A Place of Vengeance, page 33
Les frowned, still taking it all in. “So, what do we do now?”
All I could do was shake my head. I had absolutely no idea.
FORTY-THREE
A hard gust of wind rocked the car, as if trying to flip it over, followed by a brief staccato of fat rain drops that slashed down onto the roof and windshield. The sun glowed a dim, sullen red through a narrow band of open sky to the east, between the tops of the hills and the low, thickening clouds that would soon smother it completely. A dark morning, and it was only going to get worse. According to the weather app on my phone, a storm was due to hit late in the afternoon and last through the next couple of days, complete with occasional thunder and lightning.
We had gone to see Ab the afternoon before, but her parents turned us away at the door. “She’s still not feeling well, and has been sleeping most of the day,” explained her mother.
“We can’t thank you enough for everything you did,” her dad added, looking apologetic, “but tomorrow really would be better.”
Skunked for the time being, we drove over to Pirate Pizza instead and worked our way through a large pepperoni and sausage while deciding our next move. We finally landed on a plan—not a great plan, but the only one we had—and since it had to wait until Monday morning, we finished lunch and went our separate ways.
Les sat beside me, not talking, as we both stared through the windshield. We had gotten to school before anyone else so we would have our pick of parking spots. I had chosen a space near the back where we could watch both the loading zone on the street in case Darren and Gina got a ride, and the gate they used when they walked. As stakeouts went, we were in good position.
Cars and trucks began to trickle in around 7:15 as the first of the early birds arrived, and then increased to a flow just before 7:40 as the lot began to fill in earnest. Kids streamed toward the buildings from the lot or funneled through the pedestrian gates, about half of them under umbrellas while the other half just hurried, head-down, to get out of the weather.
It was 7:52 when Les finally spoke. “There,” he said.
I had been watching the side gate, but turned to follow his gaze fifty or sixty yards farther up the sidewalk where Darren and Gina were trudging through the blustery morning. They would be among the last to arrive, and Darren struggled to hold onto a wide, old-fashioned umbrella that the wind kept trying to tear away. The umbrella had seen better days, with two of the ribs bent and a small hole on Darren’s side, but it was keeping them mostly dry.
Wordlessly, we got out of the car. Les disappeared into the crowd to my right while I moved through the entrance to the quad, concealing myself in a corner just past the first bank of lockers where I could watch while still remaining mostly hidden.
Darren hung back when Gina caught sight of Monica, scowling as she hurried out from beneath their umbrella to join Monica under hers. The two passed by without noticing me, talking with their heads together, and I stepped out a few seconds later, stopping directly in Darren’s path. He was looking down, shaking the water from his umbrella while folding it, and nearly ran into me before he realized I was there. He pulled up short, looking at me with an expression that looked first startled, and then guarded. He moved to brush past, his eyes narrowing in annoyance as I stepped sideways to block him.
“We need to talk,” I said.
His scowl deepened as tried going around my other side.
I didn’t let him.
A look of panic flashed briefly in his eyes and then he spun, looking as if he was about to bolt for the parking lot, but Les had moved up behind him, barring his way.
“Let me by!”
Les shook his head, his expression stony. “Not happening, Hondo.”
Darren retreated warily sideways until his back was against the lockers, while we moved to box him in. “I’ve got nothing to say,” he declared angrily, “to either of you!”
“Oh, I think you do, Darren,” I said, doing my best to look menacing. The dark bruises Les had decorated my face with probably helped. “I think you have plenty to say. About fires. And Cozanna.”
The color drained from Darren’s face as his wary expression dissolved into shock, and maybe three heartbeats passed before he remembered to speak. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Even without my gift I knew Darren was full of crap. And judging from his expression, he knew that I knew it. But I had anticipated that he would try denial first, and I was ready for it. “You hear that, Les?” I asked blandly, keeping Darren’s eyes pinned beneath my gaze. “Darren doesn’t know anything.”
“Sonofagun. Looks like we got the wrong guy.”
I stared into his eyes for a couple of seconds longer, and then abruptly stepped aside, clearing him a path. “Okay…sorry to bother you. C’mon, Les. Looks like we’ll have to talk to Sheriff Hastings instead.” We turned, starting to walk toward the parking lot. I wished I was able read Darren’s emotions to see if we had rattled him enough. I was beginning to think we hadn’t when his voice rose behind us.
“Wait! What do you need to see him for?”
There it was. I couldn’t sense his panic, but I could hear the edge of it in his voice, so we stopped and turned. “Oh, I bet the sheriff would be interested to hear our ideas about how the coffee house caught fire,” I told him. “About how Ab landed in the hospital, and all the rest of the weird crap that’s being going on around here. So far, he has zero to go on, so even crazy theories might be better than nothing.” I paused. “But what do you care? You don’t know anything.” Darren appeared rooted in place, looking scared and uncertain of what to do. I had a feeling he was near the edge, though, so I figured one more nudge might send him over. “Oh,” I added, as if in afterthought, “you are going to be home later, right?”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
I shrugged. “The sheriff will probably ask.”
We resumed walking. I held my breath, but after we had taken a dozen steps or so without hearing anything more, I was sure this time we had struck out. “Crap,” I muttered to Les. “I guess he didn’t buy it.”
“It was a long shot, but we had to try something,” he replied. “What else did we have?”
I sighed. “Not a thing.”
“Wait!” Darren called out again, and I turned, my spirits lifting as he made his way reluctantly toward us.
ROAD ENDS read the sign posted above the barrier fence, which I always thought was only obvious. Someone had spray-painted a skull and crossbones above the lettering since the last time I had been there, though, which I thought was an improvement. The steep grade we had followed east of Windward Cove wound its way up a heavily wooded mountainside for nearly two miles, ending abruptly at a gravel lot that was the trailhead to Hermit Springs. It was more sheltered from the wind up there in the trees, but we were still hammered by the occasional spats of rain. I shut off the engine, and then turned sideways to glare at Darren in the back seat.
He licked his lips. “Why are we here?”
“Just a quiet place to talk,” I told him. “The trail’s all mud, so I bet nobody will be up here much before May.”
“Plus, this far from town, no one can hear you scream,” Les added from where he sat beside him.
I was sure (well…pretty sure, anyway) that Les wasn’t being serious, but he wasn’t smiling, so I didn’t either.
Darren paled, sweat beading his forehead and starting to darken his gray T-shirt at the collar. His gaze flicked nervously through his side window toward the edge of the lot, and I would have bet real money he was weighing his chances of being able to make it to the tree line before we caught him.
“Don’t even think about it,” Les threatened. “I’m in a bad enough mood as it is. If you make me run you down, I’m bringing an ass-whoopin’ with me.”
Enough of this, I thought, suddenly furious again. “Ab nearly died Saturday night,” I snapped. “Do you get that? She’s been nothing but nice to you!”
For a second or two he looked like he was going to deny it again, but then something in his expression crumbled. “I know,” he said softly, his breathing coming faster as his voice started to hitch. “And I’m suh-sorry! I’m…I’m really glad you…you guys got to her in time.” Then Darren surprised me by suddenly leaning over, palms to his face, and began to cry in hoarse, ugly sobs.
It was my turn to pause. I shook my head, exchanging a confused glance with Les, but then my anger got the best of me again. “THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOU SEND COZANNA TO KILL HER?!”
Darren’s sobs slowly trailed off as my words sank in, and at last he lowered his hands. His eyes were red, his face glistening with tears and snot as he looked at me uncomprehendingly. “What?”
Oh, my freaking God, I thought. I was so done with his crap. “Ab knows it was her! The whole place reeked of her patchouli! Why, Darren? What did Ab ever do to you?”
“No!” he cried, now looking shocked. “You gotta believe me! I’d never hurt Ab!”
“Yeah, right! You were there! I saw you!”
Seconds ticked by with only the sounds the wind and rain outside while Darren stared into my eyes. Finally, he spoke. “Ben…I went there to warn her! I didn’t send Cozanna. I can’t. It was Gina!” And with that, he buried his face in his hands again, sobbing forcefully enough to make his shoulders shake.
FORTY-FOUR
It took a long time for Darren to get himself back under control, but that was fine. I needed time to think. Gina? I wondered. Really? After all this time, it was hard to wrap my head around the idea. I had been suspecting Darren for so long that it never even occurred to me to consider anyone else. As shocked as I was, though, part of me realized it was possible, and even made an odd sort of sense. But right then was not the time to wrestle with it as Darren began to tell his side of things—haltingly at first, but then in a rush as he seemed relieved to finally get it off his chest:
Darren had not liked his cousin at first. In fact, he had decided he didn’t like her even before she moved to Silver Creek. Up until the previous June, he had only been aware in an offhand way that he even had cousins. After all, his grandparents had moved to California before his father was even born, and Dad only spoke to a couple of relatives, and then only once or twice a year. Now, all of a sudden one of them would be moving in to ruin Darren’s life.
It started with a series of phone calls over the course of a few weeks, both from some law firm in Rome and a bunch of extended family members in that part of New York. They explained that Gina’s parents had been killed in a head-on crash, that no one else was able to take her in, and after all, what could be better than a change of scenery to help a young girl move past her grief and start a new life?
Darren would have told all those assholes to go pound sand. It wasn’t like any of them had ever helped his family out. And if none of those people wanted her, why should they? It wasn’t their problem in the first place, and anyway, there had to be something wrong with the girl, otherwise why would everyone be so eager to ship her off to the other side of the country? But Dad and Mom had called a family meeting to talk it over, and just like always, he got outvoted 2-1. It wasn’t fair! What was more, before Darren even had time to get used to the idea, he was being evicted from his bedroom to the basement so Princess Whatshername could take over his space and feel all welcome and comfortable. He felt shoved aside, and his resentment was off the scale. Then his worst fears came true when his parents started gushing over Gina almost as soon as her bus pulled into town. Just like that, he was officially the Forgotten Son. He supposed he should have seen that one coming, though. After all, everybody else hated him, so it was only a matter of time before his parents did, too.
After the first couple of weeks, though, he started to think maybe things wouldn’t be so bad after all. It turned out that moving to the basement was actually a good deal. There was a lot more space, Dad built him shelves for all his stuff, and since he was out of everyone’s line of sight, the times he got asked to help around the house or yard were cut in half. Gina steered clear of him until his resentment died down, and when he found out she liked board games, they even started spending time together playing a lot of his old favorites that no one else was interested in anymore: Clue, Operation, Sorry!, Connect 4. He even started teaching her D&D, even though she sucked at it (at least until Ben started playing.)
The best part, though, was that he finally had someone to talk to. Gina’s shyness had made her an outcast just like him, and for the first time Darren knew what it was like to have an ally, and then a real friend. Once they both confessed their mutual loneliness and distrust of people, the floodgates opened and they talked about everything. Coolest of all was when they discovered that their voices carried amazingly well through the old furnace duct that routed air to both the basement and Gina’s room directly above. They would have conversations late into the night, confiding their daydreams and fears, what they wished their lives were really like, or just exchanging made-up stories where the other was the main character and always ended up getting exactly what they wanted.
It was near the end of July when Gina finally showed him her Ouija board.
At first, Darren thought it was just another game. After all, you could buy one from Amazon for just a few bucks, and besides, anyone who really believed in that stuff was just plain retarded. But then Gina told him the story of how she had found it the year before in the attic of her old house—a house that had been in the family for generations—and that it had originally belonged to a grandfather of theirs from way back in the day. What really got him interested, though, was when she told him that the spirit inside was the old man’s wife, a Gypsy woman named Cozanna, who was their grandmother from over a hundred years before.
Holy shit! Darren’s Dad had told him there was Gypsy blood in their family, and the idea that maybe it was true after all—despite all the crap people had given him over the years—was exciting enough to make him want to check it out.
They sat cross-legged on Gina’s bed, facing one another with the board resting on their knees between them, and Gina told him to rest the tips of his index and middle fingers as lightly as possible on the planchette. “Cozanna…are you there?” she asked.
At first nothing happened, and Darren’s excitement began to fade. It looked like it was just a stupid game after all. But then a sweet, spicy smell crept into the room out of nowhere, and abruptly, the heart-shaped indicator moved! It lurched, only an inch or two at first, and then paused briefly. Then it slowly slid across the polished wood surface until the glass window rested above the word Yes. At once, Darren’s heart began thudding heavily in his chest, though he was mostly still skeptical. “You’re pushing it!” he accused.
“I’m not.” Gina’s voice was serene, and she gazed at him with a knowing smile.
It was the smile that got him, and he felt an icy prickle run down his back.
To show him that Cozanna was real, Gina first introduced them, and then challenged him to ask her questions that only he knew the answers to.
The name of the dog they had when he was five?
Bear
How old was he when he learned to ride a bike?
8
The name of his fourth-grade teacher?
Palmer, came the answer, the planchette sliding from one letter to the next with increased sureness and speed. It was as if Cozanna was becoming more attuned to him with each passing question. Darren asked about more than a dozen bits of information that Gina could not possibly know, and the spirit inside the Ouija board answered correctly every time.
Every. Single. Time!
He decided to change things up. “So, what…are you?” he asked.
Drabarni
“That’s the Romani word for ‘one who foretells the future,’” Gina volunteered. “I had to Google it. Drabarni can also sometimes mean ‘healer’ or ‘witch.’”
The icy prickle ran down his back again. Darren opened his mouth to ask another question, but then the planchette began to move again of its own accord, spelling out another word: mami. He glanced at Gina.
“‘Grandmother’,” she told him, and she smiled.
Darren began to tremble. Part of him still suspected she was messing with him, but a much bigger part was both scared and convinced beyond all doubt. He was about to remove his fingers when Gina said, “Hold on.”
He looked at her, eyebrows raised.
“We have to close the session when we’re done.”
“How do we do that?”
“You thank her, and then move the planchette down to the bottom of the board where it says Goodbye. See it?”
Darren saw, and he did what he was told. Then, suddenly he needed to get out of there, away from the sweet smell and craziness to somewhere he could think. Hurriedly, he retreated to the cool, comforting dimness of the basement, feeling uneasy and vulnerable. It couldn’t be real, could it? But some deep part of him knew he was just denying the truth. There was a ghost buried somewhere in the grain of that old, polished wood, and it knew things it had no business knowing. He lay on his bed for a long time, doing his best to not to freak out and waiting—hoping—for the weirdness to pass.
“Hey,” came Gina’s voice a while later, drifting softly down from the vent above.
“Hey,” he replied after a pause.
“Are you okay?”
Darren swallowed. “I guess.”
“It’s a lot to take in all at once,” Gina soothed. “After my first time, I was so scared I didn’t touch it for a week. But you get used to it, and Cozanna is really nice.”
Darren nodded, and then remembered that Gina couldn’t see him. “Okay.”
