The Curse of Jenny Greene

by Kimberly Loth

  The buzz and whir of machines comforted me. I pulled up a chair and sat with my head resting by her hand on the bed.

  “I miss you, Gram,” I said. It took me several long breaths before I let myself say what I needed to. “I saw things today. Weird things. Frightening things.”

  Entwining my fingers with hers in the quiet, it was easy to pretend she was holding my hand, not the other way around. In my mind, she’d squeeze it and say a few words about my overactive imagination. Remind me that ghostly ladies didn’t live in frozen ponds and steal little kids. And that thing at the ocean. I didn’t even have a clue what she’d say about that.

  “I saw this lady,” I said. That was probably the most pivotal part of the day. “I think she was dead. She had these green teeth, and she disappeared down into this awful pond. I mean, honestly, I could have been hallucinating.”

  Maybe I’d hit my head and didn’t remember. Or the water had been so cold that it fuzzed up my brain and vision. Foster had said nothing was there. Either I saw something, or I was crazy.

  A loud bang came from the other side of Gram’s room. I jumped up, knocking the chair over as I spun. I expected to see a pale figure with black hair and green teeth, but instead, all I saw was Gram’s dresser. The bottom drawer had fallen out, completely off the tracks. It lay on the floor as if someone had yanked it out.

  I glanced at Gram. We were the only ones in the room. After the day I’d had, though, I wasn’t in any position to question strange events. I squatted next to the drawer. It only held several picture albums, old embroidered pillowcases, and lace handkerchiefs.

  Settling closer to the drawer, I sat and pulled one of the albums into my lap. I had gotten my love of photography from Gram. Pictures were her favorite thing in the world. They captured memories.

  This tattered album was full of pictures of me and Sam during his toddler years. A wide grin crossed my face, and I touched his image. He had been such a happy kiddo. Sam had never cried, not even when he’d skinned his knee or fallen off his bike. I slammed the album closed, not wanting to look at Sam. Those memories were too raw.

  I grabbed another album. This one was older, of Mom as a kid. While flipping through, I realized she looked a lot like Connor. The next book was even older, the fabric worn, and part of the spine separated from the cover. This volume contained photos of Gram and her friends. I didn’t know any of them, and the pictures weren’t labeled.

  When I reached for the last album in the drawer, I noticed it wasn’t at all like the others. This one was full of newspaper articles from the ’70s.

  Each cutout detailed a child who had vanished seemingly into thin air. The situation was exactly the same as what had happened with Sam. There hadn’t been a trace, not a single clue.

  The clippings each included a photo of a fresh-faced child in overalls or shorts, and the articles mentioned the panic that had set the townspeople on edge. Some families moved away. Schools had become deserted. The situation had gotten so bad that football and hockey games were canceled. The FBI arrived, but nothing was ever found. In total, four children disappeared over four months. I shuddered. I couldn’t imagine if kids other than Sam had gone missing. It’d been months though, and Sam was the only one.

  How strange that Gram had never mentioned this. It wasn’t taught in last year’s local history classes.

  My palms were sweaty when I slipped that album back into the drawer. Had none of those missing children ever returned home? That didn’t bode well for Sam. I rested my forehead against the rough wood of the dresser.

  I stayed that way for a while, letting my mind wander. What if I never saw Sam again? All this time, I’d been holding out hope that I’d find him, that he would appear in his room as magically as he’d disappeared. But if none of those other children came home, Sam might be just like them. I wasn’t sure I could live with that outcome. My shaking fingers swiped at the hot tears pooling in my eyes.

  Connor started to wail. His cries reached down the hall and cut through my misery. I packed up the rest of the photo albums and crept down the hall to his room.

  Not quite two years old, he still slept in a crib. Upon entering his room, I noticed him standing up at the rail, rubbing his eyes. He was doing a dry cry, the one asking to be held. No real tears.

  I scooped him up and buried my face in his chubby neck, reveling in the sweet, baby smell. He quieted and wrapped a strand of my hair around his fist. I carried him to the rocker, an old-fashioned wooden one, and sat with his head balanced on my shoulder.

  “What are we going to do about Sam?” I asked. “I miss him.”

  Connor might not remember, but Sam had been a great big brother. He was always eager to play blocks with the baby even though Connor was too small to participate. Sam would set the colorful squares up and then, much to the baby’s delight, knock them down, pretending to be a Japanese sea monster.

  “I want to find him. I just don’t know how,” I kept on. “All those other kids, back when Gram was young, no one ever found them.”

  Or did they?

  I closed my eyes and rocked Connor.

  Chapter 6

  The next morning, Mom argued with me about school. She wanted me to stay home, preferably huddled under a pile of blankets. I wanted to go see what I’d missed in my wretched biology class I’d skipped. It was certainly better than being home, listening to Gram’s machines humming.

  Chi was waiting for me by the front doors of the school. Her dark hair was pulled into a messy bun on top of her head like a fountain sprouting out of her scalp.

  “I tried calling you a dozen times last night,” she growled. Appearing as angry as she sounded, Chi flung her backpack over her shoulder.

  I patted the pockets of my black and white checkered coat. My spare coat. The puffy blue one I usually wore was still wet with pond water. My phone wasn’t there, but I knew right where it was. Foster Grimm. That bum had never given it back after he’d scrolled through my contacts to find Mom’s or Dad’s number. I bet he looked at all my pictures, which were mainly of Sam and Conner with some cute puppies thrown in.

  I groaned. “Sorry, I left it somewhere.”

  “Sure.” Chi linked her arm through mine. I must have looked upset because her anger dissipated. “It’s okay.”

  She pulled me through the doors of Blue Wing High, named after some whaling ship that had docked here centuries ago.

  “You get a lot of studying done?” I asked, thankful she took the lead on getting us inside the building. The cold morning air was starting to seep through my coat, and my knees threatened to buckle. I probably should have stayed home.

  “Nah, ended up watching old X-Files instead,” she said. Chi loved X-Files or anything to do with aliens. Every year for Halloween, she dressed up as a little green woman. She had never missed a year even after it had stopped being cute. “Did you hear Foster Grimm is back?”

  Yeah, I knew. That bugger had my phone. I shrugged at her.

  “I heard he was gallivanting in the French Alps while his aunt took pictures of the snow and mountain peaks for some magazine,” she said.

  “The Alps.” I coughed.

  “Just a rumor.” She grinned at me.

  We stopped at her locker long enough to deposit her coat and backpack. Then, she pulled me down the hall to my own locker, which was, more importantly, four away from Garner’s. Chi left me to fumble with my lock while she launched herself into Garner’s arms.

  My fingers wouldn’t work. I kept spinning the lock, searching for thirty-three, the first number of my combo.

  Someone leaned against the locker next to mine. When I glanced up, I was staring into Foster’s bluer-than-blue eyes.

  “Hey, Popsicle,” he said with a half-grin that almost stopped my heart. He wore a black T-shirt and old blue jeans, and he looked good. His grin told me he knew it too.

  “H-Hi,” I stammered.

  “Need some help there?” He nodded at the lock. “Still having trouble ge
tting your fingers to work?”

  “You have my phone,” I blurted out.

  He laughed. “I do.” He dug into his back pocket and pulled out the silver phone. “You left it at my place yesterday. I heard about your brother. I’m sorry.”

  My breath got hung up in my throat, and I coughed; only Chi ever talked about Sam. It was nice of Foster to say something. Though, I couldn’t find the words to say that.

  I knew every ear in the vicinity was listening. Oh, they didn’t appear to be listening, but whispers were already flooding down the hall. Before lunch, I’d be labeled the next stupid girl to fall for Foster’s magical charms.

  “I think you stole it.” I thrust out my hand and let his comment about Sam fall flat. He placed the phone in my palm with quiet obedience, but the second my fingers closed around it, he knocked his hip into mine and took my place in front of my locker.

  “First number?” he asked.

  “I can manage on my own, thank you.” I didn’t need his help. I didn’t want his help. I wished he would go back to the Alps.

  “I’m sure you can, but I’m helping you. Again,” he said.

  The first bell rang. Only a few minutes left before classes started.

  “Better hurry.” He gave me the same half-grin, and I knew he wouldn’t budge until I told him.

  “Thirty-three.”

  “And the rest?” He spun the lock. Unlike me, he went straight to the correct number instead of scrolling past it repeatedly.

  I gave him the rest of the combination. My locker popped open, and he stalked off without another word.

  Wadding up my coat and shoving it inside, I grabbed my English books and slammed it shut again. The nerve of that guy. I wasn’t about to be on his conquest list.

  “Chi?” I hoped I could pry her away from Garner. They enjoyed their early morning kisses best. But Garner had already left, and Chi was staring at me with her mouth open.

  “I guess you did know he was back,” she said.

  “I ran into him.” It was my turn to pull her along.

  “Ran into him? Sounded like you were old pals.”

  “We’re not.” I seethed. What a jerk, No, we weren’t friends, and I planned to keep it that way.

  News of Foster’s return zinged through each of my morning classes, and by the time I slipped into the library, it was also common knowledge I’d been to his house. I had Chi to thank for that one. She told Garner, and then he told one of his buddies. The situation went out of control from there. I’d heard Marissa Carson tell Mike Wright that Foster was taking pity on me because of Sam. In my politics class, Kevin Crystal whispered to Gary Rogers that I’d fallen for Foster. As ridiculous as it all was, I was glad they didn’t know the truth about me nearly drowning in a frozen lake, chasing a ghost, and Foster fishing me out. I wasn’t sure his ego could withstand the adoration of being a lifesaver.

  Mr. Klein looked up and nodded at me as I pushed through the library door. Chi would be furious I’d skipped lunch again, but the social hub of the school was the absolute last place I wanted to be. Instead, I slipped into a computer chair and pulled the laptop out of my bag; time to do some googling.

  I did a quick search for those missing kids from the ’70s, but nothing popped up. Not a thing. Not even copies of those old newspaper articles that I had found in Gram’s drawer. Frustrated, I chewed on a fingernail. How could there not even be a paragraph about those kids? Time for the crazy stuff. I googled Grimm Road and got a map. Pond on Grimm Road was next, but all I got was a Google Earth picture that looked nothing like the freezing, barren place I had been to. I sat back, feeling my frustration grow.

  I glanced around the library, making sure no one could see what I was searching for before I typed again. Ghosts with green teeth. Amazingly, several links appeared about an old fable, a story that was told to scare little kids. Greenteeth was a witch who lived in a lake and lured children to her by crying.

  I got goosebumps. Creepy as it was, I wasn’t sure it was my specter. What I’d seen was ghostly and ethereal, not exactly witchy. When the library door whooshed open, I didn’t look up. Not until my best friend’s boyfriend slumped down in the chair next to mine.

  “Did Chi send you to find me?” I asked, quickly shutting down the open web page.

  Garner shook his buzzed head. He was big into ROTC and had his usual fatigues on. I would have never thought Chi would go for such a clean-cut guy, but she had, and he was supposedly the love of her life.

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.” He stared down at his scuffed boots.

  “Oh yeah?” I asked, more than a little unnerved by his reluctance to look at me. Garner and I had never been best buddies, but we both loved Chi, so we were civil. This was our first conversation without her.

  “Yeah, my grandma’s been after me to ask you to come over.”

  I wouldn’t have been more surprised if he’d told me she lived on the moon. I didn’t even know her.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “She said she knew your grandmother and wanted to tell you about her. Reminisce or something.” He shrugged.

  I didn’t know the lady, but any opportunity to hear stories of Gram when she was young, was something I was all in favor of. Plus, maybe she’d remember something about those missing kids from the ’70s. If she was a friend of Grams, then she must have known Gram had taken newspaper cuttings.

  “When is the best time to see her?”

  “Well, see, she’s been harping for me to have you over since, um, the fall.”

  What he meant was since Sam had disappeared. People always struggled to put it into words. It was as if my life had been divided into two different sections . . . before and after.

  “Anyway, she’s mad I haven’t asked you. Could you come over to my house after training today? I get done around four, and Grandma is hanging with my mom today.” He bounced his legs up and down, keeping the toes of his boots firmly on the carpet.

  “Sure. Should I bring Chi with me?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head and smiled at me. “Grandma doesn’t like her. Thinks I’ll back out of going into the army if I have a girl.”

  “Oh.”

  A visit to Garner’s house without Chi would be weird.

  “I’d have to get Chi’s blessing,” I said.

  He smirked and opened his mouth to say something, but the library door burst open, and Chi ran into the room, her eyes filled with panic. She skidded to a stop when she saw Garner sitting next to me.

  Chapter 7

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, starting to stand. She grabbed my arm and pulled me up before I could fully get out of my chair.

  “Are you okay?” she asked me. Then, she turned to Garner. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m fine. His grandmother invited me over,” I answered for both of us, quick to head off any misconception that I was eyeing her boyfriend.

  “You haven’t heard?” She snapped her gaze back to me.

  “Heard what?” Garner stood too.

  Chi wrapped me in a tight hug. “Leigh Kate Watson’s little sister disappeared last night,” she said into my ponytail, and my heart fluttered. The start of a panic attack. You learn the signs when you lose a brother so mysteriously.

  Another child gone. Like those articles in Gram’s album.

  “What happened?” asked Garner.

  “I’m not sure. I guess when the family woke up this morning, she was gone. Seems the police kept it quiet for as long as they could, but some reporter at the newspaper heard. Now, he wants to talk to you. He’s at the front office.” Chi leaned back to look me in the eye but kept a firm grip on my shoulder.

  I knew exactly who she meant. Max Palmer was the lead reporter for the Blaylock Bay Inquisitor. He’d published a plea for information that my mom put out. Max was okay for a reporter. A couple of journalists from Bangor had been obnoxious, going so far as to ask Dad if he had anything to do with Sam’s disappearance.

  “Yo
u don’t have to talk to him,” Chi reassured me.

  I didn’t mind though it was odd that he came to talk to me at the school rather than Mom at her office or Dad at the museum. Maybe he could give me some specifics on this new disappearance. Like whether there was evidence of forced entry or any windows open. Any small detail might differentiate this case from Sam’s.

  “It’s okay. I’ll see what he wants.” I shoved the laptop into my bag and shouldered it before waving at Mr. Klein, who didn’t look up from his book on dragons. Gotta love a guy who doesn’t hide his nerdiness.

  “I bet Principal Schwarz is having a fit.” Garner fell into step next to Chi. They clasped hands and followed me.

  The front hall of the school was deserted. Weird. I was expecting it to be packed after news of Leigh Kate’s sister broke out. Only Max and Principal Schwarz were visible. And it looked as though the principal was trying to push the reporter out the door.

  “Sophie,” Max hollered when he saw me.

  “I said no. You can’t talk to her without a parent.” Mrs. Schwarz stepped in front of me.

  “I don’t mind,” I said.

  “See, she doesn’t care.” Max had a thousand-watt smile lighting up his green eyes. Most women would have swooned, but Schwarz was protecting her students like a mama bear and wasn’t about to be swayed.

  “She doesn’t, but I do,” said Schwarz. “Go on to lunch, Sophie.”

  Chi grabbed my hand and tried to pull me away from the scene.

  “I can talk to him,” I argued, digging in my sneakers.

  “Would you like an afternoon in detention?” Schwarz snapped her head around to glare at me.

  I didn’t want detention, but Max might have some information on Leigh Kate’s sister. Another kid was missing. It was too much like Gram’s clippings.

  “Come on.” It was Foster, not Chi, who whispered into my ear. He slipped his warm hand into mine. Chi gave him a look of disbelief, but with his help, she managed to pull me away.

  “I’ll catch you after school, Sophie,” Max called around the principal.