My breath caught in my throat—and it’s a good thing, too, because I probably would have made some noise (a gasp? a scream? maybe both, to be honest) and given us away.
Four people occupied the room. One was a tall, thin woman in her thirties or so, someone I didn’t know. But I knew the other three. One was Mason Collier. One was Josh Bevington. And the final one was Roger Bartlef.
Yep. Bartlef. Creepy old counselor.
And they were talking about me.
Chapter Five
None of them were facing the window, so I watched for a moment.
“Just because you met her first doesn’t mean she’s yours,” Josh said calmly.
“And just because you went out on one date with her doesn’t make her yours, either,” Mason said.
“Be quiet, both of you,” Bartlef said. “We don’t know what she is, yet. And if she is the Yatah, then technically, she’s mine.”
“What about what happened to Cody?” Mason asked.
“What about Cody?” Bartlef’s voice was calm. “He refused to participate. After that, he was a risk. He could have said something, especially to her.”
I covered my mouth with both hands to keep from making a sound. Bartlef had killed Cody—or had him killed—and Mason and Josh both knew it.
“Then why didn’t you hide him?” Josh asked. “Why leave him by the track?”
Bartlef waved the question away with one hand, his spidery fingers flicking through the air. He looked down his nose at Josh, his eyes narrowed. “We did not hide him. The two boys who were supposed to be disposing of him heard her coming, and panicked. They left the body there. They have been dealt with.” He stepped away from the boys and moved toward the woman. Behind him, Josh and Mason looked at one another. Josh shook his head in warning.
The woman stood up and moved to meet Bartlef in the middle of the room. Her hair was streaked with red and blonde, and her brown eyes bugged out a little from her long, narrow face. “If the girl is the Yatah, then she could be the key we’ve been looking for,” she said. “We couldn’t have Cody destroying our chances to control her.” She turned toward the window.
I quickly ducked back down under the window sill and stared at Sarah. I knew that my eyes must be absolutely huge.
Sarah nodded and put her finger to her lips. Then she slipped silently away from the window and back down the dirt path.
When we got back to the unpaved road, I had reached my being-quiet-so-the-creepy-guys-can’t-hear-us limit.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded in a loud whisper. I would have yelled, but I was still too freaked out by what I had seen and heard. “And what’s a ‘ya-taw’?!”
Sarah shook her head. “I don’t know everything,” she said. “Actually, I don’t know much at all. But I thought you should know.”
“Know what, exactly?” I asked. “I don’t know what any of that meant.”
“Come on,” Sarah said. “You’re supposed to be home in five minutes.” She began walking back toward John’s house.
I trotted a few steps to catch up with her.
“Do you think you can sneak out of your house tonight?” she asked.
“God, I don’t know. Why? Is there more?”
Sarah nodded. “Yeah.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
“I would. Seriously, I mean it.” She grabbed my arm and stopped to look me in the eye. “But I just don’t know enough to give you the whole story.”
“Then give me what you do know.”
She started walking again. “I will, if you’ll meet me again. At midnight.”
Midnight. Of course it would have to be midnight. Right? I mean, a secret maybe even black-magicky group, led by a creepy old man with usually invisible giant bat wings was meeting in an abandoned house on a ranch just outside of Fairy, Texas. When else would they meet?
“Midnight,” I said.
“See you then,” Sarah said.
We didn’t speak again. When we got to the house, I went inside and she drove away.
“I’m back, Mom!” I called, hoping my voice didn’t show how shaken I was.
She came out of the bedroom she shared with John, toothbrush in hand. “Okay, sweetie,” she said. “Have a good night.”
* * * *
Waiting is just about my least favorite thing in the world, I decided as I sat in my darkened bedroom, staring at the red numbers on my clock.
11:30.
The house had grown silent. I listened intently, then moved quietly to my window and slid it open. Then I stopped again. Listened some more.
Mom and John’s room was on the opposite end of the house, so I wasn't as worried about them.
I was certain that Kayla, on the other hand, would just love to catch me sneaking out of the house. She'd be positively gleeful.
But I didn't hear any sounds from her room, either.
11:33.
The clock seemed really bright, and I had to wait for my eyes to readjust to the darkness after checking it for about the forty bajillionth time in the last hour. I stared at the screen in front of me. A little tab on each corner looked promising. I tugged on the two bottom ones, and the screen popped out of its frame with a hideous screech. I froze. Listened. Still no sound.
11:37.
Okay, then. I slowly released the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. I slid the screen out of the top part of the window and eased it to the ground. I leaned out and scanned the back of the house. The window was fairly low, at least. I wasn't going to have to jump far.
11:42.
I moved back to my bed and sat down again. I would give it until 11:50, I decided, and then head out to meet Sarah. The numbers on the clock seemed to creep by, and every little creak of the house made me jumpy, but eventually the time did pass.
I stopped long enough to grab my backpack and swung it out of the window in front of me. If there was something weird going on at the old house, I was going to document it.
I realized as the pack left my hand and landed on the ground that it was heavier than usual—it still contained the 35mm Mr. Carlson had given me. The thud as it hit the ground made me cringe.
I climbed out of the window as quietly as possible, and dropped to the ground.
Sarah was already waiting for me at the corner of the house. She put her finger to her lips and headed toward the old place. I nodded and followed. This time we didn't talk at all.
I'd spent the last hour and a half trying to figure out what her place was in all this—or, for that matter, what "all this" was. I was dying to make her tell me everything she knew, but I didn't want to risk anyone hearing us talking. God knows we were making enough noise stomping down the unpaved road and crashing through the underbrush around the house. At least, that's how it seemed to me.
Once again, we made our way up to the window with the flickering light, and slid down so we were just beneath it. Again, I could hear voices inside, but I couldn't make out what they were saying.
It sounded like they were chanting.
Great.
Andrew had been right. Bartlef got students together and did creepy rituals late at night.
And lucky me, I was spending lots and lots of time with his two main disciples, Mason and Josh.
Wow. Have I mentioned how not glad I was that Mom had moved us to Fairy? We should have known better. I mean, who names their town “Fairy,” anyway? Hadn’t that one weirdness been enough to warn her off?
I took a deep breath and prepared to stand up enough to peer into the window.
The droning sound of the chanting inside came to a sudden stop. Sarah and I looked at each other, eyes wide. I held the breath I'd just taken.
And then we heard Bartlef speaking. I still couldn't understand what he was saying. It wasn't English, I knew it wasn't French. And after only two days in class, I was almost certain it wasn't Spanish. The sounds were too harsh and guttural.
I released my breath in a slow stream of air and
eased my hand into my bag. I pulled out the digital camera, closed my eyes, and leaned my head back against the stone wall behind me.
I can do this. I can do this.
I turned the camera on and winced as its electronic whine buzzed through the still night air. I quickly turned it back off and listened for any pause in the strange words coming through the window.
Nope. Still lots of creepy talking.
Sarah stared at me, her hands over her mouth. She looked terrified.
I pulled out the 35mm and uncapped the lens. I looked through the viewfinder. I wouldn’t be able to see the results as quickly as I would if I used my digital, but at least I’d get some pictures. And the 35 wouldn’t make as much noise. Just one little click of the shutter. I hoped there was enough light in the room.
Again, I took a deep breath. This time I risked a glance inside the window and quickly sank back down. There were more people in the room now than there had been earlier. I didn’t recognize everyone, but Josh and Mason were still there, as were Bartlef and the tall, skinny woman. They were all standing in a rough semi-circle with Bartlef at the front. None of them directly faced the window. And none of them seemed concerned that the window was open.
Okay. Good. Here we go.
I rose into a crouch and pulled the camera into rough focus. I snapped several shots, cringing every time the shutter clicked. Just as I was about to pull my eye away from the viewfinder, Josh turned his head toward the window and looked directly at me.
I wish I could say that I slipped out of sight and off into the night. But I didn’t.
I froze.
Josh and I stared at each other over the camera.
I waited for him to interrupt Bartlef, to yell, to point.
Instead, he slowly and deliberately broke eye contact with me and turned back to face Bartlef.
My knees gave out and I sank to the ground, teeth chattering and heart pounding.
Sarah tugged at my arm and gesticulated, clearly wanting to know what had happened but too afraid to risk speaking aloud.
I shook my head and concentrated on slowing my breathing.
Sarah started motioning to me to get up and leave, but again I shook my head. I put my finger to my lips, then tapped my ear and pointed toward the window. Sarah huddled back down as close to the stone wall as she could get.
Bartlef’s strange intoning stopped and he began speaking English.
For a moment I was glad I could understand him.
Then I realized what he was saying in his rough, too-high voice.
“It seems likely, then, that Laney Harris is the Yatah.” His comment was met with murmuring from the small crowd around him.
Outside, Sarah grabbed my hand and squeezed.
“We will leave it to Mason and Josh to find out more. You must both befriend the girl, spend as much time with her as possible.”
Not a chance, I thought. From now on, I was going to stay as far away from those two as humanly possible.
“We’re working on it,” Josh said quietly.
“But Abba, she’s spending a lot of time with the norms,” Mason said.
“Then separate her from them.” Bartlef’s tone was dismissive. “Between the two of you, you have more power than any other students at that school. Use it. Keep her occupied.”
“Yes, sir,” both boys said.
“Then we are agreed,” Bartlef said. “We’ll meet here again a week from Sunday.”
Oh, no. It sounded like they were getting ready to close out their strange little meeting. Sarah and I looked at each other in alarm. I nudged her so that we could start crawling toward the edge of the house.
Once we reached it, we both began running in a crouch, trying to avoid making any noise that might give us away.
Not that it mattered, I thought. Josh saw me. He knew I was there.
My heart stuttered at the thought and I stumbled. Sarah grabbed my arm and pulled on it.
“Come on,” she said in a harsh whisper. “We need to get farther away.”
When we reached the unpaved road, we turned toward the house, but Sarah steered me away from it and into a small stand of stunted trees, the kind that John had said were mesquite.
We collapsed onto the ground and caught our breath.
“Okay, Sarah Ann Watkins,” I finally said. “That’s it. You need to tell me everything you know. What the hell is going on in this freaky town of yours?”
Chapter Six
Sarah’s eyes gleamed huge in the moonlight that filtered down through the scrubby trees.
“I don’t know much. Really.”
“But you knew where they met.”
She nodded. “I used to date one of the other guys in their group. He told me a little bit about it.”
“Which guy?”
She shook her head. “He’s gone now.”
“Gone?”
“Yeah. One day he was here, and the next day he didn’t come back to school. He didn’t even tell me he was leaving. The teachers all said he’d moved, but I didn’t believe it.”
“So this guy—” I paused and waited.
“Quentin.”
“So this guy Quentin starts dating you, tells you about some weird midnight rituals he’s involved in, and then just disappears?”
“That’s about it.”
“So why did you take me out there?”
“I knew that Josh and Mason were involved. Quentin told me so. So when they both started chasing you, I thought that maybe you could. . . .” She took a deep, shaky breath. “That maybe we could, I don’t know, find out what was going on. Or something.” She stared at the ground and tugged at some weeds. “I didn’t know that they were going to talk about you. Honest.” Her quiet voice had dropped even further.
I put my face in my hands.
Think, Laney, think.
“Okay,” I finally said. “Assuming that you’re telling the truth—”
“I am,” she interrupted.
I waved my hand. “Whatever. Fine. So what do we really know?” I spoke aloud, working it out as I went. “They’re out here doing creepy ritual-type things. We know Quentin and Cody were involved somehow. When Quentin told you about it, he disappeared. Cody refused to do whatever they wanted, and ended up dead on the track. And both Mason and Josh are supposed to keep me busy.”
“And away from the norms,” Sarah added.
“Which I assume means you and Natalie and Scott and Ally and Andrew.”
Sarah nodded in agreement.
“And they’re supposed to find out if I’m this yaw-taw thing. Whatever that is.”
When I said it out loud, it almost sounded funny.
It also sounded a little bit like a word problem: Josh and Mason both want Laney to be their own personal yaw-taw. Mr. Bartlef has mostly invisible bat wings. They all hang out at John Hamilton’s ranch. Assuming that Laney isn’t a total moron, calculate her chances of survival.
Have I mentioned how much I hate math?
* * * *
I didn’t sleep much that night. I climbed back into my window and pulled the screen back up after me, then locked the window. And for good measure, I put my desk chair under the doorknob like I’d seen in movies. Even if it wouldn’t keep anyone out, maybe they’d trip on it trying to come in. Then I kicked off my shoes and huddled into my bed, fully clothed. After being out in the hot Texas night, the air conditioner on my skin made me shiver.
Or maybe it wasn’t the air conditioner.
At any rate, I curled up under the covers and stared at the clock. I dozed occasionally, but my dreams were strange and filled with bat wings and chants. I jerked awake several times. Finally I gave up on sleep entirely. Outside, crickets chirped softly. In Atlanta, I could hear the sounds of the nearby interstate from my bedroom. Here, sound seemed to travel farther, but all I could hear were animals: the crickets singing, cows lowing, and from a longer way off, coyotes howling.
After what seemed like an eternity, the window sta
rted to get light and I decided to start my morning.
Not sleeping ensured I got the shower first, at any rate. No one else was up yet, so I stood in the hot spray and let it sluice over me for a long time, until the water ran cool. That ought to irritate Kayla, I thought.
When I wiped my hand across the mirror to clear the steam, my shadowed eyes stared back at me, ringed with purple smudges so dark they almost looked like bruises.
Hooray for concealer.
I drank two huge cups of coffee that morning, and then jittered around the house while I waited for Kayla to finish getting ready.
Mom was packing to go on her first road trip to meet all the doctors in her area.
“I’ll be gone a week,” she said, “but I’ll call every night. You’ll be fine here with John and Kayla.”
I wanted to throw myself into her arms, call her “Mommy,” and beg her not to go. But she would have wanted to know why. And if Bartlef’s creepy group had made Quentin disappear, I didn’t want Mom to know anything about it. If she believed me at all, she’d insist we go to the “authorities.” And there had been adults out at the rock house last night. Some of them probably were the authorities.
Nope. I couldn’t trust anyone. Best to keep Mom out of it altogether.
So instead of throwing myself at her, clinging to her pants leg and wailing, I just smiled wanly and said “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
She frowned and held her hand up to my forehead. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked. “You look a little pale. Are you sick?”
I shook my head. “No. Just tired from the first week of school. I’ll be better tomorrow.”
“Okay, sweetie. Take care while I’m gone.” She kissed me on the cheek, and then reached up and gave John a kiss, too. I started—I hadn’t even realized he was standing behind me. Mom turned toward Kayla, but Kayla pointedly walked out of the room. Mom sighed.
“I’ll see y’all in a week,” she said.
* * * *
Ally had saved me a seat again in English. “So,” she said as I sat down. “How was your big night last night?”
Fairy, Texas Page 5