Abandon the Dark

by Marta Perry

  “Like ships,” he said promptly. “It’s a compliment, not an insult.”

  “Right. To get back to my original question—”

  “Yes, I know where I’m going. At least,” honesty compelled him to add, “I’m following the directions. Whether they were accurate is another story.”

  He spotted the derelict barn that figured on his rough map and slowed. “There’s supposed to be a lane off to the right beyond this barn.”

  “There it is.” Lainey pointed, then grabbed for a handhold as he turned into the lane.

  “Whoever called this a lane was grossly overstating the case.” He hit another rut with a clang that suggested the tailpipe was in trouble. “I think we’ll have to hoof it from here. Are you up for it?”

  “Nothing like a little walk in the country.”

  Lainey sounded surprisingly cheerful. He liked a woman who could hang on to her sense of humor when things went awry.

  “Right. Let’s go.” He slid out, not bothering to attempt pulling the pickup over. Nothing motorized was going anywhere on this track, as far as he could tell.

  He went around and caught Lainey by the elbows as she slid out. “It’s a long way down,” he pointed out.

  “I think I can manage.”

  Did he imagine it, or did she sound just a little breathless as she took a step away from him?

  He pulled a flashlight from his jacket pocket and trained it on what there was of a path. “The cabin should be about a half mile up the lane.”

  “Let’s go, then.” She nodded toward the flashlight. “You must have been a Boy Scout.”

  “Always prepared, that’s me,” he said lightly.

  “Is that a lawyerly trait?” Lainey seemed to keep up with him without effort.

  He considered. “I suppose.” He slanted a glance at her and saw she was smiling. “You find that laughable?”

  “No. Just...a bit different from the creative types I usually work with.”

  He nodded, swinging the light to show her a bramble that reached out to snag the unwary. “Advertising, isn’t it? You like your job?” She didn’t seem in any hurry to get back to it, he’d noticed.

  “I’m looking for something else.” She shrugged. “Some problems with my boss. I’ll be better off elsewhere.”

  “Just a different job? Or a different city, as well?” He was fishing, wondering if there was a boyfriend in St. Louis who would give her a reason to return.

  “I don’t plan to stay in St. Louis, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  He took her hand to guide her around a fallen tree as the path entered the woods.

  “Deer Run’s a nice place to settle down,” he said. “Always supposing you don’t mind being a big fish in a little pond.”

  She slowed, and he realized she was studying his face. “You really like it here,” she said.

  He shrugged. “It’s where I belong. If you find a place that makes you happy, why would you leave?”

  “What about adventure? Excitement?”

  He had a feeling that she really wanted to understand what made him tick. “I like travel. Experiencing new places is great, as long as you have a home to return to.”

  Lainey stumbled over a stone in the path. He caught her, and they were very close there in the dark, so close he could hear her breath. Her fingers tightened on his forearms for an instant, and then she pulled away.

  “Not everyone is as lucky as you.” She nodded to the path. “Let’s get this over with.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SINCE JAKE HAD the flashlight, she had to follow him. Lainey decided that was safer anyway. They couldn’t walk side by side, so there was no excuse for Jake to take her arm. His touch was altogether too disturbing to her state of mind.

  Still, she was glad he was there. She wouldn’t want to be wandering around in the dark woods alone. The trees seemed to crowd close, as if leaning toward them. Like her drawing, Lainey realized. Like her dreams.

  “I hope this doesn’t give you nightmares,” Jake said, as if he’d been reading her thoughts.

  “What makes you say that?” Her tone was tart. Or maybe defensive.

  She saw his shoulders move in a shrug. “You mentioned something about having vivid dreams. It’s probably part of having a creative personality, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe so. I’ve always dreamt in Technicolor and high definition. At least I don’t sleepwalk any longer. That worried Aunt Rebecca the summer I was here.”

  “She’d have been afraid you’d get hurt, I suppose. It must have scared your mother, as well.”

  Now it was her turn to shrug. “She just locked me in my bedroom.”

  A stick cracked under Jake’s foot with a noise like a gunshot, and she gasped.

  “Sorry,” he said, and she thought she heard amusement in his voice. “It’s just as well to let Doctor Mary hear us coming, I think.”

  “She must like her privacy if she chooses to live clear out here alone.” She was talking for the sake of hearing their voices.

  “I suppose some mystique is useful to a powwow doctor.” Jake paused, swinging the beam of light ahead as if searching out the path. “I don’t think it’s much farther.” His torch focused on a row of low, leafy plants. “Looks like part of her garden.”

  “Peppermint, I think,” she said as they passed the plants. “Smell it.” Even from a few feet away, the spicy scent made itself known.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” he said. “The cabin—”

  A flap of wings, and a ghostly shape swooped over their heads, so close that Lainey ducked, gasping and grabbing Jake’s jacket.

  “Just an owl,” he said. “It startled me, too.” He aimed the torch at the branch of a tree about ten or twelve feet away. Round eyes stared back at them.

  “It’s white,” she murmured. Ghostly was definitely the word.

  “A snowy owl. Unusual to see around here, but not unheard of.” He reached behind him to clasp her hand as he began moving again. “The owl is the symbol of the wisewoman, isn’t it? Maybe it’s a pet.”

  If so, Doctor Mary had developed the right props for herself. They stepped into a small clearing where yellow light glowed from the windows of a cabin constructed of rough-hewn logs. And the right setting, Lainey added silently.

  “There’s a fire burning,” Jake said. “Doctor Mary must be home. Come on.” Clasping her hand firmly in his, Jake led her toward the door.

  The door actually stood open, but a frayed piece of fabric hung from the frame, hiding the inside. Jake rapped on the jamb.

  A voice called out from inside in a language Lainey didn’t understand. Jake apparently thought it was an invitation because he pulled the material back enough so that they could step inside.

  Lainey stood blinking in the yellow glow of candles and the wood fire in a rough stone fireplace. The cabin was a single room, it seemed, furnished with a small bed in one corner, a couple of rocking chairs, a long wooden table, and crude cabinets and shelves along the back wall. Every available surface seemed given over to crocks and bottles and bowls of all sizes and shapes, and the drying plants hanging from the rafters practically obscured the ceiling. The mingled scents were somehow both pleasant and overwhelming.

  Neither of those words properly described the woman who was bent over a mortar and pestle at the table. Not Amish, Lainey thought, somewhat surprised. Or at least, not dressed like any Amish person she’d ever seen. She was a shapeless bundle of clothes, layered over each other and covered up with a heavy black sweater that hung so loosely it must have been a man’s. Her hair was entirely white, and strands had escaped her bun to hang around her face. Her long nose and heavy brows gave her an ominous look, like a witch in a fairy tale.

  “Doctor Mary.” Jake took a step toward the apparition. “I’m Jake Evans. We came out from Deer Run to see you.”

  The woman didn’t speak. Nothing moved but her eyes, flicking from Jake to Lainey and back again.

  “Can
you help us?” Jake asked. “We can pay,” he added.

  “She wants something to help her sleep? Stop her from dreaming?” The apparition took a step around the table, eyes focused on Lainey’s face.

  Startled, Lainey shook her head. The woman couldn’t have heard what they’d been talking about, could she? Or maybe she could. Wasn’t that a trick fake psychics and fortune-tellers used, to find out a little about the people who came to them and use that to get them talking?

  “No sleeping medicines,” Jake said quickly.

  “That’s right,” Lainey added. “I don’t want to take anything to make me sleep.”

  “Not take,” the woman said. She waddled slowly to a shelf, pulling what seemed to be a slip of paper from a bowl, then wrapping it in some sort of leaves. She came toward Lainey slowly, gaze fixed on her face, and held out the tiny bundle.

  “Put under your pillow,” she said. “No charge.”

  “Thank you.” Lainey sniffed at the leaves, identifying lavender. Aromatherapy, in a way, she supposed. “But I really need help with something else.” She glanced at Jake, and he gave her an encouraging nod. “Someone has been putting signs around my house.”

  “Signs?” The old woman took a step back. “What kind of signs?” There was something in her face—faint suspicion, maybe.

  Did that mean she knew something? “A cross on the doorstep,” she said. “Salt on the windowsills. A broom across the door. Witch signs.”

  The woman began to back away, her hands fumbling at her breast as if seeking something. “Get out.” Her voice rose, cracking a little. “Get out.” Moving faster than Lainey would have thought she could, she scurried behind the table, her face a mask of fury. She picked up the heavy pestle, raising it threateningly. “Go away!”

  “We don’t mean any harm.” Lainey took a step toward her, but Jake grabbed her arm. She glanced at him, and he shook his head.

  “It’s no use. We’d better go.”

  “But she—”

  The pestle flew through the air, narrowly missing Lainey’s head. Shoving her behind his body, Jake propelled her out the door and pulled her into a run.

  They finally slowed down when they cleared the woods and emerged into the open field.

  “Looks like Doctor Mary didn’t care for us,” Jake said, his breath coming quickly.

  “Not us.” Lainey saw again the expression on the woman’s face. “Just me. And only when she realized who I was.”

  They could walk side by side now, and the moonlight was bright enough that she could see Jake’s quick glance at her face.

  “When you mentioned the witch symbols,” he said. “She was fine until then. That must mean she knows something about it.”

  “If she does, she’s not going to tell us.” Lainey shivered a little as a breeze swept across the field, rattling the dry grasses.

  “No, I think it’s safe to say she’s not on our side,” Jake said.

  “It’s not just disliking me.” Lainey shivered again and zipped her jacket up to the neck. “Didn’t you see it? She was afraid. Of me.”

  Jake’s jaw tightened visibly. Lainey suspected he wanted to dismiss that idea, but he couldn’t, because it was true. There had been fear in the old woman’s face when she realized who Lainey was.

  “Why?” The word burst out of her. “I could understand somebody like Zeb wanting to get rid of me so he could handle Aunt Rebecca’s property. But I can’t understand why anyone would think me a witch.”

  “It’s nonsense.” Jake clasped her hand warmly. “Some foolish rumor started by someone, that’s all, and somehow Mary found out about it.”

  “I hope you’re right,” she said slowly. “But I think...” She let that trail off, frowning. “What’s that by the truck?”

  A shadow moved along the driver’s side of the pickup. Jake froze for an instant.

  “Stay here,” he ordered. He took off running toward the truck.

  She didn’t, of course, but she couldn’t overtake him. By the time Lainey reached him, Jake had someone pinned against the driver’s side door. He moved as she came up to him, and she saw who it was. Thomas, Zeb’s grandson.

  “Thomas! What are you doing here?”

  “That’s obvious, isn’t it?” Jake was holding the boy with a firm grip on the front of his dark jacket. “This is the person who’s been playing all those tricks on you, Lainey.”

  “Thomas? Is that true?” Lainey leaned closer, trying to read the boy’s expression.

  He pressed his lips together, shaking his head.

  “Come on, Thomas.” Jake’s grip tightened. “You’ve been trying to scare Lainey away. You put brooms across the door, salt on the windowsills, broke the kitchen window—”

  “No!” Thomas shook his head. “I would not break the window. It belongs to Aunt Rebecca.”

  That sounded real enough. “But you did the other things,” Lainey said. “Did Doctor Mary tell you about the witch signs?”

  Thomas pressed his lips together, his eyes darting this way and that.

  “You might as well be honest about it,” Jake said. “Why would you be here otherwise? Did you come to ask Doctor Mary for something else to scare Lainey away?”

  Thomas held out for another moment. Then he nodded, blinking rapidly as if to blink back tears.

  “Why?” Jake seized the opening. “Why did you think Lainey is a witch? Who told you that? Your grandfather?”

  There was no mistaking Thomas’s expression now. He was frightened. He shook his head frantically, and his tears spilled over. He was trembling.

  Lainey couldn’t stand it any longer. “Don’t, Jake.”

  But Jake was already letting go, obviously affected as much as she was. “Go home, Thomas,” he said gruffly. “And stay away from Lainey.”

  The boy slid away from his hands. With a last, frightened look at them, he bolted, running down the lane.

  Jake pounded his fist lightly against the truck. “It has to be Zeb, doesn’t it? Who else would put Thomas up to such a thing?”

  “I don’t know.” She felt flattened, all the tension draining out of her. “Thomas is just a boy. He wouldn’t have come up with this craziness on his own, would he?”

  Jake put his hand on her shoulder, his expression baffled and frustrated. “I wish I knew. Maybe I should confront Zeb myself.”

  “No, don’t do that.” Her negative response was almost automatic.

  “Why?” His fingers tightened. “If Zeb is responsible—”

  “Whether he is or isn’t, he’s still Aunt Rebecca’s brother-in-law. She might not want it brought into the open.”

  “She’s not the one who has been the target.” His hand moved, cradling her face, and her heart seemed to turn over.

  “Please, Jake.” It was difficult to think over the pounding of her pulse. “Aunt Rebecca is doing better every day. At least hold off until she’s well enough that I can talk to her about it.”

  “In the meantime—”

  “In the meantime,” she said quickly, “I think you’ve scared Thomas off pulling any more tricks. Let’s leave it at that, all right?”

  Jake hesitated, and his gaze seemed pinned to her lips. “All right,” he said finally. He stepped back, his hand falling to his side. “We’ll do it your way.”

  * * *

  “SO I CONVINCED Jake that we shouldn’t confront Zeb about it,” Lainey said, concluding telling Rachel and Meredith about their visit to Doctor Mary as they sat around Aunt Rebecca’s kitchen table the next night. She’d wanted to have them over for a meal, but not being the cook that Rachel was, she’d picked up pizza and made a salad. Neither of them seemed to mind.

  “I’m sure you did the right thing.” Rachel’s expression was troubled. “It was best not to push Thomas too far. I’ve seen my brother Benj afraid to keep a secret but still more afraid of telling. A boy that age is easily led, and Thomas is more naïve even than most Amish kids.”

  “Well, Thomas certainly didn’t t
ell us anything. I don’t think Jake should have come on so strong with the boy.”

  Meredith picked a slice of pepperoni from her pizza and ate it. “Jake was being protective of you, I imagine.”

  “I don’t need a man’s protection.”

  “No. But sometimes it’s nice, anyway, isn’t it?” Meredith said, smiling.

  Lainey couldn’t suppress a rueful laugh. “There might be something in what you say, as long as I don’t get used to it.” She wouldn’t be here long enough for that.

  “Maybe I can get Benj to talk to Thomas,” Rachel suggested. “They’re about the same age, and Thomas might be more likely to confide in a peer than an adult.”

  Meredith nodded agreement. “Thomas is so shy I can’t imagine anyone else getting him to talk, but Benj might.”

  “That would be a relief. But I don’t want to involve Benjamin if he’s reluctant.” Still, Rachel’s suggestion was the most likely way of getting something out of Thomas.

  “I’ll sound him out,” Rachel said. She frowned. “I can’t imagine Thomas coming up with an idea like this on his own, no matter how naïve he is.”

  “You don’t think I look like a witch?” Lainey asked laughingly.

  Meredith leaned back in her chair, giving Lainey an assessing gaze. “I always thought you looked like a gypsy when we were kids. As far as I was concerned, witches were ugly, and you were never that.”

  “I don’t think there were any witches in our fantasy world,” Rachel said, her forehead crinkling. “I do remember Meredith fighting a dragon, though. Remember that, Lainey?”

  To her surprise, Lainey found the memory dropping into the conscious part of her mind. “I do. She had a lance made out of a long roll of cardboard. And a good thing it wasn’t anything stronger, because she speared me with it by mistake.”

  “Sounds like me,” Meredith said. “I never was good at sports, not that dragon-fighting was considered a sport, as far as I know. I did pretty well with the sewing your aunt tried to teach us, though. Did you ever finish your doll quilt?”

  “The nine-patch. Yes, I’m pretty sure I did. In fact, I started a new quilting project. It’s spread out on the dining room table, if you’d like to see.”