The Sacrificial Daughter (13 page)

Unmoving, Jesse stared at her for a long minutes and the girl never noticed. She knelt in her aisle, holding a small crucifix up to her lips and gazing off into space. She was pensive...no, she was more than that. Her nails were down to the nubs and her lips were frayed and chapped having been bitten and abused by their owner. The girl was afraid.

She was afraid of Jesse's backyard killer. And Jesse was right there with her.

"Hey, you ok?" Jesse asked.

The girl jumped, shocked out of her reverie. "Yeah...yeah, I'm ok. Who is that?"

"Oh...no one," Jesse replied, feeling suddenly like a peeping tom who had just been caught lurking in the bushes. "Uh, just a friend."

Why she should feel weird about talking to another person, especially one who looked like she could use a friend, Jesse didn't know. Yet she did and it was because of this odd feeling that she scurried away, trying not to be seen.

She hid from the freckle-faced girl who looked around for a few minutes before leaving. When she did, Jesse moped back to "her" aisle and sat back down on the carpet. She didn't bother with the book, other than to close it, not wanting to see the poor men with their impossibly long necks.

Her little interaction with the girl had eroded her resolve to help with the town's destruction. Whether the girl knew it or not she shared a bond with Jesse. They both feared the killer. And what's more, the girl had tried to help her. The look she had given Jesse in English class wasn't:
Don't get close to him, bitch!
It was:
I wouldn't get too close to him if I were you.
That was a world of difference communicated in the tiny headshake.

Jesse sighed, suddenly back to being confused about all of her options.

You're not confused.

As always the voice was correct. Jesse had found a person, probably an entire family, that didn't deserve the complete economic ruin of the town. She was sure there were others as well. Did they deserve what she could unleash on them?

The answer had her slumping against the shelves and a feeling of depression got a good strong grip in her soul. There would be no first kiss for her after all. There would only be more hate.

Now that she made up her mind, Jesse didn't really want to wait around for Ms Weldon. She figured that it would just lead to headache for everyone. Instead, after a quick glance at her watch which told her there was only about five minutes left in third period, she decided that she would just leave a note explaining her choice and then take an extended bathroom break.

Unfortunately, she hadn't come to that decision fast enough. Just as Jesse stood, there came to her ears a steady clack, clack, clack, of heels on tile. The sound of Ms Weldon's approach was unmistakable. Now her options were to hide or face the music. Jesse forced a smile onto her face.

No tears!
she demanded silently.

"So, Jesse..." Ms Weldon said the moment she saw the girl in black. "What did you think of the book?"

"Graphic. Very graphic," Jesse replied honestly. She didn't elaborate and for a time there was a silence between them. As it progressed both of their smiles faded.

Ms Weldon broke the silence first. "Yes. We should never shield our children from atrocities or they may not remember important lessons learned from them."

Jesse nodded but kept silent. Her father had taught her a lesson about negotiating. In any negotiations, the side that talks the most usually comes out with the least. And this was a negotiation of sorts. Jesse was trying to negotiate a settlement in which she received minimal damage.

There was no winning for her, unless she chose the "right" side. Ms Weldon had made that clear. The second hand swept around nearly full circle before the silence was broken again.

Again it was the art teacher who spoke first, this time with a note of irritation. "I do have a class to get back to. I need you to tell me right here and right now what your intentions are."

"I can't do it. I can't join the demonstration. But I would like to find a different way in which I can get credit..."

Ms Weldon, her long face tight and her grey eyes like steel, cut across Jesse, "There is only one way. My way. I should tell you that since there are only a few weeks left in the semester that this project will count as practically your entire grade."

"You are not going to count almost four months worth of work that I did at Copper Ridge High towards my grade?"

"I would have to see the work. Do you have it...all?"

Jesse didn't have the artwork. There hadn't seemed to be any reason to hold on to them and plenty of reasons to throw them in the trash. "I don't have them, but I do have my transcripts."

"Of course I will take them into account, but I weigh them against what you do in
my
class. And if you do nothing in
my
class then I have to assume the grades are inflated." Ms Weldon paused to study Jesse. "There is another reason why you should do join us; Ashton is not a good town to be friendless in. You need friends. I would hate to know what would happen to a girl without any friends in this town."

This actually had Jesse's ears perked. She knew about the killer, but not very much about the killer. "Why, what would happen?"

"Oh, this and that," Ms Weldon replied purposefully cryptic. "You know kids can be so cruel."

Was she not talking about the killer then? Or was she hinting about him and would only reveal pertinent...possibly lifesaving information if Jesse agreed to join her demonstration. If she was, then Ms Weldon was nearly as bad as the killer.

"Adults can be cruel as well," Jesse replied. Her blue eyes were ice. "But they are worse than children when they are. They seem to think that they have a right to treat people poorly. When in truth they have the responsibility due to their age and experience to treat everyone with respect."

"Everyone that deserves it," Ms Weldon retorted. "So you won't join the class?"

"No."

"Then you get a zero for today's class participation as well. It's obvious you spent your time down here just messing around instead of reading the book as you were supposed to."

The end of period bell rang, long and shrill. Without another word, Ms Weldon turned on one of her clacking heels and marched away.

When she was gone, Jesse melted against the nearest stack of shelves and clutched her head. "
Then you get a zero for today's class participation,
" she mimicked, sounding like an incredibly stupid Ms Weldon. "
Not a good town not to have any friends
..."

This thought triggered the mental image she had of the killer. His name was Harold Brownly and her father had described him as the biggest person he had ever seen, but when she pictured him, he was the faceless Shadow-man. Jesse was sure that when he killed, he killed as the Shadow-man, not as some big lumbering oaf with a name like Harold.

He would be quick and silent. His victims wouldn't know he was even there until it was too late. It had almost been too late for Jesse. The other night in the forest she had never felt herself closer to death. And no matter what reassurances her father had on the subject, Jesse wasn't going to trust some psychologist with her life.

The late bell rang, startling her out of her reverie. She was supposed to be at lunch, however Jesse liked her black attire sauce free and instead of heading to the cafeteria, she went in search of the periodicals.

If her parents wouldn't tell her about the Shadow-man, then maybe the newspapers would.

Jesse began digging through the old periodicals starting with the not so acclaimed Ashton Gazette. It took her a half hour to go through the past two years of local-yokel blather one page at a time. Surprisingly, there wasn't a single story concerning
any
murder. There were three separate stories about cars being stolen and a plethora of reports about lesser crimes, but no murders.

"Well, I suppose that's a good thing," Jesse murmured quietly as she finished the last of the publications. They sat in a little stack next to her. She stared at them feeling...relief. Perhaps this was all over-blown. Perhaps they hadn't been murders after all; maybe they had been accidents.

Jesse gathered up the stack, patted its sides so it was a neat bundle, and brought it back to the research section. She set it down where she had found it and eyed the top page's headline:
Halloween Festival- A New Tradition!
A picture below the caption showed what looked like a bazillion kids running around a school gym. All the little tykes seemed happily covered in chocolate.

"Lucky ducks," Jesse said good-naturedly.

Unsurprisingly, Halloween was Jesse's all time favorite holiday. As a holiday it crushed Thanksgiving, which was only long, drawn-out enforced "family-time." It easily beat out Jesse's birthday, which was a daylong demonstration of how Jesse's parents really knew next to nothing about her. Halloween even edged out Christmas, which only enjoyed top-runner status because of the long holiday from school that surrounded it.

Halloween was Jesse's time.

Not because she was into "witch-craft" or any of that paranormal non-sense, all of which was complete bunk in her eyes. Halloween was her favorite because she could, for just one night, be someone else. This wasn't simply an appearance thing. Under her make-up Jesse would adopt a new personality, a new way of speaking. She would invent a new background for herself and she would walk amongst the kids who bullied her all year long as a completely different person.

A long sigh escaped her. With a touch of regret she eyed the much larger pile of newspapers that sat next to the Ashton Gazette. It was the Barton Daily. The top paper, unlike the little local one, had headlines that were depressingly real: death in far away countries, oil prices climbing, and dull politicians being dull.

With a grunt she grabbed up as big a stack as she could carry and went back to her corner table. She liked being tucked out of the way. There she skimmed the bold headings for each story until she ran out of actual stories and came to the advertisements for the last minute Christmas Sales. Only one week left!

"Yea! One week left. Yippie," Jesse said in a tired voice. She slapped the paper closed and grabbed the next. At first glance, it seemed identical to the last newspaper: more dreary headlines and then more advertisements for the latest, clothes, toys and computer games. Yet something did jump out at her.

The banner over one sale fairly screamed:
Only nine days left!

"They must be out of order," Jesse mumbled to herself. She began leafing through the stack, checking dates, looking for the missing paper. Not only did she not find it, she also discovered that there were many other newspapers missing.

Despite that it was still only the seventeenth of December, there were four dates missing. In November there were five and in October only one. Then nothing was missing until she went as far back as March. Three were missing in that month, eight in February and in January, eighteen were missing.

On a hunch, Jesse went back to the Ashton Gazette. All of January was missing as was all of December of 2008. Suddenly the relief that she had felt minutes before went
poof
inside of her. There could have been all sorts of murders during those two months.

Just then Ms Weldon's words floated back into her active mind:
"It's just that there's so much stress on everyone this time of year...because, you know.
At the time, Jesse had thought she meant the holidays, but now Jesse had to wonder if Harold killed only during the holiday season. She hopped up and hurried to the checkout counter.

"Excuse me? Is there some reason that there are so many missing newspapers?" she asked Carla in her friendliest voice. Carla's eyes had narrowed to slits as Jesse had walked up.

The librarian's face went suddenly white. "They might have been lost…or stolen. Or maybe they were never delivered." Jesse was looking for a lie in the quiet responses and found it without effort.

"Or maybe you threw them out," Jesse accused. She hated being lied to, it made her snappish. But worse than the lie, she hated the idea that everyone in Ashton, but her seemed to know about a very dangerous man. This put her a couple of pegs higher up than snappish. "Are you attempting to censor murder? The public has a right to know."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Carla replied, turning away. "Everyone knows."

"I don't," Jesse admitted, hurrying around the librarian to face her again. "That's why I'm trying to research what exactly has been happening around here. The girl that was murdered last year, how did she die..."

Carla cut across her quick. "Shut up this instant! What kind of ghoul are you?" she demanded in a rising voice. "Leave the dead alone and leave the living in peace! I can't believe you. I can't believe how insensitive you're being....get your stuff and get the hell out of my library, this instant!"

For a second, Jesse actually thought that the woman was actually going to try to physically throw her out. It would have been a grave mistake; Carla barely cleared five feet tall.

Jesse had enough. "I'll leave when I'm ready to leave," she replied calmly. "I hate to break it to you, but this is a public school and this is a public library and you are a public
servant
." By sneering through the word "servant" Jesse turned it into a put down.

Carla had been sideways to Jesse, but now she turned. Jesse moved with her, slipping subconsciously into her fighting stance. However, Carla didn't want to fight. She wanted to hurt Jesse.

"You want to know about the girl that was killed last year?" Carla asked in dreadfully quiet voice. "Her name was Mary Castaneda. She was sixteen years old and she was strangled so violently that her windpipe was crushed and her neck was broken. Anything else you want to know? Do you want to hear...do you want to hear...about how the birds picked the flesh right off her face? You want to know what it's like to see your..." Carla choked suddenly and sobbed. There were huge tears in her eyes and they had every right to be there.

When Carla had turned around, Jesse saw for the first time that she wore a little gold nametag. It read: Carla Castaneda School Librarian.