Jesse felt self-conscious standing and staring at the board. He returned to the counter.
When the girl reappeared, he read her name tag: Katie.
“Katie, I think I’ll have one of those milkshakes, too. Strawberry, please.”
Gabriel hadn’t lived long enough to have a favorite milkshake flavor, but Jesse liked to imagine he would have preferred strawberry. Wild strawberries grew behind their farmhouse, and Nell would spend hours picking the tiny fruit. Gabriel ate it faster than she could pick it and would immediately demand ‘moe-beawwies.’
Katie delivered his milkshake.
“Have there ever been any leads?” He pointed back toward the corkboard.
Katie tucked her dark hair behind her ears and shook her head.
“No. My grandparents put up a reward and everything. Nobody’s ever come forward. She just walked out the door and disappeared.”
“Do they know where she went that night? You said a Halloween party?”
“My dad told me she was secretive about it. She said she was going to a costume party and put on the big fancy dress she’d worn to her sweetheart dance the year before. That was the last anyone saw her.”
Jesse took a sip of his milkshake, remembering the flash of a girl running down the stairs. In the darkness, he’d barely made her out, and yet he thought she wore a dress, a fancy dress.
An image of the trunk immediately followed. He saw the dark coils of hair, and his stomach turned sour.
He pushed the milkshake away.
“You don’t like it?” she asked.
“No, I do. Brain-freeze.” He tapped his temple, and she grinned, gliding to the counter to grab a tray of food as the cook rang the little bell.
“We’re busy, Katie. No time for yakking,” the cook told her.
“Chill out, Dad,” Katie replied, rolling her eyes.
Jesse gazed at the man through the little window. He could only see the top half of his head over the plates of burgers.
The man shifted his stare to Jesse, catching him with searching eyes.
Jesse looked quickly away. He took a final drink of his shake and pushed back from the counter.
He strode into the warm August day troubled by the image of the girl missing for twenty years.
Chapter 26
August 1945
Stephen
Stephen tried to slip by unnoticed.
He heard his mother’s deep laughter reverberate from the parlor. Without seeing her, he knew her head would be thrown back, her delicate throat exposed to the man she entertained.
“Adele, you do surprise me,” the man said, and Stephen recognized the tone. The flirtation, the seduction, eventually the rhythmic creaks from her bedroom.
He paused at the door, grinding his teeth as he twisted the knob. It groaned beneath his fingers.
“Stephen?” her voice called out, not in the usual shrill tone she spoke his name, but the soft, melodious venom she chose in the presence of others.
She stepped into the hall, her face flushed, and she narrowed her eyes at the open door.
“Mr. Hardwick and I have run out of wine. Run down to the cellar and fetch us another bottle.”
Stephen clutched the door handle.
He wanted to run into the daylight. He hated the cellar. The damp, musty cellar with its stone walls and high beams. He could still see his father there, naked feet swaying back and forth over the dirt floor. A small pool of blood lay below the body. His father’s nose had bled when he hung himself.
“I’d rather not, Mother.”
Adele’s bright lips pulled away from her teeth in a snarl.
She would punish him now whether he got the wine or not.
“Now,” she hissed.
She reached out and snatched the collar of his shirt, her sharp nails digging deep into the flesh below his neck. He didn’t cry out, but winced as she pulled him away from the door and shoved him in the direction of the cellar stairway.
He stumbled away, the warmth of his blood sticky beneath the collar of his shirt. He opened the cellar door and glanced back as his mother returned to the parlor. He left the door ajar and crept into the washroom.
Quietly, his heart thumping painfully, he hurried to the window. He moved fast, jerking the window up, jumping onto a chair and plummeting into the bushes that flanked the house.
He stood and ran for the trees, not daring to look back.
* * *
That night something startled Stephen awake.
He lay frozen in his bed. A creak on the top stair had drawn him from sleep. He could not hear her pad down the hall, but a moment later, he heard the skeleton key slide into the lock. The door clicked open and swung in with a sigh.
Stephen did not open his eyes. He lay perfectly still, willing his breath to appear even and deep.
A weight settled on the edge of his bed, and he could smell her Shalimar perfume.
Her breath flitted over his ear as her fingernail dragged along his collarbone toward his neck.
“Wake up,” she whispered.
But he didn’t move.
“I said, wake up,” she shrieked into his ear, jabbing her fingernail hard into his chin as she clutched his face and shook it.
Stephen opened his eyes.
His mother leaned over him, her hair set in curlers, her face a mass of white cream. Her dark eyes gazed furiously from her milky face.
“Mother. I didn’t… I shouldn’t have run off earlier.”
“Get up,” she growled, tearing off his blanket.
She grabbed his arm and wrenched him from the bed.
He lost his balance and landed hard on his knee on the wood floor. A ball of nausea coursed through him at the pain, but she’d already grabbed the collar of his shirt and wrenched him to his feet.
“Out,” she barked, shoving him toward the door.
He limped out, stepping gingerly as each movement ignited pain in his knee, which triggered a woozy rolling in his stomach.
He walked to the stairs and clutched the rail as he descended. He didn’t dare stop. She’d shove him down, and then his knee would be the least of his worries.
On the first floor, she shoved him toward the cellar door, striding passed him and yanking the door open.
The cellar lay beneath him. He wanted to press his hands on the doorframe and refuse to walk down, but his knee throbbed and when she poked him in the back, he stepped onto the stairs. He’d taken only a few steps when she closed the door behind him eliminating the bit of light that filtered in.
He listened as she slid the key into the lock and clicked it into place.
He drew in a deep, shaky breath and gritted his teeth for the last few steps into near total black.
The cold floor met his bare feet, and he shuffled to the wall, pressing his back against it.
Wincing, he slid along the wall, pushing his hands out. Somewhere in the cellar, the crates of wine were stacked. He could pull out the straw and make a little nest.
Something scurried over his foot, and he cried out, instinctively kicking a leg out and buckling his injured knee. He fell hard, landing again on the throbbing knee and plummeting forward onto his hands.
The pain rendered him senseless, and for a moment he thought he’d lose consciousness. Bright lights streaked behind his eyes. His arms shook as he tried to shift his weight off the leg and into his hands.
When he finally managed to stand, sweat poured down his face and his breath burst in loud, shuddering gulps. He hopped forward, barely touching his left toe to the floor from the pain in his knee.
Something struck his face. Something dangling from the ceiling. It scratched his cheek and swung away.
As he reached for it, he felt the bristly length of a noose hanging in the darkness.
“No,” he whispered, and his voice sounded tiny and ripe with fear.
He batted the rope away, but it swung back around, scratching his face a second time.
“No,” he screamed, and he s
hoved at the rope, losing his balance and falling backward.
His back hit first, and then his head. He lay, dazed, and listened to the creak of the rope above him.
* * *
Liv
Liv circled the house. Stephen’s mother’s car was gone, and Stephen had not arrived at the pond that day.
Had they gone somewhere together?
She didn’t walk to the front door. Instead, she walked around the house, climbing a maple tree to peer in the kitchen window. It was empty.
She slipped behind the house, where she could see one of Stephen’s bedroom windows. She picked up a handful of stones and lobbed one at the window. It soared high and missed the glass, thunking against the side of the house. She tried another and another, listening to the sharp ping against the glass, but his face did not appear.
Finally, convinced his mother wasn’t home, she returned to the front door and knocked.
“Stephen?” she called when no one answered.
He didn’t come to the door, and she started to retreat to the forest, but stopped and gazed back at the house.
She sensed him inside.
Walking back, she paused and stared into every window, looking for a face, a flick of a curtain.
“Stephen,” she yelled again, feeling rather foolish. If he was in there and didn’t want to come out, she should just leave, but… no. She couldn’t leave.
As she rounded the house a second time, a thud startled her, and she jumped. It had come from the cellar doors.
She bent close to the door, which was padlocked shut.
“Liv!” Stephen’s voice was muffled and weak.
“Stephen? Are you okay?”
“Liv, help me.”
“Are you locked in?”
No reply, but she heard Stephen coughing behind the doors.
She ran from the house to the gardener’s shed on the back of the property. Pruning shears hung from the wall. She grabbed them and raced back. She whacked at the deadbolt for several minutes, but it didn’t break.
“Stephen, I can’t break the lock,” she yelled.
“Try.”
Again, his voice sounded quiet, defeated even. Liv stared at the door, her pulse quickening. Something was very wrong.
She hurried back to the shed and crashed through the equipment and tools. Grabbing a hammer, she sprinted back to the doors. She shoved the hammer beneath the chain and stood on the nearly horizontal doors, yanking back as hard as she could. The chain strained, but did not break. She did it a second time and threw herself backwards. The chain held, but she felt it give. The third time it snapped, sending her sprawling onto her back in the yard. She unwound the chain through the door handles and pulled the doors open.
Stephen lay curled at the bottom of a short flight of cement stairs.
He looked up, shielding his eyes with his hand and squinting at her.
Liv jumped onto the stairs and nearly fell rushing down to him.
“Stephen.” She didn’t blurt the obvious. That he was hurt. She saw his swollen knee, a sickly blue-purple color. “Can you walk?”
She put her hands on his forearms. They were slick and hot. He had a fever.
He gazed at her with glassy, confused eyes.
“Hold on,” she told him, settling him gently back on the floor.
She raced back to the shed a third time. A wheelbarrow stood in the corner. She backed it out and pushed it to the cellar doors.
The problem would be getting him up the steps.
She lifted his arm and draped it over her shoulders, in the shadowy darkness glimpsing a noose swinging from a wood beam. She frowned but said nothing as she hoisted him up, wrapping an arm around his waist.
“You have to help me, here,” she whispered. “Just put a little weight on your good leg.
He grimaced, and she saw sweat slick on his pallid face.
Together they limped up the stairs.
Liv settled him into the wheelbarrow, trying to arrange his injured leg to reduce the pain as they bumped through the woods.
“Stephen, what happened?” she started to ask, pushing him away from the house, but he didn’t respond. Stephen had slipped into unconsciousness.
Roots and brambles slowed their journey, but Liv made it to the road. Spellway Road was not exactly well travelled, but within five minutes, she spotted a truck. She threw a sprig of dill onto the dirt road and crossed her fingers behind her back. The man slowed and pulled over.
“That young man needs a doctor,” the driver told Liv with a frown.
“I know. My dad’s a doctor. We just need a ride.”
George would have frowned at her use of the word doctor, but she didn’t have time to explain the ancient power of Norse healing.
It took some convincing to get the man to drive her all the way to Kalkaska, but eventually he agreed, shaking his head and muttering under all his breath all the while.
The man helped her hoist Stephen into the passenger seat. She rode in the bed of the truck, clutching the wheelbarrow and watching Stephen’s waxy profile. He’d woken several times, grumbled incoherent things about blood and bare feet before drifting back into sleep.
“I don’t feel real good dropping you off here, Miss. There ain’t a house for miles, far as I can see,” the driver told her when he stopped at the edge of the Stoneroot Forest.
“There is,” she assured him. “My father’s place is in the woods. No road to get there, but I know the way.”
The driver and Liv lifted Stephen into the wheelbarrow and with a final wave, she left the driver behind, his mouth drawn in a frown.
She’d barely slipped into the tree line when George appeared, as she knew he would.
“Liv,” he said. “I told you not to bring him here.” He spoke the words, but nudged her out of the way and took the handles of the wheelbarrow.
Liv practically walked on George’s heels as they pushed Stephen back to the cabin. Stephen’s face had grown paler, as if drained of blood completely.
Liv had seen dead people. Sometimes people appeared at George’s cabin with their dead mother or child. In their desperation, they believed he could raise the dead. He could not. But still he brought the bodies in, laid them on the rug, and drummed for the spirits to guide the departed into the afterlife. The people left calmer, their fingers unfurled, the wild anguish in their eyes softened.
Stephen looked like the corpses Liv had seen.
“What happened?” George asked as the cabin came into sight.
“I don’t know,” Liv whispered. “He was locked in his cellar. I think his mother…” She trailed off as Stephen let out a little moan.
Liv opened the cabin door, and George carried Stephen inside. He laid him on the rug near the hearth.
Stephen blinked open his eyes, but did not seem to see George.
“Mother,” he said in a tiny voice. “Daddy’s in the basement.”
George frowned, and Liv knelt beside her friend, wiping the sweat from his brow with a towel.
Gently, George started to extend Stephen’s left leg.
Stephen’s eyes flew open, and he cried out in pain.
“Volva, please get me two strips of linen.”
Liv hurried to the chest near the bed, pulling out a long roll of fabric and cutting two lengths.
It took several minutes and a lot of coaxing, but George gradually pulled Stephen’s leg straight. Stephen’s knee was swollen and dark. George wrapped his knee, compressing the injury.
When George rolled him onto his side, the back of Stephen’s head was matted with blood.
“Hold him in place, Volva,” George whispered, mopping at the thick dark hair.
The gray rag grew darker, and Liv watched the tendrils of red swirl out and away as George dipped it in a basin of water.
“Should I get the drums?” Liv asked.
George pursed his lip and shook his head, no.
“We’ve treated his wounds. He will recover.”
&n
bsp; “But,” Liv started, “his fever, and his words. He’s plagued, George.”
“That is not for us to decide, Volva. Our spirits cannot heal him.”
Chapter 27
August 1945
Liv
“I got it,” Stephen announced, striding across the clearing to the decayed log where Liv lay long, allowing the sun to lull her into sleep. She sat up with a jolt when Stephen appeared. She hadn’t seen him for the three days since she and George had delivered him to the big house in the woods.
His limp had lessened, and had she not known he was injured, she might have thought him perfectly fine.
“What happened with your mom, Stephen? When you got home?”
He looked at her as if she wasn’t talking sense, and then waved a dismissive hand.
“Nothing. But look at this.”
He thrust a box toward her. When he peeled open the lid, a foul smell filled the air between them.
“Ugh.” She covered her nose with her hand. “What is that?”
Something dark and oily lay in the box. The sun’s glare made it hard to make out, but as she studied it, she recognized a small black eye, the curve of a black nose.
“A cat?” she asked, horrified.
“A black cat,” he said, closing the lid. “Just like in the book. Don’t you see? We can do the spell now.”
Liv frowned at Stephen. His hair, usually neatly combed, was unkempt and standing on end. His pale eyes looked darker, most of the blue obscured by the huge black pupil.
“Stephen, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he shrilled, shaking the box at her. The dead cat thumped inside.
“We decided on the Night Haunts spell, Stephen. We don’t need a dead cat for that. Where did you get it?”
He pulled the box away.
“Just in case,” he muttered, placing it in the shade of an oak tree.
“I brought you this.” Liv handed him a jar of cream for his leg. “Use it every day. You’ll be healed in no time.”
He took the cream and set it on the ground. When he peeled up his pant leg, Liv saw the mottled yellow bruise covering his shin and knee.
Dead Stream Curse: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel Page 17
