Soul Trade

by Tracy Sharp

  Juno opened her eyes. She stood up, her body trembling. She aimed her .45 in the direction of the sound. Her heart battered against her ribs like a trapped butterfly.

  Another snap. Another. Tiny twigs. Tiny feet?

  “May?” Juno took a step forward.

  May emerged from behind a bush several feet away. “Juno?” Her voice sounded deeper. Older.

  Relief flooded her senses and she almost sobbed. “Yes. Come here.” Juno squatted down, reached around and placed the .45 back in her waistband at her lower back. She opened her arms. “I’m so glad to see you. Are you okay?”

  May nodded. Smiled. “A little girl lost her dog. I helped her find it.”

  Juno frowned. “A little girl? Where is she?”

  May turned and pointed toward the bushes. “There’s a cave behind there. She lives in there with her dog.”

  Juno wrapped May in a hug. “Don’t ever do that to me again. Ever. Okay?”

  May nodded, a strange grin on her lips. “Okay.”

  “Who is this little girl? Is she hiding in the cave?”

  May shook her head. “She lives there.”

  Juno’s brows came together. “With her family?”

  May shook her head. “Just her. And her dog.”

  This was too strange. Was there a little girl who lost her family to the monsters? “Show me.”

  May took her hand and led her toward the bushes.

  †

  Robyn ran through the woods, calling, “May! May!”

  Toby stayed close behind. There was a good chance that May wouldn’t be the only one within earshot. There were likely other things in the woods. He kept his gun gripped in his hand and scanned as much of the space surrounding them as he could. His neck and shoulders bunched with tension.

  Robyn was screaming now. “May!” Panic made her voice shrill, and she sobbed after each call.

  “Easy, Robyn,” Toby said behind her. You don’t want to alert other things that might be hunting us, or her. Maybe she’s hiding and can’t answer right now.”

  “Then let’s direct their attention to us, so they leave her alone,” Robyn said, her voice catching in her throat.

  “If we’re fighting off a pack of those things, we can’t help her either,” Toby said. “Just keep your eyes open for now. We’ll find her.”

  Then a scream cut through the air.

  †

  Juno screamed May’s name, running through the cave, which seemed to go on forever. There was a light at the end. She kept running toward it. “May!” She didn’t care if there were things in the cave that would hear her.

  May had suddenly taken off, running into the cave, calling for Milo. The cave seemed to swallow her whole. The darkness had snatched her away, and she wasn’t making a sound.

  But she was certain she could hear breathing. Breathing and shuffling.

  Juno ran toward the light on the other side of the tunnel. “May!” Something dropped onto the side of her face and scurried down her cheek. Something with spindly legs. She swiped at it, knocking it off her skin.

  She tripped over something large, soft, and squishy. She didn’t want to know what it was. Pain shot up her arms, sharp and blinding. When that pain subsided, she gripped her gun, her fingers raw and stinging. She’d kept hold of her gun, and realized now that she had scraped the skin off the knuckles of her right hand.

  Ignore it. Taking a deep breath, she scrambled up and forward, feeling wetness spreading over her fingers as she stood up and continued running.

  She peered around her as she ran, squinting into the darkness. There were shapes around her, and she swore she saw some moving, heard them shifting. A deep growl came from several feet ahead of her and to her right, and something shambled toward her. Something taller than her. She aimed her gun and pulled the trigger. The thing fell backward. Juno moved around it. Kept running.

  The sound of water came from the light. The mouth of the tunnel was coming closer with every step. The sound became a roar in her ears as she ran out of the tunnel. The source of the sound was a waterfall. The mouth of the cave opened to a cliff, sharply dropping into a river. The waterfall was mere yards away. Juno felt the spray of it on her skin.

  A few feet away stood May. She was crying, looking down into the water, one small hand reached toward it.

  Juno carefully walked toward the little girl. “May? Honey, come away from that ledge.”

  “Milo fell in the water,” she cried, tears streaking her face. Her body shook with her sobs, her breath hitching.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Come away from the ledge, honey. Come on.” Juno tucked her gun into her waistband, resting it against her lower back. She moved toward May, arms out.

  “She threw him over the edge, into the water.” Her little voice was barely a whisper. Her lips trembled.

  “Who did?”

  “The little girl.” May’s eyes looked somewhere behind Juno and widened.

  Juno turned to look behind her, reaching for the gun nestled against her lower back.

  Just as May instinctively took a step backward.

  Chapter 21

  Juno pointed her pistol at the little blonde girl, who grinned at her. She was slender and willowy, not more than seven or eight years old, but her grey eyes seemed ageless.

  Hell child. Juno’s father had told her about them. They lived among humans to cause chaos and death, feeding on disaster and tragedy. They could seep into a mind and scramble it so that the person didn’t even know who they were anymore. Or they could plant ideas into the minds of the susceptible. They were responsible for death and destruction across the earth. She’d listened to her father’s stories of them but had never seen one. Until now.

  Nasty little monsters.

  And yet she couldn’t shoot her. Juno’s finger twitched on the trigger. This thing looked like any other kid. Except for the eyes.

  All this passed across her mind in a mere second.

  “She is falling,” she said, her voice as sweet and clear as a bell.

  Juno turned to see May grasping at the air, falling backward over the cliff.

  †

  Juno launched herself at May, reached for her, her body leaving the cliff. She wrapped her arms around her as they fell. She was vaguely aware of her name being screamed from above. Robyn. Juno looked up. Robyn’s face was a quickly shrinking circle looking down at her.

  Juno squeezed May tightly to her as the water below raced up toward them.

  Then the river was swallowing them.

  Water roared in her ears. Her vision was blurred by water. Juno hung on to May as they plummeted deeper into the river. When the downward momentum slowed, she began kicking her legs, pushing them up toward the surface.

  May wasn’t moving.

  Juno kicked, using all her strength, her lungs bursting with the need for air.

  For what seemed an eternity, she kicked.

  Finally they broke the surface. Juno lifted May, not stopping to look at her, and kicked for the closest riverbank. She could see Robyn sliding down the bank, Toby close behind.

  Almost there.

  Then something hard hit her shoulder. The pain was sharp, almost blinding. She kept kicking. Her feet touched the muddy bottom.

  A large splash beside her.

  What the fuck?

  Someone was throwing things at them. She looked up and scanned the cliff as she dragged May toward the bank, the water still neck deep.

  The little blonde girl hefted a large rock and threw it downward, toward Juno and May.

  Juno tried jumping to the side, pushing May away, but she was so tired. Her muscles wouldn’t work.

  She thought vaguely that she should’ve shot the little bitch just before she felt the rock smash against the side of her head.

  She sank back into the river, the world going murky, then dark.

  †

  She was choking. A weight on her chest made it impossible for her to breathe, then it lessened, t
hen it crushed her lungs again. She coughed. Was rolled to her side as water spilled from her throat.

  The distant sound of somebody crying.

  “Thank Christ.” Toby’s voice. “You were almost gone, Juno.”

  Juno sat up. “May.”

  Silence.

  She looked at Toby’s face. “May.”

  His eyes were red, sad. His lips curved downward and his lips quivered. He shook his head. Tears spilled from his eyes and he squeezed them shut. “She’s gone,” he whispered.

  “No.” Juno shook her head. She scrambled up and saw Robyn a few feet away, kneeling next to May, her hands on her chest. Her eyes were closed and she was speaking low, her lips moving, as if in prayer.

  The child was pale and still.

  Juno scrambled over to them, watching as Robyn tilted her face to the sky, whispering low, quickly, speaking to some faraway God.

  Juno looked up at the sky and began her own prayer. “Please. Bring her back. Please.”

  In the back of her mind, Juno realized—as she was sure they all did—that when Robyn brought Zed back, he wasn’t what he had been before he’d died.

  But they didn’t care. None of them did. They just wanted May back. It wasn’t right, that she’d died. She was just a child. Surely she’d be okay.

  She kept praying, while behind her, Toby prayed.

  After a long while, Robyn’s praying stopped. She let out a gleeful shout.

  Juno opened her eyes. Looked down at May.

  May’s eyes were open. They were no longer brown.

  They were grey.

  †

  Juno watched from the doorway as Robyn tucked her in, bringing the covers up around her chin. May hugged the stuffed dog close.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, honey?” Robyn asked her.

  May nodded. “I feel fine. My chest is a little sore.”

  “That’ll go away. You need to sleep.”

  May nodded. “I’m so tired.”

  “Just close your eyes.”

  “I will.”

  Robyn bent and kissed her on the forehead, smoothing her dark hair. She smiled at her and left the bed, heading out of the bedroom.

  Juno turned to go.

  “Juno?” May said.

  She turned. “Yeah, sweets?”

  May reached a hand out of the covers, toward her.

  Juno approached the bed, kneeled down in front of her. “What is it, honey?”

  “You know I’m different now, don’t you?”

  Juno nodded, her heart beating faster. “Yeah. I do.”

  “Do you still like me?”

  Juno smiled at her. “Aw, sweetheart. I love you. I couldn’t help that if I tried.”

  May gave her a bright smile. “Are you going to tell Robyn and Toby?”

  “Eventually. Maybe not tonight. Okay?”

  May nodded. “Will they still like me?”

  “They love you, May. Nothing’s going to change that.”

  “What if I do bad things?”

  “Do you feel like you want to do bad things?”

  “I feel like I might want to. It’s weird. Like a little voice whispering to me. Like I want bad things to happen, but I really don’t.”

  “I get it, May. We’ll try to work around that, okay? Can you promise to tell me when it happens?”

  May nodded.

  “Good. Now you sleep, okay? You’ve had a really bad day.”

  “So have you.” May watched her with large, solemn, silvery eyes.

  Juno chuckled. “Yeah. I guess I have.”

  “Are you going to bed, too?”

  “Soon. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Juno turned.

  “Juno?”

  She turned back in the doorway. “Yeah, sweets.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, punkin.”

  “Can you make her go away?”

  Juno frowned. “Who? Robyn?”

  “No. The little blonde girl. She’s standing in the backyard, watching that window.” She pointed a finger at the window closest to her bed.”

  Juno went to the window, her feet feeling heavy. She lifted the curtain.

  The little blonde girl stood a few feet away, watching the window, just as May was. She didn’t move when Juno saw her. She was in shadow, except for the soft light from May’s bedside lamp.

  “I will,” Juno said.

  She left the room and headed out into the living room. “That kid is back. She’s standing in the backyard, watching May’s window.”

  Robyn and Toby both stood, and followed Juno to the back door.

  When they stepped out, the little girl still stood there, watching.

  Toby frowned. “Creepy little girl. Please say we shouldn’t invite her in.”

  “Definitely not,” Juno said.

  Robyn said, “What’s with this kid?”

  “She’s a hell child. They plant nasty ideas in people’s head and feed off the mayhem they cause.”

  Toby nodded. “Awesome. Just what we need.”

  “They are little monsters. They never grow old, having died when they were children. They remain the same age they were when they died.” Juno kept her eyes on the little girl. “They are not easy to shake off.”

  “So what do we do? Shoot her?” Robyn asked.

  “That’ll back her off, but it won’t kill her. She’s already dead. She needs something more horrible to lure her away from us.”

  “It’s not exactly slim pickin’s out there lately,” Toby said.

  “Why does she keep staring at May’s window? Did she get attached to her or something?” Robyn said, her fingers wrapped around her gun.

  Juno pushed out a heavy breath. “There’s something I haven’t told you. I was trying to figure out the best way to say it. But there really is no best way.”

  “Spill it,” Toby said, keeping his eyes on the little girl.

  She was statue still, her head tilted slightly downward so that her hair hung in her face. Those weird eyes, watching May’s window.

  “May died in that river.”

  “I brought her back,” Robyn said. “She’s fine.”

  “You did bring her back,” Juno said slowly. “But she isn’t exactly what she was before she died. She’s changed.”

  “How?” Toby said.

  “She’d had contact with a hell child before she died. That one was trying to get May to fall off the ledge and drown in the river.”

  Robyn and Toby both stared at her as she explained.

  “She did fall off that cliff,” Juno continued. “Without realizing it, I helped with that. She used me.”

  “May died, and she came back as a hell child,” Toby said.

  “Yes,” Juno nodded once.

  “That’s why she ran away when we pulled May from the river,” Robyn said. “She’d managed to kill her.”

  Toby looked at the little girl, who continued to stare at the window. “She wants May.”

  “Yes,” Juno said. “And she won’t stop until she gets her.”

  Chapter 22

  Robyn would keep watch that night. They were all exhausted. They’d take off in the morning, try to shake the little girl. Juno said that if they drove far enough away, they could maybe lose her for a while, until they could figure out how to keep May safe. Maybe break the hell child’s spell, or curse, or whatever it was.

  “Do not look at her. Don’t listen to her if she starts talking to you,” Juno said to Robyn, handing her a cup of strong coffee. “She might try to get into your head, get you to let her in. These… things are experts at getting into your mind and twisting your thoughts. Just give me an hour to sleep. Can you handle this?”

  Juno had almost drowned. She needed to sleep. Toby was also exhausted. He hadn’t slept in at least a day.

  Robyn said she could handle it.

  And she could.

  All she had to do was ignore the little girl’s voice.

  An h
our after Toby and Juno had turned in, the little girl started talking.

  She stood outside the living-room window now, one small hand on the window glass, speaking in low tones, her voice small and sweet as any child’s voice.

  “My name is Emma. I’m seven years old. What’s your name?”

  Robyn squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands over her ears.

  But she could still hear the little girl’s voice.

  Emma’s voice.

  “Can you talk to me? I’m all alone.” She began to cry softly. “I have no mommy.”

  Robyn swallowed back tears. “Please don’t.”

  “Please talk to me. My mommy was killed. I have nobody to take care of me. I’m so scared.” And then soft crying, sniffles. Tiny little sobs.

  “Please stop,” Robyn whispered.

  “There are bad things out here. They try to eat me. Please help me. They have blood all over them, and they smell so bad. They got my mommy. She’s with them, and she tries to hug me, but I know she wants to eat me. Please help me.”

  Emma’s voice was in her head now. “Please help me. Please hug me. I’m so cold.”

  Robyn stood and walked toward the door.

  She was just a child. Just a little girl who had no mother.

  She opened the door and Emma stood there, her arms held up toward Robyn. Tears streaked her face, and she shivered in the early spring chill.

  Robyn reached down and picked her up, and shut the door behind her.

  Emma buried her damp face in her neck.

  Poor little girl. She was frozen.

  Robyn couldn’t remember why she wasn’t supposed to help her. It was cruel. Had they all become that cold? That they couldn’t help one more little girl?

  Robyn lay Emma down on the couch and covered her with the quilt that lay over the back of it. “Sleep, sweetheart. Okay? Just sleep.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “You’re safe now.”

  Emma shook her head. “No. Neither are you. That man in there, he killed his wife. Did you know that?”

  Robyn blinked. Went cold. “Toby?”

  Emma nodded her head. “He killed her in her sleep. Just went crazy one night. He buried her in the woods.”