Lucas blushed at the feeling of her fingers on his back, so he pulled away and changed the subject. “I … uh … heard this place burned down.”
Bess let go of his shirt and sat on the front steps. “Yeah, that’s true. The Hounds Hollow Inferno, they call it round here. But that was a long time ago. You got a bike?”
Lucas sat down next to her. “No. Never needed one in the city.”
“You’ll need a bike,” she said. “You know how to ride, though, right?”
“My grandparents taught me,” he told her. “They live in the South. Every kid there has a bike.”
“Sounds a lot like here,” said Bess. “So we’ll get you a bike. I know a guy.”
“Do you have a bike?” he asked her.
“Of course I have a bike,” she said. “What kind of a kid doesn’t have a bike? I mean, besides you.”
Lucas looked toward Sweetwater Manor. He didn’t really know what to say next, so he asked, “Wanna go for a walk?”
Bess shrugged and tucked a wisp of black hair under her cap. “Sure. Where?”
“I haven’t walked around the outside of the house yet. And I need to stretch my legs after the drive yesterday.” He stretched his legs and arms in front of him dramatically.
“Okay,” said Bess. “Let’s go.”
The cicadas still buzzed as the two kids followed the dirt road driveway beside the mansion. Lucas kept expecting to see work trucks parked along the house, but there were none. Instead, Sweetwater Manor was surrounded by thick woods. Lucas stepped into the forest while Bess stayed on the path.
Inside, among the trees, the world felt different from inside the house. It was like the driveway was a moat protecting the home from the untouched wilderness around it. As he stepped deeper into the shadows, the sun disappeared and the temperature dropped a few degrees. Light strained through the branches, giving the surroundings an eerie, otherworldly glow. This was where monsters hid. It was like a Grimms’ fairy tale, or a cursed forest level of a video game. Lucas shuddered and jumped back into the sunlight next to Bess.
“You okay?” It was the first thing Bess had said for a full ten minutes while they walked. “You’re acting like something’s chasing you.”
“I’m not used to having this much nature around, I guess,” said Lucas. “I mean, look out there. Anything could be hiding. Waiting.”
Bess stood shoulder to shoulder with him and stared into the forest. “Hiding, maybe. Waiting, doubt it. What do you think’s out there?”
Lucas realized he must sound stupid to her. Did he really want to tell her the truth? About the animal from last night? About the boy from today? About his sickness? Why did he have to say waiting? Bess was supposed to be the weird one, but now he was the one being wacky. “I don’t know. Bigfoot? Bigfeet? What do you call, like, a group of Bigfoot?”
Bess pushed him away and laughed. She had a heavy laugh and a heavier push that surprised Lucas. He tripped over the dirt driveway but caught himself before he fell.
“You’re funny,” she said. “I’ve lived here all my life and the worst I’ve seen was a skunk. There’s no monsters in those woods. It’s just nature.”
Lucas nodded. “I know, but, like, it’s a lot of nature. I’m a city kid.”
“Then stay out of the woods,” Bess said. She tugged his arm and pulled him back along the driveway. “At least until I can teach you a thing or two so that it doesn’t feel so strange anymore. Maybe we oughta go inside?”
“No.” Lucas released the word before he knew what he was saying or how he was saying it. His tone fell like an iron wall between them, and whatever closeness they were sharing was cut off immediately.
Bess nodded, then reached into her pocket and tossed something to Lucas. Flinching, he managed to snag the object clumsily. Lucas opened his hand to find a triangle-shaped rock with smoothed edges. “What is this?”
“Duh,” said Bess. “It’s a rock.”
“What’s it for?” asked Lucas. He flipped the stone over and and over in his hands. It was the perfect skipping rock and practically floated in his fingers.
“It’ll protect you in the woods,” she said. “Just keep it with you and you’ll be safe.”
Lucas laughed. “C’mon, so this thing is, what, magic? That’s crazy.”
“It’s not crazy,” Bess snapped back. Her eyes barreled into him, casting a glow of irritation, anger, and hurt. “It’s not even weird, okay? It’s lucky. Lots of people believe in luck, so why can’t you think of it as a good luck charm? I thought you were different. I thought you might understand. I gave it to you because …”
But she didn’t finish her thought. Instead, Bess turned her back and walked away, pulsing with an emotion that Lucas couldn’t figure out.
“Sorry,” he muttered, pushing the stone into his pocket and jogging to catch up to her. “I mean … thanks. Thanks and sorry.”
She stayed quiet and Lucas didn’t want to risk saying something wrong again, so they kept walking together without speaking. The house lumbered next to them the whole way, like some sleeping giant that was out of place in this world. The woodwork alone was mesmerizing. Balconies jutted out of the house, one after the other. Steeples rose above the treetops like churches, but they were just part of the Sweetwater Manor design. Every few steps, Lucas noticed another spotlight and camera. If Bess noticed them, too, she didn’t let on. She was content to just walk with him.
“Did you, uh, know Silas?” Lucas asked when he felt enough time had passed.
“Kinda.” Bess picked up a broken stick from off the ground and whiffed it through the air like a sword. “Did you?”
Truthfully, he had no idea who Silas Sweetwater was before his mom got the letter saying that her great-great-uncle passed away. The deed to the house was also in the envelope. Lucas’s mom had no idea who he was and thought it was all a scam. But then Lucas’s grandmother remembered Silas, though she had to dig deep through her family albums to find any proof of him. But he was there. She’d emailed them a grainy photograph of Silas. It was the only one his grandmother had, and she couldn’t remember when or how she’d ended up with it.
Lucas stopped, thinking back to the photograph. The edges were uneven and worn away, almost as if they’d been burned. Silas was sitting on a set of steps in front of a porch. He was a kid in the picture, not much older than Lucas. Wearing a dark shirt and pants, Silas had wavy, black hair that stood in a tuft. He looked like he was from the Civil War days. Beside him were two dogs, a Rottweiler and a husky with all-black fur. Neither Silas nor the dogs were looking at the camera in the picture. They were all staring off to the left and they weren’t smiling at all. The photo didn’t make Lucas any more excited about moving to where this weird-looking kid used to live.
The only thing Lucas’s grandmother could remember was that the Sweetwaters moved and stopped talking to the rest of the family a long time ago, which is why everyone forgot about Silas until he died. Lucas wondered if the same thing would happen to him after he moved.
Bess snapped the stick suddenly in her hands, bringing Lucas back from his thoughts. “Well, did you know Silas or not?”
“No,” he answered. “I didn’t know him at all. Maybe that’s why this place feels weird. You know, just moving into someone else’s house with all their furniture and stuff still there.”
“Wow, so his stuff is still in the house? Is it, like … everything?”
“How am I supposed to know?” asked Lucas. “I mean, maybe. There’s a lot of junk in there.”
Bess smiled after he said it. Then she grabbed Lucas by the shoulders and turned him to face her. For a moment, he thought she might try to plant one on him, but instead she asked, “Did you see anything out of the ordinary in there?”
Lucas let out a huge laugh. “Seriously? Look at this place. It’s bigger than a museum and filled with way stranger things. You might as well ask me if I ever saw any pigeons when I lived in the city.”
Bess nodded
and then broke their little huddle. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”
“Yeah, maybe. Just, not today” was all Lucas could get out. As Bess walked farther on, Lucas called out, “I didn’t know you were a connoisseur of strange stuff.” He didn’t really know what the word connoisseur meant, but he’d heard his parents use it the same way. And for some reason, he wanted to impress this new, odd girl.
Bess stopped and kicked a clump of dirt before whipping around. “I’m friends with you, aren’t I?”
A smile warmed on Lucas’s face, the second one today. If he kept this up, he might be happy here. Then he remembered one thing about the house that he hadn’t told anyone yet. “Hey, Bess. Have you ever seen, like, a boy—I don’t know, like … hanging out with Silas before, I guess? Maybe someone who might know his way around the house?”
“A boy?” Bess froze a second before turning back around with a grin. “Hanging around here?”
Lucas knew that grin. It was a mask, just like his mom’s—the one she wore whenever she knew more than she wanted to tell him. Bess had a secret.
“Yeah, no, I mean … now I’m sounding crazy,” Lucas said. “It was probably just a really young worker in the house or something. Forget I said anything.”
“A boy?” she repeated, intrigued.
But then Lucas’s mom pulled up the driveway in their car. A cloud of dust stirred in its wake. She rolled down the window. “Hi, Bess, it’s good to see you again.”
“Hi, Mrs. Trainer,” Bess answered. “I hope you don’t mind me snatching up Lucas for a walk.”
“Not at all. New friends are always welcome.” Lucas’s mom gave him a wink. She loved winking and always thought no one else could see her do it. Problem was, everybody always saw it. She was horrible at winking. “Lucas, honey, I need you to come with me to pick up a few things in town. Bess, you’re free to join us if you’d like.”
“No, ma’am,” Bess declined. “Thank you for the offer, but I should head home for lunch. I’ll come back by later, Lucas. I can tell you more about Hounds Hollow and maybe you can show me around the house. Y’all have fun in town.”
With that, Bess ran off into the woods. She was out of sight in seconds. Lucas stuck his hand in his pocket and palmed the rock she had given him. As he climbed into the car and clicked on his seat belt, he pulled out the rock and examined it. Bess must have been holding this rock for the whole time they were hanging out. She’d given it to him to protect him. Protect him from what, he had no idea. In fact, that Bess thought he needed protection at all kind of freaked him out. But if she was out to protect him, that meant she cared about him, which made Lucas feel good. Even if Bess might be a weirdo, Lucas was suddenly excited to see her again. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt that he could learn a thing or two from her about his strange new life.
Driving through downtown Hounds Hollow was like traveling back in time. There was a small, main street with a few buildings on each side. The sidewalks were mostly empty, but there were some people in the stores. First, Lucas and his mother passed a music store with a grand piano in the window. Next to that was a barbershop with one of those old-timey spinning candy cane–style poles out front. The men sitting outside watched their car suspiciously. They passed a diner with posters for banana splits, pies, and ice-cream sundaes. Servers in paper hats, and customers sipping coffee, looked up as they drove by. Lucas’s mom gave them a neighborly wave, but they didn’t wave back.
“Oh my goodness, look at that vintage clothing store,” Mom said, ignoring the restaurant patrons’ rebuke. The store didn’t have a sign out front. Instead the words BUY SELL TAILOR WEAR were stenciled along the bottom flap of the faded green awning that covered the entrance. The windows were crowded with mannequins dressed like people from his mom’s favorite movie, Grease. They wore white shirts, dark jeans, leather jackets, poofy polka-dot dresses, and skinny suits that made the plastic people look like they were frozen in time.
Across the street was a general store called Gale’s, a bookstore called the Dog Ear, and lastly a movie theater called the Bijou. Seeing a movie theater gave Lucas a little hope that maybe this town wasn’t as isolated as it seemed, but then he saw the marquee. The latest film they were showing was The Great Muppet Caper.
“It’s like they built this place with barely enough stuff to actually call it a town,” Lucas groaned.
After they parked, Lucas’s mom hopped out first and saw the mud that covered the bottom half of their car. Their license plate was completely crusted over. Lucas kicked the front tire and a cloud of dust floated and surrounded the city-beaten Ford.
“There must be a car wash around here somewhere,” said Mom.
“I think we fit in just fine.” Lucas motioned to the other cars and trucks parked next to them that suffered the same dirt-worn fate. “I don’t see one clean car out here.”
“You’re right,” Mom said as she spun the keys in her hands victoriously. “See, we’re fitting in already!”
Fitting in wasn’t high on Lucas’s list of things to do in his new town. Laying low would be much better. Some people thought that fitting in and laying low were the same thing, but Lucas was smarter than that. Fitting in was another code word; it meant leaving the past behind. As his mom proudly crossed the well-painted crosswalk, she felt like a stranger to him. She was ready to let go of the city, to swap its dented bumpers for dirty tires and small-town unpaved roads.
But Lucas wasn’t. He took pride in being a city kid.
Laying low, on the other hand, that meant biding your time. Going unnoticed by everyone around you, even your family, until you’re ready to come up for air. And by the looks of this tiny town, Lucas might not breathe again until college.
“Hurry up, Lucas.” Mom waved him on. “Your father needs the car this afternoon.”
Lucas took a deep breath, then jogged into the road outside of the crosswalk before slipping back to walk right on the edge of the white lines.
From the outside, Gale’s General Store looked like a fur pelt trading post from the 1800s. It had a porch with rocking chairs and hand-carved railings. Just off the porch, Lucas put his palm on a strange bench in front of the store. The seat came up to his chest and was round on top without a backside.
“What’s with this bench?” he asked. “It looks more like a balance beam. How’s anyone supposed to sit here?”
“That’s not a bench,” said Mom. “It’s a horse post.”
Lucas ran his hand over the smooth, round topside. “It doesn’t look like a horse.”
“Very funny,” Mom teased. “When people used to ride horses for transportation, this is where they parked the horse. They’d tie the reins to those posts so the horse wouldn’t run off.”
“Wait, do people still ride horses here instead of cars?” Lucas quickly lifted his foot off the ground to make sure he wasn’t stepping in anything gross.
His mom laughed. “It’s supposed to be quaint. Don’t you think this place is charming? I mean, I really feel like we’ve gone back in time.”
“Yeah, but how far back?” Lucas followed his mom up the stairs to the porch. A rusty bell rang as they opened the front door.
“Be with you in a sec,” a woman’s voice came from the rear of the store.
Glass jars filled with hard candy like lollipops and peppermint sticks sat by the cash register. Shelves ran all along the walls, filled with canned goods, like stewed tomatoes or green beans, and condiments like pickles, mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise. Rustic tables made up the center aisles. They were covered with loaves of bread, hot dog and hamburger buns, and a few bags of potato chips. Farther in the back were cleaning supplies, charcoal, and bottles of soda.
“This place is like an old-timey 7-Eleven,” said Lucas. He studied the candy options. Each jar had a blue label with white letters on it announcing the flavor of the candy sticks. It started out strong with flavors like root beer, chocolate, and raspberry, but then it quickly veered into odd tastes like
lavender, rose petal, and basil.
“Oh, look,” Mom said from behind Lucas, “they’ve kept these sweets priced low! Ten cents for a candy stick? That’s a deal. Can’t find that back in the city.”
An older woman with short white hair and chestnut skin came out of the door in the back of the room. Her green sweater was thick and unnecessary in the hot weather outside. As she toweled off her hand on a yellow floral apron, the woman smiled at Lucas and his mother.
“You must be the Trainers,” the woman said.
Lucas and his mom exchanged shocked looks. How did she know who they were?
“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” the woman reassured them. “News travels fast round these parts. That and Mae Armstrong was in here already. Watch out for that one, by the way. She is a mighty talker—especially since her husband up and left her—but you didn’t hear that from me.”
Lucas was stunned. “How’d you know who we were? I mean, we could have been anyone. What if we were just passing through Hounds Hollow?”
The woman gave him a deep side-eye glance. “You could have been, but you weren’t. And trust me, no one just passes through Hounds Hollow. Once you’re here, you’re home.”
Lucas gulped, and the old lady cackled like an old lady.
“I’m Gale,” she said. “I own the joint. Got my name on the sign and everything. As you can see, we’re gearing up for the end-of-summer barbecue. Y’all are invited, of course. It’s an annual town celebration.”
She handed Lucas’s mother a flyer.
“Thank you very much, Gale,” Mrs. Trainer said. “The barbecue sounds wonderful, but we need some cleaning supplies first.”
“Silas never did keep a clean house, did he?” Gale laughed at her own joke and showed a full, white-toothed smile. “Probably covered in sawdust. Follow me.”
As Gale led them down one of the small aisles, Lucas’s mom gave him the flyer. He looked at it, then stuffed it in his pocket.
The Haunting of Hounds Hollow Page 7
