Mothman's Curse (18 page)

“Josie, are you really gonna die?” Mason said. Fat tears rolled down his cheeks.

My heart broke into a thousand tiny pieces, sharp little shards that pierced me clean through. “No, honey. No.” I knelt in front of him. “We just have to figure out how to stop something bad from happening, and then everything will be okay.”

“Don't lie to him, Josie. He already heard us talking.”

“He's too young for all this!”

“So are we! But it doesn't matter, does it? He already knows.”

We both looked at Mason, who sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Maybe I can help,” he said.

I threaded my fingers through my messy hair. I didn't want him involved, but Fox was right. It was too late to take it back.

“Talk us through it, Josie,” Fox prompted. “Tell us exactly what you saw, what you heard.”

I sat on the floor across from them. I had their full attention.

“First of all, Mothman isn't causing the disasters. He sees them ahead of time. He provides a date and a place so the cursed person can try to save the victims, but he wants them to fail. He gives them this horrible choice just to make their lives miserable. It's all a big game to prove how selfish people are. It's sick.”

“You're not selfish, Josie,” Mason said.

“Thanks, Mason,” I said, wishing I believed him. I explained everything I'd seen, everything I knew, while drawing patterns in the carpet without really seeing them. “So if I don't do anything to stop the disaster, I live, but all those people are doomed to die.”

“And the curse continues,” Fox said.

“Yes. And I have to choose who gets the pin next, or Mothman chooses for me.”

“Option two?”

I swallowed. “If I stop the disaster, I break the curse, but I die.”

Mason whimpered but otherwise kept silent.

“What if someone else stops it?” Fox said. “Like me.”

“I don't know. I think no matter who stops it, I'm the one who has to die.”

“What if we try to stop it and fail? All those people die, and the curse keeps going, but you live, right?” Fox said.

“Sure, but I still have to pick someone to be cursed. Either somebody I know, which I could never do, or a total stranger, which seems even worse.” I decided not to mention the part about souls doomed to eternal torment. It was too awful to even think about.

“Does that mean Goodrich picked
you
to be cursed?”

“I think he was going to pick Dad,” I said, voicing a suspicion that had been nagging at me. “Dad said John asked to meet with him, remember? Maybe after he talked to Dad, he couldn't go through with it. John killed himself two days later, and the pin was still in the safe. If he died without choosing someone, then it was up to Mothman.”

“And you were the lucky winner,” Fox said glumly.

Mason lifted my hand—the one still clutching the moth pin—and straightened my fingers one by one until he could see the pin where it lay on my palm, ugly and ominous. He stared at it, forehead creased in concentration. “Is this how you see the ghost?”

“Yes. His name is John.”

“Maybe we could ask him what to do.”

“He tries to help, but we can't hear him speak,” I said.

His eyes lit up and he ran from the room.

Fox and I exchanged glances. I let my eyes fall closed, struggling to focus on anything other than the fear creeping in from all sides.

“So we need a plan,” Fox said. “Two plans, actually. One to save those people, the other to make sure you survive.”

Mason burst back into the room. “Maybe this will help!”

I opened my eyes to see him clutching the contraption he'd made from John's clock radio. “What is it, kiddo?”

“I heard the ghost's voice on my Batman radio. Maybe you could use this radio to talk to him again.”

“Oh. That's … great. Good thinking, Mason. Thank you.”

“Is he here now?” Mason said.

I looked down at the pin. With stiff, reluctant hands, I threaded the sharp end of the pin through my sleeve and looked around. “I don't see him.”

“Maybe he'll talk to us anyway,” Mason said.

We made a show of waiting, but the contraption sat silent and useless. Its days as a radio or anything else were over.

Mason's lower lip started up again.

“It's okay, Mason,” I said. “It's so great that you tried.”

“No! I have to help.”

“You will. Maybe John's just not here right now.”

Mason gave the device a good, solid kick before gathering it up in his arms. “I'll fix it,” he said before marching off to his bedroom.

He should have been asleep in bed, but I didn't have the heart to shoot him down. He just wanted to help.

I heaved a weary sigh. I felt hollow. Empty. Devastated not just for myself, but for my brothers, too. “Do you think our vandalism made the news yet?”

A spark flashed in Fox's eyes, but it disappeared just as quickly. “If it worked—if our messages stopped the disaster, would you suddenly, you know—”

“Drop dead? I have no idea.”

“I didn't mean it like that,” Fox said, looking defeated. “I just think we should stop trying to prevent the disaster until we have a better idea of how to save you.”

“But we already tried tonight, and I'm still here.”

“Does that mean we failed?” he said.

“I don't really know how it works, but maybe this means I get until Monday before … you know. At least that would give us a fighting chance.”

He stared at his hands, where streaks of red spray paint stained his skin. “I haven't talked to Dad all day,” he whispered. “We don't even know how he's doing. He deserves to know about this, Josie.”

I swallowed to soothe the painful knot in my throat. “What are we supposed to say? Where would we even start? It will kill him.” I couldn't hold back the tears any longer. “I need—I need a few minutes, Fox. I just need to think for a minute. You could text Dad, see if he's still awake and ask how he's doing. Maybe check the news?”

I could see the muscles in his face twitch as he struggled with his own emotions. “Okay.”

“Thank you.”

When he left, I picked up the photo of Momma from my nightstand and hugged it to my chest.
What do I do, Momma?
I thought.

I remembered her in those last few days, thinner, skin pale and dull, eyes so tired, but still quick to laugh, still that smile filled with hope and love.

I'd asked her,
Are you scared?

A little
, she'd said.
But how we act when we're scared shows what kind of people we really are. Sometimes fear makes us want to run and hide, or get angry or sad. But it can also inspire us to do amazing things.

Like what?

She lifted a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, but stopped short, lips quirking at my ragged haircut.
That's the best part. It's usually a surprise, even to us. A brave, beautiful surprise.

*   *   *

Suddenly wide awake, I peeked in to find Mason asleep at the wrong end of his bed. I drifted downstairs. It was after ten o'clock. Fox had fallen asleep on the couch, remote control in hand. I switched off the TV, deciding I wasn't ready to hear how our little stunt had turned out just yet.

I shut myself in Dad's study, wanting to know what Elsie had decided. She was the first person Edgar had cursed. The
reason
for the curse. Obviously she hadn't ended it. But did she try?

I remembered the train derailment I'd read about in Ravenswood. There was also a note about it in one of John's journals. I pulled up the details online to refresh my memory. The Ohio River Railroad had just reached the town in 1886. Later that fall, a train jumped the track, killing thirty-one people, passengers and townspeople alike.

Next I found Elsie's obituary. It showed that she married Jacob Jeffreys in 1882 and moved to Missouri, where she had two children, seven grandchildren, and eventually died in Kansas City at age seventy. She was widowed in 1897 and never remarried.

So she didn't die in the disaster. And if she'd moved three states away, it didn't seem likely that she would have ever gone back just to warn a bunch of people who probably wouldn't have believed her anyway.

I rubbed at my eyes and shook my head.

Looked like Edgar was right about her. But if her soul was trapped with John and Nora and all the others, it seemed like an awfully harsh price to pay for a few bad choices, no matter how selfish.

I glanced at her husband's name again: Jacob Jeffreys. And he'd died in 1897. The name sounded familiar. After some more searching, I learned he was killed in a factory fire in Ohio. What were the chances he would die in a major disaster in Ohio, after he and Elsie had moved away fifteen years before? Could it be? Was he the next to be cursed?

Then it clicked. In that 1902 interview I'd found, the politician had said he'd received a way to predict tragedy from longtime friend Jacob Jeffreys.

A clearer picture of the pin's journey started to form. I grabbed John's journals and the notes he'd already made. The information was incomplete, but he hadn't had the Internet to help him.

Maybe knowing the path the pin had taken through the years wouldn't help me figure out how to save a building full of people, but it might reveal some overlooked detail that could put an end to the curse once and for all.

*   *   *

The next morning, I stumbled downstairs after managing about three hours of sleep. I could hear Aunt Barb doing dishes in the kitchen and muttering to herself. I peeked out the front window. A few clusters of die-hard Mothman fans were still camped in the cow pasture, though most had the good sense to go home.

Fox and Mason were already awake, faces grim, eyes glued to the TV. When they saw me, they scooted to either side to make room on the couch.

“I'm sorry I fell asleep last night,” Fox whispered. “How are you holding up?”

I shrugged, not feeling up for conversation just yet. My marathon research session had been a bust.

A woman's tear-streaked face filled the screen. She was looking off to one side, lost in memory. “My grandmother lived in Point Pleasant when Mothman came. She saw him, about a month before the bridge fell. She told me those red eyes would haunt her for the rest of her life.”

An interviewer offscreen prompted, “And I understand you were at the auction yesterday?”

“Yes. I saw him. I saw his red eyes. They were real. Something terrible is going to happen in Athens.” She dabbed at her face with a tissue. “What can any of us do to stop it?”

That sounded promising. I looked at Fox hopefully, but he shook his head and changed the channel.

Local reporter Molly Madigan stood in front of the Field House clutching her microphone.

“If you're just joining us, we're at Ohio University, where there were multiple sightings of the moth creature last night, as well as several acts of vandalism.” The screen cut to shaky footage of someone running. You couldn't see him, but you could hear his rough breathing and rapid footfalls. Suddenly the camera zoomed in on a pair of red eyes that hovered in a dark alley for several seconds, then disappeared. I knew it was just Fox or me in a pair of Halloween goggles, but it was still eerie as all get-out.

Molly reappeared on-screen. “Witnesses disagree on whether what they saw was real. But whatever the case, a new trend has exploded overnight.” The scene changed to crowds of students mugging for the camera, every last one of them wearing red-eye goggles.

The camera panned to some enterprising college kid sitting behind a fold-up table, selling the goggles for twenty dollars a pair. His name flashed on-screen:
Stuart Jenkins: Business Major, Entrepreneur
.

Molly approached Stuart with her trusty microphone. “Tell me, Stuart, is this all in good fun, or are you capitalizing on people's fears?”

“Oh, all in good fun, Molly.”

“And how did you acquire your merchandise so quickly?”

“A late-night run to the Home Depot and some good, old-fashioned elbow grease,” he said with a wink. “I would like to reassure our valued customers that I have recently hired a production team to assist me in assembling sufficient inventory.” Another guy stepped into the shot, waving and mouthing, “Hi, Mom!”

Molly pressed on, unfazed. “Some of the messages said to stay away from the Field House tomorrow, didn't they? Do your actions at all diminish those who are genuinely afraid of what the reemergence of Mothman might mean for Athens?”

“Not at all. I feel that humor is a valuable tool in helping us deal with those fears. Besides, rumor has it a certain rival basketball team is behind these so-called warnings. But it won't keep fans of our local Athens High Bulldogs from supporting their team tomorrow night. I urge every true Bulldog fan to purchase a pair of these goggles to prove we will not be intimidated.”

“What would you say to those who would suggest that last's night's sightings were all a stunt to promote sales of your new business?”

“Absolutely false.”

“Are you worried about competition?”

“A little healthy competition never hurt anyone.” He slipped a pair of the goggles over his face and switched them on. “I'm more than happy to share the wealth.”

“And there you have it. Whether an honest multiple sighting or a brilliant marketing campaign, a new trend has definitely arrived here on campus. Ron, back to you.”

By that time, the three of us were slumped so low in our seats we could barely see the TV.

Uncle Bill came in from outside and dropped the morning's paper on the table. The giant headline read,
MULTIPLE MOTH SIGHTINGS AT OU START NEW FASHION TREND; COPYCATS SURE TO FOLLOW
.