The Curse of Jenny Greene

by Kimberly Loth

  His mouth was back on mine, and I swore my skin was on fire.

  The phone buzzed, and our bodies froze. Probably a call from Chi or Leigh Kate.

  Foster dropped his head down onto my shoulder.

  “Damn phones,” he said. I wanted to ignore it, to return under the spell Foster had cast over me. However, we had work to do tonight.

  He rolled onto his side, and I reached off the side of the bed, grabbing the phone. It had fallen onto the floor at some point.

  “Hey,” I said to Chi.

  “You guys in your spot? I made coffee,” she said, too perky for one o’clock in the morning.

  “Not yet, but we will be in ten minutes,” I said.

  “Okay, we’re gonna swing by before we head over to the Nortons’.”

  “See you in a bit.”

  I hung up and focused my attention back on Foster. Still shirtless. He grinned at me, probably mirroring my thoughts.

  “We have to get up,” I said and put my feet on the floor before he could convince me otherwise.

  I tossed his shirt at him as I made my way to the closet to grab fresh jeans and a sweatshirt. Thankful the room was dark, I slipped underwear and a clean bra from the top dresser drawer.

  “Be right back.” I disappeared into the bathroom across the hall. As soon as I’d shut the bathroom door, I leaned my back against it and heaved a huge sigh. Wow. I’d never made out with anyone like that before. Not that I had tons of experience, but dang.

  Flipping the light on, I rushed to change and pull my hair back into a ponytail. We didn’t have time to waste. Chi could sniff out anytime I was lying to her.

  Foster had dressed and was sitting on my windowsill, half in and half out of the house.

  “One more second.” I grabbed a piece of paper off my desk and penned a quick note to Dad as a precaution.

  “Are you leaving a note?” asked Foster.

  I nodded.

  “Who leaves a note when they’re sneaking out?”

  “A very responsible girl whose parents have lost a child and are terrified of losing another,” I said and taped the paper to my mirror where Dad would be sure to see it.

  “Such a well-stocked desk the very responsible girl has,” he said, chuckling. “What’s it say?”

  I thrust my arms into my coat and quickly tied my shoes. “That my friend, Leigh Kate, called me, crying, and I went over to console her.” I joined Foster at the window. He jumped out and turned back to help me down. “We talked about her at dinner. I think that would make him the least angry . . . or worried.”

  “And your mom?”

  “She’s sedated. No worries about her.” I hadn’t meant for my voice to catch when I said it. Foster took my hand and squeezed it. Our silence after that said it all.

  He’d parked on the street but still waited until we were at the end of the road to turn on his headlights.

  We were late getting to Alex’s block, but apparently not by too much because Chi and Garner were already there, and she didn’t question me.

  “Here.” Chi handed Foster a thermos of coffee through the car window. “Call if you need anything.”

  “We will.” I leaned across Foster so she could hear me. Being so close to him reminded me that twenty minutes ago our bodies were as close as one. “You do the same.”

  Chi nodded. “We have the easy part. Poor Leigh Kate had to stay with Lucy.”

  I smiled. Leigh Kate did get the short end of that stick.

  “Be careful,” I said. She rolled up the window, and their car zoomed away. The plan was to sit at the end of the block and watch, nothing else. We wouldn’t get out of the car at all. Surveillance only. I leaned back in the seat. Wouldn’t it be lovely if Greenteeth took some time off from snatching children? Better yet, she could move on to hell or wherever child-stealing witches went.

  Foster poured us coffee into the cups Chi had packed. He handed one to me and settled back into his seat. We were both ready for a long night.

  “We can take turns napping if you want.” He sipped his coffee.

  “We might have to,” I said.

  I turned on the radio and scrolled through the channels. Of course, he had satellite radio. I found a great classic rock channel. He shook his head and glanced at me.

  “What?” I laughed. “I bet you prefer bubble gum pop.”

  “Actually, I usually listen to classical. Hannah has always loved composers and big band music from the forties,” he said.

  “Because she lived through them?” I asked very innocently.

  “Are we back to that? We are not three hundred years old.” He rubbed his eyes. “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”

  “Oh really, as we sit here and wait on a three-hundred-year-old ghost witch to steal another child?”

  Foster threw up his hands. “I don’t want to fight about it.”

  “We’re discussing,” I clarified for him.

  “Discussions tend to escalate.”

  I stayed quiet. He was probably right. I thought over Leigh Kate’s question. If the first Hannah Grimm had some sort of protection from Greenteeth, should we go looking for it? Especially since rumor was she had been buried with it.

  “No comment?” he asked as he took another sip of coffee.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but all the air left my lungs in a rush. I was gasping like a fish out of water, or a person in water. This wasn’t a Greenteeth trick.

  Foster dropped his cup on the floor of his pretty car and lunged at me.

  “Sophie,” He grabbed my shoulders. “What’s happening?”

  I only got one word out before my consciousness was pulled into a sea of black. “Titan.”

  Chapter 43

  Titan.

  Sophie.

  Was I floating on my back in a warm ocean tide, somewhere in the Caribbean? Moving my arms, I propelled through the water. I sighed, happy and content. No care in the world could have penetrated this dreamy, comforting serenity.

  I’m glad you like it. It is my gift.

  You left me today. I told him. He hadn’t been there to help me at the pond. I suppose it wasn’t fair to be so accusatory. Titan had saved Foster, Chi, and me in the bathroom at school.

  I apologize, but I had to.

  In the current vision or dream, everything was pitch black.

  Why?

  The pond itself repels me.

  Was it because of Hannah Grimm? I asked. The thought just came to me. I had been kicking around the idea that, at the very least, Titan knew Foster. He was very protective of him. And if my protector knew Foster, he must know Hannah.

  His silence was my answer.

  I wondered his reason for pulling me out of my own reality. I had work to do although I couldn’t remember what, but I knew I’d been in the car with Foster for a reason. Titan’s gift was making me forget an important detail.

  You are safe now. He finally said.

  That does not matter. You and I have a job to do.

  Titan, I don’t know what I’m doing. I need more information to figure this mystery out. What is the source of Jenny’s power? Of Hannah’s?

  I had a brother. I loved him. Greenteeth took him. As she did with yours. What more do you need to know?

  Much more if you’re expecting me to protect Foster. Does Foster remind you of your brother?

  And then it hit me. I just knew. Titan wanted Foster protected. His brother had gone missing, and now he wanted Foster protected.

  Foster was Titan’s brother.

  I chose well. His voice echoed in my head.

  You told me he never remembers. That certainly fit in with what I was seeing from Foster. If he truly was more than three hundred years old, either he was the best liar ever . . . or he had no clue.

  It saddens me greatly that he doesn’t remember me. I am worse than a ghost to him.

  Is he helping Jenny? I was unsure why I used her common name, maybe it was because Titan had known her.

 
No. His voice roared in my mind.

  I imagined him stomping around in a very Puff, the Magic Dragon way.

  He is a victim. He was never given a choice. I could not save him. No one has been able to. Maybe you, though.

  Me?

  Yes, Greenteeth hates you. She has taken more interest in you than anyone before.

  How do I save him?

  Don’t let her have him. Not a single touch. Fight her. Fight for him.

  Without any goodbye or warning, I was flung out of the water, back into my own body. Foster was driving fast. He took a curve too quick, and I careened out of my seat. The side of my head bounced off the window.

  “Shit,” Foster muttered and reached over to tighten my seatbelt.

  “I’m here.” I knocked his hand away, tightened the seatbelt, and rubbed my head. “What are you doing?”

  “That dragon of yours picked a hell of a time for a chat.” Foster glanced at me and ran a red light. The town only had two of them.

  “How long was I out?” I sat up straight.

  “Two hours.”

  Crap, Titan. I hadn’t had the feeling we were done either. Maybe he’d meant to say more, but Foster slammed on the gas pedal and broke our connection.

  “Where are we going?” I repeated.

  “The hospital.”

  I dug fingers into my thighs.

  “Did Greenteeth try something with Alex?” I didn’t see any red lights behind us. Surely, Foster had called an ambulance.

  “No.” He rounded a corner, and the Blaylock Bay Medical Center stretched out before us. The place wasn’t exactly a hospital although it had a rudimentary emergency room and served as a triage for the actual hospital in New Haven.

  Red lights broke the darkness here. Blue ones too. An ambulance and three police cars. I didn’t know Blaylock Bay had three cops.

  “What happened?” I asked, afraid of Foster’s answer. Our friends were all out on missions tonight. If Alex wasn’t being rushed to the hospital, one of them had been hurt.

  “Lila Pennington.” Foster drove the car up under the lit awning beside an ambulance. “Leigh Kate was hurt.”

  “Hurt?” I asked, but he was already out of the car. I knew what the words meant but couldn’t process them. I threw the door open and almost fell out. Now was not the time to crumble.

  Foster pulled me by the elbow, and we ran past Officer McCloud, who was talking to a nurse.

  “Sophie,” he called. I didn’t stop. I wouldn’t. Not until I saw Leigh Kate. I’d drown that bitch, Greenteeth, again if she’d hurt my friend.

  “Foster. Sophie.” Chi stood in the hallway, and Garner was pacing a trench in the floor behind her.

  “What happened?” I demanded when we reached her. She folded me into a hug.

  “She’s fine. Hit her head. Greenteeth came through the bathtub,” said Chi. “Well, her water did. I don’t think she was there in person. The filthy water overflowed onto the bathroom floor and out into the hallway. I guess Lila walked into it. Leigh Kate tried to pull her free, and somehow fell, hit her head, and lost Lila.”

  “Chief Wallace is in there now.” Garner thrust a hand at the privacy curtain around Leigh Kate’s bed.

  “The Penningtons are in the chapel with Officer Tucker,” Chi answered before I could ask.

  “They think a pipe burst and Leigh Kate slipped and fell. Lila’s disappearance is being treated as a separate matter.” Garner paced by again.

  The curtain ripped away from the wall. It was Chief Wallace. He stopped and frowned when he noticed me.

  “It’s like the missing kids club,” he spewed and stalked off toward the chapel in frustration. I’d never seen him lose his cool before. But since a fourth kid had disappeared from town on his watch, I was sure he was taking all kinds of heat with the press and townspeople.

  Leigh Kate sat on the edge of the hospital bed, swinging her legs. A lady, no doubt her mother, sat beside her, patting her hair. Leigh Kate smiled when she saw me. It had to have been forced. Her eyes were red, and her lips trembled. She was hooked up to a monitor ticking off her pulse and blood pressure. The setup wasn’t quite as elaborate as Gram’s.

  “I failed,” she said. Tears slid down the sides of her face.

  “No, you didn’t,” I said and threw my arms around her.

  “Mom, this is my friend, Sophie,” Leigh Kate said into my shoulder.

  “She hit her head pretty hard.” Mrs. Watson continued patting her daughter’s hair then her shoulder. “She might have a concussion.”

  “Lucy thinks you did it.” Leigh Kate said.

  “I wasn’t even there.” Lucy was the type to believe her own stories, but surely, she had just been acting mean when she’d said I was a witch.

  Mrs. Watson dropped her hand like a rock into her lap. With her face still buried in my neck, Leigh Kate didn’t catch it. But I saw it. I also noticed Mrs. Watson tilt her head up, her eyes going blank. I’d seen this happen before. To Della. And I recognized the same blank look from Max.

  Leigh Kate’s mother opened her mouth. “In the wispy dark of a foggy night, the children come,” she said.

  I jumped, and Leigh Kate jerked away from me.

  “Mom,” she said.

  “The children die,” Mrs. Watson finished the first line of Greenteeth’s nursery rhyme. I scanned the floor for drains. None. There was, however, a sink in the corner.

  “Foster,” I called, making sure to keep my voice calm and even. I didn’t want to scare Leigh Kate, but she gawked at me with big wild eyes, so I knew I was too late for that.

  “Jenny Greenteeth croons to them,” continued Mrs. Watson.

  “Sophie, something is going on.” It was Chi who called out to me. I grabbed Leigh Kate’s arm and yanked off the blood pressure cuff. I wasn’t leaving her in the room alone.

  “Come on,” I said and pulled her into the hall with me. All the nurses who had been bustling around moments earlier now stood frozen with blank stares.

  “Her keening call they cannot deny.” With one voice, they finished the first part of the rhyme.

  The chapel door flew open. Lucy and Luke rushed out.

  “What is going on?” demanded Luke. He held Lucy’s hand, appearing angry. Combined with her teary-eyed fright, we were in trouble. They never left the house looking this out of place.

  Leigh Kate stood shoulder to shoulder with me. “Something is wrong with my mom,” she said.

  “It’s not only her. They’re all being weird.” Garner wrapped a protective arm around Chi.

  “Jenny,” said Foster. His use of her given name terrified me as much as the bizarre state of all the adults.

  Lucy’s face brightened when she saw him. She untangled her hand from her brother and threw herself into Foster’s arms. He opened his arms out wide while checking for me over her shoulder.

  Jealousy, hot and sour, pumped through me for a second.

  “In the wispy dark of a foggy night, the children come. The children die.” The adult chorus started the rhyme again. It was difficult to be jealous in the face of whatever was happening. This felt big. A significant event was happening . . . one I hadn’t quite pinpointed.

  The double doors at the emergency entrance whooshed open. Mr. Jennings clomped inside. His face was as white as snow.

  “Sophie,” he shouted. “I heard about the girl. Figured you’d be here.”

  “Not right now, Jennings.” I held up my hand. No time for grandpa issues.

  “Jenny Greenteeth croons to them, her keening call they cannot deny.” The rhyme continued.

  “What the . . .” Jennings shied away from an orderly who was chanting.

  “Why isn’t he affected?” asked Luke.

  “I don’t know. Gram, maybe,” I said. Greenteeth seemed to have no power over Jennings. These people, the adults, weren’t part of the story. They were playthings for her to use as scare tactics. “What does she want?” I asked Foster.

  “I don’t know.” Foster
pulled Lucy’s arm from around his neck. He quickly left her with her brother and came to stand beside me.

  “Sophie, listen.” Jennings rushed closer, carefully avoiding every frozen, chanting body.

  “Something bigger is going on here, Jennings,” I said. I didn’t have time to deal with his problems.

  “No, listen.” He stopped right in front of me, face to face.

  The adults continued chanting the nursery rhyme.

  “I saw your Gram tonight,” he said. His face appeared to crumple in on itself.

  “Yeah, she’s been coming to me in dreams. It freaked me out the first time, too,” I told him.

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t asleep.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “You just didn’t realize it. It was a dream.”

  Foster’s hand curled around my elbow.

  “Is there something outside?” Chi craned her neck to look beyond the doors.

  “I think I see movement,” Garner said. He and Chi wove around the bizarre chanting adults. The scene resembled a maze. Or that old game Operation. If they touched anyone, I assumed a buzzer would sound.

  “Sophie girl, sweetheart,” Jennings said, taking one of my hands. “It wasn’t a dream. I was working the light. There’s quite a storm rolling in tonight.”

  “But . . .” I started. He stopped me with a squeeze of my hand.

  “She wasn’t old. She was the Callie I knew. Young and beautiful.” A tear slid down his cheek. It stopped briefly in the wrinkles of his face before sliding off his cheek.

  “Hey, you need to come see this,” Luke yelled back to us.

  “Is Chase out there?” Garner pushed through the door.

  “Chase?” Leigh Kate wandered closer to the door as if afraid of what she’d see. “Cassie?”

  With all the commotion in the room, I’d been slow to grasp Jennings’ words. “Are you saying . . .” I stopped. Gram couldn’t leave me until I had Sam back. She’d said so. She’d promised. Fear and panic rose, trying to choke me. Again, the rhyme started over. I put my hands over my ears but still heard Leigh Kate scream.

  As if we were one, Foster, Jennings, and I turned and ran for the doors. Lucy yelped and followed.