Ghostcountry's Wrath (21 page)

Speaking of which, he should've warded this place before now. Sighing, he wandered to the nearest cedar tree, cut a number of dark-needled twigs from it, and marked four with pigment from his pack. He had just started to plant the red one on the east side of the campsite when he heard footfalls in the undergrowth to the southwest.

Probably Brock returning.

It was Sandy though, red-faced, sweaty, and breathless, her backpack bulging with supplies, along with plastic bags slung from both arms. Calvin started to say something about it not being
that
urgent, but then he caught the expression on her face.

“Something's wrong?” he asked, as he took the parcels from her.

She nodded, even as she unslung her pack. “Check the paper—it's in that bag there.”

Calvin stared at her quizzically, then did as instructed, rummaging among cartons of juice until he found a folded copy of the local weekly rag: the
Willacoochee Witness.

He could not avoid the headline:

LOCAL BOY MISSING, FEARED DROWNED

And below it was a picture of a chipmunk-cheeked teenager about Brock's age. A boy Calvin had seen all too much of the previous summer, a boy who'd lost a sister to Spearfinger, who'd seen his lifelong best friend leisurely slain by that same monster. A boy who'd helped him kill her at last, maybe at the cost of his peace of mind.

Don Larry Scott.

“Let me see that,” Calvin groaned, even as he once again checked the sky.

Chapter XII: Okacha

“Brock!”
Calvin bellowed into the suddenly nervous quiet.
“Get back here!”

The campsite rang with the sound, as if the entire landscape sensed the urgency in his voice and hushed to let him have his say. A breeze ventured through, hopefully accidental, in which case it might well be the vanguard of the threatened rain. Or it might be something else. For Calvin suddenly felt as if, already knee-deep in arcana he wanted no part of, he had stepped into a hole and was now in up to—at least his waist, if not over his head. “Have you read this?” he asked Sandy, indicating the newspaper still clutched in his hand.

She nodded, even as she straightened from unpacking the first grocery bag.

“You know who this kid is, don't you?”

Again she nodded, but just as she was about to speak, a commotion to the northwest heralded Brock's return. He fairly stumbled into the clearing, his cacophonous arrival markedly in contrast to the stealth with which he had departed. His pale face was flushed and sweaty, his hair wild. Scratches showed vivid red along his sides where he'd evidently encountered a patch of wait-a-minute vines. “What's the deal?” he gasped, then fixed Calvin with a scowl. “What's wrong?”

Once again Calvin indicated the paper. Brock padded over to peer around his arm, while Sandy stared over his opposite shoulder, wiping her brow. “Recognize him?” Calvin asked for the second time in a minute.

Brock squinted—the light was bright, as the sun neared the zenith. “I dunno, he looks
kinda
familiar…” Then: “Oh, yeah, sure! It's that guy we met last summer, back when we were messed up with that Spearfinger sh—I mean crap.”

“That's him,” Calvin affirmed. “And he's missing.”

“A little too coincidentally,” Sandy added.

Calvin looked at her intently, then back at the paper.

The
Willacoochee Witness
was a weekly rag, published on Saturdays, thus the information they confronted was already two days old at minimum. But this way, at least, they could get a sense of the whole tale, not frustrating fragments acquired piecemeal.

“Read on,” Sandy urged.

Calvin did—aloud, mostly for Brock's benefit—and so that he wouldn't get in a hurry and miss something important himself.

LOCAL BOY MISSING, FEARED DROWNED

By Raymond Bryan Stepp

Whidden— The Whidden Police announced yesterday morning that they had launched an intensive search throughout the entire tri-county area for fifteen-year-old Donald Lawrence Scott, called Don or Don Larry by his friends. According to police, the boy's mother, Liza-Bet Scott-Richards, missed him when she attempted to call him to breakfast Friday morning. Since then, investigators have little to go on, the main item of note being the discovery of ritual paraphernalia near one of the boy's favorite campsites on Iodine Creek roughly a mile northeast of his mother's rural home. Analysis of this material indicates that the boy had practiced some sort of divining ritual of probable Native American origin, a fact borne out by evidence found at the scene, notably the presence of several volumes on Native American religion. Mrs. Richards confirmed that her son had become interested in the occult in the year since the death of his longtime friend, Michael Chadwick, and of his sister, Allison Scott, adding that Scott had recently learned that Chadwick's grandfather had been a full-blooded Cherokee.

Police now believe the boy drowned while pursuing some aspect of this ritual, possibly the rite known as “going-to-water,” a supposition borne out by the discovery of his clothing, and of his footprints leading down to the edge of Iodine Creek but not returning. There was no sign of a struggle, police say, and they have all but ruled out suicide. Divers have checked Iodine Creek for almost half a mile downstream, and have dragged it, to no avail.

Scott, a rising sophomore at Whidden High School, is described by his classmates as a quiet boy, friendly, but withdrawn and moody after the death of his friend.

He is fifteen years old, five feet three inches tall, and weighs one hundred fourteen pounds. He has short, dark brown hair, gray-green eyes, and a crescent-shaped birthmark on his left side just below the ribs. He also has an appendicitis scar, and is presumed to be wearing borrowed or stolen clothing, perhaps not fitting him well. Anyone having information is encouraged to contact the Willacoochee County Sheriff's department or dial 911.

“Jesus,” Brock breathed, his face, if possible, even whiter than normal.

Calvin crumpled the paper and flung it to the ground, then kicked at the nearest log savagely.
“Dammit!”
he spat.
“Goddammit!
Why'd he do it? Why couldn't the little son-of-a-bitch be more careful?”

“Cal—” Brock began tentatively.

Calvin spun on him.
“You!”
he snapped, pointing first at the boy, then at the paper. “Yeah, you! Brock! That could've been you so easy, boy. That could have goddamned been you! See what comes of foolin' around with magic? That kid did—and look where it got him!”

A puzzled look crossed Brock's features. Then: “But how do you know it was magic?”

“Because I know!” Calvin gritted. “I know that kid, and I know what he was into: weird stuff, just like you. Shoot, if nothin' else this oughta teach you once and for all how dangerous this business is.”

“But how—?”

“Because my cousin saw his ghost two nights after he vanished!” Calvin told them wearily. “I'd been seein' my dad's ghost for a while, Brock. And then I started seein' him with another shape, which I finally figured out was the ghost of that Michael Chadwick boy Spearfinger killed. Only that didn't quite make sense, 'cause as far as I knew he wasn't an Indian. ‘Cept now we find out that he was part Cherokee. And then…” He paused, gulped. “Night before last my cousin saw my dad's ghost—I'd told him about it, and he's open-minded—and he saw another, too, just not very well. But he also
thought
he saw a third, which makes sense if Don Scott was in the Ghost Country himself.”

Brock looked incredulous, even as Sandy looked troubled. “The Ghost Country?”

Calvin nodded. “Tsusginai, in Ununhiyi, the Darkening Land. The Cherokee dead go there, apparently—maybe until they're reincarnated, or something. And evidently those of mixed blood do too, sometimes. The problem is that…my cousin says that somebody who dies without all their parts—like my dad and Michael and Allison did—can't be granted admission to the Ghostland, so they become uneasy and start hauntin' folks. Plus, ghosts get lonely and start wantin' their loved ones with 'em.”

Sandy looked thoughtful. “And the paper said Don had gotten into divination. I bet…he was trying to contact Michael's spirit, and—”

“And
got
him!” Calvin finished for her. “I bet Don found some kind of ritual for that in one of those books that article mentioned, and tried it—and Michael came: poor, lonely Michael without his liver or his best friend. And Don, half crazy and probably half in shock, went with him.”

“But Michael was
dead
!”
Brock protested. “Why would Don look for him?”

“Maybe…to make peace with him?” Sandy suggested slowly, looking at Calvin. “From what you said, those guys were real close. If one died, and the other had to watch but couldn't help him—”

“He'd feel guilty as hell,” Calvin groaned. “I should've thought of that! I should've come down here and seen how the kid was actually doin', instead of relyin' on reports.”

“Don't start that,” Sandy warned. “You start guilt-tripping yourself, you'll wind up like he did—'cause I bet that's what he did: guilt-tripped himself.”

Calvin felt suddenly very old. “Yeah, and I can just guess that the closer to the one-year anniversary it got, the worse Don felt. Shoot, he had to have been goin' crazy. He might even have been seein' ghosts, same as I was. Only I was wary and strong and suspicious. He saw what he wanted and…”

“You mean Don's…dead, too?” Brock gulped.

Calvin shrugged. “Hard to say. If he is, it's not in any conventional way, unless he actually…died, if that makes any sense. But it sounds to me more like he was just physically transported to wherever Mike is. He's…stuck, I guess, can't go on 'cause he's not dead, can't come back 'cause they won't let him—or he doesn't want to return.”

“Awful,” Sandy muttered under her breath.

“Yeah,” Calvin agreed. “And I bet I know how he did it, too! Except—Jesus, but I wish I knew what books he used. I've got some ideas, but who knows what weird little local libraries like the one down here might have?”

“You
could
check,” Sandy observed matter-of-factly.

Calvin glared at her. “Sure, and have people conveniently remember all those murders last summer, just about the time that weird Indian boy started hangin' round! No way I'm gonna attract that kind of attention again.”

“But I could,” Sandy countered practically. “Or Brock.”

“Maybe,” Calvin grunted.

“But,” Brock said in a small voice, “what about…you and me?”

Calvin rounded on him. “You
still
wanta do that, after this?”

The boy scowled darkly. “After what? A newspaper article and a bunch of wild guesses? What's that got to do with anything?”

Calvin was practically speechless with frustration. “You're really gonna hold me to it, huh?”

Brock shrugged, but his eyes were fearless. “I guess I am.”

Calvin could only grimace helplessly.

“So what do we do?” Sandy asked carefully.

“What we do,” Calvin replied, thumping down on the ground—which reminded him a little too pointedly of the state of his ribs, “is first of all confirm my suspicion. In the meantime”—he looked at Brock—”put on some clothes. The 'skeeters'll eat you alive if you give 'em half a chance.”

Brock was pacing about the clearing, his face a mix of emotions: concern and anxiety and real fear, blended with anger and frustration. Calvin glared at him. “Cool it!” he snapped. “I'm gonna go through with it. In fact”—he levered himself upright— “what I was gonna teach you may actually prove useful, so come on, snap to. You're fixin' to get some hands-on experience.”

Brock froze with his shirt in hand, suddenly all intense interest. “I am?”

Calvin nodded. “I'd intended to teach you the finding ritual anyway—even though it now looks more dangerous than I thought it was. But you can still use it. Besides, it'll take you a while to assemble the equipment to do it yourself, and I'm not gonna give you mine, nor lend it. Maybe by then some of this will have sunk in, and you'll have learned some sense.”

“You sound like an old man!” Brock muttered, disgusted.

“I
feel
like an old man, right now,” Calvin told him. “Now, do you wanta learn, or not? As soon as
it's noon, I'm gonna try to confirm where Don is. You're free to watch—you both are, though Sandy's seen it done enough it should bore her silly. But if you're
interested,
Brock, I'll explain as I go along.”

“Sure,” Brock said, after a pause. “Sorry I was a jerk.”

Calvin shrugged. “We all are, sometimes.” That said, he picked up a twig and sketched a cross-in-circle in the earth by the fire. “Okay then: you know what that design there is?”