I attempted to change the subject, addressing no one in particular. “So explain the Varmint Run to me. All I know is that you’re going to a place over the mountain and teaching Brian to hunt.”
Ed, the philosophical one of our bunch, took the bait. “The Varmint Run is something new that Adam came up with. On the other side of Round Mountain, there is a deep basin called Burke’s Garden. Last month, we were hunting and discovered that the forest there completely obliterates all scent of the Keepers. We couldn’t get a trace of anything from each other. Granted, the forest typically erases our scent anyway, but over there it was immediate. So, we decided, what better place to teach Brian to hunt. Since he hasn’t wanted to track usual game, we thought we’d teach him how to hunt one of us. And with the black moon this week, he’ll have to rely on instinct even more since he won’t be able to rely on moonlight to see us.”
Brian stayed silent, no doubt thinking of the last time he’d tried to hunt.
“I get to be the Varmint first,” Tommy announced proudly.
“That’s a weird name,” I replied. “Why ‘the Varmint?’”
“That’s actually a bit of history,” Ed explained. “The Varmint was a coyote that killed hundreds of sheep back in 1952.”
I interrupted before he could go any further. “A real coyote, or someone with magic who could shift into a coyote?” Being as I was sitting at a table with six people who could shift into wolves, and one girl who could see bits of their future at random, it didn’t seem like an odd question to ask.
“A real coyote,” Ed answered. “He’s actually stuffed and on display at the museum over in Tazewell.”
“No way would a magical being be stuffed and on display around here,” Erik piped up, silent until this point. “We wouldn’t stand for that.”
Tommy and Michael both solemnly nodded their agreement.
“Okay, back to my story,” Ed continued. “The Varmint killed over 400 sheep before he was shot. The county actually had to pay two big-game hunters to come in to hunt him down. Before that, no one believed that it was only a coyote that had caused so much damage.”
“So, that’s why we named it the Varmint Run,” Tommy grinned. “I get to be the wily coyote who will not be caught.”
At that, Brian’s grin matched the younger boy’s. “Put that way, you’re making me feel better. I’ve watched lots of cartoons and the wily coyote never does well. Though it does feel kinda backwards since I’ll be the roadrunner, who will be hunting for you.”
“The downside is that for some reason, Burke’s Garden blocks some of our magic. I’ve never been able to feel Nikki’s presence when I’m over there,” Adam said quietly once the laughter ceased. “When we’re over there, we’re blocked off. It seriously isn’t a problem if you need Brian to stay. Are you sure you can handle it on your own?”
“Yes,” I said firmly. “I can handle it. I’m going to be fine.”
After all, ghosts can’t hurt you, I reasoned with myself.
At least…none that I’d ever heard of.
IT WAS POURING the rain again when Brian dropped me off after school. I stood on the porch and watched him drive away, knowing I wouldn’t see him again until he and the Pack were finished with their hunt. I pulled my set of keys out and opened the door.
I sat my book bag down and took off my shoes, then started toward the kitchen for a snack when I felt my socks get wet. Somehow I’d managed to step in a small puddle in the floor.
That’s weird, I thought, bending over to take my socks off.
Then I spotted another wet spot…and another. I trailed them, following the small wet patches all the way to the back door. I twisted the knob and the door swung open easily. Someone had been here.
I froze for a split second, wondering what to do. I’d left the phone upstairs, so there wasn’t going to be any calling for help—at least not yet. I thought about going outside and screaming. Surely that would bring Brian back in a hurry, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted him to do that. After all, I’d just promised that I could handle being by myself.
I sneaked back toward the living room, stopping at the small closet behind the door and took out a baseball bat. Then I looked down at the floor and noticed that the wet spots were more well-formed the farther they went along. I could make out distinct footprints—and they were headed up the stairs.
It’s a child, I thought, looking at the small wet spots where bare toes had touched one step. And a small one, at that.
“Whoever you are, you can come out. I won’t hurt you,” I said, feeling rather brave now that I had an idea of who I was dealing with.
I heard something fall in my bedroom, then the sound of running feet. The door swung open, seemingly of its own accord, and something shoved against me, throwing me off balance. My baseball bat went clattering, end over end to the bottom and I barely caught the railing before I followed it. My invisible intruder ran down the steps and out the back door before I could so much as turn around.
I followed and threw the deadbolt on the door, locking whoever it was out. Then I went back upstairs to see what my invisible villain had been up to.
As luck would have it, my mom’s room hadn’t been touched. My room, however, hadn’t fared quite so well. My meager belongings, such as they were, had been pitched and thrown everywhere. My clothes had been torn from their hangers and all of the drawers were pulled out of the dresser, contents scattered everywhere, as if a mini cyclone had ripped its way through my room. The only thing that hadn’t been bothered was my Raggedy Ann doll. Raggie sat primly on top of the bed, resting against the headboard, her red and white skirt neatly spread out.
I found the phone lying in the floor and dialed a number.
“Hey, BFF,” I said when Nikki answered the phone. “You remember how I said I’d call if I needed you? Well, I’m calling. I could use your help.”
Chapter 3
I WAS PICKING up the last of my things when I heard Nikki knock on the front door. I ran down the steps, and unlocked it, flinging it open.
“So where’s the ghost?” Emily, Nikki’s little sister, asked. She peered around me, as if she was expecting to see something to spring out from behind me.
“I had to bring her with me. Mom’s pulling nightshift,” Nikki said, the apology unspoken, but still in her voice.
“It’s okay. Whoever it was is gone, so she should be safe enough…at least, I hope so,” I answered. “Come on in.”
Once they were inside, I slammed the door and locked it behind them.
Nikki raised a brow. I’d been in Bland long enough to know that a good deal of the people in the town felt so safe they didn’t bother locking their doors. Especially those who had magic of some sort, which was nearly all of the town. “Whoever it was that came in here was invisible,” I explained.
“Most ghosts are,” Emily replied, nonchalant, as if she was the specialist on all things otherworldly.
“It wasn’t a ghost. Ghosts don’t have to open doors and as far as I know, they don’t drip water all over the place and leave footprints for you to follow.” At that, Emily’s eyes widened and she didn’t say anything else.
“Alrighty then,” Nikki said. “So what’s the plan? Are we shoving furniture against the doors and windows to keep whoever it is out, or what?”
“Everything’s locked, so we should be good. What I need is to pick your brain. Since he or she was invisible, they should have been listed in that magical, smelly book you had for a while. Any chance you remember any creatures in there that fit that description?” I asked, hopeful. The two of us had destroyed that book and this was the first time I’d wished we hadn’t.
Nikki hesitated for a moment, as if she was mentally ticking off images she’d memorized. “I don’t remember any of them being invisible,” she said finally. “It’s possible you’ve found someone who wasn’t in the book. You said you saw footprints. What did they look like?”
“They looked human,” I glanced down
at the dry floor. Once my visitor had fled, the water had too. “And small.”
Emily was fidgeting, nervously hopping from one foot to the other. I’d known her all her life and I knew this to be her way of trying to contain excitement or the extra energy that six year-olds seems to have in endless supply. Her sneakers made squeaking sounds against the hardwood floor, leaving prints nearly the exact size of the bare ones I’d seen earlier.
“I think it was a little kid.”
That statement stilled Emily and her eyes went as wide as saucers. “But what did he want? Or was it a girl? What did she want?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know, and I don’t know.”
“Where did the footprints go?”
That much I did know. “Straight up to my bedroom.”
Emily hopped from foot to foot again. “Then we’ve got to go see your room!”
Nikki looked at me and shrugged. “Even though you’ve probably already searched everything up there, it’s as good a plan as any that I can come up with,” she smiled.
I took them upstairs and we looked over my room. When it became apparent there was nothing interesting to see, Emily hopped on my bed and began playing with Raggie. The way she held it by its arms and made it walk across the bed brought back the memory of the doll walking across the floor that first time.
I knew then that my invisible intruder was a little girl and that odds were, she hadn’t been trying to frighten me that night, she’d just been playing with my doll. I felt my face flush with embarrassment. Whoever the child was, I’d probably scared her far worse than she’d frightened me. Maybe that was why she’d returned and trashed my room. I couldn’t think of any other reason and said as much.
Nikki picked up The History of Bland County from my dresser and sat down opposite Emily on the bed. “Did you find anything useful in here? Anything that might tell you why she’d be here in the first place? I’ve checked this book out before and it’s got some good info. It’s no directory of magical beings, written by a bog elf, but…” she trailed off and lifted a shoulder.
What do we have to lose? I silently finished her sentence for her. “Believe it or not, I’ve yet to have time to actually read it. It seems like every time I open it, something interrupts me.”
“I remember seeing a few pages on Ratherby House in here when I had it, but I can’t recall anything really jumping out at me.” She flipped pages to get to the right chapter and I spotted the photograph of the house as I sat down next to her. “Ah. Here we go.”
“Ratherby House was one of the first houses to be built in Bland County,” she read. “It was first inhabited by Jonas Ratherby and his wife Martha, who then gave it to their cousin, Matthew Ratherby…”
She read a long list of Ratherby names, each in some way giving the house to a different relative when they seemed ready to be rid of it.
“They’re doing a good job of keeping in the family, always giving it away,” I said, fighting the urge to yawn. “Isn’t there any mention of anyone ever dying?”
She frowned and placed her finger on the page, scanning again to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. “Nope. Everyone is always giving this house to someone else.” She flipped a page. “Here’s a picture of the last family that moved here in the 40s. I recognize Ms. Ratherby in it.”
I looked at the picture Nikki pointed to. In it were a man and a woman with two small children, both girls. The older one was the elderly school secretary, though in the photo she looked to be about ten years old. She was smiling, her hand on the shoulder of a younger girl in a checked dress with a white apron, a scowl on her face.
“I know her,” I said excitedly, taking the book from Nikki. “I saw this girl in the school library. She was peeking through the bookcase at me. I’m certain it’s her. She must have followed me here, though I don’t know why she would come in and trash my room.”
“You could always ask her,” Emily said quietly.
“How am I supposed to—” I stopped, realizing she was facing the window, watching something outside. Raggie laid on the floor at her feet. Forgotten.
I leapt off the bed and scrambled to look out.
There, on the bridge stood a little girl in a dress, the light from back porch shone on the white apron tied around her waist She skipped from one side to the other and back again, seemingly oblivious to the rain that pelted down on her or the dangerous creek that rose high, its surface merely inches below the arch of the bridge.
“She’s going to fall in!” No sooner had the words left my mouth and the girl slipped over the edge and disappeared.
The second I saw her head go under I bolted from the room, jumped down the stairs, and flew out the door to the bridge, my brain registering that Nikki and Emily were following, but nowhere close to catching up to me.
She’s so little and the creek is up. She’ll drown! Adrenaline pumping, I ran to the place where the girl had last stood and vaulted over the side of the bridge. The creek was a swirling, frigid vortex, the current dragging me toward the bottom, regardless of how hard I swam against it. It was dark, so dark that I couldn’t see anything around me. Still I fought, arms reaching for the child I couldn’t see.
I felt the water pulsing, moving around me as if it was some living thing. Then I heard the whispers, so soft that I couldn’t distinguish what they were saying, but loud enough that I knew there were more voices than I could count and with each second that passed, they sounded angrier. The current became stronger. Colder.
I have to find her soon, I thought, clawing at the water in an effort to get free. .My lungs felt as if they were on fire. They were the only parts of me that felt that way. The rest of me felt cold, nearly frozen.
Bubbles escaped from my mouth. My last bits of air…gone.
I stopped struggling, suddenly feeling very tired. Then I felt something grab me around my waist and in the next second, I was free of the current and out of the water, lying on my back. The first things that my brain registered were the wide eyes of a little girl staring down at me. The next thing that registered was the need to cough up the gallon of creek water that I’d swallowed.
Once I did that, I flopped back and attempted to process everything that had happened in the space of the past two minutes.
“Tori!” Nikki was leaning over me next, her long hair tickling my nose. “Are you okay? You scared us to death!”
“I’m fine,” I croaked, swatting to get her hair out of my face. I propped myself up on my elbows and looked at the little girl who sat a short distance from Emily, looking none too happy that I was staring at her. “Are you all right?” I managed to ask.
“Yes. But you shouldn’t have entered the creek. Water spirits don’t like anyone to touch them,” she said firmly, her eyes narrowing. The scowl on her face was an exact replica of the picture in the book. But that photograph was old and this girl looked as if she hadn’t aged a day since that photo was taken.
I’ve done more than swallow water. I’ve killed off some brain cells. Nothing’s making sense, I decided, still staring at her. “I’m sorry. I was trying to save you.”
At that, a small smile quirked at the edge of her lips. “I know. That’s why I saved you. You really shouldn’t do that again though. Humans are such fragile things.”
I couldn’t help grinning at the nonchalant way she shrugged as she said those last words, as if she thought herself to be quite a bit bigger than she actually was. “I appreciate you saving me,” I assured her. “But now I have tons of questions—and you have lots of explaining to do.”
THOUGH NIKKI WASN’T familiar with my kitchen, she opened a few drawers and found the spot where my mom had stashed the makings for hot chocolate. A few minutes later, we all sat at the kitchen table, each of us holding a steaming cup.
The little girl looked down into hers as if she was wondering what exactly we’d given her to drink. Once we’d made it inside, I’d turned the heat up and gotten us each a towel. She hadn’t been keen on
the idea of drying off, but I’d insisted, and for some unknown reason, she’d let me help pat her hair dry. I’d offered to find drier clothes for her, but she’d firmly refused.
She took a tentative sip out of her cup and her eyebrows lifted in surprise. Hot chocolate was obviously much better than she’d expected.
“I suppose my first question is who are you?” I said finally, waiting for her to finish taking another drink.
“A water spirit. We aren’t all that fond of names, so we don’t bother with them. But when I was human, I was called Anna Ratherby,” she shrugged. “That was quite a while ago, when my parents left the currents and lived here for a time, with my sister and myself.” She frowned.
“Your sister is Edna Ratherby?” I asked, though I was certain I already knew the answer. This girl was identical to the one in the picture. She was even wearing the same dress.
“Edna is what the humans call her. Do you know her? Where is she? If you know, you must tell me!” The little girl sprang up from her seat, nearly knocking over her empty cup. “She was supposed to be here, but I couldn’t find her. I only found you.”
I winced and looked over at Nikki, who gave me a helpless shrug. There wasn’t going to be an easy way to tell her that her sister wasn’t expected to recover.
“I think you might want to sit down,” I suggested.
Anna obeyed, sitting on the very edge of the seat, looking every bit ready to spring back up again.
“My mother and I bought the house from the nursing home. Your sister has been there for a few months now. She’s in a coma. Unresponsive,” I said, attempting to give her the news as gently as I could.
It didn’t work. “You have to take me to her! Her time is nearly gone. If she doesn’t come back soon, she’ll die!”
“Come back where?”
“To the water, of course,” the little girl said, looking directly at me. I found myself staring into her eyes, the blue pulsed in them, moving like the creek’s current. “She was supposed to return a long time ago, but she kept putting off coming back. She loved living amongst the humans. None of the rest of us ever wished to stay here so long. I only stayed for a few weeks. The water is the only thing that will save her. Water sprites can only leave and return under a dark moon. If she doesn’t come back, she’ll die as a human.”
Under a Dark Moon (The Keeper Saga Book 7) Page 2