“Thank God, at least I found you.” His words broke my trance. I buried my face in his neck. At least he’d found me, so he hadn’t found Sam.
I couldn’t hear the ocean anymore. I felt it though. I felt it thrashing inside my chest. Something was stolen from the waves like my brother had been stolen from us.
“Dad,” I whispered. My lips cracked and burned.
“Mr. Howell, we need to get her to the hospital. She might be hypothermic.”
I tried to turn away from the pond. My joints screamed in pain, and I couldn’t move.
“Don’t.” Dad’s voice broke as he picked me up like a doll.
“We’ll send someone back for her car.” The police officer opened his passenger door. Dad sat with me in his lap. His arms tightened around me as the officer adjusted the heat vents. I had a feeling Dad wouldn’t be letting go of me for a long time. I was okay with that. I felt like a lost girl who needed her daddy.
“Gram?” My voice rasped and cracked.
“Sshhh.” He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Gram is just fine. We have to take care of you right now.”
“Sam?” I croaked.
“You. You. You.” He kept repeating the word like a mantra. “The rest will come later. You need help first.”
“Sam?” I tried again.
“Don’t talk.” Dad closed his eyes. He looked so brittle in that moment. I knew Sam hadn’t been found. I closed my eyes as well.
Chapter 2
The beeping woke me.
Then the warmth soaked in. I reveled in it. I refused to open my eyes in case it was a dream.
A pile of soft blankets weighed me down. Not that I could have lifted my arms or sat up anyway. My body was so heavy. Dead weight.
Something cold found a way under my warm cocoon and snaked around my ankle. My eyes flew open. The cold was such a shock.
A woman stood at the foot of my bed with her hand stuffed up under the edge of my blanket. As soon as I realized that, I could feel each of her bony fingers.
We were alone in a hospital room. The beeping had come from the machine I was attached to, monitoring my vitals. An IV ran into my arm.
How long had I been here?
“Who are you?” I asked. My voice cracked like I hadn’t used it in a week. I knew this lady with cold hands wasn’t a nurse. She wore no scrubs, no stethoscope around her neck.
“I’m checking on you,” she said.
She turned her head, and a long white braid fell over her shoulder. Something about that white hair tugged at my memory.
“Why?”
She let go of my ankle and tucked the blankets back around my feet. Moving to the side of my bed, she narrowed her eyes at me. A heavy sigh lifted her shoulders. She looked older than my mom; lines and early wrinkles etched the edges of her eyes. Crow’s feet, I think they’re called.
“Do you remember me?” she asked. I shook my head. I’d never seen her before.
Her shoulders lifted again. A small smile lifted the corner of her lips.
“Good,” she said. “I’m not important. But I do need you to remember something.”
She sat next to me on the bed. I tried to scoot away, but hospital beds are definitely not big enough to do so.
“Don’t worry. You have nothing to fear from me.” She smiled again, bigger this time. She placed her bony hand over my stomach. Her hand looked much older than the rest of her. Maybe she had crippling arthritis or something. Even through the blankets, I could feel the cold coming from her hand. So perhaps she also had some circulation issues.
“Who are you?” I asked, nerves making the back of my neck itch. “Where’s my mom?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, with her free hand, she snapped, and a spark of white electricity appeared between her finger and her thumb. Several arcs of light swirled together. A tendril reached out.
Recognition crashed into me.
“You’re that crazy lady who was standing in the street.” I pushed away from her as far as the rails on my hospital bed would let me. “You said I had to forget.”
The monitor beside my bed started beeping. My heart rate was rising.
“I meant for you to forget that night. But obviously, you didn’t.” She leaned in closer to me while the revolving ball of light grew brighter. It wasn’t any bigger than a marble, but it wasn’t right. No one should be able to do that.
“See, mon amie, I need you to forget that night, but remember the boy.” She reached out to boop the tip of my nose with that light, and I jerked away so hard my head bounced off the rail.
“Who? You have the wrong person.” I raised a hand to block her, but she grabbed my hand with her free one and intertwined our fingers.
“Be calm. I am not here to hurt you.”
“I am not mon amie.”
“You are exactly who I am looking for. Please believe me, this is for your own good.”
She didn’t boop my nose after all but touched her finger and thumb to my forehead. The white light grew so bright that I had to shut my eyes. There was no heat though her fingers weren’t as cold as they had been when she first touched my ankle.
“Listen, mon amie, let the memory of your search for your brother fade. Don’t forget him. Be sad. Be lost without him. But don’t remember going out the night he left. Don’t remember finding me in the street, and don’t remember the pond. The old, disgusting pond means nothing to you.” She whispered to me, and each time she said “don’t remember,” my muscles relaxed, and I pushed my head against the warmth growing from her fingers.
“What pond?” I asked. There were lots of little ponds that popped up in the low-lying areas. The water was usually salty and stale. Like a bag of discarded pretzels. They weren’t spots to go hang out. We had a couple of gorgeous pebble beaches for that.
“That’s my girl.” She gave my hand a squeeze. “Now, one more thing. You will remember rumors and stories of a boy, close to your age. But he’s been gone traveling with his family, so you don’t actually know him.”
“I only moved here two years ago,” I said. “We lived in Philadelphia before.”
“I know. Believe me, mon amie, I wish you and your family had stayed there. Now, don’t distract me. The boy, his name is Foster. He’s coming back after the Christmas break. Ignore him, and focus on grieving your brother.”
She pulled her hand back.
“There, all done.” This time, her smile was genuine. “You did well, mon amie.”
She settled me back in the middle of my bed and tucked all my blankets around me again.
“I’m not your mon amie,” I said.
“It’s only an endearment.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Me?” She placed a fingertip on my forehead. Her skin felt so warm, I felt it all the way to my core. “I’m no one.”
Chapter 3
I tossed my backpack behind the seat of my beat-up Honda, Sheldon, and flopped into the driver’s seat. School had done me in for the day. In fact, last period, biology, would just have to make do without me.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. No doubt it was Chi wondering why I wasn’t in class. I fished out the irritating device and dropped it onto the passenger seat. Most days, I appreciated her quest to keep me from tanking my GPA. Today, though, was not one of those days.
I didn’t waste any time throwing Sheldon into drive and pulling out of the school parking lot before Vice-Principal Taylor realized I was skipping again.
Nothing particularly bad had happened to chase me out the doors. I simply couldn’t catch my breath. An itchy panic crawled under my skin, and I needed the ocean. Since the night Sam had disappeared four months ago, I had spent a lot of time with the waves.
Dad had found me beside some sludge-filled pond the morning after Sam disappeared, but when I woke up in the hospital two days later, I couldn’t remember anything. I had no idea why I had been at that pond. It was the ocean that called to me. The waves were the only thing that so
othed me after listening to mom cry or the police give another useless excuse for not having found Sam.
The waves understood. They were so gentle sometimes, and other times, they screamed for me. I needed that even though February was hardly beach weather. I drove out to a small strip of sand that most people ignore. Most tourists didn’t even know about the place. There were always some lobster pots piled on the sand, left by lobstermen though.
I grabbed my camera from the back seat when I got out of the car. My phone stayed on the passenger seat. I sat on the tumbled, smooth pebbles just out of reach of the seeping water. Once my jeans got wet, it would take two showers to get warm again.
I flipped on my Nikon D3500. My parents had gotten this sweet, little baby for me when we left Philly, a consolation prize for taking me away from everything I’d known the summer before my junior year. I hadn’t even been a brat about it. I knew we were moving back to Gram’s hometown. It was for her.
This same strip of beach was one of her favorite spots in town. Before the stroke, the two of us had spent a lot of time here. Some of the old lobstermen even knew her, remembered her from when she’d been my age.
I scrolled past the senior pictures I’d shot for classmates. It was a good way to earn some cash, and for my classmates, I was cheaper than the pros, and my camera was kick-ass. I hadn’t done any sessions since Sam’s disappearance, but Chi was on my case to set up some shoots before prom. I flipped to pics where Gram and I had been here this past summer.
The sun had turned her pale skin a warm brown, and her silver hair made her look like a movie star from the glamour of old Hollywood.
I missed her so much. She’d not regained consciousness yet. Her vitals were strong. Her doctors said if she woke up again, it would be a miracle. It should have never happened in the first place. Honestly, they were as confused as the rest of us.
Gram would know what to do about Sam. How to make Mom stop crying and find her inner strength. How to save us all from the crushing grief that was killing my family. Heck, she would probably tell us exactly where he’d gone. But instead of offering help, she was inside her own mind while the rest of us suffered.
I shut the camera off with a sigh. It didn’t bring me joy anymore. It held memories of happier times, and I didn’t have much time for that these days. I pulled the strap over my head and one arm, out of the way where the water couldn’t reach it. I rested my elbows on my up-drawn knees and let the smell of salt in the air fill my lungs.
I knew from experience that I could sit here and watch the waves for hours. I’d left school too early once, and dad had blown up my phone. We made a deal then. I could skip one class a day, two days a week. My biology class was one of this week’s casualties.
My body swayed in rhythm with each gentle roll of the waves. They were calm today. I was growing calmer. That strange itchy feeling that had me fleeing school was settling. Finally, the heaviness that passed for peace these days settled in my chest.
As I stared at the sea washing in, I tried to think about where Sam might be or what he might be going through. A million scenarios had run through my head in the last few months. None of them felt right, though. I didn’t believe that Sam had been snatched by the mob that was selling black-market child organs. Nor did I believe he’d been swept up by aliens.
Since he’d disappeared without a trace, the cops had been pushing the idea that Sam was targeted by some sort of trafficking organization. But the reason why, they couldn’t figure out. How it was done was pretty much eluding them, too. There was no evidence of any other child going missing under such circumstances in all of Maine for the last ten years.
The cops and the state police, all they ever did was upset mom with some new, even more outrageous theory. They weren’t going to be the ones to find Sam. I wasn’t so sure anybody was going to.
The longer I sat there, the more it felt like I was being walled into a little cubby of tranquility. I felt much warmer than I had, and safe. I hadn’t really felt safe since Sam left. I released a long, heavy sigh and felt the tension drain out of me. The wind died down, and it was just me and those waves.
I didn’t feel alone. There was someone there with me.
“Sam?” I whispered. I guess he could be there if he were a ghost or something. I leaned to my left the tiniest bit. There was something solid next to me. Nothing I could see, but something propping me up.
“Is that you, Sam?” I asked again, a little louder this time.
It had to be him. I was so peaceful and calm.
“Are you gone? Dead?” I asked. My hair ruffled like Sam was playing with my ponytail, and the thought drifted away. I didn’t care. I was so comfortable sitting there in the space I had carved out.
My eyes slipped closed.
I heard a low growl and snapped my eyes back open. But I wasn’t sitting in safety at the ocean anymore. I sat in dead, brown grass next to a pond. The water had a milky white sheen to it. And it rose.
An arm, as white as the water, reached out, grasping the sparse grass, and pulled. Gnarled knuckles twisted the hand that ended in long jagged nails. Another arm followed, reaching for more grass.
I didn’t move. I sat and watched as those arms pulled a head full of black hair from the water.
I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even open my mouth. The long sheets of hair hung in its face, hiding it. I had no idea who or what this was. From the torso down, it remained in the water.
The head lifted and turned in my direction. I strained my muscles. I had to get away from this thing. My whole body betrayed me, keeping me still.
A few strands of hair parted, revealing the lower part of the face. It was a she. I was positive that whatever it was, it was female. She grinned at me. Her teeth were green and coated with algae.
I screamed, and this time, the sound ripped from me.
Next thing I knew, I was on my back, screaming and kicking on the pebble beach. The thing was gone. So were the pond and the dead grass.
I still felt like I was suffocating and continued to kick at the rocks. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks.
Something pressed against my forehead. I remembered the presence that had been here with me before that terrible dream. I had been so relaxed that I must have fallen asleep. I stopped kicking.
That was Sam pressing his forehead on mine. I would have smiled, but I could still see that green algae smile and shuddered.
Calm. Be calm.
The voice spoke directly into my thoughts.
I was anything but calm. But I did try to take some deep breaths.
“Sam?” I asked out loud. “Please, Sam. Don’t tease me. This isn’t the time to play.”
I was wrapped in warmth. It was much larger than my little brother, and there was a distinct lack of arms holding me.
I hated to scare you like that. I am sorry.
“Sam, I’ve been scared every day since you left.” More tears tracked down my face.
The pond, the one on Grimm Road, I need you to go back there.
The presence was suddenly gone, and the cold wind slammed into me.
Too stunned to move, I stared at the gray sky.
What the hell had just happened to me? That wasn’t Sam.
That wasn’t Sam.
I repeated it several times before I found the courage to sit up. My camera still hung by my side, and the ocean was as soothing as I remembered.
Not that I would be soothed.
Chapter 4
I jumped up, showering pebbles all around me, and ran to my car. I should probably have gone home and told Dad I needed psychiatric treatment. But that presence had said Grimm Road, so I was going to Grimm Road. I started Sheldon, the Honda, and grabbed my phone. I had only been here for an hour. My last class had only let out about ten minutes ago. I still had time before Dad would miss me. I also had four missed calls and two voicemails from Chi. She could wait. I didn’t need another lecture about my grades right now.
I was headed just outside of town. It didn’t take me long to barrel my way through the town’s two stoplights and turn onto Grimm road. It was paved for about a half a mile, and then I hit gravel. I slowed down so I didn’t throw up too much dust.
The ocean bordered one side of the road. My beloved ocean, the only place where I felt I could be myself anymore. But I was looking for a pond. It had to be on the other side. I turned away from my waves and scanned the barren land.
The grass was the same as it had been in my dream, brown and dead. In the summer, this area must be beautiful, blossoming with lots of wildflowers. Then again, if that thing I saw lived out here, I’d bet nothing ever grew.
Finally, I saw it. Milky white like in my vision. I stopped my car just off the road. As I got out, I tossed the keys on the seat next to my phone. Before I shut the door, the wind tore my hair free of the ponytail. The conditions here were wild . . . untamed . . . with no trees for at least a thousand yards to hem in the ocean breezes. Wind and fog were constant companions of the cold.
I stalked up cautiously. A large boulder sat partially in the water but mostly out. I crawled up there. If there was something in that pond, I didn’t want to be an easy target. The breeze stirred up small ripples, and I stared as each one seeped into the weeds and rocks lining the water’s edge. Cold radiated from the stone, numbing my backside.
Broken sticks jutted out of the water sporadically, and the hazy mist caught on them like ghostly cotton candy. The pond was a desolate place.
I stared hard, hoping I could part that water and see what secrets it held. How could this place have anything to do with Sam? Could he be under that water?
With a loud plop, something surfaced in the frosty water not far from me. I jumped and pressed my hands down on the rock to keep from falling back onto my backside. The item was gray and curved . . . about the size of a small apple.
I climbed down and knelt in the weeds. Freezing cold, slushy water seeped into the knees of my jeans, and I sucked in a breath as the sensation of pins and needles stung my skin. Leaning out as far as I dared, I tried to get a better look at the floating object.
The Curse of Jenny Greene Page 2