The Creeping (12 page)

At first glance they appear to be thorned. I angle closer. Their glossy leaves and green stalks that curl and bow almost disguise a waist-high mass of bramble. The bramble's half-inch-long barbs have the look of talons or claws. The two vines, one laden with red fruit shinier than what we get from the grocery store and the other with the look of barbed wire, have intertwined as one snarl.

“I thought they tore these up,” I say to anyone with answers. I glare suspiciously at the healthy torrent of vines.

“Dad tried,” Daniel says. “He hacked them down every year since Jeanie, but they grew back stronger. I guess their roots were too deep, and they just resprouted each summer. Then the bramble started
growing through them, taking over. It drove him nuts. He'd shred his arms on their thorns trying to get the whole mass out.” He kicks a bulbous berry from the trail. “None of the neighbors would touch the fruit, because they're convinced it's poisonous. Without Dad here, no one's slashing them down anymore.”

The confusion of vines seem darker and greener than the muted shrubbery along the drive. I can't tell if the bramble's strangling the strawberries, or boosting them up as a lattice would and protecting them from greedy hands with their thorns. I'm seized by an awful fantasy that the bramble's protecting the fruit from something worse. I shudder and duck around Sam so he's between me and the plants. The scuff of my flats on the trail grows quieter. I have the sense that we're sneaking up on what doesn't want to be found.

“You okay?” Sam whispers, nudging my arm with his elbow.

I nod and then shake my head on second thought. “This place doesn't feel right, does it?”

“No, it doesn't,” he mutters. The lane narrows the farther we get from the abandoned house. The trees lining either side grow diagonally over us, their branches tangled and woven together in a tie-dye of browns and greens. We pass what I thought was the last house on the drive, a large two-story Victorian wearing a wraparound porch like a hula hoop, but Daniel marches on. The lane is no more than a path now, barely wide enough for Sam and me to walk alongside each other, let alone for a car to make it through.

“How much farther?” Sam calls ahead to Daniel.

Daniel whirls around, his face shadowed with stubble. “As a kid
I thought there was something off about Old Lady Griever. She's all over these woods, and if anyone knows what happened to Jeanie, it'd be her. Don't freak her out before she answers my questions, okay?” We stare at him blankly. “Got it?” he demands. Sam nods and I mimic the gesture, too baffled to be original. I can't imagine what about a little old lady would make Daniel think she was keeping details of Jeanie's disappearance from him.

I take a deep breath, stifling another shudder, and follow. Moss-covered stones that fit like jigsaw pieces make up the pathway. Thick bramble etches both sides, and sharp branches extend with the look of tentacles threatening to pull me into their hungry mouths. One catches at my camisole, and when I tug free, it tears the silk.

I glare at the offending branch as Sam reaches for it, snapping its bony finger off. He grins as he makes a show of stomping it. I can't help smiling embarrassingly large in response. “I feel like we're Hansel and Gretel making our way to the witch's house in the woods,” I whisper.

“I hope you're not picturing me in lederhosen.” Sam laughs. He's close enough behind me that his heat spreads down my spine, beneath my shirt. There's something so familiar, so comforting, about being near him. It's an irresistible taste of a home that's no longer mine. I let my eyes flutter shut, pulling the sensation over me like a blanket. My face collides with Daniel's back.

“Watch it,” he growls. I shrug off his vileness and follow his gaze up to a shabby gray house.

Calling it a house might be too generous. It's more a shack than
anything remotely houselike. It's a room or two large, with busted steps leading to the front door. Haunted-house-worthy cobwebs hang thick from the porch eaves. The windows are blackened with soot. There's not one living thing within a perimeter of several yards; the trees and brush actually grow as if they're trying to escape it. There's a perfect circle of blue sky directly above the roof, making me feel too exposed, like we're bugs under the lens of a magnifying glass. Inky smoke snakes from a crumbling chimney, filling the air with the stench of burning fur or hair. To the left the entire front yard has been freshly churned for planting; when I look closer, I see it's really separate small mounds that have been tilled just close enough to look like one large plot.

“What the . . .” My words fade as I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. The shack's front door swings inward, revealing a rectangle of pitch blackness beyond. Daniel straightens his shoulders, steps forward holding his hand up in greeting, and squares his feet to brace himself.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Griever. It's Daniel Talcott,” he calls, eager and polite, the ragged edge of his voice gone. “My parents and I used to live down the lane. We've spoken before, remember?” Silence. A light breeze spirals around us as if trapped in the clearing, causing the shack to sway. I take a small step backward into Sam. His chest doesn't give, and I don't restore the space between us. Just for a minute I want to be warm and safe touching him. His heart tap dances its rhythm into my back.

“I've nothin' more to say to you,” a voice like a meat grinder growls from the open door.

Undeterred, Daniel steps closer. “Mrs. Griever, do you remember Jeanie? She brought you cookies once with my mother. The ones with little jam thumbprints in the middle? She used to play near here.” Daniel's tone is raw and vulnerable. I catch a sob in my throat that comes out of nowhere. His memories of Jeanie are so intimate. They're difficult to hear. I've been busy convincing myself that Jeanie was nothing special, but to him she was. I want to ask him what it was about her that he loved so much.

A knotted hand protrudes from the doorway. It braces the door frame and wrests its owner slowly from the dark. As if she's emerging from a pool of black tar, she's revealed piece by piece: the saggy transparent skin on her forearm; crookedly formed bare feet; a shrunken skull with loose white skin and deep scores under her cheekbones; clumps of silver hair patchy over a navy-veined scalp; earlobes that hang lank; and a hunched spine in a ratty black shawl tied over a mauve-pink dress, which reaches her ankles.

“I told ya to never set foot on my property again. I told ya I didn't know anythin' about your missin' sister.” The last piece to emerge from the darkness is her other hand, gripping a shotgun. Daniel puts his hands up slowly as though involved in an old-fashioned stickup. Sam steps in front of me so quickly I barely know he's moving. She jabs the barrel of the gun toward Daniel. “Yous have till the count of three to get outta my sight. I don't want no trouble. Stop bringin' it round.”

Daniel holds perfectly still. “You're the only one who lives out here, and it's been years since I asked you. I thought you might have found something . . . evidence or a sign of what happened to her.”

“One,” she bleats.

Daniel clasps his hands like he's praying or begging. “Have you found a toy or a shoe or footprints or any . . .
any bones
?” he squeezes out.

“Two!” Griever shouts as a bitter lump rises in my throat. Daniel's looking for what's left of Jeanie, and he believes her body never left these woods. With his whole family falling apart, Daniel only wants to put Jeanie to rest.

Sam turns and tries to push me down the trail.

“Please,” Daniel cries.

“Boy, I don't have no business with monsters. Three!” Her voice echoes in the clearing. Her words sear hot in my eardrums.
Monsters.
I fake left and then slip right around Sam to make a wild dash in front of Daniel.

“I'm Stella Cambren,” I scream, like it might save me from the gun pointed at my head. I'm breathing hard. Chest heaving. Hands tingling.

The old woman inches farther from the door, still training the shotgun on us. “You're the one who wasn't taken?” she rasps. I nod desperately. She considers this for a long minute, nose twitching, until she shifts the gun so it's on Sam. “I won't talk to your boys, but you come on up here, girl.”

“Stella, no,” Sam bursts out. Daniel stays quiet, but I can feel his eyes, like iron pokers left in a fire, jabbing me ahead.

My gaze flits to the mounds of dirt, and then unsteady legs carry me forward. “Don't you move, boys,” she orders. I make it to
the busted steps. “Up here.” She indicates the porch by tapping her knotted foot. I kick my leg over the two ruptured boards and lunge up to her. The cut on my heel stings. My God, we were
stupid, stupid, stupid
to lose the police tail.

This close I see that one of her eyes is milky, the iris clouded over, its pupil gray rather than black. But the other is clear and alert, watching me. “What you said about monsters,” I whisper, because I don't trust my voice to keep steady any louder. “Why did you say that?”

“You're helpin' this hooligan find who stole his sister, are ya? Better you run from this town. Don't ever look back.” Saliva gathers in the corners of her mouth, and her unseeing eye twitches. “There ain't no getting' any of  'em back. Best you give thanks it wasn't you.”

Every atom of me wants to recoil as I inch closer. “Please. Daniel's mother was killed, and his father is being blamed for what happened to her and Jeanie. He didn't do it.” My eyes cut to Daniel for a moment. “I know he didn't. Is there anything you can remember from that day? If the police spoke to you, why didn't they include your statement in their report?” My hands shake violently; the porch wails under my weight.

She grunts, letting spit bubble on her lips. “The police? I told 'em I was here that day and for the one before.”

“I'm sorry, the one before? You mean the day before Jeanie was taken?”

“I didn't see her, but I was out here when his li'l redheaded sister was taken.” She jabs the gun at Daniel. “And I was here when the li'l redhead before her was snatched up too.”

Confusion snarls in my head. This woman is old and obviously crazy, with her shotgun and cottage in the woods. She must be senile, and Daniel is so desperate for information he doesn't see that she couldn't possibly know anything. She can hardly walk to her porch; she definitely isn't hiking through the forest and coming across Jeanie's body. Her mention of monsters is coincidence. I only interpret it as meaningful because I'm desperate for clues.

She leans forward and clucks her tongue. “I see ya think I've got a head full o' worms. But Jeanie ain't the first or last. This town has a short memory for what happens to its children. I was sixteen when the Balco girl was taken. Hair so red it was like drunken molasses cookies. She lived a little ways down the lane. Grabbed right from under the clothesline in her front yard.” She drags her trigger hand across her frothing mouth.

Something cold washes over me as I listen to her. It's that looking at this woman, I know I shouldn't believe a word she's saying, but I do. My mouth is flooded with acrid saliva, hearing her. It tastes like the truth. “How is that possible? Anyone who took a little girl that long ago would be dead now or too old.”

Her lips pull back in an almost snarl, so the remains of her decaying teeth are visible. Yellow and black nubs like tiny gravestones. “Well, aren't you a bright one,” she sneers. “Now get off my land before I fire a round of iron into one of your boys' guts.” I take a clumsy stride forward and then jump down from the porch. Just before the front door clatters closed, she says, “You keep squintin' in Savage's dark corners, you gonna wish yourself blind.”

N
umbness. I move toward the boys, unaware that I'm propelling myself forward. Rubbery knees bending and straightening on their own. Daniel is pale and still as a statue. Sam's mouth twists in a corkscrew. “Go,” I order, waving for them to start down the path. I want to get away from here. Away from the woman with her tales and her shotgun. Away from the sensation creeping up on me. I'm no longer sneaking up on what's hiding. I feel pursued by an invisible force—hunted even. But I don't dare run. Everyone knows that running from monsters makes them chase you more.

Halfway back to the Talcotts' abandoned house, Daniel begins muttering under his breath. First cursing and then repeating “impossible” over and over again. “You can't stay here,” I tell him. “You have to go to your dad's.” The trees lining the path nod in the wind, agreeing with me, feeding my panic. “It doesn't feel
right
here. It can't be safe.” He doesn't respond. I whirl around. “Do you hear me? You can't stay
anywhere near here!” I'm losing it. Suddenly this dirt lane is the most dangerous place in the world to me.

My mind races. Monsters. Other little girls have been taken. Other little girls who look like Jeanie.
Redheads.
My stomach churns. “ The body from the cemetery was a redhead. I puked when I saw her picture, she looked so much like Jeanie.” I try to connect the dots. My horror multiplies. “Do you know they found a
finger bone
in her hand?” If anyone deserves to know, it's Daniel; after all, it might be Jeanie's. “The news said something about a sacrificial killing. I thought they were crazy, but maybe it
is
a cult? That could explain the disappearances spanning generations. You know, because there would have to be multiple people taking the girls? Maybe it's a religious cult?” My pitch climbs, my words spewing out fast and messy. “Although I don't know what religion sacrifices little redheaded girls. Jane Doe was one, and her scalp was torn clean off. Maybe that's why I wasn't taken? I don't have red hair.” I tug hard on a clump of my honey-brown locks. “Neither did your mother. She must have been on to them.”