Black Creek Crossing

Chapter 39

YRA SULLIVAN NEARLY DROPPED THE FRYING PAN full of scrambled eggs as she turned away from the stove and caught sight of Angel for the first time that morning. For a moment she was too stunned to say anything as she gazed at the black-clad figure that stood framed in the doorway. Angel’s face was made up exactly as it had been on Saturday for the party at the country club, her skin a ghostly white, her eyes enlarged with shadow and liner, her lips the deep glistening red of blood. Myra could only gape, and then her mouth opened as if she were about to speak, but no words came out. Tearing her eyes away from Angel, she turned to Marty.

And saw that his face was almost as pale as Angel’s. His gaze was fixed on Angel, and his features were twisted into a look of such utter terror that for a second Myra thought he must be having a heart attack.

“Marty?” she finally managed to say. “Marty!”

It wasn’t until she spoke his name for a third time that Marty reacted to his wife’s words, and then it was only to rise unsteadily from the table, backing away so quickly that the chair behind him tipped over with a crash. “Get her away,” he said, his voice shaking. “Get her away from me!”

Now it was her husband Myra was gaping at. Had he gotten so drunk last night, and been left so hung over this morning, that he didn’t even recognize his own daughter? “For heaven’s sake, Marty, calm down — you look like you’ve seen a ghost! It’s only Angel.”

The shock of Angel’s appearance receding as quickly as it had washed over her, she pursed her lips and turned back to her daughter. “What on earth are you thinking of?” she asked. “You practically frightened your father half to death. Now go upstairs, change your clothes, and take off that ridiculous makeup. Of all the—”

“It’s not ridiculous, and I’m not taking it off,” Angel said, sitting down at the table and pouring some orange juice from the carton Myra had taken out of the refrigerator a few minutes ago. “May I have some eggs?”

Startled into silence by her response, Myra automatically scooped a spoonful of eggs onto Angel’s plate, then scooped another onto Marty’s plate, not even noticing that half of her husband’s serving dropped directly onto the table. Not that it mattered, for Marty was as oblivious of the eggs as Myra, his eyes still fixed on Angel.

“You do what your mother tells you,” he said, but there was a note in his voice that betrayed his fear.

“I can wear what I want,” Angel said, looking directly at her father.

Marty’s gaze wavered, then broke. “If you get kicked out of school, don’t come crying to me,” he mumbled. Picking up his lunch box, he moved toward the back door.

“Marty!” Myra protested. “You haven’t even eaten your breakfast!”

“I’ll get a doughnut on the way to work,” he said. And with one more quick glance at Angel, he was gone.

Frowning, Myra turned back to her daughter. “What on earth are you trying to do?” she demanded. “You scared your father half to death! Your own father!”

For a moment Angel said nothing. Then looking directly into her mother’s eyes, she asked, “Why do you think that is? Why do you think Daddy would be scared of me?”

Instead of answering her daughter’s questions, Myra turned away from her, just as a few days earlier she’d turned away from Angel’s fears about her husband.

It’s not true, she told herself. It can’t be true. Marty wouldn’t do that.

A heavy silence hung between mother and daughter, a silence that wasn’t broken even when Angel left to begin the long walk to school.

Seth Baker gazed at himself in the mirror and rubbed a hand experimentally over his chin, but just as on every other day, there was no trace of a beard — just the same soft, smooth skin that had been there every other day of his life.

But this day he felt different, if for no other reason than what had happened last night when Zack Fletcher was about to beat him up and instead wound up lying semiconscious on the sidewalk. When Seth got home, he’d been terrified his father had already discovered what had happened. But his father was watching a football game on TV and barely noticed him as he scurried up the stairs to his room. Still, he’d been certain that sooner or later the phone would ring and his father would be told what he’d done. But the phone hadn’t rung. In fact, his father hadn’t paid any attention to him at all last night. And that was a good thing, because even after what he’d been able to do to Zack, Seth wasn’t sure he’d have the nerve to try the trick on his own father.

But when he awoke this morning, he felt better than he could ever remember feeling. He was no longer afraid of Zack Fletcher and Chad Jackson and Jared Woods. The feeling of well-being that had come over him persisted as he went into the bathroom, used the toilet, brushed his teeth, washed his face, and finally checked to see if there was yet any sign of a beard.

It hadn’t bothered him that there still wasn’t even a single whisker. He hadn’t really expected to find one. Besides, a beard — no matter how thick — didn’t have anything to do with what he’d done last night.

It was so easy. He’d just pictured Zack rising into the air, and it happened, just like it had happened with the rock out by the cabin where he and Angel had made the potion.

Now, turning away from his image in the mirror, he looked for something to experiment on, and focused on the bar of soap sitting on the edge of the sink.

In his mind, he pictured it rising into the air and floating over to the bathtub.

And nothing happened.

The soap remained where it was.

Stuck! That must be it — the soap was stuck to the sink!

Seth picked the bar of soap up, turned it over so its wet side was up, and set it on a dry spot on the sink.

Once again he imagined it rising into the air, and once again it remained where he’d put it, not moving even a fraction of an inch.

He stared at the bar of soap, focusing as hard as he could, and a cold knot of fear formed in the pit of his stomach as he realized what it meant if the bar didn’t rise.

The soap stayed exactly where he’d put it.

He took a deep breath and tried once more, but already knew what had happened: during the night, the effect of the strange broth he and Angel brewed in the kettle had worn off, just the way every medicine wore off if you didn’t keep taking it.

The knot of fear tightened in his belly, and he felt almost sick, thinking about what would happen that day.

Seth took the long way to school that morning, certain that if he followed his normal route, not only Zack Fletcher, but Chad Jackson and Jared Woods would be waiting for him somewhere. And he didn’t think that this morning they’d stop with just taking his backpack, or pantsing him, or figuring out some other way to humiliate him.

Today they would be out for blood.

“Where the hell is the little prick?” Zack Fletcher asked, his voice shaking with fury. He and Chad Jackson were around the corner from Seth Baker’s house, well enough concealed by a thick laurel hedge that there was no way Seth would be able to see them. And Jared Woods was stationed across the street, ready to cut Seth off if he happened to spot them and made a run for it.

“He’ll show up,” Chad said, staring at the lump on Zack’s head, which was now covered with a bandage. “Jeez, man — what did he do to you?”

“Jumped me,” Zack said. “He was hiding over on Court Street — you know, where the Jacobsons live?”

“What do you mean, hiding?” Chad asked.

Zack glared at him. “Like, hiding, all right?”

“You mean he was waiting for you?”

“Well, you don’t think I just let him walk up and hit me with a baseball bat do you?”

Chad’s eyes widened as he pictured Seth Baker stepping out from behind a bush wielding a baseball bat and taking a swing at Zack’s head, and he winced as he thought about how hard the bat must have hit Zack to raise a lump the size he was sporting. “So, did you call the police?”

“You gotta be kidding! I didn’t call anybody — I was flat on my back, out like a light. Mrs. Jacobson found me, and called my folks and an ambulance. I had to go to the hospital and everything.”

“So, is your dad gonna sue the Bakers? I mean, you could have died, couldn’t you?”

“That little bastard Seth is going to die when I get my hands on him,” Zack said, his eyes narrowing to little more than slits. “I swear to God, I should’ve brought my own bat this morning.”

Jared Woods appeared then, dashing across the street.

“Are you nuts?” Zack demanded. “If he sees you, he’ll never come this way!”

“He’s not coming this way anyway,” Jared retorted. “You know what time it is? It’s ten of eight,” he went on, without giving either Zack or Chad time to answer. “You guys can keep waiting if you want, but if I get one more tardy, I’ll get three hours in study hall after school.”

“Well, where is he?” Zack asked. “He couldn’t have just walked right by us.”

Now it was Jared Woods who rolled his eyes. “Jeez, Zack! Seth’s geeky, but he’s not stupid. You think he didn’t figure out you’d be waiting for him this morning? Bet he went over his back fence and through the Shroeders’ yard, then cut down a couple of blocks.”

“Too chicken to face us,” Zack sneered.

“I guess he wasn’t too chicken last night,” Jared said, eyeing the lump on Zack’s head with a hint of a grin playing around the corners of his mouth.

“I told you,” Zack shot back, his voice belligerent. “He jumped me!”

Jared shrugged and started down the block. “Hey, anything you say.” As Zack glowered at him, Jared shifted his gaze to Chad. “You coming, or not?”

Chad glanced from Zack to Jared, then back to Zack.

“You calling me a liar?” Zack shouted at Jared, who was already a quarter of the way down the block.

Jared stopped short and turned back to face Zack. The other boy’s fists were clenched, and Jared knew that if he didn’t say exactly the right thing, Zack would come after him, and if he did, Chad would too. That was how it worked. “I’m not calling you anything,” he said, backing down as he saw the anger in Chad’s eyes as well as Zack’s. “All I’m saying is that if Baker was coming this way, he’d have been here long ago, and if we wait any longer, we’re all gonna be in trouble.”

Zack took a deep breath and one last look toward the corner where Seth Baker should have appeared at least fifteen minutes ago. “Okay,” he said, finally giving in. “But after school—”

“After school,” Chad broke in, “I’m gonna do what I should’ve done a long time ago. I’m gonna get him, and by the time I’m done with him, he’s gonna wish he’d never come near you last night.”

As Zack’s lips twisted into an ugly grin of anticipation, Jared Woods wondered whether Chad was just trying to impress Zack or if he was really going to help Zack Fletcher give Seth Baker the kind of beating he was talking about.

Teasing Seth all those years had been one thing.

Actually hurting him was something else.

Heather Dunne was waiting nervously by the front door as the three boys raced up the steps just as the first bell was ringing. As Zack reached the top step, Heather’s eyes widened. “Zack? What happened?”

“I’ll tell you later,” he muttered, unwilling to try to convince Heather that there’d been nothing he could do to defend himself from Seth Baker, not until he had enough time to figure out an answer for every question she might ask. “Got to get to class.” Chad and Jared had already gone into the building and were racing up the stairs to their lockers, and now Zack hurried after them.

“Zack!” Heather called out. “Wait a minute! You’re not going to believe—”

“Later!” Zack yelled back over his shoulder. “Tell me at lunch!”

Not even pausing at the landing halfway up the staircase, he took the second flight two steps at a time. He came through the door to the stairwell running, and almost crashed into Chad and Jared. Instead of frantically working the combinations to their lockers, as they should have been, they were standing frozen in place, staring down the corridor. Barely keeping his balance, Zack was about to push Chad aside when he saw what his two friends were gazing at.

Halfway down the corridor, standing in the very center of the corridor, was a figure clad completely in black. The face was an almost ghostly white, slashed with a bloodred gash of a mouth.

Two enormous eyes — eyes far larger than Zack would have thought possible — seemed to be staring right through him.

As he too stood frozen between his friends, the figure moved slowly toward him, and just as slowly, Zack recognized the face.

Angel.

His cousin.

Except this morning everything about her had changed.

It wasn’t just the makeup she was wearing, and the black clothes.

There was something else.

Something in the way she moved.

Instead of edging along the wall as she usually did, looking like she hoped no one would notice her, she walked down the center of the wide corridor, her eyes fixed on him.

Fixed on him in a way that made his blood run cold.

As she drew closer, he involuntarily took a step back, then wished he hadn’t. But it was too late.

She’d seen it.

And so had Chad and Jared, who were now edging away from him.

“Get out of the way, Zack,” Angel said. “I want to go downstairs.”

Zack’s mouth opened but nothing came out. What was going on? What did she think she was doing? But before he could figure out how to react, Angel slowly raised her right arm and pointed at him.

“I know what Seth did to you last night,” she said, “and I can do it too.”

As the terrible memory of being hurled straight up into the tree rose in his mind, Zack backed away.

Backed away, and let Angel pass.

Pausing at the top of the stairs, she turned and looked back at him once more.

“It’s witchcraft,” she said softly. “Or didn’t you tell Chad and Jared what really happened last night?”

His face ashen, Zack watched as Angel disappeared down the stairs. When she was gone, he turned back to Chad and Jared, to find both of them staring at him.

Staring at him almost as coldly as Angel had stared at him a moment ago.

Angel Sullivan paused outside the door to her first period class. She was late, but not very late — maybe a minute or two. But she didn’t care, because the look on Zack Fletcher’s face when he’d seen her coming down the hall was still fresh in her mind. He’d looked just as scared of her as her father had when she came downstairs this morning.

Having people look scared of her instead of the other way around was a whole new experience for her, and for the first time in her life, Angel didn’t care if people looked at her. In fact, as she’d walked to school that morning with Houdini frolicking along beside her, she actually looked forward to school for the first time.

Looked forward to walking through the group of girls who were always clustered around Heather Dunne on the front steps.

Looked forward to walking into the cafeteria at lunchtime. By then everyone in school would have heard about what she was wearing, and they would all turn and look at her.

Stare at her.

And she no longer cared.

It had happened after she forced her father out of her room last night. She had to use all of the strange power given to her by the broth she and Seth drank that afternoon. But it didn’t matter because this afternoon they could make more.

Or experiment with some of the other recipes in the book.

Forbearance Wynton’s book.

As she lay in the dark last night she’d thought about Forbearance Wynton. And about Forbearance Wynton’s father.

It was him she’d seen in the moonlight that night, reaching toward her — she was sure of it.

She’d shuddered in the darkness, remembering the hands that pulled the bedding away…

Had reached toward the buttons on her pajama top…

Had been about to put his hands on her…

But the man hadn’t only been Forbearance Wynton’s father — he’d been her father too. How could that be? She turned it over in her mind, trying to figure it out, and then Houdini had appeared out of the darkness. As on that first day in the house, she had no idea how he’d gotten into the room — the window was closed, and so was the door — but somehow he was there, leaping up onto the bed, sliding under her hand so she could scratch his ears. And as she stroked the cat, she began to understand.

They were all one.

She was Forbearance Wynton, and her father was Forbearance Wynton’s father, and everything that happened hundreds of years ago was happening again.

How many other people in the house had been part of it? She was sure about the last family. Rogers was the name. Nate Rogers had killed his wife and himself in her parents’ bedroom after he killed his daughter in the room that was now hers. Had the same things happened to Nate Rogers’s daughter that had happened to her? Had Nate Rogers crept into his daughter’s room at night, touching her and caressing her and—

Angel had cut off the thought before it was fully formed, but in the darkness, with Houdini purring softly beneath her hand, she’d begun to understand last night that what was happening to her now had happened over and over in this house. It didn’t matter who lived here — it was something in the house itself.

But Forbearance Wynton’s book had saved her, had given her the power to protect herself. Forbearance had been able to protect herself too, though in the end they accused her of being a witch, and they killed her.

In the darkness of the night, Angel had conjured up a vision of what it must have been like. She’d pictured Forbearance Wynton and her mother bound to the great oak tree in the old cemetery, with wood, kindling, and brush piled around them.

She saw a man step out of the crowd to ignite the fire.

Margaret Wynton’s husband.

Forbearance Wynton’s father.

Her father…

Angel had imagined herself tied to the tree then, her father coming toward her, bearing a great flaming torch that he held high as he gazed furiously into her eyes.

“You should have loved me,” he whispered. “All you had to do was love me.”

He bent forward to kiss her, but she pulled away, and after gazing at her one more time with eyes that were filled with a fury greater than any she’d ever seen before, he touched the torch to the piled brush and the flames began to dance around her, leaping ever higher until—

She’d shut down her mind then, but the memory of what she’d already thought and pictured lingered.

A witch.

Josiah Wynton had called his daughter a witch.

And in the night, stroking Houdini’s soft fur, she’d known he was right. Forbearance had used the strange book she and Seth had found to protect herself.

But Angel was certain that Nate Rogers’s daughter had never found it at all. And she had died. Her father had killed her.

But it hadn’t happened to Angel.

She and Seth had found the book, and used it, and it had protected them.

So there it was — Forbearance Wynton had been a witch, and so was she.

And so was Seth…

But they didn’t burn witches anymore. In fact, no one even believed in witches anymore. So she was safe.

She and Seth were both safe.

Finally, she’d fallen asleep, and when she awoke this morning, she knew exactly what she would do.

She would be herself. Not the self she’d always hated, but the one that Seth had shown her when he first put the makeup on her face, accentuating the features she’d always hated. So she dug through her drawers and found a black turtleneck shirt and black jeans, and when she put them on and looked at herself in the mirror, she realized that Seth was right. She wasn’t as fat as she’d always thought; in fact, if she lost ten or fifteen pounds, she might actually have the beginning of a real figure!

And when she threw the black cape over her shoulders, she saw that Seth was right again. She didn’t look terrible at all.

And she didn’t feel terrible either. She felt better than she’d ever remembered feeling on any morning of her whole life, and when she went downstairs and saw the look on her father’s face, she felt even better.

This morning she hadn’t been afraid of him; this morning, he’d been afraid of her.

And it was true at school too. After Seth had told her what had happened last night, she decided to wait in the upstairs corridor until Zack showed up, just to see the look on his face when he saw her. When Chad and Jared showed up without Zack, she’d been afraid that her cousin might not show up at all, that perhaps he hadn’t come to school that day. But the expressions on the faces of both Chad and Jared told her that the effect she was having on them was what she’d been hoping for. And then when Zack finally showed up and looked like he might actually faint at the sight of her, it had been all she could do to keep from laughing out loud.

She’d managed to keep a straight face, and when she walked straight toward him, he hadn’t tried to block her. He just got out of her way, as if afraid she might put some kind of hex on him.

Now, in the silence of the hallway, Angel took a deep breath, pulled the door to her classroom open, and stepped inside.

Mrs. Brink was just turning to write something on the chalkboard, but catching sight of Angel, she froze, her mouth hanging open, the chalk hovering in her fingers a few inches from the board.

The entire room went dead silent as her classmates turned to stare at her.

Yesterday, Angel would have wished she could fall through the floor and vanish.

Today, she simply went to her desk, took her textbook and notebook out of her backpack, settled herself into her seat and let them stare.

It felt good.

In fact, it felt very good.