She did, however, feel the breeze on her neck, felt the hairs that had pulled free from her barrette tickling her cheeks, and smelled the floral scent of the tulips along with the pungent odor of manure that her momma had just spread around the raised vegetable garden that sat just behind Zoe.
It was a smell she couldn’t get used to, realized very young that she wasn’t cut out to be a farm girl, no matter what her momma hoped. She could garden, but she wanted to garden without the stink of the manure and wondered about how to do that. Or maybe she wouldn’t garden at all and become a woman who purchased flowers down in town because of the fine hand her husband had at crafting furniture, not that many young men did that any more. So many of the handcrafted items were no longer selling.
Maybe she’d marry a banker instead, Dixie thought.
“Lorne will find something,” Emrys assured her. Not, of course, that she and Lorne were going out quite like that. They’d dated a few times. Dixie had even kissed him but wasn’t sure she liked the way his kisses made her feel. Dwight Rogers had beat Lorne to asking her to the Winter Formal and he’d kissed her, even rubbed his large hands against her breasts—outside of her dress, of course—while pressing himself against her, making her feel all kinds of sexy, and she’d liked that much better.
“Dwight’s an idiot,” Emrys said, picking up her thoughts. “And not for you. He’ll leave Corbin Meadow when he graduates and go to Boone to college and study business where he’ll think he knows more than he does. He’ll come home someday, broken and tired and wishing he’d never left.”
It sounded like a curse.
“Why can’t I be head cheerleader?” Dixie demanded again, pushing the boys from her thoughts.
“I can’t influence that many people. I can influence things, sometimes make things appear. If you wanted a big tree in your yard, that I can do. People are harder,” Emrys explained. “If you really wanted Dwight, I could probably make sure he was yours but only so long as he stayed in Corbin Meadow, which is where you have to stay.”
“Why?” Dixie was pouting. She still wanted to run away to California where she could sit in the sunshine on the beach there. She had the figure for being an actress, after all. If Emrys couldn’t really help her with power and taking care of the town, maybe she should leave.
“Because you’re the only one who can stop the others, hold them back,” Emrys said, a sort of sigh as if he were getting tired of giving the same explanation over and over again. Not that Dixie cared what he wanted. She was feeling peevish about not getting her wish to be head cheerleader.
“I didn’t say you wouldn’t be,” Emrys said. “Just that I can’t make it happen. Maybe you’ll be good enough.”
“It’s not about good,” Dixie explained. “It’s about popularity. And I’m not nearly as popular as Dana Boyd.”
Emrys said nothing. Dixie knew there wasn’t anything to say. Dana had the long hair that curled just so like the women on television, and her long, slender legs made the heads of every male in town turn to take a better look when she walked around in shorts that showed off the entire length, practically showing off her butt as well. Dana was not someone Dixie could compete with, not and still live in the house with her parents because her momma would have had a fit if she wore shorts that short.
“You say I’m supposed to make sure you stay safe here,” Dixie said, “and that it’s important, but you have to put me in a position to influence the town so I can make sure to keep you safe.”
“You don’t have to have influence, exactly,” Emrys said. “You just need to be here. You need to be able to say, ‘Emrys, hold the line,’ and I can do that. Or ‘Emrys, keep me safe.’”
“If I’m keeping you safe, then what do you keep me safe from?” Dixie asked.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, lovely Dixie, than you have dreamed of,” Emrys said, giving a poor nod to Shakespeare. He always told Dixie he didn’t read minds but then he went off and said things like that. Sometimes she was certain he was hiding things from her.
“I haven’t had to say that, so where are they, these others?” Dixie asked.
“Your mother insisted I keep you safe. She made the pact long ago, when she was still a girl not much older than you,” Emrys said. “Her sister and brother each wished for safety for themselves and any of their children. Though all of them have long since abandoned me. Your momma is the only one who comes close to speaking to me still.”
“Why is that?” Dixie asked.
“The world intrudes,” Emrys said. “It’s harder to understand the natural world today because there is so much other stuff. You have those televisions and the radio and cars which are so noisy, and how can I compete with those noises? Your aunt and uncle left for green pastures down in the city instead of listening to the natural world, to me. Now they forget. They forget my trees and my people. They forget even me.”
“I don’t want to forget you,” Dixie said. “Make sure I don’t!”
Emrys gave her a grin and a wink. She felt something inside her, like flies spinning around looking for an exit, and then the sensation was gone and she was just Dixie again, but Emrys had a new place with her, a connection that was nearly as strong as she had to her mother and father. She wondered if her demand had been like a wish and he’d granted it.
“You won’t forget me now,” Emrys said.
Dixie shivered in the sudden breeze that came up. She turned a little and her eyes flew open, though she had wanted to ask about the others. The day felt chilly and the sun seemed to have gone behind a cloud, though she didn’t see a single cloud in the sky. Dixie shivered again and thought about this new connection to Emrys. She couldn’t say whether or not it had been a good idea to demand that after all.
Chapter 14
The rain that had been falling so hard was slowing to a patter. The roads were still creeks, better for navigating with toy boats than cars, but that would end soon enough. There was a sense, though, that things had just paused. The clouds that had been gray were blacker than ever and seemed to be even lower, a looming monster waiting to grab the unwary. Other than the falling rain, there was little sound.
Zoe made herself a sandwich, figuring her father was smart enough about the weather to stay at the coffee shop. He’d have plenty of cold food there even if the power was out, and it wasn’t like anyone would kick him out if it did. He and his cronies were such regulars that chances were if they stopped going for their daily meetings, the place would probably have to close or at least negotiate a cheaper rent.
Zoe sprinkled pepper on a tomato that she’d sliced. It was an ordinary one, too late to be local, but it was a tomato. Whenever she came home she missed the wide variety of fresh vegetables that she could get in Portland, all year, anytime. She sneezed when the pungent pepper reached her. Wiping it, she left a trace of spicy brown mustard across her nose. More pungent smells nearly made her eyes water as she hunted for a napkin to wipe away her small mess.
Finally, the deli turkey was added to the bread and she had something to eat. Zoe was about to pick up her plate and eat on the sofa when she heard the squeal of brakes outside. The high sound that reminded her of a woman screaming for her life negated all other sounds as Zoe rushed to the front of the house. Nothing.
She didn’t even see the tail end of the car that had made the sound. The neighborhood was quiet.
Which made her question whether the sound she heard really was the sound of brakes. She heard a tap on the sliding door. Turning, Zoe hurried back into the back of the house, not surprised when she saw nothing.
Now she worried the sound wasn’t squealing breaks but a dying cat or dog out in the rain. Sandwich forgotten, Zoe opened the door, thinking perhaps the animal had crawled to the backyard, where it might feel less exposed.
“You’re too soft,” Tyler had told her many times. She remembered the time she wanted a rabbit, a silvery white bunny with black splotches that she’d seen on an animal rescue sit
e. She’d read up on rabbits for days before approaching Tyler, who would have none of it.
“But they’re sweet,” Zoe had said. She hadn’t added that they could be difficult to care for and that finding a vet was sometimes hard or any of the other reasons a person might not want to take in a rabbit.
“They stink,” Tyler had snapped.
And that was the end of the conversation. It was probably the beginning of the end of their marriage—not, of course, that a rabbit as a pet was the most important thing in Zoe’s life. Rather it was a sign, a final hammering in of the nails on the signs that said Tyler doesn’t care about anything but Tyler.
Here she was standing on the covered patio, hearing the rain patter across the aluminum cover, listening for another squeal so she could run across the wet grass in light canvas tennis shoes that would be soaked in ten seconds, probably setting herself up for a cold when she’d just found a purpose. Nothing moved but the rain against the leaves of the trees and the bushes. No dying animals.
Zoe sighed. She had a dark feeling that went beyond what she thought she would feel if there was merely an animal dying nearby. She hugged herself.
“Run!” a voice hissed in her ear. It was so real that Zoe thought she felt the warm movement of air as someone nearly touched her ear with the words.
Zoe backed up into the house, locked the door and hurried towards the front of the house. No one was there. She walked first through the kitchen, seeing no one, and then into the dining room, the walls covered in pine paneling that had been outdated when they purchased the house before Zoe’s birth. The hardwood had weathered well, though. The handcrafted bleached wood dining room set didn’t match the room, and it was something her momma had always wanted to change—the room, not the dining set, though that, too, was looking dated.
Zoe’s feet didn’t make a sound on the wood floors as she glided across them, barely raising her heels as she moved to the door that led to the garage. The old golden knob gleamed in the dim light, the paneling swallowing every ray that made its way through the small window that faced the front. It hadn’t been turned. There were no wet prints on the floor and there should have been if a stranger had been in the house.
Zoe turned the knob anyway and looked out. Her father’s car was gone, the garage not empty, of course, filled with the assorted boxes and paraphernalia that came from a lifetime of inhabiting the same place. One wall was lined with garden tools, each in their places, old and worn and a bit forlorn given that Ed hired someone to take care of the yard now. Another was lined with a workbench that held the tools of the trade for working on cars. Two brands of oil sat side by side, a testament to her father’s lack of loyalty to any particular maker.
No stranger waited in a corner or under the workbench—which was open to her line of sight—ready to pounce as soon as she came out. Zoe slipped back into the dining room and closed the door. She crossed back through the dining room and kitchen and made the same trip through the bedrooms and two bathrooms that waited in the back of the house.
No one hid under either of the beds or in any of the closets. No knife wielding psycho waited in the bathtub when she pulled back the shower curtain. Still, with every step in her search Zoe became more certain that she wasn’t quite alone.
But there was no one there.
She went back to the front room, debating calling the police, having a second pair of eyes look through the house. She went to grab her sandwich from the plate, which sat on the low coffee table where she’d left it, but there was no sandwich. It was gone.
Zoe’s hands reached her mouth even as she heard the faint wails of someone trying to scream but not quite able to force air out of their lungs. It wasn’t a dying squeal of brakes so much as it was a high pitched air leak in a balloon. Her mind blank, she was frozen, her eyes searching the room for her phone, which she didn’t see anywhere either.
Chapter 15
Taran was at the coffee shop when he got the call. He’d heard Matti’s voice over the radio and stood up, walking over to the door where he could listen in private, and was glad he had when he heard the address. Even with the static that seemed part and parcel of the radio, Ed would have recognized his own address and probably gone running off to the house, possibly injuring himself—or worse, someone else—on the way.
Taran waved at the men, put his notebook back in its plastic bag and hurried out into the rain, the close humid warmth closing over him like hot, wet blanket. Around him air conditioners played a soft hum for background against the drumbeat of the rain. Now and then a gust of wind would hit making the glass front windows shake. Fortunately the worst of the wind had stayed well east of them, and Taran didn’t have to worry about power outages—or at least not major outages. No doubt the homes up the hills would be without power but those folks were used to it. The houses now being built up there all had generator plugins so that no one who purchased a newer home would ever be uncomfortable, even for a few hours.
Once in the car the damp smell of hot water dissipated and he was treated to his own scent of spices and old coffee, which, at least, wasn’t an unpleasant one. Taran backed the car out and made a quick U-turn in the nearly vacant street, heading back to the Hyer home. If Ed and his friends were perplexed by his actions, none of them had moved to intercept him or call out questions.
Taran made better time going back to the house than he had going into town. The windshield wipers kept up with the rain so he wasn’t navigating under a waterfall, and the streets, which, while running wet with overflowing water, weren’t threatening to swamp the car, although there were a couple of places of standing water that could be problematic. Another thing to call in and have someone place signs around.
Taran reached Zoe’s home, which looked as it had earlier. The long ranch style house with a red brick front, a color that reminded him of gumdrops, and caramel-colored trim and shutters always made him think of a candy house. It was, no doubt, his imagination, and a poor image at that, considering he’d never heard of gumdrops coming in rectangles like the bricks did. The front seemed undisturbed as he walked up to the house.
Taran rang the bell and waited. He didn’t hear footsteps immediately. No one opened the door. He opened the screen door to knock, listening to the low screech as it opened, waiting for Zoe to come to the door. Nothing.
He was about to knock again, perhaps pound his way into the house, not wanting to have to tell Ed that his daughter had been harmed while he sat chatting with a bunch of old geezers at the coffee shop, when the door opened and Zoe stood there.
“I couldn’t see who it was from the front window,” she said quietly. She was wearing soft rubber-soled canvas sneakers that were so thin and light it was no wonder he could barely hear her move.
“I heard you thought you had an intruder,” Taran said.
This time there was no dance at the front door. Zoe let him in immediately, her light perfume now mixed with the stale stink that he associated with fear.
“This will sound stupid,” Zoe said, walking through the living room to the family room area.
Taran waited. He followed her gaze to the counter that divided the kitchen from the family room, where there was a plate, empty but for a few crumbs of bread. She had apparently been eating lunch when she’d been startled, or spooked, which seemed a better word given the way she was acting. Her shoulders had worked their way higher and her body language was less confrontational and more closed off.
“I heard something out front but I didn’t see anything when I went to look. Then, I thought I heard someone tap on the sliding glass door, but there was nothing there. I thought maybe the sound in front had been an injured animal so I stepped out onto the patio, but there was nothing. I was thinking of going across the lawn when someone whispered to me that I should run,” Zoe said. Her sentences were clear and concise, as if she were reciting just the facts for a judge and jury. He’d hate to have her witnessing against him if he were a criminal.
�
��I turned but no one was behind me so I came in and locked the door. I looked around the house but didn’t find anyone. But I still felt as if I weren’t alone here. I was going to eat lunch while I considered whether to call the station, which is when I realized my sandwich was missing. I had just finished making it and it was gone,” Zoe said. “I think I screamed or something and I don’t know for how long, but no one came out and attacked me. The doors were all still locked.”
That last was important. Taran nodded at her and started looking through the house. He went first down to the bedrooms, checking each one thoroughly, calling out that it was the Corbin Meadow police coming through. No voices answered him. The house remained silent but for the air conditioner that clicked and began to hum and groan when he entered the first bedroom which had been made over into an office.
The bathroom, done in cream and green with ruffles on the fancy outer shower curtain that were starting to fray, was a bit too girlish for him, which made him wonder how much Ed paid attention to the guest bath. The faucet dripped once as if in protest of his invasion. The shower curtain behind the cream frayed ruffles had been pulled back, probably during Zoe’s hunt. Nothing.
Looking through the rest of the rooms, including a master bathroom that was far more to his liking in blue and white with no frills, nothing appeared out of place. Taran went back through the kitchen and into the dining room. He looked in the garage, going out to the middle of the room, looking for any place that could hide someone but he saw no one.
Nor did he smell anything but the normal smells he had begun to associate with the Hyer house from his morning meeting. Coffee, eggs, traces of garlic and lemon, all-over lemon like someone had come in and cleaned with lemons like his momma used to clean when he was a child. She’d long since stopped doing that, and their house had always had the vague scent of wet dog, probably because their Golden Retriever loved to get wet and never seemed to quite dry out.
Souls Lost (Appalachian Souls Book 1) Page 6
