World Tree Girl

by Kerry Schafer

  “To stop this paranormal from killing again. I need to know the identity of the girl who was killed.”

  “Why?”

  This I do not answer. There are too many shadings to the truth.

  “My grandmother was a dreamer,” he says, into the vast silence that wells up around us. “She held to the old ways she learned from her mother before her. Before she died, she called me to her house to tell me a dream. It was important, she said. A dream of what will be, affecting not just me but many others.”

  His voice takes on a different cadence.

  “‘Sit and listen. In my dream, you are responsible for a hen house,’ she said. I laughed. I was young and stupid. ‘You have a great dream about me and it’s that I own chickens? How much peyote have you been eating?’ But she does not laugh, or even smile. Her dark eyes glitter and even my idiot teenage self feels her power.

  “‘I did not say you owned these chickens. I said you were responsible for them. There is a deep difference in this, my son, and one you must understand. In the dream, you go inside this hen house to gather the eggs, as you do every day. Only on this day, all of the chickens are dead. They lie on their backs with their feet up in the air, stiff, stark. Not a mark is on them. There is no blood. No feathers are scattered as when a hen runs away in fear. A red fox sits at the center, watching you. She is not afraid, as a fox can be. She does not offer to harm you, but neither does she run from you. Be wary. Know her when she comes. Danger comes with her.’

  “That was the dream. My grandmother died later that day. I grieved for her, but still I scoffed at this dream. The twistings of a sick woman’s mind. Delirium. Chickens and foxes. All foolishness, until I began dreaming the dream myself. Always the same. You are the red fox, Maureen Keslyn. And what I brought you here to know is this: Does the danger follow you, or are you the danger? And now I will ask you again. What are you doing here? What is your mission?”

  I want to joke and deflect. To tell him I’m more of a silver fox by now than a red one. But he has shared with me a true dreaming, and there is no answer to that besides the full truth of me. And that truth is not a thing I know myself.

  “Did you know that another girl has gone missing? Sophronia. Lysander’s daughter.”

  Mac sighs, deeply, and the air softens around me. “I know. My sister died at sixteen. I was older, felt I should have protected her somehow. She was so young. At the beginning of everything. Sophronia is the reason I brought you here, but how can I tell you what little I know until I know if I can trust you?”

  And to this, I have to answer, willing or not.

  “I have guilt in this,” I tell him. “It was a sin of silence when I should have spoken, a long time ago. If I had done things differently, maybe the girl would still be alive. Or not. Chances are good that if I’d spoken up, I would have died then to no purpose. But I need to right what I can. I need to stop the killing. That’s my goal. My mission, as you put it.”

  Mac inclines his head once, accepting my words. “My silence was not bought,” he says. “I gave it freely. I judged her death to be from forces outside human. What court of justice is there for this? Should more people die? Should there be stories in the news, and reporters profaning this secret place? I thought of burying her in the woods, not saying a word to anybody. But I couldn’t do that. Her family would be grieving her disappearance, wondering what happened to her.

  “So I sent her to Spokane for an autopsy and said I found her in the park. She had no ID on her, so I couldn’t notify next of kin. Before I had a chance to do an identity search, two agents showed up. They flashed FBI badges, told me this was a matter of national security and my silence was key. They asked for all of my notes on this girl. They sat at my computer and cleaned out all related files. What they said made sense to me, and they promised that they had means to track the killer. Why should we not leave this investigation to them?”

  “Because they aren’t investigating. They want to cover it up. And maybe they want to track the killer, but I doubt they’ll destroy her.”

  “You think.”

  “I know.”

  “They seemed sincere enough,” he says.

  “The two who came to see you may have been in good faith. But they won’t know what is being planned up the chain. Did you examine the girl’s body? See a copy of the autopsy report?”

  “I saw that she was pale beyond reason. No lividity. Not a mark on her that was a clear cause of death. And then I sent her to Spokane and that was the end.”

  “They are dangerous, these agents. If they know you’ve talked to me, it could mean your death.”

  “My hen house,” he says, with a sudden grin. “Speak the truth.”

  And so I tell him my suspicions about why Dason was killed. And I tell him about the secret government lab where paranormal testing of all kinds took place. About the paranormal-human genetic experiments conducted at the Manor when it was the Home for Unwed Mothers.

  “They implanted genetic paranormal material into the babies while still in the womb. The resulting babies that survived were transported to the Paranormal Project Lab. It was supposedly decommissioned, but I don’t think it happened. One of the most dangerous creatures they created was a thing named the Medusa. She was invisible, and she killed by absorbing blood from a living body and replacing it with jelly. It’s a horrible death.”

  I shudder, remembering the feeling of that cold jelly filling my veins, my laboring heart trying to pump that sludge, the agony of trying to breathe. At the last minute the creature backed away. I don’t know why, my best guess being she was repelled by the fragments of a silver bullet that remain embedded in my flesh.

  “You okay?” Mac asks.

  “Fine. The Medusa found her way here, to the Manor. Who knows why? Visiting her birth place? Dr. Sorenson, the woman responsible, followed her or accompanied her. She died at the Manor.”

  “Who died? This Dr. Sorenson, or the creature?”

  “The doctor. We thought we’d killed the Medusa. But the manner in which this girl died makes me question if the thing was truly dead. I will tell you this—if there are more of these creatures than one out there, so help us God.”

  “What’s a runaway kid doing way up here, anyway? How did she get here?” Mac asks. “Not many know this place—none who would be complicit in murdering a girl. Sacrifices haven’t happened here since well before my time, and even then, they were never human.” He steps forward, opening the gap, and immediately I feel the pressure ease as the circle is broken.

  The Medusa is an opportunistic killer. She doesn’t speak. Or at least she didn’t. A chill runs up my spine as I remember the change in her after she absorbed Alice’s body. She’d been more corporeal, had held a human shape. And in the end, she did have a voice, albeit a wordless one.

  I shiver at where my thoughts are taking me, but it’s not the Medusa I’m thinking about when I ask, “You have a gun, Mac?”

  “I’m more of a knife man.”

  “Get a gun. Keep your eyes open. Don’t trust anybody. Whatever happened here, the people who want to keep it quiet are deadly.”

  “Your truth is a gift,” he says, “even if not freely given.”

  “It may be your death.”

  “In which case, it will be a good day to die.” His lips pull back from his teeth in a smile that makes me hope he considers himself my friend and not my enemy. “How is Sophronia tied into this? Do you think that monster took her, too?”

  I can’t tell him what I really think. “I don’t suppose you know somebody named Ravenna?”

  His eyes narrow. “What’s that old bird got to do with any of this?”

  Hope flares up inside me. “You know her then?”

  “I thought she’d be dead by now.” He touches the tattoo of the bird on his jawline.

  “She’s a tattoo artist then?”

  “Was, I’d think. She was old when I was sixteen and she did my raven. For free, she said. Sixteen is too st
upid to know that nothing ever comes free.”

  “I don’t suppose you know where to find her?”

  He shakes his head. “A retirement home? If she’s still alive, that is.”

  “Oh, she’s alive, all right. Sent a message to Sophronia just before she disappeared.”

  His jaw tightens, an action that makes the raven flex its wings. “God. That dead girl. A tattoo job like that is precisely the sort of thing Ravenna would do.”

  “Anything you can tell me might help.”

  “For starters, her real name is Marietta Marcelina Livingston. She goes by Ravenna when she’s telling fortunes or doing tattoos. Last I heard of her, she was in Seattle. But it has been twenty years at least.”

  “I’ll find her.”

  “If she’s done anything to harm the girls—either of them…”

  The threat hangs in the air, unspoken and lethal. I shiver a little with something other than cold, grateful that Mac is on the same side as I am in this, and hoping that this never changes.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jake is waiting in my suite, sitting at the table with Dason’s laptop open in front of him. He has my note in his hand.

  “I see you survived. Care to tell me why you think the coroner would want to do away with you?”

  “Everybody wants to do away with me. I have that effect on people.” I keep my tone light, but I leave the door open and don’t move into the room. I’m regretting my decision to trust him with a set of keys. “Look, Jake, I’m tired and cold. I need to—”

  “Freshen up? Rest? Powder your nose? Bullshit, Maureen. I know you better than that. You are keeping something from me.”

  I don’t answer, just stay where I am, facing him, calculating places I can drop for shelter if needed.

  “Never figured you for playing games,” he says, and there’s a roughness in his voice I haven’t heard before, underscored by something that sounds a lot like disappointment.

  “Never figured you for a liar.”

  He doesn’t even blink. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Mac took me to the scene of the crime.”

  “And which crime would that be? Are you coming in, or are you going to stand out in the hall all day?”

  His gray eyes take on an expression that bodes ill for somebody, but he doesn’t move, and his face remains impassive.

  “I’m digesting the implications of the fact that our World Tree Girl was found in Shadow Valley County.”

  He gives me his shark look for a long minute and then walks away to the balcony and stands looking out. “Can I smoke?”

  “Do you have cigarettes?”

  “I told you I quit.”

  “You had some last night.”

  “I quit again.”

  I know he’s buying time to think, but I could use a little time myself. “They’re in the desk drawer. Help yourself.”

  He lights up and steps out onto the balcony. Cold, clean air flows into the room. I shiver, but it’s a good shiver. My blood is waking up, brain and heart clearing. I follow him, leaving the door open behind me.

  Jake leans both elbows on the railing, holding his cigarette between two fingers, not even glancing at me. I’m fine with that. I don’t want the distraction of his face. The warm heft of him beside me is bad enough.

  “If I tell you I knew nothing about the body,” he says, after a long interval, “you’re not going to believe me.”

  “Is it the truth?”

  “Swear to God. Just trying to figure out how that got past me. Or which of my deputies might have been corrupted.”

  I fill my lungs with smoke and then let it trickle out between my lips. As always, the thought that I should quit is followed immediately by the knowledge that somebody’s going to kill me before I have a chance to die of cancer or lung disease.

  I want, more than I’ve wanted anything in a long time, to believe Jake is telling me the truth. Trust feels good, but it’s a hard-won commodity, and all of the people I managed to find it with are dead.

  “You never considered the possibility that I didn’t know,” Jake says after an uncomfortable silence. “Jumped right into the belief that I sat there and lied to all three of you. Not about some little detail, but about the actual crime scene of a murdered kid.”

  “Don’t throw this back on me. You’re the sheriff, and you’re not some fat, lazy slob who lets his people do all the work while he hangs out in a bar. You want me to believe that you really didn’t know that a murder occurred in your territory? Come on, Jake.”

  Silence stretches between us and I let it get to me. “They can be very convincing, the feds. All sorts of reasons to keep your mouth shut, from the good of the community to your own safety—”

  He laughs, a bitter, sharp sound in the cold. “I’ve done it once, right? Let them shut me up. Why wouldn’t I do it again? People never really change.”

  His anger doesn’t bother me, but that laugh does something to my insides, like the twist of a knife. I want to put my hand on his arm, touch him somewhere, anywhere, and tell him—something—that will make things right between us. Instead, I just stand there, one hand on the railing, so cold the fingers are beginning to go numb.

  “So where was she killed?” Jake asks, after a long moment. His voice is all cop again.

  “Out the north highway. Through the Knife Creek settlement and up the back of the mountain.”

  He sucks in a sharp breath and turns to look at me. “On the reservation.”

  “What?”

  “Reservation land.”

  He waits for me to see the ramifications.

  “Tribal cops.” A huge relief wells up inside me. Guilt immediately follows. I’ve accused him of lying. I didn’t even consider alternatives.

  I crush out my cigarette on the railing. “I’m not so good with trust,” I say, as close as I can get to saying I’m sorry.

  His face is bleak. “I let them silence me before. I can see why you’d think I’d done it again. A man likes to think he can undo the past, but he can’t.”

  Except that things are different now, or should be. We’ve faced death together, saved each other’s lives.

  “You’re right about me keeping things from you.”

  “Do tell.” His voice is dry, but his lip quirks and a spark of humor warms his eyes.

  “Only a couple of things. Well, three. One, I had a message on my laptop I think was from Phil. Two, the spirits sent a message last night through Val. Three, Mac knows, or at least knew, Ravenna. She’s a tattoo artist. Did his raven when he was sixteen.”

  Turning, I go back into the suite. Jake follows me, closing the door. It’s no warmer in here than it was outside, and I’m shivering again. I feel sick and sad in a way that I don’t understand. I have a sudden urge to fling myself into Jake’s arms and weep like a child, an urge that I have no intention of giving in to.

  “There’s also this,” Jake says, opening Dason’s laptop. “I thought it was wiped clean.”

  “It was.” Photographs of five people stare at us from the screen. “This is new.”

  “Do you know any of these people?” Jake asks.

  “I do not. Maybe Phil sent those, too.”

  “You really think the dead are sending you messages through the computer?” Jake straddles a chair and leans forward to study the photos.

  “Somebody is. And I don’t know who else would know our secret code. Maybe last night’s little spirit storm was all about creating the energy he needed to make this happen.”

  “I don’t see a pattern here, do you?”

  If there’s a rhyme or a reason to the photos, I can’t see it. Two are candids—one male, one female. Both probably in their thirties. The woman is rock climbing, grinning into the camera while clinging to a rock face. Blonde hair, blue eyes, nothing extraordinary about her. The male stands on a city street corner and seems unaware of the camera. Suit and tie, briefcase, clean shaven and dark haired. Your typical
business man, and not somebody you’d look at twice.

  Following this is a pair of yearbook photos. Again, one male, one female. The male has eyes that are strikingly olive green in a dark-complexioned face, tightly curled black hair, a white flash of teeth. The girl is almond-eyed, with a port-wine birthmark on her right cheek.

  The last photo is clearly a mug shot. A male, so thin his cheekbones look fair to burst through his skin. He has a sharp and restless look to him and his eyes speak defiance.

  “Somewhere here there’s a printer. Better catch those before they vanish.” I survey the room with frustration. Since I wasn’t here when the boxes were brought in, and I wasn’t the one who packed them in the first place, I have no idea where anything is.

  Jake moves to examine the boxes. “Aha. Here is one that is marked COMPUTER ACCESSORIES. Is a printer an accessory?”

  “Beats me. Let’s look.”

  Sure enough, the box contains my trusty color printer, the necessary cables, and even some photo paper.

  We print the pictures, one to a page, enlarged, so we can get a better look, but there’s still nothing that makes it obvious why we want them.

  “We had facial recognition software at the FBI. Maybe I can create something. Or hack in.”

  Jake clears off the top of my table and lays out the photos, moving them around into different combinations, still looking for a pattern.

  I open my own tablet and start searching for Ravenna, a.k.a. Marietta.

  “Is it possible,” Jake says, very, very carefully, “that it isn’t Phil communicating with you? Maybe it’s something else, deliberately misleading you, or leading you into danger. You’re not—”

  “I’m not what?”

  My heart is beating faster than it ought to. I’m surprised to notice my fists are clenched. Anger blazes in my chest and I’m warm for the first time in this long day. The need to break something, throw something, or shoot somebody is a pressure in my body that threatens to break me apart. I can’t sit another minute.

  My leg has other ideas and spasms while I’m getting to my feet. The chair tips and clatters to the floor as I lean forward with a hiss to support my weight on the table.