by Alina Banks
I gaped at her, unable to believe what she had said. “Are you trying to tell me we might be close to a hellmouth?”
Her eyes met mine. “I’ve learnt to keep an open mind, Ana. I don’t know what is true and what isn’t, but I do know what other people have believed through the centuries, because the history of Clermont is something I’ve been interested in for a very long time.” She brushed a hand through her hair. “I do know that the natives made the decision to never settle here. They said it wasn’t right for them to do so, but they never gave an explanation for that decision. Should there be a hellmouth, which would be entirely possible, then that could explain the choice they made to keep their distance. However, there are other reasons they might have made that decision, and I don’t think we’re ever going to know for certain why they did that.”
Nodding, I looked down at the papers Alice had brought with her. “What have you got for me?”
“Records of all the deaths that have happened throughout the town’s history, including the time when it was just a trading post. Granted, many of those deaths were put down as missing people because they never returned. The bodies were never found, so keep in mind that there could be a chance that some of them were nothing more than coincidences.”
“I’m not sure I believe in coincidences.”
“I have gone through these before, so I would have to say I agree, but it is definitely something to keep in mind.” She looked down at the papers. “This isn’t something most students would be looking into.”
“I’m not like most students.” I smiled. “I was given an assignment to write about the history of Clermont, and with what happened last week, I can’t help but think that the deaths might be linked, even though they could just as well be nothing more than mere coincidences. Why would anyone think they’re connected?”
Slowly, Alice nodded, studying me in a way that might have made me uncomfortable had it been anyone else. “You aren’t the only one who’s been asking that question.” She pulled a paper out of the pile and passed it over to me. “This is a list of deaths that happened about twenty years ago, back when your mother still called Clermont home. There were those who said the Conways, like a few other families on this list, were involved in witchcraft, but no one could prove anything. It’s probably best they couldn’t, to be honest. If those families were found to be witches, there would be no way of knowing how people would have reacted.”
“My grandparents died at a similar time to a number of other people?”
“Yes, they did. Nearly all of the families of the deceased left town after it happened. Including your mother. Only one person chose to stay, and that person was a Cane.”
“Who owns the hospital, so she couldn’t leave.”
Alice shrugged. “I’m not going to say this definitely means anything, Ana, but it might. I wouldn’t suggest putting any of this into your history assignment though.”
Sabrina stared at me. “An Alice who works in the library?” She shook her head. “I know the two librarians, and neither of them are called Alice. Neither of them is young, either. I don’t know who it was, but I don’t believe they were one of the librarians.”
“I definitely met her this morning, Sabrina.” I brushed a hand through my hair, thinking of the papers I had in my bag, wondering if her name might be on one of them. Only I didn’t know how that would make any sense. “Maybe she was just one of the students pretending to be a librarian, since she knew I didn't know any better.”
“Possibly, although I have to say I don’t think any student has studied the history of Clermont deeply enough to be able to talk to you about it with that amount of detail.” She shrugged. “Then again, I can’t say I know everyone in the school, so it’s entirely possible you were talking to a senior I’ve never met.”
Nodding, I decided to change the subject. “I probably should have mentioned it before, but it’s my birthday this weekend, and I was hoping the two of you might want to come over. I’m not going to be doing much, but it would be nice to have a couple of friends to keep me company.”
Grinning, Sabrina wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Of course, we’ll be there, and you don’t need to worry about not giving us much warning. I understand why you didn’t want to bring this up until you were certain. You have told me what it was like for you, Ana. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to travel from one place to the next all the time. If that had happened to me, I could easily imagine giving it time before I made the decision whether or not someone truly was my friend.” Her eyes met mine for a moment. “I’m not going to lie to you and say I’m certain we’re going to be friends for life, because no one can ever know what might happen in the future, but I can promise you I’ll be your friend for as long as you want me to be a part of your life. I like you. I made the decision I was going to get to know you for Mom, because she thought it was important someone was willing to give you a chance, but the reason I made that choice doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’m just grateful I have someone like you in my life.”
Smiling back, grateful she was being honest with me, I rested my head on her shoulder for a few seconds. “Thank you, Sabrina. My time here would have been very different without you. I don’t care why you made the choice. I just care you made it, and that you’re someone I can call a friend.”
Before either of us could say anything more, a sound came through one of the speakers in the cafeteria. “All students return to homeroom.” Sabrina and I shared a look before we both glanced over at James. He shrugged, obviously knowing as much as the two of us did. “All students return to homeroom.”
“We should go.” James stood, holding his hand out to Sabrina. “We’ll try to meet up with you later, Ana, but if we don’t, we can talk this weekend.”
“Okay.” I stood with the two of them, wishing we had the same homeroom. Being alone wouldn’t be easy right now. I had a horrible feeling I knew what had happened, and if I was right…
I picked up my bag, the weight of it reminded me of the papers inside, and I breathed in deeply, telling myself I had no reason to think we were going through something similar.
“You have my number, Sabrina. Just send me a text to let me know when you’re heading over, and I can get stuff ready for you.” I managed to smile. “Be careful. None of us know what’s happened yet, so just stay wary.”
Chapter Six
By the time I reached my homeroom, everyone else already seemed to be there. From the way they were acting, it was obvious they were just as confused as I was. I took a seat, trying not to think too hard. That was easier said than done, though. I thought about the fact that a student had already died, unable to stop myself from believing the same thing had happened.
I looked down at my bag again. Getting myself involved in something so dark wasn’t a choice I would have made before, but there was something about being in Clermont that made me feel like it was a choice I should make. I had no idea why. It wasn’t even as though I knew Lucas, and Clermont was new to me, even if it was the town my parents grew up in.
After what seemed like an hour or more, my mind kept going over things I really didn’t want to be thinking about. Finally, our teacher walked into the room. She looked shocked. There was no reason for me to doubt my thoughts then. It had to be another death, or at the very least, someone had gone missing.
Breathing in deeply, she looked around the room, giving me a chance to see the emotions in her eyes. Fear, which was understandable. We could be dealing with a serial killer. Yet it had happened twenty years ago, so maybe it was a family, passing on the duty of murder from one generation to the next. I remembered then something Alice said - the town was full of superstition about the supernatural, but maybe it wasn’t just superstition. Who was I to say that the supernatural wasn’t real, purely because I’d never had an experience with it before?
“Can everyone take a seat?” Silence followed Mrs. Anderson’s words as everyone sat. People wanted to know
what had happened. “I’m sorry to inform you that there has been an unfortunate incident with one of our students. Principal Woods has decided it would be best for everyone to go home now, so the police can conduct their investigation without any interruptions.”
“What do you mean by ‘incident?” One of the boys in front of me sounded angry. “I think we need to know exactly what happened, especially if we need to protect ourselves.”
“For the moment, it’s on a need-to-know basis.”
“Wayde was found dead at the smoking area on the edge of campus. The one everyone tries to pretend doesn’t exist.” I vaguely recognized the voice. His name was Tony, and everyone knew he was one of the people Dante and Wayde often picked on. I saw a mix of emotions in his eyes. “I know it was Wayde, but he didn’t deserve to die.” He shrugged. “I know the teachers don’t want us to know, but we need to be able to share this information with each other. Everyone knows Lucas was taken when he was by himself, and it seems likely Wayde was by himself there, which means we’re best off staying with other people at all times.”
“Unless there’s no relation between the murders.” A girl at the front of the classroom shook her head. “We don’t know for certain there is. Maybe someone saw the chance of getting Wayde back for everything he’d done to them.”
Tony laughed, but it wasn’t a sound of amusement. It was something else. “Yeah, maybe, but if they did, they were stronger than any of us could be. I saw him, Darla. His face was flattened. I…” He swallowed. “Like I said, not even Wayde deserved to die.”
“Lucas was eaten by wild animals, so there is no connection between the two.”
“No one truly knows what happened to Lucas. His body could have been left out for those animals in order to hide how he died. We wouldn’t know for certain there was a link either way.”
Outside the school were four buses waiting to take us home, but there wasn’t going to be enough space for all of us to go at the same time. They’d already finished getting the freshmen home, and now it was our turn. Juniors and seniors were still inside the school building, being kept in their homerooms until the buses were free. I was grateful that I was getting to leave so early. Slowly, hoping I might see either Sabrina or James, I looked around, but there was no sign of them. I wasn’t entirely surprised. It was a disappointment, and I let myself get gently urged onto the bus by Mrs. Anderson, who hadn’t done anything to stop us from talking about what happened. To me, it seemed like she was one of the few teachers who understood that we weren’t stupid. Even if people were keeping the whole truth from us, it was likely we were going to find out what it was, one way or another. The last thing I saw was Principal Woods talking to a couple of police officers.
As I made my way towards the back of the bus, I couldn’t help but notice Dante. He had his face in his hands, but from the way his shoulders were moving, there was no doubt in my mind he was crying. Part of me wanted to sit with him, try to comfort him, only I didn’t think he’d appreciate me trying anything, so I kept moving. If he was hiding his emotions, he wanted me to pretend I couldn’t see them. Like I had done every day that week, I looked to the back rows of the bus, hoping to see the dark-haired boy from before. There was no sign of him. I nibbled on my lip as I sat down. Was there a reason he wasn’t there? Had he been the one to hurt Wayde? I knew he’d stood up for me on the bus, and he’d managed to make the two bullies apologize to me, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t hurt someone.
Shaking off those thoughts, I sat down in my usual seat and put my bag on my lap, because there were far more of us getting on the bus than there would be normally. My stop was at the end of the line, so it wasn’t going to be a problem if someone sat next to me. I stared out the window. I found myself thinking about Wayde, and Lucas. There didn’t seem to be any kind of logical link between the two of them. Lucas, it seemed, was well liked, and when he’d gone missing, half the town was out there looking for him. Wayde, on the other hand, wasn’t really liked by anyone, and therefore it was unlikely people would go out looking.
Being new meant that I didn’t know anywhere near as much about Clermont as Alice did, if she’d even existed. My thoughts turned to what Alice said about the Canes…the most recent Cane woman to own the hospital had taken Mom on as a nurse at the hospital. A hospital, it seemed, that performed miracles on those who had no other hope. Miracles that brought people to Clermont, which seemed to be the main reason the Canes hadn’t been chased out, especially when people started talking about them being witches. According to Alice, the Canes and the Conways had always been very close. My maternal grandmother had done a lot of work with the current Cane’s mother. That was probably another reason it seemed everyone knew my family, even though I knew next to nothing about them.
We reached the first stop, and a couple of people got off the bus. With so many extra students, we were going to be on the bus for much longer than usual. Considering what had happened, I didn’t believe for a moment that we were going to see another death the same day, but I could easily have been wrong about that.
Dad stared at me when I walked into the house. “Not like you to bunk off.”
I shook my head. “We were sent home. Someone else died.”
He frowned. “Do you know who it was?”
“School bully. Wayde. No one really liked him, and there were plenty of people who said if anyone deserved to die, it was him. I don’t know if I’d agree with them.” I shrugged, dropped my bag by the front door, and moved to sit next to Dad on the sofa. “Apparently, he had his face flattened. Whoever did it was strong, which makes it seem very unlikely it was one of the students.”
“You’d be surprised what someone truly furious with another person is able to do.” Dad wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “How are you doing?”
“Fine. I only knew Wayde on sight, not personally, and I had no reason to like or dislike him.” I nibbled my bottom lip. “Do you know anything about my maternal grandmother being accused of witchcraft?”
Unsurprisingly, silence followed my words. “I had heard about it, back at the time.” There was something about how carefully Dad was responding to my question that told me more than his words. My spider senses doing their thing again, perhaps. “Your grandmother was a good woman, and she worked with other women in order to help Clermont. Maybe she was a witch. I never asked her the question because it didn’t seem necessary. What I knew was enough.”
Nodding, I raked a hand through my hair. “Including the current Miss Cane’s mother.”
“The Canes have always worked to keep Clermont the kind of town people want to live in. When Rebecca’s mom died, not long after your grandmother, it complicated things, the way deaths always do. I know Rebecca’s done everything she can to follow in her mother's footsteps, but there’s only so much one person can do.”
Running my tongue over my dry lips, I looked over at my bag. “Did you ever know someone who worked in the library at Clermont High called Alice?”
“When I was in school, Alice Patterson was one of the librarians. She was younger than the others and definitely had her own reasons for working in the school library. If you ask me, I think part of that was to help keep the students safe.” Dad sighed. “She died at around the same time as your grandmother, Rebecca’s mom, and a few other people.”
Breathing in deeply, I wondered if I was making the right choice. I looked at Dad. He looked back at me. “I think I’m coming to learn more about Clermont than you really want me to right now, so I’m not going to keep asking questions. However, I am going to do what I can to learn more, in order to understand why it is that I feel the way I do right now. If my maternal grandmother was a witch, then it makes logical sense that Mom is too, and if Mom’s a witch, then why wouldn’t I be?” I shook my head. “To be honest, I’m not certain I want to know right now. I think I want to keep dipping my toes into the waters of understanding rather than jumping right in. Tomorrow is my birthday. For tomorrow, what I want
is to keep being normal. If all that changes afterwards, then that’s something I can learn to deal with then.”
“Come to me if you need anything, Ana. Please.” Dad gently squeezed my shoulders. “I’m here for you no matter what, okay?”
“I know.” I smiled. “Things, it seems, are very complicated in Clermont.”
“There are times when everything is normal here and then times when it’s not.” Dad stood. “How about I make us both a nice mug of hot chocolate, and then we can watch a film before dinner. That should take your mind off things for a bit.”
I nodded. “I feel as if you used to do that for Mom.”
“We’ve been together for a long time. I’ve seen her go through a lot of changes. I know why she left Clermont. I know why she couldn’t imagine coming back. When she was reminded of the reason she needed to…well, it’s obvious to me she is needed here, more than she could ever have known.” He looked down at the floor for a moment, before looking back at me. “Promise me one thing, Ana.”
“What?”
“You’ll be very careful. If things are going to work out the way I think they are, you’re going to need to have your wits about you. Don’t take anything or anyone at face value.”
“Even Sabrina and James?”
“I trust your judgement when it comes to your new friends. If I’m right about this, I think you’ll already know if the two of them are safe to be around, and you’ll have started getting feelings about other people.”
“Like Principal Woods.” Dad’s eyes met mine. “There was something about him that made me very uncomfortable, and it seemed like there was this weight on my shoulders, one I didn’t understand, at least until I started to think more about who I might be. I think that was my spider senses telling me more about him than I could have understood before.”
“Keep an eye on the people who make you feel like that. Your mom’s always been good at knowing who she could trust.” He started making his way into the kitchen. “Speaking of your mom, she did say that she was going to be working late tonight, so it’s just going to be the two of us for dinner again. Is there anything specific you’d like?”
