The First Time I Hunted

by Jo Macgregor

  My mother believed that electronic voice phenomena — the supposed “voices” of spirits and ghosts — could be captured on old analogue tape recorders, and she’d recently blown a few hundred dollars acquiring one of the gadgets.

  “Oh, and some wet wipes in case we get hit with ectoplasm. Or” — she glanced at the muddy patch in front of the house — “dirt.”

  Shaking my head at her foolishness, I walked toward the house, taking a few steps to one side and then to the other to check the barn roof from different angles. It did appear to be nearer to the house than the one in my vision. Then again, maybe I was just bad at drawing perspective accurately.

  I headed toward the shadowed left-hand side of the house. Where a tall beech may once have stood, there was now an old tree stump on which someone had marked a tic-tac-toe grid in white paint. I trailed my fingers across the surface of the stump in the far-fetched hope that I might see what the tree had once looked like. Instead, I saw something very different. Faded and fleeting as the image was, I was still able to make out two bodies, naked and intertwined, doing the old rumpity-bump on the stump. Ugh. A Folger’s coffee can rested on the grass beside the trunk. Wondering if it would contain chalk or game markers, I picked it up and opened it. And nearly dropped it in shock.

  Inside were teeth — human teeth, complete with their roots. Five molars and five incisors. The hair on the back of my neck rose as I stretched a finger toward a milk tooth. A sudden rush of movement and noise had me leaping back, arms flung wide, the teeth flying into the air. Slavering jaws, wild eyes, straining muscles — a huge dog, as big as a bear, was charging at me, barking madly. It lunged into the air then fell to the ground with a throttled yelp, pulled up short by the chain around its neck.

  I stood as still as a pulled tooth, except for my galloping heart, while the beast leaped and plunged, yanking against its shackles, barking and baying. My father yelled something behind me, and I took one small unsteady step backward. Then another. A shout rang out, and at once, the dog sat on its haunches, eyes fixed on me, a low growl rumbling in its chest. I backed away, supported by knees whose load-bearing capacity now matched that of Jell-O and, at a movement in my peripheral vision, turned to face the porch, where an old man now stood. Tall and slim with snow-white hair and a hostile expression, he held a walking stick in one hand and scratched his chin with the other.

  I walked around to the front of the house. My mouth was dry, but I managed a “Hi, there.”

  The man said nothing.

  I forced my lips into a smile. “Quite a watchdog you’ve got there.”

  “Gunner doesn’t like strangers. Me either.”

  “A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met, yet,” my mother said, coming to stand beside me.

  I figured a stranger could also just be a murderer looking to add to his kills. I checked the dog. His gaze flicked to my mother for a second then returned to me. Just give me the order, and her throat is yours, Master, those eyes said.

  “I’m Garnet McGee,” I began and at once realized the error of giving my real name. “This is my mother and” — I glanced over my shoulder and found my father standing a few paces behind me — “my father.”

  “What are you doing on my property?”

  “We’re—” my mother began, but I cut her off before she could spout anything about a psychic quest for a mystery barn. This man already had us pegged as trespassers; we didn’t need him to think we were crackpots too.

  “We’re barn-spotters,” I said, trying for a bright, confident tone. “We love to visit Vermont’s best barns. And that one over there” — I pointed to the roof in the distance — “is listed as being one of the best round barns in the state. I wondered if we could maybe take a look?”

  “No.”

  “Just a little peep?” my mother said.

  The screen door of the porch creaked open, and a woman stepped out, wiping floury hands on a black apron. She had gray hair, a doughy face and was as wide as the man was narrow. Standing side by side, they looked like Jack Sprat and his wife. Meanwhile, the dog, losing interest in me for a moment, snuffled around in the dirt, picked up something small with his teeth, and crunched it between his powerful jaws. The next time this family gathered to play tic-tac-toe, they’d be short a marker.

  “Your house looks vintage too,” I said. “Built around 1900, I’d guess?”

  No reply.

  “And it’s in such great condition. Really lovely! Would you mind if I asked you some questions about it?”

  “Why, yes, I would mind. You think I’ve got nothing better to do all day than answer nosy questions from a bunch of snoopers?”

  “Fair enough,” Dad said from behind me. “Well, we’ll just be on our way, then. Come along, ladies.”

  While my father was speaking, the woman leaned over and whispered something into the man’s ear. A strange smile spread slowly across his face. “My wife tells me I’m not being very neighborly,” he said. “Why don’t you folk come inside and have some tea with us? She brews her very own blends, special-like. And she’s got some still-warm Joe Froggers for you.”

  An uneasy feeling took root in the pit of my stomach. Something wasn’t right here. The feeling grew when the door creaked again, and a man of around forty, wearing denim overalls over a plaid shirt buttoned up to his throat, came out onto the porch. He knocked a dangling windchime with his head, but instead of stepping away or removing his straw hat, he merely tilted his head toward his left shoulder. In appearance, he took after the man, but he had the woman’s silence and slack expression. He stood perfectly still, watching us with his mouth open, his head angled and his palms pressed against his thighs.

  “Will you join us?” the old man asked, and there seemed to be something more than a simple invitation to tea threaded through his words.

  I shivered, chilled by a cool breeze that moved neither the tendrils of hair about my face nor the windchime on the porch. Perhaps sensing the new presence, Gunner bared his teeth in a snarl then released a cacophony of wild barks. Straining at his chain, he bounced on his paws as he backed up and lunged forward over and over again, ignoring his master’s commands to sit and stay.

  My mother stepped forward. “Well, if you’re sure it’s not too much trouble, a cup of tea would be lovely. Thank you.”

  No!

  The voice in my head was Colby’s.

  Go. Leave!

  – 20 –

  I grabbed my mother’s arm, restraining her from waltzing into the house with this creepy family and tossing “special tea” and warm froggers down her gullet. “Thank you,” I told the man on the porch. “But we really should be going. We have a long drive back home.”

  “But what about the house and the barn?” my mother asked plaintively.

  “Mom,” I said, giving her a look filled with meaning, “I really feel we should go now.”

  The words felt true. Even apart from Colby’s warning, I felt a wrongness about the place that was almost tangible. My body was willing me to get the heck away from it.

  My mother’s eyes widened. “Oh!” she mouthed.

  I waved at the trio on the porch. “Goodbye, then.”

  A look passed between the mother and son, then he straightened his head, sending the windchime into another discordant tinkle, and started walking toward us. I spun and half-ran back to the car, my hand clamped around my mother’s wrist. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the younger man tramping down the front stairs of the porch.

  “Get in the car,” I whispered, unlocking the doors with my remote.

  My father, needing no encouragement, pushed my mother into the back before getting in himself, and was buckled up before I could start the engine. The man in overalls continued trudging toward us, undaunted when I threw the car into reverse and backed up the drive at top speed, my engine whining in protest. When we got to the highway, I turned the car around and then had to wait for a line of cars to pass.

  My father turned in
his seat to look out of the back window. “Hurry! He’s still coming!”

  Spotting a small gap in the traffic, I shot onto the highway and floored my accelerator. When the needle hit seventy and a glance in the rear-view mirror confirmed no one was following us, I blew out a relieved breath.

  “Can I have one of your wipes, Mom?” I asked.

  “Of course.” She opened her backpack and pulled out an economy-sized pack. “Here you go.”

  I took one and wiped under my arms, where a cold sweat had broken out.

  “Bob?” my mother said, nudging my father with the pack of wipes.

  He took one of the proffered towelettes and dabbed at his face. “What in God’s name is a Joe Frogger?”

  “It’s a cookie, dear, made with lots of spices and a little rum. They sell them at the Cakey Bakey in town. Delicious! I’m sorry to have missed out on tasting the ones that woman made. Still, it’s always better to be safe than sure,” my mother said, unintentionally accurate. “So, Garnet, what did you feel back there?”

  “I don’t know. It was … off. Like there was a wrongness.”

  “Wrong like there was something bad about it? Or wrong as in it wasn’t the right place?”

  “Either. Both maybe?” I said. Was the Hucknall house the same as the one in my vision? I honestly couldn’t say for sure. I hadn’t felt that evil darkness to the side of the house, but I’d also known — and Colby had, too — that it wasn’t a good place. “I’m not sure. I just knew we shouldn’t go into that house with those people.”

  “Well, I could’ve told you that for nothing,” my father grumbled. “In fact, if I neglected to mention while raising you that you shouldn’t go off with strangers offering treats, then consider that lesson now taught!”

  “And those men — were either of them the man in your vision?” my mother asked.

  “Not the younger one.”

  “Floppy Head?”

  “Yeah, not him. But the older one …”

  “Grumpy Stumps?”

  “He could maybe be a twenty-year-older version of the mean man I saw.”

  My father checked the doughnut box lid. “I see what you mean. They’re both tall and thin.”

  “And hatchet-faced,” my mother said, peering over his shoulder at the sketch.

  “The problem is my visions don’t freaking well come with time- and date-stamps. What I saw in my vision could have happened decades ago or last month.”

  My mother sat back in her seat and rooted around in her handbag. “But you definitely got a feeling that something was bad or dangerous there. That’s something, at least.”

  “Yes, but it’s entirely possible for there to be more than one bad place or person in the world at the same time,” I snapped, irritated more at myself than her. Why on earth had I been given this so-called “gift” if it was impossible to employ it usefully?

  “So, bottom line, kiddo, what do you think?” my father asked.

  “What does she think?” My mother snorted. “You’re beating on a dead horse, there.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said, spoiling for a fight.

  “Yes.” She handed my father a packet of goldfish crackers, dropped a packet of chili-flavored beef jerky into my lap, and tore open a bag of pistachio nuts for herself. “You’re going about this in entirely the wrong way. Instead of trying to think your way through, you should be using your feelings, dear. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it over and over again. The appearances of buildings change. People too. My goodness, you should see Michelle Armstrong! She’s had another round of fillers and Botox. I hardly recognized her when I bumped into her at the bank on Monday. Then she posted one of those goose-face selfies on her Facebook page, and I commented, ‘Lovely pic. Who’s it of?’” My mother chortled; she loved getting one over on Pitchford’s haughty town clerk. “Of course, everyone else posted raving compliments. The way people pretty-foot around her, it’s enough to make you sick. Anyway, my point is you should tune in to your feelings and your gift to sense which barn is the right one.”

  My father turned his head to stare out of the window at the blur of trees and pastures. I tore a strip off a stick of jerky and chewed, thinking. There was no stopping my mother from talking, though.

  “Why, when you were a little girl, we had a game where I’d hide a candy in one of my hands and hold them out like this” — she thrust both fists through the gap between the front seats — “and tell you to choose. And you’d always guess right! Don’t you remember, Bob? It goes to show you already had the sight, Garnet, even way back then.”

  “Or maybe she was just smart enough to choose the hand with the bigger fist,” my father said.

  My mother made a dismissive noise. “Then how do you explain that time with the shell game on the pier at Old Orchard Beach? The fellow had three upside-down shells, Garnet, and one dried pea. He’d pop the pea under one of the shells, then he’d shuffle them around and around faster than anyone could keep track of.” She milled her hands furiously in the air to demonstrate. “And when he stopped, you knew which shell the pea was under. Every time. He got sick of you guessing right, so he decided to get even more tricky, hiding the pea in his hand or flicking it onto the floor, I guess. And when he stopped moving the shells, you called him a cheat. Quick as flash, you turned over all three shells to show it wasn’t under any of them. My word, there was such a fandango with the crowd who’d gathered to watch. They all booed, and he had to pack up his case and vamoose!” She laughed in delight at the memory. “Your dad bought you a popsicle for exposing the fraud, and I bought you a ride on the Ferris wheel for seeing with your third eye.”

  I gave my father a skeptical look. “Did that actually happen?”

  “I think it might have been cotton candy, not a popsicle.”

  “Seeing through the trick?” I clarified.

  He pulled a face and, almost reluctantly, said, “You were a lucky kid.”

  “So you should go by what you feel, my dear,” my mother concluded. “There’s no two ifs and buts about it.”

  Going with my gut rather than leading with my brain wouldn’t come naturally to me. I liked logic, verifiable facts, and accurate data. Still, in this search at least, I had nothing to lose and nothing better to go on. So when we approached the barns in the sites near Tunbridge and East Bethel, I tuned in to my feelings — and felt diddly squat. Of course, none of the sites much looked like the buildings in my vision either.

  We stopped for a late lunch at a quaint roadside inn with a cheffy menu. Dad had wild mushroom ravioli, Mom had spring asparagus risotto, I ordered maple bourbon salmon, and we each had a scoop of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream for dessert. Dad, who’d polished off two beers over lunch, fell asleep on the way home, leaving me the sole audience to my mother’s rambling stream of consciousness until we finally arrived at their house. I shook my father awake, eager to get home to the peace and quiet of my loft. What a waste the day had been. Thank goodness Ryan hadn’t been there to witness my succession of psychic flops, not to mention the exhausting and eccentric dynamics of my oddball family.

  “That was a lovely day, Garnet,” my mother said. “Thank you for taking us along.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  Taking them had been a bad idea. They’d slowed my pace and revved up my stress levels. Plus, it now occurred to me that involving them in a hunt for a killer was in no way a smart idea. My mother, for all the emphasis she placed on intuition, seemed to lack any of her own. She’d happily have gone right into that house with Floppy, Grumpy, and Lumpy with no thought of any potential danger. From now on, I’d hunt alone.

  I lowered my window and told her, “Don’t forget to take your ghost-hunting kit with you.”

  But she insisted on having my father stow it in the trunk of the car. Bending down at my window, she said, “I’ll just leave it there for our next barn-hunting trip, dear. See you bright and early next Sunday morning?”

  Over my dead body.

  – 21 –r />
  Monday, April 16

  Henry Mason’s study was pretty much what one would expect for a lawyer: shelves of legal tomes, a gleaming wooden desk forested with piles of paper and files, and a worn Persian carpet on the floor. I was immediately drawn to the abstract painting on one wall. Clouds of color swirled above a hazy gray horizon in a mood that was both hopeful and foreboding, a fitting picture for my first day of paid work for the old curmudgeon.

  The man himself sat in a leather wingback, his feet up on a footstool and a blanket thrown over his knees. When I greeted him with a bright “Good morning,” he scowled.

  “It’s overcast, cold, and wet. Nothing good about it.”

  Recalling Gwyneth’s theory that he was invigorated by arguments, I replied, “Well, aren’t you a ray of sunshine?”

  Beneath his deepening scowl, I saw the strain of real pain in his face. I’d need to take care not to bump his foot as I moved around the room. “What’s my first job today?” I asked.

  “I’ve misplaced my spectacles. I last remember using them when I was tending to my babies.”

  “I’ll go check.”

  “The key is on that rack by the door. Be sure to shut and lock the door of the hothouse when you leave.”

  “Will do.”

  “And take the garbage out while you’re at it. It’s collection day,” he called after me.

  I was going to have to teach Henry how to say please.

  When I wrestled the garbage can to the sidewalk, it clinked at every bump. Peeking inside, I saw enough empty red wine bottles to explain Henry’s flare up of gout. Gwyneth must not know about the wine, or she’d have asked me to monitor his drinking too.

  After the chilly outside air, the heat and perfume of the greenhouse was cloying. I didn’t much like the place. If I were a superstitious and suggestible sort of person, which I most certainly was not, I might’ve imagined that the flowers were watching me, resenting my intrusion into their exotic world. And I might have said out loud, “Just passing through. Don’t mind me.” Instead, I switched to mouth-breathing and hunted in silence for Henry’s specs. They weren’t on his workbench, but a mud-smeared black apron was. It reminded me of the woman on the porch of that house outside Hucknall with the unfriendly man, the strange son, the fierce dog. The teeth.