by Chris Cooper
He assumed she hadn’t forgotten about their little tiff, but Oliver wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. He turned toward the staircase.
“The young woman from yesterday is playing again this evening. She was wonderful, wasn’t she?” Bev asked.
“At The Horseman? I thought they were only doing music for the fundraiser. And what woman?”
“With the pretty dreadlocks.”
Oliver turned. “Are we talking about the same person you snickered at last night? Surprised you were so fond of her.”
“I did no such thing. I could never make fun of someone who’s that talented. You heard her—what did you think?”
“I left early, remember?”
Bev seemed legitimately surprised.
“Oh, I thought you were there. Anyway, everyone was raving about her after the show. I spoke with Anna this morning, and we’re going to the pub again tonight. Want to join?”
“Anna? She called in sick today.”
“She must be feeling better. She sounded fine on the phone. Just a little tired is all. Go with us, won’t you?”
Skipping out on work wasn’t like Anna, and Oliver assumed only violent illness could have kept her away from the bakery. He was surprised she’d been so eager and willing to make plans, especially plans with Bev. And since when did Anna and Mom talk on the phone?
“I think I’ll pass,” he replied.
“Oh, come on. We’ll have fun like last night.”
Oliver gritted his teeth. Last night wasn’t fun.
The thought of spending another evening with his mom made his head pound. “I’m going to stay in with Asher tonight.”
“Bring him with you. About time he met people outside of the house, don’t you think? He’s such a hermit.”
“He’s a recovering alcoholic, actually,” Oliver lied. “Pubs make him uncomfortable,” he added, trying to put a kibosh on the conversation.
Bev seemed disappointed by the news.
“All right, then. I see some of us can’t appreciate a musical genius when they hear one.”
“Musical genius? Yesterday you were making fun of her. ‘Slutty’ was the word, I think. I’m surprised to hear you’re so fond of her now.”
“Oh, I was just joking. I would never make fun of someone for their looks.”
Oliver held in a chuckle.
“I guess Anna and I will be the ones to have all the fun,” she said.
Pan burst into the living room, still clenching the ball tightly in a corgi death grip.
“He doesn’t understand how fetch is supposed to work.” Asher came in and took a seat in the reading chair across the room.
The doorbell rang as Bev was tying her shoes.
“That’ll be Anna,” she said.
“She never rings the bell. Isn’t she going to come in?” Oliver asked. He walked down the hallway to the front door.
“No, I’ll get it,” Bev said from behind, nearly tripping over her shoelaces, but Oliver had already opened the door.
Anna had deep bags under her eyes, and her hair looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed, strawberry blonde strands clumped to one side of her head.
“You look like hell,” Oliver said.
“Glad to see you too,” she replied.
“What’s the deal? You never called in.”
“I had a rough evening last night and felt like my head was going to explode this morning.”
“And now you’re headed down to the pub? Better not let Izzy find out.”
“I’m not Izzy’s slave. I can do whatever I please,” she said with an edge in her voice.
“What’s gotten into you?”
Bev pushed by Oliver. “Let’s be off,” she said.
Anna glared at Oliver for a moment then turned around and plodded down the stairs with Bev but without so much as a goodbye.
“She was in a bad mood,” Asher said as Oliver headed back to the living room.
Anna’s reaction was making Oliver’s blood boil. “I can’t believe she blew Izzy off and now she’s going to the pub.”
“The pub? Again?”
Oliver shrugged.
“Why didn’t you go with them?”
“Thought I’d hang out here with you. Hardly seems fair to make you stay here by yourself all the time. And also, can’t say that I care to be around either of them at the moment.”
“I’m perfectly capable of entertaining myself, you know,” Asher replied.
“I know.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, though,” Asher added. “The house has been dull lately. I finished most of the interesting books, and soon I’ll have nothing to do but sit and worry about Ruby.”
“I know,” he replied. “I’m worried about her too.”
After an early dinner, Oliver and Asher hung around the house while Izzy painted in the studio.
Oliver sat on the couch with Nekko asleep in his lap. Her belly fat hung over the sides of his legs, and he finally became so overheated he had to move her. “Come on, let’s go for a walk.”
“Walk? Where to? What if someone sees me?”
“Everyone will be down at the pub, by the sounds of it. We’re going in the opposite direction. I think it’s time we go to the edge of Briarwood.”
Asher hesitated. “I can’t.”
“You said it yourself: you wanted to know what happened to the place. Let’s go find out. We don’t have to go in. We’ll just have a peek.”
“What if someone in Briarwood sees me?”
“No one will see you—I promise. And even if someone on the other side of the patch notices you, there’s nothing they can do to hurt you.”
Oliver could hear the commotion from the pub in the distance as they stepped out onto the back porch. The entire town must have been there once again.
With flashlights in hand, they trekked down the grassy hill to the overgrown field sitting next to Briarwood. The last time Oliver had ventured down the hill, he came barreling back in a police cruiser, killing the Witch and arriving just in time to reach Izzy before Simon did. He’d had no reason to return to the field nor the briar patch where he’d found Lilly Brighton’s body more than a year before. Without the Briarwood key, the woods were just an ordinary clump of trees, and the secrets held within them were beyond his reach.
As they reached the patch under the cloak of darkness, Asher froze, staring into the woods ahead.
“What’s wrong?” Oliver asked.
“This was a mistake,” Asher replied.
“Why?”
Asher turned toward him. “I should have never let you talk me into this.” His face was pale, and he backed away from the woods.
“I just thought it’s what you wanted—to find out what happened to the town. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s horrible.” Asher’s eyes shot briefly to the woods before flashing back to Oliver.
“Let me see.” Oliver held out his hand.
Asher took his hand, breaking the invisible barrier camouflaging the town.
The stone two-story that had tipped Oliver off to the town’s existence lay in ruins in front of him. The line of streetlamps had been bent and toppled, leaving no lights to show the way into town. He couldn’t see much beyond the ruined structure, but a plume of smoke in the distance was a sure sign that things had not been going well in the town hidden beyond the trees.
“You see? Look by the doorway.”
As Oliver looked closer at a pile of rubble by the broken doorframe, he noticed a body slumped over against the crumbled stone—a woman, he thought, but it was hard to tell through the layer of soot and ash.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Oliver pulled his hand away as a knot formed in his stomach, and the scene vanished.
Asher turned and marched up the hill. “I’m going back.”
“Wait for me!” Oliver rushed to catch up with him.
Asher’s eyes glistened with tears.
“I’m sorry. I
was stupid to bring you here. I don’t know what I was thinking. Let’s just go home and forget about it. We never have to come back.”
“I can’t go home,” Asher replied, twisting around to face him. “Home doesn’t exist anymore. My home has likely been burned to the ground,” he gestured toward the tree line. “My family is dead—my father, Caleb, and probably Ruby.”
“You don’t know Ruby’s dead. I know what’s happened to you is terrible, but—”
“I’m leaving,” Asher interrupted.
“What? You can’t leave. Where will you go? Someone’s chasing you.”
“And you don’t think they’ll find me here? If someone truly wants to track me down, wouldn’t it make sense to come to Christchurch? Wouldn’t it make sense to come to the only other place with which I have a history?”
Oliver could think of nothing to say. He and Asher stood face to face, consumed by the silence of the chilly fall night. Finally, Asher turned and resumed his march up the hill toward Izzy’s house.
Oliver barely recognized the man, who was clenching his fists in anger. He differed from the meek boy who Simon had dragged to the house a year before, cowering in the corner while his father tried to dispatch one last Elder. For a moment, Asher had shed his submissive shell.
Oliver reached the house shortly after Asher, although he tried to maintain his distance. They’d been gone for an hour or so, between the walk to and from the woods, and Izzy appeared to have already gone to bed, since her studio light was off.
Chapter Eleven
Oliver entered the house and turned the corner from the kitchen into the living room.
Asher was standing in the center of the room. “Your mother nearly gave me a heart attack,” he said.
The house was dark, except for the floor lamp over Bev’s chair, casting an eerie shadow down her face.
“Everything okay?” Oliver asked.
The corners of her lips curled into a smile. “My, you were out late,” she replied.
Oliver looked at his watch. “It’s only ten.”
“I’ve been waiting for you two.”
“Waiting up for me, are you? You know I’m not in high school anymore, right?” He laughed.
Bev, however, sat in silence. Then she stood up and walked toward Asher, and the light from the lamp caught the edge of a chef’s knife she’d pulled from between her thigh and the chair cushion.
“What are you doing?” Oliver asked.
“We’re all going to take a walk to the studio.”
Asher backed away from Bev toward the front door.
Oliver’s heart dropped as he thought of Fred walking up the aisle at The Parlor show, knife in hand.
“Put the knife down, Mom.”
“She told us about a boy who looks just like you,” Bev said, flicking the knife in Asher’s direction.
“She?” Oliver asked.
“Said you’d taken something that doesn’t belong to you—that you’d probably shown up a few days ago. As soon as she said it, I knew it had to be you.”
“Mom, where’s Izzy?”
His mom cackled in a way he’d never heard before. “Dumb broad didn’t even see it coming.”
Oliver turned toward Asher. “Go get help.”
Asher reached for the door handle.
“No, no. Let’s take a trip up to Isabelle’s studio,” Bev said. “She promised to play a special song for the person who finds you. That’s me!” She clapped her hands together in excitement, the handle of the knife dampening the sound. “I never win anything.”
Oliver crossed the room and stood between her and Asher. “We’re not going anywhere until—”
“You’ve always been useless. Just like your father,” she blurted, her expression shifting from glee to contempt. “No ambition—can’t keep a job. What did I do to deserve you?”
The question sucked the air from Oliver’s lungs. “I—”
“I said go up the goddamned staircase!” she screamed, lunging forward at him and pressing the edge of the blade against his side. Bev’s face came close enough for him to see her vacant eyes.
“I won’t say it again,” she added in a singsong voice.
Asher pulled his hand away from the door and approached her. “It’s okay. If it’s me you want, then let Oliver go. I’ll come with you.”
Bev rolled her eyes. “Enough with the sappy spiel. Get moving.” She prodded them up the staircase and to the door of Izzy’s studio. She pulled a skeleton key from her pocket, unlatched the door, and forced them inside. She locked them in then plodded down to the first floor.
In the dark, Izzy’s paintings loomed over them, the caricatures even further exaggerated by the moonlight.
Oliver searched the wall for a light switch and flipped it on. Behind him, Asher gasped, and Oliver turned to see Izzy standing in the center of the room.
“Oh, thank God!” Oliver said. “Why were you standing in the dark?”
“The darkness calms me,” she replied. “Calms Pan too.” She pointed at the dog bed in the corner, where Pan lay curled up in a corgi ball, fast asleep.
“How long have you been in here?”
“An hour or two. I don’t really know. I was up here painting, and Bev must have come back from the pub early. I heard her come in and thought she was coming up to say hello—wishful thinking, I guess. She locked the door, and I’ve been up here ever since. I tried shouting for her, and I know she can hear me, but she’s just been ignoring me. What’s gotten into her?”
“It’s the same thing that happened to Caleb and the homeless man, Fred. They both tried to take Asher.” Oliver thought for a moment. “Fred pretended to play the violin and said a song got stuck in his head. It has to be the violin player who came to the pub. Somehow, she’s controlling them.”
“Why not just take me, then? Caleb tried to drag me through the door and out onto the street. Why bother locking us up here?” Asher asked.
Oliver walked to the far window overlooking the front porch. “I don’t know, but we shouldn’t stay to find out. We could hop out onto the porch roof. The drop to the ground isn’t that far.”
“Who do you think I am?” Izzy looked out onto the ground below. “I can barely go up and down the steps without falling. Might as well ask me to somersault across the room.”
“We can help you,” Oliver said.
“I’ll just slow you down. You two go, and I’ll stay here,” Izzy replied.
“We can’t leave you,” Oliver said. “What about Mom? What if she comes up here and sees we’re gone? Who’s she going to take her anger out on?”
“I think I’ll be able to handle her. Remember when I knocked that old kook down the stairs last year? Sorry, Asher,” she added. Then she walked to the corner of the room and pulled a bat from behind a set of metal shelves. “I have another haymaker right here. I’d be more worried for your mother if I were you.”
“How many of those do you have hidden around the house?”
“Let’s see: one in my bedroom, one by the front and back doors, another out in the shed—”
“Sorry I asked,” he replied.
Oliver and Asher quietly opened the window and slipped out onto the porch roof, shoes sliding on the shingles.
“We’ll come back for you,” Oliver said.
“Don’t worry about me.” Izzy pressed a palm to Oliver’s cheek. “I’ll be fine.”
Oliver hung off the edge of the roof and stepped down onto the porch railing. Once safely on the ground, he guided Asher down.
“We’ll take the car,” Oliver whispered. As he rested his hand on the metal latch, he realized the keys were somewhere inside, where Bev was waiting in the shadows.
The wind had picked up since their journey to the edge of the woods, and although the town was quiet, the sound of rustling leaves made him feel as if they were being watched, surrounded by unseen foes standing just beyond the reach of the streetlamps.
“Where are we going?” Asher ask
ed.
“To the police station. They’ll be able to help us.”
They passed the pub, which was oddly dead for that time of night. The lights had been turned off, and Oliver couldn’t see a soul nearby. The town was the same, and the streets were dark and empty.
As Oliver and Asher approached the station, he had flashbacks of the night Simon had slammed into the town statue, when the station had been filled to the brim with officers from neighboring towns. He hadn’t been back since, although he’d bumped into Eric, the Christchurch chief of police, now and then at the bakery or out at the pub.
The pub.
“I’m so stupid,” Oliver whispered.
“Why?”
“Eric was at the pub last night. He’d be under the same spell as Bev. We can’t go to the police.”
“Who does that leave then, if the whole town is affected?” Asher asked.
Oliver looked across the square at Fletcher Antiquities. Martin’s car sat out front, and although the sign was flipped to Closed, the back-office light was on.
“Martin. He missed the show. Maybe he can help us. If we can just get his car, I’ve got Ruby’s address.”
They crossed the square and knocked frantically on Martin’s door. Martin had nodded off at the desk in the back of the office, and the knocking startled him awake.
“What are you doing out at this time of night? And who’s your friend?” he asked as they rushed inside.
When Martin pushed the door closed, Oliver locked the dead bolt.
“What’s gotten into you?” Martin asked.
“Did you go to the show tonight?” Oliver asked.
“I’ve been here doing inventory. What’s the matter?”
“Mom’s gone crazy. She locked us all in the studio and was walking around with a chef’s knife. I think it’s the woman—the one who played the violin the other night. She’s been hypnotizing people and probably has most of the town under her spell at this point—Madeline too.”
Martin backed away. “Have you been drinking?”
“I’m not drunk. We have to take your car and get help before they hurt Izzy or us if we stay here for too long.”
“Have you lost your mind?”