The Curse of Jenny Greene

by Kimberly Loth

  “Are they trying to prevent us from going in or them from coming out?” I asked Leigh Kate.

  She laughed, but her face was about four shades paler than when we’d entered this place. Instead of making fun of my comment, she dug through her duffel bag. Bolt cutters in hand, she got out and cut the lock. The gates drifted open on their own. That alone almost sent me running for home.

  I sucked in a deep breath and coasted the car through the gates. Leigh Kate shut the doors behind us and looped the chain around, just in case a caretaker decided to visit.

  “Okay,” she said, jumping back into the car and easing the door closed. “The Grimms are at the very back, under a large oak tree.”

  I didn’t move. This part of the cemetery was exponentially creepier than the creepfest we’d already driven through.

  “Sophie?” Leigh Kate asked.

  “I know,” I said, frozen.

  “The sooner we do this, the sooner we can leave.” Her voice trembled although her resolve was impressive.

  “Weren’t you nominated for Homecoming Queen?” I looked at her.

  A slight smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Last year, and for the basketball homecoming. I lost. Now drive.”

  “You’d have won if the selection committee had seen this.” I managed to break through my paralysis and ease my foot off the brake.

  The mausoleums here were in bad shape. Most were crumbling. We passed the Penningtons’; the roof of their mausoleum had caved in.

  “That’s not very respectful of your ancestors,” I said. Then we drove by the Jennings’ family crypt. It had no roof at all. I shook my head. Didn’t the patriarchs take care of their ancestors? Or is this part of the cemetery locked all the time?

  “Leigh Kate, when do you think the last time anybody visited this section was?” I asked.

  She shrugged and pointed to the left. Off by itself stood a pristine monument with the name Grimm. It was in such perfect condition that the marble stone glowed white. The oak tree behind it was massive, the branches covering the roof of the small building as if it were the protector of the tombs inside.

  “That’s big enough to hold a lot of tombs?” I asked.

  “Well, we’re gonna find out,” she said.

  My hand shook as I put the car in park and shut off the engine.

  “Let’s hurry up and do this.” Leigh Kate was out of the car before I could even squeak. If she’d said, Let’s get the hell out of here, I’d have sped back to her house. But no, she was bound and determined to do this. Once again, I wondered what Hannah had said to her.

  By the time I got out, Leigh Kate already had two crowbars and her trusty bolt cutters in hand. Good thing I was paying attention because she tossed the smaller crowbar at me. I caught it, surprised by its heft. I’d held one before. Heck, I’d brought one of them from my garage, but here, in this situation and location, it seemed to weigh at least forty pounds more than it had at home. We were about to disturb a very old crypt.

  Grimm Family had been chiseled into the stone above the gate that led into the tomb. Leigh Kate and I both stared at it for several long seconds.

  “We could still go home,” I said.

  Leigh Kate shook her head.

  “All right then.”

  I took the bolt cutters from her and snapped the chain holding the gate. We tiptoed inside the small building . . . as if being careful not to wake the dead. Inside was pitch black.

  “Who do you think was the last person to breathe air here?” I asked.

  She turned on a flashlight and directed it at me. Her breath left her in a rush. I spun around. A dried skeleton in torn clothes hung from a bolt in the ceiling, not ten feet from where I stood. Two more steps, and his skeletal toes would have brushed through my hair. I screamed and dropped the crowbar. So much for being quiet.

  I backed right into Leigh Kate.

  “I hope he wasn’t the last one here,” she said right into my ear.

  “Let’s go home.” I didn’t care if it made me seem like a chicken. Whatever. I’d figure out another way to defeat Greenteeth. Heck, if she would leave Foster alone and hand over Sam, she could have me.

  “Sophie, look.”

  Leigh Kate focused the light over the walls. Smooth stone. The mausoleum was empty.

  Except for one tomb.

  Leigh Kate’s light shone on the single inhabitant, apart from our poor friend hanging from the ceiling.

  I clutched Leigh Kate’s arm. We inched forward.

  Naturally, it was Hannah Greene Grimm.

  “It’s her.” Leigh Kate breathed out.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Sophie, look around. There are no others.” Leigh Kate sounded strangely delighted. “You were right.”

  “Yeah…” I trailed off. Such a big marble building for one inhabitant. There weren’t scores of relatives for us to take bones from.

  I’d been hanging on Leigh Kate’s arm. She shook me off and approached the stone face of Hannah Grimm’s crypt.

  “The seal on this is so old that I think it’ll pop.” Leigh Kate wedged the crowbar under a corner of the faceplate where Hannah’s name was engraved. When she put her weight into it, a puff of dust seeped out, but otherwise, there was no movement.

  “We don’t have to open it,” I said. “We know now. Hannah is the Hannah Greene Grimm.”

  “I need to see it.” She pulled on the crowbar again. “Help me, Sophie. Please.”

  All the emotion in that please broke what little resolve I had. Besides, we’d come this far. Might as well check.

  I used the flashlight to find the crowbar I’d dropped earlier and propped up the light. Consciously aware of the skeleton above me, I mirrored Leigh Kate’s placement of the crowbar on the right side of the nameplate.

  “I must really be falling for Foster to do this,” I said.

  Leigh Kate glanced at me. “Are you?”

  “I’m grave robbing for him,” I said and let it drop. We pushed on our crowbars at the same time. More dust flew out through the cracks, allowing us to work the tools further in. We pushed and pulled in different directions until we’d dug a trench around the nameplate.

  “One last good push,” said Leigh Kate. Sweat ran down her face, and I wished I hadn’t worn so many layers.

  We both wedged the bars as far as they would go. I pulled, and Leigh Kate pushed. I put my foot on the wall and gave it everything I had.

  “I give up,” said Leigh Kate.

  “No. Not yet. I think we just about have it.” One more time, I grunted and summoned every ounce of strength in me.

  With a loud crack, the faceplate broke free and hit the floor. It landed with a thud and broke into four large pieces.

  “Whoops.” Leigh Kate released her crowbar.

  I grabbed the flashlight and aimed it inside the tomb. Although the walls were made of the same stone as the rest of the mausoleum, they seemed to devour the light. Spiders scurried away from the beam as I swept it from side to side; I couldn’t see much except cobwebs.

  “Ready?” I asked Leigh Kate. She nodded and pushed her hair back, smudging her forehead with dust and dirt. I set the flashlight down, and we both reached through the cobwebs and grabbed a corner of the box.

  “I don’t know how heavy this will be,” I said.

  “It should be just bones.”

  “Right. On three.”

  I counted, and we tugged. The casket wasn’t the least bit heavy. In fact, it came flying out so fast that Leigh Kate lost her balance, falling hard on her knees. I threw an arm over the box and kept it from crashing to the floor.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” But her breathing was strained and heavy. We took care, placing the box on the floor. Leigh Kate used the light to peer inside the hole in the wall to make sure there was nothing else in there.

  “That’s all,” she said.

  “Here.” I handed Leigh Kate my crowbar. She shook her head.

&
nbsp; “I don’t think we’ll need it.” She was right. When testing the lid, it gave easily.

  “Let’s get this over with and get out of here,” I said.

  “Help me.”

  I gripped the lid at the top. Leigh Kate held the bottom. We lifted, frowning when its hinges creaked. We were in our very own horror movie.

  The casket was empty.

  Chapter 47

  “Oh,” I breathed.

  “I knew it,” Leigh Kate squealed.

  “Oh, Foster.” I was stunned. “You think she’s helping Jenny? Wait, could Foster be involved?”

  I started to panic. Surely not. He’d been through every step of this with me since I’d met him. No. No, Foster was innocent. I didn’t know his place in it. But I knew he wasn’t keeping me from Sam.

  “I don’t know.” When Leigh Kate picked up the light, we noticed something carved into the wood on the underside of the lid.

  I knelt and leaned inside for a closer look.

  “What does it say?” Leigh Kate placed her hand on my shoulder.

  “I’m not sure.”

  I leaned in even further.

  “Death is the sweet . . .” I squinted. That didn’t help. I still couldn’t make out the rest of the words.

  Leigh Kate slipped her fingers through my hair.

  “Stop that.” I shrugged my shoulder, trying to knock her hand off.

  “Stop what?” Leigh Kate hadn’t moved. She was still beside me, both hands on the edge of the empty casket.

  “Touching my . . .” I stared at her hands. The ones gripping the wood beside my own. The ones not on my shoulder or playing with my hair.

  “Sophie?” Leigh Kate looked at me and gasped.

  “Death is the sweet release of a job done well.” The voice in my ear clicked and clacked. I turned my head in slow motion.

  The skeleton was no longer hanging over our heads. It was standing over me, bony hands clutching my shoulder.

  “Naughty Sophie,” it said. “Just couldn’t trust.”

  I screamed and jerked away, but the fingers had a tight grip on me. Leigh Kate swung a crowbar at it, and I managed to duck just in time. She hit the skeleton square on the head. Forget basketball homecoming queen, sign her up for the baseball team.

  It let go, and I scrambled to my feet. My boots slid in the dust and splinter-covered floor. Leigh Kate grabbed my arm and pulled me up. The skeleton laughed, its head rattling on the spine.

  We had nearly reached the gate when it danced in front of us.

  “What did you expect to find, mon amie? Did you think you’d steal my dead body?”

  I stared at Leigh Kate.

  “Don’t speak to it,” she said. “It’s trying to hold us here. Hannah must be coming.”

  “Sophie, Sophie, Sophie,” it sang. “Silly little Sophie.”

  I grabbed the crowbar from Leigh Kate and swung it at the skeleton. The thing jumped to avoid the blow. Leigh Kate shoved me through the gate, into the fresh night air, and hurtled herself after me.

  She stayed behind me, pushing me toward my car. “Go.”

  I’d left the keys in the ignition just in case we had to run. The skeleton cackled, chasing after us, but when it crossed the gate, it collapsed. Nothing was left but a pile of dusty bones.

  I slammed the car in reverse. Not taking time to turn around, I backed around the other tombs, trying to avoid them as much as possible. When we got to the gates, Leigh Kate jumped out to push them open, while she was fumbling with the chain, I finally took the time to turn the car around.

  Neither of us spoke while I sped to the entrance of the cemetery. I almost plowed into a sign asking drivers to maintain a respectful speed. Sorry. Not happening this trip. My whole body shook. Leigh Kate hugged herself, trying to minimize her own trembling.

  “Made it. We can breathe,” I said as I turned the car back onto the main drive, the one that would take us back to the road. “We’re okay.”

  “No. This isn’t over.” Leigh Kate shook her head. “Hannah knows what we did.”

  “I don’t believe Hannah is going to hurt us.”

  Leigh Kate stared out the windshield. “Maybe, but we’ve got bigger problems.” She jutted her chin toward the exit. A late-model Impala was parked there, blocking our way out of the cemetery. And behind it . . . a shiny black Mercedes.

  Chapter 48

  I turned to Leigh Kate. “Think we can just drive around them?”

  She groaned and dropped her head back on the headrest. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears. It was so loud I figured it could be heard outside of the car. Although I knew it was just adrenaline wearing off, that knowledge didn’t help calm me down. I hadn’t stopped checking the rearview mirror for the skeleton to reconstitute itself out of the dust and come after us.

  A quick check of the clock on the dash showed it was twelve-thirty. The whole trip had taken us two hours.

  “Do you think if we’d been quicker we might have gotten away with it?” I asked.

  Leigh Kate rubbed her face then the back of her neck.

  “How did they figure it out anyway?”

  I shrugged. “It’s weird for Garner and Chi to be here too,” I said.

  “Should we get out?” she asked. The trio in my headlights scowled at us. I was still shaking and really, really needed a cup of coffee. The last thing I wanted was to have a fight with my friends.

  “Seriously, I bet I’d only ding Foster’s car.”

  Leigh Kate breathed out a harsh laugh, but I was serious.

  Foster stalked over to my side of the car like a hungry lion. He was furious. I could tell by the tension in his walk, the firm set of his jaw, and the fierce frown.

  I sighed. I’d already faced down whatever that was back in the Grimm tomb; how bad could this be?

  He tapped on my window.

  “Might as well roll it down,” Leigh Kate whispered. She opened her door and stepped out. I slid the gearshift into park and rolled down my window.

  Foster rested his forearms on my car door. His glare was so hot it burned. He remained quiet, which scared me even more. If he thought I was going to speak first, beg for forgiveness, he was nuts. I refused to even look at him.

  Finally, he sighed. “You have cobwebs in your hair,” he said.

  Cobwebs? Ten minutes ago, I had skeleton fingers in my hair. I was all for cobwebs after that.

  “Say something, Sophie,” he ordered. “Tell me you weren’t doing what I think you were doing.”

  “How did you know we were here?” I looked up into his beautiful blue eyes.

  “Chi has GPS coordinates for your phone,” he said. “She called and told me you and Leigh Kate were at the cemetery.”

  Really? Chi? Why would she do that? Why didn’t she call me?

  I shook my head. None of them trusted me. I hadn’t been killed yet, so they could all let up. I mean, my own dad had given me the space to do this. Why couldn’t Chi and Foster?

  “Can we do this tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. You broke into my family’s burial place, and now you don’t want to talk about it. Grave robbing must be exhausting.” His words were thick with sarcasm.

  “We didn’t rob anything,” Leigh Kate yelled.

  “Yeah, we were just looking,” I added. That didn’t help.

  “Damn it, Sophie.” Foster slammed his open hand against my car door. “What did you expect to find?”

  “I . . . I . . . I don’t know,” I stammered, unsure how to explain it to him.

  “Fine.” He backed away. “Go home. Or wherever you’re going next.”

  “We need to talk to Hannah,” said Leigh Kate.

  “She’s not going to want to talk to you,” Foster told her. “Not after this.”

  “She doesn’t have to know,” I said.

  Leigh Kate put her hands on her hips. “Hannah knows. That thing, it was hers. Whatever it said were her words.”

  It had called me mon amie. Hannah’s li
ttle endearment for me. Hannah knew.

  “What thing?” He leaned back into my car window. “What happened?”

  “Nothing.” I waved my hand.

  “Nothing? Sophie, you can’t hide from this anymore. What if he’s helping her?” Leigh Kate’s words were caustic as she came at Foster, pushing him aside. She put her hands on him and shoved him away from my car.

  “What are you talking about?” Foster demanded. I didn’t think it was possible, but he had become even angrier than when we’d first pulled up.

  “What are you talking about, LK?” asked Garner.

  She pointed at Foster. “His aunt is Jenny Greene’s sister. The original Hannah Greene Grimm lives out on Grimm Road, and she’s a witch too. I think she helps Greenteeth abduct our brothers and sisters. Sophie thinks she’s falling for Foster, so she’s blind to what’s going on.” Leigh Kate knew how to rant. I’d give her that.

  Foster and Chi cut their gazes at me. Both had picked up on the ‘falling for Foster’ thing. I dropped my forehead onto my steering wheel.

  “And your aunt ordered something to try to restrain us. Some poor soul she hung from the ceiling in her very own mausoleum, which, by the way, only has the one crypt.” Leigh Kate kept her tangent going. “And it was empty. The only crypt in there was empty except for some dumb statement engraved in the casket lid about death.”

  “Death is the sweet release of a job well done,” I said. I’d never forget that skeletal face less than an inch from my nose speaking those words. The nightmares would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  “Yeah, that,” said Leigh Kate. She’d worked herself up into a frenzy. I got out of the car, went straight to her, ignoring the others, and enfolded her in a hug. She dissolved in my arms. I felt so bad. I’d gotten her into this mess when she obviously wasn’t ready for it. Her little sister, Cassie, had only been gone a few days. Leigh Kate hadn’t even had time to process and grieve the way I had. She’d taken it way too far when I didn’t even get out of bed the first week Sam was gone.

  “It’s okay,” I told her. The exact same thing I’d told her as we had left the crypt. “We’re okay.”

  She clung to me like a life raft. She probably thought she might be drowning. I remembered that feeling.