“It’s okay.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and set off across the street. Maybe she had to keep moving forward too. It hurt too much to stop and really give some thought to what we were doing.
Titan rested his big, invisible dragon chin on my shoulder. His hot breath came out in little puffs of steam.
I know this is hard for her. I sighed.
It is. There’s nothing else to be done, though.
I knew that. Hannah was finally doing the right thing.
I feared that Greenteeth would take her sweet time answering Hannah’s summons or that she might not come at all. But Jenny crawled out of her water right away, without the slightest hint of hesitation. Jenny trusted her sister. Maybe somewhere in her dead, twisted mind, she remembered what it was like to be human and have a real family.
Let’s go.
Instead of Titan gripping me around the waist, this time I sat on his foot. My legs dangled between his claws. His wings were silent as he leapt into the air, and I bit my lip to keep from yelping. Soaring through the air wasn’t nearly as bad as being dunked into the ocean, but still, this flying thing wasn’t going to be an everyday thing for me.
He ascended over the ocean and then came back around the cliffs by the house. With one mighty flap, he pushed us past the house where Foster’s Mercedes still sat empty and cold. We swooped around the back and were finally over the pond. I loosened my grip on Titan’s foot. He slowed until he barely had enough speed to stay airborne.
His claws scraped the ground. The next step was mine. I pushed off and landed on my backside in the dirt with a painful thud. That hurt. Titan charged upward before he could slam into Jenny’s back.
Whatever Hannah was saying kept Jenny’s attention. She never noticed she was nearly barreled over by a dragon. His scales were salt-encrusted too. It would have been helpful to have known about her salt weakness a long time ago.
Hannah noticed us. She cut her gaze to me and then right back to Jenny. Her lips pursed, and the lines on her face were more prominent than when I’d arrived. So far, the plan seemed to be working. However, if Jenny changed her mind about talking with Hannah at the last minute, that would be the end of me.
I climbed to my feet, thankful I’d let Hannah fix my ankle. The move would have been impossible with the boot and broken bone.
Hannah gave me a slight nod as I crept up behind Jenny. They must have been chatting telepathically because I couldn’t hear a word of their conversation. Without notice, Hannah lashed out and grabbed Jenny by the forearms. Jenny tried to pull back but with no luck.
Softly, under her breath, Hannah started to chant something in what I could only assume was the old Abenaki language. This part of the plan got sketchy. Hannah had hoped the spell would force Jenny from her solid, corporeal form into a misty, ghostly haze.
I rushed at Jenny, not quite sure when the transformation would take place. The witch knew something was up; she changed direction and pushed into Hannah, who lost her grip and fell to the ground.
Jenny whirled on me. Her hair was parted down the middle and tucked behind each ear. Her wonky mouth and green teeth grimaced when she saw me. The black hollows of her eyes almost swallowed me whole, and I became lost in their emptiness, in their deep darkness. I took one long step back. Jenny advanced.
She was on the hunt. I’d come back for more, so I was fair game. The bargain we’d had in place regarding Foster was nullified when I threatened her.
Jenny reached out a hand and swiped a single fingernail at my cheek. A lump of fear tried to claw its way out of my throat, but I swallowed it. If I ran, she’d be on me in an instant. I kept backing away; she matched me step for step.
Stupid girl. She growled.
Wouldn’t you have done the same for him? I asked. I hoped that if she’d once loved Foster, if her love for him remained, buried deep in whatever was left of her soul, that she’d understand me. Maybe she’d even let me walk away alive.
She grabbed my chin and jerked my face close to hers.
You want to spend your life with him that badly?
I breathed in sharp, short gasps. Jenny could easily push me back into the pond, and I’d be gone before Hannah could do anything about it.
Is that so hard to believe? You once did. My answer left no doubt.
I can give you an eternity with him. She grinned. Fear crawled all over me like a millipede with a million tiny legs.
Hannah grabbed Jenny from behind, knocking her hands off my face. She wrapped her arm around her sister’s neck and started her chant again. This time, though, her voice was loud and clear. I didn’t understand the words, Latin I thought, but knew she meant business. So did Jenny. She thrashed and screamed.
Titan swooshed down out of the sky and dropped a length of chain at Hannah’s feet. I grabbed it. It was still wet. Titan had dipped it in the ocean too. I thrust it forward into Hannah’s hands, and she promptly stretched the rusty chain across Jenny’s neck like a collar.
Jenny screamed louder. Smoke poured out of her wherever the iron burned. Wisps of her essence drifted up in lazy puffs and dissipated into the air. She began to change. Her skin went translucent. She was no longer a solid being. Her outline became fuzzy and began to fade. I could see Hannah through Jenny’s image.
“Now, Sophie,” Hannah commanded.
I didn’t think. I just acted. I stepped forward into the hazy mist, ducking my head under the chain Hannah kept stretched across her sister’s neck. I straightened and was consumed by Greenteeth. I became a part of her. Through her eyes. I saw the children come. They answered her screams, but they didn’t rush forward to help her. They gathered at the edges of the water and waited.
My shivering was uncontrollable. The temperature was so cold inside Jenny. Colder than the ocean. It was a deep, bone-grinding, thought-stealing death chill that I knew all too well from the times I had been submerged in the pond. Had I made a mistake agreeing to this plan? That icy freeze had stolen my will to fight each time I’d encountered it.
You must be stronger than her. A warm rush of salty air rushed over us. Titan flapped his arms again, but his ocean breeze didn’t breach the cold. Sheer panic filled my mind, nearly collapsing me right there.
For Foster. Titan said.
Foster.
I remembered those blue eyes.
Yes, this was for him. I rolled my shoulders. For him, I could fight.
Hannah dropped the chain and released Jenny. It fell on to my shoulders, and since I had stepped into Jenny’s misty form, I kept her in contact with both the iron chains and the salt from my ocean-dipped body. I was preventing her from reforming a solid body. I was melting away pieces of her ghostly essence.
Jenny’s frustration and fear ripped out of my throat as we both tossed our heads back and screamed. Her time to panic. My mere presence and tolerance of the cold weakened her. My resolve to save Foster combined with our proximity, the salt on my skin, and the iron over my shoulders poisoned Jenny from the inside out. Then, Hannah’s voice shouted in my ear.
“No more, Jenny. No more,” she said.
Jenny wanted to flee. Her urge was stronger than my own. I backed up, away from Hannah.
“Don’t go to the pond, mon amie,” warned Hannah. “Stay here with me. Fight her.”
I wanted to. But Jenny still had some strength to her. I was compelled back toward the edge of the pond. The cold seeped in under my skin, and I lost my will. My vision of Foster jerked away as if someone had ripped through a painting with a knife.
“No,” I said, no fight in my words.
“Sophie,” Hannah screamed and grabbed my hands. She tried to hold me, but I kept inching back, dragging her with me. Jenny was winning.
“I can’t,” I said, but then I lost my train of thought completely. What was I doing out here? My task was important. I just didn’t remember why.
Images filled my mind, a movie screen in my head. Little children stood around a handsome blue-eyed boy who was dre
ssed in some sort of old-fashioned suit. Then he fell and slipped under the water. A bubble was created around him. He was dragged to the bottom of the pond, unconscious but still alive. The decision to keep him.
“Fight it, Sophie,” said Hannah. “The salt is eating at her. She can’t hold on much longer.”
More images of kids, more memories of the same young man.
Water rained down from above. Jenny and I screamed. A bucket dangled in the air above my head. I didn’t know where it had come from. Thinking I should have known frustrated me, but I couldn’t form the thought.
Visions came faster now. A girl I knew. She was young, in a pretty Sunday dress with yellow ribbons in her hair. Her name was on the tip of my tongue. Then I lost it.
Also, a young woman. She wore a white dress and screamed at me. I knew her too. Memories tugged at me.
As if she’d sprung from my mind, the young woman appeared in front of me. I wanted to go to her. She held her arms out to me, and that desire increased, becoming more than I’d ever wanted anything.
“Sophie, my girl,” she said.
Sophie. My name. I ground my teeth together and paced forward.
“My sweet girl. You just wouldn’t give up, would you?”
I took another step toward her. Then another. The chain around my shoulders fell to the sand. I became lighter but stumbled a few steps. The misty haze around me flaked off in great white chunks.
Sure. I knew this woman. She was my grandmother and had sacrificed herself to help the children I’d seen.
I reached out to her, and she took my hand. With her help, I was able to pull free of the remaining wisps of Jenny Greene that still clung to me.
Gram pulled me into a tight embrace while Jenny disappeared into the night sky, no longer screaming but giving a deep, heavy sigh.
We both turned to witness a deafening splash. Pond water coated us. I spun my head in time to see the water close over Titan’s hulking golden body, no longer invisible. He’d crashed into the pond.
“Oh, Gram,” I sobbed into her shoulder. I’d almost lost myself and given Jenny back to the pond. I wouldn’t have made it out again. She’d have owned me.
I clung to Gram long enough to realize she’d become less solid. Jenny was gone, and Gram’s soul was being released. I needed to let her go.
“I love you,” I whispered and stepped away.
She smiled at me . . . the most beautiful light I’d ever seen. It held such peace and happiness with a hint of pride.
“I love you, Sophie,” she said as Little Sophie stepped up and took her hand. Several other children crowded around her, including little Dylan Jennings. “You take care of your family and have some fun every now and then.”
“I will.”
They started to fade. Slowly at first, then faster and faster until they were gone. No shooting stars to heaven. No, they were faint outlines simply disappearing.
Another loud splash at the pond directed my attention that way. I turned and waded into the water. If Titan was drowning, I was going to be with him. When the water reached waist high, I realized the thing flailing in the water was a person, not a dragon. I didn’t know this man. He had golden hair and no shirt.
“Hello,” he said as he found his feet.
“Are you naked?” I asked.
“Yes, I do believe I am,” he said.
“Okay.” I backed up a couple of steps. When a slimy substance grabbed at my ankles, I yelped and spun away.
“It is only weeds, Sophie.” The man smiled at me. I knew he was right, but after my ordeal, it might have been fingers.
“Wait.” I stared at him. “You know my name.”
“Of course, I do.”
The beam of headlights wove back and forth down Grimm Road from the direction of Foster’s house. A sleek black Mercedes turned off the road and pulled up sharply near the water’s edge. We were blinded by the light.
“It’s me, Titan. Well, I don’t appear to be a dragon anymore, so I suppose you should call me Timothy. Or Tim. I think I might prefer Tim.”
“Titan?” I squeaked. “You didn’t disappear like the ghosts?”
“No.” He stared at his arm. It had been a long time since he’d had an arm.
The car door opened. Leigh Kate climbed out and ran toward me.
“I’ve got blankets and coffee,” she said, extending a hand to me.
I accepted it and waded out of the water.
“What are you doing here?” I realized my teeth were chattering.
“I was waiting at the house. Hannah didn’t want me here in case the plan went sideways. She wanted me out of danger.”
“I’m so glad to see you,” I said, smiling and grateful.
“Here.” She threw a blanket around my shoulders. “Timothy?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“How does it feel to be back in your own body again?” I asked, pulling the blanket tighter.
“Smaller.” Timothy laughed.
“Pants.” Leigh Kate shoved a pair of sweats at him. “Hannah?”
The thought startled me. I hadn’t seen Hannah since Gram had appeared. “I’m not sure.”
We turned our heads and looked around. Sure enough, we spotted Hannah near the boulder where I’d spent countless hours. She was bent over something. Maybe someone.
All I could see were legs in black jeans and hiking boots. I sucked in a breath.
Timothy put a hand on my arm. “Steady, Sophie,” he said.
“I know. He never remembers.” Tears welled up in my eyes as we shuffled through the sand toward the boulder. I could deal with that, with him not remembering. At least, he was here. He was alive. By the time Leigh Kate, Timothy, and I made our way over, Hannah was helping Foster sit. His blond hair was plastered to his face, and his clothes were soaked. Leigh Kate handed Hannah a blanket.
“He’s all right,” said Hannah as she wrapped the cover around him.
“Foster?” I asked with a trembling voice.
His head snapped up. When he narrowed his blue eyes, my knees went weak. His gaze slowly traveled from the top of my salt stiff hair to my shoes. He finally turned his chin up, looked right at me. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears. Surely, Timothy could hear it. I thought I might burst.
Foster struggled to stand.
“Don’t. Not yet.” Hannah put her hands on his shoulders and tried to keep him down. He wasn’t having any of it and got one leg under him. Hannah gave up and helped him stumble to his feet.
Timothy inhaled sharply. He’d been waiting for this moment much longer than me. I looped my arm through his. Tim and I would face it together.
On his feet, Foster managed a couple of shambling steps in my direction, or toward the pond, it was hard to tell. Confusion twisted his face. He rubbed the back of his neck.
I held my breath . . . the tension excruciating.
His mouth opened. I was terrified of what he might say. A make or break moment. Either he knew me, or he didn’t.
He shrugged off the blanket and held out a hand to me.
“Sophie.”
Epilogue
Four months later. . .
It was a mild afternoon in late May when we all gathered back at the second pond on the animal preserve.
Hannah had Grimm Pond drained. There hadn’t been any grisly remains at the bottom. She then filled it in with fresh soil and started planting flowers.
This pond, where we’d found our siblings, was where the bodies were. Their spirits were gone. There hadn’t been a ghostly presence on Grimm Road or anywhere else since the night Jenny melted away.
We decided, instead of petitioning the park to drain the pond, that we would honor this as their final resting place.
Leigh Kate, Luke, Lucy, Chi, Garner, Foster, and I stood at the edge of the water. We each carried two flowers – a rose and a daisy. The rose for the love that these children had missed out on. A daisy for their innocence.
The next day was graduation. Han
nah and Timothy were hosting a party. Then we were going to scatter. Leigh Kate was flying to Florida to spend the summer with her grandmother. Chi was going to join her tribe out on tribe lands, much to the delight of her grandfather. Garner was shipping off to boot camp in a few weeks. Luke and Lucy were going to New York to shop all summer, or that’s how I understood it.
Timothy had bought a sailboat. He was adjusting to his human form, but he longed for the ocean. He was taking Hannah and Foster sailing for the summer. They were going to the Bahamas. I wasn’t sure where they’d go from there. Wherever the wind took them, I guessed. Hannah had convinced Mom and Dad to let me go with them. There hadn’t been much argument. I suspected a touch of witchcraft was used.
Not that I minded. Three months on a sailboat with Foster sounded perfect. On cue, as if he could read my mind, Foster reached over and took hold of my hand.
“Ready?” He asked.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
One by one we all tossed our rose into the water. Then Leigh Kate spoke.
“You are not forgotten. You will never be forgotten,” she said.
“But you are at peace,” added Chi.
Everyone tossed their daisy. When it was my turn, I pulled a yellow ribbon out of my pocket. Little Sophie’s yellow ribbon.
Movement caught my eye at the edge of the forest. I thought the wind might be blowing leaves around. Though, when I looked, my breath stopped.
There stood a lovely young lady in a white dress. Her brown curls were long, and wind-tossed. She carried an old lantern. I’d never seen her before, but I felt that I knew her.
Jenny.
Not as a diseased, bitter witch, hungry for revenge, but as the young woman she must have been.
She dipped her head at me in acknowledgment.
“Sophie?” Foster tugged on my hand. “Do you see something?”
I glanced at him and then back at the forest edge. She was gone.
“No,” I said. “There’s nothing to see anymore.”
I tied Sophie’s yellow ribbon around my daisy and lobbed it in the water.
Dear Reader,
The Curse of Jenny Greene Page 30