“I’m really hungry,” he said. “Anyway, I usually eat two burgers.”
Lauren inwardly marveled at the way teenage boys stayed so skinny even though they ate everything under the sun. She wasn’t as self-conscious about eating as Miranda was—Miranda wouldn’t eat more than a lettuce leaf in front of another person, lest they accuse her of being fat—but she could never eat as much as Jake seemed prepared to do in one sitting.
They got Jake’s food and managed to find an unoccupied picnic table nearby. The sun was going down and the fair lights were slowly coming on, the bright colors spinning as the rides whirled in every direction.
Jake took a huge bite out of one of the burgers and then nudged the tray of fries in Lauren’s direction. “Feel free.”
“Nah, I’m good,” she said, sipping her Coke.
She was surprised by how relaxed she felt, how natural. There was a little butterfly in her stomach—no, not even a butterfly, really. More like a moth, one of those tiny ones that occasionally flew out of her sweater drawer. And that smidge of nervousness was natural and normal. It was her first date, after all. But she didn’t feel the way she thought she would—awkward, full of worries about possibly saying or doing the wrong thing.
Part of it was that Jake seemed so sincerely interested in her—in who she was inside. He wasn’t only interested in groping her, whatever Miranda might think. And part of it was, well, whatever it was that had awakened inside her—this power, this witchy-ness.
“So tell me about this legend,” Jake said. “Before you go away somewhere again. I can see that look in your eye.”
“What look?” Lauren asked.
“The one that says you’re retreating inside your own mind. The one that says you don’t think I’m the most fascinating guy you’ve ever met.” He gave her a crooked smile at this, so she knew he was kidding.
“Okay,” Lauren said. “You know that tree in the woods, the one that looks like it was struck by lightning?”
“Yeah, I know the one you mean. It always gave me the creeps.”
“Why?” she asked, genuinely curious.
She’d never felt that way about the tree. She still didn’t, even after Nana told her the story and she found her bloodstained bike underneath its branches.
“Something about it. It always seems like the tree is watching.”
“Well, maybe it is,” Lauren said, and then she realized It definitely is. There’s something that lives inside the tree, something that’s trapped there. And the witches cursed us so that whatever it is can come out once a year.
Why had this only occurred to her now? Even after everything that had happened since she heard the story? It was as if her knowledge of the Thing that lived in the tree kept shifting away, hiding behind other thoughts so she wouldn’t see it clearly.
“Anyway,” she said, before Jake accused her of going away someplace without him again. “This is the story I heard.”
She took a deep breath, and began, “There was a hill just off the center of town, a lonely and inexplicable hill, a hill that should not be for it blighted an otherwise perfectly flat and reasonable landscape . . .”
It felt like she was talking for a very long time. As she told the story it was like she went away from the fair, went away from the noise and the colors and the cotton-candy-scented air. She was there with the three witches who lived on the hill, and was there when the red-haired one fell in love with a princeling. She was there when they married and loved and dreamed of the future.
She was there in the woods when Elizabeth was torn to pieces by the man with the knife.
Lauren didn’t stop telling the story, but a part of her gasped in realization. That place where Elizabeth died—it was the exact same place where she and Jake had found what was left of the two dead girls.
And that’s where all the girls have died. Every single one.
The sun was down by the time she finished. Jake hadn’t spoken a word the entire time, and after a while Lauren was only half-aware of his presence. She thought that even if he’d gotten up and walked away she would have finished the story. It was like a compulsion was laid on her to tell it all once she started.
She picked up her Coke and took a sip. Most of the bubbles were gone and all of the ice was melted, so instead of refreshing her, the syrup just stuck in the back of her throat. She glanced at Jake, wondering what he’d made of all this.
He was crying.
“Jake?” she said tentatively, reaching across the table to touch his hand.
“I had an older sister,” he said. His voice was dreamy and his eyes faraway. “Seven years older than me, kind of like you and David. Her name was Jennifer. My parents liked names that start with J. Jennifer and Jacob. Jenny and Jake. She had really beautiful long dark hair, you know. It went all the way down her back. She used to steal cookies from the kitchen and take them into her room and make a tent out of her comforter between her bed and the desk. Then she’d call me and I’d come in her room and we’d eat cookies in the fort and tell ghost stories. I didn’t know a lot of ghost stories, though, because I was little. But she made up really good ones and knew how to tell them, too. I think she would have been a writer, or maybe an actress. She was definitely pretty enough to be an actress.
“One day I woke up and my mom and dad were in a panic. Jenny wasn’t in her bed, wasn’t anywhere in the house, and nobody knew where she’d gone. Chief Christie came to the house and asked all of us—even me—a lot of questions about Jenny’s friends and her moods and whether she’d ever talked about running away. But she would never run away. There was no reason why she would do that. She was only fifteen years old. Where would she run away to, or how? She wasn’t old enough to drive and she didn’t have a boyfriend.
“I remember my mom crying, just sitting at the kitchen table with tears running down her face, but my dad didn’t cry at all. His fists were clenched and his face was made of stone but he never cried. He never cried, even when Chief Christie came to the house two days later and said they’d found Jenny in the woods. I cried, though. I cried like I would never stop for three days after that. My mom started to get worried, thought maybe I’d need to go to a doctor.
“And then all of a sudden I did stop crying. Just click, like a switch that had been thrown. And it was weird, you know, what happened after that. We forgot her.
“Slowly at first. There were times when I thought of her, even thought I could see her—standing in the kitchen with a stack of cookies in one hand and her finger over her mouth, or combing out her hair in front of the bathroom mirror. But after a while her pictures were put away, and nobody told funny stories of things Jenny used to do. She was just gone. We never talked about her. It was as if she never existed, like I’d only dreamed I had an older sister.”
As Jake spoke, a memory bubbled up inside Lauren—a memory of a girl with very long black hair and pretty blue eyes building Play-Doh sculptures in Lauren’s living room.
“She was my babysitter,” Lauren said. “I remember her.”
Jake’s eyes came back from the place where he’d gone, and he gripped Lauren’s hand hard. “It’s a true story, isn’t it? The one that you told me. It’s all true. The town is under a curse.”
His grip was hurting her hand, but she didn’t try to pull it away. “I think so. Yes. It’s true.”
“How can that be?” His tone was pleading, begging her to say it was all a scary story for a summer’s night. “How can there really be witches and curses and monsters that live in the woods? It’s the twentieth century, for God’s sake.”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “But I think it’s coming undone. I think that if it weren’t, you wouldn’t have remembered your sister. And there have been . . . other weird things.”
“What kind of other weird things?”
Lauren hesitated, wondering if she should
tell him. It seemed he would believe her if she talked about magic. But then again—how would he feel about her if he knew that she was related to the original three witches? Would he turn away from her in horror? Would he blame her for his sister’s death? That wouldn’t be logical, but then grief wasn’t always a logical thing, and Jake’s grief was all fresh and new again. She could see it on his face like a bruise.
“Listen, this isn’t really the best place to talk about this. I shouldn’t have told that story,” she said.
His grip softened, but he didn’t let go of her hand. He scrubbed at his face with his other arm. “You’re right. This isn’t a good place to talk about this.”
“Do you want to go home?” she asked. “It’s okay if you do.”
He seemed to come to a decision then. “No, let’s stick with the original plan. I wanted to take you out and have fun, and we should do that.”
Lauren surveyed him doubtfully. “I don’t want to feel like I’m forcing you.”
Jake smiled, a smile that made her heart go loop-the-loop.
“I’ve wanted to go out with you for so long. I’m not going to blow it now just because the town is cursed.”
She laughed, and he squeezed her hand gently.
“Want to go on the merry-go-round with me?” he said.
“Definitely.”
They got up and headed in the direction of the merry-go-round. He didn’t let go of her hand, either.
20
Miranda saw Lauren and Jake Hanson sitting at the picnic table holding hands. They seemed to be having a very intense conversation, looking soulfully into each other’s eyes.
He’s probably telling her some bullshit about how he adores her and later he’ll have his hands underneath her undershirt grabbing at her tiny breasts.
Tad had already grabbed at Miranda’s much more substantial breasts while they rode the Himalaya. She hadn’t cared so much about that, but his breath had been sour when he put his face close to hers and she turned her head away so he could suck at her neck instead. What she really wanted was to go home. She was tired of pretending that Tad was interesting.
After they rode the Himalaya Tad and Billy decided they wanted to try their hand at the shooting gallery booth. Miranda murmured that she needed to powder her nose and slipped off in the direction of the bathrooms.
On the way she saw Lauren standing alone. Jake must have gone to the bathroom himself, or went off to fetch her some food so she wouldn’t have to stand in the increasingly long lines. Miranda thought about detouring over to make a snide remark about Lauren’s date but decided against it. They might end up screaming at each other in the middle of the fair and Miranda didn’t want to make a scene.
The fair was pretty wall-to-wall then and it was difficult to walk even a few feet without bumping into someone. She’d spotted Officers Lopez and Miller handing off to Officer Pantaleo a man who appeared so drunk that it looked like he was made of rubber. Everywhere she looked people were screaming, running, laughing, stuffing greasy food in their faces. Why had she wanted to come here at all? Tad hadn’t even noticed her dress.
A hard hand clamped under her elbow. She started to jerk away, then looked up and realized it was Him.
She relaxed as He steered her away from the crowd. “I’m so glad it’s you. I want to get out of here. Let’s go somewhere quiet.”
He nodded, but there was a strange look on His face. She noticed that He was pushing her toward the deep pool of darkness between the haunted house and the tent where the acrobats were performing. Miranda heard the gasps and cries coming from the audience inside the tent.
She thought she knew what this was about. He wanted a little something from her. Well, she didn’t mind. He wasn’t Tad, after all.
21
He had to get rid of the little slut. He realized that now. The only way that Lauren would know she was the only one for him was if Miranda went away. He had to show Lauren. Show her that she was his one and only love. Show her what he was willing to sacrifice for her.
Besides, the Thing inside him was hungry again. He could feel its mouth opening wide, feel the curve of its claws longing to sink into soft flesh. The slut smiled up at him and pressed her chest against him as he pushed her into the shadows.
He put his hand over her mouth. There was just enough light for him to see the glint of her eyes, the welcome that shifted into fear.
The crowd in the tent next door clapped and shouted. No one would hear her scream.
22
Miranda looked into the face of her lover, or what she’d thought was her lover. His mouth wasn’t right. It was huge and black and seeping across his face in a way that no human mouth should. The hand across her mouth didn’t feel like a hand anymore. The sharp tips of his fingers dug into her cheek and tore the skin.
I want to go home. I want my mommy.
23
Lauren fiddled with the hem of her shirt. It seemed like Jake had been gone a very long time, though looking at the lines for every booth it was probably to be expected. She’d lost sight of him in the crowd—an easy thing to do when you’re such a shortie, she thought.
Lauren had seen a few people she knew—Mr. and Mrs. Arakawa climbing into a gondola on the Ferris wheel, some girls from junior high walking in a large pack and giggling, Tad and Miranda choosing a seat on the Himalaya.
Lauren had made sure not to make eye contact with Miranda. She didn’t know what would happen if their eyes met. Probably nothing, or maybe Miranda would flip her the bird. Lauren didn’t want to take any chances, though. This day had already been strange and upsetting. She and Jake were still getting their equilibrium back after the story and Jake’s fresh memories.
Mayor Touhy was walking around greeting everyone he met like he was at a voters’ rally. She’d waved at Officer Hendricks as she and Jake exited the merry-go-round. All of the town police officers seemed to be at the fair that night, and Lauren bet they had their hands full with so many people around. She hoped that Officer Lopez wouldn’t try to corner her and ask questions about what happened earlier.
“Hey,” Jake said from behind her.
“I thought you would come from that direction.” She pointed at the lines of people that were now behind her.
“I thought it would be faster to go a little farther away and hopefully find a shorter line. There was a popcorn booth by the haunted house that wasn’t too bad, but then I had to fight the crowds to get back to you,” he said, handing her a cardboard container of popcorn. “Want to go in the haunted house?”
“No,” Lauren said. “I don’t like them.”
“Scared?” Jake asked, but it wasn’t the way Miranda would have said it, as a taunt. He just seemed curious.
“Not exactly scared,” Lauren said. “But I don’t like people jumping out at me.”
“How about the acrobats, then?” he said. “The tent is right next to the haunted house and we can sit down for a while.”
“Sure,” Lauren said. She wouldn’t mind sitting for a while. David had wanted to walk all over the whole fair earlier. She was pretty active but it was mostly bike riding—she wasn’t used to so much walking in one day.
They strolled at a leisurely pace, eating popcorn and talking about nothing in particular—movies they liked, books they had read. Even though the date hadn’t been perfectly ideal so far, Lauren still felt warm and content and happy. He liked her. He wanted to be with her, with no strings and no expectations. And he made her feel like she could be herself. It had been a very long time since she’d felt that way.
Before Dad died. Before Miranda changed.
You changed, too, you know.
Yes, she had changed, although she hadn’t realized it when it was happening. They’d grown apart. They wanted different things. And it was okay for that to happen.
She resolved then that she would call Miranda t
he next day. Even if they weren’t best friends forever anymore Lauren should at least say she was sorry. She shouldn’t have called Miranda names. And it would be nice if they could at least be friendly to one another, not turn away as if the other were made of poison.
The haunted house and the acrobat tent were on the outermost loop of the fairgrounds, with nothing behind them except the last bit of empty field. They followed the curve of the pathway around to the left, walking in front of the haunted house. A lot of loud screaming and laughter was coming from inside, but there was nobody else around on the path. Everyone in this part of the fair was inside the haunted house or the tent.
Past the acrobat tent was a large barn, a temporary structure built to hold a petting zoo. The ripe scent of animals drifted toward them and Jake wrinkled his nose.
“Don’t you like animals?” Lauren asked.
“It’s not that,” he said, turning his face away and covering his nose and mouth with his hand as he sneezed. “I’m allergic to animal hair.”
“Aww, no cute little sheep and pigs for you,” Lauren said.
“Pigs aren’t cute.”
“Baby pigs are really cute,” she said.
“I respectfully disagree. The only way I like a pig is when it’s been cured into bacon.”
“Aww, no,” Lauren said, laughing. “Don’t say the cute little piggies get turned into bacon.”
“Bacon and ham and Sunday pork roast,” Jake said, making a snuffling noise like a pig.
She was going to say something else, something about Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web, but then she noticed that her sneakers were sticking in something. They were just in front of the space between the haunted house and the acrobat tent.
The Ghost Tree Page 30