Mothman's Curse (26 page)

Suddenly a pair of dress shoes stepped into my field of vision. I tried to force a warning from my burning throat, telling the fool to run—and then the shoes flickered.

John.

I stumbled to my feet and found Mothman and Goodrich staring each other down.

John's eyes were no longer sorrowful but piercing, furious, and focused on only Edgar.

Mothman reared up to his full height, eyes afire, but Goodrich didn't flinch.

“It's over, Edgar. The curse is broken.”

I gasped. I could hear John even over the roaring winds, his voice clear and strong.

Hope filled me.

Mothman roared and raged. His figure loomed even larger, as black and grim as an empty grave.

John met my gaze. A half smile settled across his features, peace in his eyes. He glanced behind him as his wife's figure stepped up beside him and took his hand. Light blazed around them, bright as the winter sun, and they were gone.

Mothman howled. He rushed toward me, his clawed, crooked fingers stretching closer …

His form blurred as his wings and ragged black clothes began to shred and fall away. He stopped short, seeming to grasp that he was finished. Beaten.

Doomed.

We both looked up as the glass skylights burst and shattered, unleashing a torrent of rain, wind, glass, and chunks of ceiling. I glimpsed Edgar's cruel smile just before the last remnants of him vanished in a wisp of black smoke.

I had just enough time to throw my arms over my head before the world crashed down around me in a surge of noise and pain, knocking me off my feet. Debris pelted me, flaying my skin. Swallowing dirt and grit, I squeezed my eyes shut against the assault and started crawling, not knowing which direction to go.

Suddenly there was no floor beneath me. I grabbed desperately for anything to anchor me, caught something for a second, two seconds, until I was ripped away and flung into something hard and unyielding.

I felt a scream leave my throat, felt a white-hot pain in my leg—

—and then it all went away, the specter of red eyes following me into the darkness.

 

20

“Josie? Josie, can you hear me?”

Sound came back first. Then pain. My head felt foggy and thick, like it was being squeezed by a giant hand. My ears were ringing, but that voice calling my name still got through, slightly muffled and sounding more distressed by the minute.

“Josie?
Please.
I can't tell Dad I let you get killed after we saved half the town. Wake up.”

I managed to crack open my eyes and found myself staring at a clear, velvet sky salted with stars.

Fox's face appeared above mine, his eyes shining. “Oh, man. Oh, wow.” He gulped a few long, slow breaths and scrubbed a hand across his forehead. “Oh, thank you. Hold still, okay?”

Huh?

Raw, angry pain pulsed through my leg. I turned my head to the side and saw a couple of paramedics or firefighter types kneeling beside me, strapping my leg to some kind of board, and then the screaming, gut-twisting, mind-numbing pain came roaring up my leg and buzzing along every nerve.

“
Aaah!
Ow, ow, ow!” Tears sprang to my eyes. I reached out desperately for anything to cling to and found Fox's arm.

“Ow!” he cried. “Can't you give her a shot or something?”

“We just did. It should kick in soon.”

“Make it stop, make it stop,” I whimpered. I took another look at my leg and realized it was a lot puffier than usual and also wanted to bend the wrong way.

“Ugh.”
My stomach clenched and rolled, like ripples in the water. My throat convulsed. I clamped a hand over my mouth and tried desperately not to be sick.

“Try not to move, now,” one of the paramedic guys said. “Almost there. Then we'll get you transported.”

Transported?
I felt as if no one was making any sense.

“Why am I outside?” I whispered, my voice feeling scratchy, like I'd swallowed a shovelful of dirt.

Fox smiled faintly. “Look again, Josie.” I glanced past him. The wooden floor beneath us was wet and filthy. Just a few feet away were the remains of a row of bleachers, twisted and splintered, metal rods and poles sticking out at crazy angles. Kind of like my leg. I looked away. On my other side, one of the basketball backboards lay on its side, a shattered skeleton of itself.

The ceiling wasn't there anymore. Shards of glass lay everywhere, glittering in the huge spotlights that had been set up around the area.

As awareness grew I began to feel stinging cuts all over my body, and then I couldn't forget them, the pain surpassing even the solid mass of ache in my leg. I glanced at Fox again and saw his arms and face covered in tiny cuts, a few of them bandaged with little white strips.

“We're inside,” I said stupidly. “Wait.” I tried to sit up, but the pain made white sparkles dance in front of my eyes. “You said—” I winced and lowered myself back down. “You said we saved half the town. Did we do it? Is everybody okay?”

Fox grinned. “There are some injuries, but yes—we did it. No one died.”

“And I'm alive?”

“Yeah. You are. How did you do it? Did Mothman touch you?”

“I touched him.” I remembered the pin and felt for it at my collar, but it wasn't there.

Fox held out his clenched hand and slowly uncurled his fingers. The pin—or what was left of it—sat there, looking like nothing more than bits of glass and gold.

“Did you…?”

“This was under your jacket when I found you.”

I sighed. “Good.”

I was starting to feel sleepy, my eyes heavy, the pain slipping away. “Mitch,” I said, remembering. “Is he okay? Did he save you? I asked him to save you.”
Ooh.
Floating. That was new.

“He did.” Color rose in Fox's cheeks. “I froze. I remember seeing you, and seeing those cracks in the ceiling, and I couldn't think, couldn't move. Then the storm was inside instead of outside, and Mitch tackled me and dragged me out into the concourse. I kept trying to get back to you, and he wouldn't let me. I might have said a couple of words I shouldn't have.”

I was drifting, too far gone to answer. Suddenly the sky got a little closer as they raised my stretcher to its full height.

“You riding with us, kid?” the paramedic asked someone. Fox, apparently, because he nodded and followed along.

*   *   *

The next time I woke up, I was in a hospital bed with Dad resting in a chair next to me, his casted leg propped up on a stool. My eyes drifted to my own leg, cocooned in a pink cast and resting on a plump pillow. I stared at it, marveling at the lack of pain, wondering how long it would take to heal.

“We're twins,” Dad's voice said gently as he leaned over to kiss the top of my head. “How do you feel, honey?”

“I'm okay.”

He placed a small device in my hand. “If the pain gets bad, you push that button, okay? It's medicine to help.”

“The good stuff, huh?”

“Yeah. The good stuff.” He closed his eyes, cleared his throat. “I'm so glad—” A tear dripped off the end of his nose, and then another. “I'm so glad that you're okay, Josie Bug. I should have been there with you.”

“But we did it.”

“I know you did. You saved
so many
people. I'm so proud of you.”

The relief was so great I thought I might cry, but the tears wouldn't come. “How much do you know?”

“Fox told me some things about Mothman and a curse that curled my toes. But I have a feeling he left a whole lot out.”

“Do people know what really happened?”

“Most think it was just a stroke of good luck that the power went out when it did, that people started to evacuate before the tornado hit.”

“But Mothman, the warnings—some people must suspect something weird.”

“Some do. The news is still giving him plenty of airtime, but most people are more concerned with the cleanup effort. Several of my customers sure think the world of you.” I looked around the room for the first time and noticed vases of flowers, balloon bouquets, and assorted stuffed animals. I nestled back into the pillows. “Where's Fox and Mason? Are they okay?”

“I sent them down to the vending machines for a break. They're pretty wiped out.”

“How about Mitch? He saved Fox, you know.”

Dad's eyebrows lifted. “He did? Remind me to give him a raise, huh?”

“What about the town?” I said.

“The Field House took the worst of it. A few other buildings on campus were damaged, but luckily they were empty because of spring break. Most neighborhoods were spared, but several families lost their homes.”

“That's so sad. What about—”
Huh. Strange.
Somehow my question didn't seem nearly as important as closing my eyes at the moment.

“Want to sleep a little more?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” He kissed me again and struggled to his feet, reaching for his crutches.

He hobbled out. I lay very still, listening to my breath go in and out, staring at the perfectly intact and ordinary ceiling.

After a little while, the door opened and Fox crept in, carrying a cup of red Jell-O. I pretended to be asleep to see what he'd do.

He sat down in Dad's empty chair and managed to sit still for maybe two whole minutes. Then he started tapping his feet on the floor and drumming his fingers on the arms of the chair. Two more minutes and he had the TV on as loud as it would go.

“Do you mind?” I said at last, turning my head to face him.

“I knew you weren't asleep,” he said, switching on the overhead light. I squinted at him with as much venom as I could muster.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing. I just came to bring you some Jell-O.”

“You ate it.” The empty cup sat on the bedside table, a few red glops still clinging to the rim.

“I can get you another one.”

“Forget it.”

“So … how you feeling?” he said.

I shrugged. “Tired. Can't feel much else.”

“That's good.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Fox?”

“Yeah?”

Oh, good. Now
the tears were starting. It took me three tries to get the words out through my traitorous throat.

“Thanks. For sticking by me. For everything.”

He looked away, embarrassed. “I didn't do much. I wanted to burn down the Field House, remember? You were like … the Mothman whisperer. I've never seen anything so brave.”

“I messed up every step of the way. A lot of it was just dumb luck. I'll never be like you.”

“Me? What are you talking about? Do you have any idea what you just did?” He jumped up and started pacing. “You saved thousands of people and brought down a curse that's been around for more than a hundred years. Sure, you had some help. But people want to help you because you're
you
. You've always been like that. You keep our crazy family from falling apart.”

“But Aunt Barb…” I said.

“No.
You.
When Momma died, I wasn't sure if we'd be okay, but you … you're the one who keeps us all sane. You don't ever give up. You're just as stubborn as she was. You even remind me of her sometimes.”

“I do?”

He picked up the empty Jell-O cup and rolled it around in his hands. “You should talk to Dad about this stuff, or Aunt Barb, or, I don't know, a
therapist.
You're not supposed to burden your little brother with meaning-of-life stuff.”

“I'm sorry.”

He sighed dramatically. “I guess if I'm not permanently scarred by Mothman or by narrowly escaping a natural disaster, then I'll survive.”

“Hey, Fox?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you miss her?”

“Of course I do. Every single day.” He cleared his throat. After a few awkward seconds, the cocky smile was back on his face. “So you wouldn't believe all the media types in Athens right now. Think of the money we could make selling our story to the tabloids. Maybe even a book deal.” He gave a happy sigh.

“Forget it. There's no way we're using this to make money, you con artist.”

He looked offended. “You've gotten awfully bossy lately. What's up with that?”

I closed my eyes and smiled. “I'm older.”

*   *   *

Uncle Bill came home that same day. Mitch withdrew his statement and the police dropped all the charges. It probably helped that everyone was so relieved about escaping the tornado that they forgot to be upset about the vandalism. A few witnesses and die-hard believers gave interviews, wrote letters to the editor, and camped out in the cow pasture for weeks waiting for Mothman's return. But most people convinced themselves the sightings had been a skillful hoax or mass delusion.

Mothman himself had disappeared. The remains of the pin were scattered in the wreckage of the Field House.

Every penny from the Goodrich auction—including Dad's thirty percent—went toward helping the town rebuild after the tornado.

A few months went by. We were glad to move on.

As a family treat, we loaded up the car and spent a week in Columbus at the state fair. There was still the matter of a junior bid call competition to see to.

Fox, of course, won the whole thing.

We walked around the fairgrounds afterward, browsing the flea market for cheap trinkets Fox could add to his haunted auctions. Fox carried his trophy around like a baby, bragging to anyone misguided enough to ask about it.

Mason clutched a cloud of cotton candy on a paper cone, leaving a sticky trail on everything he touched. A ring of blue sugar outlined his mile-wide grin.

Dad lugged around the giant stuffed dog that I won all on my own, playing ring toss.

In honor of Momma, Aunt Barb entered apricot jam in the fair and won first prize. She glowed with a pride to rival Fox's own. She and Uncle Bill held hands as they sampled fried Oreos and elephant ears from the snack vendors.