Unspoken: The Lynburn Legacy (4 page)

“My aunt and my cousin just moved in with us,” Ash said, his voice back to its usual light tone. “We’re still getting things sorted out so he can go to school, so you haven’t had the doubtful pleasure of meeting him yet. We don’t exactly get on.”

Kami glanced up and saw Ash was studying her. His
habitual pleasant expression had returned. “Let me reference the mansion again,” Kami said. “Put the jerk in the south wing, you won’t see him for weeks at a time. Or lock him in the attic. The law will not be on your side, but literary precedent will.”

Ash looked mildly puzzled, but smiled at the joke anyway. “I’ll take that into consideration. Can I offer you a lift home?”

“Nah. I don’t really trust your car, buddy,” Kami said. “Heard you’ve been having trouble with it.”

She always talked to Jared on her walks home. She reached for the connection to him as she left the school gates, letting him know that the next time there were screams in the woods, they were investigating.

Neither of them mentioned their last conversation.

That night Kami was so jumpy waiting for a scream and trying not to think about Jared that she couldn’t sleep. As a result, she spent the following day staggering from one class to the next. Angela gave up asking her what was wrong and just steered her in the right direction through the halls. Kami was wearily relieved when the last bell rang and she could stumble home.

Kami’s day wasn’t over yet. Her father greeted her at the door and asked if she could watch her younger brothers while he finished up a big project. Kami was used to this. Luckily, Ten and Tomo were absorbed in front of the television, so she was able to drift in and out of a doze while curled up in the window seat.

Kami’s mind was turned toward Jared, without her normal barriers up between them. She could not help thinking of how soon she might lose him, and she kept reaching for him without meaning to. If he was gone, she would stop being distracted at odd times, would be a little more normal. Her mother would be so pleased. Everyone would think it was the best thing for her. Except that Kami couldn’t think of it as the best thing for her. Not when every time she thought of losing Jared, her heart beat out an insistent rhythm of sheer desolate misery and all she could think about was how she would miss him.

If she thought about him as if he was real, insane though that was, it was different. If cutting ties would make his life better, she could bear it.

I was thinking maybe …
, Kami said, and thought about him, what was best for him, steadily so he knew she was sure.
Maybe things would be better for you if you do what your mother wants. Maybe it’s the right thing to do
.

Jared said,
I don’t care
.

Too many of their walls were coming down with their shared distress, blazing a channel open between them. She should pull back. She would in a moment.

I don’t want to be sane. I don’t want to be normal
, said Jared.
I just want you
.

Kami rested her cheek against the cool glass of the window. It was as if he was real for a moment, as if he was close, with just a windowpane between them. Hardly any barrier at all.

Then Tomo laughed at something on the television. Kami turned back to the real world, to share Tomo’s laugh
and catch Ten’s usually solemn eyes glinting with appreciation behind his glasses, to home.

That night Kami woke to the sound of screaming again. She flailed herself awake, knocking her alarm clock and her latest mystery novel,
The Nefarious Mezzanine
, off her bedside table in the process. Then she cast away her bedclothes and seized her flashlight. It was exactly where she’d left it, wedged between books and her nightlight.

Kami grabbed her coat, shoved her feet into shoes, and launched herself down the stairs, terrified that the screaming would stop before she could get there.

The door of their house tended to stick, but now the latch lifted easily, the door swung open smoothly, and the night air blew cool through her hair.

Jared
, Kami said, reaching out for him.
Want to go on an adventure?

You even have to ask?

Kami was fiercely glad he was still there. She stepped out onto the garden path, shutting the door carefully behind her. Where the garden ended, the woods began. It was almost autumn, and the trees were still thick with leaves but more subdued, closed off as if they were keeping secrets. In the darkness Kami couldn’t see the trees for the forest. She switched on her flashlight and the circle of light finally found a path into the woods.

Kami set off. The night had a different quality here, as if the trees curving over her head gave weight to the air. The sound of screaming was fainter. It was a far-off sound, but
now that Kami was really listening she thought she heard a whine to it. She didn’t know how she had mistaken it for kids’ voices.

Kami hurried, feet flying over logs and leaves almost before her flashlight beam found them.

Because God forbid we miss the screaming
, said Jared, growing more guarded as they drew closer, the feeling like an arm held out protectively in front her.

The sound was terrible, this near.

I don’t want to miss the screaming
, Kami told him. She slid her hand into her coat pocket and found her phone in there beside her keys as she ran.
I want to catch them in the act
.

Kami ducked and just missed banging her head on a low-hanging branch. She almost dropped her flashlight and the beam went wide.

The scream stopped abruptly.

The yellow circle of light caught on a wall.

It was rough wood, unpolished, the wall sagging a little. But it was a wall. As Kami drew closer, she was able to make out the shape of something like a sagging hut or maybe a shed, something that had been built.

A thought crept into her head, cold and sly as a draft beneath a door: What if this place had been built just for this?

Kami, run
, Jared ordered.

Kami wanted to run, but she wouldn’t. Not until she found out the truth. She crept forward.

Kami, break a branch off a tree so you can fight at least!

I can fight bare-handed if I have to
, said Kami. She put her hand on the soft, weathered wood of the hut door.

It swung open at her touch.

There were candles, some burning and some blown out, their wax still running liquid and hot. There was a table covered in a white cloth. On the cloth there lay a fox. It was dead. There was blood all over the cloth. Kami knew that if she touched the blood it would still be warm, only just spilled, like the candle wax.

Jared’s fear scythed through her, sharp as a blade. That, more than anything, almost made Kami panic.

Kami, run!

But she couldn’t run yet. She held the flashlight in one hand and with the other took out her cell. She kept both hands steady as she took picture after picture with her camera phone.

Then she ran, stumbling faster than she had come, back through the night to the safety of home. She called the police as she went.

W
hen Sergeant Kenn interviewed Kami, he was very kind, told her she had done her civic duty, and even gave her a quote for the paper.

Kami closed her article on the animal killing in the Vale woods with “The police investigation is ongoing. And so, I can assure my readers, is my own.” The second issue of
The Nosy Parker
—Kami had decided to put out two issues in the first week of school, to gain momentum—was even more popular than the first.

“People took home copies for their parents,” Kami announced, and did a victory dance in the privacy of her headquarters. “The photocopy machine overheated and broke down. I think I can still hear the sound of it sobbing and wanting to talk about its childhood.”

Ash leaned in the doorway, his eyes averted from the sight of Kami dancing. The dance involved flailing, brandishing of a vase of flowers, and most importantly the victory shimmy, so Kami could not really blame him.

“Walk you to class?” he asked.

“Well,” Kami said, “sure.”

Ash pushed himself off the doorframe and into the room,
toward her. “You did an awesome job out there in the woods,” he said. “And with the article.”

Kami beamed. “Thank you.”

“But I think you and Angela should leave this to the police from now on.”

“What an interesting thought,” Kami said. “Thank you for sharing it with me. Let me share a thought with you: Actually, I can walk myself to class. And I can also handle myself, so I’ll be doing what I want.” She shouldered her bag and headed out, moving past him.

“Kami, wait,” Ash called out.

She paused at the top of the stairs and looked back. The newspaper headquarters looked great, she thought proudly. The boxes were gone and the desks were shiny nut-brown. Kami had borrowed a few colorful lamps from home and had plans for a filing cabinet. The office looked great, and Ash looked great in it: arms crossed over his chest, staring at her with eyes turned dark blue with concern.

“Whoever’s doing this—” he began, then switched thoughts. “What if you got hurt?”

“Here’s the thing,” said Kami. “Holly came to me with this story because nobody else would have listened to it. And nobody would have listened to me if I’d called the police and said, ‘Oh, the kids are making too much noise in the woods.’ They’re listening to me now because I went out and found something.
I
found something. And it was horrible, and the only way I know how to deal with something horrible is to do something about it. This is
my
story. And I’m not going to give it up. I’m going to see how it ends. You don’t get a say.”

“I’m getting that impression,” Ash remarked. He uncrossed his arms and walked over to where Kami stood, still undecided. “I am worried about you, though.”

Kami smiled; she couldn’t help it. She wasn’t used to guys looking at her with concern, or drawing near her being all conciliatory and handsome. Except Angela’s brother, of course, but Rusty hardly counted. “I guess you can be worried if you really want,” Kami conceded. She went on tiptoe and kissed Ash on the cheek. She felt him smile, then eased back down and saw him lean in toward her.

“So, you’re okay?” Ash murmured.

Kami wasn’t sure, despite her exhilaration over the newspaper. The police had scared her. How worried her parents were had scared her more. She kept thinking about that night, and the blood. But her secret fears were for her and Jared: she hardly knew this boy, no matter how beautiful his smile.

She just smiled back at him. She knew her smile was not as convincing as his, but it seemed to be enough. Ash’s smile spread, brighter than before, and he leaned down closer. Kami’s breath snagged in her throat. She did not move away.

An explosion of noise came from the stairwell: the sound of so many people running and yelling at once that it sounded like an earthquake. Kami and Ash broke apart without ever coming together.

Kami went running down the stairs, Ash right behind her. She rounded a corner and headed down the school steps, then out the doors to the back of the school. There was a courtyard there, raised a few steps above the cricket pitch.

The cricket pitch was chaos.

“What’s going on?” Ash demanded behind Kami, just as Holly Prescott came rushing up the steps.

“Your brother is fighting the cricket team,” Holly announced, flushed with excitement.

“He’s not my brother,” Ash snapped, his cool cracking instead of just ruffling for the first time since Kami had met him.

“Who on the cricket team?” Kami asked at once, producing her emergency notebook from her bra.

“Sort of the whole team,” Holly said.

Kami went forward, shielding her eyes against the sun’s rays. She could only see one person not in cricket whites. All she could make out were shoulders, and a fist going into someone’s face.

Miss Mackenzie and Ms. Dollard were both crossing the pitch and moving fast. Kami hurtled down the stairs and got to the combatants at the same time the teachers did. Over the noise Kami yelled: “Any comment for the school newspaper?”