The Dark Divine(45)

By the time I’d done my makeup, flat-ironed my hair, and changed my sweater three times—why was everything I owned so boxy?—Charity was in the kitchen perusing one of her science books and eating sugared cereal from her private stash. Which meant that Mom wasn’t up yet. The thunking noise had stopped, so hopefully Mom and James would sleep in for a while longer.

I peered out the window. “Did you see where Daniel went?”

“Nope,” Charity grumbled. “I was about ready to go strangle him for making all that racket, but he was gone by the time I got down here.”

“Sorry,” I said, like anything Daniel did was my fault.

“Meh.” She shrugged. “I was gonna get up early today anyway. I’ve got to write a whole first draft for my research paper this weekend.”

“Oh.” I stared farther out the window. “I wonder where he went.”

“The Corolla’s gone. Maybe Dad took him to the hardware store or something.”

Or maybe whoever took the car last night never came home. I didn’t hear the garage door last night, and I hadn’t fallen asleep until at least three a.m. Dad’s study was closed and locked, and the light was out. If Daniel wasn’t with Dad, then where had he gone?

I sank into a kitchen chair. Perhaps Daniel’s reason for fixing the fence so early was because he’d changed his mind about wanting to see me again.

“May I?” I reached for Charity’s box of Lucky Charms.

She nodded. “Did you hear about Mr. Day’s granddaughter?”

“Jessica or Kristy?”

“Jess. She’s missing.”

Little frosted three-leafed clovers tumbled into my bowl. I hadn’t seen Jessica in years. She was in Daniel and Jude’s grade growing up, but her family had moved to the city when she was a sophomore. “Doesn’t she run away on a bimonthly basis?”

“Yeah, but never seriously. She’s never missed a holiday before. When she didn’t show up for Thanksgiving, her parents called the police. Her friends said they were with her at a party downtown the other night. They said she was there one minute and gone the next. It was in the paper.” Charity scraped the bottom of her bowl. “The Markham Street Monster strikes again.”

I dropped the cereal box. “Is that what they’re saying?”

“Yep. There was even a little blurb at the end of the article about James wandering away. I don’t know how they even heard about that. They say the monster might have tried to take him.” There was a sudden edge to her voice. She looked at me over the cereal box. “You don’t think—”

“They’re just trying to freak people out to up their sales.” I wished I could believe what I was saying, but I knew now the article might be right. “Where’s the newspaper anyway?”

“Jude surfaced a few minutes ago. He took it back downstairs,” Charity said. “The paper said the police are waiting for test results on that blood before they release a statement.”

My heart did a little flip-flop in my chest. What would they find with those test results? I pushed away the bowl of too-sweet cereal.

Charity turned the page of her book. A large silver-gray wolf stared back at me from the page. I couldn’t help shuddering as I thought of those animal tracks deep in the ravine.





AFTERNOON




I told myself I was not waiting for Daniel. I was simply working on my make-up assignment for Mr. Barlow, out on the porch, in November, where I might just happen to see Daniel if he decided to come back. I settled sideways into the porch swing, where I could see the walnut tree in the side yard, and the street—but like I said, I was not sitting around waiting for a guy.

It may have been the lack of focus, but no matter how hard I tried, my attempts to draw the walnut tree still didn’t feel right at all. I was fighting the urge to chuck my charcoal pencil across the porch when I heard someone come up beside me.

“I’m glad to see you haven’t given up on me,” Daniel said.

“Took you long enough,” I said, trying not to betray that I’d worried he wouldn’t show. “Where’d you take off to anyway?”

“Maryanne Duke’s.”

I glanced up at him.

“Apparently, she left her house to the parish. Your dad is letting me stay in the basement apartment until I figure some things out. I moved my stuff over there this morning.”

“I’m sure Maryanne’s daughters are just crazy about that.”

Daniel smirked and sat down next to me on the swing.

“Did you see the newspaper this morning?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. Daniel’s grin fell into a frown.

“Do you think they’re right? That the Markham Street Monster is responsible for what happened to Mr. Day’s granddaughter? That it tried to take James?” He shook his head.

“But you’re the one who said James couldn’t have gone that far on his own. And how did his slipper get down in that ravine?”

Daniel just stared at the palms of his hands, like he was hoping the answer would somehow be written there.

“Monsters are real,” I said. “They still exist right here in Minnesota, and in Iowa, and in Utah. Don’t they?”

Daniel scratched behind his ear. “Yes, Gracie. My people wouldn’t still exist if monsters didn’t.”