Trace of Evil

by Alice Blanchard

  “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here,” Grace said, looking over at her. “Ellie and I had a long talk. She told me everything. She said you advised her to open up to me—and, by the way, thanks for that. The truth is … I knew she was experimenting,” Grace said, coming back into the living room and folding her legs underneath her on the sofa while the coffee brewed in the kitchen. “God, I don’t want her to grow up.”

  “Did she mention the parties, too?”

  Grace blinked. “One party. Just the one.”

  “Right,” Natalie said, tilting her head slightly.

  “Anyway, I convinced her not to do it again. And I’m relieved she quit the coven. She’s making the right decisions. The right choices. We talked about everything. She was very candid with me.” Grace’s eyes filled with tears. “Best conversation we’ve had in a while.”

  “Girl witches are just like anybody else. Searching for answers.”

  Grace cracked a smile. “Yeah, right. The first time I walked into Broomstick Books, I was hooked. I remember those creaky old floors and the cramped little aisles dotted with melted candle wax. As soon as you walked through the door, you were hit with all these delicious lemony smells and the tinkle of wind chimes. Not to mention the free herbal tea. It was so otherworldly. So enchanting.”

  Natalie nodded, recalling her own experience. It had started with an intense friendship, a bond. Natalie and Bella wanted to be prettier, more popular. They wanted to be loved. Adored. So yes … blood-brown lipstick and faux leather jackets and combat boots. Crescent-moon jewelry and broomstick pins—why not? Menstrual cycles—blood rituals. I wanna be a teen witch, fuck you. You thought you could control it. You thought you could flirt with the dark side and never get hurt.

  Natalie, Bella, Bobby, Max, and Adam had followed the instructions from books they’d checked out of the library. They made their own poppet doll using mud from the bank of the stream where Natalie had encountered the bogeyman. They put a curse on the boy with the birthmark. They got stoned and fooled around with the Ouija board and sought revenge. They got drunk on the expensive vodka Bobby snuck from his uncle’s liquor cabinet—a yucky combination of vodka and orange soda you sipped through a straw. They sat in the ruins of the old theme park on the outskirts of town, the one place they loved to meet because it was so cut off from the rest of the world, and so hilariously weird—big goofy cement figurines of giants and elves and twisted old crones covered in crawling vines and out-of-control ivy. They got stoned on the Bridge to the Future and giggled as they conjured up spirits with the Ouija board. Cross my heart, and hope you die. The first night of her initiation into Wicca, Natalie had lost her virginity to Bobby Deckhart. For real.

  “Natalie?”

  She blinked. Her sister was handing her a cup of coffee.

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  Grace sat down on the sofa again and took a careful sip.

  “Do you still have Willow’s old scarf?” Natalie asked.

  “The purple one? Yeah, of course. Why?”

  “This may sound strange, but I need to make sure you have it.”

  Heavy sigh. “Right now?”

  “Humor me, okay?”

  “Fine.” Grace put down her coffee and went upstairs to the master bedroom. Bureau drawers slid open and shut. Wooden hangers coasted across the metal rod in the walk-in closet. Objects were moved around with small thuds.

  She came downstairs empty-handed. “Hmm, that’s odd. It’s not up there. Which is weird, because I always keep it in the bottom bureau drawer.” She heaved a frustrated sigh. “Well, sheesh … it’s got to be around here someplace. It didn’t just get up and walk away.” She tilted her head. “Why? What do you need it for?”

  “When was the last time Sadie Myers came to visit Ellie?” Natalie asked.

  Grace furrowed her brow. “Ellie had a sleepover last week with the whole gang. India, Berkley, and Sadie. Why?”

  “I think Sadie may have taken Willow’s scarf. I saw her with it earlier.”

  Grace gave a precise little shiver. She stood up and called out, “Ellie?”

  The girl shouted back, “What?”

  “Can you come downstairs please?”

  With feather-light steps, Ellie traipsed down the stairs into the living room, where she watched them anxiously. “What’s up, Mom?” She looked like a child in her penguin pajamas.

  “Did Sadie go into my room last week during your sleepover?” Grace asked.

  Ellie’s face flushed. “No, Mom. What are you talking about?”

  “Well, someone took Aunt Willow’s scarf.”

  “The purple one?” Ellie asked.

  “Yes. Do you know where it is?”

  “No, Mom.” She shook her head, confused. She cringed as she landed in the armchair farthest away from them. “Sadie wouldn’t do that.”

  “But Aunt Natalie just saw her with Willow’s scarf.”

  “That can’t be true,” Ellie protested. “Maybe it just looks like it?”

  “That scarf is batik. One of a kind. I couldn’t find it in my bottom bureau drawer, where I always keep it. Suddenly it’s gone.” Grace sipped her black, sugary coffee in silence, then said, “You can’t keep hiding things from me, Ellie. That’s not how this works.”

  “But, Mom, I’m not hiding anything!”

  “I want the truth.”

  Ellie sighed with deep frustration. There was a chilly space between mother and daughter that hadn’t existed a few seconds ago.

  Grace turned helplessly to Natalie. “Why would Sadie take it?”

  “Personal belongings from powerful people or negative sources can make the curses much stronger,” Natalie reminded her.

  “Great. Now you’re really freaking me out.” Grace rubbed her forehead with her fingers, trying to wipe it smooth. “I’ve known these girls since they were in Pampers. Why would they do such a thing? Sneak into my room and steal that scarf?”

  “Nobody stole it, Mom.”

  “Ellie, why did you quit the coven?” Natalie asked.

  The girl’s mouth drew taut. “I didn’t like it.”

  “Why not? What happened to make you change your mind?”

  The answer was obvious, right there in front of them, but Ellie didn’t respond. She rubbed her anguished face, and Natalie had a flash memory of her as a baby, cradled in her mother’s arms, wrapped in a mint-colored blanket—a marvelous bundle of needs, smelling of baby powder.

  “Last Wednesday after school,” Natalie said, “did Riley stop by Berkley’s house? Did he visit the four of you there? It’s really important, Ellie.”

  “No,” she said with glaring self-righteousness.

  “Are you sure?”

  Eyes wandering. Lips quivering. She was hiding something.

  Natalie took out her phone and scrolled through the images. She stood up and handed Ellie the phone. “Do you recognize this poppet doll?”

  The girl sucked in her breath. “I don’t think so,” she hedged.

  “Are you sure you’ve never seen it before?”

  “I don’t know.” She handed the phone back.

  “Can I see that?” Grace asked, and Natalie showed her the screen. “A poppet?”

  “It was buried in Daisy’s backyard,” Natalie told her.

  Grace gave Ellie a mortified look. “What the hell … do you know about this?”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about it,” Ellie said, deeply offended.

  “Don’t lie to me, Ellie,” Grace snapped.

  “Mom, please,” the girl pleaded. “Don’t be mad at me.”

  “Ellie,” Natalie said solemnly, taking a seat beside her. “Do you have any idea who could’ve buried this poppet in Daisy’s backyard?”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” she insisted. Eyes blazing with defiance.

  “Is anyone going to explain what’s going on?” Grace said.

  “Ellie…”

  The girl leapt to her feet. “I don’t know!” she shouted, hu
rrying up the stairs and slamming her bedroom door. The house reverberated with an angry tension. It was as if a hurricane had blown through.

  After a tense moment, Grace said, “God, what’s going on? I thought we’d sorted everything out, and now this?”

  Natalie glanced around at the comfy armchairs and river stone fireplace, the recessed lighting and hardwood floors, the sleek hardcovers from Barnes & Noble and glossy magazines piled everywhere, while a solemn stillness closed in around them.

  “Are you going to tell me what all of this is supposed to mean?” Grace pleaded, looking haggard and defeated.

  “I don’t know for sure yet. I’m still trying to fit the pieces together.”

  “She stopped confiding in me months ago,” Grace admitted. “I should’ve known something was up. It’s like she stepped into another dimension where mothers aren’t allowed.”

  “That’s okay. Let’s give her time.”

  Grace drew a troubled breath. “Now what?”

  “I don’t know. This is new territory for me, too, Grace.”

  “Kids are much more sophisticated than when we were growing up, Natalie.” She picked up a framed photograph of herself as a teenager, posing with her swim team, and said, “Feels like forever ago, doesn’t it?” She squinted at the old snapshot. “This has to be the worst haircut in recorded history.”

  “Nah,” Natalie said with a smile. “You look pretty, as usual.”

  “I didn’t feel so pretty. I felt ugly. But Dad suggested I take up swimming, and I lost all my baby fat, and everything changed after that. It was fun winning trophies for the girls’ swim team, you know? For a while, Dad even thought I was Olympic material.”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Dad … no pressure.”

  Grace laughed. “Hey, remember Willow’s hair? So swirly, like cotton candy. She looked like a doll, with a dusting of freckles over her face. ‘Fairy dust,’ Dad called it. But she was a fucking warrior. Remember the time she jumped off Devil’s Point?”

  Natalie bit her lower lip, confused. “Wasn’t it you who jumped?”

  “No. That was Willow.”

  “Funny, I don’t remember it that way.”

  “Huh. You were probably too young to remember. Anyway, I had a huge crush on Gregg Lewis that summer. Remember him? What a loser he turned out to be.” Grace laughed. “He sells condo shares in the Adirondacks now. Anyway, a bunch of us went up to Devil’s Point that day, just for laughs. Willow and her friends came along, and Gregg was there … and all of us were fooling around, thinking we were so rad. We were the cool kids. Anyway, Willow announced she was going to jump off the cliff. Everyone became riveted, because there’d been two deaths that summer … two drownings … and we weren’t supposed to even be there. But then, Willow said she would only jump if I jumped, too. Believe that?” Grace paused. Between those azure eyes, worries gathered and infiltrated. “I was scared to death of those cliffs. I knew I was an excellent swimmer but, come on, this was Devil’s Point. People had died there. Kids hit the rocks and drowned. But Willow just walked over to the edge and jumped, and we all stood around in shock, staring down at the water. We didn’t see her for the longest time, and I remember thinking, God, is she dead? What am I going to tell Mom and Dad? It felt as if I’d swallowed an anchor, but then, miraculously, her head bobbed out of the water, and she laughed and told me to jump. But I couldn’t move. I was petrified.”

  “That wasn’t fair of her,” Natalie said, feeling protective of Grace. “You both could’ve drowned.”

  “She didn’t mean anything by it,” Grace hastened to explain. “She just wanted me to break the record for youngest diver ever to leap off Devil’s Point, that’s all. She wanted me to be the superstar that day. In her usual, Willowish way, she was trying to make me look good in front of Gregg. Boost my confidence. But I chickened out.”

  “Good for you,” Natalie said. “I’ve pulled dead kids out of the lake, Grace. It’s an ugly feeling. Just last year, a sixteen-year-old was impaled by a tree branch floating in the water. It was really wrong of Willow to put you on the spot like that.”

  “She didn’t mean any harm by it,” Grace said with a shrug. “She was hoping I’d dazzle them with my athletic prowess, because she’d seen me do triple somersaults off the diving board. Anyway, kids are dumb. They think they’re immortal. And Willow was blind to reality in some ways. She didn’t put any restrictions on her life, and she refused to see the negative side, only the positive. She took a lot of risks. She thought I should take risks, too, but she was special. All it did was make me feel like a loser.”

  “You? A loser?” Natalie scoffed. “You’re the least loserish person I know.”

  “You have no idea what it was like for me, Natalie. First days of school were hell. All my teachers would gush about Willow. Big shoes.”

  “Well, guess what? You were my Willow. First day of school, all my teachers would say, ‘Oh, you’re Grace Lockhart’s sister. Grace is fabulous! Grace is wonderful!’”

  She made a funny face and laughed. “Bullshit.”

  “Seriously. You with your fucking academic excellence awards and your achievement awards and outstanding senior athlete trophies. Come on. Get real. Besides, you inherited Mom’s magical blondness.”

  It was nice to see Grace laugh. “Yeah, right. I’m the crazy blond chick in the short shorts and the tube top. Me and my fabulous Crocs.”

  “Just be thankful you didn’t get Dad’s toes.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with your toes?”

  “They look like peanuts.”

  “I’ve got news for you, Natalie. Most people’s toes look like peanuts. But come on. You’re gorgeous, are you kidding me? Half the guys I dated couldn’t keep their eyes off you. You little vixen.” Grace stretched out her arms. “Besides, look at me now. I’ve got biceps like Jell-O and a big round face like a porridge bowl. And my ears stick out. I have to cover them with my hair.”

  “Quit boasting, you’re making me sick.”

  “Hey. Once you get to know me, I can be quite humble.”

  They laughed about the past. It was a nice feeling.

  Like the calm before the storm. A reprieve in the middle of so much evil.

  41

  Half an hour later, Natalie met Luke at a seedy watering hole that served the best cheeseburgers on the planet. Pour Richard’s had cracked, stained linoleum tables, a low pine ceiling, and tacky floors from years of spilled beer. Don McLean’s “American Pie” was playing on the jukebox. They ordered burgers and fries.

  “What about your niece?” Luke asked. “Anything helpful?”

  “Not really,” Natalie said. “She denied knowing about Willow’s scarf or the poppet doll. And she seemed genuinely shocked that one of her friends might’ve stolen it. But she’s also aware that I found her bracelet in India’s possession. I think she doesn’t want to believe her friends are capable of such a betrayal. But Ellie quit the coven, and there could be animosity between them that Ellie isn’t aware of yet, or that she isn’t willing to admit to herself.”

  “Do you think she’s telling the truth?” Luke asked.

  Natalie put her burger down and wiped her mouth on a paper napkin. “I believe in her essential honesty, but…”

  “But what?”

  She looked down at her unfinished meal and pushed her plate aside. “She was being evasive. I think she knows more than she’s letting on. My hunch is that Riley dropped by Berkley’s house sometime on Wednesday and they all got stoned. Drinking is one thing, but Ellie’s never going to admit to smoking weed, not with her mother there anyway. I need to interview her without Grace being present. I’ll try to arrange it.”

  Luke wiped his mouth on a napkin and said, “We’ve got a bit of good news.”

  “I could use some of that right now,” she said hopefully.

  “Riley’s tox screen came back positive for synthetic marijuana,” he said, “enough to do serious harm. Which supports Brandon’s claim that he didn’t u
se force. It’ll help with the internal investigation. Also, Lenny found a match for Riley’s prints on the receipt we found at the Mummy’s Cabin. The supermarket’s pulling the surveillance tapes for us.”

  “Which places him inside the cabin on Wednesday afternoon.”

  Luke nodded.

  “If Riley left his house around three ten P.M.,” she said, “and drove to the cabin, he would’ve arrived around three twenty-five. According to his buddies, he was planning on visiting India after school, which means that, at some point, he left the cabin and headed across town to Berkley’s house. But we don’t know how much time he spent at the cabin.”

  “Selling drugs isn’t that time-consuming,” Luke said offhandedly. “They give you a twenty, you give them a bag. It’s a cash transaction, like a pizza delivery. For argument’s sake, let’s say the transactions in the cabin took a solid hour. And that’s conservative.”

  “Okay, so around four thirty,” she said, picking up the thread, “he drove over to Berkley’s house to sell the girls some weed. So maybe he left Berkley’s place at five thirty and went to talk to Daisy. That would only give him half an hour, but it’s within the TOD.”

  “Right,” Luke said.

  “Still, it’s a lot of unknowns.” She rubbed the back of her neck, trying to get the kinks out. “Did Lenny find anything?”

  Luke shook his head. “There was a lot of unidentified trace on the poppet—hairs and fibers, but no prints. Same with the pen and paper. He’s focusing on separating and identifying the hairs and twine, but as for the rest, this thing has been underground for quite some time. Bad weather, degraded materials.”

  “Does he have an estimate for how long it was underground?”

  “A few months to a year. He couldn’t pin it down. But the army jacket tested positive for Bunny’s blood type,” he told her.

  Natalie’s stomach roiled, her fears swamping all other thoughts.

  “It could be menstrual blood, or blood from a cut,” he tried to reassure her. “At this point, anything’s possible.”

  She clenched and unclenched her fists. “Now I’m really worried.”

  “It’s not looking good.”