The Curse of Jenny Greene

by Kimberly Loth

  “Yes.” Leigh Kate agreed.

  “Do we need to get Chi and Garner involved? We can’t ask Foster. It’s kind of a touchy subject with him.”

  “I think it should be just us. There’s no need to involve the others. We can do it. Go in and get what we need and go.”

  Was I going to go along with this?

  “When?” I asked. If she planned to wait a couple of days, maybe I could change her mind.

  “Tonight,” she said, and I scrunched my nose up. “Listen, I know how it sounds, and if you don’t want to go, I get it. I don’t want to do this either, but I think it’s our smartest option. I can go take care of it and text you with what I find.”

  “No!” I blurted out. “I’m not letting you do this alone.”

  “You’re in?”

  “Yeah,” I said reluctantly. I scrubbed my hands over my face. Seriously, I was going to need therapy when all of this was over.

  “Great. I was so freaked about going out there by myself. All we’d need is a couple of crowbars and some bolt cutters,” said Leigh Kate, ignoring my response. “Can you ditch your boyfriend?”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard. I can tell him I have family stuff going on.” I hated to lie, but he’d blow his top over desecrating family tombs, especially his family’s.

  We agreed to go to the cemetery around ten. With any luck, we could get in and out before midnight. Because who wanted to be in a cemetery past midnight?

  Chapter 45

  Leigh Kate left, and I went out to spend some time with the family. Connor was crawling all over Grandpa. He might never remember Gram, but he had a grandpa now. Jennings appeared uneasy and afraid. I smiled and sat beside him on the couch. Immediately, Connor made the switch to me.

  “Thank you,” said Jennings. “He wiggles a lot.”

  “Did your friend go home?” asked Dad.

  “Yeah, is it okay if I sleep over at her house tonight?” It was a split-second decision, but it beat having to sneak out again. I’d check with Leigh Kate later to make sure.

  “Don’t you think you should stay home with your family?” Mom perched on the edge of Dad’s recliner, the closest spot in the house next to Jennings, other than mine. It seemed to me that Mom wanted to be near him, just not too close.

  “It should be fine, Carly.” Dad reached over and patted Mom’s hand. “Sophie probably needs to get out of the house for a while. It’s good to see her visiting with friends.”

  Dad winked at me. I loved him. He knew I was up to something but was still giving me the room to do it.

  Mom stared at him for a few moments then nodded in agreement.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said.

  “I understand. It’s hard to be here, where they both were.” I could hear the tears in her voice. None fell, though. Maybe she was gaining some strength back.

  Jennings, on the other hand, was eyeing me with open suspicion.

  “Leigh Kate was the reason I’d been at the medical center last night. She fell and hit her head. Chi called and told me. I wanted to go be with her.” That’s not quite what my note had said, but I knew Dad was covering for me.

  “Chi hasn’t been by in ages,” said Mom as if hearing Chi’s name rattled something loose in her otherwise clouded mind.

  “It’s because of her boyfriend. You know how she gets.” I grinned. The statement was true enough.

  “You’ll have to have her come by soon.”

  “I will, Mom. On Saturday, we’re all going out on Foster’s boat.” I was pulling off the normal teenager part quite well. Friends, outings. Heck, I was more popular now than before Sam had disappeared. . . a regular social butterfly.

  “Mom’s service is Sunday,” said my mom. I nodded. The reality put my social conquests into perspective.

  Dad, once again, saved me. “If you want, ask them to come. It would be good for you to have the support of your friends.”

  A service. Funeral. We hadn’t done one for Sam yet. There was no body to bury. How heartbreaking it would be for Mom to bury her own mother while wondering if she’ll ever have to do the same for her son.

  I had to find him.

  My chest tightened as if I were breathing through a straw. Titan must have been close by. I ignored the feeling and tickled Connor instead. Until the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it.” I deposited my little brother into Dad’s lap and left the family room.

  My possibly three-hundred-year-old boyfriend stood at the door, looking handsome and rested. He wore a leather jacket, a dark blue shirt, jeans, and hiking boots. I was certain Titan had tagged along. The weight on my shoulders could only be from a certain golden sea dragon.

  “Hey,” I said. I sure wished that I was wearing something other than pajamas and that I’d brushed my hair.

  “Hey.” He smiled. “You look adorable.”

  “Whatever.” I tilted my head. Sure enough, a fuzzy outline of Titan’s large body shimmered in the sun beside Foster’s car.

  “What?”

  “You have a companion of the scaly kind.”

  Foster squinted. He’d never seen Titan.

  “I thought he stayed with you,” he said.

  I shrugged. “Nothing that dragon does makes sense,” I said, which was another lie. He was watching his brother. Protecting him when I couldn’t. Titan’s expectations weighed on me as heavily as his occasional presence did on my chest.

  “Come on in.” I moved back. Foster stooped to kiss my cheek.

  “I was thinking we could go hiking or grab some lunch or something normal. Like a date,” he said. Now, who was adorable? How cute and sweet of him.

  “I have an excuse not to be in school. What about you?”

  “I have an excuse. My girlfriend needs me.” He smiled. I felt the thrill all the way down to my toes. That was the first time I’d heard him refer to me that way. “Chi used the exact same excuse to stay with Garner.”

  “Chi’s parents let her get away with anything,” I said with a laugh.

  “Mine are worlds away. Basically, the same thing.”

  I shook my head. In less than twelve hours, I was going to open his family crypt and count his ancestors. I bet he wouldn’t skip school for me then.

  “I’m sorry. I haven’t asked how you’re doing.” He’d completely misread my silence.

  “I’m doing okay.” I stepped close and let him pull me to his chest. “Leigh Kate has already stopped by, and I think Chi blew up my phone hours ago.”

  “Oh, hey, Foster.” Dad sauntered by, appearing casual in an extremely contrived way that was anything but.

  “Hi, Mr. Howell.” Foster put some distance between us and shoved his hands into his pockets. I laughed. They both glared at me.

  “Is it okay if I,” I started.

  “Yes. Go on. I don’t want you in here wasting a pretty day.” Dad nodded. “But please come home for dinner before you go to Leigh Kate’s. I think Mom might be interested in joining us.”

  “I will.”

  Foster’s gaze stared holes in me. I knew he had questions about what I was up to with Leigh Kate.

  “Give me a few minutes to change,” I told him and raced to my room.

  I grabbed a quick shower, I didn’t want to smell like sweat and tears, and I even used a blow dryer on my hair. The way it fell was kind of pretty, so I left it loose around my shoulders.

  Clean jeans and sweatshirt later, I was ready to go. But Foster wasn’t waiting where I’d left him. Jennings was.

  I groaned and rolled my eyes.

  “He’s outside.” Jennings scowled at me. “I assume you know what he is.”

  “I assume he has a lot of family resemblance.” My beliefs and suspicions weren’t any of the crotchety old curmudgeon’s concern, grandpa or not.

  Jennings scrubbed a hand over his face. “Fine. Just be careful. Please.” Could it really hurt him to be so nice?

  “I will, Gramps,” I said with a grin.

  “Do not call me Gr
amps,” he growled.

  “Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad. I’ll be home for dinner,” I shouted back toward the family room. Then, to Jennings, “I am so glad you’re here. It’s good for you and Mom both.”

  His scowl loosened the tiniest bit. Christmas was bound to be fun if we couldn’t get him out of his shell beforehand.

  “Don’t worry. I know what I’m getting into,” I said.

  “That’s what Callie used to say,” I heard him say before the door closed. I loved Gram. I admired her. There were worse things than being like her.

  Foster leaned against the hood of his car, flipping through screens on his phone. Titan’s shimmery outline was close by. If Titan had been less of a dragon and more of Timothy Grimm, I imagined they would have had their heads together, and it would have been the cutest brotherly moment ever. But sadly, Timothy was Titan, and Titan was a dragon.

  “You ready?” I asked in a bright voice that I was perfecting. Foster smiled and put the phone in his back pocket. He opened the car door for me. Before I climbed in, I laid my hand on Titan’s leg. Just to acknowledge his presence. I swear I heard a snort back.

  “What shall we do?” Foster asked while backing out of the driveway.

  We had the afternoon all to ourselves. To do anything. No ghost witches, no worries about Foster’s age, no missing kids. Just me and him. Worries and sorrows were banned for a few hours. I think Gram would have understood.

  I was going to find out everything I could about Foster. Details I had lamented to Leigh Kate that I didn’t know.

  “I want ice cream,” I said, feeling lighter than I had the right to be.

  “Ice cream it is,” Foster turned left instead of right on Main Street.

  “Ice cream is that way,” I thrust my thumb behind me.

  “I want to get out of here for a while. I thought we’d have ice cream at Irene’s in New Haven.”

  “I love that plan,” I said. The tightness in my chest eased. Titan must have decided to stay behind. Maybe Foster was only in danger in Blaylock Bay.

  He grinned and grabbed my hand. His fingers intertwined with mine.

  “What’s your favorite color?” I asked.

  “Black,” he said.

  “What a boy thing to say,” I laughed. “I like red.”

  I kept up the investigation all the way to New Haven. If Foster minded, he never complained. His favorite holiday was the Fourth of July, and he loved fireworks. He liked Oreos over Chips Ahoy. He preferred BBQ potato chips. Loved seafood, which served him well living on a coast. He found most soda too sugary but couldn’t get enough of lemonade and root beer.

  When we were sitting outside Irene’s in the sun with our ice cream, chocolate for him and cookies and cream for me, I started up again. He preferred to sleep in sweats without a shirt. He was always hot, which I already knew and loved. Foster wasn’t into TV and video games though he loved to read. He liked true crime and biographies. I wondered if his age had something to do with his preferences . . . they were certainly the definition of an old soul. I didn’t let those thoughts linger. Nothing was going to ruin this for us. Truthfully, we might not get another shot to just be a couple.

  After we’d tossed our empty ice cream cups, I kissed him. I wanted to know how he tasted with chocolate on his lips. He dropped his hands to my hips and pulled me close. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him as if I’d never get to do it again. I vowed to myself to always kiss him like that from that point on.

  Then he tucked my hand in the crook of his elbow, and we wandered through the shops of New Haven’s main street. This place was more of a tourist trap than Blaylock Bay was with no shortage of knickknack sellers. Foster bought me an abalone shell carving on a black leather cord. It fit around my neck perfectly. Our day couldn’t have been better, and thinking about it brought tears to my eyes.

  Chi texted me, and I wrote back to her and Leigh Kate that I was out for the afternoon. Family stuff. They didn’t need to know my location or the company I kept. This was my time to make memories with my boyfriend. Just in case.

  Back in the car, Foster curved his hand around the back of my neck and held me tight for a kiss.

  “Do you feel you know me well enough now?” he asked against my lips.

  I pulled back and laughed. “You knew what I was doing?”

  “You did ask what my favorite stuffed animal was.” His blue eyes twinkled.

  I giggled. “I didn’t mean to be so obvious.”

  The drive back to Blaylock Bay was uneventful and mostly in silence. After he had parked outside my house in the fading light, Foster kissed me again.

  “So,” he whispered while leaning back in his seat. I wanted him to stay close to me and wouldn’t have minded more kissing. “What do you and Leigh Kate have going on tonight?”

  Here came the part for my lies.

  “I’m sleeping over there tonight.”

  I still needed to let her know about that.

  “She’s pretty freaked out after last night. Doesn’t want to be alone. I think she’s afraid of bathroom drains too.”

  “Rightly so.” Foster gripped his steering wheel. “That’s all? You two haven’t cooked up any crazy plans? You’re not going to need rescuing in the middle of the night, are you?”

  Crazy wasn’t the word for what we were doing tonight. He could not know. Ever.

  “No.” I tossed my hair back and did my best to appear irritated and not guilty. “Don’t trust me?”

  “The last time you two were alone, you nearly drowned and froze to death at once.”

  “Yeah, but we are going to be at her house in pajamas, eating cookie dough. Not out throwing rocks into the pond on Grimm Road.”

  True. We weren’t going anywhere near Grimm Road. I squirmed in my seat

  He took my chin and turned my face toward him.

  “I do trust you. I only want to know you’re safe,” he said.

  I couldn’t look him in the eye.

  “Hey.” He pressed his cheek to mine. “I mean it. I’m not trying to make you angry.”

  “I’m not angry,” I said. I was terrified.

  We kissed and held each other in a tight embrace. I hoped he’d still feel the same way in the morning. I hoped I would too.

  Chapter 46

  “That’s sweet.” Leigh Kate smoothed a finger over the abalone shell pendant Foster had bought me. We were in her basement. Her mom thought we were watching movies. Really, though, we were taking stock of the tools she had nicked from her dad’s shop.

  “It was a good day,” I said. “We’d never spent time like that or done anything just for fun.”

  I added an extra crowbar from my garage to Leigh Kate’s impressive stash. With the addition, she had three crowbars, bolt cutters, wire cutters, and chisels.

  “I’m glad you did,” she winked at me.

  “I’ve never had the kind of boyfriend where we did anything other than holding sweaty hands and exchanging awkward kisses,” I confessed.

  “They aren’t too bad,” she giggled.

  “If he finds out what we’re doing . . .” I trailed off. “At least, we got to have one nice day. The best part . . . it was his idea.”

  “Don’t worry.” She grabbed a duffel bag and started shoving in the tools.

  I noticed a clock on the wall. Ten o’clock. We’d agreed to wait until ten thirty, to be certain Leigh Kate’s parents had gone to bed.

  “We’re doing the right thing, right?” I asked for the fiftieth time.

  “I think so,” said Leigh Kate. “We will definitely have some kind of answers tonight.”

  “But if Foster is the original Foster, what does that mean about Hannah? If she’s in that crypt, who is the Hannah Grimm out at Foster’s house now? Are we wrong?” I rubbed a bead of sweat from my forehead.

  “We are about to find out.” Leigh Kate squeezed her hands around the bolt cutters. She was more determined than ever.

  I knew she was right. This was the pat
h to some definitive answers. I just hated doing it and lying to Foster. Was violating a final resting place some kind of cosmic crime? I sighed and shrugged into my hoodie. Like classic badasses, we were dressed in all black.

  Leigh Kate crept up the stairs, and I followed. She listened. Bedrooms were on the second floor, and there weren’t any sounds wafting down to us.

  She nodded toward the kitchen. We slipped out the back door. I’d parked my rental car on the street; Foster had taught me well about sneaking out.

  “Let’s go.” Leigh Kate quietly shut her door. She held the bag of tools on her lap.

  I drove straight through town. Because it was only ten-thirty, the Mexican restaurant and our favorite burger joint were still open. I kept my eyes open for Garner’s car. I’d hate to run into them by accident.

  St. Katherine’s was a huge cemetery and the oldest in our county. I’d checked it out on Google after dinner. The main, modern part was open. We were able to drive in without anyone paying attention. Leigh Kate had done much more research—she’d even driven here earlier in the day and gotten a map. I turned off the lights and followed her careful directions. The graveyard was continually expanded, and the crazy, twisty branches of streets and graves made me think the builders hadn’t put a lot of thought into it. It was not the most organized cemetery. I wondered where in this mess Gram would be laid to rest. I shook my head. That was a thought for later.

  Tonight, I was here with a specific purpose. As soon as the goal was accomplished, we were leaving. The place was fantastically creepy. Headstones and above-ground crypts created the craziest shadows. One thing about living so far north, the climate made it tough to bury a loved one in the winter when the ground was frozen for months at a time. Crypts and mausoleums had always been popular. Many old families, like the Grimms, preferred family monuments where they were all entombed in the same small building.

  I stopped the car at the oldest part of the cemetery. The very first graves. The mausoleums. The founders of Greenetown and Blaylock Bay rested here. A large, gothic gate with a pointy crest guarded this plot.