Witch-Child

by Gerilyn Marin

  "Are we thinking he was murdered?" Grey asks, his brows shooting up his forehead.

  "Maybe. It fits better than random arson, right?"

  "Sure." A quick, humorless smile curves his lips, there and gone in a second. "Except that there's still something that doesn't fit."

  I've just found the article in question and I start skimming through it. "What's that?"

  "They never found his body."

  A cold trickle drips along my spine at his words as I look up from the paper. "Then how could they be so sure it was him?"

  He sits back and folds his arms across his chest. "I'm more curious about who would bother to put up a headstone if there's no body in that grave when we know my family didn't do it?"

  I nod slowly, adding more to the already very unsettling question looming over us. "And what's that supposedly empty grave doing hidden in a section of the cemetery that predates it by almost two-hundred years?"

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Startling

  "What are you doing?" Grey asks around a mouthful of cashew chicken, as he watches me open up my brother's laptop.

  Okay, there's a chance I might have snuck the computer out of the house without Jeremy's knowledge. I only did so in case our search turned up anything worth a further look into, and I don't want to risk accidentally leaving any information on the search engines of the computers in Mom's office.

  "Well," I stab a plastic fork into my carton of shrimp fried rice—my mother's announcement that she’d finally deemed it time to order lunch had completely sidetracked our earlier dissection of the whole Is there a body in Jack's grave? issue—and turn toward the keyboard. "I have the strangest feeling like I should know this 'Jumping Black Flash' thing, but it's not familiar to me at all."

  "Um . . . so?"

  I shake my head. He really is so lucky he's cute, because he's just not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, sometimes.

  "So?" I echo, my eyebrows shooting up. "So, when in doubt, Wikipedia!"

  "A site built entirely from personal conjecture?"

  With a sigh, I grip the top of the screen and fold it down toward the keyboard, not enough that it will halt any internal operation, but just so he can have an unobstructed view of my face as I give him an expression that I know makes him understand he just said something stupid.

  "We're looking up devil sightings. Are you expecting we're going to find factual pages that will help any?"

  His lips twitch briefly before pulling into a thoughtful frown. "You have a point."

  "Uh-huh."

  "All right, Obi Wan Ke-Snarky. What information hath your wisdom gleaned us?"

  I roll my eyes at him—what is it with some people and Star Wars?—as I reopen the screen, shaking my head at him. "Kinda have to type it in, first."

  Grey holds up his hands in mock surrender and goes back to his lunch. We'd agreed we would have preferred deli sandwiches, but since my mother is the one who paid, we're at the mercy of her current craving for Chinese food.

  Grumping at him under my breath, I go ahead and type in Jumping Black Flash, then hit Enter. To my surprise, an entry pops up.

  One that has nothing to do with the site insisting that I've incorrectly typed a song title.

  "'The name Jumping Black Flash refers to a series of reported sightings of a devil-like being in some parts of the Northeastern Seaboard in the mid-eighteen-hundreds," I read aloud for Grey to hear.

  His eyes wide, he noisily swallows his mouthful of rice.

  "Similar incidents occurred in other states, as well, though not nearly as numerous as those from the New York-Connecticut area between the years of 1829 and . . . 1843.'"

  We share a look for a quiet moment as these words sink in.

  He slams down his food and practically jumps out of his chair. Circling the desk, he bends down to read over my shoulder.

  He picks up where I've left off; not hard, since I'm still at the top of the page. "'In that last year, reports of the creature in Connecticut and New York—its most heavily frequented areas—came to an abrupt halt. Sightings are said to include actual police reports claiming officers had been involved in altercations with a black-skinned humanoid creature. The Jumping Black Flash was described to have claws, sharp teeth, and glowing red eyes. It had wing-like appendages, but was not thought to be able to fly.'"

  Glowing red eyes. I repress a shudder. A cold dread tries to inch up my spine as the image of those eyes in the reflection of my darkened bedroom mirror replays in my head.

  Grey continues to read, oblivious to my moment of inner ick. "'The description of this being, and nature of the sightings, bears a striking similarity to those reported in England in the early eighteen-hundreds. The locals of the towns the creature terrorized referred to him as Spring-heeled Jack.'"

  The words are highlighted, so I click on the moniker. I can't help but wonder how anyone could take a name like that seriously, let alone live in fear of it.

  Grey turns away, only to step to the side and sort of sit-lean against the desk beside me.

  I glance up and see him press the heels of his palms against his eyes. I think maybe he'd hoped that we wouldn't find anything more. This seems odd to me, given how determined he has been to find out what's happened to his family.

  Maybe I'm misreading him. I can't know what hearing the constant confirmation that his ancestor—his flesh and blood—was some sort of devil must be like for him, so I push past my impression of his reaction.

  After a few bites of rice, washed down by a quick swig of Diet Pepsi, I begin reading the newly-opened entry. "'So named for the startling leaps of which the creature was said to have been capable, Spring-heeled Jack was a being which very much resembled depictions, befitting the period, of human-faced devils.'"

  "Startling leaps?" Grey asks, a hopeless downturn in his voice as he reaches backward across the desk to retrieve his cashew chicken.

  I shrug, and go to the most logical connection I can think up. "Well, if this is the same creature—or maybe just the same type of creature—as the Jumping Black Flash, and it had wings, but didn't fly, then maybe that is what they were used for; not flying, but gliding."

  His brows draw together and he tips his head forward so that his hair falls into his eyes—a habit I'm already used to. "Like a flying squirrel?"

  I'm temporarily distracted with an attempt to understand just when it was I got on board with the idea that Jack actually might have been something other than human.

  Giving a twitchy little shake of my head, I yank my attention back into the moment.

  "I guess. He gets a good run, jumps, catches the air against the 'wing-like-flaps.'" I pause, disoriented for just a second as this echoes that dream I'd had during my catnap in the school library. I'd been limping, but . . . my instinct had been to get a good running start.

  So I could jump.

  I clear my throat awkwardly as a little voice in the back of my mind vehemently denies that maybe I'd somehow connected with Jack Addison himself. The dream was a result of my imagination running away with me. Or—since I remember Grey mentioning wings, but nothing about an inability to fly—simply some vibey foreknowledge of the information we're uncovering today about this creature Jack was supposed to be.

  "It's not flying," I conclude quickly, while trying not to rush my words so he won't notice the gap between my statements, "but the result could probably have been deemed 'startling' by onlookers."

  "So do we think this Spring-heeled Jack isn't called Jack just by coincidence?"

  I frown and fold my arms under my breasts. "Maybe it makes sense. I mean, he was in England and then he hopped on a boat and came here. That being said, the timeline tracks, don't you think?"

  "Seems to. Does it say what Spring-heeled Jack," there's a soured expression on his face as he says the name, "was supposed to have done?"

  I crack a lopsided grin, noting that he refuses to look at the screen. "Uh, yeah; he 'terrorized' the townsfolk."

&n
bsp; Grey rolls his eyes, before he gives a little chuckle and shakes his head at me. "I mean how, stupid."

  "Oh," I say with a laugh as I turn back to quickly skim the entry. "Well, it doesn't look like he did anything evil, really, just mischievous."

  "Such as?"

  I lean forward in my seat a little and scroll down the rest of the entry; which isn't much, just another few paragraphs. I don't get how they thought this creature was a devil other than due to his appearance. Spring-heeled Jack isn't listed as doing anything truly demonic.

  Well, unless being a perv was really so much bigger of a deal than it is now. And last I checked, pervyness is still a pretty big deal these days.

  "Mostly seems like he well, had an eye for the ladies." I turn my head to meet Grey's gaze. "A lot of ladies, whether they wanted his eye on them, or not."

  The boy's face becomes utterly horrorstricken for a moment as he says, "Meaning what, exactly?"

  His expression causes me to wonder what he thinks I'm trying to get at.

  "He was a peeping Tom and a bit of a stalker, but not like stalkers now." I shrug and wave a hand toward the screen, but Grey still won't look.

  "There's no zero-to-crazy in sixty seconds level obsessive behavior. He never fixated on anyone in particular." I shake my head. Jack sounded like a bit of a creeper, but not something evil.

  I go on, shrugging. "He would just follow them and, when they noticed, he'd bounce. And, well, peep in their windows, but that's kind of all he seems to have done."

  Grey sets down his lunch container, again—never mind that he's barely touched his food in the last several minutes, anyway—and presses the fingertips of both hands against his temples. "So, let me get this straight. Not only are we now pretty sure my ancestor was some sort of devil-thing—however the hell that's possible—but he was also some British pervert-devil?"

  My gaze roves about the ceiling as I reply, "Ya know, I've watched more than a few BBC America programs. You remove the 'devil' part of that, and you're not too far off from how a lot of Brits are portrayed."

  He drops his hands to his sides and scowls at me. "Not funny, Cae."

  I lightly touch his elbow in an attempt to get him to mellow out a little, since a simple touch had taken the edge off his anxiety in the cemetery the other day. "I'm sorry. I'm just trying to lighten the mood a bit."

  A tiny puff of air escapes his lips and his shoulders slump. "I know," he nods. "It's just . . . this is such a bizarre situation."

  Wow, my idea worked. I'm a little giddy about that, but I don't have the luxury at the moment to ponder if he's calmed by just having someone comfort him, or because I'm the one offering said comfort. I'll even ignore that I, once again, don't mind a blatant and obvious hint that he likes me.

  How these articles about Jack impacts Grey is kind of bigger than whether or not I like that the boy likes me.

  If we can believe what these stories are saying, which I think we both do, then that means there are not-totally-human beings in the world. I've always known about ghosts, and the existence of entities that people can't see with their eyes, but . . . I can't really buy that the sightings could follow the path of Jack just by sheer, staggering, coincidence. Not to mention the whole same name problem.

  "Look, if you want to drop this whole search-deal, I'll understand," I offer in a quiet voice.

  Maybe this is why he was upset that we found something, because all this time part of him did believe what was said about his ancestor.

  Maybe Grey's wondered if it means that he is not totally human, either.

  He lifts his gaze to meet mine and arches a brow. "Why would you think that?"

  "Um," I sit back, dropping a hand that I only now realize has been touching his elbow all this time, "you don't look exactly happy with the information we've turned up."

  "No, well, yes." He huffs a sigh and then tries again. "Like I said, this is a bizarre situation. I don't like this feeling . . . like I don't know who I am."

  I feel my forehead go all wrinkly. "Is that what this whole thing has been about?"

  "It wasn't, but hearing this makes me wonder."

  Uttering a sigh of my own, I get up from my chair and push it out of the way so I have space to lean against the desk beside him, mirroring his posture. "Okay, even if Jack was some sort of pervy devil-monster, or whatever, why should that have to change who you are?"

  "Doesn't it? My family has the blood of something that isn't human."

  I manage a shrug, though that is an unsettling thought. "So? There was a time when anyone like my grandmother or me would have been burned at the stake. I'm sure there were those back then who would have said people like us aren't human, either."

  He gives a short, humorless laugh as he shakes his head. "That's not really the same thing."

  "Isn't it?" I force a cheery half-grin. "At the risk of sounding like one of those afterschool specials my mom goes on and on about being forced to watch in the eighties: what you are doesn't have to define who you are."

  "That is a terrible cliché," he says, deadpan.

  "Yes, but it's still a good point."

  "You're really being kinda cool about this whole thing, ya know."

  I nod slowly. "Yeah, I know. I'm not sure why, I'm just not all that shocked."

  Huh. I'm not simply saying that to put him at ease; I'm really not that shocked.

  "What do you want to do, Grey?"

  His blue-green eyes wander the room as he thinks.

  After a moment, he returns his gaze to me and says cautiously, "I have an idea, but I don't think you're going to like it."

  My whole body slumps. "I sort of need to hear it before I can like it or not like it."

  He nods and looks at the floor as he shuffles one foot. "Well, I don't think we're going to find much more on the internet—not other than more stories about this Spring-heel thing, anyway—I've run all sorts of searches on Jack's name before and come up with nothing."

  Wow, this is like pulling teeth. I guess he must really not want to tell me what he's got in mind. "And . . . ?"

  He just frowns and shakes his head. "Uh, you know what? Forget it. I’ve got this from here."

  "Excuse me?" I push off from my place beside the desk and turn on a heel to stand directly in front of him.

  "I just don't want your help anymore," he says. He looks both startled—I guess he didn't expect me to get in his face—and a bit aggravated.

  I narrow my eyes as I think about this. Either method that pops into my head is evil, but intimidation is probably not going to get me very far with a boy whose family is used to being bullied by the supernatural. I'll just use the fact that I'm a girl to my advantage.

  Gran would be so proud.

  I put on a pout and plant my hands against the desk on either side of him. "Grey," I look up into his face and widen my eyes a bit. "You know you have to let me help you."

  He heaves a sigh, and I can feel his breath on my skin. "I do?"

  I nod, and then lift a hand from the desk, preoccupying myself with smoothing a wrinkle in his t-shirt. "You promised, remember? In fact, you swore on my life." I ignore the small butterfly that buzzes around in my stomach as I rest my palm over his heart.

  When I lift my gaze to his face again, he's staring down at my hand. "You are not playing fair, Cae."

  He's right, but I feel like he's going to go do something stupid. "I know."

  "I have an idea that could get me into a lot of trouble," he says quietly.

  "So?"

  Grey drops his head back and groans. "Why do you have to be so stubborn?" Placing his hand lightly over mine, he looks me in the eyes. "I'm trying to protect you."

  I stand up a little straighter, but I don't pull away. "Well, you can knock that off right now! How about you tell me what you're planning and let me decide for myself if I want to let you go do whatever by yourself?"

  He spends a long while quietly thinking about this. His gaze holds mine the entire time. I am su
ddenly, acutely, aware that I'm holding myself very still. My instinct—annoying as it is—is to just relax and let myself lean against him.

  Like that wouldn't totally sidetrack the discussion.

  Finally, he says, "I think maybe I need to see if there's anything in that grave."

  My face falls. "Um, what now?"

  "I want to know what's in the grave whoever-it-was put up for Jack Addison, if they never found his body," he clarifies.

  I have a very bad feeling about this. "And how are we going to do that?"

  Grey plasters on a smile that I can tell is forced. "I'm going to dig it up."

  I snatch my hand away and step back to put some distance between us. "Okay, that's just crazy. You can't do that!"

  "Sure I can. The caretaker, like, never comes out of his little office."

  I forget I'm talking to the guy who's already spent a night or more lurking about the cemetery.

  "Why are you worried about getting in trouble if he never comes out of his office?"

  He shrugs. "Never been grave-digging before, don't know how noisy it might get."

  "Let me rephrase my earlier statement," I say, trying to stay calm so I don't raise my voice and alert my mother to something being amiss down here. "We are not digging up someone's grave."

  "It's only a grave if there's a body in it," he points out.

  "Whatever, I'm not digging something up in a cemetery. Better?"

  "Good."

  "Good?" I repeat, lifting an eyebrow.

  "You don't have to." He loses all pretense of mirth as he says plainly, "I'm going without you."

  My gaze searches his as those words tumble around in my head. It's a crazy, crazy, crazy idea. I don't think I want anything to do with it.

  But he's already determined. I'm just about positive nothing I can say is going to change his mind.

  And I have a raw, gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that I simply can't let him do this alone.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lurky-Lurky

  The clock on my cell phone, which I have already set to silent, shows 1:06 a.m. when I arrive outside the cemetery to meet up with Grey. We agreed to Sunday night, rather than Saturday—though, technically, this is Monday morning—since, logic dictates most people will be home in their beds right now.