It Begins Read online

  The nightmare begins …

  As if trapped in a nightmare, Lucy forced herself to peer down into the gaping hole. She was sure she hadn’t imagined the sound this time, certain now that it wasn’t an animal.

  The voice was all too frighteningly human.

  “Please!” it was begging her. “Please…”

  Pressing both hands to her mouth, Lucy tried not to scream. For she could see now that the grave wasn’t empty at all, that there was something lying at the very bottom, camouflaged by layers of mudslide and rising rainwater.

  As a sliver of lightning split the clouds, she saw the girl’s head strain upward, lips gasping for air. And then the girl’s arm, lifting slowly … reaching out to her…

  “Please… is someone there…”

  Lucy stood paralyzed. She watched in horror as the girl’s head fell back again into the mire, as water closed over the anguished face…

  The

  Unseen

  part 1

  it begins

  RICHIE TANKERSLEY CUSICK

  speak

  An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  SPEAK

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2003

  Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2005

  3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4

  Copyright © Richie Tankersley Cusick, 2003

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Cusick, Richie Tankersley.

  It begins / Richie Tankersley Cusick.

  p. cm. – (The unseen; pt. 1)

  First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd., 2003.

  Summary: After a horrifying encounter in a graveyard, Lucy cannot get over feeling that she is being watched, but is unwilling to trust the one person who might be able to help her.

  EISBN: 9781101567654

  [1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Psychic ability—Fiction. 3. Grief—Fiction. 4. Orphans—Fiction. 5. Family problems—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C9646Itab 2005 [Fic]—dc22 2005043446

  Printed in the United States of America

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  To Audrey, Suzie, B.J., Lynn, Michele, Victoria and

  the whole special gang—for your

  fun, your faith and your friendship. I love you all.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  Prologue

  She had deceived him!

  He realized now with a terrible certainty that she’d deceived him from the beginning—planned this whole thing from the very start.

  And she knew everything about him—everything!—what he was and what he’d done and all he was capable of doing . . .

  She’d sought him out and gained his trust, for one purpose and one purpose only.

  To see him destroyed.

  After he’d been so careful … so cunning all these years … concealing the very nature of his soul … the ageless secrets of his kind …

  And he’d trusted her. Taken her. Loved her more than he’d ever loved anyone.

  Tears clouded his vision.

  As though he were seeing the future through a dark red haze, a veil of blood.

  He glanced down at his hands.

  His strong, gentle fingers, wielding the power of life and death.

  He hadn’t even realized he was gripping the dagger, the dagger of his ancestors, nor did he remember even drawing it from its sheath.

  He was gripping the blade so tightly that a stream of his own blood seeped from his fist. He watched it, strangely mesmerized, as it dripped onto the cold stone floor and pooled around his feet.

  He hadn’t thought he could feel such pain.

  Not from the knife, for he had borne far worse injuries than this in his lifetime, had suffered the ravages of a thousand tortures. But those scars had faded quickly, like shadows swallowed by night, and the few that remained were points of honor to him now, sacred testimonies to his very survival.

  No, this pain was different.

  This pain burned from deep within, filling him with rage and a craving for revenge.

  A craving so intense, he could almost taste it.

  1

  She should never have come here.

  Not into this deep, dark place, not in this miserable weather … and especially not at night.

  “A graveyard,” Lucy murmured. “What was I thinking?”

  But that was just it—she hadn’t been thinking, she hadn’t had time to think, she’d only felt that sudden surge of fear through her veins, and then she’d started running.

  Someone was following her.

  Not at first, not when she’d first left the house and started walking, but blocks afterward, six or seven maybe, when the storm had suddenly broken and she’d cut through an alley behind a church and tried to find a shortcut home.

  No, not home! The words exploded inside her head, angry and defensive. Aunt Irene’s house isn’t home, it won’t ever be home. I don’t have a home anymore.

  The rain was cold. Even with her jacket Lucy felt chilled, and she hunched her shoulders against the downpour, pulled her hood close around her face. She hadn’t even realized where she was going; there was no sign posted, no gate to mark the boundaries of this cemetery, just an unexpected gap through the trees. She’d heard the footsteps and she’d panicked, she’d bolted instinctively into the first cover of darkness she could find.

  But this was a terrible darkness.

  Almost as dark as her own pain.

  She crouched down between two headstones, straining her ears through the night. It had taken he
r several minutes to become aware of those footsteps back there on the sidewalk, and at first she’d thought she was imagining them. She’d thought it was only the rain plopping down, big soft drops, faint at first, but then louder and faster, sharper and clearer. Until suddenly they seemed to be echoing. Until suddenly they seemed to have some awful purpose, and she realized they were coming closer.

  She’d stopped beneath a streetlamp, and the footsteps had stopped, too. She’d forced herself to look back, back along the pavement, across the shadowy lawns and thick, tangled hedges, but there hadn’t been anyone behind her.

  No one she could see, anyway.

  But someone was there.

  Someone …

  She was sure of it.

  And that’s when she’d run …

  “I’m afraid you’ll find Pine Ridge very different from what you’re used to.” How many times had Irene told her that, just in the one agonizing week Lucy had been here? “We’re right on the lake, of course, and the university’s here, so there’s plenty to do. And we’re only a half-hour drive to the city. But our neighborhood is quiet … rather exclusive, actually. Peaceful and private, just the way residents like it. Not at all like that old apartment of yours in the middle of downtown.”

  But Lucy had loved her old apartment, the tiny, third-floor walk-up that she and her mother had filled with all their favorite things. And the sorrow she’d felt at leaving it only grew worse with each passing day.

  She’d been too depressed on their ride from the airport that day to notice much about Pine Ridge; she had only the vaguest recollections of Aunt Irene pointing things out to her as they’d ridden through town. The college campus with its weathered brick buildings and stately oaks. The renovated historical district with its town square and gazebo; its bars, coffee shops and open-air cafes; its bookstores and art galleries and booths selling local crafts. They’d passed farms and fields to get here, and she’d caught occasional glimpses of the lake through dense, shadowy forests. And there’d been frost sheening the hillsides, and she remembered thinking that she’d never seen so many trees, so many vibrant autumn colors …

  “And it’s safe here in Pine Ridge,” her aunt had assured her. “Unpleasant things don’t happen.”

  You’re wrong, Aunt Irene …

  Lucy pressed a hand to her temple. That all-too-familiar pain was starting again, throbbing behind her eyes, stabbing through her head, that agony of unshed tears, of inconsolable sorrow …

  You’re wrong, because unpleasant things do happen—anywhere—horrible, bad things—and just when you think they couldn’t possibly ever happen to you—

  “Oh, Mom,” Lucy whispered. “Why’d you have to die?”

  For a split second reality threatened to crush her. Closing her eyes, she bent forward and clamped her knees tight against her chest. She willed herself to take deep, even breaths, but the smell of stagnant earth and rotting leaves sent a deep shiver of nausea through her.

  Don’t think about that now, you cant think about that now, Mom’s gone and you have to get out of here!

  Very slowly she lifted her head. Maybe the footsteps had followed her in here—maybe someone was waiting close by, hiding in the shadows, waiting for her to make the slightest move. Or maybe someone was coming closer and closer this very second, searching methodically behind every tombstone, and she’d never hear the footsteps now, not on the soggy ground, not with the sound of the rain, not until it was too late—

  Come on, move! Run!

  But where? Where could she go? She wasn’t even sure where she was, much less which direction to run in.

  “Unpleasant things don’t happen …”

  Lucy’s heart hammered in her chest. She clung desperately to her aunt’s words; she ordered herself to believe them. Maybe she really had imagined those footsteps back there. Maybe it had just been the rain and she’d panicked for nothing. After all, she hadn’t really been herself since Mom’s funeral. As mechanical as a robot and just as hollow inside, moving in slow motion through an endless gray fog of days and nights, confused by the long, empty lapses in her memory. But shock did that to a person, Aunt Irene had informed her, in that cool, detached tone Lucy was beginning to get used to—shock and grief and the unbearable pain of losing someone you love …

  I can do this … I have to do this …

  Lucy got to her feet. Steadying herself against one of the headstones, she pushed her long wet hair back from her face, then turned slowly, blue eyes squinting hard into the gloom. High above her the limbs of a giant elm flailed wildly in the wind, sending down a soggy shower of leaves. The sky gushed like a waterfall. As the moon flickered briefly through churning clouds, she saw nothing but graves in every direction.

  Just dead people, Lucy.

  And dead people can’t hurt you.

  The storm clouds shifted, swallowing the moonlight once more. Swearing softly, Lucy ducked her head and ran.

  She didn’t have a clue where she was going. She’d never had any real talent for directions, and now she ran blindly, stumbling across uneven ground, weaving between headstones, falling over half-buried markers on forgotten graves. She wondered if Aunt Irene or Angela would be missing her about now—or if they even realized she was gone.

  “Or care,” Lucy muttered to herself.

  The truth was, she’d hardly seen Angela since their initial—and totally awkward— introduction. Angela—with her perfectly flowing waves of jet-black hair and tall, willowy model’s figure—had been slumped in the doorway of her walk-in closet, smoking a cigarette and surveying her extensive wardrobe with a petulant frown.

  “Angela, for heaven’s sake!” Irene had promptly shut off the CD player that was blasting rock music through the room. “This is your cousin Lucy!”

  Angela’s eyes had barely even glanced in Lucy’s direction—huge, dark eyes ringed with even darker layers of mascara. “So?”

  It hadn’t been said in a rude way, exactly—more apathetic if anything—but Lucy had felt hurt all the same.

  “And get rid of that disgusting cigarette,” Irene had ordered, shoving an ashtray toward her daughter. “You know how I feel about smoke in the house. And would it kill you to be civil just once? On Lucy’s first night here? After all, you two are the same age; you probably have a lot in common.”

  Angela hadn’t flinched. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Fine, then. Very fine, Angela. From now on, I don’t care how the two of you handle it—you girls will have to work things out between yourselves.”

  A careless shrug. “Whatever.”

  “Honestly, Angela, you never think about anyone but yourself,” Irene had persisted.

  Angela had reached over then … mashed out her cigarette in the ashtray her mom was still holding. She’d raised her arms above her head, stood on tiptoes, and stretched like a long, lean cat.

  And then she’d walked very slowly, very deliberately, out of the room …

  “Of course they won’t care,” Lucy muttered again.

  She hadn’t told either of them she was leaving earlier—she doubted if they’d have understood her desperate need to escape the house where she still felt so lonely and unwelcome. All Lucy had thought about was getting away, and so the darkness of empty streets had felt comforting to her then. But now she felt stupid for being so scared, for getting so lost. She should have gone back the way she’d come; she shouldn’t have listened to her overactive imagination.

  “Damnit!”

  Without warning she stubbed her toe and pitched forward, landing facedown in the mud. For a second she lay there, too surprised to move, then slowly, carefully, she reached forward to push herself up.

  Her hands met only air.

  Gasping, she lifted her head and stared in horror. Even in this downpour, she could see the deep, rectangular hole yawning below her, and she realized it was an open grave. She was sprawled on the very edge of it, and as she clawed frantically for something to hold on to, she felt the gr
ound melting away beneath her fingers.

  With one last effort, she twisted sideways, just as a huge chunk of earth dissolved and slid to the bottom of the chasm.

  And that’s when she heard the cry.

  Soft at first … like the low moan of wind through branches … or the whimper of a frightened animal … faint and muffled … drowned by the rush of the rain.

  An abandoned cat, maybe? A stray dog? Some poor outcast just as lost as she was, wandering alone out here in the dark? Lucy’s heart broke at the thought of it.

  “Here, baby!” Stumbling to her feet, she cupped her hands around her mouth and tried to shout over the tremor in her voice. “Come to me! Don’t be afraid!”

  A rumble of thunder snaked its way through the cemetery.

  As Lucy paused to listen, she felt a sudden chill up her spine.

  Yes … there was the sound again.

  Coming from the empty grave.

  2

  As if trapped in a nightmare, Lucy forced herself to peer down into the gaping hole. She was sure she hadn’t imagined the sound this time, certain now that it wasn’t an animal.

  The voice was all too frighteningly human.

  “Please!” it was begging her. “Please…”

  Pressing both hands to her mouth, Lucy tried not to scream. For she could see now that the grave wasn’t empty at all, that there was something lying at the very bottom, camouflaged by layers of mudslide and rising rainwater.

  As a sliver of lightning split the clouds, she saw the girl’s head strain upward, lips gasping for air. And then the girl’s arm, lifting slowly … reaching out to her …

  “Please … is someone there …”

  Lucy stood paralyzed. She watched in horror as the girl’s head fell back again into the mire, as water closed over the anguished face.

  “Oh my God!”

  She didn’t remember jumping in. From some hazy part of her brain came vague sensations of sliding, of falling, of being buried alive, as the earth crumbled in around her and the ground sucked her down. She lunged for the body beneath the water. She tried to brace herself, but her feet kept slipping in the mud. Dropping to her knees, she managed to raise the girl’s head and cradle it in her arms.