by Lexi George
“Oh, this is nothing. I’m usually much perkier than this.”
“Sounds exhausting. Aren’t you the least bit surprised to see me?”
“No, because you’re not real.” Leaning closer, Sassy confided, “I have a head injury. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Although, for the life of me, I can’t imagine why I would dream up these.”
She pointed to her feet.
“I see what you mean,” Junior said, surveying the boots. “They are a tad lacking in style.”
“I know, right? That alpha male escapee from a fantasy convention swiped my favorite pair of shoes.”
“Alpha male?”
She waved her hands in the air. “Big guy. Handsome. Dressed in leather. In May. Muscles out the wazoo. He’s not real, either. No one could be that gorgeous, that off-the-charts sexy, and that irritating.”
“Huh. Based on your description, I’d say your he-man is a Dalvahni demon hunter. There are several running around Hannah.”
“Sure there are. But never mind that. I want to talk about you. There are so many things I’m simply dying to ask.”
Junior winced. “Please. You’re speaking to one of the living impaired.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”
“Doesn’t your mother talk about me?”
“Heavens, no, she refuses, and I could hardly ask Daddy Joel. That would be awkward.”
“Yes, I can see how it would be. And I don’t suppose you could ask Trey, under the circumstances.”
“No.” Sassy felt a stab of sadness at the mention of her older brother. There were some things even a positive attitude couldn’t fix, such as the rift in her family. “Trey and I weren’t close.”
Close? They didn’t live in the same county. Trey had been raised in Hannah by their paternal grandparents, Clarice and Blake Peterson, while Sassy had grown up in Fairhope with her mom. Sassy didn’t know she had a brother until she was in the second grade. The estrangement from Trey and the rest of the Petersons, like the subject of Sassy’s father, was another bit of family dysfunction Mama refused to discuss. If the subject of Junior elicited a chilly reaction from Eleanor, the merest mention of Trey or her former in-laws brought on an arctic freeze.
“Mama and I met Trey a few times at the club in Fairhope.” Sassy’s lips tightened. “He made it plain he didn’t want to be there.”
Their brief and infrequent family reunions had exhausted Sassy. She’d tried to compensate for the obvious strain by being extra bright and bubbly. Extra bright and bubbly required an enormous amount of energy. It took Sassy days to recover. She’d been relieved when the meetings had stopped.
In her heart of hearts, though, Sassy had secretly cherished the hope that one day she and Trey might mend their fences. Sadly, it was not meant to be. Clarice and Blake had died in a fire the previous October. A month later, Trey was struck and killed by an automobile. Sassy attended his funeral with her mother and stepfather.
Her grief at Trey’s death had surprised her. I miss him already, Sassy remembered thinking as they lowered her brother’s casket into the ground. Her sorrow at his loss was bewildering. How did you miss someone you didn’t know?
“I’m sorry you didn’t get the chance to know Trey,” Junior said, as though sensing her thoughts. “He had abandonment issues.”
“It wasn’t Mama’s fault,” Sassy said, rising to her mother’s defense. “Trey chose to stay with the Petersons.”
And why not? He was a boy, and their precious heir. Whoa, was that bitterness? Sassy Peterson didn’t do bitter.
“Trey stayed to protect you and your mother,” Junior said with a melancholy smile. “You were the lucky one, my dear. You got away.”
“Away from what?”
“You’re not ready to hear it. Why are you in Hannah? Are you taking the reins of the Peterson empire?”
“Certainly not,” Sassy said. “I’ve got a buyer for the mill. I’m signing the papers at the lawyer’s office this afternoon.”
Junior raised his brows. “I’m afraid you’ve missed your appointment. It’s almost dark.”
“I’m sure it won’t be a problem. I’ll reschedule for tomorrow morning.”
“What about the rest?” There was a hint of reproach in Junior’s voice. “Your brother left everything to you—the mill, the land, the money.”
“Phooey on the Petersons and their stupid money. I didn’t ask for it and I don’t want it.” Sassy’s voice rose. “That goes double for you, mister.”
Marshmallows, was she shouting? And talking about money was tacky.
Junior arched a patrician brow. “Trey’s not the only one with issues. Will you be staying at his place tonight? Or, I should say, your place, since Trey left his house to you.”
“No.” Oh, dear, she was yelling again. What on earth was the matter with her? She looked down. Her hands were balled into fists. “I’ll stay at a hotel.”
“This is Hannah. There are no hotels, unless you count the Hannah Inn, which I most certainly do not. I’m afraid you’ll have to stay at Trey’s.” A dog bayed in the distance, and Junior cocked his head. “Listen. Sounds like he’s down by the river—probably chasing that big deer again. I’d best go find him. For a dog, he has no sense of direction. There’s a house not far from here. Stick to the trail. You’ll come to it.”
His form stretched and grew wispy as smoke.
“When you get to Trey’s, watch out for her,” Junior said, fading from view. “She’s an absolute shrew. There’s another word for her. It rhymes with ‘runt,’ but I don’t use that kind of language.”
“Hello?” Sassy searched the gloom. “Hello?”
Junior was gone.
Night had fallen. The woods were inky without the ghost’s luminous form, and the trail was hard to see in the dim light. The surrounding scrub and towering trees took on nightmarish shapes in the darkness. Here a hungry goblin. There a towering giant reaching with bony hands to seize her.
Alarm trickled down her spine.
“Get a grip, Sassy,” she said. “You’re not a child, afraid of the dark.”
When she was little, she’d make a pallet on the floor of her mother’s big walk-in closet. Turning out the lights, she’d lie in the dark and pretend she was camping in the woods with her big brother. It had been one of her favorite games.
This was no different, she told herself. Minus her mother’s impressive shoe collection, plus a little more nature. Okay, a lot more nature. No biggie. She would stay on the trail, find the house Junior mentioned, and telephone for help.
Or she would wake up in a hospital bed and discover this had been a dream. Either way, she would be fine. Better than fine; she would be great. Anything less was unacceptable.
A branch snapped in the darkness. Something big moved through the woods, swooshing the leaves. Sassy recalled the twisted she-monster on the bridge and broke out in a cold sweat.
Hide; she needed to hide.
Sassy scurried off the trail and crouched behind a large oak. Pressing her fist to her mouth, she swallowed the scream lodged at the back of her throat. Was it the monster from the road? Oh, God, please don’t let it be the monster from the road.
She squeezed her body close to the tree, closed her eyes, and waited. A twig cracked, the sound as loud as a gunshot in the silent woods. It was coming closer. Should she look?
No, she definitely should not look. She should stay where she was and pray that it went away.
Please, please make it go away.
The forest seemed to hold its breath; waiting, still. The silence stretched, heavy and tense, until Sassy wanted to scream.
She had to look. She had to know. The not-knowing was driving her nuts.
She peeked around the oak. An enormous white stag stepped out of the woods and into view. Sassy’s eyes widened. He was bright as a fallen star in the dusk. Silver antlers sprang from his noble head. He pawed the ground, and a potpourri of scents filled the air: icy spring water, rain, and fros
t; damp earth and the sharp tang of green and growing things; the perfume of flowers; and the musty smell of dried pine and rotting leaves and lichen.
He stamped his hooves again. Sparks and whorls of multicolored light flew into the air, shimmering in bright spirals against the velvety darkness. The sparks coalesced into birds, flowers, and insects. The delicate creatures cavorted around the giant deer like bugs dancing in the warmth of a streetlight.
Sassy gasped in delight. It was lovely; fireworks without the smoke and noise. She stepped away from the tree, her limbs moving of their own accord. The stag tossed his antlered head, but did not bolt.
She met the stag’s limpid gaze and forgot to be afraid. She forgot she was bruised and sore. She forgot her damp clothes, her tangled, leaf-strewn hair. She forgot her stepfather’s ruined convertible.
She forgot everything but the stag’s liquid dark gaze, ancient and powerful, deep and full of knowing, like the forest itself.
He is the forest. The thought drifted, unbidden, through her befuddled mind. A glowing butterfly fluttered away from the dazzling shapes circling the stag’s splendid head and came to rest on Sassy’s outstretched hand. The tiny creature pulsed against her palm, delicate as spun glass.
“Oh, you beautiful thing,” Sassy whispered in delight, stroking the shining bug with her fingertip.
To her astonishment, the butterfly dissolved in a glowing puddle that seeped into her skin. Warmth fizzed through Sassy’s bloodstream, bubbles of champagne that left her light-headed and giddy. She giggled and did a clumsy pirouette. It would have been way better if she hadn’t been wearing the stupid boots.
The lights flitted away from the stag and into the darkness, trailing glittering bread crumbs in their wake.
“Wait,” Sassy cried. “Wait for me.”
She lifted the skirt of her sundress and dashed into the woods, plowing through bushes and around trees in pursuit of the willow-the-wisps. Thorn vines caught and tore at her hair. Branches scratched her bare arms and legs. The pain was fleeting, an annoying pinprick dismissed in her eager pursuit of the lights. Once, she stepped in a hole and fell, skinning her knees and the heels of her hands. She jumped up and dashed off again. Her vision seemed sharper now, and the lights were easy to follow. They silvered everything in their path and turned the woods into a glowing wonderland. The rest of her senses seemed keener, too. She heard the faint creak of roots stretching beneath the earth and smelled the myriad scents of the forest: growing things; the moist smell of dirt and wet leaves; the hot, slightly dusty smell of a nearby fox, panting from the hunt.
“I love nature,” Sassy sang, skipping through the woods. “It’s so . . . nature-y.”
The lights sped up, zigzagging through the shadows. Sassy ran faster, her lungs burning from exertion. She ran up and down hills, over streams, and ravines choked with pine straw, honeysuckle vines, and fallen branches. The lights moved farther and farther ahead.
“Wait,” she cried. “Don’t leave me.”
She tripped over a log and sprawled into a patch of rotten leaves. The impact knocked the breath out of her. She sat up, gasping for breath, and pushed the tangle of hair out of her face. Leaves and debris pricked the backs of her thighs. Her dress was twisted around her waist, her panties were wedged in her butt crack. She was bleeding and bruised, and her entire body hurt.
The lights were gone.
A breeze moaned through the trees, cooling her heated face and body. Her euphoria faded, and some of the fog lifted from her brain. There was something she was supposed to remember . . . something important.
Her stupor eased. The trail—she wasn’t supposed to leave the trail. Stick to the path and she’d come to a house. That’s what Junior had said.
Instead, she’d crashed headlong through the woods like a lunatic. It was a miracle she hadn’t broken something or stepped on a snake.
She sat on the ground a long time, thinking, registering her various aches and pains. At last, she reached a difficult, uncomfortable conclusion. This was not a dream, bad or otherwise, crazy as it seemed.
This was real.
The weirdness—enough to fill the ballroom at the Grand Hotel—she’d sort out later. Right now, she had a bigger problem. She was lost.
A slow and righteous anger kindled within her. Sassy had been irritated plenty of times. Being an upbeat person didn’t make you a pushover. Why, she’d even been miffed once or twice, usually at something Brandi Chambliss had said or done. But she’d never been truly angry. It took her a moment to recognize the emotion.
This was his fault. He’d left her. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t left her on the bridge. Boy, if she ever saw that no-name hunk again, she’d give him what for.
If she ever saw him again? Oh, no, when she saw him again. She’d find him. You could bet on it. She was strong. She was invincible. She was a Sassy Survivor.
Nobody left Sassy Peterson in the woods for the possums to eat.
Nobody.
Chapter Four
Sassy got to her feet and adjusted her bunched underwear, glancing around to make sure no one had seen her do such an unladylike thing.
As if. It was pitch dark. There wasn’t another soul on two legs anywhere around.
Where was she, anyway? Her stag-happy dash through the woods had left her disoriented. She was still trying to decide which way to go when an animal shot out of the bushes and ran across her feet. Sassy shrieked and took a flying leap, landing, wild-eyed, in a crouch more than twenty feet away, a move that would have done an Olympic jumper proud.
Sassy was a firm believer that a positive attitude was empowering, but what was up with that?
A white tail disappeared into the shrubbery ahead. A rabbit; it was a rabbit.
Confused and feeling foolish, Sassy rose. A flickering light caught her eye. The bright, pulsing radiance flared pink, then purple, then yellow and blue. Marshmallows, that precious little bunny had shown her the light.
Spirits lifted, she set off, heading for the glow. She walked a long time. How long—thirty minutes, an hour?—she could not say. Time seemed to stand still in the forest.
She smelled the river before she saw it, the musky perfume of earth and water mingled, and walked faster. Junior had mentioned a house on the river. She’d call a taxi and check into the hotel. How bad could it be? A hotel was a hotel. She’d take a nice long soak in the tub and order a chicken salad plate from room service. Then she’d climb into bed and watch a sappy movie on television, something light and frothy with a happy ending. No scary movies. No Syfy Channel. She’d had enough freaky to last her a lifetime.
Scratch the chicken salad plate. She wanted doughnuts, a dozen chocolate glazed with sprinkles. Her mouth watered at the thought.
She never ate doughnuts. A slip of the lips, forever on the hips, Mama said.
Mama ate like a bird to maintain her slender figure, but Mama had never been lost in the woods with a cast of characters out of a Stephen King novel. As far as Sassy was concerned, this was a carbohydrate emergency. She wanted sugar, fried sugar, and lots of it.
She wanted to find that dirty shoe snatcher and kick him right in his world-class tuchus.
She kept walking and followed her nose, the mushy ground squelching beneath her boots. She climbed down a slope, pushed through a stand of bamboo, and came out on a high bluff that overlooked the river. Moonlight glinted on the rolling water. On the opposite bank, trees crowded close to the shore, a dark line of hunched sentinels. The Devil River this body of water was called, named by locals for its unexpected twists and turns, treacherous rocks, and fierce rapids. Sassy had read about it in Ghosts of Behr County, a slim volume of scary yarns she’d found on a library shelf in the fifth grade. She’d checked the book out and sneaked it into her house, careful not to let Mama see it. Anything that smacked of Behr County made Mama sad.
The worn hardback contained a variety of spooky tales, including the story of Lorraine, the grieving widow of a steambo
at captain who kept a ghostly vigil for her dead husband on the aging balcony of their river home. It was sad and romantic, but Sassy’s favorite was the one about Hazel, the ghost of Sardine Bridge. Park on the bridge at midnight, or so the legend went, and call Hazel’s name three times to summon her.
But don’t cuss, the author sternly warned. Hazel ectoplasmed anyone who cussed on her bridge, especially potty-mouthed teenagers.
Curled up in the window seat overlooking her mother’s prized rose garden, Sassy had pored over Ghosts of Behr County for hours, imagining her big brother confronting the straitlaced shade. Would Trey summon Hazel according to the rules or risk her icy wrath with a stream of profanity? Reading about Hannah and Behr County had made Sassy feel connected to Trey in some small way. Sassy had checked out the book so many times the librarian had given it to her when she graduated from middle school.
The book was one of her most cherished possessions; she hid it on her bedroom bookshelf so Mama wouldn’t find it, safely tucked behind her copy of Beauty and the Beast, the 1963 edition illustrated by Hilary Knight, a Christmas gift from Daddy Joel.
Sassy looked upriver and down. No light. Panic skittered through her. She’d lost sight of the light when she’d waded into the fronds of bamboo. What if she couldn’t find it again?
Couldn’t? Negativity was so unbecoming. She’d find the light. The same instinct that led her unerringly to the newest and hottest designer items in her favorite shops would guide her to the house with a phone.
She struck out downstream. Picked her way along the rutted embankment. Scrambled over rocks and tree roots, around saplings, and through undergrowth. The ground gradually sloped downward, ending in a small clearing at the water’s edge. She was contemplating whether to backtrack when she spied a set of steps cut in the side of the mossy bank. At the foot of the stone steps was a wooden dock. Tied off to a post, a small boat rocked in the current. A light on a pole near the water struggled feebly against the thick darkness. This couldn’t be the luminous glimmer Sassy had seen from the woods. The light was too low in elevation and too dull.
