Page 118 of Call Off the Dark

She pointed the gun at him. She thought of the masked man, who she now knew she was never going to kill. She was going to find a way to move past that too.

So instead, she fired at Isaac, emptying every bullet in the gun.

The bullets went straight through him, causing no damage. He stood his ground and stared calmly at her until she was done.

Isaac said, “You knew that wouldn’t work.”

Helen shrugged. “I know. But I wanted to feel it just the same.” She tossed the gun aside.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I told you. Leave.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

Helen picked up the Poe book and flung it into the burning garden. When it hit the flames, it fed the fire. She threw the dead raven in next and felt the heat magnify.

Isaac’s eyes followed her actions, watching the flames spread violently. He looked at Helen, and for the first time, he seemed uncertain.

She crossed the yard to him, and he took a step back as she reached him. That step backward bolstered her feeling of dominion. She gripped the front of his shirt, and his face went dark with the realization that he wasn’t in control any longer.

“You really want me to go,” he said.

“I want you to go,” she repeated.

Still gripping Isaac’s shirt, Helen turned toward the fire and started forward, forcing him back with each step.

Just as Tyler had moments earlier, Isaac began to flicker. His body no longer appeared as a solid man, but unlike the beauty of an apparition that Tyler had been, all Helen saw was a ghost that needed to go. She wasn’t going to let him use her pain any longer to slip into their world to carry out his dark plans.

“But I wasn’t done,” Isaac said.

“You aren’t supposed to be here.”

They were on the fiery edge of the garden now. Helen briefly wondered what it would feel like to burn alive herself, but the thought was so ephemeral that later she wouldn’t even remember that it had flashed in her mind.

“Come with me then,” Isaac said, and there was a part of his words that still sounded enticing. But it was only a very small part now, so small that if anyone had been able to ask her if she still felt that way, she would have said no and it wouldn’t have been an intentional lie.

“Goodbye, Isaac,” Helen said, and she pushed him backward into the flames.

Isaac’s expression was one of disappointment and anger as she released him, until the very last moment, when he smiled at her. That smile wormed its way into the darker parts of her soul as she watched him fall. Just before the flames could engulf him, he disappeared altogether. Gone like dust.

And then the fire abruptly extinguished, leaving behind charred, blackened crops.

Suddenly, Wade sat up, awakening with a dazed groan. “Is he gone?”

Helen went to him and knelt beside him. “Yes. He’s not coming back.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“What?”

“Trust me,” she said. “Everything’s okay.”

Though Wade had never put much stock into the things Helen said, his shoulders relaxed as if he accepted the words as true. He lowered his head and took several deep, labored breaths as she ran a comforting hand across his back. They sat that way for a long time.

Finally, Wade looked up and said, “Isaac really is gone.” It was a statement, but she heard the question lurking beneath it.