Black Creek Crossing

by John Saul

  Almost sure, but not quite.

  She was not alone.

  Angel could feel it. She’d felt the first twinge of the peculiar sense that there was someone nearby when they turned away from the cabin and began picking their way through the forest, following the path that for a while only Seth could see. At first she thought it must be the cat, but Houdini had performed another of his vanishing acts and was nowhere to be seen.

  Besides, the feeling wasn’t quite like the one she’d begun to recognize whenever Houdini followed her to school, walked home with her, or curled up in her room when her father wasn’t around.

  This was a different feeling, as if an unseen being were hovering just beyond the fringes of her senses. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling—not like the creepy feeling when someone was watching her, when the hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she could almost hear people whispering about her. No, this new feeling was almost like having an unseen companion who was there to watch over her.

  She must have glanced back over her shoulder three or four times, almost certain there was someone there, following them through the forest, but she’d seen nothing, though she was pretty sure Seth felt the same thing she did.

  He kept stopping to look around, but when she asked him what he was looking for, all he said was that he thought he’d heard something.

  She had heard nothing.

  It was just a feeling, which she was certain would pass as soon as they were out of the forest.

  It hadn’t. In fact, it had grown stronger, and as she turned off Black Creek Road and started across the patch of unkempt lawn around the little house, it became so strong that she was almost certain Seth was behind her. But when she turned to look, he was on his way home, just disappearing around the bend in the road.

  Her father was at the kitchen table, an open bottle of beer in front of him. When he looked at her, Angel could see by the ruddiness of his complexion that it wasn’t his first beer.

  “Where you been?” he demanded, his bleary eyes narrowing to suspicious slits.

  Angel thought quickly. “I—I stopped at church on the way home,” she blurted, telling herself it wasn’t quite a lie; she actually had gone to church yesterday, and she hadn’t actually said that she’d gone today.

  “You sure you weren’t with that boy?” her father pressed.

  “He’s not even Catholic,” Angel replied, again not quite telling a lie by avoiding the question.

  “I don’t like him,” her father said. “I don’t want him hanging around here anymore. You understand?”

  Angel nodded, knowing better than to tell her father that after what had happened the day before yesterday, Seth was almost too frightened even to come into the house that afternoon. “I’ve got some homework to do,” she said, turning away to hurry upstairs before her father could say anything else.

  In her room, Angel dropped her backpack on her bed and went to the window. The sun was starting to drop toward the horizon, and the shadows of the huge trees across the street were creeping across the lawn toward the house. She looked to the right and, just above the trees, could see the top of the bluff whose ramparts concealed the tiny cabin in which they’d hidden the book.

  The book.

  The book whose cover was the same bloodred shade as the lipstick whose markings had been on her mirror.

  The book that almost seemed warm the first time she touched it. Had it actually been hot, or had she only imagined it? But Seth’s fingers had jerked away too, when he’d touched the book.

  Suddenly, the feeling of no longer being alone was so strong that Angel turned away from the window, and for just a moment she thought she caught a glimpse of something—someone?—at the very edge of her vision. But before she was even sure she’d actually seen it, it was gone.

  For the next hour, until her mother called her for dinner, she tried to concentrate on her homework, but over and over again she found herself getting up to go to the window, gazing out into the gathering darkness toward the bluff. And each time she went to the window, she had the feeling there was someone else—someone right behind her—looking over her shoulder.

  As night fell, she imagined the cabin with a fire blazing in its hearth, the warm glow of a kerosene lantern suffusing it with a soft light, its door closed and its window barred.

  The world shut out of a place that no one knew was even there.

  No one but she.

  She and Seth.

  And someone else . . .

  Chapter 23

  T’S WITCHCRAFT.”

  Angel stared across the table at Seth, certain at first that he must be kidding. But there was nothing in either his expression or his tone of voice that said he was anything but dead serious. In fact, his face looked pale and there was a look in his eyes that she hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t fear, exactly, at least not the kind she’d seen in his eyes when her father had found them in her room the other day. Today the look in his eyes told her he wasn’t so much afraid of what he’d found out already as what he might find out next.

  Unless she was wrong. If he was kidding her and she fell for it, she’d feel like a complete idiot. They were in the cafeteria, and Seth had found a table way off in the corner, where no one else ever sat. When she’d seen him sitting there, with empty tables all around him, she’d assumed he’d found out something about the book on the Internet last night and wanted to make sure nobody else could hear what they would talk about. She’d filled her tray, doing her best to resist the macaroni and cheese but failing so miserably that she took a double portion, telling herself she’d share it with Seth, then assuaging her conscience by taking a glass of water instead of a Coke, even a diet one. It was as she was setting her tray on the table that he’d spoken the two words:

  “It’s witchcraft.”

  “You mean like witch doctors?” she asked as she dropped her backpack on the chair next to her and sat down across from him.

  “No, I mean like witchcraft,” Seth told her, eyeing the macaroni and cheese covetously. “You going to eat all that yourself?”

  “Maybe,” Angel said, but seeing the look of disappointment in his eyes, she relented. “I got enough for both of us. Here.” She handed her plate across to Seth, who transferred a little less than a quarter of it to his plate. “You have to take half—if you don’t, then I’ll eat it all and be even fatter than I am now.”

  “You’re not fat,” Seth told her. “You just look healthy.”

  “Yeah, right,” Angel said, rolling her eyes. “And you’re going out for football!”

  Seth shrugged. “Okay, so you’re a pig! Happy now?” Angel stared at him. “Well, if that’s what you want me to say, I’ll say it! So, do you want to know what I found out on the Internet or not?”

  Angel ignored the question. “You don’t really think I look like a pig, do you?” she asked.

  Now it was Seth who rolled his eyes. “I already told you what I think, but you didn’t like it. So I told you what you think, even though it’s wrong. Make up your mind, okay? Either I’ll tell you the truth or I’ll tell you what you want to hear.”

  “The truth, I guess,” Angel said. “But I do weigh too much.”

  “Okay—maybe twenty pounds. Who cares?”

  “Would you dance with me? I mean, if we were at a dance or something?”

  Seth reddened. “I’ve never danced with anybody.”

  “That’s not what I asked. I asked if you’d dance with me!” Angel pressed. “And remember, you have to tell me the truth.”

  “Why wouldn’t I dance with you? But you’ll have to teach me how. And we’re not going to any dances anyway, so what does it matter? Now, do you want to know what I found out about the book?”

  “You mean you actually found it on the Internet?”

  Seth shook his head. “I Googled ‘Recipees and Remedies,’ and I didn’t find that book, but I found out a bunch of other stuff. I mean, like there’s hundreds and hundreds of sites that are
all about witchcraft.”

  “Just because there’s a bunch of sites doesn’t make it true. There are sites on the Net about everything.”

  “I didn’t say it was true,” Seth said. “All I said is that there are lots of sites, and that’s what I think the book’s about.”

  “The way you said it sounded like you believe it,” Angel said.

  An uncertain look came into Seth’s eyes. “I don’t know—I mean, it seems like if so many people believe it, maybe . . .” His voice trailed off and he shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s like voodoo. I read once that voodoo actually works—you know, where they stick pins in a doll, and the person the doll is supposed to be feels the pain?”

  “That’s just superstition,” Angel said. “It doesn’t really work.”

  “It does if the person the doll’s supposed to be believes in voodoo and knows someone’s doing voodoo on him.”

  Angel frowned. “Really?”

  Seth nodded. “Somebody did a big study about it, and if the person who’s being hoodooed believes in voodoo, they’ll actually get sick. Sometimes they even die!”

  “ ‘Hoodooed’? What’s that mean?”

  “It’s like a voodoo curse,” Seth said.

  “I don’t believe in curses,” Angel said.

  “It doesn’t matter if you believe in them or not. If someone gets cursed who believes in them, then the curse can work.”

  “I still don’t see what it has to do with the book.”

  “Maybe nothing at all,” Seth said. “But if it’s a book of potions—”

  “But it’s not!” Angel interrupted. “It’s a book of recipes and remedies. Yesterday, you thought it might be some kind of cookbook, remember?”

  “Maybe it is,” Seth agreed. “But when I ran recipes and remedies on the Internet, all I got were a bunch of new-age stuff and a few about witchcraft. I found one that has all kinds of spells and things, and according to that one, there really are magic remedies and potions, and things you can eat that make things happen.”

  “The only thing that happens when I eat is I get fat,” Angel insisted. “And everybody knows none of that stuff works.”

  “I didn’t say it did, did I?” Seth said, starting to sound exasperated. “All I said was that that’s what I think the book is.”

  “Well, how are we going to find out if you’re right?”

  “Meet me at the library tonight—there’s a whole section on the history of Roundtree, and I bet we can find out all kinds of stuff. Even if we can’t find out exactly what the book is, I bet we can find out more about your house.” His voice rose. “I mean, what if it turns out all the stories about your house are true?”

  Angel felt a sudden rush of adrenaline. Could it really be possible that—

  No! There was no such thing as witchcraft, no matter what Seth had found out on the Web. “I don’t know—” she began.

  “What’s the matter?” Seth broke in. “You scared?”

  “No! I just don’t think—”

  But Seth wasn’t listening to her. “You are too,” he shot back. His voice took on a mocking singsong tone, but he kept it low enough so no one but Angel could hear. “Angel is a scaredy cat, Angel is a scaredy cat—”

  “Stop that!”

  “Why?” Seth asked, putting on an expression of exaggerated innocence. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “No! I’m not scared—I just don’t believe in that kind of stuff!”

  “Then meet me at the library tonight!”

  Angel glared at him. “Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t,” she finally said, but even as she spoke, she was pretty sure that she’d show up. After all, even though she didn’t believe in witchcraft, she still wanted to know what the leather-bound book was about.

  “What’s going on over there?” Heather Dunne asked, nodding toward the table on the far side of the room where Seth was grinning maliciously at Angel, whose back was toward Heather and her friends, but whose shoulders were hunched over and her head bent down as if she were angry about something. “Looks like Beth and your cousin are having a fight!”

  “They better not,” Zack Fletcher said. “If they get mad at each other, they won’t have any friends at all.”

  “What I want to know is how come they’re sitting way over there?” Chad Jackson asked. “How come they’re not sitting at Beth’s table?”

  “Maybe they want to be alone,” Jared Woods said, putting enough emphasis on the last word so everyone at the table began snickering.

  “Why would two girls want to be alone?” Chad Jackson asked.

  “Maybe Angel likes girls,” Heather Dunne said.

  Chad Jackson elbowed Zack Fletcher, who was sitting next to him. “Is that it, Zack? Does your cousin like girls?”

  Zack’s upper lip curled into a sneer. “Even if she did, so what? Even another girl wouldn’t go out with her!”

  “So what are they up to?” Chad pressed. “I mean, they sit together at lunch, and they go off together after school every day.”

  “So do you and Jared,” Sarah Harmon said. Sarah, whose hair was as dark as Heather Dunne’s was blond, usually sat quietly through the lunch hour, content to listen to her friends talk but rarely saying anything herself. Now everybody was looking at her, and she suddenly wished she hadn’t spoken at all. But it was too late. “What do you and Jared do every day after school?” she finally asked.

  “What do you mean, ‘What do we do?’ ” Chad said. “We hang out!”

  “Maybe that’s what they do,” Sarah Harmon said. “Maybe they aren’t up to anything at all!”

  “Then how come they’re not sitting where they usually do?” Jared demanded.

  Now Sarah found herself getting angry. “Maybe because of the way you and Chad act every time they sit anywhere near you.”

  Heather Dunne stared at her best friend. “Sarah! What’s going on with you?”

  For a second Sarah wondered if she shouldn’t just pick up her tray and go sit somewhere else. But even as the thought formed in her head, she knew she wouldn’t do it. She and Heather had been best friends ever since their first day in kindergarten, when they found out their birthdays were only two days apart. She’d known Chad and Jared and Zack just as long, and the half-dozen other kids in their crowd as well. They’d all gone to school together, and hung out at the country club in the summer together, and gone to movies together. They’d done everything together, and Sarah didn’t have to think for even a few seconds to know exactly what would happen if she picked up her lunch tray and went to sit somewhere else.

  The conversation would switch immediately from Angel Sullivan and Seth Baker to Sarah Harmon.

  And that afternoon, when she went to the drugstore, there wouldn’t be a seat for her at the table where she and Heather always sat with three or four other kids.

  And tomorrow, someone else—probably Shauna Brett, who was sitting across from Sarah and seemed to be hanging on every word she said, just waiting for her to make a mistake—would be sitting next to Heather in the cafeteria.

  Besides, who would she sit with? She was far too shy to just go over to another table where there was an empty chair, sit down, and start talking to whoever was there, like Heather Dunne always could. In fact, that was how she and Heather had become friends in the first place—Heather had just sat down next to her in kindergarten and started talking to her, and before her shyness could get in the way, they were already friends. It had been that way ever since—she was Heather’s best friend, and all she had to do was follow along and do whatever Heather wanted to do. Heather’s crowd was her crowd.

  Heather’s friends were her friends.

  And now Heather was looking at her as if she’d gone crazy, and Heather’s question was still hanging in the air: What’s going on with you?

  And everyone was staring at her, waiting for her to answer.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  Then she lapsed back into the safety of si
lence as Zack, Chad, Jared, and the rest of her crowd talked about Angel and Seth.

  Chapter 24

  ARTY SULLIVAN’S FORK STOPPED MIDWAY BETWEEN his plate and his mouth, his eyes fixed on his daughter. The good mood brought on by the three shots of good Irish whiskey he’d chased down with three equally good pints of Irish beer before coming home that evening had faded rapidly in the face of Myra’s pursed lips and disapproving look. Did she think sitting around in a bar listening to Ed Fletcher brag about his country club had been all that great? Besides, he was only about an hour late, and what business was it of hers anyway? But it was Angel that his eyes—now as dark as his mood—were focused on right now. All through supper, which Marty had eaten just to please Myra, even though it wasn’t much good, Angel kept looking at the clock.

  Like she had a date or something.

  Fat chance that was going to happen. The way she was putting away the crappy dinner Myra had made, even that putz that he’d caught in her room with her the other day wouldn’t be sniffing around anymore. As she ate the last scrap of ham on her plate, glanced at the clock, and finished up the remains of her second helping of Myra’s scalloped potatoes with cheese, “just like her mother used to make”—as if her mother was any better in the kitchen than Myra herself—he put down his fork, leaned back, and crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you think you’re up to?” he demanded.

  Startled, Angel dropped her fork, which clattered onto her empty plate.

  “Jesus!” Marty snorted. “How’d you get to be so clumsy?”

  “Marty!” Myra exclaimed, and for an instant Angel thought her mother was going to come to her defense. “Don’t take the name of the Lord in vain!”

  Angel’s faint flicker of hope faded as quickly as it had flared. She stood up to start clearing that table, hoping to distract her father.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Marty said, his eyes narrowing.

  “I—I’m just clearing the table,” Angel said, trying the tactic of avoiding the truth by saying something that wasn’t quite a lie, which had worked yesterday when she’d gotten back from finding the hidden cabin with Seth.