Super Freak (5 page)

“Either way a young woman disappeared, and the Founders buttoned the place up, certain they had contained the evil inside. Now she wanders its halls, lamenting her wretched existence. Remember, this was before Pandora’s Box. Hecate Bay was a haven for supers, so they didn’t want anyone attracting too much attention.” She shrugged. “But everything is rumor. And as old as I am, those rumors have shifted so many times, who really knows the truth?”

“But that doesn’t explain what the curse is supposed to do,” I said. For a moment, I thought she would refuse to answer.

“When they caught her, she cursed them. She said anyone living in the house would suffer a fate worse than hers.”

“Has it happened?” I asked, leaning forward in my seat. Everyone loves a good curse.

Ms. Widdershins looked strange. “It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Someone gets sick and dies: it must be a curse. They lose their job and home: the curse. Children go missing, their aunt goes mad, murders occur: it must be the curse. But honestly, misfortunes happen all the time, and the house is old. It’s silly to think it’s anything other than coincidence.”

She retrieved the monocle dangling from a chain pinned to her collar and cleared her throat. “Now, are we all satisfied?”

I bit my tongue to keep my thoughts to myself. I wasn’t. Because as she began asking questions about the ethics of the curse and the rights of sprits in a haunting situation, I realized that she never actually answered my question. She implied everything was coincidence.

But she hadn’t mentioned it happening in any other houses.

In my last class of the day, Math, I paused at Diana’s desk on the way to mine. “We need to go to the library. But I don’t have a card yet.”

“I’ve got one. We can meet there tomorrow night to do some research,” Diana said.

I nodded. “Thanks. While you’re at it, ask your dad if there have been a lot of disappearances or murders in the town. If they’ve all happened in the same place.”

She frowned, tipping her head to the side. “Why?”

“Think about what Ms. Widdershins told us. She named all those things, but she never said where they happened did she? Even for an old house, that’s a lot of tragedy in one place.”

I could see Diana going over the conversation in her mind. A glimmer of mischief lit her face. “You’re totally right.” She scribbled a note to herself on her planner. “I’ll ask my dad about it tonight. He’s like a million years old anyway, so he should know.”

Sometimes I forgot her dad was a vampire. He might even have been around when the original event happened. I started to ask her, but Mr. Jenkins closed the classroom door and the bell rang, so I headed to my seat.

Leo sat nearby. Kevin sat next to him. The problem with a small town was that there were a limited number of classes and people in school. It was both a good thing and a bad. Diana was in almost all my classes, at least the supernatural core, but so was Kevin. I did my best to ignore him. Leo tried to mediate, hissing reminders to his brother that he should be nicer.

Kevin didn’t appreciate the attempt at peacemaking, and Leo’s good intentions had the opposite effect. Especially for me. Diana still scared him a little. I was fair game. Boys were so stupid.

I ignored the two spitballs that headed toward my desk, falling short of landing on my book bag, thank God. I pulled my sketchbook out, covering half of the drawing I was working on with my notebook in case Mr. Jenkins decided to look around at notes. I might like puzzles, but math bored me. It’s easy. Just numbers. Rearrange them, find the solution, move on.

Another spitball plopped near my desk. Talk about immature. You’d think he could find someone else to get mad at, but I apparently won the prize. When the fourth spitball landed on my desk, I finally turned around, balled up a piece of scratch paper and threw it at his head. Just in time for Mr. Jenkins to turn from a problem on the board and watch.

“Really, Caroline. If you have a problem with someone, you need to tell me. I believe you are all old enough to work through your problems without resorting to elementary school pranks. If I see it again, you’ll get detention.”

Leo sighed and mouthed an apology. Kevin just grinned and pointed his thumb and forefinger, pretending to blow smoke from an imaginary gun. I flicked the wet paper off my desk and scrubbed my nail on my jeans. So gross.

I caught Kevin’s sleeve when we left class. “What’s your problem? I don’t know what I’ve done to you, but you need to stop.”

His lip curled and he jerked his arm away. “You’re breathing. Besides, you started it.”

I let him walk away from me, more confused than I had been. What the heck was he talking about?

“Ignore him. He’s got his panties in a bunch,” Diana said, just loud enough to be heard over the masses moving through the halls. I had the sudden urge to moo as bodies jostled and pushed around me, heading for the exits.

Kevin ignored her, and went back to talking to his friends. They laughed and watched as we walked past. Really? Middle school wasn’t bad enough without an archenemy? I wasn’t Superman, for crying out loud. I had enough going on already.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about. I didn’t start anything,” I said. We had a bit of an issue that first day on the bus, but he brought up the house.

Diana shook her head and pushed her way out into the sunlight. “Don’t worry about Kevin. He’ll find someone else to pester soon enough.” She took the steps to the bus two at a time. “I’ll check on things with my dad and get permission to go to the library tomorrow. Your mission is to look for more diary pages.”

We sat down and I nodded. Leo slid in the seat behind us, leaning over the top. “So, what’s going on with the library? Can I help?”

I glanced at Diana, who quirked an eyebrow. The look said it was my choice. My mystery, after all. Leo’s gaze was like staring at a begging puppy. What set it over the edge was the face Kevin made. Including his brother would totally piss him off. Not a noble reason, but it worked for me.

“Do you swear not to tell your brother anything?”

Leo laughed and nodded. “Absolutely.”

“We’re trying to solve a mystery. I found a page from a diary in my house, and we think it’s connected to the curse.”

“That’s so cool! I’m in. What do you want me to do?”

His bus stop was first, and the bus was slowing. He gathered his bag, waiting for an answer.

“Meet us at the library tomorrow, after school.”

***

Despite being September, the air was so hot and humid that it felt like being trapped inside a boy’s gym sock after football practice. I waited, sweat dripping down my back, outside the library for almost twenty minutes before Diana coasted down the slight hill of Main Street. Leo pedaled behind her. My shoulders slumped in relief. I crossed my fingers, hoping Diana’s dad told her something interesting that we could use. Otherwise, this would take forever.

“Hey.” She panted, wiping her forehead and pushing her sunglasses on her head at the same time. “Sorry I’m late. Dad gave me a huge lecture before I left.”

Leo shook his head. “And I was late. Didn’t have everything done before I got home, so I had to rush through math.” He and Diana secured their bikes to the rack. “My mom doesn’t let us out until homework is done.”

“I take it Kevin isn’t going anywhere for a while?” I asked.

Leo grinned. “You learn fast. No, he’s stuck inside, pouting because he couldn’t follow me here.”

We headed into the air-conditioned library and I asked Diana, “What about your dad?”

“I asked him about the house and the curse and everything. He totally shut me out. Gave me a speech about wasting my time on ancient history and all that.”

My shoulders slumped with disappointment. “So he didn’t know anything?”

Diana wagged a finger at me. “That isn’t what I said. He knows something, for sure. But he doesn’t want me getting into this. Which means,” she flopped down into a chair in front of a catalog computer, “that we definitely need to check it out. He even claimed he didn’t live here then, which is a lame lie. I’ve seen a picture of him from back then. I think your parents might have been in it too, Leo.”

Leo tilted his head and claimed the computer on one side of Diana while I sat in front of the other. “Maybe. There are a lot of pictures of them. My mom thinks the camera was the greatest invention of the twentieth century.”

“Well, it does beat painting a portrait,” I said.

Leo rolled his eyes. “Not when your mother has over fifty scrapbooks dedicated to the last three years. We won’t even discuss what’s in the attic.”

“Whoa,” Diana murmured.

“That has to be weird,” I said, bringing up the library catalog. “Seeing your families in all those old photos and stuff.”

Diana’s fingers flew over the keyboard, and she shrugged absently. “Nah. You get used to it.”

“You don’t think about it after awhile.” Leo agreed.

“It’s like your parents,” Diana said.

“My parents aren’t that old.”

She winked. “They’re trees, Caroline. You can’t imagine looking at family photos; I can’t imagine parents who commune with nature.”

I grinned, picturing my parent’s kumbaya moment with the birch. “Good point.”

Her attention turned back to the computer screen and she pointed, tracing the text with a finger. “Says here there are lots of books in the reference section. Which is great. No one can check them out.”

I grabbed a tiny pencil and some scrap paper from a tray and scribbled the numbers down. When we stood, Leo stayed at the computer.

“I’ll see what I can find online while you guys look for the book,” he said.

Diana and I headed to the dusty, dim corner of the library housing the reference section. We turned around the end of the shelves and caught the tail end of a large woman, wearing the same tent-like purple suit Ms. Widdershins wore earlier, slide out the side door. The two of us stopped, peering around the edge of the shelves, waiting to see if she returned. I didn’t even breathe, and I was almost certain Diana didn’t either.

“What are you two doing?”

Squeaking, I nearly jumped out of my skin as Leo came up behind us. Diana whirled and jerked a hand to the doorway. “We think Ms. Widdershins just left the library.”

Leo rolled his eyes. “Of course she did. She’s the president of the library.”

Diana waved a hand. “Yeah, well, it’s a little suspicious, isn’t it?”

He rolled his eyes and pushed past us into the lower shelves filled with thick books that hadn’t been cracked open in decades. In the middle of the aisle, he turned around and stared straight out the glass exit door. “She isn’t coming back. Now can we get on with this?”

Joining him in the aisle, I studied the crumpled paper in my hands, reading off the numbers. Using the end caps, we located the section we needed, but the metal shelves were empty.

Crouching in front of the shelves, Diana ran a finger over the spines then shot to her feet. “Ha!” she said, pointing at a wide gap in the records. “You can still see the outline of their edges in the dust. She totally just took those books out of here.” She moved closer and dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper. “Ms. Widdershins knew we were coming.”

Leo huffed. “You two are such girls!”

“Thank you for noticing, Einstein,” I said.

“Seriously, this is stupid. You can’t believe that she came in here and stole all the books because you were looking for them.”

“Why not? She didn’t like telling me about the curse in class. Maybe she’s just being annoying, and maybe she’s the one we’re searching for.”

“What are you talking about?” Diana asked. “I thought we were looking for information about the curse, not a person.”

“We are,” I said. “But this is a town will a seriously magical history. Widdershins was really uncomfortable talking about the house, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Think about it. I know with my d
ad’s work, there’s always someone who keeps records of stuff like that. It’s a serious curse, remember? Someone has to
be keeping track of the details about a place like Harridan House, or at least of what details they know. What if it’s Widdershins?”

Leo and Diana stared at me then glanced at each other. The idea seemed to surprise them. I didn’t really understand why, but then, I also lived with historians, so maybe that had something to do with it.

“Listen, I can prove that Ms. Widdershins isn’t what you think. She’s a pain in the rear, but she’s not some sort of secret agent for Hecate Bay,” Leo said.

Diana perked. “How?”

Leo smirked. “We’ll go over to her house and peek in the windows. I know where she lives.”

Unease curled in my gut. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Leo. We could get in trouble.”

Diana’s eyes sparkled. “Don’t be a chicken. We’re just going to sneak up and look in the window. What’s the harm in that?”

I crossed my arms. “Nothing, unless we get caught. And then we’ll be lucky if we live long enough to get grounded. She’ll probably turn us into toads or something.”

Leo snorted and started for the exit.

Diana giggled. “Don’t worry so much, Caroline.” She started to follow Leo. “Besides, toads are
so
last year.”

“Just so you guys know, in the future, I don’t ever want to hear about how my ideas are wild. Ever,” I said, dropping my bike in the grass at the edge of the road.

Diana and Leo crept up the yard toward a small Victorian cottage, painted green with black shutters. It was almost evening, and the light grew dim under the canopy of trees that towered over the building. It made everything look ominous.

“Come on, chicken.” Diana teased.

I noted that her hands shook a little even as she said it. The windows were dark, and the whole house seemed to crouch, watching us like a great beast. We slipped into the bushes, wriggling through the branches, and trying not to yelp too loudly when they caught on clothes and hair. We hugged the side of the house, finally stopping to peer over the window sash into a dark living room. But there were no dingy library books stacked on the coffee table. A black cat lounged in a wingchair, ears stiff and alert, watching us to see if we would be worth his trouble. After a few moments, he curled back into a ball. We weren’t a threat.