“Did you eat?” Mom was dressed in blue scrubs and white sneakers. Her bag sat at the foot of the stairs, ready to go. I barely saw her on nights we both worked. She hated it, but after taking seventeen years off to raise a daughter, she’d accepted the only available shift without argument. She couldn’t be picky and she couldn’t stay with Dad. You cheat. You lose.
“Yep.” I rubbed my tummy, pretending it wasn’t filled with fizzing nerves after all the wild stories I’d heard tonight.
Mom sloughed out of the blanket and threaded both arms through her coat. She wrestled her hair free from the collar and smiled. Her brown eyes sparkled. “They have sons.”
I laughed. “You in the market again?”
“No, but you are.” She lifted her bag over one shoulder.
“I’m not.” Never again in this town.
“Kirk was a jerk.” Her smile widened. “It’s probably not even a coincidence that rhymes.”
I averted my eyes, choosing to focus on the house across the cornfield, which normally was dark with shadows but now seemed illuminated by a hundred indoor lights. “I’m waiting for college. Zoar’s a small town. Dating here is complicated.”
Mom moved toward the door, pity in her voice. “They aren’t all the same. Men, I mean.”
“I know.” I didn’t. I actually wondered daily how many people weren’t liars instead of the other way around.
“The boys are cute.” She opened the door and stopped to look at me.
“I heard they fled here to escape all the charges against them.”
She made a sour face.
“And they’re criminally insane, insanely rich… And generally insane in a variety of other ways.” I ticked off the insanes on my fingers.
Chester ambled to the door and tugged on his leash dangling from the coat rack. “Woof.”
“Lock up after your walk and stay in until morning. A storm’s coming.” Mom gripped my chin and kissed my cheek. “No wild parties.”
I crossed my heart and hooked Chester onto his leash.
Mom jogged down the steps to her Bronco, throwing one last kiss over her shoulder and gripping the coat to her chest.
I wiped inevitable lip prints off my face with the back of one hand.
“Come on, Chester.” Wind whipped leaves and dirt into tiny hurricanes on the sidewalk as we rounded the house to the backyard. “Make it fast, mister.”
Chester and I jogged through the grass to the decrepit cemetery where he liked to do his business. The cemetery was older than most things in town, which was to say old. The crumbling headstones and rusted iron gates charmed me, like living history books. I’d made rubbings of the stones during walks with my dad when I was in grade school, had my first kiss under the willow in the back, and cried my eyes dry on the broken stone wall when I learned my dad did the deed—the ultimate betrayal—and we were leaving. To others, it didn’t make sense to fear the sight of an old home and yet wander comfortably in a cemetery. It made perfect sense to me. The cemetery, I knew. I understood. I had hundreds of memories there. Happy ones. The house was a mystery cloaked in hearsay and dark tales. I peered at the tall gables in the distance. Hale Manor stared balefully back over the top of the small cornfield where a spinning scarecrow creaked on its post, thanks to building winds.
“Woof.” Chester barked at a pair of black squirrels playing chase in the trees.
I traced the unusual symbol on a headstone with my fingertips. The symbol was my favorite mystery of the ancient grounds. I leaned against a replica of the winged goddess Nike. She stood sentinel near the center of the graves. For years, I’d assumed Nike was an angel who’d lost her marble head to a storm or age. Mom corrected me. She’d pointed the “angel” out to me in one of her mythology books when I was in grade school. Nike was the goddess of victory. A strange thought when surrounded by the dead. The company she kept didn’t seem victorious to me.
The symbol beside Nike’s gown-covered feet matched many, but not all, of the headstones and markers in the Hale family’s resting grounds. Mom couldn’t explain the symbol. She said she hadn’t seen it, but she didn’t pay much attention to details the way I did. A family crest was her best guess. The explanation would’ve made more sense if every stone bore the symbol. The mark consumed my thoughts in middle school. I wrote a paper on it in eighth grade wherein I hypothesized the symbol stood for male superiority. My evidence: the symbol never appeared on a stone bearing a woman’s name. The theory had holes because the oldest stones were sometimes illegible, crumbled and a few were written in a script I didn’t recognize as English. Still, I made rubbings of two dozen stones to support my argument and earned an A on the paper, mostly for my enthusiasm. The smooth symbols never showed up in the rubbings.
A sprinkling of raindrops hit my face, jerking me back to reality. “Time to go home.”
We meandered through the darkness, light drizzle, and cold. Our last walk of the night was like that. I didn’t want woken in the wee hours because Chester didn’t pee when he was supposed to, so I took baby steps and he sniffed each blade of grass individually. My focus jumped to Hale Manor a thousand times. All the lights inside bothered me. Who were these people and what brought them here?
Back in my yard, I dared one last look behind me. Over the tops of the corn, a curtain slid shut in an upstairs window, leaving the silhouette of a person staring down at me. I imagined they stared, anyway. It was possible the person had their back to me, though it seemed less likely. The light behind them shone like a beacon in the night.
“Come on, Chester.” I ran the rest of the way to the front door and locked up, twisting the dead bolt for good measure.
Chester shook water over me and the floor before running through the rooms, sliding and rampaging the way he did when he was wet. I toweled up the mess, toweled down the dog, and hit the shower before homework and bed. I left my door open so Chester would sleep in my room and patrol the house while I slept. Falling asleep wasn’t easy with my head buzzing from questions and rumors. What kind of people would move to Hale Manor? Didn’t they know the home’s history? Didn’t it bother them?
By midnight, the rhythm of rain on our roof had washed the worries from my mind and lulled my anxious body to sleep.
I shot upright an hour later, gripping sheets to my chin and looking for Chester. “Did you hear that?” The soft green glow of numbers on my alarm clock teased a thought just outside my memory’s reach. One AM. I pressed a palm to my chest, certain my heart would break my ribs. “I heard a woman scream.”
Chester lifted his head, ears perked. “Woof.”
I stared out the darkened window toward the enormous home separated from me by one small field, and I patted my pillow until Chester curled up on it. I laid my head on him and gripped my phone to my chest, waiting impatiently for daylight.
Chapter 2
I woke with the dull drumming headache of a restless sleep. The radio played below me in the kitchen. Mom never went to bed until I left for school, though she got home from work an hour before my alarm went off most mornings. Chester was gone, likely standing sentinel at the counter while she prepared breakfast. I helped around the house since she’d gone back to work, but meals were her thing, the one task she wouldn’t give up. A nurse through and through, she claimed nutrition was the best gift she could ever give me and so long as I lived with her, nutrition was exactly what I’d get.
I stretched my arms and legs thoroughly before shoving the soft down comforter away and inching out of my toasty warm bed. A chill covered my skin in goose bumps as I rolled my head against each shoulder and shuffled to the bathroom for a shower, tooth and hair brushing plus obligatory makeup when what I wanted was more sleep.
I showered with the speed of a garden slug, hoping the hot water would rejuvenate my mind and muscles. It didn’t. I wrung water from my hair and wrapped one towel around my head before securing another around my body. A white cloud of steam coated the bathroom mirror. I rubb
ed a clear spot through the fog with the side of one fist and sighed. My eyelids hung at half-mast, begging for sleep until I remembered why my night was so restless. Adrenaline replaced fatigue with a burst. The woman’s scream had seemed so real, almost familiar, but I wasn’t sure. Chester hadn’t seemed worried about it and I’d never heard another sound. Which reminded me… The mysterious and possibly evil neighbor kids might be at school today. Allison hoped they were registered at the community college, but we had no idea how old they were.
Suddenly the hair dryer couldn’t work fast enough. I wrestled my old brush through the length of my dark brown hair, smoothing the places where random waves popped up. My hair was sixty percent straight, forty percent rodeo clown. Mom’s Greek and Italian ancestry left her hair an unruly perfection, which managed to look sexy and windblown on her. I had no idea where my crazy hair came from, but it required patience. I carefully coerced the few wild waves into submission with the help of a flat iron. I tapped my foot, more anxious for school each minute. What if the Hale boys were my new classmates? What if they were dangerous?
Mom called up the staircase as I opened the bathroom door. “Callie.”
“Yeah?” I leaned my head into the hallway, lip gloss in hand.
Before she answered, footfalls hammered against the steps. A moment later, Allison bobbed around the corner. Her hair looked amazing. She’d rolled and tied a silk scarf around her head like a headband, hiding the bow under the length of her hair. The ends of the scarf lay over her shoulders, coordinating seamlessly with her jade green blouse, jeans, and fringed bag.
She spun outside the bathroom door for my inspection. “Hobo chic, what do you think?”
“Nice.” I looked at my long sleeve T-shirt and frowned.
Allison went into my room.
I batted my lashes through a mascara brush and dotted the excess away with my fingertips. “I’m almost finished. Give me thirty seconds.”
“Take your time.”
Uh oh. I stuffed my makeup bag back into its drawer and darted across the hall to my room.
Allison knelt on my bed, peering through the curtains. A white sweater lay across the comforter behind her. I’d bought the sweater when we went back to school shopping, but I hadn’t gotten up the nerve to wear it yet. The v-neck was deep and the material clung to my curves more than I liked.
“Well, this explains it.” I crawled over the bed to kneel beside her. “You never pick me up for school because you’re perpetually late, but here you are.”
She smiled, never taking her eyes off the house across the field.
“I finally see what it takes to get a ride from my best friend.” I smiled.
“Hot. Brothers.” She gave me a cursory glance. “Put on the sweater. Let’s go stand around the office. They have to go there to get schedules.”
“I thought you wanted them to attend Wells.”
I scooted off the bed and searched my closet for a decent camisole. The sweater’s neckline was scandalous without one. The form-fitting design was a whole other problem, but I could only handle one crisis at a time before breakfast. Nothing good in my closet, I moved on to my dresser hoping for something long enough to reach the waist of my low-slung jeans, preferably with lace at the neckline and in a color that wouldn’t show through the white sweater. Five minutes later, I settled on a pale pink camisole with lace, not as long as I’d hoped, but Allison was waiting. I’d dumped two drawers to find the camisole. The mess added nicely to my whole disaster zone motif.
Allison left her post at the window and paced in front of me.
I fidgeted with the sweater. “Geez. What’s your hurry? The school’s the size of a thimble. So is the town, for that matter. It’s not like you won’t meet them both by the end of the day.”
She looked at her watch dramatically. “If they are in high school, you’ll meet them for sure, but I leave in three hours, remember? I never thought I’d be sad to miss an afternoon of high school.”
I pulled the sweater over the camisole and tugged the clingy material. “For all we know, they’re both students at the college, not the high school.”
“Come on.” Allison jogged down the steps, while I took one last look in the mirror.
The sweater was amazing, but it wouldn’t go unnoticed, and since the Fourth of July field party by the river, “unnoticed” was my friend. I finger combed the ends of my hair, making sure they were fully dry and wouldn’t coil up on me midmorning.
I pocketed my phone and hoisted my bag over my head, securing it cross-body. The creeping suspicion something was wrong tugged at my chest. I turned in a circle, looking for the reason. Allison had left my curtain askew, caught on the corner of my bed.
“Callie? You coming, sweetie?” Mom called.
I grabbed the curtain. “One minute.” My voice caught in my throat as I spoke. A man in a black suit sipped from a mug on the Hale’s front porch. He stared at my window until I thought certain he saw straight into my soul. A shiver slid down my spine and I dropped the curtain between us.
Stupid rumors. Stupid gossip. He’d probably seen Allison stalking him through my window and thought it was me. Maybe he couldn’t see me as well as I saw him. Maybe he was only looking at my house and didn’t see me the way I imagined he had.
“Callie!” Allison sounded frantic.
I bolted down the steps.
Mom met me in the foyer at the bottom of the steps with a bottle of water and an apple. “Nice of her to give you a ride. Too bad she’s in such a rush. You didn’t eat breakfast. I have yogurt cups in the refrigerator. I can make a smoothie to go.”
“I’m okay. Thanks for the apple.” I stuffed the fruit and water into my bag and hugged Mom. “You know Allison, unpredictable, impatient…”
The honk of her horn cut off my words.
“And waiting in the car.” Mom patted my cheek and walked me outside.
My gaze swept over the field to Hale Manor and its empty front porch.
Honk!
I gave Mom a wave and mustered my best happy face before sliding into the passenger seat beside Allison. She shifted into gear and drove away as I buckled up.
“They left like ten minutes ago. What took you so long? How can we coincidentally park beside them if we don’t get there when they do?”
She couldn’t have beaten me to her car by more than three minutes, but I ignored her exaggeration. To Allison, it probably felt like ten.
She gunned the engine, cutting down two side streets and through the Methodist Church parking lot before bottoming out on South Main and two-wheeling around the corner into the gravel pit beside our school. I held tight to the little handle in the ceiling and laughed, despite myself. Gravel spun out behind us as she motored through the lot and parked one row back from a shiny black Mercedes.
I wasn’t surprised by the crowd of guys circling the car and taking selfies with it. Of the nearly forty cars in the parking lot, at least thirty were pickup trucks. Allison’s hatchback was the nicest of the cars. Except this sleek, black machine. I walked past slowly. I didn’t know much about cars, but this was no pickup truck. I let out an appreciative whistle.
“Can you believe their car?” Allison practically skipped beside me. “Do you think it’s really their dad’s but he lets them drive it?”
“I don’t know.” My mind wandered to the man on the porch.
“Did you see them? I only got a glimpse.”
I shouldered my way through the crowded doorways as the first bell rang, allowing us inside. “I think I saw their dad on the porch.”
“No. I didn’t see anyone on the porch.” Allison lifted onto her toes, trying to see above the crowd.
Justin Maze lumbered into view. The crowd parted for him as always. “What are you doing here before the tardy bell?”
“Came to see you.” Allison blew Justin an air kiss and continued tiptoeing toward our lockers.
“She picked me up,
” I tattled.
Justin ducked his head and rubbed his chin. “I don’t understand.”
“I got new neighbors, or haven’t you heard?” I slid my gaze toward Justin briefly, keeping a watch on where we were going. The last thing I wanted to do was trip on a freshman.
We followed Allison around the corner, past the glass office walls. No new guys. A few paces later, we were in the hall with an endless row of lockers. I broke off and headed for mine. She had one foot in college. She could be late and screw off more than the rest of us. I spun the lock and popped my locker door open, sorting through the books inside and swapping for a few in my bag, getting set up for classes until lunch.
“Have you seen them?” Justin leaned against the locker beside mine, fingertips stuffed into the pockets of his cowboy jeans. His boots were caked with mud from a morning with the horses and the buckle he’d earned this summer shined between his hips. His crisp white T-shirt was perfectly opposite everything else he wore and he looked amazing. Justin was all suntan and muscles. Both qualities were hard earned from hours of labor-intensive work in the sun and a lifelong rodeo obsession.
I realized a few beats too late my observation of his ensemble ended with a look at the perfect bow of his lips and never quite made it to the cool blue of his eyes. Lately, things were like that between us. Complicated. I’d admired Justin’s eyes since I was old enough to connect the brown of mine to the color of mud or horse apples in his barn and his to a perfect cloudless sky.
His lips curled up on one side, forming the cutest half-smile on Earth. The smile of my childhood friend killed the whole hot cowboy thing, as usual. His family had moved to Zoar when we were in fifth grade. We met when Dad bought me a pony. The Mazes taught horseback riding and performed at shows. They ran the only stables in town and made a killing. I’d sold the pony and kept Justin instead.
“What?” I looked around, avoiding eye contact. Allison was gone.
He chuckled and shook his head. “Can I walk you to class? It looks like Allison’s gone man hunting.”
Prophecy Page 2
