Long Black Veil (17 page)

Devon managed to snag a pass to the nurse’s office and an excused absence from first period. This was the first time she’d ever skipped a class and she kept expecting to be called on it by any number of people. But as the bell rang and the halls emptied out, there was no one to stop her. In only a few minutes she’d found Brock’s Volvo and slid into the passenger seat.

She shivered a little, since the car was only marginally warmer than it was outside. Brock leaned over and snatched a gray and red checked wool blanket from the backseat. “Here,” he said, passing it over. “Wrap up in this. Skylar and I used to…”

“Ewwww,” Devon said, shoving it back at him.

Brock looked offended. “I was going to say, we used to use it for picnics.” He shook his head. “Where your mind goes, I swear.”

Devon took the blanket back from him. “Sorry.”

He waited until she was all wrapped up in it, and then said, “And then we’d have the wild monkey sex on it.” Brock grinned hugely.

“Jerk!” Devon laughed, swatting at his head.

He caught her hand easily and held onto it. The tension in the car ratcheted up by a factor of twelve. Devon swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry. After a few moments, Brock released it, but Devon could swear she still felt his fingers wrapped around hers.

“So about yesterday,” he began, readjusting his lanky frame in the driver’s seat. “What happened out there? Who was that woman?”

Devon took a deep breath. “Okay, what I’m going to tell you may sound a little bit…out there. But you have to promise to listen to what I have to say. Deal?”

Brock stared at her, his face suddenly serious. “Deal.”

“She’s a ghost.”

“Exqueeze me?” He frowned, shaking his head as if he had water in his ears.

Devon stared at him, putting on her most serious expression. “She. Is. A. GHOST.”

“A ghost?” Skeptical didn’t come close to the way he sounded when he said those words.

“Yes.” She waited for him to say something else, but all he did was wave his hand at her to indicate she should go on. “Apparently my family has a ghost who doesn’t like it when mountain and town folk get together.”

“But we’re not together.” He looked down at his hands. “I mean, we haven’t even gone on a date.”

“I take it you’re over the whole not believing in ghosts thing?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Wow, that was easy.”

Brock ran a hand through his hair. “Oh no, we’ll come back to that one. Who told you about this ghost thing?”

Devon clutched the blanket tighter. “My Gammy. When I first told her about this woman I was seeing, she told me to stay away from her—and that I should never speak to her. But I…”

“Wait, you’ve seen this chick before?” Brock sounded surprised.

Devon nodded. “Pretty regularly since I started going to the records room.” She left the and hanging out with you part out. “Halloween night was the clearest she’s ever been, but I guess that makes sense.”

“Huh?” Brock had a lost look on his face.

“Halloween is supposed to be when the veil between this world and the other world is thinnest. So if anything is going to make an appearance, then Halloween is the night to try for it.” She’d done some research on it for a paper in her Culture and Criticism class. But she doubted Brock wanted to hear about ancestor remembrance tokens and the Day of the Dead.

He raised his eyebrows. “So you believe this woman is really a ghost?”

Devon shrugged. Now that she was talking about it rationally, the woman in the veil was less scary. Thinking about her like she was a problem to be solved on the SAT was helping her get over her mind-numbing fear. “It makes sense. You look away from her for just an instant and she’s gone. She’s mourning over the grave of a guy who’s been dead for over a hundred years. And then there was everything that happened yesterday.”

“I can see her too,” Brock said, his voice soft. He turned back to Devon. “What does that mean?”

Devon ducked her head, already embarrassed by what she had to say. “I asked my grandmother about that when I got home. That’s when she told me about the ghost not liking it when members of my family get involved with people from town.” She looked back up at him, wanting to see his face for her next admission. “So that’s why I’ve been seeing her ever since we started hanging out. I guess she knows that I kind of like you.”

The goofy grin that eclipsed his face was something she would never forget. It was a combination of cockiness, pleasure, and a not insignificant amount of pride. “You kind of like me?”

Devon couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the needling tone in his voice. “Don’t go getting all conceited about it. Sheesh.”

He turned to face the front windshield. “You kind of like me,” he repeated in a surprised voice. Then his head whipped around suddenly. “But why am I seeing her?”

Now it was Devon’s turn to grin, and she gave him one that would have put the Cheshire Cat to shame. “I asked Gammy about that too. She said that it was probably because you liked me too.” She tried to keep the smugness out of her voice, with only limited success.

Brock’s neck went red, and Devon watched in fascination as the flush crept up his face. He was looking everywhere but at her. She was curious what he would say next: whether he would deny the whole thing, or play it off like it was no big deal. She was betting on denial.

What she wasn’t expecting was Brock to lean over in his seat, put his hands gently on either side of her face, and kiss her.

“What are you—” she began, but then his lips were on hers, stopping anything else she might say.

The kiss was soft, like a whisper made flesh. Devon put her hands up on his, feeling the strength of his hands under hers. She slid forward, drawing closer to Brock, wanting to breathe him in, reveling in their mingling breaths. She opened her mouth against his, wondering how she had managed to go eighteen years without this wonderful, heady sensation.

Brock pulled back slightly. His thumb stroked her cheek. “You taste like cherries.”

“I had a toaster strudel for breakfast.”
Oh dear God, just kill me now, please! Why did I have to say that?

Brock chuckled low in his throat, a terribly intimate sound. Devon realized she was in his car, with no one knowing where she was, and pulled back nervously. She tucked a strand of dark red hair behind her ear to give her hands something to do. She looked up at him, suddenly shy. “So I guess this means you do like me?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I guess it does.” He gave her a small smile. She returned it.

He took her hand. “So now what do we do?”

Devon thought for a moment. She wasn’t sure what they should do, or even where any of this was going, but she didn’t think this was the time to hash out their future when they’d only just kissed fifteen seconds earlier. “I’m not sure. Maybe we need to figure out how to get rid of the ghost?”

“How do we know something bad is going to happen to us if we get together? I mean, is there any kind of proof?” His thumb rubbed circles on the back of her hand.

Devon looked away. This was the hardest part to believe. If what Gammy said was true, her mother’s failure at life was due to the ghost’s curse, not anything that Lorelei did. But how to explain that? “My mother,” was all she said.

Brock didn’t say anything; he just leaned over and pulled her close to him, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. When she was quiet for a few minutes, he prompted, “What about your mother?”

“You’ve heard the stories, and you were there for Skylar’s costume.” She tried not to bury her head in his shirt. “My mom and dad—they didn’t have a happy marriage. And then my dad died and my mom kind of went…you know.” She couldn’t bring herself to say that her mother tricked herself out for drug money. “She’s been in jail for years.”

“And you think that’s because of a ghost?” There wasn’t a hint of skepticism in his voice now.

“My grandmother does, and she’s the one who knew my mother best.” She shrugged. “My dad was from town—my other grandmother—his mom, still lives here. And things kind of did go off the rails once they got together.” She remembered something her grandmother had mentioned last night. “There was a shooting or something that involved a friend of theirs too.”

“Couldn’t that have been all there was to it? Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with the ghost at all?” He pulled her closer.

Devon relished being held. She took a moment and listened to the steady beat of his heart beneath his t-shirt. It made her feel warm and safe. But there was something else that she felt she had to tell him, something that made no sense. “Do you remember that question I had about the blood types?”

She felt him nod, his chin resting on top of her head. “Yeah.”

“Well, there’s something that doesn’t add up. I have blood type AB. My mom has B and my dad has O.” She waited for a beat to see if he would catch what she was saying.

“But that’s not right,” Brock said, his voice puzzled. “That would mean…”

“That my father isn’t my father.” Saying it out loud sounded worse than inside her head.

Brock pulled away so he could look at her. “What does this have to do with the ghost though?”

Devon shook her head. “I don’t know, exactly. But I feel like everything is connected and if we figure out one thing, we can figure out the rest.” She put a hand on his chest. “Does that make sense?”

He smiled at her. It was soft and close, a gift just for her. She wished she could grab it and put it in a box so she could take it out and bask in the special way it made her feel. “As much as anything else does. So what’s our game plan?”

Devon felt like she was glowing and that she would never stop. He said our! She felt her stomach muscles clench in an unvoiced SQUEE, then tried to pull her mind back to the important matter of her family curse and unknown parentage. Somehow it didn’t seem as overwhelming as it had at midnight when she was lying in her bed alone.

She gave him her answer for everything. “Research,” she said. “We need to find out about this friend of my parents, about this ghost of mine, and see if there are any books that tell us how to send a spirit to its rest.”

“No wonder you’re valedictorian.” Brock tilted her chin up and kissed her thoroughly. “Library after school?” he asked when he was done and Devon was breathless.

She nodded, because forming words was suddenly something well beyond her.

Chapter Seventeen

She thought the end of the school day would never come. She knew she walked through it with a huge smile on her face, but she couldn’t help herself. Brock Cutler liked her. Brock Cutler kissed her. She had been kissed by a boy—and not just any boy; the cutest boy in school. Gil tried to corner her in third period, but she just tried to smile like the Mona Lisa, leaving him with only empty threats and a serious case of gossip frustration.

Devon nabbed her books out of her locker and headed down the hall to find Brock. She turned down the corridor and stopped when she saw Skylar talking to him. She kept back, making sure she couldn’t be seen and peeked around the corner.

Skylar was talking quickly. Devon couldn’t make out half of what she was saying, her words were all garbling together. She looked upset though, making Devon wonder what was going on. She looked at Brock’s face and noticed he was wearing a neutral expression as Skylar became more and more upset.

Skylar threw her arms around his neck and Devon felt her back stiffen. If she’d been a dog, she’d be bristling. She saw Brock trying to pull her arms off, but Skylar was determined. Devon decided she’d had enough and stepped out into the corridor. Brock’s eyes flicked to her, then his attention shifted back to Skylar.

She flung herself at him, her mouth latching onto his. Devon frowned, ready to snatch the hussy bald. She didn’t have to though. Brock jerked his head away from Skylar, pulling out of her embrace. “The hell, Sky?”

“You know how good we were together, B. We could get it back, be that way again.” There was a pleading note in her voice. Devon almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

“What about Micah?” Brock was scowling.

“What about him?” Skylar grasped at his shoulders, but Brock moved out of her way.

“You’re just playing with him, aren’t you? Stringing him along?”

Skylar flipped her hair and Devon wanted to smack her. “So?”

Devon walked up, having heard enough. “You ready, Brock?”

Skylar whirled around with a snarl on her pretty, but heavily made-up face. “What do you want?”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Devon stood her ground, glaring at Skylar. She wondered briefly if this was some kind of dominance behavior. It kind of felt like it was turning into that, but it was too late. She’d challenged Skylar, and short of peeing on Brock to mark her territory, she was going to have to see this through.

Skylar’s breath hissed out. She looked between Devon and Brock, shock clouding her features. “Are you kidding me?” She turned her back on Devon to talk to Brock alone. “Really? You’ve hooked up with this trash?”

“Hey!” Devon protested, walking around Skylar so she stood next to Brock. “Careful who you call trash.”