Black Creek Crossing

by John Saul

  Now she knew what had happened. Heather had seen her in the store, then followed her into the dressing room area and—

  How could she have been so stupid?

  A sob welled up in her throat, but she choked it back as she heard the door open. If it was Heather or one of her friends, she wasn’t about to let them see her crying.

  But to her surprise, she heard Seth’s voice. “Angel?” he called softly. “Are you in here?”

  “You can’t come in,” she said, her voice catching on the sob that still threatened to overwhelm her. “It’s the ladies’ room.”

  But a moment later she sensed Seth standing behind her, and when she looked up and into the mirror and saw the worried expression on his face, she turned around, wiping her eyes with a fold of the cape. “I’m not going to die,” she told him. “It’s just . . . just . . .” Her tears welled up again and her chin quivered. “How could they do that?” she asked. “How come they want to be so mean? What am I doing wrong?”

  Seth took an uncertain step toward her and clumsily put his arm around her. “You’re not doing anything wrong,” he said. “They just need someone to pick on. And I guess it’s us.”

  Us. Not you. He’d said us.

  But he wasn’t wearing a costume. What had they done to him?

  Sniffling back her tears, she pulled away from him, and Seth could read the question in her eyes.

  “Zack’s really pissed at me,” he said. Then, unable to hold back a grin, he told her what had happened on the eighteenth hole. “And you’re not gonna believe this,” he finished, “but the cat that spooked him on the tee showed up again at the green. It was—”

  “It was Houdini, wasn’t it?” Angel breathed.

  Seth nodded. “I know it isn’t possible, but—”

  “I saw him too,” Angel broke in. “He was at my house.” Quickly, she told him what had happened when she and her mother got back from the store, and what she’d seen.

  Or at least what she thought she’d seen.

  “I thought I must have imagined it,” she said. “But if you saw him too . . .” She left the thought unfinished, still not ready to say aloud what she knew they were both thinking. Instead she asked, “What are we going to do?”

  “First, we’re going to go out there and show them you don’t care what kind of tricks they pull on you. Have you got your makeup?”

  Angel nodded. “I brought it all, ’cause I figured it might start wearing off in the middle of the party.”

  “Great,” Seth said. “Okay, first let’s get rid of the cape. Turn it around and put it on backward so you don’t mess up your clothes while you wash some of that white guck off.”

  “How do you mess all this up?” Angel fretted. “Besides, I’m not going back out there—everyone else is wearing really expensive clothes, and I don’t have anything but what I have on!”

  “Quit worrying,” he told her, eyeing her black sweater, skirt, and leggings. “By the time we’re done, you’re gonna look great!”

  As they began to work on her makeup, the door opened and they heard Angel’s mother. “Angel?” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Mom!” Angel called out.

  Seth jumped into one of the stalls before Myra appeared. “Perhaps we should just go home,” her mother began, but Angel shook her head.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I—I guess I just misunderstood. I’m just taking off this stupid vampire makeup, then I’ll be out.”

  “If you’d rather just go home . . .”

  Angel shook her head. “I’m all right.”

  Myra still hesitated, then, mentally assessing the contents of the refrigerator—and Marty’s likely alcohol consumption—she shrugged. The barbecue outside was already lit, and she’d seen the cut of steaks they were serving. “All right,” she said. “But if you change your mind—”

  “Go find Aunt Joni,” Angel told her. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Seth led Angel out of the ladies’ room, back through the clubhouse, and out onto the terrace. The black cape was gone—rolled up and stuffed into the black shoulder bag she’d brought to hold the makeup. Most of the white was gone from her face, and the vampire fangs had joined the cape in the shoulder bag. They’d used the makeup kit to put shadow on her lids, and Seth had carefully applied mascara to her eyelashes, which now looked twice as long and full as before. He’d plaited her hair into a single long braid that hung down her back, and the black clothes now made her look thinner. With her hair pulled back from her face and her features accentuated with the makeup Seth had applied, she barely looked like herself anymore.

  And nobody laughed.

  Nobody except Heather Dunne.

  “Well,” Heather said as she and Seth passed. “I guess we know which it is—she’s obviously not a vampire, but she sure looks like a witch!”

  Though Angel tried to keep moving, Seth stopped her and turned to face Heather. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe she is a witch. But if she is, I’d think you’d want to be a little more careful what you say.” Leaving Heather glaring furiously at him, he turned around and walked away, with Angel hurrying after him.

  “Are you crazy?” Angel said when she was sure Heather couldn’t hear her. “What did you want to say that for?”

  Seth shrugged. “Maybe I’m just sick of putting up with them all the time,” he replied. “Besides,” he added, dropping his voice, “maybe you really are a witch. I mean, how else did Houdini come back to life?”

  Angel gasped. “What are you talking about? I didn’t—”

  “But you did,” Seth said. “And we both know how you did it.”

  For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, Angel thought about what Seth had said, and it almost blotted out the whispers passing through the rest of the crowd.

  Almost blotted them out, but not quite . . .

  It was as if an inaudible signal went off at precisely ten o’clock. Even though no one actually heard it, the members of the Roundtree Country Club reacted exactly as factory workers half a century earlier had reacted to the whistle signaling the end of the workday. Abandoning the remains of the barbecue around the pool and the dance in the “ballroom”—the main dining room with its tables moved to the walls, and a makeshift dance floor installed over the carpet—the members began their exodus, herding their younger children ahead of them and reminding the older ones that they should be home by midnight.

  By ten-fifteen the club was all but abandoned to the staff, and Joni Fletcher found herself waiting with only Jane and Seth Baker on the front porch, facing a parking lot that was empty except for the Fletchers’ Mercedes-Benz, the Bakers’ Lexus, and a collection of battered and rusting old cars that belonged to the staff. “I don’t believe they’re still at it,” Joni said, glancing impatiently at her watch. “If I’d known those two were still going to be playing this late, I’d have caught a ride with Myra.”

  “Go get them, will you, Seth?” Jane Baker asked.

  The knot of anxiety that had only just begun to release him from its grip tightened again, and for an instant Seth wondered what would happen if he tried to beg off. But what would be the use? His father was already mad at him, and what would happen when they got home wouldn’t get any worse just because he’d brought a message from his mother. Turning away from the porch, he went back into the clubhouse and down the stairs to the pool room in the basement.

  Though the club had banished smoking a year ago, the low-ceilinged, walnut-paneled room that housed the club’s single billiard table still reeked of the thousands of cigars that had smoldered in the room over the decades, and Seth almost gagged when he stepped through the door to see his father lining up a bank shot. Knowing better than to utter even a single word before his father completed the shot, Seth waited until the cue had clicked, the ball his father had been aiming at had failed to drop into the far corner pocket, and the cue ball had come to rest in an almost unplay
able position against the rail, next to the nearest corner pocket. “Mom says she’s ready,” he said when Blake finally glanced over at him.

  “Nice timing,” Blake Baker said, his eyes fixed balefully on his son. “In case you’re interested, what I’m trying to do here is win back the money you managed to lose for me this afternoon.”

  “Come on, Blake,” Ed Fletcher said. “It wasn’t Seth’s fault—all he did was make a couple of good shots. Seems to me it was you and Zack who lost the money.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Seth saw Zack Fletcher’s jaw clench and his fingers tighten on the pool cue he was holding. “But Mom said—” he began.

  His father didn’t let him finish. “Tell your mother that if she’s in such a hurry, she can catch a ride with Joni. I’ll drop Zack and Ed off after we’re done here.”

  “And at the rate it’s going, that might take all night,” Ed Fletcher said. Leaning over his cue, he lined up his shot carefully, then sent the cue ball the length of the table, banking it off the far end so it came back, glanced the six ball into the side pocket, then sent the four ball into the corner pocket that lay only a couple of inches from where the shot had begun. Seth backed out the door, then turned and started back up the stairs. He’d just gotten to the landing when he heard Zack’s voice.

  “I want to talk to you, Beth.”

  Seth froze. Part of him wanted to run, to dash through the lobby and out the front door before Zack could get to the top of the stairs. But then he realized even Zack wouldn’t dare start something right in front of his mother. And by tomorrow Zack would have told everybody he knew that he had run away.

  Run away and hid behind his mother’s skirts.

  He thought of Angel Sullivan, staying through the party and facing Heather Dunne, Sarah Harmon, Chad Jackson, Jared Woods, and all the other kids who hadn’t spoken to her but kept talking about her just loud enough to make sure she heard every word they said.

  If she could face them, he could face Zack Fletcher.

  So instead of running, he waited at the top of the stairs until Zack caught up with him.

  And suddenly, having made the decision not to run away, he was no longer afraid. “So what do you want to talk about, Zack?”

  Zack hesitated—he’d been sure that Seth would run away from him. And tomorrow he would have had one more story to tell everyone about what a chicken “Beth” Baker was. But he hadn’t run. Instead, Seth was just standing there, looking at him as if he wasn’t scared at all.

  “What did you do?” Zack finally asked.

  Seth stared at him as if he didn’t understand the question. Indeed, he didn’t.

  “This afternoon,” Zack said, his voice rising. “How’d you make all those shots?”

  Seth’s mind raced as he tried to think of something—anything—that Zack might accept. But recalling the black cat that had stayed with him all the way through the back nine, watching every shot so closely, as if it was controlling them, he realized what to say.

  The truth.

  The simple truth.

  “It was easy,” he said softly. “I did it the same way I messed up your last putt. I used witchcraft on you!”

  Zack gaped at him, then pulled back his fist and smashed it into Seth’s face. Seth jerked aside at the last second, just enough to avoid the full force of the blow, but Zack’s fist still caught him on the jaw and sent him sprawling to the floor. Instead of bursting into tears, however, or trying to scuttle away, Seth only looked up at Zack.

  “I don’t think you should have done that,” he said, his voice cold. He picked himself up, and his eyes locked on Zack’s. “And my name isn’t ‘Beth,’ ” he added. “It’s ‘Seth.’ ”

  Then he turned around and walked away.

  Chapter 33

  YRA SULLIVAN LAY AWAKE THROUGH MOST OF THE night, waiting for Marty to come upstairs and praying that he wouldn’t. When they’d come in at a little after nine, he was sprawled in his chair with the lights off, the droning television providing a dim glow, enough for her to see that the collection of empty beer bottles around his chair had almost doubled while she and Angel were at the country club, and a pint bottle of bourbon had been added to it. She wasn’t sure whether she was angry or relieved that he’d spent the hours she was gone drinking himself into a stupor. Part of her didn’t want to cope with him, or even talk about what had happened that afternoon when she’d seen something she couldn’t possibly have seen. But another part of her hoped he’d be sober enough when they got home that she could at least tell him he’d been right about the party at the country club—she and Angel shouldn’t have gone at all. She’d known it the minute she saw all those kids dressed in their preppy clothes, in contrast to Angel who looked foolish in her vampire costume.

  Why had those girls Angel overheard in the dressing room done it? She knew that Angel had never done a thing to them.

  Had it been up to Myra, they would have left right then, but before she could even say anything, Angel had dashed away, and when she found her daughter hiding in the ladies’ room, Angel had insisted she was all right. So Myra had gone back to the party, found Joni, and tried to make the best of it.

  But the “best of it” turned out to be the forced smiles a few of Joni’s friends managed to come up with, while the rest of it was pretending she didn’t notice the disapproving stares most of the club members were giving her and the backs that were turned wherever she went. What kept her from finding Angel and leaving within the first hour was the knowledge that the only place they could have come was home, and she suspected that being home that evening would be even worse, not only for her, but for Angel too. So she’d stuck it out, and so had Angel, who at least had Jane Baker’s boy—Seth, that was his name—to keep her company. Not that she was certain that was a good thing—knowing what boys wanted from all girls.

  Though the subject of sex had always made her uncomfortable, she’d tried to talk to Angel about it on the way home.

  “Seth’s not like that,” Angel had insisted, shaking her head. “He’s not a boyfriend—he’s just a friend!”

  “All boys want the same thing,” her mother had said darkly, and Angel had rolled her eyes. “Maybe you should talk to Father Mike,” Myra had suggested.

  “Why?” Angel shot back. “It’s not like I have anything to confess!”

  “Don’t take that tone, young lady,” Myra snapped, and that had been the end of the conversation.

  They’d driven the rest of the way home in silence, and remained silent as Angel disappeared into her room without so much as a “Good night.”

  Myra went to bed, but hadn’t slept for more than a few minutes, and every time she did, the strange spectral figure she’d seen in the living room that afternoon appeared in her dreams, the knife dripping blood held aloft, the empty eyes of the fleshless skull staring at her.

  But of course it hadn’t happened—it had just been a cat, and the rest of it was simply her imagination.

  Except that Myra had never had much of an imagination. Even as a child, she was never frightened by the fairy tales her father read her, because she always knew they were only stories and nothing in them was real.

  And she’d never dreamed either—at least nothing she could ever remember.

  Still, by the time dawn broke, she convinced herself that she couldn’t have seen the black-clad figure, and by the time she got downstairs to fix breakfast, she’d managed to dismiss the dreams as well.

  Then she saw Marty.

  He was sitting at the kitchen table, still wearing the same clothes he’d had on yesterday. His eyes were bloodshot, his complexion was pasty, and his jowls were covered with stubble.

  And the wound—the terrible slash that had run from just beneath his right eye all the way down to his jaw—was gone. But that was impossible! It had to be there—she’d seen it! She’d helped him clean it up, washed the blood away, put iodine on it—

  As if sensing her presence, Marty raised his head. “W
hat are you staring at?” he growled.

  “The—The cut,” Myra stammered. “Where the cat—”

  Marty’s eyes darkened with anger. “Goddamned animal . . .” he began, raising his right hand to touch his cheek. As his fingers touched his flesh, his lips and his eyes widened. Frowning, he rose to his feet, swayed unsteadily as his hangover threatened to overwhelm him, then lurched toward the mirror that hung in the hall. A few seconds later he was back, leaning heavily against the door frame, his complexion ashen. “I saw it,” he whispered. “You saw it. . . .” His voice grew louder. “It happened, goddammit! We both saw it!”

  All Myra could do was nod mutely.

  Nod, cross herself, and whisper a nearly inaudible prayer.

  Two hours later, as Father Mulroney began chanting the benediction, Myra uttered another silent prayer, this time begging forgiveness for having been unable to concentrate on the mass. Angel was fidgeting next to her, and as Father Mulroney’s voice died away and the rest of the congregation stood and began to exit, Myra laid a hand on her daughter’s arm to keep her in her place. Then, while the little church quickly emptied, Myra continued to pray.

  Only when the last sounds of shuffling feet and murmuring voices were gone did she stand, move into the aisle, genuflect before the cross one last time, and lead Angel out into the morning sunlight. Just as she’d hoped, Father Mulroney was still on the steps of the church, bidding farewell to the last parishioner. He turned to Myra with his hand extended and a warm smile lighting his face, but seeing the expression in her eyes, his smile faded.

  “Myra?” he said uncertainly. “Is anything wrong?”

  Myra shook her head so slightly the gesture was almost invisible. But she’d already made up her mind that she had to tell the priest what had happened yesterday, and she wasn’t about to turn back now. “Can I talk to you for a few moments?” she said softly. Her eyes flicked toward Angel so briefly that the priest almost missed it, but then he too nodded.

  “Of course. Why don’t we go into the vestry?” Without waiting for a reply, he led Myra back into the church, down the aisle, then around the altar to the cramped room that served as office, vestry, sacristy, and storeroom. “What is it?” he asked, doing his best to ignore the look of disapproval from Myra as he shed his clerical robes in favor of the comfort of his favorite corduroy jacket.