Black Creek Crossing

Chapter 40

LAKE BAKER KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG THE moment Ed Fletcher walked unannounced into his office. He assumed it had to be the golf game — the game Ed had not won. “Hey,” he said, holding up his hands in an exaggerated gesture of mock defense. “I don’t like being sandbagged any more than you do, and I told Seth as much. I don’t know when he’s been practicing, but the way he was playing those last nine holes, he looked like a scratch golfer!”

Ed Fletcher’s countenance only darkened. “So what else has Seth been working on that you don’t know about? Martial arts, maybe?”

“Seth?” Baker said. “You gotta be kidding. He’s—” He hesitated, then shrugged helplessly. “Look, Seth’s my kid, but let’s not kid ourselves — he’s not what anyone would call the fighting kind.” When Fletcher said nothing, Baker went on, now uncertain where the conversation was headed. “Come on, Ed — we both know how the other kids have always treated him, and I’ve been telling him for years that sooner or later he’s got to learn to take care of himself.”

“Think there’s any chance that he finally did?” Fletcher asked coldly.

“You want to tell me what this is about?”

“Zack got beaten up last night,” Ed Fletcher said, keeping his unwavering gaze on Blake Baker.

“By Seth?” Baker asked incredulously, as what his client was implying dawned on him “Come on, Ed, Seth’s afraid of his own shadow, for Christ’s sake!”

“According to Zack, the shadows were exactly where Seth was waiting for him,” Fletcher said sarcastically.

As he related Zack’s version of what had happened last night, Blake’s incredulity only grew. “What time did all this happen?” he asked, interrupting before Fletcher was finished.

“About six-thirty. That’s when Sheila Jacobson called, anyway.”

“So why didn’t you call me last night?” Baker asked.

Fletcher glared at him. “By the time we got back from the emergency room and got Zack cleaned up, it was late.”

Baker’s eyes narrowed. “Not that late. Especially given what you claim happened.”

Ed Fletcher took a deep breath. “Which is part of the reason I didn’t call last night,” he said. “The thing is, Zack gave us a couple of different versions of what happened. First he said Seth hit him, then he said Seth threw him into a tree.”

Blake Baker’s brows arched. “Oh, yeah,” he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “My hundred and thirty pound kid who spends most of his time at a computer screen is going to throw your hundred and eighty pound football player into a tree. I mean, come on, Ed!”

“I’m just telling you what Zack told us,” Fletcher said.

“What about Sheila Jacobson?” Blake asked. “What did she say?”

Fletcher shrugged. “She didn’t see it — she just found Zack and called us and the ambulance.”

“So all you have is Zack’s word.”

“Why would he lie?” Fletcher demanded. “I mean, getting beat up by Seth? It makes him look like a wimp!” Before Baker could respond, Fletcher reined in his anger. “I’m sorry — I shouldn’t have said that about Seth. He’s a good kid — he always has been. But the thing is, I just can’t figure out what happened last night. Being thrown into a tree — I know, that’s hard to believe. And I know as well as you do how pissed off Zack was after Seth beat us Saturday afternoon. I’d hate to think my own son would beat anyone up because he lost a tournament. But I know that Zack has a temper, and that he hates to lose. So for the sake of argument, let’s just say that it wasn’t Seth that jumped Zack. Let’s say it was the other way around. So how did Seth manage to slam Zack’s head against the limb of a tree?”

“You sure that’s how he got hurt?”

Fletcher nodded. “The paramedics saw the blood on the limb last night, and I checked again this morning. It’s there. And it’s at least nine feet off the ground.”

“Nine feet!” Blake said, incredulous. “You’re saying that Seth — if it was Seth, which I’m not admitting—”

“I’m not suing anybody, Blake,” Fletcher quickly said, “whatever the situation or circumstance might have been. After all these years, you of all people should know I fight suits. Have I ever actually initiated one?”

Blake Baker shrugged. “There’s always a first time.”

“Well, this isn’t it,” Fletcher said. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened last night, okay?”

Baker tipped his head in assent. “Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s assume it was Seth. And let’s also assume there’s no way he could have picked Zack up and slammed his head against a limb of a tree that’s nine feet up. At least not by himself.”

“Then he had help,” Fletcher said. “From who? I don’t mean this as anything against Seth, but let’s face it — he’s never had a lot of friends.”

Now it was Baker’s turn to fall silent. He nodded, took a deep breath, and said, “Until a couple of weeks ago, I’m not sure he had any.”

“But now he does?” Fletcher asked.

“So Jane tells me,” Baker replied. “Your niece. Seems Jane saw them dancing together Saturday night.” He met Fletcher’s eyes. “So where does that get us?”

Instead of answering the question, Ed Fletcher glanced at the clock on Blake Baker’s desk. “It’s almost noon,” he announced. “I’ve got a lunch and then a meeting. What do you say we meet around two and go have a talk with my brother-in-law? At least we should find out where his daughter was last night.”

“What am I gonna do?” Seth asked as the clamor of the bell announced the end of lunch hour. All through lunch, Angel and Seth had felt the eyes of their classmates on them and heard the whispered murmurs as the tale of what had happened to Zack Fletcher last night swirled through the cafeteria, getting more exaggerated with every telling. Seth sat with his back to the room, but he felt Zack’s furious glare as clearly as if they’d been sitting across the table from each other.

And he heard the rumors about what would happen after school. It didn’t seem to matter where he went that day — there was always a group of boys whispering among themselves, then glancing at him and nudging each other.

At least half a dozen boys — most of whom had never before bothered to speak to him at all — had brushed roughly past him, offering one promise or another just loud enough for him to hear.

“You’re dead meat, Baker.”

“Zack and Chad are gonna kill you, you little creep.”

“Who do you think you are, jumping Fletcher?”

“Your ass is so in a sling.”

It wasn’t just Zack’s friends either — it was everyone. Everyone who’d never said a thing when Zack, Chad, and Jared used to pants him or shove him into a wall or push his head into a toilet. And the worst of it was, it wasn’t even true! Zack had jumped him.

Now, as the rest of the kids swarmed past Seth and Angel — and one of them “accidentally” shoved him hard enough to send the contents of his lunch tray cascading over Seth — they stayed at the table, trying to figure out the answer to Seth’s question: What was he going to do?

Seth had all but given up on finding an answer when Angel brightened. “Meet me at your locker right after school, okay?” she said.

Seth cocked his head. “What are you—” he began.

“Just meet me, okay?” she said, and then she was gone, hurrying out of the cafeteria with her backpack. By the time he cleared the mess from their table and went after her, the last bell rang.

He was already late for class, and he still had to go to his locker. As Seth moved through the silent and deserted hallways — free of the whispered conversations, the barely suppressed snickers, and the angry stares of Zack’s friends — the tendrils of fear that had been gripping him more and more tightly as the day wore on began to loosen.

Then just as he reached his locker, someone behind him said, “What you doing, Beth?”

Chad Jackson’s voice startled Seth so badly that his backpack slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor.

“Scared, Beth?” Chad asked, his voice low, but carrying a note of menace that made Seth’s stomach churn.

Bluff, he told himself, and turned to face Chad, who was flanked by Zack Fletcher and Jared Woods. “Why should I be scared?” he asked, and prayed that they hadn’t heard the tremor in his voice.

“Because now you’re all by yourself,” Chad said. “And Zack’s not.” He moved closer, and Seth could see a hint of uncertainty in his eyes, as if unsure what Seth might be able to do to him.

“I was by myself last night too,” Seth said.

“Were you?” Chad replied. “Or was your girlfriend with you?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Seth said, and instantly wished he could reclaim the words.

Chad’s lips twisted into a sneer. “I bet she’s not,” he said. “In fact, I bet you wish you were someone’s girlfriend, don’t you, Beth?” He cast a sidelong glance toward Zack. “How about it? Is that why you were following Zack last night? Do you wish you were his girlfriend, Beth?”

“Don’t call me that,” Seth said, but now the tremor in his voice was so bad, he knew Chad couldn’t miss it. Sure enough, Chad’s eyes glittered with malice, and as Zack snickered, he moved closer to Seth.

“Why not?” Chad asked. “What do you think you’re going to do about it?”

The urge to turn and run was almost irresistible, but Seth steeled himself against it. “The same thing I did to Zack last night,” he said softly.

Not even a flicker of fear crossed Chad’s expression, but Seth was sure he’d seen Zack flinch. Chad only moved even closer, so he was towering above him. “You think you can jump me like you jumped Zack?” he demanded.

“I didn’t—” Seth began, then realized it didn’t matter what he said. The attack he’d been afraid of all day would take place anyway. Grabbing his backpack, Seth tried to duck away, but it was too late. Chad smashed him up against the bank of lockers, slamming his head so hard against the metal that for a second Seth thought he might pass out.

“You listen, you little shit,” Chad hissed, clutching Seth’s shirt and shoving his face so close that Chad was spitting on him as he spoke. “You jump Zack, you might as well have jumped me! So I’m going to make you wish you were dead, get it? I’m going to hurt you so bad you’ll never—”

At the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, Chad let go of Seth as quickly as he’d grabbed him. By the time the principal appeared at the top of the stairs, Chad was busily working the combination of his own locker, and Zack and Jared appeared to be paying no attention to Seth either. Phil Lambert, though, had been the school principal long enough to read the entire situation in an instant, and he focused on Chad, the only one of the four boys in the corridor who wasn’t looking at him. “Something wrong, Jackson?” he asked.

Chad turned around, shrugging. “Just can’t get my stupid lock to work.”

“Then maybe you should get the custodian,” the principal suggested. “And even if Jackson has a problem,” he said, addressing the others, “shouldn’t the rest of you be in class?”

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.”