Blood Creek Witch Page 23

  He stepped out, shirtless, with a towel. “Um, hey, I’m a little bit out of laundry right now. Could I use the washer and dryer?”

  Jenny and Jessabelle looked at him, and then looked at each other. Jessabelle snorted. Jenny jumped up and jogged toward the bedroom. “I’m sure you can. Let me see if Aunt Hattie has anything you could wear in the meantime.”

  Jenny opened the door to Hattie’s bedroom, and used an expletive he hadn’t heard her say in the days he’d known her. Sean followed. Hattie’s bedroom looked like the aftermath of another ogre attack. Furniture was pulled away from the wall, and drawers were dumped out onto the bed. Jenny rushed to the dresser, which rested at an angle, and reached behind it. After a few seconds, she announced, “It’s gone! Evelyn stole Grandma Annabelle’s journal!”

  For nearly a third of his life, he’d been called “Lyin’ Jack” because he told people monsters were real. In desperation, the naive twelve-year-old Jack decided to be so honest in all of his words that the people would realize their mistake and beg his forgiveness. At least the nickname wouldn’t stick. Neither of his hopes came to fruition. Most of the time, people believed what they either wanted to or were forced to believe. Nobody wanted to believe their safety was in jeopardy from giant monsters in the woods, and without proof, they never would.

  Now there was finally proof. Either people would prove more obstinate than he could imagine, or his childhood dreams would come true and he would finally be vindicated. To his surprise, he didn’t much care one way or the other. He certainly didn’t want to deal with accepting apologies tonight or seeing their justifications. As people showed up to marvel at the dead ogre, Jack grabbed the useless shotgun and slipped away from the scene.

  It was dark, which was treacherous even for him. He stayed in familiar territory and made his way down to the road out of Maple Bend. This way, he could watch the traffic come into town without the risk of being seen or asked any questions. Questions would be awkward, and there wasn’t enough time for Jack to learn how to lie.

  Sitting a few yards from the road in the engulfing darkness of trees, Jack felt better. Even knowing the woods were dangerous, he felt better. The road was quiet. He wondered whether the news vans or the police would arrive first. Or, hopefully, he’d catch sight of Evelyn leaving town. On foot, broomstick, or mortar and pestle, he didn’t care. As long as she was gone.

  What he didn’t expect was a black Cadillac Escalade coming up to the road to Maple Bend, stopping only a few dozen yards away from him. His throat tightened with fear. Had he been spotted? Did he dare run? Who was in the car? The car sat with the motor running and headlights beaming, the tinted windows revealing nothing of the occupants. Behind it, another truck approached, towing a horse trailer. The truck stopped much further away, and turned off its headlights.

  When nothing else happened after a minute, Jack regained his courage and slipped closer. He kept far enough away to avoid being spotted. The crunch of ancient dead leaves snapped like gunshots in his ears, clearly audible over the sound of the Cadillac’s quietly idling engine. Still, no one stirred. Jack found a good position and waited.

  Evelyn appeared on the road on the other side, walking with what might be either a subtle limp or a swagger. She had a book tucked under one arm. While she smiled as she approached the Cadillac, it didn’t reach her eyes. Her eyes were hard.

  The passenger-side rear door of the SUV opened, and a man in a white suit stepped out. He was short, barely topping five feet tall, with a fringe of silver hair and a goatee. He placed an old straw hat on his head as he exited the vehicle. His face showed little expression.

  “You screwed up,” the man in the white suit said evenly.

  “It was worth it, Thadeus,” Evelyn answered. Her voice sounded confident yet strained.

  “Do tell. I don’t see an ogre with you, and the horn is buzzing like a hornets’ nest. Tell me what you’ve done, and it had better be good.”As terrifying as the snallygaster and the ogre had been, there was something about this man that filled Jack with a dread on an even more primal level as he watched. Somehow, Jack sensed that this man—if he was a man at all—was more dangerous than a dozen ogres and snallygasters combined.

  “I have Annabelle’s journal. I think it will tell us what we need to do.”

  “You think?”

  “Give me a day and I’ll know. You gave me some old letters she exchanged with her friend in Morgantown. She used a code to embed messages in them. I think the journal uses something similar. I’ll cross reference it with the letters and puzzle it out. Don’t worry.”

  “You better be right, Evie. Now, I’ve done called off the cops. They think the calls from town are a hoax, and I gave them some bigger fish to fry. We took down phone lines on our way up, so you’ve got yourself a short window of opportunity. By tomorrow night, if you ain’t ‘Round the Bend, you’ll be in handcuffs. Understand?”

  Evelyn stared at him, setting her shoulders back and pursing her lips. “I haven’t let you down yet, have I?”

  “No, but you often miss your deadlines. It took you three years to find the Morgans.”

  “Amy… Patricia… was thorough in covering their tracks. But I found them for you.”

  Jack steadied himself against the tree. Were these two responsible for the deaths of Jenny’s parents?

  The man in white chuckled. “It’s a good thing for you that I am a very patient man. My plans for this place span generations. I’ve spent a couple of centuries cultivating the magic of this place. There are more bodies buried or lost ‘round these woods than you’d imagine. Blood Creek is wild and full of ghosts and sadness. Prime fertilizer for growing a new crossroads.”

  “Why don’t we just skip all that? You could tell me where the old crossroads used to be, and we’ll start there.”

  “It’d do you no good. We’ve been over this.”

  “Try me.”

  The man in the white suit laughed. “You want to know where? You just passed it, Evie. You pass it almost every day.” He pointed along the road. “Right where that church stands. In fact, it was a priest back then who closed it forever. Some Dutch feller. I tortured him to death, but the damage was done. I had to grow a new one. Stronger, so no third-rate practitioner would be able to shut it down. The Rose witches found it, and sealed it closed, but they couldn’t destroy it and they hardly understand what it is. Now you get to find it, open it back up, and get my daughter.”

  Evelyn sighed. “I don’t understand. If you grew it, why can’t you show me where it is?”

  “Don’t they teach you kids anything in those schools these days?”

  “The Coven taught me. Their specific instructions were that if any of us found one, we were to inform them immediately, and if we dared mess with it without your explicit instructions, you’d keep us alive just long enough that we could watch you eating our insides. Anything else was on a need-to-know basis.”

  He waved his hands in the air as he shrugged. “Now you need to know. And they exaggerated.”

  “They said they didn’t.”

  “I didn’t keep her alive to watch, I just made the rest of them watch. I’m glad I left an impression.”

  Evelyn stiffened her back, and stuck her chin out. Jack felt wobbly. The man in the white suit wasn’t joking. Jack took this as evidence that his impression of this man—this creature in human form—had been correct.

  Thadeus continued. “I can’t tell you exactly where the seed landed, but that’s why I brought you here. Crossroads are never easy to find, even when you know what you are looking for. That’s a good thing. Around the Bend, they are terrified of me. When they exiled me, they closed or sealed off every crossroads they knew of. They have wardens guarding the way just in case I ever find myself capable of going through again. They will know if I so much as touch them.”

  “But they don’t know about this one?”

  “If they do, they haven’t felt obligated to protect it. The ones who did this t
o me died a long time ago. I guess the kids these days have forgotten about me. That is to our advantage, but we can’t squander it by being stupid.”

  A car approached from town. Jack wanted to scream a warning to the driver, but all he dared do was watch as the car slowed to a stop. Botch King stepped out. He left the car running, and the door ajar warning chimed in the background. “I dropped off three of the kids at Hattie’s trailer,” Botch told the other two. “Don’t know where Jack ran off to.”

  Evelyn answered, “Probably up into the woods, knowing that kid. Maybe out by the Rose house.”

  The man in white chuckled. “This could be an opportunity to get three for the price of one. One exploding propane tank ought to do the trick.”

  Botch looked shocked.

  Evelyn laughed it off. “He’s just kidding, Botch. Long day.”

  The man in white nodded. “Of course I am. What I do need, Mr. King, is for you to be Evelyn’s driver for the next twenty-four hours. At her beck and call.”

  “I’ve got a business meeting in the morning that I…”

  “Cancel it. Or I cancel your retainer. Is that business meeting worth that much?”

  “No, sir. I can move it.”

  “That’s more like it. While you are at it, tell the rest of your family to attend her every demand. No matter how strange it sounds. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir. But I…”

  “No buts. Just do it. This is critical. Now, take her back home. Evelyn, I’ll take care of things down here and give you the cover you need. But the next time I see you, you’ll be with my daughter.”

  Evelyn turned away from the man in white, and slid into the passenger seat of Botch’s car. Botch looked like he was going to say something else, but the man in white ignored him, entering the back of his own vehicle and slamming the door shut. Botch returned to his vehicle, and carefully made a three-point turn to return to Maple Bend.

  The distant truck with the horse trailer backed up. The black Cadillac reversed and pulled a bootlegger turn to whip the vehicle 180 degrees, and sped off to follow it.

  Alone again, Jack waited for the terrified adrenaline rush to subside. After drawing several breaths to recover, he oriented himself in the direction of Hattie’s trailer, and pushed forward into the woods.

  Jenny brushed away the hand that shook her several times, to no avail. Her eyelids were all but welded shut, and her limbs were lead weights. The incessant shaking hand and the voice at the edge of her sleep wouldn’t go away. Finally, she rose to face her tormentor, pushing through the soft, inviting layers of unconsciousness to the harsh and painful world of her bedroom.

  Her cousin shook her. “Jenny, you’ve got to get up. It’s almost dawn.”

  “Almost? Wake me up at noon.” Her words came thick.

  “Not this time, we let you go back to sleep twice.”

  “Huh?” Jenny couldn’t remember being awakened earlier. All she remembered was stumbling into Hattie’s house and searching frantically for her grandmother’s journal. She jolted awake. The journal! Evelyn had it. But the real secrets were in the coded writing.

  “Jenny, we’ve got to beat Evelyn to the crossroads. The sun’s almost up. We need to leave now.”

  “What crossroads?”

  “To ‘Round the Bend.”

  Jenny regained some semblance of consciousness. “What? How does she know how to get there?”

  “She knows about the code. Jack will tell you more. I made breakfast. More peanut butter sandwiches.” She smirked. “I improved your recipe. No blood this time. Get dressed. Time’s a-wastin’.”

  Jenny threw on some clothes and went out to the family room where Jack, Sean, and Jessabelle waited. Sean looked somewhat uncomfortable in ill-fitting clothes, but everyone seemed ready to leave. Jessabelle handed Jenny a sandwich, and shouldered a small bag.

  Sean said, “I have mosquito repellent if you don’t. The pond at the head of the creek was swarming with them.”

  “We should leave now,” Jack said. “It should be light enough by the time we reach the trail. I know a back way.”

  Jenny hesitated before taking a bite of the sandwich. “What about police? Reporters?”

  Jessabelle shook his head. “Nope. Won’t be none of them. Not for a day or more, according to that man in the white suit. He done gave Evelyn one day to find the crossroads, and she knows about the codes from Grandma’s letters to her friend in college.”

  Sean frowned. “I want to know how he got those.”

  Jack held out one of the charms Jenny had made the day before—the cheap cloth sack containing, among other things, herbs smeared with drops of Jack’s own blood. Her grandmother’s special recipe. It was tied to a string to be worn like an amulet. “You wearing yours?”

  Jenny shook her head. “I forgot mine. Do we even know if they work? How are we going to stop her? What if Thadeus comes afterwards? What if I pass out again halfway into things? Guys, I’m not a real witch. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  Jack stared at her. She turned away from him, but his eyes didn’t move. “Your charm worked on the ogre. I reckon they’ll work okay. Maybe Evelyn’s a lot better than you, but you’re all we got. If it weren’t for you, we’d all be dead by now. My shotgun’s broke, and we’re all pretty tired. But we’ve got to stop her.”

  “But, is this even the right thing to do? The ogre, sure. We had to stop it before it hurt anyone else. Evelyn’s evil, but so what if she wants to go to where the monsters come from? Do we know for sure she’s bringing back more monsters?”

  Jack looked at the other two. Sean nodded. Jessabelle said, “She needs to know.”

  “Know what?” Jenny asked.

  Jessabelle took the deep breath. “Jack overheard a conversation between Evelyn and that man in the white suit last night. It sounded like your parent’s deaths weren’t an accident. Evelyn found them for him and he killed them. Um, we think she means to kill Grandma Annabelle on the other side of ‘Round the Bend.”

  The darkness out the window seemed to invade the room, grasping at Jenny’s heart. The intervening weeks and newly-discovered family hadn’t done much to dull the pain of loss, and the idea that her parents might have been murdered doubled the pain. In a shock, she remembered the man’s voice in her dream the night her parents died. That was why Thadeus had sounded familiar in the hospital room. It was the same voice. He’d been there when they’d died.

  He’d killed them. Evelyn had helped.

  After a few seconds, the pre-dawn world came back into focus. The gloom remained. Jenny knew that in spite of Jack’s words, she was no match for Evelyn. The fight was going to go badly, especially if Thadeus got involved. She was going to lose. But maybe her newfound friends could still score a temporary victory.

  What other choice did she have? Wait and hide until Evelyn came back with an army of ogres, or worse, at her command? Short of bringing in the National Guard—all outfitted with charms to protect them from Evelyn’s mind control—nobody else could stand up to her either. Not yet. Maybe someone would come who could save the day. But in the meantime, Jenny determined that she would fill in.

  Jenny delayed their departure long enough to shove some supplies into a shoulder-bag. Most were herbs she’d learned from Hattie, but common sense made her add water bottles, bug repellent, and a first-aid kit.

  Jack led them along a different trail, a back way that skirted around the Casto house and the lights of the small crowd that still surrounded the dead ogre. No police or ambulance lights flashed through the trees. Jack carried an aluminum baseball bat at his side. It was a poor substitute for the shotgun, especially if they ran up against another ogre or snallygaster, but it was better than nothing. He used it to push some of the thicker brambles to the side as they hiked.

  As the first direct rays of the sun pierced the top of the mountains, they reached a small gully with a thin stream. It was just a trickle of water, but the gully suggested it had been there a long time, and
the bed surrounding it was as wide as three feet.

  “That there’s Blood Creek,” Jack said. “I don’t know why they call it that.”

  Sean nodded. “It’s the same creek I found. We should just be able to follow this all the way up.”

  Jack shook his head. “It’s tricky to follow in spots.”

  Sean checked his watch. “We are making good time. We’d never have gotten here this early without your help. We should beat Evelyn to the top pretty easily.”

  After an hour of following the stream, they took a short break to spray on mosquito repellant, and eat more of Jessabelle’s peanut butter sandwiches. There was no clear trail up the stream making the hiking rough. Jenny’s muscles were already sore from their ambush and fight the night before, but Jessabelle seemed to be struggling the most. She bore it silently, but Jenny caught the body language and the half-concealed winces. Jessabelle hadn’t attempted to transform again since the fight at the Casto farm. Compared to what the ogre had done to her, she was still in remarkable shape, but all of them should probably be back at home, resting and recovering.

  The man in the white suit had given Evelyn a day. They just had to keep her from going to ‘Round the Bend’ for a day, and then they could rest.

  They came to the pools forty-five minutes later. Things were exactly as Sean described, including the nearly constant whine of tiny bugs and the hanging bottle that glowed with an eerie light.

  “Don’t look like much,” Jack commented. “Is that an old syrup bottle?”

  Jessabelle said, “I don’t see no glow, Sean.”

  Jenny and Sean looked at each other, and they both nodded. “We do.”

  Jenny found herself drawn to the bottle, and she reached out to touch it. The glow itself had a faint feel to it, a nimbus like a static charge. As she touched the bottle, she felt something more than just the warm glass. There was a dryness, like a reservoir that had long been emptied, but for a lingering puddle of cool energy. This had been a powerful protection once upon a time, blocking this side from entry by creatures like the snallygaster or the ogre, or Jack’s giant. It was barely functional now, like a light bulb that flickered a dim glow but refused to burn out entirely.