She had to reach the truck stop before the storm came.
Her empty stomach yelled at her. She knew she couldn’t travel far without nourishment. But it was still too early in the summer to find ripe fruit or vegetables. And she wasn’t going to venture off looking for any strawberry, blueberry or raspberry patches.
On she went until she scanned across another cornfield, spotted an apple tree with green apples along the edge of the woods, and hurried into the cornfield to it.
The small green fruit on the ground was hard, dry, and bitter, but after climbing to the top of the tree, she found softer, juicier green apples. They were sour, but they helped ease away the thirst and soften her hunger pangs.
She ate and looked out over the countryside, enjoying the view from the tree’s fingerlike branches. Geese honked from a pond just beyond a grove of pine trees. She could see glimmering water from where she sat and she knew she needed to go there and take a quick drink before continuing.
Chapter Eight
“WHAT DO YOU mean Sarlic is not returning?”
Margga stood at the edge of the property, her eyes filled with rage.
“I need my spells,” she said to Onlin, the Roualen who had just delivered Sarlic’s message.
Onlin, the youngster at 371 earth years old, stood ten yards away on the other side of the brook and kept her distance from the humanlike creature who had somehow defied death.
Onlin had been nearest the area during Sarlic’s transmission and was given the task of delivering the message to Margga. Dressed in her protective body suit and gear, Onlin looked no different from any other Roualen.
“The seer has left home,” she reported. “She has been sighted almost three miles from here. She is heading west, on foot, and appears to be resting before continuing her departure.”
“No,” Margga hissed.
The amber sensors in Onlin’s visor flashed three times. “This is good news for my people,” she said. “The seer is leaving us. Sarlic says you won’t have to kill her.”
“No, no, no, you foolish Roualens. As long as the girl lives, your lives are at stake.” Margga waved a hand at her. “I will figure a way to bring her back. You tell Sarlic to meet me as planned.”
Onlin stood motionless while her visor flashed.
“Go,” Margga said. “Be quick to tell Sarlic what I told you.”
“The message has been delivered,” Onlin said when her visor stopped flashing. “Sarlic will be here as planned.”
“Then leave. I must concentrate on bringing the girl back.”
Onlin turned and hurried toward the woods behind the Lybrook house.
Margga quit watching the creature. She had to concentrate. She closed her eyes and called an old, familiar spell composed of solar heat and decay—a spell she had used a hundred times when she was alive to call forth ghosts from the sun’s radiation.
She manipulated the sunlight particles around her and concentrated on the mortals who had died along the road Vree was on. She grinned. She had caused Rebecca Stevens’s death on that road and near the three-mile spot Vree was at.
The spell would be weak, but it would have enough strength to scare the girl and likely convince her to return.
Margga placed the particles against her forehead and said, “Go and do my bidding.”
The energy shot upwards, rose and arced high into the sunny sky where it fractured and fell apart as it pressed against new radiation entering the atmosphere, and fell like unseen snowflakes upon Myers Ridge and the apple tree Vree sat in.
* * *
AT 5:15 P.M., Vree climbed from the tree, staggered through the tall field grass, and scratched at the dust and flies settling on her sweaty neck and arms. She came upon a footpath that led toward the pines, so she followed it to a small log bridge someone had built over a narrow and shallow creek. The air was cool there and she swallowed it into her lungs. She even lifted her T-shirt as she went to let in the tiniest of breezes and dry away the sweat on her stomach.
Beyond the bridge and between the trees and scrub she saw the pond, so she hurried toward it and without stopping, removed her sweaty T-shirt and kicked off her tennis shoes before she waded barefoot into the cool water with a deep desire to rid herself of the sweat and dust and flies that fouled her body. Her feet sank into the dark ooze of the muddy bottom, clouding the water as it rose to her knees.
There were no thoughts of poisonous snakes or quicksand or any other danger as she stood in the knee-high water, cupped it to her face, and let it cool her lips and tongue. She did this several times and let the water flow down the front of her.
The pond was small and except for a family of Canada geese swimming away from her, deserted. Green brush and willow trees surrounded the area and there were large crops of reeds and rushes along the shore that served as refuge from the highway behind her.
Crystal jewels of water glittered like diamonds on her wet skin that prickled to the tiniest breeze blowing across the pond. She stayed there for several minutes, let her mind and body relax, and sobbed away her anger, hatred, and frustration until a deer fly bit her neck and forced her to splash herself and scrub at the sting, washing away the dirt and sweat there.
She left the pond and had just picked up her shirt when a knife’s long silver blade flashed in front of her eyes. She emitted a cry and stepped back, almost losing her balance.
A brown-haired woman no taller than Vree put a finger to her mouth. “You’ll scare away the geese,” she said. She wore a yellow blouse, navy blue skirt, and black hose and high heels. She smiled with a beguiled look that twisted from ice blue eyes as she held the hunting knife pointed at Vree’s face.
“This yours?” she asked.
Vree stared cautiously at the nicely dressed woman who wielded the knife gripped tight in her right hand. The woman’s gaze darted to and from Vree’s face and breasts. Vree covered her breasts with crossed arms even though she wore a pink bra. “No,” she answered when the woman asked again if the knife belonged to her.
“Found it lying back there by some trees, of all things. Real beauty with no rust or nicks or any blood on it.” The woman held the blade closer to Vree’s face. “If it ain’t yours, I think I’ll keep it. I could use a knife like this.”
“For what?” Vree asked.
“Hunting and skinning animals, of course. Haven’t you ever gone hunting?” The woman peered at Vree’s face. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
Vree shrugged but said nothing.
“Cat must have your tongue,” the woman said. “I love tongue.” She stepped closer and touched above Vree’s right breast with her left hand.
Vree’s jaw and hands clenched as she looked at the knife inches away from her left cheek and wondered if the woman was crazy enough to kill her. The point of the knife drew closer. She stifled a cry, felt a cool breeze waft across her back, and shivered.
The woman took her left hand away and held up a fat aquatic worm. “Can’t believe you didn’t feel this blood sucker feeding on you.” She tossed the worm away and wiped at the blood on Vree’s chest, smearing a two-inch line across the wet skin.
“I-I need to leave now,” Vree said in a raspy voice. She kept watch of the sharp knife blade still close to her cheek.
The woman raised an eyebrow and studied Vree’s face. “Oh? Where to, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“Home. I need to go home.”
“Yes. You need to be with your family.” The woman looked at the knife for a moment. Then she switched the knife to her left hand, lowered it, and held out her right hand. “Name’s Becca,” she said. “What’s yours?”
Vree looked at the chubby hand awaiting hers and said, “Are you kidding me, lady? First, you scare me to death with that stupid machete-size knife, and now you act as if it’s no big deal.” Her throat tightened and tears flooded her eyes. She struggled to breathe properly, but sobs seized her body. She pushed past the woman and looked through a wall of tears for her s
hoes.
A hand grabbed at her shoulder. She screamed and spun around, but no one was there. She looked back at the pond and heard her name floating to her on the waves of buzzing bees.
Verawenda, go away. You’re not wanted here.
“Leave me alone,” Vree shouted. She began walking, her drenched pants weighing heavily on her lower legs. She saw her shoes next to a tree, grabbed them up, and half ran, half staggered over the path to the highway. She looked up and down as she tried to remember which way she had come.
Down the road, the figure of a short, heavy man lumbered toward her. He wore brown coveralls and a blue work shirt as murky as the stormy sky behind him. His boot heels struck the pavement but made no sound.
“Stay away from me,” she said.
The man kept coming.
She pressed her shirt close to her nakedness and refused to make eye contact with him.
As he drew closer, so did the sound of buzzing bees. She crossed the road. The man crossed, too, and approached her.
She kept her eyes on her bare feet. She had chipped the nail on her right big toe. She had stopped painting them after waking from her coma. Maybe she should start painting them again. A lustrous blue.
The man stopped in front of her and the buzzing stopped.
“I came to tell you something … but I seem to have forgotten what it was,” he said. His voice was small, nonthreatening. “I remember I was in an accident. I mean, I think I was in an accident.”
Vree’s stomach lurched and she was afraid she would vomit chunks of apples. She peered up at the old man who smiled politely at her. He was bald with pudgy cheeks, a bulbous nose, and small ears, and he had friendly looking blue eyes that edged with sadness.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said through the panic that surged inside her. “Are you okay?”
He said, “I remember the accident happened back a ways. My van looks totaled. I need to find a phone.”
“I-I don’t have a phone,” Vree lied. Her useless cellphone pressed against her left upper leg from its place inside her pocket. “Not one that works.”
“Sure, sure,” he said, sounding a little like her Grandpa Jack. “My luck has been going south ever since I cut myself shaving this morning. And the wreck only made matters worse. But that’s not why I’m here. You need to go back. A terrible storm with lots of thunder and lightning is coming.”
“Lightning?” The word caught in Vree’s throat.
“You’ll be safe at your grandparents place,” the man said. “I mean, no, wait. The witch is there. But she’s good, I think. No, she’s bad. You’re killing the Roualens when you look at them and they want you dead. But your daddy misses you. He needs you to go back.”
“My daddy’s there?” Vree asked.
“Yes. I mean, I think he is.” The man pulled his shirt collar away from the folds of his squat neck. Blood gushed out as his head fell away, his neck now a gaping bloody mouth. The body fell to the roadside and landed atop his head.
Vree screamed the granddaddy of all screams, the kind that opens the floodgates of your bowels, shrivels your heart to a pea with a weak electric pulse, and cocoons you into darkness.
She ran, although she didn’t know it. She ran blindly down the road until she tripped over a fallen tree branch and sprawled onto the black road, scraping her forearms and the palms of her hands as she slid to a stop.
“Ow!” she cried and looked up through the fog of terror at Becca standing in front of her.
“You must stop killing the Roualens,” the woman said, slapping the flat edge of the knife blade against the palm of her left hand. “You must never look at them again.”
“Please leave me alone.” The words felt dead as Vree watched Becca and the road disappear.
She felt her mind leave again into the safety of the cocoon. No crazy women with knives or headless men there.
In the cocoon, she was somewhere in grayness where nothing existed. She was unafraid in the grayness. In the grayness, she could move again, breathe again, speak again.
In the grayness, she screamed in anger.
The road hurried into view as she opened her eyes. She found herself sitting along the berm. Becca was gone. So was the headless man.
Were they ever real, or had she imagined them?
She held her head in her bleeding hands and bawled.
From the pond, a goose honked. It sounded like mocking laughter.
The first rumble of thunder traversed the sky.
She barely heard it until it growled a minute later.
She stumbled upright and headed away from the storm and toward her grandparents’ house and those creatures that Lenny had called Roualens.
If she were killing them, she would never look at them again. She would stay indoors and never look or go outside. Because outside was where the bad things were.
* * *
MORE THUNDER GROWLED, closer. Vree swiped at the tears and hurried away from the purple-gray sky. A crow cawed from its perch atop a pine tree behind a cornfield. The crow—white with red eyes—lifted into flight with bulky wings. It rose into the sky as the first drop of rain struck Vree’s back.
She realized she still carried her shirt and shoes. She had no time to dress. She had to beat the storm. She did not want to be outdoors when the lightning came.
The white crow banked left, soared across the highway, and landed on the berm, halting Vree’s advance. For a moment, she thought it was an owl until she made out its familiar crow-like features of nutcracker beak and narrow forehead. However, its eyes were red, like Roualens. She yelled at the strange bird, told it to fly away.
The crow ruffled its snowy feathers as though it had shrugged its shoulders, stood defiant, and seemed to dare Vree to try to pass.
Vree yelled again, told it to go, and charged around it when it refused to leave. As she passed to the left, it pecked at her right knee with its chisel-like beak.
She yelled as pain shot through her leg.
It struck her knee again and sent more pain shooting through her.
She jumped away from it, stopped to rub at the pain, and dropped a shoe. She grabbed it, threw it, and missed hitting the crow’s head by inches. She threw the other tennis shoe, but the crow spread its wings and hopped over it. In a final effort to strike the crow with something, she threw her balled shirt. It hit the crow in the face and caused it to stagger for a moment.
The crow squawked. Then it charged.
Vree kicked at the crow as it came for another peck. But the bird dodged her foot, spread its wings, and danced along the shoulder of the road, as though taunting her with its quick moves.
Vree turned and ran. More rain fell and struck her back. Lightning flashed and brought a jolt of fear through her heart.
The crow flew past her head, landed in front of her again, and turned and charged.
Vree screamed and kicked as it attacked her legs. Its beak made some direct hits to her right knee and shin and sent pain screaming through them. The sharp beak tore her pants leg and lashed at the tender flesh beneath her jeans. Her head swam and her knees nearly buckled. Her stomach lurched and she staggered to escape, kicking blindly, erratically, and uselessly at the crow.
She lost her footing and tumbled crazily onto the highway.
The crow walked swiftly and stiffly to her and stopped inches from her face.
“Stay away, you meddling girl,” the crow said. “Roualens are dying because of you.”
Vree lifted her head and peered at the crow’s flaming eyes.
“Go away,” she said. “Leave me alone.”
“Listen to me. If you go back, you won’t be safe. The witch will take your powers and all will be darkness again.”
“Leave me alone,” Vree said again. “Please. I beg you to let me be.”
The crow cocked its head and said, “You have been warned, Verawenda Erickson.”
Vree collapsed at the sound of the crow speaking her name.
Tal
king white crows with red eyes, red-eyed Roualens, knife-wielding crazy women, headless men … her life had become chapters of the books her father had read to her when she was younger.
“Help me, Daddy,” she said. “Make it all go away.”
Rain fell on her.
Thunder rumbled.
The crow was silent.
When she lifted her head, the crow was gone. A pair of bright headlights came at her.
She closed her eyes and felt no impact. Death was painless and silent. Her whole world was silent and she saw she was inside the grayness again. She wanted to stay but a sound broke through and pulled her away.
A powerful engine chugged above her head. The smell of rubber tires, motor oil, and radiator fluid caused her to turn her head and vomit apple bits.
“Verawenda, are you okay?” a man’s voice asked from above.
Vree smelled onions and mustard close to her face. She almost vomited again.
Instead, she said, “Grandpa? Is that you?” She opened her eyes. A silver grayness hurt her eyes as she searched for her grandfather speaking to her, telling her she was okay. His string of foam rubber words tumbled into her body and fell away. She closed her eyes from the pain in her leg. Her throat was on fire as she tried to speak.
She forced open her eyes. Everything was now red, blue, and yellow squares and rectangles and cylinders shimmering in fantastic light that tasted salty on the tip of her tongue. She took a deep breath to replace the anxiety crawling inside her stomach. Her world spun. The colors and shapes disappeared, reappeared and disappeared in front of her. She braced herself against strong arms that lifted her to her feet. She fell against warm metal until her grandfather took her by the shoulders.
“The … crow,” she said in a bullfrog’s voice. Someone had glued sandpaper to the back of her mouth. She touched her dry lips with wet, cold hands. “It was trying to hurt me,” she managed to say when the freaked-out, hallucinatory sensation passed. “Told me to stay away.”
Her grandfather told her to hush.
Cold rain fell. She opened her mouth to quench her thirst. The rain tasted good but icy in her throat. Her grandfather steered her to the passenger side of the truck, away from the warm grill, and helped her climb into a dry seat. The warmth inside swallowed her immediately. She sat back and was about to let herself fall away. The feeling was similar to the coma that had succumbed her the day lightning struck her.
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