Chapter 26

"Well… here we are," Zach motioned towards the cabin as his grandpa and Blue watched the dilapidated building. "Thought we would have spotted Thomas by now."

"Didn't Andrew say something about sending someone down here to take care of him?" Blue floated up to the window where Zach had first spotted her. She reached out to the glass and gently ran her fingers over it.

"Lived out here so many years, and never even noticed him," Zach's grandpa muttered as the three of them took a moment.

But as the summer wind swept passed them, blowing the leaves and howling its song, the moment came to an end.

"Alright Blue, you ready to retrace your steps?" Zach asked as he made his way to the back of the house. He stood over the door to the basement and grabbed each handle with both hands, opening them both one by one. The second door hit the ground as a wave of dust erupted from the basement as Blue floated down next to him.

Zach's grandpa lit a large flashlight and aimed it down the stairs, a welcome help since Zach lacked the guiding light of the full this time around. With the way lit, Blue floated forward at the head of the group.

"Well this brings back memories," Zach muttered as he looked over the barrels he used to escape from the Thomas's arrow. He put his hand over one, as he remembered running through them. Blue, on the other hand, was looking at all of the walls, trying to remember the exact spot…

"Here it is, I found it!" She called out as Zach ran to her. His grandpa flinched a bit at the, in his eyes, unprompted flurry of motion. He only took a second to recover and keep the light on Zach.

"What did you find?" He demanded while coming to a stop right next to Blue. The ghost pointed to a brass candlestick holder covered in dust and cobwebs. The days of having Blue tell them every stray detail from her memory over and over again flashed through Zach as he reached for the candlestick and tried to pull it downwards.

It didn't budge, at least not at first.

"Hey, what gives?" He grunted as Blue gave the wall a confused stare.

"No I remembered it perfectly. The guy took off his glove, grabbed the candlestick, and pulled it down." He reached out to act out the actions, not caring that her hand went right through the candle stick.

"Yeah, you mentioned that… he took off his glove." Zach got a sudden idea and called his grandpa over. The older man approached and followed his grandson's lead. The flashlight was now pointed right at the candlestick, specifically the handle.

Zach narrowed his eyes and leaned in close. It didn't take long to find what he was afraid to find.

"Well that just raises even more terrifying questions." Blue got in close, floating over Zach in order to get just as close to the candlestick as he was. She starred unflinchingly before playing Zach's words over in her head.

"Wait as in more questions that are terrifying or questions that are more terrifying?" Blue asked as Zach leaned in traced his finger over a single section of the candlestick. It was smooth to the touch, and almost felt like it was made from some other kind of material.

"Yes," Zach grimaced as he moved his finger so that Blue could see the spot he'd touched. "I'm pretty sure this is some sort of fingerprint or biometric scanner. Only way to get through this door is to have the right hand. So now the question becomes…"

It didn't take long for Blue to catch on to where Zach was going with this. The two of them moved back, Zach's grandpa careful to keep the light on them the whole time.

"Just who has the kind of resources to put some weird sci-fi gadget in a rundown cabin in the middle of nowhere, and why did they need to sacrifice me?"

Zach's grandpa stayed silent, letting the two youngsters figure things out from here. His only job here was to hold the flashlight, at least until the time was ready.

"Well if there's any answers here, they're on the… other side," Zach trailed off before looking at Blue with a stars in his eye. "Blue, do you think you could throw a switch or pull a lever right now?"

"Maybe, might take me a second to get myself together but I don't have the right hand to unlock the…" Blue paused as matching stars appeared in her eyes. "Oh I get it. There's no reason to lock the door this way on both sides. The way out is probably just a lever or switch…"

"And you can go through walls," Zach smirked as Blue narrowed her eyes and flew through the wall. The ghost let out a whoop which quickly faded away as her tail went all the way in.

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"You two are more resourceful than I expected," Zach's grandpa hummed as he put his hand on his grandson's shoulder. Zach just nodded, not wanting to tear his eyes away from the wall. "You know, I was a little worried when you started telling me about her, but I think this ghost friend of yours has been good for you."

"I have done some pretty amazing things since meeting her. I almost feel like a completely new person these days." Zach chuckled as his grandpa frowned.

"No, you're not. You haven't changed one bit Zach. Reminds me of an old quote I heard somewhere. 'Anyone can handle adversity, if you really want to test someone's character, give them power'. That's what happened to you Zach. You were always the kind of boy who could do amazing things, all the ghost did was give you a way to show the world."

"Thanks grandpa," Zach tried and failed to hide his grin when a sudden mechanical sound came from the wall. A section of the stone started sliding downwards into the ground, revealing a hidden passage way. On the other side was a small stone room with a lever built into the floor, a staircase leading downwards into the dark, and a single ghost floating with pride in the dead center of it all.

"Look at it, I managed to push it by myself," she smirked while gesturing as the lever at the ground.

"Huh, I was right about the lever thing," Zach muttered as he walked in past the door with his grandpa right behind him. "Should we close up behind us?"

"No, might be a good idea to leave it open," Zach's grandpa spoke. Zach and Blue looked at him before looking at each other and shrugging. With the door left wide open, they started heading walking down the stairs, a single flashlight fighting back the oppressive darkness all around them.

"You know, I kind of wish I had your night vision Blue," Zach grumbled as he kept his hand on the wall. It helped keep him in place as he carefully put one foot in front of the other. With how steep these pointy stone steps were, he was in for a long fall if he tripped.

"I mean, you kind of get it once we become Gestalt," She pointed out, her voice started to tremble. She tried her best to hide it, but Zach could her it loud and clear. "We could form them now so you could see."

"No thank you," he was quick to reject the offer. With how much she was string to freak out, they'd probably forcibly split apart once they got to the bottom of the stairs. And that was still as unpleasant as ever. "Man how long are these stairs? I think we must have gone down like three floors by now."

"I don't like this…" his grandfather grumbled as he carefully looked upwards.

"What's wrong grandpa?" Zach wanted to look back, but with how steep the steps were, better to keep his eyes forward.

"If we started under the old Pickerpepper cabin and headed north…" he muttered to himself before cutting himself off. Figuring that it was another 'thing he'd tell them once the time was right' Zach and Blue pressed onwards.

"Wait I think I see the bottom." Blue called out before slowly floating downwards. Zach followed her movement and spotted the same thing. He picked up the pace a little as Blue reached the bottom and floated in place.

"Blue are you…" he reached the bottom and trailed off as he looked into the room at the bottom. Before them was a huge room that both of them knew all too well. Blue from her memories, Zach from the countless times Blue had described it.

It was a square room, seemingly carved from the stone around them. Which should have been impossible. Anything this deep underground in this part of Florida should have been white limestone, not this strange black granite.

But the material of the walls was nothing compared to the giant circle that took up most of the floor. It was made mostly of geometric shapes as well as twelve stars going around the edge, just like Blue described. There was a single patch of something dark splashed right in the center that both of them tried to ignore for now.

Zach took a single step forward and knelt down to get a better look at the lines. They weren't written down with chalk or paint. Instead it looked like someone had carved the lines out of the floor and then filled the empty space with some kind of shiny red resin. It explained how'd they'd managed to stay intact so long.

"What is this place for?" Zach stood up straight again as his grandpa finally made it to the bottom of the stairs. He shined the flashlight forward and Zach was hit by the sudden realization that he hadn't needed it. In fact, the flashlight wasn't really doing much.

Zach's grandpa shut it down, but the amount of light in the room seemed to stay the same. Despite that, there were no clear light sources anywhere in sight.

"Where is this light coming from?" Zach pondered before noticing that Blue was still floating in place. "Hey Blue, are you okay?"

He looked at her eyes and followed her vision. He gulped when he figured just what exactly had her unbroken attention. She was staring straight at the stain in the center of the room.

Wordlessly, she started floating forward. Zach carefully stayed a few steps behind her. Close enough to be there if she needed it, but not close enough to overwhelm her. She floated over the center of the room and sank down to the floor. She placed her hand over the stain as the room fell dead silent.

"This is where it happened." Blue's voice was small and wavering. Zach's eyes widened as Blue's form started to waver, like a layer of static had been applied to it.

"I think I'm remembering more." Blue said softly as a deafening sound filled the room. Two sets of footsteps, coming down the staircase they left open. Zach turned to his grandpa who held up a hand, as if to tell him to wait. "I see them, faces I know, people I forgot."

The footsteps got louder as Blue kept going. "I see a school, I see my old friends, at least I think they're my friends. I see my family… there are so many of them, cousins I think."

She trailed off just as the footsteps got the loudest. She slowly turned around as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

Standing there at the bottom of the stairs were two woman. One of them was clearly older, maybe in her fifties. She was dressed in normal daywear and looked extremely uncomfortable by everything around her. The other was a bit of a question.

She was hunched over, making her height a question. Her long messy black hair fell over her face, keeping her age and facial features a question. The seemed to blend into the gloom of the stairwell, leaving her clothes a question.

And then she took a single step forward, leaving the older one by herself, and grabbed her hair. She pulled it all back at once and stood up straight, her lanky frame towering over them all.

But that wasn't what Zach or Blue noticed.

"Well… if it isn't the old me…" the face locked in an ugly sneering grin… it wasn't an exact match, but she looked just like Blue, but ten years older.