I got out of the car and skidded down the bank into the sand. Here it was rocky. A thousand tiny pebbles inhabited this beach. They crunched under my shoes as I made my way to the water’s edge.
The temperature was a few degrees warmer here than by the pond as the red, sinking sun was pushing through the clouds. Where I stood, the haze wasn’t as thick, and the sky was brighter than it was across the street. Strange how coming out such a short way from the pond changed the whole atmosphere.
I sat on some pebbles to await the setting sun. I thought I was far enough back to stay dry until a large wave rushed forward, instantly soaking my jeans. I shivered from the cold, but it was certainly not Greenteeth cold.
I settled my hands on the pebbles and let the water wash over them again and again. The ebb and flow of the current became a hypnotic pull. My body swayed in time with the waves. The water grew warmer with each gentle tug, and I swore I felt something, like a pulse of energy or a heartbeat, spread out from my hands and ripple into the ocean. It was all so ethereal. I must have been having another hallucination. I probably did need to see a shrink. I withdrew my hands and dried them on my coat.
The sounds of the waves rolling continued to call to me. I scooted back to a dry place and watched the sun sink below the horizon. While trying to picture a young Gram coming here and watching the same brilliant, fiery death of the day, I glanced over my shoulder. What had Gram and Greenteeth’s first encounter been like? Had Gram gotten any answers? She, for sure, hadn’t been hauled out of the water by the town flirt, babbling about witches. Nope. Gram was too classy for that.
Since I had told my parents I’d be home before dinner, it was time to go. When I crawled back up the bank, Foster was standing there, waiting beside my car.
Of course.
He tilted his head and grinned at me.
“Not contemplating throwing yourself in the ocean this time, are you?”
I snorted. Foster reached out to help me up. His hand was warm around my cold fingers.
“Not out practicing for a marathon in the cold this time?” I nodded at his jeans and hiking boots.
“Nope, I was contemplating hiking up Hallow Hill behind the school. Then, I saw your car and figured I’d better stick around in case you needed me.” He leaned back, his hip propped on the hood of my car.
“I was just taking in the fresh ocean air,” I sneered. Something about him got under my skin when I wasn’t thinking about how cute he looked in his black jacket and wind-blown hair. Which I shouldn’t have been thinking about at all.
I bit the inside of my lip and refocused on the items I didn’t like about him. A long list. His smirk, his command of most females, and the way he was looking at me to name a few.
“And it’s warmer today,” I added, though it was a poor argument.
Foster nodded and smiled. Damn, I hated that smirk.
“Did that reporter ever find you?” he asked.
“Not yet, but I’m going to look for him,” I said.
“What for?” Foster’s brow furrowed. “Does it have to do with what you saw the other day? I don’t want reporters at my pond.”
Ah, so it finally came out. No more dancing around the elephant in the room.
“No. I’m not going to talk to him about any of that.” I shoved cold hands into my coat pockets. I wanted to push him out of the way so I could get in the car and leave, but he’d kept my craziness a secret. So maybe I owed him some sort of an explanation.
“I’ve been thinking about it. People claim they see stuff around here all the time.”
“Stuff?” That piqued my interest.
“A lady mostly. A ghost, I guess. I didn’t want to write off what you saw as a crazed, grief-stricken vision until I talked to you about it.”
“Oh.” I kicked at the dirt with the toe of my shoe, refusing to look at him.
“Sophie, tell me what you saw,” he said. I looked up into his clear, blue eyes.
I hesitated, and then gave in.
“Okay, there was a woman. In the water. She kept walking farther away from me,” I said before I could change my mind and run away. I probably shouldn’t trust him, but he’d kept my secret so far. And I didn’t have anyone else I could talk to about this . . . other than Dream Gram and Missing Memory Della.
“Why did you want to catch her?”
I paused again.
“Does this have to do with your brother?” he asked.
“My Gram . . .” I didn’t know if it was safe to tell him everything, but I’d already opened my mouth. He might go and tell everyone I was a total whack job. Not that people could avoid me any more than they already did. “She said Sam was out here, on Grimm Road.”
Foster seemed to be hanging on my words. He glanced at the pond on the other side of the road.
“Why the pond?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve felt drawn here,” I shrugged. If I’d had my memories of what had happened that night after I’d come out here, I might know. I could have seen something. That time was all a blank, though. I didn’t remember anything after the police lights drove past me.
“Grimm Road has lots of creepy places,” he said. “There’s an old barn. A sea cave. But this pond has always been the worst.”
“A sea cave?” I asked.
“A death trap,” he said. “What does that reporter have to do with this?”
I faced the ocean and hopped up on Sheldon’s hood. “I was hoping maybe he’d let me look at old newspapers.”
“Most of them should be online.” Foster turned too and leaned back on his elbows.
“I mean really old. Microfiche kind of old.”
“Can I ask why?”
I watched the fog deepen as the last rays of sun disappeared and the gray twilight took over.
“Did you know other kids have disappeared?” I concentrated on the waves, the white tops I could see breaking far away from shore. “A long time ago. When Gram was a teenager.”
“I didn’t know that.” He scooted closer to me. I glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. I hoped I appeared half as cool as he did.
He smiled.
“I gotta get home.” I hopped down. “I told my parents I’d be home for dinner.”
“Sure.” Foster sounded surprised and righted himself. I guess I had been rather abrupt. “But, make me a promise too, okay?”
“What could you possibly want from me?” I asked. His smile turned wolfish in the growing dark.
“Don’t worry, it’s innocent.” He chuckled.
“What?”
“Let me go with you to the paper,” he said.
“Really?” I expected him to ask me not to go to the pond alone, or not to throw myself into the ocean as he suggested.
“Yeah, I want to see what you find. I’m a pretty good researcher.”
I could hear Chi griping if I let Foster help me instead of her. It was his land, though.
“Where are your parents?” The question struck me out of the blue, and I asked before I could think it through.
His eyes widened. “They both work abroad. My mom is in child healthcare, and my dad’s job involves nautical sales,” he said with a slight laugh.
“Child healthcare? Is she a pediatrician?”
“No, she’s more of a consultant. I’ve been traveling with my dad for the past couple of years, but he sent my aunt Hannah and me back here. He claimed I needed stability and to graduate from an actual high school.”
“Oh.” That made sense. Sort of.
“Now, can I be your research partner?” He stepped close to me. The toes of his boots nudged the tips of my wet sneakers.
“I guess so.” I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Good.” He was so close that I could feel his breath on my cheek. He reached around me and opened the door. “Tomorrow, after school, we’ll go find out what we can.”
“Yeah.” I backed away so fast I knocked the car door out of his hand.
“Be
careful driving.” He shook his head and opened it again.
I nodded and got in without looking at him. He closed it behind me, but I could hear him laughing. Ugh, I backed up Sheldon and turned around, watching Foster in the rearview mirror as he swiveled around and sauntered back toward his house.
Chapter 13
“Man.” Foster wanted to help. Surprising. It didn’t fit in with his Alps-hopping, princess-seducing reputation.
While I was busy watching him in the rearview mirror, and not the road in front of me, my car slammed into something solid and whirled in a circle. The tires spun on the gravel. My driver’s ed skills kicked in, and I turned into the spin and gently applied the brakes. Sheldon finally stopped off the road facing the pond. Steam and smoke poured out from under the hood.
I pressed my forehead against the steering wheel and counted to ten, taking long slow breaths. My hands were shaking. Heck, my whole body was trembling.
“Sophie.” Foster ran toward me, out of breath and wide-eyed. He jerked my car door open before I could grasp the handle. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I think so,” I said, climbing out of the car.
My headlights shone in a crooked pattern; one of them must have been smashed. The hood had been pushed in so far that I could see inside the engine compartment, and smoke poured from the radiator. The front bumper had collapsed in on itself, and the driver’s side wheel was bent at a horrible angle. I wasn’t driving home. Thankfully, I hadn’t been going fast. What on earth had I hit?
A thick white fog had rolled in over the pond, hiding the surface of the water and plunging the temperature. Greenteeth could be buried within, and I’d have no way of knowing. She might be watching me. Coming for me.
Cold fear slid down my spine, and I backed away before something, or someone, lurched out of it.
I stumbled, and Foster caught me. He settled me on my feet.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked. He ran his hands along my trembling arms.
“Yeah,” I answered with an audible gulp.
“What’s wrong?”
I twisted away from the pond. It took every ounce of bravery to turn my back on it when Greenteeth might be reaching for me at that very moment, but I had to face what I’d hit.
“Did you see what it was?” I shook off Foster and stumbled around to the rear of my car. My knees didn’t want to keep me upright.
“It sounded like you hit a wall.”
There, back on the road, was something. A clustered mass.
I crept closer to it and heard Foster’s footsteps in the gravel right behind me. There was a body lying on the road. A person.
“Oh no,” I gasped.
Foster wrapped an arm around my waist and spun me to face him.
“I’ll go look,” he said.
Without thinking, I buried my face into the crook of his neck. At that point, I didn’t care how many princesses he’d seduced. I was thankful I wasn’t alone. He was so warm, the same as he had been yesterday. Always so warm.
Foster held me like that for a second then peeled himself from my grip.
“Wait here,” he said.
I didn’t.
I had to own up to what had happened. I followed him and peeked over his shoulder as he reached down and rolled the body onto its back. It was a girl with red braids wrapped around her neck. She wore a sleeveless dress with big pink and yellow flowers on it. It had a sweet white collar and white buttons down the front. She had on white ankle socks and white Mary-Jane dress shoes.
The girl’s face was frozen and white. Her eyes were shut, and her mouth slack. The points of her teeth were visible as if she’d drawn her lips back to scream.
Foster glanced back at me and frowned.
“This is odd,” he said.
Odd? How about freaking terrifying? Apparently, I had hit a vampire from the ’70s who looked like she was headed to Sunday School.
The girl’s eyes snapped open. Except she didn’t have eyes, only empty, black sockets where eyes should have been.
“Damn.” Foster bumped into me. “What the hell?” The night came on fast. It went from gray to black in a second, swallowing up what little light we’d had from my one working headlight. I couldn’t see Foster anymore, but I sensed his presence right beside me.
Something rustled behind us. I spun around. Near the rear bumper of the car, I could barely make out a figure. Another child as far as I could tell. A boy.
“Foster.” I gasped and turned him around.
He didn’t say anything, but I knew the second he noticed the boy. Foster grabbed my hand and held on tight.
From our left, a giggle. Another child.
“Sophie.” Foster spun to his right. More giggles and laughter rang in the ice-cold air. The eerie fog from the pond had enveloped the top of my mangled car, completely covering it and the little boy. Foster pulled me closer as the thick rolls of white reached our shoes.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he whispered into my ear, pulling me into the tight circle of his arms.
“I think,” I started . . . but had to stop and take a deep breath. I needed extra oxygen to vocalize what I was about to say. “I think they’re the missing kids.”
“What?” he snapped.
“That girl. Everything about her said she came from another time,” I said.
“She doesn’t have any eyes.” Foster’s voice squeaked and broke at the end.
“Greenteeth has had them awhile.” I had a vicious thought. What if Sam were out here? What if his eyes were gone and he was now haunting this pond, cold and scared? My breath came in hard, ragged gasps.
“Who? Who is Greenteeth?” Foster frowned but wrapped his arms around me as the fog engulfed us.
The children’s laughter rang louder, coming from every direction. Although we couldn’t see them anymore, I knew they had surrounded us and were creeping closer.
A cold, clammy hand touched the tips of my fingers. I jumped and yelped. Foster shoved me behind him. I gripped his shoulders.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“Hey.”
Behind me, the fog parted, revealing the redhead I’d hit with my car.
“Jenny wants you to come home,” the little girl said, pointing at Foster who was in front of me.
“Home?” I asked. This wasn’t my home. But it was Foster’s. I felt him tense.
“Jenny?” I barely heard him whisper.
The child laughed, and all the other children still hidden in the fog joined in.
“My name’s Sophie too.” She twirled one of her red braids around a finger. There was a yellow ribbon on the end that matched her brightly colored dress.
Della’s little sister.
“Anyway, we told you.” Little Sophie skipped past us. “Best not to make her wait too long.”
Before I could gasp, the fog ate her up.
“She can’t have me,” I said through clenched teeth. “Or Sam.”
Laughter was the only response. Then, as quick as it came, the thick white fog thinned and dissipated. Foster and I stood alone in the dark.
“Are we talking about that ghost you claimed you saw?” His breath came in ragged gasps. He stalked over to Sheldon and, with a balled-up fist, punched the trunk lid. That must have hurt. His hand, not the car. He rolled his shoulders and sighed.
“Yeah,” I said. “That girl. The one who spoke. She was Garner Hurst’s aunt who went missing in the 1970s. I think that witch, Greenteeth, kidnapped her. And others.”
Foster looked back at me. I guessed what he was feeling. Questioning his sanity and everything he’d seen, but I felt a tiny bit relieved. I wasn’t crazy . . . or at least I had company.
“She’s still a child. How is that possible?” He scratched his hand through his hair, leaving spikey chunks that made him look as crazed as I felt. “Who is Jenny?”
“Greenteeth.” Thanks to Gram, at least I knew that.
“Jenny Greenteeth.” He sig
hed again. His shoulders sunk down. “And she haunts my pond.”
I nodded. “I think so. I have to find out how far back this mystery goes. There were more kids than just the four from Gram and Della’s time.” There had to have been about fifteen children that had stood in the fog, laughing at us, mocking us. I closed my eyes and wrapped both arms around my waist. What if I’d been alone? Little Sophie had been solid, corporeal. She’d wrecked Sheldon and walked away. Would the children have overpowered me and dragged me to the pond?
“Hey.” Foster walked back over and pulled me against his chest. He was getting too comfortable doing that, and I was getting just as comfortable liking it. I was so thankful not to be going through this alone anymore.
“I’m not sure what that was,” he said. “but I think it’s over.”
“For now,” I mumbled.
“For now,” he echoed. “You’re right. We need to find out how far back these disappearances go and what is living in my pond.”
A hysterical giggle escaped me. The way he kept calling it his pond tickled me. Poor timing, for sure.
Foster stepped out of our embrace and brushed strands of hair off my cheeks.
“Let me get your stuff,” he said.
I gripped his jacket and shook my head, no longer amused. I didn’t want to be left alone.
“I’ll be just a second. I’m going to get your phone and keys.” He smiled reassuringly and pried my hands free.
When Foster left me standing there, I glanced nervously over my shoulder and peered into the darkness, checking for any movement. Finally, he returned with my backpack and phone and took my hand in his.
“Come on. I’ll drive you home.”
Chapter 14
Mom and Dad weren’t happy I’d been back out at the pond. They were much more worried about me than the car, though. Foster told them I was at his house and had hit a stray dog, not a ghost child on the way home. They asked him to stay for dinner, but he’d said Hannah was waiting for him.
He left quickly after giving them the details about where to get my car towed and mentioned he’d pick me up for school. My parents gobbled up his every word.
Making sure I was the model daughter at dinner, I ate a huge portion, helped feed Connor, and even did the dishes afterward. By the time I headed to my room for homework, my parents believed I’d actually been out at Foster’s house and not the pond. They were happy I was showing interest in a boy. Not that I was. Not like that. No matter how many times I let him hold me.
The Curse of Jenny Greene Page 7