Blackwood by Gwenda Bond

sex. I've been at boarding school in Kentucky, not a monastery."
      "I don't care about that – not right now." His dad paused. "Except you don't hurt that girl any more than she's already been hurt."
      He waited for a response, and Phillips nodded. "She needs my help."
      "That's fine, but we need to talk about you – your gifts. I know my mother had them too. I tried like hell to pretend she didn't, but it wasn't hard to miss the stream of women who showed up at our back door so she could talk to their dead or help their daughters. I didn't want that for you."
      The curtain behind his father had a sheen to it. Turkish prison with artful drapes.
      "But you want it now?" Phillips asked.
      "I want to find these people and get them home. This whole town – an emptiness like the one that's here, it will kill us all. It'll kill this island."
      Phillips didn't have any love for the town. Or any hate for it, really. Except for the way they'd treated Miranda, and she was in this up to her temple.
      "I can't hear anything right now, but I'll work on it tomorrow. I'm going to be helping Miranda–" Philips held up a hand to cover his father's protest "–find some answers. Those answers are the same ones you need. I think."
      "Do you have any idea what's going on here?"
      "No clue. But I'm going to find out, because if I don't Miranda's the next to go. Or something bad will happen to her. I don't know what exactly, but something."
      His dad leaned forward and poured a drink, downed it in one shot. He had on his cop face, thoughtful.
      "But her old man didn't vanish, he died. He was killed. A mystery in itself, since he was a sad drunk. Harmless. But he didn't vanish."
       Not harmless to Miranda. "I told you I don't know how, but it's connected. Get the autopsy done on him as fast as you can."
      "The university can't do it until Monday."
      "Use the feds, then. Convince them somehow. You need to know what killed him."
      Phillips waited to see if his dad would believe him for once. Trust him. The drapes swayed as the air conditioning kicked in.
      His dad nodded. "There's one more thing. Mom… your gram… when she died, she left a letter for you. I was supposed to give it to you. But I kept it."
      He held something out to Phillips. A cream envelope, gram's stationery with her initials on the front. The envelope was wrinkled, like it had been worried over.
      He didn't want to take it. His dad held it closer.
      "Your mom doesn't know about this, but I guess now I'll have to tell her. I didn't want this for you, but I don't think it's up to me anymore."
      Phillips didn't have a choice. He took it, halfway expecting a lightning strike. But the earth didn't move, the voices didn't clamor at his ears. His name was written across the back in his gram's small neat handwriting. He put the envelope in his pocket.
      His dad said, "You'll let me know anything important?"
      "Of course."
      "Go get some sleep."
      Phillips practically leapt to his feet. His father had never talked to him like this, like they were almost equals. Like he didn't blame Phillips for hearing spirits.
      Then he ruined it. "Don't think I'm not going to tell your mother what you were doing out there. Don't hurt that girl, Phillips. I mean it. She's been through enough."
    • • • •
    Miranda bolted back to the guest room, pressing the door quietly closed before Phillips busted her on his way upstairs. She'd known Phillips thought her family was connected to the disappearances, but hearing him tell his dad was different.
      He really did want to help her. And he thought she was next. Where were the vanished people?
      Miranda closed her eyes. She didn't want to go anywhere besides the one place she couldn't – off the island. Blackness waited inside her eyelids. The snake crawling toward her temple throbbed.
      She was so tired.
      Miranda pulled off her jeans and slid into bed next to