“Give me back my egg, you lying sack of crap.”
He smirked. “My egg.”
“We had a deal—money and the thimbles for the egg.” I grabbed a golf club from a plastic elephant-foot umbrella stand. It was a Fat Bubba model with a club head as big as a man’s fist. “Don’t make me hurt you!”
“You weigh less than a yard gnome soaking wet, and I’m supposed to be intimidated by this violent display?”
I swung the club, but momentum took me too far, and I only managed to hit the floor. The oversize head broke off, leaving me with a crooked metal shaft. “I’m not paying for that,” I said.
“Here, take the stupid thimbles and get out!” He waddled and shoved the thimble case at me. “You got ten seconds to get outta my face!”
The thimble case went in my book bag, and I waved the broken club at him. “Or what? You’re going to hit me?”
“I don’t hit little girls. I got scruples.”
“Since when?” I said and paused, thinking of something to grind his gears. “Fat boy!”
There was murder in his eyes and heart. “Don’t call me fat, you little witch!” Louie growled and rushed me.
I swung. The bent club hit his gut and bounced off, and Louie wrenched it from my hands. Moving fast for a guy one powdered doughnut from a cardiac arrest, he steered me to the exit.
“Let go!” I yelled and tried to bite him. “I wish you’d let go of my arm!”
“Keep wishing, sweetheart.” He pushed me onto the sidewalk and belly-laughed when I slipped and hit the wet pavement. “Stay out until you learn some manners!”
The door slammed, the cowbell clanged, then Louie locked the deadbolts and turned his sign to CLOSED.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
LOUIE turned the pawnshop lights out and waddled back to his office. He was breathing heavily and could feel his pulse pounding in his temples. His ears were itching, and when he felt them, the skin was hot to the touch. It was the kid’s fault. She had got him all wound up. His pain management guy said stress could kill you faster than a heart attack.
He should’ve closed up early. That would’ve fixed her little red wagon, but no, some sick part of himself wanted to wait till the second hand and the minute hand ticked from 6:59:59 over to 7:00 so when the kid came begging at the door, he could tap on his wristwatch and shake his head mournfully, while all the time laughing inside.
Mike Conning had always treated him like something to be wiped off the sole of his shoe, not like a legit businessman. Maybe that’s why Louie wanted to keep the egg, to laugh at that curly headed ginger one last time. When he sold it on eBay in a few hours, the first thing he’d do was buy a bottle of cheap Irish Rose and pour it all over the bastard’s grave.
As soon as he reached his desk, Louie popped two pills and washed them down with spit. He collapsed into the chair, which listed to one side. A minute later, he felt good enough to slither from his seat to the shag carpet. He crawled under the massive metal shell of a desk and retrieved a wooden box from his safe.
It didn’t look like much, the egg. It was an oval hunk of obsidian, about the size of a kid’s fist, rough cut and dull, with curved ridges. There was a hole at either end where something had pierced it. It smelled like mold.
He flipped open his laptop and smiled. Sixteen grand and the chance to piss on Michael Conning’s grave? It didn’t get any better than that.
Louie stroked the egg. “Ow!” The surface vibrated like it was flowing with current, and he snatched his hand back. He licked his fingers and tasted sulfur.
What the hell? he thought, and then he felt another zap, this time in his arm. It sparked up to his chest and seized so tight his breath caught. He groped for the phone and somehow hit the speaker button. A dial tone came through the speaker, loud and insistent. He gagged and felt his eyes bulge.
A heart attack. Through the thickness in his brain, the thought formed, followed by the realization that the next grave he visited would be his own.
That’s when Louie heard whispers coming through the phone. He heard a voice, then laughter, and the great weight that had been bearing down on his chest fell away. He leaned close to the receiver, then realized that the voice was not coming from the phone but from the egg, and it was calling him by name.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
LIGHTNING danced through the heavy black clouds that hung over St. Mary’s School. When I got there, the parking lot was empty except for a dark green Saturn station wagon, which belonged to Miss Frances “Frankie” Wilhoite, Devon’s teacher’s aide.
Aftercare had officially ended at six thirty, and almost everyone had gone home. The only light in the building’s windows came from the third floor, where I imagined that Devon had helped Miss Wilhoite tidy up. Devon would be waiting with her lunchbox in hand while “Frankie” texted her “special friend” to explain that she’d be late for their “dinner meeting,” again.
Outside, another bolt of lightning lit the sky. The school building was illuminated in a flash of white light as I ran across the parking lot. I had failed. Ma was going to be heartbroken. What a crappy, crappy daughter I was.
I stumbled through the rain, tears of frustration streaming down my cheeks, while a church bell tolled the half hour. Seven thirty. It was hardly even dinnertime, so why did it feel like the day—and my life—were coming to an end?
At the door I paused to shake the rain from my hair, then glanced over my shoulder.
A single headlight turned into the parking lot.
“Oh, shit!” I yanked the door open and ran down the hallway. I hit the stairs, taking two at a time, then leaped to the next landing and slammed into a tall figure blocking the way.
“Ahh!” I screamed.
“What’s wrong with you, child?” the janitor said. “Why’re you here this late?”
“Mister!” I grabbed his arm. “You have to save me!”
“From what?” The janitor tried to take his arm back. He might as well have tried to extricate himself from a bear trap.
“A stalker!” I pointed at the stairwell. “Following me!”
“Nobody there,” he said, then peered into the darkness. “A storm’s coming, and wind makes this old building moan and groan like it’s full of ghosts.”
I looked down into the abyss. Like he said, nothing. Maybe it was just the wind. “Sorry.” I sighed. “It’s been a really, really weird day. I better get Devon before the aftercare teacher feeds her to the wolves.”
“Devon Conning?” he said. “That girl, more likely she’d be teaching the wolves to sit, fetch, and play dead. Room three-two-two. To the left.”
“Got it.” I ran upstairs to the third floor and made a wrong turn to the right, completely oblivious of the shadow slipping from the blackness below.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“SORRY I’m late!” I told Miss Wilhoite. “Ma sprang this on me at the last minute, and I had a hockey game and—”
“What.” Miss Wilhoite slung her purse over a shoulder and walked right past us. “Evah.”
“Don’t worry,” I called after her. “We’ll lock up!”
“She’s really mad,” Devon said.
“I can see that,” I replied. “She probably has a life.”
“More like a hot date. With a guy named Matthew she met at Fenway. He ‘accidentally’ spilled her beer while ‘Sweet Caroline’ was playing. She says it’s the most ‘romantic thing’ a guy ever did for her.”
“Really? Ever? That’s sad,” I said. “Wait. She told you this?”
“She texted it. When she types, her lips move. I think Matthew is in trouble.”
“What? Why?”
“She said he was naughty. Twice.”
“Stop reading grown-ups’ lips.” I collected Devon’s backpack. “There’s a bad storm brewing outside. Let’s go before it hits.”
“Yuck!” Devon covered her mouth. “What’s that awful smell?”
The classroom door slammed, and the lights
flickered, brightened, then died.
“Willow Jane!” Devon screamed. “Why’d the lights go out?”
“The school forgot to pay its power bill?” I teased, but a chill went up my arms.
Devon pointed at the door. “It’s the dead girl who smells like wet newspaper.”
“There’s . . . nobody there.” I squeezed Devon’s hand, trying to hide the fact that I almost peed my pants.
Outside, the whole street was lit up. The windows and the orange sign shining over the fire exit gave the room its only light.
“Got all your stuff?” I said quietly. My hands were shaking. “It’s time to go.”
We snaked our way through the maze of tables and chairs. We had to move slowly, too slowly for the panic rising in my throat.
A long shadow crossed the frosted glass—the silhouette of a hand.
“Shh!” I peeked under the door and saw a pair of shoes caked with mud. The air smelled like sewage.
“Open the door, Willow Ja-ane. Will and Willow kissing in a tree . . .”
“Kelly?” I eased the door open and peeped through the crack.
Kelly’s pants were as muddy as her shoes, and her hair was a fright wig of mud and dirt. Her cracked and bleeding fingers were thick with dirt. The same moldy stink wafted from her hair, and when she opened her mouth to talk, she exhaled sulfur.
“Open the door,” she said. The voice was Kelly’s, if Kelly spoke in a dead monotone full of menace.
“You’re covered with crap.” I waved Devon away from the door “Have you been gardening?”
“Will and Willow swinging from a tree,” she sang. “H-A-NG-ING.” Then she thrust her hand between the door and the frame, peeling off a thick layer of skin. Underneath, there was no blood, just brackish mud. “Do you want to hang, Willow Jane?”
“Stop singing the freaking song!” I yelled, blocking the door with my hip.
“Will Patrick hanged.” Her hand disappeared, then came back. “And he wanted it. The way he wanted you.”
She rammed the door so hard it slammed into my face. My lip squirted blood, and my eyes gushed with tears. She shoved again, and I tripped, my head hitting the floor. It was cliché to say you saw stars, but damn the clichés, I did. When they faded enough to make out the face above me, I expected it to be Kelly’s.
“Get up, you big ginge.” Devon fanned me with a copy of Highlights. “You’re such a klutz.”
“What happened? Where’s Kelly?”
“Moldy Kelly crawled away,” Devon said. “After she kissed me.”
“Kissed you?” I started to get up, but my legs went numb, and my feet slid out from under me. “What the hell?”
“Are you drunk?” Devon said, worry on her face. “Please, Willow. You’re starting to scare me.”
I groaned and closed my eyes, wishing like frickdoodles to be curled up on the couch with a hot-water bottle and reruns of Gilmore Girls.
Devon slammed the door hard enough to shake the frame, then dashed to her desk and returned with a handful of paper dolls cut from construction paper. She lined them up on the floor across the doorway.
“That will stop her,” Devon whispered as she snuggled up to me.
“Hope so,” I said, but I knew it wouldn’t.
The door hinges creaked, and a pair of shears as long as my forearm pushed the door open again.
A drop of something fell from the blades.
Another drip followed.
Then a third.
Blood will have blood.
“It’s the Shadowless,” I whispered.
“You said her name was Kelly.”
“Shh! The person at the door is a very bad stranger.” Devon knew about stranger danger. Her teachers had drilled it into her head since kindergarten. “We need to go.”
I pulled her toward the fire exit in the back, but she locked her heels.
“Don’t make me,” she whimpered. “The man who killed Daddy came from there.”
“The fire exit? No, sweetie, that was another place, not school.”
Devon pointed to cubbies in the back of the classroom. “Ricky H hides there when he throws a fit.” Her eyes seemed to turn to glass marbles. “But don’t worry,” she said. “She can’t kill . . . you.”
“What’s that mean?” I said and felt a shiver.
“What’s what mean?” she said, shaking her head. “You’re so weird.”
I’m not the only one, I thought, as we crawled to the cubbies. Maybe it was a great place for Ricky—he was apparently small enough to fit into a cubbyhole—but we were unprotected.
The door inched open, and long, spidery fingers followed the shears.
“The janitor’s under the stairs,” Devon said. “That’s where the moldy girl stuffed him.”
“That’s it! We’re taking the fire exit!” I grabbed Devon’s hand and pulled her to the fire exit. I slammed the panic handle, but the latch didn’t release. “Jeezum! What else could go wrong?”
Devon pointed out the window. “There could be a stranger on the fire escape.”
“Not funny.” I braced my feet firmly on the floor, squared up like I was taking a check, and hit the emergency handle with everything I had.
The latch held.
The classroom door swung wide, and the creature without a shadow stepped inside. She moved slowly, as if savoring the moment. Her face was bone white and angular, her eyes iodine.
“Yesterday, upon the stair,” she sang. “We found an egg that was not there. It was not there again today. Oh, wish, oh, wish, the egg would stay.”
She raised the rusted tailor shears. The blades opened and closed with a screech.
“May we see,” she wheezed, “your thumbs?”
Devon screamed, and the emergency door blew open, and the stranger bounded inside. He moved so fast he was a leather and blue jeans blur. I barely caught sight of his face before he swept Devon into his arms and turned for the fire escape. He put my sister down and returned for me.
“Willow Jane! Come with me!” he yelled, grabbing my coat and lifting me off the ground.
My world was turned upside down—again—and all I saw was that muzzle flash in the dark movie theater and Dad’s head snap back. Then there was screaming, and the exit door flying open, and a shaft of bright light arcing over us. My hand was pressed against Dad’s chest, blood pouring through my fingers, and I was crying for somebody to please help him.
I had seen things happen in slow motion before, like the puck at the game or the bus almost crushing Will Patrick, but watching this guy move wasn’t like that. He was strong—a dark slick of fluid motion and power. When his hand wrapped around my arm, it felt like jaws had closed on it. Then blink fast he eased up.
“Let go!” I smacked his hand away. My knuckles flared with pain. “I can effing walk!”
He pushed me outside, slammed the door, and wedged a steel bar between the handle and the fire escape. “Do exactly as I say!” he said. “She’s coming for you, and that bar won’t hold for long!”
I popped him in the mouth with Devon’s lunchbox. His head snapped back, and I pulled my sister to me. “Get away from us!”
“I damned well saved your life!” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “This is the thanks I get?”
“I said back off!” I swung the box again. “You don’t know who you’re messing with!”
He knocked the lunchbox aside. “You’re Willow Jane Conning, orphaned daughter of Michael Conning, son of Eric Conning, descendants of Josiah Conning of Salem Village, Massachusetts. The imp beside you is your sister, and your lives are in danger.”
“That, that thing?” I said. “Is after Devon?”
“No, little idiot,” he said. “That thing is after you.”
Thunk! The tips of the Shadowless’s shears struck the fire door, rending the metal like soft cloth.
“Malleus!” The stranger rapped on the door and yelled at the creature, mocking her. “Let’s see you chop your way through
that, you pus-filled pile of rot! You rump-fed bulbous pustule!”
Thunk! Thunk!
The shears hit the door.
“Temper, temper!” he yelled, mocking her, which didn’t seem like a smart idea.
While he spewed, I led Devon down the escape. “Come on!” I whispered.
We were almost to the next floor when the stranger vaulted over the railing and dropped to the landing in front of us. “Stop running from me!”
“Go, Devie!” I bodychecked him into the building. His head snapped back, and his teeth clacked together. “Stay away from her, asshole!”
“It’s Harken, not asshole!” He shook his head and flexed his jaw. “Stop attacking me! I’m trying to protect you!”
“You got a funny way of showing it!” I gave him another hard shove. My bad thumb caught on the railing, and I howled with pain. “Damn it!”
“What fresh hell is this?” Harken caught my wrist and peeled my fingers away, revealing a huge, throbbing ulcer choked with blood. “This is bad. Very, very bad.”
“I know that!” I said. “It’s my effing thumb!”
Above us, the steel door ripped loose from its hinges and went hurtling into the night. The Shadowless stepped onto the fire escape. “Surrender the egg! Or be gutted like a butchered hog!”
“She means it,” Harken said. “Come with me or you die.”
“Come with me or you die?” I said, feeling oddly confident. Or obstinate. “What’s this, Sophie’s Choice?”
“Maybe you can’t trust me.” Harken pushed me ahead. “But you know damn well you can’t trust her!”
Our shoes clanged on the metal risers as Devon and I pounded down the stairs. I didn’t look up for fear of finding the Shadowless at our heels, holding the shears like a butcher knife. “Blood!” she shrieked. “The price will be paid in blood!”
I stumbled on a step and would’ve fallen if Harken hadn’t caught me. Devon and I reached the drop ladder and clambered on as Harken kicked it free. It shot away with us, stopping five feet from the ground.
Uncanny Page 15
