Black Creek Crossing

Zack Fletcher and Jared Woods jumped at the opportunity to escape the principal unpunished, and Seth held back just long enough to let them start downstairs before he hurried down the hall toward his trigonometry class.

Though every eye in the room shifted from the teacher to stare at Seth when he entered, and the teacher himself was glaring, all Seth was aware of were the words Chad had spoken to him.

I’m going to make you wish you were dead… I’m going to hurt you so bad…

Marty Sullivan swore in disgust as he stared at the sodden tuna fish sandwich, the already blackening banana, and the thermos of coffee that, even if it weren’t cold, he knew would be as bitter as the bile rising in his throat at the thought of eating one more of Myra’s crappy lunches. Christ, wasn’t it bad enough that he had to eat out of a tin box every day? The least she could do was try to come up with something decent for him. But no, every day, the same damned thing — a soggy sandwich, some kind of half-rotten fruit, and a thermos of her lousy coffee. There was a tavern half a mile away, and since Jack Varney had already made him work through what should have been his lunch hour, maybe he should just dump Myra’s whole mess of a lunch in the trash barrel and go treat himself to some fish and chips and a couple of beers.

And take the rest of the day off.

He was still considering that possibility when Varney called his name. Well, the hell with him, he thought. He’d already given Varney two extra hours in the morning, and he knew the rules — unless it was an emergency, he had a right to an hour to himself.

Then Varney yelled at him again, and this time Marty looked up, more out of irritation than any interest in what the job foreman might want. When he saw Ed Fletcher wearing one of his fancy-ass suits and leaning against his Mercedes, his irritation grew into anger. If his snotnose brother-in-law was here to fire him, he wouldn’t give him a chance. He’d quit, and the hell with all of them. The hell with the Fletchers, and if Myra gave him any crap, then maybe he’d just say the hell with her too. Moving to Roundtree was the dumbest thing he’d ever let her talk him into, and if she still wanted to stay, then maybe he’d just let her. She and her weird kid both. After the way Angel had been acting — and the way she’d looked this morning, like some vampire witch from Hell — he figured he could do just fine without them. Maybe he’d just take off to California, or even Hawaii; God knew he wasn’t looking forward to another winter in New England.

“For Christ’s sake, Marty,” Ed Fletcher yelled. “You gone deaf in your old age?” Marty heaved himself to his feet, glowering, and started toward his brother-in-law. “Hey, take it easy,” Fletcher protested when he saw that Marty’s right hand was already balled into a fist. “I just want to talk to you.”

“It’s lunch hour,” Marty growled. He shot a furious look at Varney. “It shoulda been lunch hour two hours ago!”

Ed Fletcher’s eyes rolled impatiently. “God forbid I should transgress on one of your precious union rules.”

“I’m just sayin’—”

“I know what you’re saying,” Fletcher cut in. “So why don’t you for once in your life find out what’s going on before you get mad?” Before Marty could answer, Fletcher tilted his head toward the man leaning against his car. “You know Blake Baker?”

Marty’s eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. “Should I?”

Blake Baker extended a hand toward Marty. “My boy knows your girl. Seth?”

Marty ignored the other man’s hand and spat into the dirt. “I don’t want that little punk hanging around my daughter. And I told him that too,” he said, suddenly certain that he knew what was going on. This Baker prick was trying to get him fired. “Caught him with her once, but all I did was tell him to stay away. I didn’t hit him or nothin’ like that.” He spat again, and snorted derisively. “’Course, I’d’a had to catch up with him to hit him, and the way he was running, that wasn’t gonna happen. Guess I put an end to him messin’ with Angel.”

“Not according to Zack,” Ed Fletcher said.

Marty cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

Ed shrugged. “Seems Seth and Zack got into it last night.”

“Shit,” Marty said, “Zack’d bust that little punk’s face so fast it’d make your head spin.”

Ed Fletcher’s expression tightened. “Well, that’s not exactly how it turned out. He wound up at the hospital getting four stitches.”

Marty stared at his brother-in-law in disbelief. “You gotta be kiddin’ me!”

“I wish I were. The thing is, neither Blake nor I can figure out exactly what happened. But Zack says Seth has been acting weird since he started hanging out with Angel.”

“I already told you,” Marty said, “they’re not hanging out!”

Ed sighed heavily. “That’s not the way I hear it. Zack says they eat lunch together every day, and they were at the library together the other night, and now they’ve started taking off after school together.”

Marty wheeled on Blake Baker. “If your kid’s messin’ with my girl—”

Ed Fletcher cut him short. “Will you just keep your shirt on long enough to listen? No one’s saying Seth’s ‘messing’ with Angel, as you put it. But he sure messed with Zack last night.” Before Marty could start talking again, Ed told him as much as he knew about what had happened last night — or at least as much as Zack had told him. “The thing is, he keeps changing his story, but even when he changes it, it doesn’t make any sense. And it doesn’t make any sense that they found blood on a tree branch that’s nine feet off the ground. It’s almost like someone threw him up against the branch.”

Suddenly, Marty recalled what had happened yesterday afternoon, when Angel shoved him down the stairs, knocking him unconscious.

Except that he had no memory of being shoved down the stairs. Sure, he’d been drinking a little, and he remembered the storm that struck in the afternoon, and going up to Angel’s room… In fact, now that he thought about it, he remembered that Angel heard him open the door, and she turned, but hadn’t actually come at him.

And the cat hadn’t come at him either.

But something had come at him — some kind of force he couldn’t see. It was like he was just picked up and thrown backward, and a second later he was tumbling down the stairs.

Like Zack had been thrown?

Then he remembered what Father Mulroney had told him, the legends about what had gone on in Roundtree centuries ago, and the storms that came up sometimes.

Storms like the one yesterday afternoon, when Angel hadn’t been home, and when the Baker kid hadn’t been home either, according to Ed Fletcher. “I think maybe you better go talk to Father Mulroney,” Marty finally said, his voice hollow.

Blake Baker gazed at him in bafflement. “Father Mulroney? What’s he got to do with this?”

“He told me some stuff,” Marty said. “He told me what’s been going on around here, okay? So don’t talk to me — go ask him!”

Ed Fletcher drew in a deep breath. “All right, Marty, suppose we do go ask Father Mike? What’s he going to tell us?”

Marty opened his mouth to speak a single word: witchcraft. But he couldn’t bring himself to utter it. Let them hear it from the priest; let them think it was the priest who was crazy. “You ask him,” Marty said once more. “Let him tell you.”

Chapter 41

NEVER HEARD SUCH A PILE OF CRAP IN MY LIFE.”

Father Mike Mulroney shrugged almost disinterestedly and offered Blake Baker a faint smile. When Baker and Ed Fletcher had rung the rectory bell half an hour ago, he’d been surprised to see them. Both of them were members of the Congregational church across the street, and as far as Mulroney knew, neither of them had ever set foot in his church. He had a vague memory of Fletcher’s wife, Joni, showing up a few times — mostly on Easter