Rachel Golden and the Retriever of Sin (2 page)

Toby held up his phone. ‘A kid in your class tweeted it, then it was re-tweeted by [he listed a bunch of names she didn’t know].’ Oh fantastic. So much for everyone forgetting about it…

She was in two minds about phones. She’d never had one, and the thought of people being able to find her 24/7 was definitely unpleasant. But it was also true that her mom couldn’t really afford to buy her one either. She’d asked Rachel if she wanted one for her birthday, but she’d said that she didn’t. Part of her
did
hate the way everyone was always on Facebook or Twitter, and she also knew that they could use the money for other things instead. This was one of the rare moments that she wished she had one. She decided to just brazen it out.

‘Thanks for your concern Toby, I’m feeling much better now. I made a swift and complete recovery almost the very second I got out of the classroom door.’ His two sidekicks laughed at this and Toby shot them dirty silencing looks. ‘But I thought I’d better wait out the rest of the day in the park. You know, just in case.’

Toby looked mad that she’d got a laugh from his own private peanut gallery. ‘Yeah, well,’ he said, whipping out his phone again, ‘soon the whole school’s gonna know you’re a liar.’ He thumbed away at the screen for a few seconds, hit send, and turned to her, grinning. ‘There. I just tweeted that you’re a faker and I saw you in the park. You’re going to get in trouble for ditching.’ He looked smug.

Rachel rolled her eyes and put on a voice of mock fear. ‘Oh no! You mean now no one thinks I have diarrhea? How ever will I show my face in school again?’ Toby’s grin started to fall. ‘And,’ she went on, ‘if I
do
get in trouble for ditching, then I guess you will too, huh Tobes?’

Now Toby was looking a little worried. He lifted his phone again to type. ‘No problem. I’ll just delete—’

Both his friends’ phones beeped. ‘Too late,’ said one, looking at his own phone. ‘Retweeted by [various names].’ Toby looked furious and Rachel smiled at him sweetly from beneath her tree. He hopped down from the carousel he’d been standing on and started walking toward her. Oh great. She mentally kicked herself for even engaging this idiot. Nothing is stupider than a fourteen year old boy with a bruised ego.

‘What are you reading?’ he asked as he got closer, ‘How to be a Nerd by you?’ Neither of his friends laughed at this until he shot them angry looks, then they chuckled nervously. He made to snatch the book from her hands but she pulled it away. Annoyed, he reached down and picked up her Slurpee instead, taking a big drink.

‘Ew gross!’ she said before she could stop herself. ‘If I wanted the herps I’d make out with your mom.’ Uh-oh. That was dangerous and she knew it. The two idiots couldn’t help themselves and let out barks of laughter.

Toby’s eyes flashed dangerously. He swung a vicious kick at Rachel’s face, but before it could connect she had rolled out from under it and was on her feet in fighting stance. Toby’s foot had whistled through the air just inches from her and hit the tree with a crack. He screamed and fell to the ground, clutching at his toe and swearing for the Olympics.

Rachel bounced on the balls of her feet and kept half an eye on Toby, but her main focus was now on the two friends who had dismounted their rides and were coming toward her. Ugh.
Why
did she let herself get into these things? Friend 1 was a big boy; pretty slow and stupid looking, and cracked his meaty knuckles as he came at her in a wide circle, sizing her up. Friend 2 was smaller, but had a mean glint of intelligence in his eyes. Like a rat. He was the one she was most wary of, and she angled her body to point more in his direction.

The big one with the pig face was the first to get to her. He let out a dumb ‘hur hur’ of a laugh at the thought of beating up a girl, an easy target. Wrong. Before he even saw her foot move it had connected
hard
with the soft, dangly collection of organs between his legs. Without even waiting to see him fall she turned to the other kid, the scary-looking one, and raised her fists. The loud thud and subsequent gurgling noises from behind her told her that pig boy had indeed hit the ground.

The ease with which she had taken down his friend caused the other guy to hesitate. There was doubt and a little fear in his eyes, but only for a second. He rolled his shoulders and clenched his fists before charging her.

Rachel had to force herself not to smile. Rat boy’s fear had made him rush her too fast. She bent her knees slightly and easily ducked the clumsy punch he swung at her. In one movement she uppercut him hard to the chin then dropped down to ground level, sweeping her leg around in a full circle to catch him on the back of the ankles. His feet flipped out from under him and he landed hard on the grass, flat on his back.

Rachel wasn’t even out of breath as she turned to where she had last seen Toby clutching his (hopefully broken) toe. But he wasn’t there. She raised her fists again and spun quickly on her heels, but not quickly enough. She saw the rock Toby was holding, the one he had been going to crack her in the head with, but which was now coming down fast toward her face. There was no time to do anything but close her eyes before it struck her. She heard the slap of impact, and felt… nothing.

She opened her eyes and blinked. The rock was still there, inches from her face, but Toby’s wrist was caught in the grip of another hand. She didn’t need to see the rest of the person to know who it belonged to. She smiled with relief, then smartly head-butted Toby on the bridge of his nose. She heard it crack, then watched his eyes roll back into his head before he keeled over backward.

‘Just in time,’ Rachel said, and turned to grin at Kel. He had a look of semi-amusement on his face and was shaking his head.

‘Only you,’ he said, ‘could sneak off for Slurpees and reading and wind up in a fist fight with the three bullies.’ Rachel grinned.

‘Hey man, they started it,’ she protested, but was almost laughing. Kel coughed and looked slightly disbelieving.

‘Really? You sure about that, Rach? Because from where I was standing,’ he turned and nodded at a nearby bush, ‘it sounded like you implied Toby’s mom has herpes.’

Rachel laughed out loud and punched him on the arm. ‘You asshole! You were watching the whole time? You could have helped me. What are you doing here anyway?’

He held up a new 64oz blue Slurpee. ‘I thought you might need this,’ he said. ‘And I
did
just stop you from getting a rock in the face. I wouldn’t have let you get hurt. Or hurt
them
too much.’ He nodded at the three bodies on the ground. ‘Anyway, come on. I want to show you something. Down at the lake.’ He waggled his eyebrows mysteriously and started to head across the old playground.

Rachel picked up her book and started to follow her friend, but stopped. ‘Don’t forget your Slurpee,’ she said to the unconscious Toby, and threw the icy blue contents of the first cup in his face.

ACROSS THAT SAME PARK, ON THAT SAME DAY, on the other side of the lake, an old man sits poking at a small fire beneath a towering pine. He’s quite scruffy looking, with tattered clothes and a gray, week-old beard, which he scratches at periodically like it might contain fleas. The dry twigs in his fire pop and crack, and thin smoke curls skyward. There’s an old black dog with gray eyebrows, laying not far away with his head on his paws. He sniffs at the air and his ears prick up a little.

‘They’re coming,’ he said.

If the old man was surprised that his dog could talk, he didn’t show it. He glanced across the lake, in the direction of the park, and worked his tongue around his toothless gums. ‘Reckon so,’ he said, and returned to poking the fire. ‘Give me those beans, would you?’

The dog sighed and got to his feet, making slightly more of a big deal out of it than was necessary. He walked over to a grubby backpack that was between them and pulled out a can of beans with his mouth. If there had been any sense of narrative, the backpack would have been a red and white spotted bindle, but you can’t have everything. ‘The wieners too?’ he asked hopefully, looking across at the man.

The old man pulled a gold pocket watch out of his waistcoat pocket and clicked the cover open. ‘Why not,’ he said, and re-pocketed it. If anyone had been looking over his shoulder at that exact moment, they would have noticed something odd about the watch. For one thing it had three dials on its face, and one of them was spinning so fast it was almost a blur. And there were no numbers on it either. Around the edge of the face were what looked like a jumbled mix of hieroglyphics and roman numerals.

The dog made three trips from the bag, carrying beans, hotdogs and a can-opener respectively, then plonked himself down at the old man’s feet. He stared at the open tin of wieners in the fire the way only a hungry dog can, and sighed again. ‘You don’t think she’s ready, do you?’

The old man grunted. ‘That’s not for me to say. But since you ask… No. I don’t.’ The dog laid his head on his paws again, in that sad way of Labradors. ‘And when it all gets f—’ The dog looked up sharply. ‘—goes wrong,’ the man corrected himself, ‘it’ll be
us
that has to clean up the mess. As per usual.’

He took two tin plates from the bag and spooned equal amounts of hotdogs and beans onto each, and the two ate in silence, each thinking his own thoughts.

After both plates had been licked clean, and the man was leaning back against the pine trunk and smoking his pipe, an almost imperceptible ‘ting’ emanated from the pocket containing the watch. ‘Showtime,’ he said, and they both got to their feet. The dog kicked dirt over the remains of the fire, the man collected the backpack, and they made their way down to a small wooden boat that was bobbing gently on water. Again, if anyone had happened to have been watching, they would probably be surprised to see a boat there all of a sudden. They might even swear that it hadn’t been there moments before.
I
didn’t even notice it, and I’m the omniscient narrator.

With man and dog seated in the boat—the dog at the prow like a small black captain with gray eyebrows—they began to glide smoothly across the surface of the lake in the direction of the park. Which was odd, since there were no oars. Or sail. And even if there had been there was no wind…

***

Rachel followed Kel as he lumbered ahead of her on the worn grass path. She was always amazed at his speed (like back there in the fight, the way he’d caught Toby’s wrist) for such a big guy. He wasn’t exactly
fat
, just… big. They were both 14 years old, but Kel was at least six inches taller than anyone else in their year. She wondered if he’d been kept back a year (or five), and as she did so Kel turned back and grinned at her. It was alarming the way seemed to be able to read her mind at times.

And she wondered, not for the first time, exactly how they’d become best friends. Not that she had a problem with it. She liked the big oaf. But she couldn’t remember how it had happened.

Rachel and her mom had moved to the town of Beaver (yes really) just over a year ago. Her dad had died when she was very young, and although Rachel knew only a few details of how it happened (a ‘work accident’, apparently) she knew not to ask her mom too many questions about it. She would probably tell Rachel all she wanted to know, but she knew it made her sad, so what was the point really? He was dead. The end.

Anyway, they moved around a lot, to wherever her mom could get work. She would waitress here or chambermaid there, or tend bar elsewhere. She didn’t mind so much, and knew her mom worked hard for them, but it was difficult to make new friends in small towns like Beaver. Especially as she was ‘different’.

Rachel had always been the smartest one in her class, since as early as she could remember. And on top of that she excelled at sports too, which was weird, as she never ran or worked out or anything. And yet she could do everything. If she tried, she could beat anyone in her school on the track or in the gym. Even the
guys
. Which was a problem.

So she’d learned a long time ago to hide her academic and athletic skills. People resented her for them.

She supposed she was kind of pretty too. Not beautiful, but pretty in a ‘non-conventional’ way (she’d once heard a neighbor telling her mom that. Gee thanks). She was 5’4”, slim, with short, wavy, light brown hair, and her mom’s green eyes. Well, her hair
used
to be light brown. Right now it blond with a fat streak of pink in the front. And she wore glasses. Her eyes weren’t really that bad, but she loved to wear chunky-framed ‘hipster’ style glasses. Though if anyone ever called her a hipster she’d freak.

Her outfit was usually a tank top with jeans and Chucks if she was skating, or cargo pants with heavy boots if she wasn’t. Which were great for times like just now, when she’d needed to kick pig-face in the… park. So yeah, she was usually treated as an outcast in small towns. Or medium ones. Or big ones. But anyway…

‘So hey,’ she called ahead to Kel, ‘How’d you get out of class? I thought you were too chicken to ditch.’

‘I had a feeling you were going to get into trouble,’ he said simply. And it was probably true. Like him bringing her that fresh Slurpee just now. Or showing up at
just
the right moment, even when he didn’t know where she was. She’d lost count of the number of times he’d done that, and had just stopped wondering about it.

‘So what’s this thing you want to show me then?’ she asked, dragging the heads off some long grass as she walked. The path was becoming more and more overgrown as they got closer to the lake. It was called a ‘lake’ locally, but it was really more of a big pond. There was the park on this side, some woods on the opposite shore, and the highway to the north. South of it was some suburb of Beaver. (Hey did you know, if you’re Catholic you can eat beaver on Fridays? The church says that because they have scales, beavers count as fish. True story, brah. Catholics eat beaver.)

They walked through some bushes and came out at last onto the pebbly shore of the lake. ‘Well?’ she asked, looking around her. She had been expecting a dead body or something equally exciting, but could see nothing out of the ordinary. Kel had walked a few paces toward the water and was now looking back in the direction of the playground.