“Oh, doing generally unpleasant things,” she replied sadly, staring into the tea leaves in her cup. “They’re partly like pep rallies, you know, to get everyone all worked up. They probably also do some small black magic there. Some of it is by way of blackmail and brainwashing — they can tell any new converts that they are guilty now by reason of attending the meetings. They might as well give in and become fully initiated…that sort of thing. Very unpleasant.”
“But what kind of unpleasant?” Matt persisted.
“I really don’t know, dear. I never went to one of them.”
Matt considered. It was almost 7:00, which was curfew for children under eighteen. Eighteen seemed to be the oldest that a child could be and become possessed.
Of course, it wasn’t an official curfew. The sheriff’s department seemed to have no idea of how to deal with the curious disease that was working its way through the young girls of Fell’s Church. Scare them straight? It was the police that were frightened. One young sheriff had come tearing out of the Ryan house to be sick after seeing how Karen Ryan had bitten off the heads of her pet mice and what she had done with the rest of them.
Lock them away? The parents wouldn’t hear of it, no matter how bad their child’s behavior was, how obvious it was that their kid needed help. Children who were towed off to the next town for an appointment with a psychiatrist sat demurely and spoke calmly and logically…for the entire fifty minutes of their appointment. Then, on their way back they took revenge, repeating everything their parents said in perfect mimicry, making startlingly real-sounding animal noises, holding conversations with themselves in Asian-sounding languages, or even resorting to the cliche but still chilling backward-talking routine.
Neither ordinary discipline nor ordinary medical science seemed to have an answer to the childrens’ problem.
But what frightened parents the most was when their sons and daughters would disappear. Early on, it was assumed that the children went to the cemetery, but when adults tried to follow them to one of their secret meetings, they found the cemetery empty — even down to
Honoria Fell’s secret crypt. The children seemed to have simply…vanished.
Matt thought he knew the answer to this conundrum. That thicket of the Old Wood still standing near the cemetery. Either Elena’s powers of purification had not reached this far, or the place was so malevolent that it had been able to resist her cleansing.
And, as Matt knew well, the Old Woods were completely under the domination of the kitsune by now. You could take two steps into the thicket and spend the rest of your life trying to get out.
“But maybe I’m young enough to follow them in,” he said now to Mrs. Flowers. “I know Tom Pierler goes with them and he’s my age. And then so were the ones who started it: Caroline gave it to Jim Bryce, who gave it to Isobel Saitou.”
Mrs. Flowers looked abstracted. “We should ask Isobel’s grandmother for more of those Shinto wards against evil she blessed,” she said. “Do you think you could do that sometime, Matt? Soon we’ll have to ready ourselves for a barricade, I’m afraid.”
“Is that what the tea leaves say?”
“Yes, dear, and they agree with what my poor old head says, too. You might want to pass the word on to Dr. Alpert as well so she can get her daughter and grandchildren out of town before it’s too late.”
“I’ll give her the message, but I think it’s going to be pretty hard tearing Tyrone away from Deborah Koll. He’s really stuck on her — hey, maybe Dr. Alpert can get the Kolls to leave, too.”
“Maybe she can. That would mean a few less children to worry about,” Mrs. Flowers said, taking Matt’s cup to peer into it.
“I’ll do it.” It was weird, Matt thought. He had three allies now in Fell’s Church and they were all women over sixty. One was Mrs. Flowers, still vigorous enough to be up every morning taking a walk and doing her gardening; one was Obaasan — confined to bed, tiny and doll-like, with her black hair held up in a bun — who was always ready with advice from the years she had spent as a shrine maiden; and the last was Dr. Alpert, Fell’s Church’s local doctor, who had iron gray hair, burnished dark brown skin, and an absolutely pragmatic attitude about everything, including magic. Unlike the police, she refused to deny what was happening in front of her, and did her best to help alleviate the fears of the children as well as to advise the terrified parents.
A witch, a priestess, and a doctor. Matt figured that he had all his bases covered, especially since he also knew Caroline, the original patient in this case — whether it was possession by foxes or wolves or both, plus something else.
“I’ll go to the meeting tonight,” he said firmly. “The kids have been whispering and contacting each other all day. I’ll hide in the afternoon someplace where I can see them going into the thicket. Then I’ll follow — as long as Caroline or — God help us, Shinichi or Misao — isn’t with them.”
Mrs. Flowers poured him another cup of tea. “I’m very worried about you, Matt, dear. It seems to me to be a day of bad omens. Not the sort of day to take chances.”
“Does your mom have anything to say about it?” Matt asked, genuinely interested. Mrs. Flowers’s mother had died sometime around the beginning of the 1900s, but that hadn’t stopped her from communicating with her daughter.
“Well, that’s just the thing. I haven’t heard a word from her all day. I’ll just try one more time.” Mrs. Flowers shut her eyes, and Matt could see her crepe-textured eyelids move around as she presumably looked for her mother or tried to go into a trance or something. Matt drank his tea and finally began to play a game on his mobile.
At last Mrs. Flowers opened her eyes again and sighed. “Dear Ma
“No, no! If your mother thinks it’s that dangerous I won’t even try it,” Matt said. The girls would skin him alive if anything happened to Mrs. Flowers, he thought. Better to play it safe.
Mrs. Flowers sat back in her chair, seeming relieved. “Well,” she said at last, “I suppose I’d better get to my weeding. I have mugwort to cut and dry, too. And blueberries should be ripe by now, as well. How time flies.”
“Well, you’re cooking for me and all,” Matt said. “I wish you’d let me pay you bed and board.”
“I could never forgive myself! You are my guest, Matt. As well as my friend, I do so hope.”
“Absolutely. Without you, I’d be lost. And I’ll just take a walk around the edge of town. I need to burn off some energy. I wish—” He broke off suddenly. He’d started to say he wished he could shoot a few hoops with Jim Bryce. But Jim wouldn’t be shooting hoops again — ever. Not with his mutilated hands.
“I’ll just go out and take a walk,” he said.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Flowers. “Please, Matt dear, be careful. Remember to take a jacket or Windbreaker.”
“Yes, ma’am.” It was early August, hot and humid enough to walk around in swimming briefs. But Matt had been raised to treat little old ladies in a certain way — even if they were witches and in most things sharp as the X-acto knife he slipped into his pocket as he left the boardinghouse.
He went outside, then, by a side route, down to the cemetery.
Now, if he just went over
He hurried toward his chosen hide noiselessly, ducking behind tombstones, keeping alert for any change in birdsong, which would indicate that the children were coming. But the only birdsong was the raucous shriek of crows in the thicket and he saw no one at all—
— until he slipped into his hideout.
Then he found himself face-to-face with a drawn gun, and, behind that, the face of Sheriff Rich Mossberg.
The first words out of the officer’s mouth seemed to come entirely by rote, as if someone had pulled a string on a twentieth-century talking doll.
“Matthew Jeffrey Honeycutt, I hereby arrest you for assault and battery upon Caroline Beula Forbes. You have the right to remain silent—”
“And so do you,” Matt hissed. “But not for long! Hear those crows all taking off at once? The kids are coming to the Old Wood! And they’re close!”
Sheriff Mossberg was one of those people who never stop speaking until they are finished, so by this time he
