Secrets in the Dark (25 page)

He wrenched his hand from
Olivia’s, rubbing wildly at his face. “It’s burning!”

He stumbled back another
step. I groaned as I realized he’d left the road and didn’t have
anyone holding on to him. “He can’t get back.”

Olivia told Faith, “Don’t
you let go, no matter what!”

Olivia held Faith’s hand in
such a tight grip her knuckles showed white. She stepped off the
road and grabbed Brady’s arm with her other hand. Faith yanked so
hard, Olivia stumbled back on the road, dragging Brady after her.
He paused a moment, grabbing something off a bush before his feet
touched the road.

“
We’re even!” Olivia told
him, as we all moved out of reach of the fog.

Brady was gasping and
shuddering. I’d never realized just how many freckles he had, but
now they really stood out against his sweaty white face. “It
attacked me!” He gulped noisily. “Vapor is inanimate. Water
particles suspended in air. It doesn’t have a brain!”

He swallowed and looked at
the ground. He sounded like he was pleading with us as he
continued, “How could it attack me?”

There was a moment of utter
silence. None of us knew what to say. Brady’s shoulders hunched in
misery as he glanced back at the mist, but he sounded defiant. “I
believe in science! This place isn’t rational. How are you supposed
to predict the actions of a place when it isn’t rational? Look at
this,” he said indignantly, and held out his hand, covered with
berries.

“
Yeah?” I asked. “So why
do a bunch of berries make you mad?”

He cupped his hands
together and let us peek inside. The berries were glowing, neon
green. “This should not exist,” he insisted loudly.

I tried to speak calmly
because he looked like he was
going to
lose it. “This is a magic place, Brady. It may not work like home,
but there are rules. We’ll figure them out.”

Olivia smirked. “You could
just get rid of those.”

“
No,” he said slowly.
“These deserve some analysis. I just wish I knew what was up with
that mist.”

“
Something’s in that
stuff,” Doug told him. “You could hear it moving around. Maybe it
controls the fog.”

Faith said uneasily, “Our
animals sure didn’t want us in there.”

“
Oh! Stupid, stupid,
stupid!” Olivia smacked her forehead hard enough, the palm of her
hand had to sting.

I could tell my voice
sounded alarmed, but couldn’t help it. “What’s stupid?”

“
We’re
stupid!” Olivia glared like we were supposed to understand.
And I didn’t get it. When I only stared at her, she rolled her
eyes. “Duh! We could’ve asked our familiars to help us!”

The small owl flew over and
landed on her shoulder, hooting quietly. Olivia turned her head to
look into its yellow eyes. “You could have helped,
right?”

It chirped wildly, all but
bouncing with excitement. There was no need for it to speak
English, I could understand every sound. And Olivia was right. We’d
been stupid. That bird was saying,
Of
course we could help!

Faith asked hesitantly, “Do
you think something in there could’ve hurt us?”

“
I don’t know,” I said
slowly. I didn’t like thinking about this, and hoped what I was
about to say wouldn’t freak her out. “There are things in here that
can hurt us. We already know that! Getting lost off the road,
falling rocks, poisoned apples. And we know there’s stuff still
alive in here — something was howling, right? So…I think,
maybe.”

Brady raised the map he’d
been looking at while I spoke. “Reject alert! Let’s go.”

“
Just great.” Faith
hurried down the road away from the fog. We followed close on
Faith’s heels. I, for one, was glad to leave the mist behind
us.

It didn’t take long before
the sounds of unhappy animals — a cow bawling, a pig squealing and
a donkey braying — came from behind us. The Rejects were apparently
getting the same warning our familiars gave us.

“
I wonder if they’ll
finally listen to their animals,” I mused.

“
Have you noticed how
their animals follow them around?” Doug asked, watching Brady split
his attention between the road and the map.

“
Yeah. I feel sorry for
them,” I said. “The animals, I mean. Not the Rejects!”

“
Ray keeps chasing them
away,” Olivia said and giggled. Not a laugh, not a chuckle, not a
snicker. A girly giggle. I rolled my eyes. The Three did not
giggle!

Brady held out the map.
“Look!” I saw one of the dots was missing.

“
One of them is miss—”
Brady interrupted me, pointing, unnecessarily, at the map. The
missing dot suddenly reappeared next to the others, coming out of
the blank spot on the map.

Why can’t we see the
Rejects on the map in the blank spot? What does
that
mean?

The sudden sound of
yelling made me jump. It was
Ray, and the
longer he yelled, the angrier he sounded. Doug was
right, Ray knew a
lot
of cuss words. I glanced at
Olivia. She’d clapped her hands over her ears so she wouldn’t hear
anything she’d get in trouble for later.

I let out a breath I didn’t
know I was holding as the dots began to hurry back down the road
the way they’d come.

Brady glanced at his watch
and said regretfully, “That took a hecka long time. You still have
a curfew, Olivia?”

“
Yeah, dinner’s at 6:00. I
can’t be late.”

“
I don’t think we can make
it to the cave and back home by then.” Brady must have heard my
dismayed groan, because he added, “Sorry, Kat!”

“
It’s like something’s
trying to stop us,” Olivia said.

I felt frustrated tears
sting my eyes. “I wish it would stop it. We’ve got to get there
next time.” Everyone stared at me, and I clapped my hand over my
mouth. I’d wished!

I heard a sound, growing
louder, a rumbling that shook the trees around us like an
earthquake. The ground shook under our feet, then we all flinched
at the sound of glass shattering. But there was no glass, anywhere!
Then it fell completely silent.

“
Do you think you broke a
spell?”

My voice shook slightly.
“Guess we’ll see next time.”

Faith shivered. “We should
tell Ronny about the fog.”

I agreed, reluctantly. I
knew they were right, but I couldn’t believe we had to turn back.
Again.



Time really did move
strangely in Chimera. The day had gone so fast! It was after 4:00
when we got to Ronny’s. She asked excitedly if we’d had any luck at
the cave.

Could she really think
we’ll find Ghalynn there?

The others were quiet.
Obviously, they wanted me to be the bearer of bad news. “We didn’t
make it. I’m sorry! We had to take a detour to avoid Ray and the
others. Don’t worry, we stayed on the road. Well, most of the
time—“

Ronny made a choked sound,
and I hurried to assure her. “We didn’t forget our promise. None of
us,” I turned to glare at Doug, “or at least most of us, have no
intention of leaving the road again.”

The flush that crept up
Doug’s neck made me grin. He spoke quickly, “So what’s up with that
gross yellow fog? It blocked the road—”

“
What yellow fog?” Ronny
demanded. “And what do you mean, it blocked the road?”

“
Show her the map, Brady.
That blank space.”

Brady pulled the map from
his pocket and pointed to the blank spot where the road disappeared
for a short distance.

“
What is that?” Ronny
grabbed the map from Brady, staring at it intently. She pointed to
the space where nothing showed on the map except blank paper. “This
is not right. Where is the road?”

Beads of sweat broke out
on her upper lip and a shiver rippled through her shoulders
as
she stared at the spot where the road
disappeared. I looked back at the map and sucked in a surprised
breath. Was that
blank space really bigger
than it had been a couple hours ago?

Ronny turned to me. “The
fog was
yellow?”

“
Absolutely. Yellow and
sticky. And it smelled disgusting!”

“
It
smelled
bad?”

Olivia’s voice was low,
almost a whisper. “There were faces.” She shivered and rubbed her
hands up and down her arms like she felt cold, though it was warm
in Ronny’s house.

Ronny’s voice was faint.
“Faces?”

“
Freezing cold, too,” I
added.

One of Brady’s knees was
bouncing nervously. He cleared his throat. “It felt greasy and
cold. I couldn’t breathe.”

Ronny jerked, and her chair
scraped loudly on the floor. “You found stinking, greasy, cold,
sticky, yellow fog? And where it covered the road it erased the
map?” When we nodded, she said, “I do not understand this. Not any
of it!”

She got to her feet and
paced up and down the room. “I wish I could believe you were
pulling my feet.”

Out of the side of her
mouth, Olivia muttered, “Try leg.”

Finally Ronny stopped, not
looking at any of us. I wasn’t sure she even remembered we were
there. “How could this happen?” she muttered. “Chimera has always
had fog at the center, but it has never covered the
road.”

“
So, maybe the fog grew.
So what?” I asked curiously.

“
The fog hides the center
of our power. It is dangerous. People who go in do not come back.
But it is gray. Not yellow. And there are no faces in it.” She
shook her head, a frown creasing her forehead. “It has
never smelled like anything but clean damp earth.
Why would it change so much?”

We’d promised to help
her.
I was starting to feel guilty about
always bringing her bad news. It made my chest ache. “Don’t worry
Ronny, we’ll go back next month.”

Ronny sat down with a sigh.
She said, “Go straight for the cave and please be
careful.”

She looked so sad when we
got ready to go, I couldn’t stand it. The promise spilled out
before I could stop it, “Don’t worry. I promise we’ll get to the
cave.”

Note to self — Do
not
blurt out promises
you might not be able to keep!

Chapter 29

Are You Afraid of The
Dark?

At the end of August, Faith
and Olivia met me on the corner. Olivia was laughing, looking very
pleased with herself. “Mom’s really proud we’re helping someone new
to town finish getting settled in.

“
You shouldn’t lie to your
mom,” Faith told her. Though she didn’t actually stick her nose in
the air, she sounded like she had.

“
You know I don’t tell
lies,” Olivia said impatiently. “I
always
tell the truth. I just don’t
tell every little thing we’re doing. You don’t tell your parents
exactly where you’re going!”

“
Yes, but you’re making
your mom think you’re with Ronny all day. That’s like a lie.” Faith
insisted. I had to go with Faith on this one. Olivia had turned
telling part of the truth into a fine art. She never, ever lied.
But the bits she did say made people think something different than
the truth.

“
You’re going to really
get into trouble for that someday,” I told her. “And you’d better
not
ever
do it to
me.” Olivia pressed her lips together, a mutinous scowl on her
face, so I dropped it.

Note to self — Practice ‘I
told you so’. Olivia’s going to earn it someday!

Doug and Brady met us on
Main Street, and we all kept watch for the Rejects the rest of the
way to the cemetery. I was finally able to relax when there was
still no sign of them when we reached the tree.

Brady was last through the
tree. He almost leapt out, grinning ear to ear. “Wow, I wish I felt
like this all the time! I could beat you at basketball today,
Doug.”

“
Yeah, right, hot-shot.”
Doug gave one slow disbelieving shake of his head. I could
understand his confusion. That had been really weird. No way could
Brady do better than Doug at basketball!

Our familiars came up then.
I scooped up Shadow and buried my face in her soft fur. “Hey
kitty-cat, I missed you.” I laughed when her loud rumbling purr
began. After a moment, Shadow sprang down to the road and began
walking ahead, her tail held up like a banner.

We started following her,
the other animals ranging out around us, and Brady started in again
on how great he felt. “Seriously. I feel terrific. Excellent.
Fantastic.” Every few feet he started in on it again. Finally
Olivia said, “Okay, we get it, you feel great. Can we talk about
something else now?”

Brady got that hurt puppy
look on his face. Doug told him, “Ignore them. I felt that way a
couple months ago.”

Brady immediately perked
back up. “We should be paying attention to things like this.
Scientifically, there are no coincidences. There is only cause and
effect. Anything we experience here may be important.” He pulled
out the map and held it out in front of him, asking to see the
Rejects, but nothing happened.