by Dan Poblocki
Claire wasn’t sure what he meant by that. But it got her moving. She ran upstairs, gathered her things, folded them into her bag, and was back down to the foyer in less than a minute.
“Money,” he stated seriously. “How much do you have?”
“I don’t know. I think my aunt keeps some stashed in the kitchen for emergencies.”
“This counts as one. Doesn’t it?”
“Won’t they be worried about us? My aunt and your grandmother?”
“I’d be freaked out if they weren’t. But that’s not the point.” Lucas shivered. “Isn’t your dad’s life more important than whether or not our families are nervous for a few days?”
Claire dashed to the kitchen. She opened the antique ceramic cookie jar that was shaped like the head of a grinning clown, then reached in and pulled out several large bills. She waved them at Lucas, who watched from the doorway. He nodded approvingly. “Should we at least leave a note?”
“Saying what?”
“That we’re safe? That we’ll be back soon?”
Lucas sighed. “It seems like the right thing to do.” Then he shook his head. “But it might cut our time short. If we leave, like, now, we’ll have all day to travel and figure out the next steps. Once your aunt and my gramma get home, it’ll be a few more hours before they realize that we’re not coming back today. And then maybe it will be hours after that when they actually do something about it. With a note, they’ll know that we’re gone, and they’ll probably come after us immediately. And if we don’t have time to explore Hush Falls, we might never find your father.”
Claire’s chest trembled. It felt like electricity was zapping through her body. “You’re right,” she said.
“Are you ready to go?”
She looked around the kitchen. She figured they might get hungry along the way. So she went to the cupboard and shoved a box of granola bars into her bag. Then she grabbed what was left of the packets of chewy fruit snacks and took those as well. “Maybe I should check with his production company again? See if they’ve heard from him?”
Lucas sniffed, as if amused. “We already know they haven’t.”
“How do we know that?”
Lucas’s eyes were hard as stones. “Because your mother is still with me.”
Hiking toward the center of town, they moved inconspicuously through backyards and side streets. Lucas said he didn’t want anyone wondering why they weren’t heading toward the middle school for the first bell. He had checked the bus schedule earlier that morning. There was one scheduled to leave for the northern cities within the hour. According to the old road atlas that Lucas’s grandmother kept stashed on the bottom of the bookcase in the living room, the bus stop in the middle of the state would get them near to Hush Falls Holler. Though the town was supposed to be surrounded by wilderness to protect the nearby reservoir, there was a state route heading north from the thruway that he thought looked walkable.
They bought tickets at the pharmacy on Maple Avenue, as well as a few bottles of water for their journey. Then they stood at the corner and waited for the bus to arrive.
Claire worried that the driver would question them about traveling alone, especially on a school day, but when he pulled up to the curb, he barely blinked as they handed over their tickets. She climbed the steps and stared down the aisle, empty rows of plush gray seats glaring blindly back at her. Dragging her duffel behind her, she found a spot about halfway back. She was too nervous to try to place her bag onto the overhead rack, so she sat next to the window and hugged the pack to her chest. Lucas slid silently into the aisle seat beside her. The driver climbed back onto the bus and swung the door shut without even glancing at them. It made a quick hissing sound that had Claire clenching her entire body.
“Is my mom … Is she … ?”
Lucas whispered, “Yeah. She’s with us. But she won’t be, once we get close to the town. Something there will not let her near.”
“Is it the same bad thing that made my father disappear?”
“Not sure. We’ll have to figure it out ourselves.”
“Is she still hurting you?”
Lucas seemed to gauge himself, then thought for a moment. “Huh. No. Not really. I guess that means we’re on the right track? She says she’ll keep us safe though, for as long as she can.”
The driver put the bus into gear, then moved away from the curb. Claire stared out the window at the familiar town of Archer’s Mills, watching as it passed by. Soon, the country roads had taken over the view—budding trees and wet ground and overflowing streams and abandoned stone walls that scratched across the old woods like scars—and she could feel her home disappearing behind her.
Heat was radiating off Lucas’s body. He had removed his thick coat and shoved it down into the space behind himself. One of its arms jutted up as if trying to wave at her.
“Are you scared?” she asked him.
Lucas cleared his throat. “It doesn’t matter. We’d have to do this whether we’re scared or not.”
All the anger and the confusion she’d felt toward him only yesterday seemed to evaporate from her mind. He didn’t have to do this, she thought. He could have told her where to go. Could have sent her off on her own. But here he was beside her. Choosing to come along on this journey. She felt so grateful that she suddenly wished to give him a hug. But she didn’t want to scare him. Instead, she turned and whispered, “Thank you for this.”
Lucas flinched. He shook his head, ignoring what she’d said, then he changed the subject. “What do you know about Hush Falls?” he asked. “Why was your father there in the first place?”
Claire sighed, disappointed that he hadn’t seemed to hear her. She opened her duffel and pulled out the folder she’d put together the previous evening, stuffed with the notes she’d taken in her father’s study. There were names and dates and questions and possible answers. She scanned what she’d written, flipping through some of the papers she’d swiped from her father’s desk. “As usual, he was investigating some reportedly strange happenings. This town, Hush Falls, is meant to be super-duper haunted.”
“Haunted by who?” Lucas asked.
“Well, according to my dad’s notes, it’s a little complicated. The reason he’d gone to visit the town was to gather a little more information before he brought the whole production team with him.”
“What kind of information?” he asked.
“Its history, I guess. The town was founded centuries ago by a family called Hush. Hence, the name Hush Falls. I’m not sure if there are any waterfalls in the immediate area. Maybe someone was just being cute. Get it? Hush Falls?”
“I get it.” Lucas forced a smile.
“A long, long time ago, the Hushes were wealthy traders. Fur, animal oils, bones. A bunch of them established estates up there. Big houses. Farms. Over the years, most of the wealth stayed in the family. But in the early 1900s, the state decided to dam up the river downstream from where they lived to create a water supply for the cities that were growing closer to the coasts. Which meant—”
“The town would flood,” Lucas added, looking at the seat back in front of him, his face aghast.
“Right,” Claire went on. “The state offered to help reestablish the whole town up in the nearby hills. The Holler, they called it.”
“Hush Falls Holler,” Lucas whispered to himself.
“There wasn’t much that the town, or the Hush family, could do to fight. My dad’s notes said: When the state wants your land, they take it. Almost all the townspeople fell in line. Some of the buildings were demolished and then rebuilt on new streets in the nearby hills. Some houses were moved piece by piece. But the story says that there was one man, an elderly relative of the town’s founders, who refused to move. His name was Lemuel Hush. He fought the state to keep his mansion, which was one of the original buildings his ancestors had built on that land. His home was so old that there was even a family graveyard in the woods behind it, and he—”
&
nbsp; Lucas flinched. “Wait, what did you say?”
Claire was unsure of which part he’d seemed to have missed. “There was a graveyard? Behind the mansion?”
Lucas’s skin had turned grayish. “I … I had a dream last night,” he stammered. “About a mansion. And a graveyard. They were both underwater. I heard a knocking sound coming from inside a coffin. When it opened by itself, I woke up. That’s when I saw your mother again. In my house. In the hallway outside my bedroom.”
Claire cringed. She hated thinking about her mother as a thing that could scare someone. “Do you think the dream has something to do with my father?”
“I’m not sure,” Lucas answered. “Tell me the rest of the story.”
“There’s not much left. Mostly just spooky tales passed down through the years. I think my father was trying to figure out if they were true or not.”
“What happened to the old man?” Lucas asked. Lowering his voice, he added, “Mr. Hush.”
“He got sick. He died. His family blamed the legal battle with the state. It was too much for him to take on at his age. His family buried him in the graveyard behind his mansion as he’d wished. Then the state built the dam just a few months later. Lemuel Hush’s house and lands were drowned in the new reservoir. People say the mansion is still down there. Deep and dark and impossible to reach.”
Lucas’s skin seemed to become even more gray. His voice wobbled. “And the scary tales?”
“They claim that Mr. Hush’s ghost haunts the lake. The reservoir. They say he’s angry about what the state did to him. To his family property.” This next part was especially difficult to get out. “Supposedly, lots of people have drowned there.”
Lucas sputtered, “Do you think—” but then he stopped. His face flushed, and his jaw opened and shut several times.
Claire knew what he’d almost said. It felt better to finish the thought than to leave it hanging. “Do I think that’s what happened to my father?”
Lucas closed his eyes, then nodded.
“I don’t know.” Claire allowed her gaze to shift around the empty bus. “What does … what does my mom think?”
Lucas shoved the arm of his jacket down under the armrest. “That’s the weird thing. She won’t tell me.”
The bus shifted gear and jolted forward, throwing the two of them back against their seats as it pulled onto the thruway and sped up with the traffic.
THEY WALKED IN silence along the quiet state route, heading north from the thruway.
Claire and Lucas had gotten off the bus when it had stopped to pick up more passengers an hour and a half from where they’d begun. Lucas had asked at a general store near the stop which direction would lead them to Hush Falls Holler. The young woman behind the counter had raised an eyebrow when she’d pointed up the road, which made Lucas want to get away from there as quickly as possible. Though they’d been walking for a long time, it was still morning. Lucas had no idea how much longer it would be till they reached the town.
It wasn’t that they had nothing to say to each other. They’d certainly filled their time on the bus with conversation—about Lucas’s parents’ recovery work, about Claire’s mother’s illness. But now, surrounded by tall pines that bowed in the breeze, a chill had come over both of them, and the seriousness of what they had done, what they were doing, sealed their lips shut.
Tree branches creaked. Birds sang deep in the woods. The wind itself was like a mournful chorus, moving over the hills that were growing steeper by the step. Their shoes scuffed along the gravelly shoulder of the road, adding soft percussion to the concerto that Mother Nature was creating especially for them. The sun gazed down from overhead, keeping their shadows close to their bodies.
All the while, Lucas had felt Penelope nearby. Now, however, there was a shift, as if a magnet lodged in his chest was starting to pull him backward, toward the direction from which they’d come. Lucas stopped and Claire stopped too, looking at him with worry. “What is it?” she asked.
Lucas glanced back. Down the road, he could see a blur of movement. When he squinted, the blur took form—a smudge of shadow in the shape of a person. “Your mother,” he whispered. “She won’t come any farther.”
Claire looked back too. “Mom?” she called out. “What’s wrong?”
“I think we’re getting too close,” Lucas answered. “She can’t keep up with us. There’s something ahead that’s stopping her.”
Claire shivered. “Should we turn back?”
Lucas closed his eyes and listened. It wasn’t a voice that he was hearing—more like thoughts vibrating through his spine, tingling their way out to his fingers and toes. But they weren’t his thoughts, he knew. They were hers. “No,” he said. “She expected this would happen. It’s why she needed us to come here in the first place.” He waited until the tingling faded. “She wants us to go on. Alone.”
Claire clasped her rib cage. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“We have each other. We can do this.” Claire’s mom was gone now—both the blur of her down the road and the non-voice that had been speaking to him through his nerves. It felt suddenly strange thinking she wasn’t with him anymore. She’d been the one driving them forward. Though he’d found her presence frightening at first, she’d almost been a comfort since getting on the bus, and Lucas was certain things would only get scarier without her along for the rest of the journey. “Come on. Let’s keep going.”
Farther along, the sound of an approaching truck growled out from behind them. They darted off the road, into the shadows between the trees, and then waited for the vehicle to pass. Can’t be too cautious, Lucas thought. People might already be looking for us. A red pickup zoomed by, the driver not seeming to notice their hiding spot.
When the burping of the engine had faded away, another sound took its place. This one came from the forest, rat-a-tat, like a woodpecker. The wind picked up, and Lucas felt a sense of unease. He turned toward the woods.
Someone was standing just down the slope. A man dressed in gray pants, black boots, and a thick overcoat with a burst of black fur at the collar. Dark hair was slicked into a severe part at the side of his head. His eyes were dark, hidden in pockets of shadow, and his mouth was a deep straight gash carved just below his long nose. Before Lucas could grasp what he was seeing, the man stepped behind a tree and was gone.
“What is it?” asked Claire.
“I—I …” But Lucas wasn’t sure he should tell her. She’d already said she was scared, and why wouldn’t she be? His own heart felt like a sputtering lawn mower inside his chest. He knew who this man was, but he didn’t know if he could bring himself to say the name.
Hush. Lemuel Hush.
Had his presence warned away Claire’s mother? Was this why she had turned back?
“Lucas, tell me. Please.”
He looked into Claire’s eyes, the thick lenses of her glasses making them appear massive. It wasn’t safe here, away from the road. But Lucas had a feeling it would be even less safe as they headed toward the town. “I thought I saw a man.”
“In the woods?”
He nodded.
Claire lit up. “Maybe he knows something about my dad—”
The man had stepped out from behind the tree again, and Lucas squeezed Claire’s arm. Now the man was grinning. His face made Lucas feel ice crystallizing his bones. He raised his hand and crooked his finger as if instructing Lucas to come toward him. Strangely, Lucas could feel his feet wanting to obey, to step farther into the brush. But a distant noise stopped him. A whooshing sound. The ground began to tremble. Great cracking booms rang out. The man’s smile only grew.
And then Lucas saw it.
The wall of water that was coming upon them, towering at an unfathomable height. Brown and churning, taking up the entire forest in its wake, pushing it forward like a weapon. A tsunami, like the one that had destroyed the coast. The water overtook the grinning man, enveloping him in chaos, and then continued toward Lucas and C
laire.
There was nowhere to run. No way to escape. Lucas grabbed Claire’s hands and then dragged her to the ground. He threw his arms around her as if he could protect her. He knew it didn’t matter anymore. In less than a second, they both would be …
They would be …
Claire was shivering. Lucas opened his eyes. The forest stood as it had been. There was no water. No flood. No tsunami.
No man.
“Let’s get out of here,” Lucas said, his voice ragged. He led Claire out to the road, not wanting to look back to the woods again. “We need to keep moving.”
Claire stomped her foot. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what just happened.” She clutched her fingers nervously. “What did you see?”
Lucas told her.
They continued up the road. They sipped from their water bottles until the bottles were empty. They devoured the snacks that Claire had packed, hoping for energy. Already, Lucas felt a dull ache in his shins. He noticed that Claire had started to limp.
He was grateful that she’d accepted the story of his vision. She hadn’t looked at him like he was lying to her, but she did ask him if he knew what the vision had meant. Lucas didn’t have the heart to tell her he thought it was nothing good.
For the first time that day, he worried about reaching their destination. If Penelope was too frightened to follow them this far, then how would they be able to make it? Had this journey been a mistake? What if Lucas saw the grinning man again? What if he brought another vision with him, or worse, something that could really hurt them?
At the next hill, Lucas felt out of breath, but he didn’t want to pause. Something deep inside him understood what was at stake here—a man’s life. Claire’s future. He remembered what his grandmother had said about his “gift,” that it was his responsibility to help others. Why, he wondered, couldn’t he have met a spirit who needed him to return a piece of missing jewelry? If he was meant to make a dangerous journey, shouldn’t it have been toward the coast, to see his own mother and father? It didn’t seem fair.