Servants of the Storm by Delilah S. Dawson

hats, little kids. Every single one of them is smiling or making a silly face. Most people rip off one of their photos for the wall and take the other three on the strip, but some people leave them all. Carly and I always did that, figuring we could walk right in and see them whenever we wanted to.
    Along the bottom of the wall, below the photos, handmade fliers with “MISSING” printed across the top show another row of faces, along with dates and information. There was one like that for Carly once, but it only lasted a few days—until they found her body in the storm’s wreckage. Some of the fliers go all the way back to Josephine, and some are more recent. Savannah has never been a safe town, but it’s more dangerous than ever now.
    Without thinking about it, I go to the exact place where Carly and I posted our last photos. They’re buried, of course. And thank heavens, because if they were just there, out in the open, I know I wouldn’t be able to control my crying. I put my hand over the spot, imagining those younger, happy versions of us, hugging and sticking out our tongues. That moment will be here forever. But it’s also gone forever.
    As I lift up my hand, something catches my eye. There are words written in thick black marker on one of the strips, partially covered by a little girl and boy making piggy faces. I see the letters
    CHA
    HO
    scribbled over a photo.
    And for some reason I have to know what that means. My curiosity is back with a vengeance.
    I lift up the photo of little kids to reveal the pictures beneath, and my heart stops beating.
    The photo strip with the thick black writing has four images. It’s Carly. In each picture she’s screaming. Her eyes are open and as black as death, just like in my dream. In the last one there’s a blurred figure pulling her out of the booth. All I can see is an arm, a flash of dark hair, and a single fox ear.
    The words written across the bottom photo in a jerky, messy version of Carly’s handwriting read “Go to Charnel House.”

9
    I HAVE NO IDEA HOW I’m standing up. I somehow walk stiffly back to the circus table and sit across from Baker.
    “Dovey? Are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost.”
    I stare at him so hard, I’m afraid my eyes are going to fall out of my face and onto the striped tablecloth.
    “What if I did?”
    He scoots around the U-shaped booth and puts his arm around my shoulders, but it’s not a get-closer-to-your-date hug. It’s someone who knows you better than you thought, trying to keep you from freaking the hell out.
    “Tell me,” he says.
    I take a deep breath.
    “I just saw a picture of Carly.”
    He gulps, and his head falls forward, and now I kind of feel like I should be holding him up too.
    “It kills, doesn’t it?” he says.
    “No, no. I mean, it does. But this is different. It wasn’t from before. It’s from . . . now.”
    He raises his head again, and tears glimmer in his eyelashes. He looks at me hard.
    “Dovey . . .”
    “Please don’t ask me if I’m on my meds,” I say. “Because I know you know I’m not.”
    “I know,” he says. “And I thought it was a good thing. But not if you’re hallucinating.”
    “Come see for yourself.”
    I slide out of the booth, and he follows me. Every step feels like an earthquake, like I’m going to fall down and down into the center of the earth and be swallowed up. I don’t know which I want more—for the pictures to be there and for us both to see them, or for the pictures to not be there and for us to know for sure that I need to get back on my meds and drop this insane find-my-dead-best-friend thing.
    Step after step the picture wall gets closer. Ten feet away and I can see the words, but I’m afraid to look back and see if Baker sees it too. I walk right up and put my fingertip next to Carly’s face.
    “See?”
    Behind me he sighs deeply, like his heart is breaking. He putshis hand on my shoulder. But I don’t mind this time, because the