by Wendy Laine
He swung a fist at my face, but I moved out of the way. “You’re quick.” Hank threw himself toward me. He had no idea.
I moved again. One of Hank’s friends dove at my back, trying to pin me down, but I dodged him, too, and he ran into Hank’s fist.
“Stop it, Jared!” Hank yelled.
“I was trying to hold him for you.” Jared clutched his nose. It looked and sounded like a bloody nose, if not a broken one.
Somebody else dove for my back, and I ducked down and flipped him overtop me so he landed on Hank.
“Dammit, Carl!” Hank yelled after he bounced up from the ground.
Carl was down on the grass, moaning and clutching his ribs. “I think you might’ve broken something, Hank.”
“It weren’t my fault you flew into me!”
Hank managed a solid punch to my stomach. I doubled over and considered tossing him, too, but his laughter stopped me. If this made us even, it was worth faking his punch had done more than a fiend managed on an ordinary night. I groaned.
“That’s what you get!” Hank said.
Sure enough, his buddies clapped and whooped—those who didn’t have a broken nose or fractured rib.
Footsteps came running behind me, and Danny appeared. “Y’all better get the hell outta here. My crazy uncle called the police.”
They bolted, dragging Jared and Carl, to where they’d parked beside the Porters’ machine shop. In a rush of tires in dirt, they were gone, laughing and shouting. The sledgehammer lay on the ground in front of me, dropped in the rush.
“They’re gone. You can quit faking,” Danny said.
I stood up straight. “You could tell?”
Danny rolled his eyes. “You’re a Watcher. If you couldn’t take them, then you’re a right sorry Watcher, and you wouldn’t still be alive. I sorta hoped you’d change when they rushed you.”
“You were watching?”
“Sure was.”
“Aren’t you friends with Hank?”
Danny shrugged. At least he’d gotten rid of them. I wasn’t sure exactly why he’d done that, but I was obliged to him for it. I picked up the sledgehammer and hefted it. This might come in handy, and it was one less weapon in the wrong hands.
“Why didn’t you fly home?” he asked. “They might not have seen you that way.”
Danny followed me onto my porch. He was right. They might not have. Or they might’ve seen me and had strange stories to tell. I wasn’t sure why he was asking. Maybe he’d been hoping to see me fly, too. I wasn’t used to so many people being all in my business.
“It uses a lot of energy, and sometimes I get bugs in my teeth.” I stared down at the wood. I’d have to borrow my uncle’s truck again.
“I figured Hank’d be by after what you did at the diner,” Danny said. I should’ve figured as much, too. Hank wasn’t the type to let things go. “Why were you at her place tonight?”
“Piper had some fiends around that I took care of.”
Danny turned and stared at Piper’s house. “How many?”
I lied. I didn’t have much of a reason to, other than Danny knew fiends were drawn to evil at times, and I didn’t want him thinking Piper was dangerous. “Just a couple. Not a big deal.”
Danny continued staring at Piper’s house.
“Where you been tonight, Danny?” His red pickup had been gone earlier.
“Out. With a girl. Just got back.” He smiled in the direction Hank and his friends had gone.
“Is that a fact?”
“Turns out being kin to somebody as ugly as you doesn’t make that impossible.”
“Yeah, well, you’re lucky being ugly isn’t a crime because that face would earn you a life sentence,” I said.
“You look like your face caught on fire and people tried to put it out with a fork.”
I reached into my zippered pocket and pulled out the quarter for that one. I flipped it in the air and then winked out the porch light with my powers before the quarter reached Danny. He caught it anyway, but he had an odd look on his face when I let the light come back on.
“Cool trick.”
It was—absorbing the light was one of my more awesome abilities, but it wasn’t like me to show off. “It’s not all eating bugs.”
He nodded and stepped off the porch to walk home.
“Hey, Danny?”
He turned.
“Do you know anything about that grave that was robbed?”
“I heard it was some dead guy’s.”
I should have expected that. Being a smart-ass was practically genetic in our family line. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“Hey, hold up.”
He turned.
“Did Critch call the police?” I still didn’t hear any sirens.
Danny snorted. “For you? No way.” He turned back toward his place and walked off, whistling.
Chapter Six
Piper
Shouldering my backpack, I strolled toward the microfilm readers. Knowledge always made me feel like I was donning armor and, dang it, I needed that. Sitting in school helped, but not knowing who might’ve killed Jester left me feeling exposed. The long silences among friends at my lunch table eventually drove me to go eat in my car, just for a break from their pity.
Since Dale was taking the bus home, I was free to go figure out why somebody would rob a grave.
What was left in a grave after that long anyway?
I blinked and stopped, staring at Gris, who was sitting in the seat in front of the microfilm reader. Nobody ever sat there but me. It might as well have my name on it. Plus, he’d pulled up the very thing I wanted to look at.
“What are you doing?” I asked Gris—Gris of the suspicious job and even more suspicious motive.
“Looking at that newspaper article you mentioned.” He didn’t look up.
“I told you it was an animal attack.” I grabbed another chair and pulled it over next to his.
“And I believed you. I just wanted to see what else it said.” He jotted something in the notebook on the table beside him.
I craned my head to see it, but he flipped the notebook over.
“How was school?” His dark eyes focused on me. It was unnerving.
“Fine,” I lied. Shoot. One lie. I looked him over. “I heard you got into it last night with Hank, but you seem pretty much how you did yesterday.”
“Oh, you can’t see the burn?”
“What burn?”
“I got it from a short blonde in the diner. Darn near broke my heart at the same time.”
I pinned him with a glare. “I’d accuse you of being charming again, but I’ve been called nicer things—worse, too, but still.” A short blonde? Really? “Jared looked like he had a broken nose and Carl acted like his ribs were in pieces.” I’d been genuinely worried about Gris, thinking he’d gotten beat up for defending me. But here he was—looking right as rain with that cocky smile. “They said they won, but I have my doubts.”
“Oh, they did that to themselves.”
Uh huh. Sure. “You’re really okay?”
“You sound like you care about me.”
“As much as I care about anybody.”
“Maybe a smidge more.”
“Getting to be a smidge less.” I cleared my throat. “You must’ve graduated last year?”
“Three years ago actually. Homeschool.” He shifted to face me. I’d read a book about body language, and his posture said I could ask him anything. His expression said we weren’t done, not by a long-shot. Walking out on Gris yesterday hadn’t deterred him. I should’ve guessed as much. Gris Caso wasn’t just stubborn. He was stubborn squared.
“You graduated when you were fifteen?”
“About that.”
I tried not to find that sexy. “‘Cause school bored you?”
“Because you can go much faster if you take twice the course load and never date.”
“You didn’t date?”
“Yo
u’re wrong about me.”
“You’re not a charming player who’ll be gone in a week after you’ve done whatever you’re here to do?”
Gris continued to meet my eyes, stare for stare. He flipped the notebook over on the table. “I have questions. But you don’t ever answer questions.”
“You didn’t answer mine.” And it was kind of an important one. I wasn’t about to be his diversion. I moved to get up, but he put out a hand.
“I’m here because strange things have been happening in Hidden Creek, and my aunt and uncle were concerned. Since ‘strange‘ is my area of expertise, I agreed to come here and try to solve what’s happening. I assumed, when I arrived, that’d take a couple weeks. Then, I got here and everything changed.”
“Define ‘everything changed’ for me.”
“I met a girl in a barn who plans on chasing danger.”
“How long are you staying?”
“As long as it takes.” There was a lot of gray area in that reply, and I still had more questions.
I set my backpack on the floor. “Why were you looking at that newspaper clipping?”
He leaned closer and dropped his voice. “I’m worried that maybe your dog’s murder and the grave-robbing are related.”
My jaw dropped. “Gris!” I hit my fist on the table beside him. “You were investigating Jester’s death without me?” How dare he! The nerve!
The librarian shushed me.
I pursed my lips and cast a look her way. Give the woman a little power, and she’d act like she owned the place. We were the only ones in the library. Who were we disturbing?
“If you get us thrown out of the library”—Gris relaxed in the chair—”I’ll be able to cross that off my bucket list.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked abruptly, in a much softer voice. Some folks in Hidden Creek might not mind a ghostbuster around. A few of them had their businesses blessed by Pastor Green before they’d even think about opening up.
“I believe there’s a lot more than what meets the eye. I believe people can be haunted.”
“By ghosts?”
“By a lot of things.”
When I looked up, he was staring at me as if he knew. He couldn’t. I was being paranoid and stupid. But his gaze fell to my shoulder as if he could see the cuts through my shirt. Nothing had made me feel more naked than his piercing eyes on my shoulder. I covered my shoulder with my hand.
Maybe he was psychic. That made me even more uncomfortable. The things that strayed through my brain everyday would scare a saint.
“Are you haunted?” I asked him, trying to shift his attention.
His lips tipped up on one side and he gave me a considering look. “Sure am. Not as haunted as some around, but you live long enough and see enough, you get ghosts and memories following you that’ll make you shiver on dark nights. I imagine there are a lot of older folks in this town who are good and haunted.”
When you notice everything, you notice when a casual comment isn’t casual. Gris was fishing for information. He’d thrown out a line to see if I’d bite. Maybe this was why he was paying attention to me, trying to charm me. He wanted information. It made my heart sick—which was ridiculous. Knowing why Gris was interested in me was useful and kept me from getting in too deep with him. “You mean like by actual ghosts?”
“Maybe. Maybe just by dreams. Maybe it’s sickness. Maybe it’s bad luck. People explain things in all sorts of ways. My cousin says weird things happen here. Sometimes.”
I wanted to call Danny a liar, but I shook my head instead.
“You’re saying they don’t?” Gris’s eyebrows raised.
“I’m saying it’s not sometimes.” I flipped his notebook my way. His notes were an indecipherable bunch of chicken scratches. It figured. Straightening the notebook, I lined it up with the corner of the table and then moved the pen to be parallel. It was better that way. Easier to grab. You wouldn’t lose it. “A foul wind is blowing through town. It’s increasing in strength and tearing up folks like trees as it does. The weeks when nothing happens are an eye in a hurricane.”
“I’m looking for abrupt changes in people. One minute they’re one way and the next they’re another. Danny said a guy lost control last week, here in the library. Now, there’s your dog and somebody digging up graves.”
“I was here at the library that day. Actually, I’d just left. I was the last to leave—aside from the librarian.” I really shouldn’t sass her, seeing as how she’d had to deal with that mess. “Phil came in and shot up the reference section.”
I felt Gris’s gaze burning holes through me. “You’d been in the reference section.”
“This place isn’t that big. He kept screaming that he’d been cursed and that’s why they’re all dead.” I rubbed my arms. The librarian had warned me of that. She wasn’t sure if it was some sort of threat aimed at me or just a sign that he’d lost his mind. “He lost a slew of cows and horses a month ago—basically all the animals in his barn. It’d been locked for the night, too. It was like somebody had shut up a cougar with them. The next morning, everything was dead and there was blood all over. From what I heard of it, it was amazing Phil lasted as long as he did before breaking down.”
“Danny didn’t mention that.”
“Danny hadn’t just been here. The sheriff’s wife attends church with my mama and this happened on a Saturday night. It was fresh in Mrs. Rollins’s mind, and she doesn’t much care for me, on account of me correcting her a time or two in, uhh, discussions. If Pastor Green hadn’t interrupted their little ‘talk’ and taken Mrs. Rollins aside, it would have been an old-fashioned cat fight in the chapel.” Mama hadn’t balked about taking my side, not for a second.
“I hope they’ve got him locked up. Phil, I mean.”
“I’ve heard they’ve got him in a mental hospital, but I’m not sure how long he’ll be there, seeing as how he only shot books. He even put the gun down when the Mrs. Carson asked him to. Also, there’s the extenuating circumstances of him losing most of his livestock. Grief can do funny things. There’s been talk he didn’t pass a drug screen afterward.” I tilted my head. “I can’t imagine they’d just throw him back out on the street. Especially since this is a federal building—being a library. I’m not sure how that’ll factor in, but he probably would’ve been better off killing books in a bookstore.”
“If only that’d occurred to him. Besides, that’s not the only thing that’s happened. You can explain a few things away, but eventually all these instances pile up and equal something.”
I wrinkled up my nose and turned to face him. “You really are serious in thinking Hidden Creek is haunted, then?”
It felt like he was examining me, trying to judge exactly what he dared say. “You mentioned having nightmares about things coming after you.”
Had I? Strange that I didn’t remember telling him that. “Phil said he’d had dreams, but wouldn’t you after seeing what he had?” I’d nearly fainted after seeing Jester. Even thinking about it made the acid rise in my throat. “Besides, the town is getting older. Some of what’s happened would seem natural without the other things. Like the school’s old principal. He’d always had a temper—so him screaming and screaming at the 4th of July festival wasn’t too strange.”
“I heard it was more than that.”
I shrugged. “He threatened to light himself on fire, but he didn’t actually do it.” Of course, the pastor had darn near tackled him to prevent it. He hadn’t taken the lid off the gas can, so there was that. “And he had a stroke a week later so it was probably something related. You know how it is with superstitious people; a story grows as it gets passed along. Events with a perfectly logical explanation are made into something supernatural. Curses and demons. Mrs. Carter wasn’t possessed—she was just old. Her doctors are saying Alzheimer’s.” Though, truthfully, it hadn’t settled in—it’d roared in—like she’d roared and raged. “And we’d always known Greta Mellor was strange even bef
ore she drove through the barbershop window.”
“What about Hank’s sister? Dick mentioned something had happened to her.”
“Trina was always saying she wanted to leave. She might’ve just left.” Trina‘s disappearance was the least unusual thing that had happened in the last year, but it did seem to be around when everything went wrong—with me, with everybody. I wasn’t about to tell him about my sleepwalking, though.
I didn’t know Trina very well. She was a year ahead of me in school, but we didn’t have any of the same classes. Trina always took the classes that required the least amount of effort.
“And nothing’s been heard of her since?”
“No.”
“So, she disappeared.”
“People do that, Gris. They leave Hidden Creek and never look back. You’ve been here a couple days, so you know what we have to offer.”
“Hidden Creek isn’t looking all that typical and some of what’s here—I don’t mind so much.” He spun his pen on the table.
I slapped my hand down, to stop the pen mid-spin and straightened it. I couldn’t read anything into his flirting. Flirting was like breathing for somebody like Gris.
“Then, there’s your dog.”
I didn’t have an answer for that. He knew I didn’t. What happened to Jester would haunt me til I died. Most of the time, it didn’t even seem real. Nothing could be that horrible. Then I’d close my eyes and he’d be there…bloody, broken, and my fault. “Maybe somebody blamed me for something that happened—like Phil might’ve, though I don’t see how.”
“Yes, and that’s why I, uhh, we need to figure out who did this.”
“I don’t need or want your help.” His motives were suspect. He was a suspect.
“I’m planning on helping you, like it or not. I’d rather you be aggravated than dead.” Gris said it all calm and firm…like it was a fact.
He wasn’t afraid of either bullies or scary stories or superstitions. That might come in handy. Besides, I was stubborn, not stupid. And if he could help, maybe I could let him help. “So long as we agree that a real, live person killed my dog, not a ghost or a boogey monster…or whatever.”