Spooked. Part 6

"I don't know. Maybe. All I know is that it isn't safe for you in this town right now."

Had it ever really been?

I'd been hiding from them-the beings that would steal me and take me away to some unnamed place, and do terrible things to me-for so long. I'd been hiding in plain sight.

Now whoever had taken Eliza and Kerry was doing the same. Hiding in plain sight. s.n.a.t.c.hing young girls, taking them away. Doing terrible things to them? Most likely. Eliza's clothes were found on that mannequin for one reason.

The thought was almost too terrible to bear.

Maybe hiding wasn't the way to go anymore.

Maybe it was time to stand and fight.

Chapter Seven.

The search for Kerry was organized, and we all stood in a row in front of the woods beyond the cemetery. As the last place she was seen, it was the most logical place to start looking. The cemetery had already been searched and there had been no sign of her there.

I looked at mournful, fearful faces in the crowd and my gaze fell on Cole Nichols. This time I caught him looking at me. He blinked, seemed startled that I'd caught him looking. I lifted my hand in a small wave. He lifted his back, seemed to think he was being unprofessional, and gave me a nod before looking away toward the woods.

I caught no thoughts from him this time, and felt disappointment, realizing that I was hoping for another compliment from him. In my girlish mind, I hoped that maybe when this nightmare was over, he'd ask me out.

Right. He'll ask you out. But then I argued with myself: he thinks I have pretty eyes.

Get a grip, Lore. We're here to search for Kerry.

As we moved slowly and carefully through the woods, I reached out with my mind, opening it up, exploring gently. People were on either side of me, and I was hyper-aware that the person who had taken Eliza and Kerry was taking part in the search, not only to make themselves look innocent but for kicks. He knew where they were, and we didn't. He was likely smiling inside, getting a rush out of knowing where they were while we looked for any sc.r.a.p of evidence that would lead us to them.

Sending out my psychic fingers, I probed lightly, listening, watching in my mind for any thought fragment that might tell me who the abductor might be.

Nothing. Maybe he was as good at blocking his thoughts from others as I had been at blocking the thoughts of others from me.

Then I heard it. A faint whispering. The whispering of a young girl. I couldn't tell her age. I strained to hear what she was saying. Wind lifted the edges of my hair and caressed my face. I still couldn't make out what she was trying to tell me. Was she directing the whispers to me or did she whisper all the time, her hushed voice being carried away on a breeze?

An urgent voice cut through the air. "We've found something!"

My heart froze.

We all stopped moving.

Mr. Peppin, my math teacher, held a black object high into the air.

A shoe-the style unmistakable. I'd seen those shoes countless times over the past two months.

Kerry's Doc Martens.

But they hadn't found Kerry yet.

Relief and disappointment battled in me. I kept thinking that Eliza and Kerry could still be alive. Maybe they were being kept somewhere. But maybe being dead was better.

On the way to the parking lot, heading to Mick's car, a black shape slid past the corner of my eye. I stopped in my tracks, looked around us. The shape was gone.

"What is it, Lore?" Mick said, touching my arm.

I stood for a moment, trying to look everywhere at once.

"Lorelei?" Mick asked, his voice edged with uneasiness.

I shook my head. "Nothing. I thought I saw something."

"Like what?"

"A black shape. Like a silhouette, or a shadow. Moving really fast. When I blinked it was gone."

He said nothing as we got into his car. When he had slid behind the wheel he said, "I think the stress of Eliza and Kerry being missing is getting to you."

I shrugged. "Maybe."

"Want to go hang out?"

"Sure. Where?"

"Saint Claire's." The cemetery.

It was beautiful and quiet, for obvious reasons, and there was a road, big enough for cars to drive on, which wound around the cemetery.

I always thought I was morbid for liking to walk through the place. But it was peaceful. "Sure."

The fact that it was the last place anyone had seen Kerry was disconcerting. Anyone except her abductor, that was.

We parked in the cemetery parking lot and entered the place through the tall, ornate wrought iron fence. No other cars were in the parking area. It seemed that no one was visiting deceased friends or relatives.

We walked slowly down the path in silence. I marveled at how beautiful the stone angels were.

"Do you have anyone buried here?" Mick asked me.

I shook my head. "No. I'm not actually from here." I winced inwardly. I wasn't supposed to tell people that.

"Really? Where are you from?"

"Just away from here. I don't really want to talk about it, if you don't-"

My eye caught the sunset shine of auburn hair at the edges of a tall gravestone.

I stared, waiting for the face to appear. But the coppery hair had disappeared behind the stone. "There's someone behind that gravestone."

"Really? I didn't see any other cars but mine. They must've walked."

I turned my head as we walked, keeping the gravestone in sight. By the time we could see the other side of it, no one was there. A thick, swirling mist moved through the stones, seeming to have a life of its own.

"There isn't anyone there, Lorelei," Mick said. He stopped, stepped in front of me and looked into my face, his eyes worried. "You okay?"

"I'm just tired," I stammered.

"Let's go. I'll take you home."

We turned, heading back the way we came, and as I lifted my gaze from the path I saw the auburn hair again, framing a pale, oval face, and large brown eyes.

When I blinked, she was gone. Only a pocket of steadily circling fog remained where she had been only a moment before.

This time I didn't say a word.

We rode to Delia's house in silence. I was so tired, and the fact that Eliza and Kerry were both missing weighed heavily on me. I couldn't help thinking that we were somehow connected. I wanted to reach out with my psychic fingers and feel around in Mick's mind again, but I was too exhausted, and I knew that the fallout from it would leave me utterly useless for at least the rest of the day.

I felt his hand on my arm. "You okay?"

I offered a small smile. "I will be. I just need a rest."

"Do you want me to go in with you? I can just hang out on the couch. Watch the tube. It's really no problem, Lore."

He'd taken to calling me "Lore," which made me feel warm inside, despite the frightened, fatigued state I was in. Hearing it on his lips felt intimate and I wanted to sidle to him and lay my face on his chest and just cry.

The hesitation was enough for him. He opened his door. "I'm coming in while you rest. Don't try to argue."

I didn't argue. Instead, I felt relieved that I wouldn't be alone. I didn't know where Delia had gone or how long she'd be gone for, but hours alone in her house made me nervous. She'd made me promise not to go anywhere alone, just as Mick had done, and to call her if I needed a ride. Bolting all the doors was normal for me, even though most people around here didn't feel the need to do that. When a town goes years, even decades, without anything bad happening, you're about due. And besides, I wasn't just anyone.

As I fished around in my leather jacket pocket for the house key, something dark slithered past my peripheral vision. My breath caught in my throat as I turned to see where it had gone. Just as it had in the school parking lot earlier, it had vanished.

"What?" Mick sounded alarmed next to me. "What is it?"

"I thought I saw something again."

"Come on." He took the key from my shaking fingers. "Let's get you inside."

Let's get you inside.

Either Mick was extremely nice and caring, or he knew something I didn't.

I turned to him, looking him in the eye. "What about you?"

"What?" He opened the door. "What about me?"

"Why are you just concerned about getting me inside? Why aren't you afraid for yourself?"

"Because it's girls disappearing, Lorelei. Not guys."

And he thought I might be losing it.

He had a point. I had to get some rest.

"Sorry. I'm just shot." I walked into the house, happy for the warmth.

"It's okay. I'd be jumpy and mistrustful, too."

He didn't know the half of it.

Still, I decided that as soon as I woke from a nice nap, I'd do some more exploring in Mick's mind.

See what he was hiding.

I slept like the dead. But somewhere in the midst of my coma-like sleep, I had a dream. Eliza and Kerry stood in Saint Claire's cemetery, watching Mick and I as we walked in. I looked tired. Worried. Mick looked concerned. They stood behind the large gravestone, behind the red-haired girl who watched us. She peered out around the stone. I could see her narrow back, clad in a gauzy black blouse. She wore black jeans and black tall boots. The ethereal silvery fog moved around her legs and circled her torso, and I thought I saw otherworldly shapes of hands moving through it.

"Lurker," Kerry whispered to Eliza.

Eliza nodded, and then lifted a finger to point at a charcoal ma.s.s of swirling smoke moving, low to the ground and wrapping around gravestones as it moved toward Mick and me.

Kerry said. "They've found her."

Eliza's pale lips moved in a soft whimper, "Shadow spooks."

I sat up straight in my bed, shivering in a cold sweat. My heart drilled against my ribcage; I brought my knees up and wrapped my arms tightly around them, waiting for my breathing to slow. My room was dark, so I snapped my bedside lamp on. Looking at the time on the clock radio, I was surprised to see that it was seven p.m. I'd slept three hours.

I knew that the dream was an omen. That either Kerry and Eliza were trying to warn me, or that somewhere in my subconscious I knew answers to questions I had in my mind. The term shadow spook could be something I came up with to name the seemingly live ent.i.ty made of black smoke that seemed to be following me around. Lurker? Is that what the girl would be called? The term fit. She was lurking. Part of me didn't even want to know why. I just wanted her and her weird fog to go away and stop watching me. The black smoke was something separate from her, though. I felt strongly that it had nothing to do with her.

I sat for a long moment until my breathing became more regular.

I smelled the rich aroma of chicory and wondered whether Delia was home. But there was an absence of humming. I frowned, and then remembered that Mick was downstairs waiting for me.

Slipping on the fuzzy frog slippers Delia had gotten me for Christmas because, she says, frogs are good luck, and pulling my thick fleece over my head, I made my way downstairs.

Mick was in the kitchen, scooping spoonfuls of cocoa into one of Delia's thick pottery mugs. He must've felt me there, the way people often do when you come up behind them, because he turned to look at me. Blonde curls falling over one eye, he grinned at me. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty. It's about time."

I offered him a smile and went to look at what he was making. "I slept more than I meant to. Guess I was tired."

"You were. I was getting worried. You were starting to see things."