“Dear Lord, all these people have been diligent about giving the first fruits of their labor to the one true Church of God,” Cotton said, folding his left hand over his paralyzed right. “We ask now that we reap the rewards of what we have sown. We will prove the powerlessness of this curse over the town and the people of Grunwald. We will bring Emma Lee home with prayer. Now, let us bear witness to the power of God. Pray with me.” He bowed his head and closed his eyes. “Merciful God, bring the girl home. Merciful God, bring the girl home.”
Are you serious? I couldn’t believe this was happening.
To my left and right, I heard others picking up Cotton’s chant. Soon everyone in the circle was saying it, clutching their flashlights, bowing their heads and repeating the phrase.
We really weren’t going in there. We were going to wait here and pray until Emma Lee came to us.
I broke out of the circle and stomped up to Cotton. “Hey.”
He opened his eyes and looked at me. “Yes, ma’am. Keep praying, everyone.”
“We need to be looking for her.”
Cotton smiled. “You believe in your own power over that of the Lord?”
I felt my temples starting to pound. I bit back the first words that came to mind, glancing at the circle of people around me. It would be better to play his game.
“No,” I said, “but He helps those who help themselves. We should be doing something.”
He rocked back on his heels and gave me half a smile. “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, but it absolutely does.”
I sighed. “Kelly Clegg.”
“Just watch, Kelly, and witness the power of the Lord.”
I rolled my eyes and walked off, sliding out of the circle. Hauling myself up the slope, I passed Sammie’s overturned car, where the young policeman was alternately taking photos and writing on a notepad. I reached the road and crossed over to my car.
They’re not going to help, I fumed. I’m on my own.
I jerked open my trunk and shoved aside some clothes and other assorted crap. My hands felt rough plastic. I took hold and pulled. I looked at the hard lunchbox-shaped container. In black permanent marker, my husband’s awkward block letters proclaimed “S.H.T.F.”
Garrett’s paranoia and obsession with disaster preparedness had an upside. I opened the case and took out a high-power flashlight, a first-aid kit, a bottle of water, and a pocket knife. Last, I got into the cab and retrieved my phone from the center console. Feeling suitably prepared, I walked up to the cop investigating Sammie’s car.
He glanced at me. “Hey, Kelly.”
“Hi, Joe.”
He shined his light over the cab and the backseat. “Huh.”
I came closer. “Huh, what?”
“Well, look at this.” He motioned me over and pointed into the backseat. “See anything unusual back there?”
I shined my own light around. “Not sure what you’re looking at.”
“Check the baby seat.”
When I looked more closely, I felt a chill. “That is weird. How could that happen in an accident?”
Joe frowned. “I don’t think it could.”
The shoulder straps in Emma Lee’s child seat had not torn; they had been neatly sliced as if with a knife.
Chapter 9
I tried Garrett’s cell twice with no answer. Not that I thought he could do anything—he’d ridden his motorcycle out onto the interstate six hours ago, headed for Louisiana. For some reason, I just wanted to hear him tell me I was doing the right thing.
I was grateful for the protection of my denim jacket as I crashed through knee-high grass and low branches. As my annoyance at Pastor Cotton faded into memory, I also started to wonder if I’d be able to find my way back to the road once I found Emma Lee.
If you find her. Face it, Kelly, you made another decision in anger.
I shook off the thought and broke a dead branch with my forearm. None of that mattered. The important thing was finding Emma Lee. Even being lost together would be better than letting her spend a night here alone.
My determination and my self-doubt played on a see-saw with one another as I made my way downhill. I tried to encourage the one and shut the other out. Half of me couldn’t believe I had just charged out here into the woods on my own.
What else would I do, leave her out here without doing everything I possibly can? The hell I would.
Joe’s words played again and again in my head. He couldn’t say anything officially, but we both knew he suspected someone had cut the restraints and taken Emma Lee.
All the more reason not to wait for everyone to get moving.
This was crazy. I was crazy. What, exactly, was I going to do if I found Emma Lee and encountered whoever had abducted her?
Then he’d be sorry he met me.
Uh-huh. Sure.
“Emma Lee!” I called out, pulling free from my own thoughts. “Emma Lee Hagen! Come out, come out! It’s Auntie Kelly! Your mommy misses you very much!” I swept my flashlight from side to side, keeping the beam low. I could barely see ahead of me.
I can’t believe all those people would rather sit around and pray than roll up their sleeves and get to work.
Could I really blame them? I hadn’t grown up listening to the myths the way these folks had. Maybe they really needed what Cotton was offering right now. But in the midst of this situation, I couldn’t believe I had defended Grunwald’s folklore to my parents so many times. It all seemed so stupid now. So much less important than this little girl.
Stop thinking about it now. You’re doing what needs to be—
The trees stopped. I had run into a clearing. I came to a halt and explored my surroundings with my flashlight before taking another step. It was flat but swampy-looking, with muddy pits and occasional bursts of reedy grass. My beam caught the trunks of trees at the perimeter of this open space. The clearing was probably about the size of a baseball diamond.
When I moved my flashlight to the right, I jumped. Something with spindly arms and curved claws was reaching for me. I lost my balance and fell on my bottom, just barely keeping my grip on my flashlight.
The thing didn’t come for me. After a moment, I realized it was a tree. But it was the ugliest tree I’d ever seen. It looked like a cedar that had fallen on its side, until I realized it had grown that way. Its trunk bent sharply, almost ninety degrees, so the branches were growing sideways.
Against the tree trunk was a chunk of stone that had been roughly chiseled into a rectangular block. Two branches, the ones I had mistaken for attacking claws, reached down to frame the sides of the stone block. It looked as if the jaws of some ravenous beast hung above the block, waiting to snap up anyone who took a seat there.
“The twisted tree,” I whispered to myself as I stood. “From Garrett’s story.”
I was still staring at it when I caught movement along the ground. I took a step back and pointed my light downward.
From between the splayed, crawling roots of the bent cedar, something was coming out of the dirt and spreading all around the trunk. It looked like black smoke. A layer of dark, rolling mist approached me, coating the ground. I backpedaled, but it was coming too fast.
It washed past me, reaching halfway up to my knees, obscuring view of my feet. I spun, swinging my flashlight beam around. It was everywhere now, covering the whole clearing, parting around tree trunks, threading through the underbrush.
I was afraid to move. A creeping dread settled into my mind. A hundred worst-case thoughts sprang up. This stuff would freeze my feet to the ground. It would swallow me up. It would rise until it covered my head and suffocated me. I’d pick up a foot to take a step and find it dissolved to bones.
I lifted my leg to check. My jeans and boots were intact. When I put my foot back down, I could feel solid ground under the unnerving smoke.
“OK,” I said out loud. “This stuff won’t hurt me, I guess.”
>
Regardless, I didn’t like the thought of Emma Lee lying around in it. So I forced myself to move on. That dread didn’t let up. I crossed to the other side of the clearing and reentered the trees. Pushing forward through the low branches, I pondered on what I had just seen. So some weird fog had settled in the valley. Big deal. Why was I so scared? Then it hit me.
Since the black mist had rolled in, all the background forest noises I had taken for granted had gone completely silent. The only sounds were the ones I made as I tromped through the brittle fallen branches.
Well, good. That’ll help me hear Emma Lee. Or anyone else moving around here.
I noticed the ground was sloping downward. The black smoke clung to it, never rising above my knees as I descended. Suddenly, the slope bottomed out and I was on flat earth. Again I paused to take stock of my surroundings. To either side of me, the mist was parting around something that didn’t look like tree trunks. Looked like stone. I approached the object to my right.
“The Fangstone,” I whispered, reaching out to touch the jagged wedge of rock that jutted out of the ground and came to a point a few feet above my head. My finger traced the corner of the stone, eroded to a razor edge by the water that flowed through here whenever the Hill Country flooded. “I made it back to the riverbed. That means—”
I turned on the spot and headed back toward the other stone-like object I had seen. I shined my light on it. A concrete slab. My beam followed it up until it joined with a steel support. The bridge.
“Emma Lee! Where are you, baby?” Still no answer. But I heard rustling next to me. I took off in that direction, shining my flashlight ahead, running up the opposite slope that would take me back in the direction of Grunwald. I just barely registered that the black mist stopped at the riverbank.
It didn’t take very long for the uphill sprint to sap my strength. My run became a jog, then a power walk, then I was bent over gasping for breath.
“So it’s you.”
I stood up so fast I felt the blood drain out of my head. Clutching the flashlight in both shaking hands, I checked in a full circle around me and almost fell. I couldn’t tell where the voice had come from.
“Who’s there?” I snapped.
“Behind you. Don’t look, OK? I’d rather not be seen.”
It’s him. I gritted my teeth, looked straight ahead. Keeping the flashlight in my left hand, I slid my right into the pocket of my jeans and palmed the knife.
“What have you done with Emma Lee?” I tried to sound commanding.
“The girl? I didn’t do anything with her. She’s safe. I’ll point you in her direction.”
Something about the voice bothered me. “You sound like a kid.”
“Well, I’m not.”
He sounded close. I readied myself as best I could. Both hands shook so hard I was afraid I’d lose my grip. Somehow, by sheer miracle, I managed to get my thumb under the stud of the knife blade and flip it open.
“Look,” he said, “I’ll tell you which way to go and you can walk straight to the girl. Just be care—”
I spun with all my strength and surged forward. The body of the kidnapper collapsed underneath me, unexpectedly light. He was completely overwhelmed as I pinned him to the ground. I sat astride his chest, raised the knife over my head, and shined my flashlight right in his face.
Just a boy. No more than ten years old.
Chapter 10
I jumped up and back a step, but I kept the beam on the child lying on the ground in front of me. “My God, I thought…”
As the little boy stood, looking completely unperturbed, my shock turned to bewilderment and then anger.
“There could be a criminal out here, you know,” I barked at him. “What are you doing so far from town at night? Do your parents know you’re out here? What’s your name?”
“I didn’t want you to see me.” The boy looked me over. I did the same to him. He looked starved. His bare toes curled into the dirt. His black eyebrows, stark against his pale skin, arched up as he looked at the knife in my hand. “That’s all you brought out here? You’re pretty brave. No wonder you were the one to summon the guardian.”
“Kid, don’t try me. Answer my questions.”
“Well, alright. In order, there are worse than criminals out here, I live here, I have no parents, and I have no name. Satisfied?”
“You… OK, I don’t have time for this. You said you know where Emma Lee is. Tell me how to find her. I’ll deal with you after.”
“That’s fine.” He pointed a thin, ghastly pale arm almost directly uphill from where we stood. “As I was saying, just be careful. The guardian doesn’t know who you are yet. If you just show up and take the girl, she’s going to be angry with you.”
“Thanks.” I cleared my throat, eyeing the knob of his elbow. “Um… after Emma Lee gets home safely, maybe we should find you something to eat. Will you come with me?”
“No.”
“Will you be around here, then?”
“Most likely.”
“Well…” I shook it off. First things first. “OK. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back.”
“Whatever you say.” He sidestepped out of the beam of my light. When I turned it to track him, he was gone.
“Where did…” Once again, I made myself dismiss it. I’d wasted so much time already on indulging other people’s bizarre sideshows. I set off uphill again, this time at a slower pace so I wouldn’t exhaust myself.
All I had to go on was the word of this strange, ghostlike boy. But he sounded so frank, so sincere, that I believed Emma Lee could be found in this direction. The words he had said about a “guardian” did not incline me to put my blade away just yet. Someone was with the girl, and that meant potential trouble.
Before long, I had hauled myself out of the ravine and stood on the flat stretch of woods behind Grunwald. But as I peered at the trees in front of me, I could see something was wrong. I should have been able to see the lights of town from here. But I couldn’t see anything at all. It was as if the trees and briars had grown together, interlocked, forming a barrier I couldn’t push through.
“Just got off course somehow,” I mumbled. “Just got turned around.” I knew that if I walked to my left along the ravine, I would end up back at the bridge. I swung my light in that direction—the underbrush and low branches were impassable that way, too.
“What’s happening?” I screamed to no one. “Am I going crazy?”
Just calm down and look for a way through.
I took a long, deep breath and turned around. I shined my flashlight ahead of me. There. Finally I saw a gap in these uncooperative trees. And beyond that gap I saw a color that didn’t belong out here in the dark forest.
Mint green.
My heart leapt. I knew that dress anywhere.
I ran, powering through the branches and wild grass until I burst into a tiny glade. I couldn’t have fit my car into this clearing. The tall grass here was stomped flat. A moss-covered boulder, taller than me and five times as wide, dominated the opposite end of the open space.
And curled up asleep up against the rock—
“Oh my God. Emma Lee!” I crossed the glen in two steps, threw my flashlight and knife aside, and crouched by her. I reached out to take the girl in my arms, startling her awake. She kicked and scratched at me.
“No! Mommy!”
“It’s Auntie Kelly, baby. We’re going to go see Mommy right now.”
“Auntie Kelly?” She stopped fighting, but still sounded afraid.
“Here, look. I’ll prove it to you.” I reached for the fallen flashlight and shined it at my own face.
She giggled. “I was scared. I thought you were the stinky man.”
“The who?”
“The stinky man. He was just bones.”
I frowned. “… OK, here. We better leave.” I cracked open the water bottle and handed it to her before scooping her up. I did a quick visual sweep of the ground for my knife. After abou
t three seconds without finding it, I gave up and stood to carry her out.
A long, low, sawing sound made me freeze. It sounded like a snore. Was the kidnapper asleep on the other side of the rock? Backing up toward the exit of the clearing, I pointed my flashlight at the boulder.
It moved.
Icy terror nibbled at my fingers and toes as the beam of my flashlight traveled in a slow arc. I took in the details I had missed in my focus on Emma Lee’s bright-colored dress. Her giant shelter didn’t have the texture of stone. It was fur. A grey-brown coat of hair tangled with moss and twigs.
Emma Lee hadn’t slept under a boulder at all. It was a tower of muscle that completely dwarfed me. With another grinding snore, the animal rolled over. A paw appeared, as big as a car tire, with claws as long as my forearm. Then, rising up from the tall grass, I saw the huge head. Sleepy, half-open black eyes, round ears, and sagging lips that exposed curved yellow teeth. I was halfway out of the glade now. One more slow step and we’d be gone.
The girl raised her hand. “Bye!”
The bear’s eyes snapped fully open and the big head swung to face me. For a moment, I was rooted in place, transfixed by the dark eyes. The same weary determination I had noticed at the museum. Then the face twisted, the snout bunching up to reveal more of the teeth.
Then I could run.
In my rush to turn around I nearly dropped Emma Lee. I threw my flashlight to the ground and took hold of her with both arms, gripping her against me as tightly as I could. I ran my hardest through the trees, heedless of the branches scratching and slapping at my face.
Behind us, the grinding roar rose in intensity. The boy had been right. I’d taken Emma Lee, and the bear was mad.
I ran along the riverbank. I didn’t dare run into the ravine. There would be no escape that way. My best chance was to find the road and get Emma Lee back to town. I’d climb over the barricade of trees if I had to.
There. Lights. Thank God. We’ve found it.
But as we drew closer, I saw some of the lights move. They weren’t from windows. They were flashlights. So the people of Grunwald had finally decided to search after all. Had they seen the black mist? The boy? Did they hear the enraged animal chasing me?
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