Closer they come, and they look up and look directly at Joe—
—and after giving him the tiniest of acknowledging smiles, they walk right on past without so much as glancing at you. You and Joe both turn to watch their retreating backs as they go down the hall and disappear around a corner.
"I thought you said that was your aunt and uncle", Joe says in an accusing voice.
"It was!"
"They didn't seem to know you."
Your mouth works, but you can only shrug.
"In fact", Joe says slowly, and when you glance over he is giving you a very hard look, "they didn't even seem to see you."
You can only shrug. "Well, come on", Joe says, and he grasps your elbow. "Let's go see what we shall see." He pulls you on stumbling feet down the hallway.
It is your brother in the room. It looks just like him, even through the bruises and contusions on his face. He is hooked up with wires and tubes all over. It's not Robert, you remind yourself as you bend over him. This is a fake. An evil twin. Bobby is back home with Frank.
"Promise me you're not going to scream?", Joe murmurs in your ear.
"Why would I scream?"
"Because we're going to take his face off. See who's underneath."
You sway on your feet. "Hold it", you say as Joe grasps Robert's face. You grip the side of the bed. "Okay, go."
Joe leans over the figure and murmurs under his breath. The knuckles of his hand whiten, and he pulls. A mask comes away in his hand.
The face underneath is very white, unnaturally so. It is so white that it takes you a moment to recognize it.
When you do, Joe has to muffle your scream.
--
"Cadaver", Joe says. "The cocksucker seemed to gloat over it." He taps the notebook. "He doesn't just write the word, he writes it in sigil form."
You're back at his place with him and Frank and Robert. Joe had hustled you out of the hospital after your near-breakdown and rushed you back. You are now slumped on the sofa, feeling as though you've been melted into a pudding, while the others sit in on the floor before you. Robert is sprawled on his side, his eyes closed, and you suspect that he feels as bad, if not worse, than you do. And you feel so awful you can't even clamber down and crawl over to comfort him.
Joe is examining Blackwell's notebook for clues as to what you found in the hospital bed under Robert's mask. It was white and hard, like cement, but it's face and head were a perfect copy of your father's. After running his fingertips over it, Joe had replaced the mask and taken you home.
"What exactly does it do?", Frank asks Joe.
"Impossible to know without looking at the Libra. As a rough guess, I'd say it turns a person into the same kind of thing as we've got in the back yard. By the way", Joe asks, "where'd our lovebirds fly off to?"
"Taylor's got school, remember? Lucy's laying down. But can the spell be reversed?"
"No idea. I'm just guessing here, Frank, based on the notes that got left behind. Although if Will can pull himself together, we might be able to figure out a lot more a lot sooner."
"Don't push him, Joe", Frank says. To you: "How are you holding up, Prescott?"
"I've been better." You ignore your phone, which is ringing again. It'll be your Aunt Mary.
"You're going to have to answer that sometime", Joe says.
"Maybe not", Frank says. "Robert's going to have to go undercover, come home with us. Might be easiest if Will did too. We could bug out tonight. What do you think, Prescott?", Frank asks you. "Tough it out here, or leave town with us?
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