Other Voices, Other Tombs

by Joe Sullivan

  “We have to get out of here!” Patrick yelled. “Let’s go, hurry up!”

  A flurry of screams spiraled through the night as the small group ran for the cars. A girl named Samantha fell, nearly setting herself on fire as another girl pushed past her. Engines roared to life and car doors ricocheted like a burst of gunfire. No one volunteered to go back for Ava. No one cared about the little goth girl rotting alone in the woods. Ryan scooped Charlotte up in his arms, pressing her to his chest.

  “It’s all right, Lottie,” he whispered, using her nickname. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

  Charlotte smiled wickedly in the shadow of his embrace.

  I’ve got you too, she thought.

  #

  One week later…

  A chilling wind kicked up, rustling Charlotte’s black lace dress. The other students huddled into their suit jackets and stiff collars, but Charlotte let the icy breeze slide around her exposed throat, explore the naked skin of her upper back. Underneath her lace veil, her lips twitched, itching to smile, but she resisted.

  In truth, she was surprised how many students attended Ava Rice’s funeral, but she guessed it was more to do with morbid curiosity than genuine heartbreak. Charlotte stared at the rich mahogany coffin adorned with beautiful white roses. Charlotte’s parents had spared no expense to honor their darling daughter’s best friend.

  One by one, the students said their final goodbyes to the ghost of girl they never paid attention to when she was living and breathing right beside them. The procession ambled past the closed casket as each student placed a white rose atop the floral spray. Charlotte went last.

  With Ryan’s warm hand clutched firmly in her own, Charlotte paused at the foot of the casket and leaned down. “I’m so sorry you had to die,” she whispered. “I’ll live for both of us now.” Charlotte let her flower drop onto the top of the pile. The dark red rose stood out like a slash of blood against the wilting petals, marring the illusion of innocence and purity. “Goodbye, Ava.”

  Caytlyn Brooke is a YA author who loves to explore the darker side of fantasy. Growing up, she always dreamed of finding fairies in the woods or trolls under a bridge. When she didn't discover these creatures, she decided to write about discovering them instead. Armed with a notebook and pen at all times, Caytlyn is constantly crafting stories that border on nightmares that will make you consider sleeping with the light on.

  Both her debut novel, Dark Flowers, and her newest release, Wired, are recipients of the Literary Classics Book Award and the Royal Dragonfly Award. Her work is also the winner of a Children's Moonbeam Award.

  Can We Keep Him?

  C.W. Briar

  You’re a horrible alpkatze child.

  Seven-year-old Penny chewed on the grisly phrase that old Mrs. Gladfelter had shouted at her in the church foyer. She had called Penny “horrible,” which was a mean word that would have gotten Penny in trouble at school. There was also that word alpkatze, which was new to her but sounded terrible. She was not just a “horrible child,” but a “horrible alpkatze child.”

  Worse than what Mrs. Gladfelter said was the reaction it had provoked. The first moment after Penny had jumped out of the bathroom and shouted “Boo” had been funny. Mrs. Gladfelter had lost her grip on her walker and, flailing, slid down the wall. Penny had laughed at that, but then Mrs. Gladfelter had yelled in pain. Adults had rushed her like sharks in a feeding frenzy, only instead of tearing her apart with teeth, they had cradled her head and grabbed her arms. The pastor had yelled for someone to call 911.

  Somehow, in spite of her pain, and in spite of the crowd around her, Mrs. Gladfelter had managed to jab a bulbous fingertip with a yellowed nail at Penny. Her hands were ugly, the skin pulled too thin over bones like a stretched garbage bag trying to hold sticks. Her voice had been on fire with anger. “You’re a horrible alpkatze child!”

  I’m horrible.

  Mom had tried to apologize for Penny, and Dad had scolded her in front of her friends. Their reactions, combined with the anger on Mrs. Gladfelter’s face, had sent Penny running for cover beneath one of the church pews.

  Now they were headed home. Dad was driving, wringing his hands on the steering wheel. He gave a sigh that let Penny know how much she had disappointed him. She glanced at the rearview mirror, met Dad’s tired eyes, then threw her gaze out the car’s side window. The brick and stucco storefronts of downtown Reading, Pennsylvania rolled by.

  “What are we going to do with you?” Dad asked. The question drew fresh tears to Penny’s eyes. “How many times have I warned you that acting wildly like that can get people hurt? Now Mrs. Gladfelter is in the hospital. She could have died, Penny. She might still—it’s not good.”

  More tears wetted the collar of Penny’s shirt. Her frown was so deep that it made her cheeks hurt.

  “Joe, be careful how you talk to her,” Mom said.

  “No, she needs to hear this. It needs to get through to her that actions have consequences. How many times have we gotten calls from her principal this past year? Three? Or how about running off at the park and the two-hour search to find her? Now this?”

  “It was an accident. I’m sure she was trying to scare one of her friends instead, weren’t you, Penny?”

  She didn’t answer. How could she? The truth was that she had meant to scare Mrs. Gladfelter. The old woman always made her uncomfortable, and the idea of startling someone like that had seemed funny at the time. Sure, another part of her had warned that it could end very, very badly—and it had—but the prank had been too tempting. Besides, it felt kind of good to do something besides acting, well, good.

  Penny wished Mrs. Gladfelter hadn’t been hurt, though. If she had been okay, others would have thought the prank was funny. Maybe even Mrs. Gladfelter would have laughed instead of yelling, and she wouldn’t have used those hurtful words.

  Dad’s scolding continued for several minutes, well after they turned at the pizza place and headed toward their house in Kleinsburg. He wasn’t shouting, but his questions piled up on top of her.

  “Don’t you know she has a bad heart?”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “You know you’re grounded, right? No YouTube this week. No going to Sarah’s house.”

  Penny waited him out. She leaned against the car’s door, watching the scroll of peaked roofs and forested hillsides. When Dad finally paused, Penny responded with the question that was bothering her.

  “What’s an all-puh-kotz?” She tried to sound out the word Mrs. Gladfelter had used, but it rolled off her tongue like a flattened kickball.

  “An alpkatze?” Mom asked. “Oh, honey, don’t worry about that. She only said that because she was upset.”

  Penny sniffled. “But what is it? I want to know.”

  “It’s just an expression from an old superstition. It’s a German word. People used to believe there were tiny magical creatures that tricked children into doing bad things. Mrs. Gladfelter was basically saying you were acting like a little … well, like a little devil, but not that kind of Devil. It’s just means you were being mean, but you already knew that. I would worry less about what she said and worry more about what you’re going to write in your apology letter.”

  “What does an alpkatze look like?”

  “Like whatever you want it to look like because they’re imaginary.”

  Penny spent the rest of the ride imagining something as weird as that word.

  #

  The first couple days of being grounded passed easily enough. Penny drew pictures, read books, and searched for Waldo. She had a reason to put together the butterfly puzzle she had received at Christmas. By day three, however, she wished she were back in school instead of on summer vacation. Class work was better than being bored. She began to realize how much she missed watching YouTube videos. Her house and yard, which were the limits of her world for the rest of week, were shrinking by the hour.

  Penny sat at the picnic table in her back yard
, damp and sulking. Her friends’ delighted laughs and squeals carried from somewhere down the street where they were playing with squirt guns. Penny was wearing her swimsuit, and she had her favorite green squirt gun, but the fun of spraying herself had died quickly.

  It was only the third day and already the longest week of her young life.

  Penny lived on a street of split-level and two-story houses, most of which had brick or stone veneer on the first floor and white paneling on the second. The houses on her family’s side of the street, which all bordered the woods, had another thing in common: they had barn stars near their front doors. Sarah’s house had one of the round boards called hex signs. The multi-colored segments may have been pointed like a star, but the overall patterns reminded Penny of pretty flowers. Other houses had black metal star decorations. They were as much a part of the street as mailboxes, house numbers, and sidewalk cracks.

  The only house along the woods that didn’t have a star was theirs. It used to have a metal star, but Dad had removed it when he painted last summer and never replaced it. Penny had asked at school why it had been put there in the first place. Her teacher had said they were an old Pennsylvania Dutch tradition. The stars were supposed to be a mark of protection and good luck.

  “What do they protect us from?” Penny had asked Mom after school.

  “Nothing, darling. It’s just superstition.”

  “But why would Dad take our star down? What’s wrong with good luck?”

  “Nothing, but an updated exterior is worth more in resale value than good luck. Don’t worry about it, baby.”

  “Everyone else still has their stars,” Penny had grumbled.

  She loved her neighborhood. Six kids from her elementary school lived on her street, and they liked to play hide-and-seek and Nintendo with one another. The previous night, five of those kids had gathered in Sarah’s yard to cook s’mores and catch fireflies. Penny was the only one who had missed out, and after watching them from her bedroom window, she had cried herself to sleep. Her grounding was ruining her whole summer.

  Penny, sitting alone in her wet swimsuit, was ready to cry again when something interrupted her moping with a strange coo. She twisted around on the picnic table bench. It had sounded like a cat’s meow or an owl’s hoot, but different. She stared into the trees that lined the rear boundary of their yard, trying to figure out what she had heard.

  The noise sounded again from somewhere close.

  “Mommy?” Her mom would know what that noise was. “Mommy?”

  But Mom didn’t come outside from the house when called. That was because Penny was whispering. She didn’t know why, but the noise from the woods felt like a secret she was supposed to keep. It didn’t scare her. Actually, it sounded cute. It was the kind of noise her stuffed animals might make if they were alive.

  She was supposed to go find what made the noise on her own. Penny was certain of that, even if she couldn’t explain her own certainty. She would find it, and then she would show her parents her amazing discovery. They would be so proud that they would forget what she had done to Mrs. Gladfelter.

  The mysterious animal cooed again, picking Penny up from the bench. She was heading toward the back corner of the yard, near the place where the old, leaning shed sat beneath the trees. Mom didn’t like the shed. She said that if a storm didn’t knock it over soon, she would. Dad liked it, though, even if the roof was rotted and had a wig of moss. He kept the riding mower and some of his tools in there.

  The shed had a barn star just like the houses on the street, but this one had been painted directly onto the wood above the open door. The paint had faded to pale stains, and the middle of the star had gone missing when a board fell off, but she could still tell what used to be there. Penny wasn’t sure how lucky it could be if it was missing its middle, or why an old shed needed luck anyway.

  She ducked under the branch of their red maple tree and crept into the forest. It was never fully day inside the woods except for the freckles of sunlight that got through. The rest of the forest floor was more like evening on a cloudy day. Penny could see, but the dimmed colors and countless shapes created a million hiding spots for animals. There were so many bushes and tree branches, each with so many leaves. She had spent enough time in the woods with Dad to know that it was easy to hear a chipmunk running around but almost impossible to spot them if they held still. Making her search even more difficult was the fact that she wasn’t sure what she was looking for.

  Her conscience warned her that she shouldn’t be there, but that voice was quiet and easy to ignore. Mom and Dad did not like her exploring the woods on her own, but she did not like being grounded, which made breaking the rules seem fair.

  Another coo, closer and higher up. It sounded so cute. Penny imagined something with long, soft fur, a wiggling tale, and eyes as big as cereal bowls. The cry had come from somewhere in the canopy, so maybe it was similar to a squirrel. Or maybe it was like a beautiful parrot with rainbow feathers. Whatever it was, she had to be the first to find it and help it. After she helped it, she could pet it.

  Why did she think it needed her help?

  Penny shook worry prickles off the back of her neck. Of course, the animal needed help. Why else would it sound so desperate? Why else would its cries feel almost like it was trying to say her name? The coos might as well have been “Penny? Penny?”

  A good girl would come when she’s called. Hadn’t Mom and Dad taught her that?

  The animal made another noise, this time shorter. Sharper. Piercing. It came from above Penny. Behind her. She spun and looked up so quickly that she nearly fell. Twigs cracked underfoot like snapped wishbones. The maple leaf canopy formed a high, fluttering tent.

  Penny dragged her eyes along the branches, searching for the source of that noise. The latest sound had been like a cat’s meow. It reminded her of the kitten her class had found in a tree at recess. Her gym teacher had retrieved it to much applause from the kids. If this was another trapped kitten, she would have to go get help for it.

  There won’t be time to get help. You have to be the one to help, Penny. Dad says you’re a good climber, so you can get it yourself and keep it a secret …

  A shape—and that was all it was, a shape—slid along one of the upper branches and hid behind the tree trunk. Penny giggled. How adorable, she thought, even though she couldn’t describe it if she tried.

  She jogged to a spot where she could get a better view, a loose carpet of dead leaves crunching underfoot. Penny formed her lips into a tight circle, trying to feel out a way to emulate the critter’s noise. She attempted to coo, but because of her missing tooth, it came out as a whistling oooo.

  Something small leaned out and peered down at Penny. She thought she saw a hat-shaped head atop a formless body, but that was wrong. Penny squeezed her eyes shut, shook her head, and looked again. It had been an optical illusion, that was all. This time she saw pointed kitty ears, a small kitty nose, round kitty paws, and eyes as orange and warm as a sunset in July.

  She had never seen something so cute.

  “Awww.”

  The cat curled down to a lower branch, landing on all fours. Waves of red and black added some color to its mostly stone-gray fur. The cat stared at Penny with a coppery intensity for a long while, then shut its eyes and gave a great yawn. For a moment, Penny had the thought that the cat’s jaw was too loose, and that its mouth was opening in directions that it shouldn’t, exposing a surprising number of needle teeth. Then she shook her head and got rid of those weird thoughts. The cat was so cute, and she didn’t have any reason for the nervous feelings crawling like spiders down her spine.

  Those coppery eyes were like jewels. The cat didn’t blink at all as it slithered down to one branch and then another. It got closer to Penny and reached a paw toward her. Penny raised her hand toward the cat, eager to stroke its back, even if it did smell like it had rolled in something that died. That was okay. She could give it a bath later.

 
They were incredibly close. The cat was so excited that its mouth opened in two directions.

  “Penny? Penny, where are you?”

  Mom’s voice interrupted them, causing the cat to bound up the branches and hide from sight. A rush of anger filled Penny. How could Mom do this to her? She had scared away the greatest thing ever.

  “Penny?”

  “I’m here.” Penny searched the tree, but she no longer saw or heard her pet. More importantly, she now felt its absence and knew it was truly gone. Her chance to catch it had passed. Saddened, she jogged out of the woods and was met by her mother at the boundary between the trees and the yard.

  “Thank heavens, there you are. Why were you out here?”

  “I thought I saw something.” Something. That was a safer answer. She could not mention the cat. She knew this in the same way she knew her parents would ask her what had happened if they caught her crying. She knew it in the same way she knew Dad slipped quarters under her pillow when she lost a tooth. She understood her parents would hate the cat even if she didn’t understand how she knew it.

  It had to be a secret.

  “‘Saw something?’” Mom asked. “That’s all the more reason to stay out of there. What have we told you before?”

  Penny sighed. “‘Don’t go into the woods without an adult.’”

  “That’s right.”

  Mom knelt, opening her arms. Penny ran the last few steps to her, ready to fall into her chest, ready to squeeze her and receive kisses. However, in the final moment, when only an inch separated them, Penny’s excitement to hold her mom was doused by cold, overwhelming distrust. Mom had been the one who scared the cat away. Mom had been the one who wouldn’t let her explore the woods. Mom was the one big enough to hurt her, to squeeze her until she couldn’t breathe...

  Penny thought of shoving her mom, of kicking her when she hit the ground, of hurting her before she could do the same to her. She bristled against Mom’s hug, then softened, and finally hugged her back.