A Curse So Dark Read online

  “Isn’t it?” Sheriff Polson replied. When I’d encountered her at Christmas parties and summer picnics, the sheriff seemed stiff and formal, but tonight she was warm, concerned. Her hair, close-cropped and tinged with white, and her gentle tone seemed almost grandmotherly. “My gut feeling is he got distracted. His cruiser was left in the alley behind the Pioneer Inn, parked near the back door of the pub...”

  “He doesn’t drink anymore,” I said, my jaw tight. “You must have looked up his history, that’s why you’d think that.”

  “Look, this isn’t something I’d normally discuss,” the sheriff said, “but over the last couple of years, there have been times your father acted strangely. Never explicitly drunk on the job, but missing a few shifts, coming in late with a whopper of a hangover, that kind of thing. Have you ever noticed that type of behavior?”

  “I can remember him seeming off once or twice,” I said. “He usually just needs to go clear his head, spend the weekend camping when that happens. I don’t think that means he’d run off in the middle of the night.”

  The sheriff gave me a sympathetic smile. “I know it hard to hear, but we have to look at all the possibilities. The simplest is that he’s on a bender and he’ll end up sleeping off whatever trouble he got into.”

  “A bender?” I threw a glance over my shoulder at my sisters and lowered my voice. “Maybe he was just breaking up a bar fight?”

  “No calls from the inn. In fact, nothing called in today except for a cabin ransacked over on Lost Creek. Responded to that one myself.” The sheriff’s tone softened. “In all likelihood, your dad is probably fine. He’ll turn up eventually and I’ll figure out what disciplinary action to take.”

  “I don’t think that he—”

  “Honey.” The sheriff put an arm around my shoulders. I stiffened at the touch. “As much as we hope for it, people don’t change their nature. They are who they are, even if they struggle against it. I’ve seen it all too often in this line of work.”

  I didn’t buy it, but I could see the sheriff was trying to be comforting in her own way. “I should get us home.”

  Sheriff Polson held out the keys to my family’s truck. “You have a relative you can call to stay with you?”

  “I’m eighteen. We’ll be okay.”

  The sheriff scratched at her neck. “Your sisters are still minors,” she said, leading me back to the waiting area. “Hopefully he’ll turn up in the morning so we don’t need to get Social Services involved.”

  As I approached, Fawn tossed the outdated fashion magazine she’d been perusing back on the side table. Rose stood up, abandoning her untouched cup of cocoa. They looked worried, but mostly tired.

  “It’s all under control,” I said, in what I hoped was a confident tone. “They’re looking for him. Let’s go home.”

  As we pulled away from the station, I could’ve sworn I heard howling in the distance, but maybe it was just the wind.

  ***

  “You know he wouldn’t do that. He’s not out on a bender or whatever the sheriff was saying,” Rose said, standing in my doorway as she twisted her long blond hair into a side braid. Her Hello Kitty bathrobe, so loved it was nearly threadbare, was a bright spot of pink in my beige room.

  I didn’t mind the simplicity of my space. A low bookshelf flanked the desk. A window seat beneath the dormer window featured a couple stuffed animals I’d been meaning to give away and a cozy pillow embroidered with a smiling sun. My closet, still in disarray from Fawn’s latest borrowing mission, was opposite the four-poster bed.

  “That’s all they have to go on.” I threw on an old concert T-shirt of Dad’s over my bralette and yoga pants and slipped into the covers.

  Rose sat down on the end of the bed and pulled a throw blanket up over her feet. “But he moved us here to get away from all that partying on the road.”

  “Yeah, I know.” But I also suspected there was probably a lot more to the story of Dad’s younger life than simply being a boy who idolized rock bands and wanted to be a roadie. There’d been something about constant touring that had appealed to my dad. I didn’t think it was the partying. When he reminisced about all the places he’d traveled with the bands he’d worked for, there’d been a look in his eyes, the pleasure of discovering new places, of losing himself in a new city, new town. I understood a desire for freedom like that. I’d felt it often enough myself recently.

  “He told me Pioneer Falls felt like the farthest thing from a tour bus,” Rose said. “And if he stayed here and gave that all up, then maybe Mom would come home.” She drew the blanket up farther over her toes.

  I’d never given that particular idea much weight. Our mother was long gone. She’d supposedly acted relieved when Dad had announced his intention to quit touring and move the family to this small town. But before we’d left Seattle, she’d asked for a few days to visit a friend in Portland before she joined us at our new home. She never arrived.

  She’d disappeared from our lives, and from everywhere else.

  “You really believe Dad’s just passed out somewhere?” Rose asked, crawling to the head of the bed, dragging the blanket with her.

  It was possible he’d fallen back into his old ways. The sheriff’s claim of him missing shifts, showing up hung over...that had triggered some memories. He hadn’t always acted so perfect, so strict. Every so often, he’d taken off alone on what he said were camping trips, but couldn’t those have been times he was off using?

  I didn’t want to go there. He’d turn up and explain everything, I was sure. The last thing I needed was my sisters freaking out.

  “I don’t know,” I finally replied. “But people do change. All the time. Dad’s not the person he was all those years ago, I promise. Fawn’s already gone to bed. You sleeping in here?”

  “You mind?” Rose asked, plumping a pillow.

  “Nope.” I switched off the light and for the next hour lay awake, listening to the familiar sounds of the house: the furnace kicking on, the blustery wind picking up outside. Rose was already drowsing, mouth slack. Breathing regular and easy.

  I was almost asleep when I heard the distinct sound of a window easing open.

  Careful not to wake Rose, I slid out of bed and then tiptoed down the hall. The creaky floorboards made it hard to be stealthy. Anyone would hear me coming, if they were breaking in. But I wasn’t sure that was what was happening.

  Voices drifted from Fawn’s room. Through the cracked-open door, I saw my sister climbing over the windowsill. The night breeze tickled the curtains in her wake. I didn’t want to wake Rose, so I didn’t yell out as I might have any other time. I’d catch Fawn in the backyard.

  I’d miss her if I took too much time, so I yanked on a pair of Converses from under Fawn’s bed—it was a tight fit, but not too uncomfortable. Then, I threw on a jacket from the back of her chair. In seconds, I was out the window. I balanced precariously for a second, and then crawled down to the lower roof, just as Lewis Carter, Fawn’s boyfriend, stepped out from the shadows near the trees.

  “You sure about this?” Lewis said, glancing around. He didn’t seem to notice me sneaking out on the roof.

  “No one cares. He’s not even home. C’mon,” Fawn said, and then disappeared with Lewis around the corner of the garage.

  “Hey!” I cried, trying to steady myself while I looked for an alternative to falling into the bushes. Finally, I spotted the ladder Fawn had used. I climbed down carefully. Meanwhile, Lewis and Fawn sprinted off down the street.

  “Hey!” I called out again, but Fawn didn’t even turn around. I guessed she’d heard me but was pretending she hadn’t. Typical Fawn move.

  I jogged down the street, zipping the borrowed jacket against the chilly night. The sooner I caught up with Fawn, the sooner we’d all be back at the house. My anger started to percolate the farther I followed them, into town. This was Dad’s domain, but this time he wasn’t home to rein her in.

  Lewis paused near the gazebo in the town squ
are, saw me and motioned Fawn to stop, but she tugged on his jacket and they took off running again. A block later, they took a turn toward a popular hook-up spot. The cemetery.

  “Seriously?” I muttered, wishing I’d gone back to get the truck.

  I caught my breath at the corner of Maple and Main, where the Pioneer Inn stretched nearly half a block, a relic from a failed tourism promotion decades ago. A motel with exposed staircases and long metal railings, it was the only lodging in town. A replica of a Conestoga wagon moldered out near the sign, its tattered canopy fluttering in the breeze. The town’s founders would not have been proud.

  Off the motel office, the Pioneer Pub’s neon blues and reds lit the night. The twang of a country song leaked from inside. I paused, studying the vehicles parked out front. The sheriff had said this was my dad’s last known location. She’d assured me they were looking for him, but I couldn’t resist taking a walk around the motel complex before retrieving Fawn.

  A gravel-lined alley flanked the bar on the north side, with the requisite Dumpster and a recycling bin overflowing with bottles and cardboard boxes from the bar. Dad’s squad car was parked at the end, boxed in by the brick wall and a chain link fence that led to the thick woods beyond. Trying the car door handle, I found it locked, which wasn’t a surprise. If the sheriff had been by, she would have seen to that.

  Grit from the country roads speckled the hood. Cupping my hand, I peered into the driver’s side window, to see if I could make out anything in the weak alley light. Open containers, beer cans, something. If a binge was the sheriff’s theory, I wanted evidence.

  “Might be easier with this,” said a voice behind me.

  I whirled around into a glare of a cell phone light. “My dad’s a cop,” I said, squinting to see. “Do you want to die?” My hands curled into fists at my sides.

  “Cell service always sucks up here, so I figured my phone ought to be good for something. Just trying to help.” He turned the light on himself, and I recognized the kid’s sandy blond hair, the sarcastic curve of his smile.

  “You’re in my English class. New kid, junior in a senior-level class, right?”

  The light clicked off, leaving the alley in near darkness. “Yeah. It’s Alex. Alex Bowman.” He slipped his phone into his pocket and then with his other hand, picked up his skateboard. “You’re Lily, right? Rose Turner’s sister?”

  I arched an eyebrow at Rose’s name, but nodded. “Hey, actually...let me see your phone.”

  Alex handed it to me, touching the flashlight app.

  “Thanks.” I held it close to the glass, illuminating the front seat. The light swept over the cruiser’s computer dash, a lunchbox, a coffee cup from Pioneer Perk in the drink holder, probably from that morning since it showed his name in Maggie’s handwriting. I moved to the back windows and peered in. A few coins on the seats, crumpled paper in the footwell. Nothing out of the ordinary. No signs of any alcohol use in the car, but then, it was parked behind the bar. That didn’t bode well.

  “What are we looking for?” Alex said, suddenly right at my elbow.

  “Nothing. Thanks,” I said, handing him back his phone.

  Alex followed me out of the alley, and when it turned to pavement, flipped his board to the ground and passed me without a word. He swooped effortlessly into the empty parking lot on the other side of the inn.

  “Hey, wait a second,” I called out. “Alex!”

  He cruised back, and then jumped off the board and kick-flipped it up to his hands. “You need something else?”

  “Were you here earlier, riding around in the lot?”

  Alex studied me for a moment. “It’s not like I hang out here every night,” he said, in an offended tone. “But yeah, I was here, after the rain stopped.”

  “That was hours ago.” I gave Alex a once-over, taking in his light jacket over a flannel shirt, loose jeans, his ratty sneakers. He wasn’t someone I’d really taken notice of when he’d arrived at school a few weeks before. He sat in the back of the class, seemed never to raise his hand, had his nose in paperback books that were not part of the assignment.

  “I came down after dinner,” he said. “The squad car was already parked back there in the alley when I got here.”

  “Did you see the deputy in the bar, or outside of it?”

  Alex shook his head. “I saw a couple guys on motorcycles. An old guy in a truck with a bumper tied on with a rope. A really old lady in a fancy hybrid. A jogger who had a really wet golden retriever running behind her.”

  “Holy crap. That’s observant,” I said, “but not helpful.”

  “People watching is a hobby. I mean, what else is there to do in this place?”

  I scanned the dark parking lot, as if there was some spot I hadn’t covered, some angle I hadn’t considered. Short of interviewing the bartender and motel clerk, there wasn’t much I could do. And it wasn’t like they’d talk to me, anyway.

  “The deputy’s missing?” Alex’s voice was edged with concern.

  I nodded, aware that this was the first time I’d let myself actually feel the fear that was rising. “He always comes home. This is a safe town.”

  “Until the day it’s not,” Alex said in an ominous tone.

  “Really?” I put my hands on my hips and glowered at him. “Thanks.”

  “Sorry, I read lots of stories. Sci-fi, fantasy, horror...”

  “Horror? Oh no, my sister! I’ve got to go,” I said, remembering what I was doing in the first place.

  “Rose?”

  “No, Fawn,” I called over my shoulder.

  Alex jumped on his board and followed me. “Where to?”

  “Cemetery.”

  Alex skidded to a halt. “Yeah, I’ll just stay here and skate.”

  “I promise I’ll protect you.”

  “I have this thing about zombies.”

  “Yeah, we all do,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “You know they aren’t real, right?”

  “Sure. In theory. Lots of things aren’t real in theory.” He jumped back on his board and careened away toward the parking lot.

  I trudged off toward the cemetery gates, not happy about having to retrieve Fawn alone. Not happy that there was really no one I could count on to come with me. Kyle wasn’t going to wake up, come out here, and help me look. Besides, Kyle would laugh it off in his typical, breezy way, saying Fawn was old enough to know what she was doing. And, I’d be the first to admit, my other friends were scarce, had been since I’d started dating Kyle. I’d kinda been absorbed into his world, it seemed, and lost some of my own.

  And that is how I ended up at midnight in the graveyard, alone. At least at first I thought I was alone. It turned out I was wrong about that.

  Chapter Two

  I’m not the type of girl who typically hangs out in graveyards at night. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Fawn and Lewis ducking inside Pioneer Falls Cemetery for private makeout time, I wouldn’t be caught...you know, there at all. Resting places of the dead pretty much freak me out, as they do most normal people. Although, as I’d later find out, I am definitely not normal.

  Inside, the same style of antique lampposts as in the rest of the town emitted a hazy glow down onto the paths. Fog drifting in from the river glimmered in the low light. I took a second to get my bearings. Kyle had a car, so we never came to the graveyard to hang out, but other kids from school favored a spot near the willow tree.

  “What am I doing?” I muttered aloud. Standing in the bluish light, scanning all those tombstones in the distance, I started to feel overwhelmed. Everything washed over me in flashes—the bloodied deer, the menacing wolves, the sheriff’s office, my father’s abandoned patrol vehicle. The thought that something had happened to Dad.

  “C’mon,” I told myself. “This way.”

  I entered the oldest section, the final resting place of the actual pioneers of Pioneer Falls. The ones we’d learned about at school when we covered local history. I passed a few bigger monuments, an
obelisk, slightly fancier than other markers, and a couple of small crypts. There had been big money here once. Mill barons had barged their lumber from Pioneer Falls to the developing settlements down river and filled trains headed east. Their fancy monuments stood out ostentatiously amongst the simpler graves of their workers and families. The town had always been divided economically, I guessed, just like it was today. Kyle didn’t make a big deal about it, but he did seem obsessed with money sometimes. He probably got that from his father, who owned a piece of the mill.

  I glanced up and saw two shapes moving across the far end of the cemetery. “Fawn?” I chanced a shout.

  The figures stopped and turned, shadows that seemed smaller than they should be, the mist distorting the reflections. I was tired of chasing Fawn, and I hoped I could get her to listen to reason.

  “Lewis?”

  Then I saw something that made my breath catch in my chest—silvery reflections of light hitting eyes. Animal eyes. The back of my neck prickled, not unlike the feeling I’d had earlier with the wounded buck. Things watching from the dark. The wolves laying in wait.

  I forced myself to breathe calmly. I didn’t want to think they were the same ones I’d seen tearing into their still-alive snack behind the coffee shop. I couldn’t make out their colors in the dark to be sure. At any rate, I hoped they were more scared of me than I was of them. As I considered what to do next, a bark sounded in the distance.

  The animals dropped their heads and slunk off into the woods toward the call of the wild.

  Cursing under my breath, I decided I’d better hustle through my search, find Fawn, and get out of there in case those canines came back. At the far tomb, I made a left and found the trail to the willow tree. Cigarette butts and crumpled beer cans littered the tall grass on the sides of the makeshift path. There was also a hole in the fence that led to the woods, making for an easy getaway if the caretaker showed up on patrol.

  “Not here,” I muttered, looking around.

  I walked back toward the entrance, checking over my shoulder for animals from time to time. I’d had the feeling of being watched earlier. But it wasn’t like I was prey. I wasn’t a buck or a rabbit, or whatever they’d normally hunt among the tombstones.