The Sacrificial Daughter (3 page)

Stepping from the light and warmth of the library to the lonely streets of Ashton, made Jesse feel like a switch had been thrown within her.

Her blood had been boiling with anger only seconds before, but the cold night, which had turned bitter in the half an hour that she had spent in the library, doused the feeling quick. The air was sharp and it ran up her sleeves and down the neck of her coat. It searched out the spots where she had begun to sweat and froze the damp uncomfortably against her skin.

Remember the body
, a voice inside her spoke up.

"How can I forget it," Jesse replied. She pulled her coat tighter and strained to see into the shadows.

The dark and the quiet of the night, like the cold, had also changed; they had grown. The air of the town was thick with silence, the buildings deep in gloom. Nothing stirred on the streets, no people, no cars, not even a forgotten stray making its rounds.

Most of the towns that she had lived in rolled up their sidewalks at six, and shut down for the evening, but this was much more than that. This was weird and quite a bit scary. Apart from the library, the town looked altogether dead. Not a light could be seen in any of the nearby buildings and they appeared abandoned. It was as if she had wandered into a ghost town.

That thought made her realize just how alone she was. Normally that wasn't an issue, she was used to it. For the last ten years she was the most hated and lonely girl wherever she went, but again, this was more than that. This wasn't just being apart from people as they went merrily about their lives. This was being so alone that her screams would go wasted on the empty buildings. So alone that her body would decay right there, untouched and un-mourned until the...

Stop it!
the voice commanded.

Jesse's was surprised at how quickly her imagination had turned sinister. It ran wild with images of her running in a panic from empty building to empty building, each of which was chained with her own lock. This flashed through her mind, but then that same mind recalled her earlier fear: the brain-dead panic she had felt at seeing the Shadow-man down the length of the berm. That's what this sudden fear was really all about. The Shadow-man.

It had been real.

There was no denying it, though desperately she wanted to. Jerry Mendel's reaction had cemented that fact within her. His look of shock over her announcement that someone else was in the forest with them hadn't been faked. He believed her, and he had been…what? Afraid? Probably or at the very least unnerved.

And now she was very much alone and the thought of the Shadow-man kept her feet from venturing off the steps of the library. Beneath her heavy coat her skin rippled with goose bumps and she began shivering. He could be out there snugged down in the dark watching her, either that or waiting in the forest that ran right up to the edge of the town. Waiting for her to come back.

Like that was going to happen. No way she was going down that path again, at least not in the dark. She would call her mom first...

"Damn it!" She remembered that she hadn't yet memorized her new home phone number, and she couldn't call her mom's cell. The cell coverage out here in No-wheres-ville, USA was spotty in town and non-existent ten feet outside of it.

It would have to be a ride home with dear old dad then.

The thought of her father went a long way to calming her fears. He was such a rational man that the irrational idea of the Shadow-man's frightfulness wilted in comparison. But still she hesitated on the steps, wishing for another option.

The Shadow-man, in her mind, represented a swift horrible painful death, while her father represented a long horrible pain-filled life.

It was a testament to how much she loathed him that she actually cast a look at the forest rising up behind a darkened laundromat across the street. The trees were nightmare dark.

A sigh marking defeat escaped her. She hated to turn to her father for anything; even the least favor had strings attached. Yet her harsh feelings stemmed from more than just that. Being in his presence was another chance to be ignored by him, or worse, lectured to. He certainly would never take the opportunity to mention that he was proud of her, or God forbid, for him to ever tell her that he loved her.

No, the only emotion that he ever seemed to demonstrate was disappointment.

Jesse took a peek at her watch, 7:46 p.m. This early on a Sunday night meant that he would still be at work and it also meant a long wait for her ride home. He probably wouldn't be finished until close on a half past nine.

Heartily she wished that she had a third option. Being kidnapped by a Jehovah's Witness with a latex fetish might have been preferable.

With a final piercing glance into the nearby shadows, Jesse hurried down the steps of the library. This time if there was going to be trouble she'd be ready. Her right hand found the chain in her pocket and she curled its cooling links around her knuckles. Had she been in the forest the chain would've been out and ready to plow a deep notch in someone's forehead, but on the town's streets it was wiser to be more circumspect.

With the parking lot full of cars and possible ambush sites, Jesse sped along over the building's snow covered lawn and then out onto what passed, in that dinky little burg, for a main street. Though compared to say Lansing, or even Flint, it wasn't much more that a wide spot in the road.

At breakfast that morning, upon seeing the glum look on Jesse's face— she hated moving nearly as much as
not
moving—her father had tried to cheer her up by expounding on the wonders of Ashton. This was nothing new. He was always the head cheerleader for whatever town was crazy enough to imbue him with dictatorial powers. Another thing that wasn't new was that he would always over-sell.

The people of Ashton were the friendliest he had ever met—he had said the same thing about Chrisfield. The school is the one of the highest ranked in the state—he had said the same thing about Copper Ridge. On and on until his breakfast was plunked down in front of him. The town had formed a hundred and thirty years earlier at the junction of two of Michigan's most unimportant highways...though in Jesse's eyes the definition of the word highway had been dreadfully abused to make that statement. 

With big eyes that darted up and down the street, Jesse crossed one of these "highways", jaywalking in a diagonal, going at her fastest pace that was still technically walking. Her father's office was in the town hall that was a block past the next intersection and though she was loath to see him, she was even more loath to be out there like she was. It bothered her the way she was so exposed. If there were eyes in the dark watching her they had a perfect view of her slim form. The thought was unsettling.

When she got to the other side of the street, straight away she hopped up onto the sidewalk, like she had done a thousand times before, but this time the tall heel of her right boot hit an odd crack. Her ankle buckled beneath her and she went down clutching her lower leg.

"Ow! Crap!" The pain was sharp, but not debilitating. Out of a cold fear she was up again in a second, cursing her bad luck. "What a damned night," she hissed between sharp intakes of breath. After testing her weight on her gimpy leg and finding that it would support her, she began to hobble on again. She went for half a block hoping that she would be able to walk off the pain, but it only started to stiffen up all the more.

"Damn," she groaned again in dismay.

The sprain was worse than she had thought. She reasoned that it was probably only so bad since it was the second time in an hour that she had turned that particular ankle. The first time, running in the woods, she had barely felt even a twinge.

Just thinking of that first time made her want to look back the way she had come. The trail and the pond were back in that direction, and so was the berm and of course what had been on the berm. It was a strangely powerful and terribly fearful desire to look. It was as if she knew, perhaps psychically that if she turned she would see the Shadow-man bearing down on her.

She fought the need to look, at least that is until she heard a soft noise coming from behind. With her heart blocking her throat, she wheeled and her eyes ran up and down the sidewalk and then the street. There was no Shadow-man.

It was perplexing; she could have sworn she heard something behind her. Jesse stared for a second and was just about to turn away when she saw the cause of the sound.

A car as black as the night and nearly as quiet was creeping along behind her with its lights off. When she had looked back for the Shadow-man it had been moving so slowly that she had thought it to be only parked and empty. But it wasn't and now that she had noticed it, the car came on faster.

Jesse turned to run, but it was no use. The building she stood in front of was boarded up and ran the length of the block, which was too far. There was no way she could out run the car even if her ankle had been fine. Instead of running she dug for her chain with its attached lock, however it snagged on something in her pocket and before she could get it all the way out the car was upon her.

The night had been one of the oddest in Jesse's life. Everything was topsy-turvy. A Shadow-man haunted the forest behind her house, the library was filled with normal kids chatting it up with geeks, and now she was practically paralyzed with fright. This last was something that she couldn't believe would ever have happened. Even in the woods she had at least ran, though admittedly it was in blind panic, she had at least ran.

But this was different.

She felt like a mouse on the receiving end of a serpent's stare. Jesse could do nothing except feel the pull of her eyelids as they went further and further back. The car crept right up to her, still dark, still terrifying, and as it did her breath sucked quietly into her chest, deeper and deeper until she thought she would explode. She was ready to scream only she was too terrified to. The scream was there, but it felt stuck, corked in her throat.

Then the car paused along side of her. The window slid downward an inch or two and now she was watched by a pair of dark, shadowed eyes. They stared at her and as they did the paralysis holding her became complete. Her heart seemed to stop, her eyes were as wide as they could go, and her lungs were full but air refused to leave them. Her entire body was numb; the ache in her ankle disappeared, the cold of the chain in her hand was forgotten.

For a span of seconds she stood unable to budge even the smallest muscle, until at last the car's window edged up silently and it drove away.

The air hissed out of her in combination of relief and anger, "Ooooooh man."

What was that
all about
? This was the foremost question in her mind, followed immediately by:
What's wrong with this town
?

She had never heard of anything so bizarre as what she had experienced so far that night and she felt a fear of the unknown like she hadn't ever before. Jesse began hobbling again, but this time she freed her chain from her pocket. It hung down and swung gently as she made her up the block. She didn't care who saw.

When she got to the corner of the intersection she was just about to turn, but stopped briefly in surprise. Down the next block she saw actual light. It streamed out of what appeared to be a crowded little poolroom. Had her night not been so crazy, the lights would have been a temptation to the naughtier element within her, but as it was they were easy to resist. So far she'd found the town so bizarre that it wouldn't have shocked her to find the place filled with Amish people sword fighting.

She took the right, away from poolroom, and scurried as fast as she could toward the town hall. She knew where it was situated because her mother had given her the fifteen-minute grand tour of the entire town only that morning. Ashton was so small that the tour had been overdone by about fourteen minutes. 

The town hall itself was an ugly two-story block of cement that looked to have been lifted straight out of a prison yard. Jesse was sure that its complete lack of beauty and refinement was a plus in her father's eyes. His motto was:
Beauty is to be found in the eye of the beholder, not in the wallet of the taxpayers
. Her motto was:
My dad is an ass
.

But as the front doors to the building opened easily under hand she was glad that he was at least a predictable ass. James Clarke had a literal open door policy. Any time of day that he was in his office he would accept visitors whether they had an appointment or not. That night was a painful demonstration of that.

"I understand your point of view. I really do, but there is nothing I can do at this point."

In the empty building, Jesse could hear her father's booming voice and was not so secretly relieved by it. Without knocking she slipped into the office and was surprised to see he had a visitor; she had thought him to be on the phone. A tall lady with a long horse face stood over his desk. It was no shock to Jesse to see that she was unhappy.

"Is it that…" she started to say, but upon seeing Jesse the lady stopped and glared at her.

"Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt," Jesse turned to go, but her father wouldn't allow it. He saw moments such as these as teaching moments.

"No stay, please. You might learn something," James said so fluidly that the condescending word "might" was barely accented. "Miss Weldon, this is my daughter, Jesse. She will be starting at Ashton High tomorrow.

"It's
Ms
Weldon." The way she said Ms, it sounded as though the word had two Zs at the end of it. "Pleased to meet you," the lady lied to Jesse with a tight fake smile.

Jesse returned the fake smile with one of her own, but said nothing. She didn't want to be there. Her ankle was throbbing and her muscles were shaking up and down her body with the unspent adrenaline of her fright. In addition to that she felt oddly thirsty; her mouth was like cotton. Gingerly she lowered herself onto a leather couch that ran along side of the room and tried to put a look on her face that could possibly simulate interest.

"We were just discussing next year's school budget," her father explained. "And Miss Wel…"

Ms Weldon interrupted, "No, we were talking about you slashing the budget. Thirteen percent is unheard of and it's ridiculous for you to even consider."

"Perhaps it would be,
if
I was considering that number. The actual budget cut is closer to four and a half percent."

Jesse realized that there was almost no chance that she could feign interest in a subject as dull as budgets. Feeling a headache coming on, she rubber her temples and thought about closing her eyes, only she didn't bother. Ms Weldon's shrill voice would ruin any chance at a nap.

"I have the budget in my hands," Ms Weldon said with ice in her words. "You won't be able to gimmick your way out of this."

James Clarke smiled at the paper. "That is the projected budget that was proposed before I came here. It's not the actual budget. Remember what the council and the School Board discussed when I accepted the position as Town manager? I operate strictly on zero-based budgeting. What you have is a version of base-line budgeting, which is something else entirely."

"All that is economic mumbo-jumbo. Maybe you can explain the difference between zero-based or base-line budgets to the kids who will be affected by your cuts."

"That would be no problem," James said easily. "But my daughter knows the differences well enough." Jesse's head came up at this and her father caught her eye. "Go ahead, Honey. Explain the difference to Miss Weldon."

Just then the term,
Honey
sent a hot coal of anger burning her belly. "I'm really not in the mood…" she started to say, however she paused at the nasty way Ms Weldon was looking at her. The lady was clearly visiting upon Jesse the sins of her father. Though it was far from unexpected it still angered and Jesse decided to answer after all.

"Ok…base-line budgeting is founded more upon assumptions than upon reality," Jesse recited. Her father had expounded upon this topic too many times for her not to have remembered the basics. "It uses existing spending levels as a basis for future spending, generally without regard to the health of the existing tax base or the actuality of need. Zero based budgeting demands that every line of the budget is justified before approval."

Ms Weldon looked as if she had swallowed something particularly nasty. "Like I said,
mumbo-jumbo
," the words came out of her mouth with exact slowness. "You can fancy it up all you want, but the school district still has seven-hundred and twenty six, K through twelve students to accommodate. Seventeen percent of whom are on assisted or free lunch, the very program you wish to cut out entirely."

"Where the cuts come from is up to you and the board. You asked my advice and I gave it," James replied. "I ate peanut butter and jelly everyday for twelve years. I didn't like it mind you, but it was cheap and back then people lived on a budget."

"And what about the cafeteria personnel?" Ms Weldon fired back. She looked frazzled. "Six more people collecting unemployment? This is going to be great for your so called tax base?"

Here he was eight o'clock on a Sunday night and James Clarke looked as fresh as if it were a Monday morning. He loved this sort of thing. "Ok, if not the cafeteria personnel then talk the state into allowing the schools to drop a non-core class…art for instance."

Ms Weldon seemed ready to explode at this. "Drop art? Is that supposed to be a joke?" She fairly screamed this at James.

He remained cool despite the lady's tone. "I am serious. Compared to say-English, math, and science, how many of us ever use art in our daily lives? Outside of school, I've never known anyone to make anything out of paper mache. And a kiln maybe the most useless device still in existence. Water-colors, charcoal drawings are great, but they are hobbies and should be treated as such."

She seemed beside herself at what he was saying and she screamed at him again, "I can't talk to you…I can't talk to you! You are impossible!" Throwing a nasty glare at the two of them, the lady stormed out of the room. She could be heard fast marching down the hall and a few seconds later a door slammed shut.

"Nobody likes it when their ox is the one getting gored," James said and then bent to peer at some paperwork in front of him.

"What do you mean?" Jesse asked.

"Oh, she's just the art teacher at the high school."

"What?" Jesse was on her feet in a second. She couldn't believe what she had just heard. "That was a teacher at my school? And you let me… you made me go on about budgeting? Oh my God!"

Jesse began to pace, but only made one turn of the room before her ankle forced her back onto the couch. Her father hadn't responded, he was still reading, still ignoring her. Her anger grew frothy. "Well? I asked you a question."

"There's no reason to get upset. You were correct on your points, though you should have elaborated on the basic pros and cons of each…"

"I don't care about budgeting, ok? That's your deal not mine. I care about the fact that I just pissed off of one my teachers. In case you didn't know, in order to graduate I still need to take an art class. Didn't you see how she looked at me?"

Her father hadn't glanced up from his paperwork and Jesse left off shaking her head. Was he being obtuse? Or was it that he truly didn't care about her?

"I'm sure it will work itself out. Just give it your all." James was quite the multitasker. He could throw out a useless cliché, scan a contract for errors, and alienate his daughter all at the same time.

Give it my all?
Like that would matter in a subjective class like art. If an art teacher hated a student, he or she could be the next Rembrandt and could still fail. It had happened to her before. In her junior year, her English class was little more than a creative writing seminar that she passed with a D minus-minus. She had to jump through hoops and turn in extra credit work on a weekly basis even to get that pathetic grade.

The worst part was that she was actually a good writer. Jesse had been writing stories and poems for as long as she could remember and still she had barely passed.

She wasn't a good artist, however. Even drawing a stick figure gave her trouble. This was literal. For some reason they all turned out to be boy stick figures as she would frequently draw the legs a little too high on the downward line, leaving a little something extra between the inverted V of the legs.

Her headache grew worse as she thought about how Ms Weldon had glared. There was no getting around the fact that the lady would likely take out her anger at James on Jesse. She sighed tiredly.

Her father must have heard. "Jesse, I'm rather busy. Is there something you need?"

The question focused her mind from the dread of the future to the dread of the very recent past. "I need a ride home."

"Really? You're a big girl. It's only a fifteen-minute walk. I think you can handle it."

She thought about telling him about the strange frightfulness of her night, but the prospect of James Clarke trying to rationalize away her very real fears only soured her mood further. She could picture the...
why are you wasting my time on such silliness
...look that he would wear and she knew that if she saw it, it would make her want to punch him in the face.

She decided to go with hard unassailable facts instead. "I sprained my ankle…in the forest."

"In the forest, oh ok. Well if you want a ride anytime soon, I'm going to need some help. I'm so far behind it'll be hours…" James went on with the stipulations necessary for a ride home and Jesse only half listened to the details of the clerical work that would ensure a safe trip in the car.