Copyright © 2017 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fallenstein, J., author.
Title: The witching hour / J. Fallenstein.
Description: Minneapolis : Darby Creek, [2017] | Series: Midnight | Summary: “He seemed almost perfect. But when a girl finds out about the sinister ritual her crush plans to perform at the local cemetery, she has only hours to stop him”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016024433 (print) | LCCN 2016037896 (ebook) | ISBN 9781512427714 (lb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512431018 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512427912 (eb pdf)
Subjects: | CYAC: Ghosts—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Horror stories.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.F353 Wi 2017 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.F353 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024433
Manufactured in the United States of America
1-41496-23357-8/30/2016
9781512434972 ePub
9781512434989 ePub
9781512434996 mobi
To my dad, who kept my brothers, their friends, and me entranced (and afraid to walk home through the dark) with his spooky tales. Dad, we never did find out just how you got away from the ghastly tall man in the old abandoned farmhouse . . .
Chapter 1
The car stopped abruptly and Rosie jerked forward, the seatbelt knocking the wind out of her. “Dad!” Rosie felt the welt that was developing where the seatbelt caught her shoulder.
“Sorry!” Her dad pointed to the dark figure that had just run in front of the car and darted into the thick bushes. “He came out of nowhere!”
Rosie glanced at where the boy had vanished. His dark jersey with the white 44 was still playing across the back of her eyelids. A heavy fog rolled off the graveyard and seemed to surround the car.
Her dad let out a sigh as he drove through the drizzle past a long line of cars parked on the side of the road. To Rosie’s right, a few mourners in black wandered through the graveyard. Her dad pulled the car slowly ahead until they stopped in front of the ancient limestone church. Its Gothic wood doors opened, revealing six pallbearers carrying a shiny brown casket out of the church. They slowly started making their way across the graveyard lawn.
“Strange,” her dad said. “I guess you don’t need a hearse to get the casket to the graveyard if the burial is right next to the church.”
Rosie peered more closely at the pallbearers: six boys about her age, three on either side of the casket. A shiver went through her. Man, she hated funerals. It had been three years since Jessica died, but sometimes it still felt like it was just yesterday. Rosie went from being a big sister to an only child. And then everything else fell apart.
Even though the doctors said there was nothing she could have done, she still felt like it was partially her fault. She had been home with Jessica; she was the one who’d been there the night her sister died. Why hadn’t she checked on her sister just one more time? If Rosie had, maybe she would have seen her sister choking.
Rosie shivered and shut the vents on the dashboard. It was September, but the day was chilly. Many of the trees had already lost their leaves and were nothing more than dark skeletons.
The group following the casket walked solemnly in their dark clothes toward the open grave. The hair on the back of Rosie’s neck rose. A creeping chill made her shudder.
“You all right, Rosie?” her dad asked.
She nodded. “Let’s just get to your house so I can unpack.” Starting over in Middleton meant that she needed to stop dwelling on the past, Rosie reminded herself. She took one last look back at the funeral and just caught the street sign as they passed: Zumbay Road.
Rosie didn’t want to look at the sad sight of the mourners anymore so she flipped down the visor to check her face. She smoothed her hair. Man, her light roots were growing in fast, and the dishwater blond didn’t look good with the rest of her bright red hair. But she hadn’t had time to do anything but pack and say quick good-byes to her friends since her mom had announced her three-month transfer to Germany. Rosie basically had no choice but to move in with her dad, in Middleton. A town far enough away from everything and everyone to keep her isolated from her friends. But at least here the locals spoke English. She flipped the visor back up.
“I wonder who died,” Rosie said as they turned down the next road. An unsettled feeling rose from the pit of her stomach.
Chapter 2
Three hours later, after a marathon unpacking session, Rosie was hungry. “Dad?” She poked her head into his study. “Hey, Dad, can we get something to eat?”
He pulled off his reading glasses as he leaned back from the computer screen. “I can’t leave this, sorry. I’m in the middle of a live meeting. Why don’t you head to Dina’s and get yourself something?” He pulled the wallet from his back pocket and handed her a few bills. “Oh, and go to the hardware store to get yourself a key made.”
“For the car?” Rosie asked. If it ever stopped raining, the little beige convertible would be a pretty sweet ride.
He handed her his keys. “Just the house for now.”
“Okay,” she said halfheartedly, putting the key ring into her purse.
Dina’s was a diner in the middle of town. With only a few booths and a handful of stools at the counter, the diner wasn’t very big, but it was comfortable enough.
“Sit wherever,” the plump waitress said, waving a laminated menu at Rosie.
Rosie walked past the stools at the counter to a booth in the corner and plopped down. The cook looked up at her from his work, grunted a sound of acknowledgment, then went back to chopping onions. Rosie glanced around. She was the only one there.
“Where is everybody?” Rosie asked.
“People haven’t been getting out much lately,” the waitress said as she set down a glass of ice water. “You new here?” She pulled a pad and a pen from the front pocket of her white apron.
“My dad lives here. Bennet. Bennet Nett.”
“Oh, Mr. N. Sure. You must be Rosie, the daughter he’s always talking about.” She gave Rosie a genuine smile. “Well, I suggest a burger. One, because they’re pretty good, and two, because we’re out of most everything else. Except pie. We always have pie.” She motioned to the tiered plates of pie on the counter.
“A burger with everything on it and a slice of pie it is,” Rosie said. “Do you have apple?”
“Sugar, we have everything,” the waitress said before squeaking away in her white tennis shoes.
Rosie peered out the window at the deserted street. First Street was Middleton’s “downtown” area, but it didn’t amount to much. Next to the empty bus station stood an old brick hardware store. Farther down was the post office and Middleto
n High and then the grocery store. Then out near the cliffs on Zumbay Road were the church and the graveyard. That was Middleton.
If Rosie was starting fresh, then she would have to try to meet people. There had to be kids her age; there was a high school. Of course, someone had just died, and, given the age of all of the pallbearers, Rosie had a bad feeling that the burial this morning was most likely for a teenager. The current circumstances didn’t make it the most appealing time to be the new kid in Middleton, right in the middle of a tragedy. But she knew, maybe better than anyone, that everyone could probably use a good distraction. And she was more than willing to be that distraction.
A few minutes, later the waitress returned with the sizzling burger. Rosie swallowed the hard lump in her throat. Her stomach churned.
The waitress caught her eye and said, “You’re looking a little glum. What’s going on?”
Rosie shook her head. “I saw that funeral today. I hate to ask, but who was it?”
“Mackie. Mackie Blackwell. Really sad story.”
“What happened?”
“He was out on Zumbay Road with a blown bike tire.”
“Zumbay?” Rosie remembered the name. That was the street they’d driven in on. “The road that winds past the graveyard?”
“Same one. Except Mackie was about a half mile out, at the big curve over the ravine. Around midnight he calls his friend Omar to pick him up because it’s starting to rain. A big storm is coming. Omar drives to get him, doesn’t see him in the storm, and . . . well. They found Mackie’s body about halfway down the cliffs.”
“That’s terrible.” Rosie eyed the grease puddle that oozed onto the plate from the burger.
“Omar insists he didn’t hit him. That he never felt a bump or collision. He thinks Mackie jumped out of the way—over the guardrail—and lost his balance. But others aren’t so sure.” She sighed as she poked her pen into the dark curls piled on her head. “Either way, the whole town’s crying their eyes out.”
“But not you?”
“I’ve done my share of crying.” As she said it, the lights caught her face and the hard lines of years of worry became visible. “Somebody’s gotta go to work, and if my husband won’t get off his sorry butt, then I guess it’s up to me.” She shrugged and squeaked back to the kitchen.
Rosie took two small bites of the burger. She didn’t feel very hungry anymore. The waitress returned a few minutes later with a piece of apple pie. She gave a disapproving look at the partially eaten burger.
“So,” Rosie started. “Omar’s responsible for his friend’s death?”
The waitress nodded slightly and continued. “Tore those boys apart. Used to be the three of them: Mackie, Jack, and Omar. They were inseparable. Played football together since they could walk. In fact,” she filled Rosie’s water glass, “they even buried an old football with Mackie. It had their three names on it: Mackie Blackwell, Jack Blackwell, and Omar Arglos. Side by side. Kind of a pact that they’d be friends forever, I guess. But not anymore.”
“Jack?” Rosie said sipping her water. “Who’s Jack?”
“That would be Mackie’s twin.”
“His twin! Oh no. That must be awful.”
“It is. And I can’t say for sure, but since the accident—and I mean the whole month Mackie was in that coma—I haven’t seen Omar and Jack together.”
The waitress disappeared into the kitchen as the bells on the diner door jingled and a boy about Rosie’s age walked in. He was thin, but he had the body of an athlete and walked with the dexterity of a cat. Shaved into the back of his close-cropped Afro was the number 44. Just like the number on the jersey of the boy who ran out in front of their car at the graveyard. He was lucky he didn’t get hit!
As he made his way to a stool at the counter, Rosie tried to catch his eye, but he didn’t so much as glance in her direction. This was it—her chance to make a friend before school started. She cleared her throat, but he just sat there. She coughed, but he kept staring straight ahead.
Rosie looked intently at the boy, who was mumbling something but still ignoring her. Drastic times called for drastic measures so she moved her fork to the edge of the table, gave it a little shove, and let it clang on the floor.
Still he didn’t turn.
“Omar,” the waitress said as she came out of the kitchen’s swinging doors, coffeepot in hand. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
Rosie gasped. That was him, Omar, the boy who everybody thought killed his friend.
“Didn’t want to be home anymore and I got hungry,” Omar replied.
“You didn’t go to the luncheon?” the waitress asked.
Omar shook his head. “Jack was there. He told me . . . well, you know how he feels about me.”
“It’s tough,” the waitress said. “You boys were so close.”
The waitress poured him a cup of coffee and brought over a piece of coconut cream pie. Then she walked over to Rosie’s booth. “How about you, Peaches, anything else?” The waitress pulled the pad from her apron pocket. Rosie lifted her water glass. The water on the table swirled and beaded into a strange shape. It almost looked like a tiny 44.
Rosie shook her head as she pulled her dad’s twenty from her small purse. “Nothing else, but—” she touched the waitress’s hand and whispered, “could you use this to pay for Omar’s bill too? Don’t tell him it’s from me though. Well, it doesn’t matter—he doesn’t know me anyway.”
“Sure, hon. That’s sweet of you.”
Rosie slid to the edge of the seat, taking one last bite of pie as she got out of her booth. She walked slowly past Omar, whose head was tilted like he was talking to someone next to him.
“I didn’t see,” he said. “It was dark. Should be me in that grave. Should have been me, bro.”
Rosie looked around to see who he might be talking to, but there was nobody else in the diner.
An uneasy chill settled around her. She looked up at the air vent right above her, but it didn’t seem to be on. She moved to the door. The glass on the door’s window had fogged up and the words Help him appeared in shaky letters. Rosie gasped and spun around to see who could have written it but even the cook and the waitress were gone—there was only Omar at the counter.
Chapter 3
Rosie pushed past the smudged message and dashed out the door. A light rain fell as she headed to the hardware store. Her footsteps seemed to echo down the deserted street, and she tried to shake the feeling that someone was following her. She hurried under the faded Johnson’s Hardware sign, looking over her shoulder as she ducked into the old brick two-story building. An antique metal fan blew a puffy, gray dust bunny across the wide wood planks of the floor. The shelves nearest the door and register were stocked with candy. A low freezer full of ice cream sandwiches hummed in the corner. Rosie spotted rows of household goods, mops, and a small display of nail polish, and she hoped that somewhere there might possibly be some hair dye.
A little arrow sign that said Keys Made pointed Rosie up the stairs. As she stopped in front of the key-making machine and dinged the small metal bell, a teenage boy in a red vest ran up the stairs, calling out, “I got it.”
“I need a duplicate made.” Rosie handed him the key to the house.
“Just this?” he asked.
She felt along the ridges of the car key. Maybe Dad would let her take the convertible to school the first week. There was no reason he shouldn’t—he worked at home so he didn’t need it during the day. Plus, a spare key was always a good idea in case of an emergency. “Um, this one too,” she added, handing him the key to her dad’s convertible.
The boy examined the car key and nodded, turning to spin through the shiny rack of blanks. “Old school,” he said, giving Rosie an approving smile. As the machine sawed away at the metal, Rosie’s eyes wandered around the store, looking for something to talk to this boy about. Maybe he could be her first Middleton friend. Her gaze went to the colorful poster on the bulletin board behind t
he counter. Under the headline “Benefit for Mackie Blackwell” was a large picture of Mackie in a dark number 44 jersey holding a weathered football. That number. It came to her in a rush: 44 was Mackie’s number, not Omar’s!
But then why did she . . . She shook the image of the jersey at the graveyard and the water beads on the table from her mind and concentrated on the photo on the poster. The picture was eerily familiar. Her eyes went to the boy working the key machine. He was the spitting image—if not a bit more haggard and thin—of the boy on the poster. Her eyes darted to the red letters on his white name tag: Jack.
She shifted uneasily. Mackie’s twin right here in front of her. How could she make sure not to say the stupidest thing in the history of stupid things said?
Jack placed the two keys on the counter. “Anything else today?” He barely looked up.
“Dye.”
“Excuse me?” His dark eyes flitted to hers.
“Dye? Do you have dye?” Did he think she said die? Her face burned. “I mean hair . . . color, for your hair, not your hair, but head hair, that grows . . .” She touched her roots.
“Jack?” a deep baritone voice called up the stairs. “One of your teammates is here to see you.”
Jack flipped off the key machine. “Better not be Omar,” he muttered. “Still can’t look at that dude.” An older woman with a mop of gray hair leaned out from behind the gallons of paint.
“Omar needs to leave you in peace.” She nodded solemnly at Jack. “That Arglos boy has done enough damage to this town.”
Rosie followed a few feet behind Jack. She held the railing as the balding, rotund owner of the deep voice continued, “It was an accident, Jack. You boys have been punishing yourselves enough over this. Cut Omar some slack.”
On her way to the register Rosie scanned the beauty products for hair dye. But her face still burned from her stupid dye comment. A growing panic made her break out into a light sweat. She just wanted to get home, so she headed for the register.
The Witching Hour Page 1
