“The break will do you good,” Jake had assured her before kissing her good-bye that morning. “You might even have fun. You’re only going overnight. What could happen?”
Ask a silly question. Never mind the potential for blisters and sunburn—not that sunburn looked to be an issue for the rest of the day—there was always poison ivy, snakes, spiders, swamps, cranberry bogs, falling trees, crumbling cliffs—okay, in fairness none of that had happened so far, but the day was still young.
Well, perhaps not that young, and, in fact, as they reached a ring of logs around a fire pit in a cleared meadow Simon suggested that this might be a good place to make camp for the night.
There were groans of relief from everyone. Packs were lowered to the ground—and bodies followed.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Simon warned. “We want to get our camp set up now so we can relax and enjoy our evening.” He threw an instinctive look at the darkening sky. Though his smile never wavered, it looked to A.J. like they were in for a rainy night.
“Mocha, come help me look for firewood,” Suze called.
Mocha gamely, if wearily, pushed back to her feet. Jaci and Simon instructed everyone else in setting up the four small dome tents.
The tents were freestanding design and, to A.J.’s surprise, set up quite quickly and with minimal difficulty. Each tent provided snug—very snug—shelter for three adults.
Once the tents were ready, air mattresses inflated, and sleeping bags rolled out, Jaci, Simon, and A.J. started supper. Suze and Mocha returned with the firewood.
“You don’t think there are bears out here, do you?” Mocha asked suddenly, staring at the dark, forbidding line of trees.
“No,” said A.J., who had been wondering the same thing.
“It feels like we’re a lot farther out than we are,” Simon reassured. “Because we’ve been lugging our gear all day. Most bears aren’t going to want to come this close to civilization.”
“Civilization!” someone echoed doubtfully.
It did seem a very long way from civilization, A.J. had to admit. The closest thing they’d seen to another human was the ruins of a small abandoned town they’d passed through around lunchtime.
Suze laughed. “You’d have a better chance of seeing the Jersey Devil!”
There was an awkward silence while everyone tried not to look at Oriel Goode.
Oriel looked up from the veggie dogs she was piercing with dismantled wire hangers. She said nothing, only handed the wires over to Simon.
Someone tittered nervously. Mocha said, “Well, it was in the news, wasn’t it?”
Simon replied, “Don’t believe everything you read in the news.”
“This was on TV.”
That was almost touching.
“There’s no such thing as monsters,” Jaci said firmly.
“You’re wrong there,” Oriel said. “There are human monsters.”
Not unreasonable that a woman whose husband had been murdered just a few days earlier might feel that way, but it did put a damper on the party. There was another of those abrupt silences.
A.J. rose. “Why don’t we take a few moments to stretch and unwind from our hike with a few evening asanas?”
There was quick agreement, the students moving with alacrity to retrieve their mats. There was some discussion over whether boots or shoes should be removed, with the decision being footwear would stay on.
While the other instructors continued to prepare the meal, A.J. led the group through a series of warming, calming exercises.
She finished up, saying, “I nearly forgot. Here’s a move that might have been created for our trip. I call it the Yogi Bear.” She extended her arms, made wide circles, and thrust her hips out as though using a hula hoop.
Laughter and a few groans followed.
“Let me tell you, that move’s a big hit with the Itsy Bitseys.”
There was more laughter, especially from Mocha, and A.J.’s heart lifted. If nothing else came out of this trip, this fragile new connection with the girl made all the sore muscles worth it.
“Come and get it, ladies,” Simon called.
The evening asanas finished, the group headed for the fire that was now blazing brightly in the ring of logs.
“Who’s for veggie dogs and who’s for turkey burgers?” Jaci asked as Suze dished out tomato soup spiced with garlic, celery, onion, and red pepper.
Maybe it was the fresh air or maybe it was all the exercise, but A.J. felt like she’d never had food as delicious as the soup and turkey burgers.
The others seemed to equally enjoy their dinners, although there were a few comments that a glass of wine would have made the meal perfect.
“Next time,” A.J. promised, and as the words left her mouth, she realized that she didn’t mind the thought of there being a next time.
She was enjoying herself. The stars had never seemed so huge, so brilliant in the sky—in between the looming rain clouds—and the dark silence beyond their campfire was . . .
Well, actually it was a little eerie. Depending on how you looked at it. Their cheerful voices seemed to bounce off the wall of trees lining the open field where they were camped. Beyond the trees was an impenetrable blackout of vegetation.
Beside A.J., Oriel said suddenly, “It’s a relief to be away from everything. From reporters and policemen and . . . people staring.”
A.J. had been hoping for some kind of opening where she could perhaps ask Oriel if she knew that her husband had once gone by another name—that he was suspected of killing his previous wife. But you couldn’t ask someone something like that in public. It would be hard to ask at all.
Though Oriel had spoken quietly, her voice carried. There were some murmurs of commiseration. “Sorry for your loss,” Simon said. Jaci and Suze spoke, too.
Oriel replied, “Thank you.” She rubbed her face tiredly. “It still seems unreal.”
Perhaps it was the intimacy created by the warmth and companionship of the campfire, perhaps it was simply that everyone was too tired and too relaxed to be on guard, but the other students began to express sympathy and ask Oriel what her plans were.
“I don’t know. I don’t see how I can stay now. Even if I wanted to. The memories would be unbearable.”
“Don’t you want to stay?” A.J. asked.
Oriel shook her head. “I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. New Jersey was David’s idea. He said the Lord had summoned him here.” Her mouth curled in the firelight. “I asked him why the Lord couldn’t summon us to a metropolitan area for a change.”
Rose chuckled and patted her knee. “That’s a good question, if you ask me.”
“If I had a choice, I’d live in Manhattan,” Mocha said.
A.J. said, “I used to live in Manhattan.”
“What was it like?” Mocha’s eyes seemed to shine in the firelight.
“I loved a lot of things about it. The shopping, the nightlife, the wonderful restaurants, and museums and art galleries—and all accessible even without a car. But I like my life now, too.”
“I hate my life.”
Surprisingly, it turned out to be one of the best things Mocha could have said. Instead of shocking the other students, they began to talk about their own experiences as teenagers as well as their own children’s insecurities and anxieties. As some of these kids were classmates of Mocha’s, it was clearly an insider’s look at her peers.
Only Oriel, sitting next to A.J., was silent.
It was a shame that the conversation had moved away from the Reverend Goode’s puzzling insistence on sticking to backwaters for his proselytizing, but in the greater scheme of things, letting Mocha have this opportunity to vent and be heard by this many sympathetic ears was probably the greater good.
When Mocha had finally run down and the others had run out of advice, some useful and some merely well meant, Jaci asked who wanted s’mores. “We have vegetarian and nonvegetarian.”
“Vegetarian s’mores?” Moch
a asked.
A.J. said, “I know. That came as a surprise to me, too, but most marshmallows are made with gelatin which comes from boiled-down animal hooves and hides.”
That had everyone opting for vegetarian s’mores. Jaci grinned at A.J. across the fire.
A.J. wasn’t a big fan of s’mores. She contented herself with a hot mug of sugar-free cocoa and watched the others browning their Sweet & Sara marshmallows over the crackling flames.
“Who knows some good ghost stories?” Suze inquired. Her monkey cap had slipped sideways, and the button eyes glinted mischievously in the firelight.
Rose volunteered, “Has anyone ever been to the Colby Mansion in Byram Township?”
No one had.
“The story is that a wealthy railroad owner named Colby killed his wife—no one knows why exactly—and placed her head on his fireplace mantle.”
Now there was an episode for Divine Design. A.J. wisely sipped her cocoa and kept her thoughts to herself. Her fellow campers looked, depending on temperament, either amused or spellbound.
“But the ghost of Mr. Colby’s wife drove him to suicide.”
“How did he do it?” Suze asked, wide-eyed.
“Er, I’m not sure,” Rose admitted. “But I’m sure it was pretty gruesome. Now both their spirits roam the estate late at night.” To Mocha, she said, “I had a cousin who lived in Byram. We went to the house with some friends when I was your age. It was all boarded up, but being kids, we broke in and had a look around.”
“At night?”
“No. We weren’t that brave.”
Suze and Mocha asked at the same time, “What did you see?” Rose and the others laughed.
“The place was a wreck, but the big marble staircase was still intact. And there were three fireplaces.”
“Did you see a ghost?” Suze asked.
“I saw something much worse. I saw Chester May trying to French-kiss my cousin C.J.”
More laughter all around.
Someone else suggested, “How about the West Milford hellhound that will chase you through the woods and down Clinton Road.”
“We’ve got plenty of hellhounds in Stillbrook,” another student said, and there were chuckles. “One chases my car every morning when I leave for work.”
“Well, there’s always the Jersey Devil,” Suze said cheerfully. She seemed unaware of the startled pause that followed her words. “That story used to scare the pants off me when I was a kid.”
Jaci asked, “What is the story?”
Suze explained about Mother Leeds, who was sometimes called Mother Shroud, and how her newborn devil child had eaten a couple of his twelve siblings before escaping out the window and into the woods.
“Yikes,” A.J. said. “That’s the first time I’ve heard that version.”
“Oh, there are lots of stories,” Rose said through a mouthful of s’mores. “Stories how the Devil came to be. Stories of it flying around the countryside.”
“How could he fly with those little bat wings?”
“I don’t know, but the legend is Commodore Stephen Decatur fired cannonballs directly at it, and the balls passed right through the creature and it flew safely away. Oh, and they say that Joseph Bonaparte, the brother to Napoleon himself, spotted it when he was out hunting one day.”
“In France?” Mocha asked.
“Bordentown. I guess he lived in this country by then.”
“Isn’t the Blair Witch Project supposed to be about the Jersey Devil?” Jaci chimed in.
“I don’t remember that,” A.J. said. “I thought that was supposed to take place in Maryland.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Suze said. “There’s The Last Broadcast. Except that’s not really about the Jersey Devil.”
“Did you get a look at it?” Rose asked Oriel.
“A look at what?”
“The Jersey Devil. Your husband said he saw it, isn’t that so? He was on Channel 3.”
A.J. could almost feel the struggle within Oriel. Oriel said, after a pause, “No. I didn’t see anything. I go to bed early and I’m a heavy sleeper.”
The campfire flared. No one spoke.
A.J. felt something wet against her face. She looked upward and another drop hit her brow bone. The fire sizzled as the rain began to fall faster.
“Uh-oh!” Suze exclaimed, getting to her feet.
Rose chanted, “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring.”
The students began to retreat to their tents.
“Put your plates and cups out so the rain can wash them,” Simon ordered.
There were a few sounds of dismay at this novel approach to washing up, but no one wanted to stay and argue. Plates and cups and silverware were spread out over the grass.
Inside the tent A.J. was sharing with Rose and Oriel it looked like one giant bed covered in a patchwork quilt of sleeping bags. A.J. held the flashlight as the other two crawled inside, sliding their shoes off and slipping inside their bags, giant shadows flashing against the plastic wall of the tent.
“What time is it?” Rose asked, smothering a yawn.
“Ten thirty,” Oriel replied as A.J. took her turn pulling off her boots and wriggling into her bag. “It feels later.”
“Hope I don’t need to use the facilities.”
A.J. and Oriel giggled as the rain began to patter harder against the roof of the tent.
“I hope this thing doesn’t leak,” A.J. said. “Does anyone want the light on?”
“Nope.” Rose turned her back to them and snuggled down in her bag. “Good night, gals.”
“I’m going to sleep. I was falling asleep out there anyway,” Oriel said, following suit.
A.J. switched out the flashlight. The shadows of the tall pines brushed across the ceiling like dark wings. The silence was filled by the whisper of the rain on the plastic tent. The night smelled of cold, damp earth and cold, damp plastic and cold, damp flannel.
At least it was warm inside the tent. She closed her eyes.
The next time she opened them it was pitch-black and someone was screaming.
Fourteen
There was a great upheaval of bedding around A.J. She sat up, groping for the flashlight. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“What in tarnation is going on?” Rose’s gravelly voice drifted through the darkness.
A.J. switched on the flashlight. Rose was sitting upright, her gray hair standing in tufts. She swung the flashlight toward Oriel’s sleeping bag. It was empty. “Where’s Oriel? Where did she go?”
Rose shook her head.
The terrified screams were still echoing through the night, but now other voices had joined in.
“Here.” A.J. thrust the flashlight at Rose and grabbed her boots, yanking them on over her thick socks. “Where’s my coat?”
Rose lifted bedding with her free hand, searching. A.J. gave it up, crawling out of the tent.
The rain had stopped. The moon was as bright and perfect as a shiny new dime. It illuminated the rain puddles and shadowy clumps of grass. At the end of the row of tents more flashlight beams darted in a circle like fireflies.
A.J. ran, trying to avoid the puddles and scattered dishes, to the last tent. As she reached the little crowd around it, she could hear puzzled murmurs. From inside the tent came Suze’s raised voice and Mocha’s hysterical sobs. Simon knelt before the entrance, his deeper tones cutting through the shocked mutters of the other students.
“What happened?” A.J. gasped. She felt winded. Not from the short jog, but from waking up in a panic. Her heart was still thundering.
Mocha’s gulped sobs drowned out Simon’s response. Jaci seemed to take form in the pallid moonlight. “She says she saw the Jersey Devil.”
“What?”
“I did see it!” Mocha cried. “I could see its silhouette through the tent and then it looked inside.”
“No. No, Mocha,” Simon said. “Too many s’mores before bed, that’s all.”
“It wa
sn’t s’mores. It had horns and glowing red eyes. It looked right at me.”
“I didn’t see anything,” Suze said, sounding bewildered.
“You were sleeping. You were snoring.”
“Why were you awake?”
“I don’t know. I heard twigs breaking and then I heard something coming across the grass toward our tent. It sounded . . . weird. I heard it step on the dishes and silverware.”
A.J. touched Jaci’s arm, and beckoned for her to follow. “Shine your flashlight along here.”
Jaci directed the beam along the side of the tent. The grass sparkled in the grainy glare of the beam.
“The other side!” Mocha cried from inside the tent. Simon and Suze made shushing sounds.
A.J. led the way around the tent, Jaci shining the beam ahead of their steps.
“What’s that?” A.J. halted, kneeling. Jaci squatted beside her. They exchanged looks. “What kind of print is that?”
“Hmm.”
“Well?”
“It looks like a hoofprint to me. A deer print probably.” Jaci frowned down. “There’s only one indentation.”
A.J. opened her mouth and then closed it. A one-legged Jersey Devil?
Reading her thoughts, Jaci said, “The other three hooves would have been in the grass so we can’t see the prints.”
“A deer, then?”
Jaci nodded. “Maybe even a small elk.”
“It wasn’t a deer,” Mocha yelled. “It wasn’t an elk. I know the difference between a deer and a devil. A deer didn’t yank back the tent flap and look at me.”
Simon and Suze made more soothing noises. A.J. said softly to Jaci, “I don’t see Oriel anywhere. Do you?”
Jaci looked at the gathered group. The ghostly figures blinked back at them. “No.”
“She wasn’t in our tent when Mocha screamed.”
“Maybe she needed some, um, private time.”
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