by P. J. Night
The thought of Monday morning, of seeing them at school, was almost unbearable. What would she say? Would she just pretend like none of it had happened? What if—Ashley could hardly bear to think of it—what if they completely ignored her?
That’s me, she thought bitterly. The outcast of Heaton Corners.
And by Sunday night, when an entire day had passed without any contact from Mary Beth or Stephanie or Danielle, Ashley was sure that that would be the case.
She walked to school on Monday with a persistent heaviness in her chest, a combination of panic and dread that made it a little harder than usual to breathe. She found herself dawdling along Perseverance Creek, as if she could somehow delay the inevitable by walking just a little more slowly than usual. The only thing that happened, though, was that the loud brass bell started ringing while Ashley was still a block away from school. She broke into a run and was a sweaty, disheveled mess by the time she tore into homeroom—long after the bell had stopped ringing.
Mr. Thomas barely looked up as Ashley raced into the classroom. “No announcements today,” he said quietly as he scanned the front page of the newspaper.
Ashley breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that she’d dodged getting a demerit for being late. At least something was going right today.
Only then did she notice the empty desk to her left.
Wait a minute, she thought. Where’s Mary Beth?
Then everything started to make sense. She must be home sick, Ashley realized. She was probably getting sick on Saturday. That’s why she was so thirsty. Maybe she had a fever or something. Maybe that’s why she was acting so strange. I bet it was the smoke from that pumpkin. That’s what made everyone feel so sick.
For the first time since Saturday night, Ashley felt a stirring of hope. It lasted all the way until second period, when she realized that Stephanie and Danielle weren’t at school, either, and the teacher made no mention of them being out sick. They were just not there. No one else even seemed to notice. And by third period, the desks where Stephanie, Danielle, and Mary Beth would’ve sat in history class—the one class that all four girls shared—had been removed.
“Mr. Thomas?” Ashley asked as she approached the teacher’s desk after class.
“Yes, Ashley?” He was reading the newspaper again and didn’t even bother to look at her.
“Um, I was wondering . . . ”
“Speak up, Ashley.”
“Do you know where Mary Beth and Danielle and Stephanie are?”
The newspaper crinkled as Mr. Thomas turned the page. “They moved away over the weekend.”
“What? That’s impossible,” Ashley replied, and Mr. Thomas looked up at last. He gave her a sharp glance, a warning.
“Sorry, sir,” she said quickly. “But I don’t understand—”
“The life of a farmer is a hard one, Ashley,” Mr. Thomas interrupted her. “Many families find they just don’t have what it takes. And with winter on the horizon, they were wise to leave now. Before it got any worse.”
At that point, he snapped the paper so forcefully that Ashley knew their conversation was over. “Thank you, sir,” she murmured and ducked out of the classroom.
Ashley had minded her manners as best she could, but she didn’t believe for one minute that all three of her friends and their families had moved away on Sunday, so suddenly and without any warning.
When the McDowells had moved to Heaton Corners, Ashley had known about it for months beforehand. It had taken weeks just to make all the arrangements!
And Mr. Thomas’s explanation made no sense. The Medinas have lived in Heaton Corners forever, Ashley thought. If anybody can handle farm life, it’s them.
The conversation with Mr. Thomas left Ashley with more questions than answers. But no one at school seemed to have the answers—and if they did, they weren’t willing to share them with her.
The first thing Ashley saw when she got home was a large box on the porch. She recognized Maya’s handwriting immediately and ripped open the box before she even went into the house.
There was another box inside it, and inside that box, Ashley found the most beautiful pair of boots she’d ever seen. Knee-high, made of soft brown leather, they were really and truly grown-up boots. If it had been any other day, she would have imagined how amazing they’d look with her brown corduroy skirt or her best pair of jeans. But not today.
There was a card, too.
Happy birthday, little sister! Just because you’re a farm girl now doesn’t mean you can’t have a decent pair of boots. Just promise me you won’t wear them to do chores or shovel manure or anything disgusting like that. These boots deserve better. Wish I could help you celebrate your special day. Is Mom making a doughnut cake?
Love, Maya
P.S. I really hope this package gets there in time for your birthday! If it’s late, don’t blame me, blame my midterms!
Ashley was closing the boots back up in their box when she realized something.
The boots were the awesome present Maya had promised to send her.
Not the lemniscate necklace.
An uncomfortable prickling crawled along the back of Ashley’s neck as she realized something: The package with the lemniscate had no address on it. It was never mailed. There were so many questions whirling around her mind that Ashley couldn’t think straight.
Who left me the necklace?
Where are my friends?
What happened to them?
And, of course, the biggest question, the one that had haunted her since she had arrived in Heaton Corners and seen her first snake lemniscate and watched grown women freak out over a cake with spooky decorations and stumbled into the secret room in the corner store: What are they hiding here?
Ashley wasn’t sure how she would find the answers.
But she was determined to try.
She walked around to the barn for her bike, doing her best to ignore the leftover Halloween decorations she still hadn’t cleaned up. Then Ashley started pedaling as fast as she could.
Stephanie lived closest to her, in a dark-blue two-story house that had a cramped, pinched feel to it. From the outside, it looked the same as it had the one time Ashley had hung out there . . . except for the FOR SALE sign out front, swinging on squeaky hinges as a chilly breeze ushered in dusk. A flare of disappointment surged through Ashley; maybe Mr. Thomas was right. Maybe her friends had moved away.
Then Ashley got the strangest sense that someone was watching her. She turned around, half expecting to see Stephanie walking up behind her. . . .
But no one was there.
The same thing happened at Danielle’s house . . . or, rather, at what used to be Danielle’s house, because it was very clear to Ashley that no one lived there now. The windows stared at her blankly, like empty eyes that had lapsed out of focus. Somehow Ashley found the courage to peek into one of the windows. Some of the chairs had been knocked over; there were clothes and papers strewn across the floor. Ashley couldn’t shake the feeling that Danielle’s family had left in a hurry.
And she still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched.
Or maybe that she was being followed.
It was quickly getting dark, but Ashley climbed back onto her bike, determined to stop by the Medinas’ house before night fell. The Medinas owned the largest ranch in Heaton Corners, which was good, considering Mary Beth had five little brothers and sisters. It was a beautiful homestead, with rolling acres of green pasture and not one but two gray barns to house their cattle and sheep. Mary Beth had promised Ashley that she could come over and play with the baby lambs in the springtime, but as Ashley walked up to the ranch, she knew that would never happen. Already the property had a deserted air about it; there was a loneliness that had settled over it like a cloud of dust. Ashley’s intuition tugged at her, and something deep inside said, Go away, go away, go away from here.
But Ashley pressed on, determined to find out what had really happened to
Mary Beth.
She owed her that much, at least.
There weren’t any trucks in the long, circular driveway that swooped in front of the house, and a heavy padlock dangled uselessly from the gate. Right away Ashley knew that that was wrong. The animals could escape if the fence wasn’t kept locked.
They could’ve escaped, at least, if they’d still been there. But it took only one peek in each barn—which were also unlocked—for Ashley to realize that not a single living being was left on the Medina ranch.
She had to check the house, though. She couldn’t leave without checking the house. The creak of her footsteps across the porch was deafening; it seemed possible that the whole town could hear her. It was harder than Ashley expected to peer in the windows when every part of her pulsed with fear, when all her instincts told her to flee.
But she did it anyway. She looked in the windows. From what she could see, the Medina house was in perfect order, with everything in its proper place, except for the kitchen, where the table was still cluttered with yesterday’s breakfast dishes. Soggy pieces of half-eaten toast, crusty egg yolks, cold bacon studded with congealed grease, two happy flies buzzing around it all. That’s when Ashley really knew, without a doubt, that the Medinas were gone. Mrs. Medina would never leave the breakfast dishes on the table like that.
So that was that. It was obvious now; Ashley couldn’t deny it anymore. Mary Beth was gone, and so was Danielle, and so was Stephanie.
Right?
Then something caught her eye around the corner of the house, a faint flicker that appeared and disappeared so quickly that Ashley couldn’t be sure she’d seen anything at all.
Then she heard the cracking, the popping, like someone walking over dead branches but louder, deeper: a skeletal crunch.
And then she heard the voice.
Ashhhhhhhleeeeeeeey . . .
Ashhhhhhhleeeeeeey . . .
A whisper that she could not only hear but also feel, a tickling breath in her ear, a raspy hiss across her neck.
Ashley was certain then that she was not, in fact, alone.
She stumbled off the porch, blinded by terror, jumped on her bike, rode away all wobbly, almost unable to keep her balance. She rode and she rode and she rode, but she didn’t go home, and she didn’t stop until she somehow remembered the way to the red farmhouse. There wasn’t any candy on the porch this time, but there were lights on inside. Ashley couldn’t seem to catch her breath; she held on to the porch railing as her lungs clenched and her heart thudded unevenly; she forced herself to take long, slow, deep breaths. The smell of fallen apples filled the air, sweet and cider-y and tinged with decay. It was a comforting and familiar smell, especially when mixed with the scents of damp leaves and the woodsmoke that was drifting from the chimney.
Ashley didn’t know what would happen when she rang the doorbell. But she had to believe that Joey would talk to her. That Joey would tell her what he knew, even though he had pointedly ignored her at school all day, going out of his way, it seemed, to avoid her.
Because if he didn’t, Ashley didn’t know who would.
Her finger was surprisingly steady as she reached for the doorbell.
Ding-dong.
Moments later the door swung open. Just like on Halloween, Joey stood in the doorway, but this time his face was free of lemniscates and his eyes were free of fear. There was a quiet resignation in them, a simple sadness that made Ashley want to curl up in a ball and cry.
“Hey, Ashley,” Joey said.
She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
“I guess you want to talk, right?” he asked. “You want to sit down?”
Ashley nodded and let Joey guide her over to the porch swing. His arm brushed against hers when he sat next to her, and the swing rocked back and forth, back and forth, as the last pink light of sunset washed over them. How many times had Ashley imagined hanging out with Joey, just the two of them?
But not like this.
Never imagining something like this in a million years.
She found her voice. “My friends,” she said awkwardly. “Do you—do you know what happened to them?”
Joey was silent, and for an awful moment Ashley thought, He won’t tell me, he won’t, he’s just like everybody else in this horrible town, and so she started babbling, “Please, Joey, I have to know, because I’m afraid something bad—like something really bad—happened, and I can’t bear—”
“Hey, hey, slow down,” Joey said gently. He reached for her hand and held it tightly in his own. “When my stepmother started uncovering the truth about Heaton Corners, she made me promise not to tell anyone, for fear we’d be run out of town.” Joey took a deep breath. “But I guess that doesn’t matter much anymore now that everyone sees what the curse can do.”
Ashley nodded, eager for information.
“I don’t know that much,” Joey said. “But I’ll tell you everything that I do know, okay?”
Ashley continued to nod.
“Heaton Corners is cursed,” Joey began.
Cursed? Ashley thought. Cursed?! But she forced herself to remain quiet as Joey continued talking.
“It’s an old curse. Something terrible happened here a long time ago—so terrible that nobody talks about it, just like nobody talks about the curse. They just go about their whole lives pretending it doesn’t exist. And so they’ve forgotten what the real danger of Halloween is in Heaton Corners. But there are a few people who think silence is more dangerous than the curse itself. And those people told my stepmother all they know. And there were many people, like my aunt, Mary Beth’s mother, who didn’t want my mother telling them anything unpleasant, anything they didn’t want to hear.”
“But what is the danger?” Ashley asked. “I mean, what kind of curse?”
Joey shook his head. “It has something to do with Halloween. Something about trick-or-treating. Mary Beth’s mother never let her go trick-or-treating because of the scary kids who roam the streets. She thought they were the curse of Heaton Corners on Halloween night. But they aren’t the real danger. Kids who go trick-or-treating in this town disappear . . . and are never seen again, except on Halloween night.”
Ashley covered her mouth with her hands. You did this to them, she told herself. It’s all your fault.
“You guys didn’t know,” Joey said, as if he could read her thoughts.
“But I went trick-or-treating,” Ashley said, the sudden realization crashing over her along with a wave of nausea. “Is something—is something going to happen to me?”
“Well, not now,” Joey replied. “At least, I don’t think so. The curse takes effect pretty fast, I think. Before midnight on Halloween.”
“So why was I spared?” Ashley asked. “Why me? Why not them?”
“I don’t know,” Joey said simply. “I think the lemniscate might have helped.”
Ashley gave him a sharp look.
“The necklace,” he explained. “I saw you wearing it on Halloween. I was so glad. I was afraid maybe you wouldn’t.”
The realization that dawned on Ashley burned slow and bright. “Wait—so you—were you the one who—”
“Yeah. I left the necklace on your porch,” Joey said. “It’s one of the things my stepmother believes in—a talisman that wards off the curse.”
Ashley didn’t want to ask her next question, but she had to. “But what about the other girls? Why didn’t you give one to them too? You knew that we were all going trick-or-treating.”
Joey gave her a crooked smile. “I did,” he replied. “I think their parents intercepted them. The people in town who work so hard to ignore the curse hate the lemniscate. Because when other people see it, they start asking questions.”
Ashley remembered, then, the look on Mrs. Medina’s face when she spotted the lemniscate painted on the mailbox post. “So the one on the post—”
“Yeah. That was me too,” he admitted. “I just always wanted you to be safe. From the moment I saw you, the fir
st day you came to school.”
“Thank you,” Ashley whispered, but she wished more than anything that Joey hadn’t tried so hard to protect her. She didn’t deserve to be protected—of that, Ashley was certain. Not after she’d put her best friends in such danger. There was nothing Ashley could do or say that would change the truth: If only she’d never begged them to trick-or-treat with her; if only she’d never invited them to her birthday party; if only she’d never moved to Heaton Corners, her friends would still be safe.
The burden of that knowledge was liable to crush her.
Ashley jumped off the swing and started pacing back and forth. “No,” she said. “No. No. I don’t accept that there’s nothing we can do. There has to be something, Joey. A curse? What does that even mean? No, there has to be something. There has to be someone—”
Ashley stopped abruptly. Then she turned around and ran off the porch.
“Ashley!” Joey yelled. “Wait! Where are you going?”
“There is someone, Joey!” she yelled as she raced down the road, and in her haste, forgetting her bike. “There is someone who knows more than me . . . and more than you . . . more than your stepmother.” Then she disappeared into the twilight.
“Hang on!” Joey called as he ran after her. “I’m coming with you!”