by E. M. Fitch
“Like what happened at the movie the other night?” Joe asked, eyebrows raised. “I heard you were there, actually.”
“You did?” Cassie responded, shocked.
“One of the firefighters mentioned it,” Ethan confirmed.
“Me? I can’t even name one firefighter … ”
“He seemed to know you pretty well.”
“And we don’t get to hear the cops’ channel, but they know you pretty good, too,” the smallest girl chimed in.
“Oh, well, them I’ve seen a lot of,” Cassie murmured. Joe looked suddenly uncomfortable.
“Rough year for you, wasn’t it?” he mumbled, not unkindly. Cassie shrugged, avoiding his eyes.
“So, what do they all think is going on?” she asked eventually. Ethan fumbled the hose and accidentally sprayed two of the girls. They squealed and threw their rags at him.
“Cass, you ready?” her father’s gruff voice called. She turned quickly, watching him walk away from the older men reclining behind him. One, whom Cassie recognized as Al by the name stitched on his shirt, called out to her father’s retreating back, “You asked, Patrick! We just answered!”
Cassie didn’t speak again until she had pulled the car out onto the road. Her father skulked in the seat next to her, jerking his seatbelt over his lap.
“What’d they say?”
“Ridiculous,” he muttered. “Waste of time. They’re worse than gossiping old women!”
“What, Dad?”
“You. They said it was you,” he fumed.
Cassie’s jaw dropped. “How? How on earth could it have been—”
“I don’t know! Apparently, you can control the wind now, bend the trees, make the forest creatures do your every bidding. Holy hell, I didn’t know I was raising such a faery goddess!”
Cassie almost drove the car off the road.
She sat on the swing in the playground, kicking off occasionally and letting her body soar through the air, before coming back to earth with a cloud of dust at her feet. From where she sat swinging, she could see the destroyed gazebo and the First Selectman, Mr. Fisk, walking around it, measuring. A man in an orange vest and hard hat followed him, nodding when Mr. Fisk glanced at him, but otherwise not paying much attention to the pressured words of the man with the tape measure extended in his hand.
The soccer and baseball fields were empty behind her. The library parking lot was empty, though that wasn’t uncommon at this time in the evening. It was past closing time, and there was no bake sale tonight. But even if one had been scheduled, Cassie wasn’t sure anyone would have shown for it.
It took him much longer than she had anticipated. They sky had just started its shift to dusky purple when Officer Gibbons walked out of the state police office situated at the back of town hall and toward his cruiser.
Cassie stood and waved, the swing bobbing against the back of her knees before settling. She knew he had been in there; she had seen his car—one of the few cars still left in the town hall parking lot. The police officer’s surprise showed in the way he missed a step walking. Recovering quickly, Gibbons nodded for her to approach.
“No, Ralph,” she could hear Mr. Fisk correcting as she walked closer, “it needs to be exactly the same. This gazebo has stood for a hundred years!”
“Had stood,” Ralph grunted. “Pile of sticks now.”
Cassie grinned but didn’t wait to hear Mr. Fisk’s reply. Gibbons leaned on the trunk of his car, and he chuckled when she finally reached him.
“Not back long before you stir things up again, eh?” he said, though he softened the words with a smile. Cassie frowned, looking back over her shoulder, as Gibbons now was, at the destroyed gazebo. “Personally, I like it this way,” he continued airily. “Otherwise, the job gets boring in a small town like this.”
“You’re not funny,” Cassie said, leveling her gaze at the older man.
“My wife agrees,” he stated seriously. “Nice day, isn’t it?”
“They think it was me,” Cassie burst out, ignoring the banal conversation that she and Gibbons normally engaged in. Gibbons hung his head, nodding slightly as he did so.
“I suppose they do.”
“It wasn’t!”
“You mean you didn’t cut the lines to that screen, and then blow it down to the parking lot?” Gibbons chuckled. “No, I don’t suppose you did. We couldn’t find a single witness that said it was you. It’s just—”
“I was there,” Cassie finished with a sigh. He nodded.
“You’re always there.”
Cassie moved next to the older man and leaned back against his car’s trunk. Officer Gibbons was still in uniform. There was a drip of stain on the front of his beige police officer’s uniform that Cassie knew was coffee. Across the parking lot, Mr. Fisk continued to repeat directions to the man in the hard hat. He was now searching his pockets for a pencil, frustrating Mr. Fisk even further. Cassie could tell from the way her First Selectman kept rubbing his hand over the back of his neck in agitation.
“You ready to tell me yet?” Gibbons asked quietly. Cassie pulled her lower lip in through her teeth, biting softly.
She had just tried, only a few hours before, to tell her father. They had almost pulled onto their street, Patrick Harris still riled up from his conversation with the local ambulance crew. She had asked it tentatively, just throwing it out there, “What if it was something else, something not really human, doing all of these things?”
Her father had eyed her, looking to his daughter in abject terror, not because he thought she might be right, but because he thought she had finally lost it. Cassie could see this play out behind his eyes, even with just a quick glance from the road.
“Oh,” he had grunted a split second later, “you’re teasing your old man! Nearly gave me a heart attack, kid. I’m gonna have to up your visits with Lucy if you keep that up!”
“Right,” Cassie had said, forcing a laugh. “Sorry, Pops.”
He had announced a few minutes later that her mother would not be home for dinner and offered to order pizza. Cassie declined, saying she had plans with Rebecca. But she had lied; it was Officer Gibbons she went to meet.
He waited patiently beside her as the sun went down. Over the peak of the library’s gables, the glowing orb sank gently to the tips of the trees.
“You’re gonna think I’m crazy,” Cassie eventually murmured. They had stood silently for so long that Gibbons startled when she spoke, and for a moment, Cassie wondered if he had fallen asleep, standing upright as he was against his car. He cleared his throat.
“I’ve known you the better part of this year, Miss Harris, and I’ve been watching you. You are not crazy,” he murmured gently.
“I don’t think you’ll be able to understand this,” she said, refusing to meet his eyes. The sunset before them stained the air a vivid pink.
“I’m standing right here, aren’t I?” Gibbons asked calmly. “And haven’t I been? All year long?”
“Yes, you have been,” Cassie answered.
“Why did you come see me tonight?”
Cassie drew a deep breath, considering. His face had popped into her head the moment the words were out of her mouth in the car with her father. When she saw that terrified, concerned glance, Cassie knew. She wanted to see Officer Gibbons. She wasn’t sure if he’d really believe her, or if she could even really tell him, but she wanted to see him before …
Before I wander off into the forest, she thought with a dull pang. That time was coming, the time for her to face Aidan one-on-one. She could feel it in the restless quality of the forest, the way the leaves trembled as she moved past. In days long gone, she would have ignored that feeling that started in the pit of her stomach and spread upwards, that jittery tremble of her heart. She couldn’t ignore it any longer. Aidan was waiting for her, and she had decided long ago—perhaps the second Jessica, the first stolen girl, had died. The very second her heart had stop
ped beating the decision had been made; Cassie couldn’t allow the monsters to prey on this town any longer.
“I just wanted to say hello,” Cassie murmured eventually.
“Hello?” Gibbons asked, eyeing her. “Or goodbye?”
Cassie couldn’t help it; she smiled. “You know, for an old guy, you’re pretty smart.”
“There hasn’t been one whiff, one hint of a gang. I patrol these streets daily, even when I’m not assigned. I stop at the fire station, the ambulance, the high school. Yes, even during the summer,” he added when Cassie looked up at him. “It’s just us here, our people. No surrounding towns have had anywhere near the number of events as we have. How is this happening again? Where are they coming from?”
Cassie drew a deep breath and shifted against the cool metal of the trunk. She didn’t answer.
“That raving woman, Evans—she insists they live in the woods, that she can hear them out there throughout the night,” Gibbons continued, no longer looking at Cassie. He shifted his weight, and the car creaked beneath them. The grass of the soccer fields cooling in the twilight flavored the air. “Of course, most of us write it off as grief, what with her kid—”
“Jessica,” Cassie supplied.
“Right, Jessica Evans. She was the first we lost,” Gibbons said. “And then Miss Blake.”
Pressure built dully in Cassie’s throat. It spread upward until a heat settled beneath her eyes. She cleared her throat.
“Mr. Buckner lost consciousness out there in the woods, and of course we almost lost you that night, too,” he continued softly. Cassie nodded along. “I thought for sure we had. Running through the forest that night was one of the worst moments of my career. Though of course, I was able to get to you in time.”
“And on the fairgrounds,” Cassie murmured. “You saved me then, too.”
“From a muddy run?” Gibbons asked speculatively, his eyebrows raised. Cassie shook her head.
“You knew then that wasn’t why I called you.”
“True,” he conceded. “But you still think I won’t believe you now?”
“Not because you don’t want to, but because it’s unbelievable.”
“How far off is that lunatic Evans woman?”
“Not far,” Cassie said. She looked up at the older officer. He gazed down at her with a hardened look, one earned through years of interrogation, training, and dealing with citizens who lied to get their way—whether it be to get out of parking tickets or explain away the pot they had stashed in their pockets. Today, Cassie stared back. She let him see the sincerity, the fear, and the determination that grew, and she could tell he understood.
“It’s not some roving gang?” he asked. She shook her head. “And this man who’s been chasing you—it’s not some boy from one of the other towns?”
“No, it’s not,” she answered. “But it was the only way I could explain it then.”
“They’re here?” he asked, and now his gaze darted to the tree line that wove against the sky behind them.
“Not at the moment,” she answered with the beginning of a grin.
“But you’re going to them?” he pressed.
“I’m going to stop it,” she corrected.
“Alone?”
“It has to be that way.”
His hand twitched in his lap before settling in a clenched fist. “Who else knows?” he asked, struggling for composure.
“You know my friend Samantha?”
“No,” he answered bluntly. Cassie laughed.
“That’s fair,” she said. “She was one of the girls from the party, the last to wake up.”
“Oh, yes,” Gibbons said, “The girl in the coma. I do remember her. Tiny thing, very pretty.”
“Yep,” Cassie confirmed, “that’s her. She knows. Because she saw what happened that night, she knew before I told her.”
“I do not want to find your body out there in the woods,” he said, and the gruff quality had returned full force to his voice.
“If all goes according to plan, you won’t,” Cassie murmured.
“And I’m supposed to just let you walk away? Right now? Just let a kid walk into this?”
“Gonna arrest me?”
“Maybe.”
“On what charge?” Cassie asked, smirking. He grunted. “Look, I know the score, and so do you. These things—no one can see them.” Cassie paused, looking at Gibbons to see how he handled that. He stiffened and looked to the tree line.
“Maybe I can,” he murmured. “Maybe I can see—”
“You can’t,” Cassie interrupted.
“How could you know that?”
“He walked right in front of you, that day you asked me to show you the party spot in the woods after Jessica died. He was there.”
“In the woods? Maybe I just didn’t—”
“Not in the woods,” Cassie said forcefully. “There. Right there! Walking between officers, putting his nose in my mother’s face, side-stepping you. He was right in front of you, and he might as well have been a ghost!”
“All this time?” Gibbons asked quietly. “Since then?”
“Since before then,” Cassie answered blankly. “Since forever.”
“The lights at the graveyard, the local hauntings?”
“Could be him, or them. There’s more than just one,” she answered. “It’s a lot to take in, I know.”
“It’s a lot more to deal with on your own,” Gibbons answered kindly.
“You don’t think I’m crazy?” she asked. He shook his head.
“I’ve never thought that, kid. I might not understand, but I don’t think you’re crazy,” he answered, before adding, “Have you told that therapist of yours any of this?”
“No. She would think I was crazy.” Cassie laughed. “But you know, she said I should start sharing my honest self with the people who have earned it.”
“And that’s me, huh?” he asked, a rough quality to his voice. Cassie nodded. “Need a ride home?”
“I think I’ll take a walk, actually,” she murmured. A thrill of fear traced her spine and settled in her fingertips. He nodded again.
“You call me,” he instructed her. “Any time, day or night. I don’t care what I see or don’t see. I want that phone call.”
“I promise.”
“Let’s change it up today,” Jude suggested. “Do something different.”
“It’s barely noon. I thought you wanted to party later?” Gaia asked, smirking. “Or are you over girls trying to climb into your lap?”
“I never said that,” he countered with a wink. “We can do that later. Let’s do something normal now. See a movie.”
“I could use some popcorn,” Gaia responded with a shrug. Both looked to Laney and said at the same time, “You’re coming.”
She forced a smile and agreed. It would be easier to keep tabs on Aidan that way. She now only snuck away to see her son if the rest were sleeping, feeling with every breath that the time for Cassie to come to Aidan was nearing. He could feel it, too; Laney was sure of it. He was restless and easily agitated, though simmering just below was a wild joy that bordered on insanity.
“Take the Boys with you,” Aidan murmured from across the clearing.
“Aren’t you coming?” Laney asked, as Jude groaned.
“Not them!” Gaia protested. “They look like children, and I’m not going to a kiddie movie.”
“Take them to see that action flick, all that blood—”
“And leave a few bodies in the back aisle?” Jude asked, annoyed. “Aidan, c’mon! You’re joking!”
“I don’t want them here!” Aidan bellowed. “Not if … ”
“Might scare off your faery queen, hmm?” Gaia remarked scathingly. “Pathetic.”
The boughs above them creaked ominously as Aidan’s fists clenched.
“Why not come with us?” Jude asked, stretching. “She won’t show.”
“You don’t know that,” Aidan snarled. Jude shrugged, unconcerned with his king’s mood swings. A mild stirring in the forest around them alerted Laney to the arrival of the others. She turned and saw two Fae, Moira and Ruari, come to join them. Behind them, a giggle lifted on a breeze. Laney cringed. The Boys had followed, after all.
“Oh, fine,” Gaia said, her upper lip twisting in displeasure. “Just have it your way.”
“I am king,” Aidan replied softly, turning his back on the rest. “I intend to.”
The rest turned with a mix of rolling eyes and dismissive shrugs. Lucas caught Laney’s eye, and again there was that challenge that he seemed to keep laying at her feet, though she had no idea what it was, or what he meant by it. Gaia grabbed at her arm and muttered, “C’mon,” and Laney was whisked away from Aidan’s surly behavior, dragged to the nearest roadway, and shoved into the back of the first SUV that screeched to a halt at the sight of Gaia’s bare legs and comely figure posing on the roadway with her thumb jerked out for a hitch.
The movie was dull. Laney didn’t mind; she was barely watching. An odd ache had taken residence in her chest, one she was trying to decipher. The darkness of the movie theater gave her ample opportunity. Finally, no one was watching her. It seemed she was always being watched lately. Jude and Gaia were constantly pressing her into accepting her new lifestyle; Aidan was suspicious of betrayal; and Lucas had developed an odd habit of considering her in speculation, as though he believed she knew something but hadn’t caught on to it yet. Even Cassie had been watching her, though Laney knew that might be partially her own doing. Cassie was nervous and unsure around her, and it didn’t help that Laney’s attention span had lengthened and now included strange and misplaced silences that Cassie’s human ears were unused to. Yes, everyone was watching her, but in the dark womb of a popcorn-scented movie theater, her shoes sticking to the floor in some unknown substance, no one was staring.
And still there was an unsettled fluttering in her gut that had nothing to do with people staring, nothing to do with the murderous plans she and Cassie had been consciously developing. This anxiety went deeper, and she wasn’t sure from where it originated.
