River of Bones (8 page)

Fear swirled up inside like a tornado. Everything felt so out of control. Sure I was mad at her a lot and there were plenty of times I had wished she'd just disappear. But I never meant for her to be gone forever.

We made a sharp turn around a bend to the front gate of the old plantation. In the afternoon sun, the creepy old mansion seemed deceptively innocent. But somewhere deep inside, I knew better. There was something about it that wasn't right.

I spotted Wolf's truck and trailer parked to the left of the entrance. The cop drove around them, through the open gate, and to the house. I stepped from the car, listening to the gentle hum of a lawn mower. The earthy smell of fresh cut grass filled the air. Wolf came over a small rise, on the mower. He looked at me, grinned and waved. I returned the gesture, glad to see him, but not glad to be back at the decrepit house.

Sassy watched the patrol car pull into the driveway of the old plantation house. She sucked in a breath. Lord, had someone died? She set the box on the table, forgetting about it for the time being. She shook her head and patted her chest in a feeble attempt to calm her racing heart. Sassy took her tea out onto the porch where she could sit a spell, settle her nerves, and catch a glimpse of what was going on next door. Waves of soothing steam warmed her face, but still her heart hammered. If she kept this up, she'd give herself a heart attack or stroke before she could warn those people.

Frowning, she gazed at the sky. Funny how she hadn't heard any birds singing for the past few days, guess they knew better than to stay in these parts. Now if only people were as smart as those birds, they'd know to stay clear of that old house and pond. Maybe it was too late. She should've gone over there last night. Sassy turned her troubled thoughts away, squinting at the plantation house across the swamp. If someone were dead, there'd be an ambulance or hearse of some kind. She gulped the last drop of tea—unless there wasn't enough left of them.

Sassy lumbered inside the shack. She rinsed her cup and set it beside the stove, grabbed a jar of brick dust and spread it around the baseboards.

“You can't hurt me now,” Sassy mumbled. “Can't cross this here dust.”

The cop unloaded my stuff onto the porch. “I'll be back to give you an update. If you hear from your mother, give me a call right away. Here's my contact information.”

He handed me a business card with black letters. Officer Solomon Cain.

“Okay, thanks for everything,” I said.

Benny kicked to get out of my arms. I set him on the porch where he ran back and forth. Resting on the front steps, I watched my brother run in a circle on his chubby little legs. Not long ago, I had that much energy, but now I just felt wiped-out.

The cop reached into his pocket, pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his brow. “You sure you can handle things out here alone?”

“Yes, we'll be fine,” I said, but I wasn't so sure.

The cop hiked back to his car and slid behind the wheel, all the while keeping an eye on the house. I stood on the porch, watching as the patrol car made a wide loop in the tall grass, then disappeared down the dusty road.

In the distance, Wolf made good progress with the mower. With the grass cut short behind him, I saw something I hadn't noticed earlier: buildings, at least a dozen of them. Dilapidated cabins. My heart sank. Slave shacks.

A burn in my throat forced a painful cough. What I wouldn't do for a cherry cola. I picked up my purse and checked to make sure my wallet was still there along with the twenty I had stashed behind a picture of Benny. I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe I could convince Wolf to take us to town, look for Mom and grab something to eat. In the meantime, I had to get the house cleaned up. It seemed like a good time to tackle it in the daylight, when the place felt less threatening.

I set up the playpen in the living room and put Benny inside. He snuggled into the blankets, playing with a musical set of pretend car keys. I gathered my supplies, then went upstairs to the master bedroom. Carefully, I stripped the nasty bedding off the four-poster bed. Years of accumulated dust and mold flew into the air, burning my lungs.

There was enough dirt on the floor alone to cover an entire graveyard. I beat the dust from the mattress and washed down the bed frame before sweeping the room, then stood back and admired my work. Not bad, but it could have been better. I didn't want to get too comfortable—soon as possible I wanted out of here. Most importantly, I didn't want to get all friendly with Wolf. Soon, Mom would come back and he'd be just another face in the rearview mirror.

I carried the bedding downstairs and put it in the kitchen sink to soak. I spun the big silver handles. The pipes rattled and clanged, spitting rusty water into the basin until the water finally ran clear.

The steady hiss of water and shaky plumbing sent a spark of worry into my gut. What if Mom never came back? How long could Benny and I stay in such an old house? What would happen when we ran out of food? Tears stung my eyes. I didn't want anything to happen to Mom. As bad as she was, I still loved her.

“Mom, please be okay,” I whispered. “We need you.”

Sassy sat on the porch, eyeing the police car leaving the plantation house, its tires crackling over gravel as it hurried away. She got to her feet, intent on heading over there. Get it done with. Warn them and then suffer whatever consequences came from it. She'd warned the last people. The ones that came a few years ago. They hadn't seemed surprised when she told them about all the terrible things that'd happened. They made a few repairs and then, thankfully, never came back.

Sassy went into the kitchen and spotted the box on the counter. Strange how she hadn't noticed how weathered it was before. How old the writing looked, scrawled across the center. She fumbled through the top drawer looking for a pair of sewing scissors. She found them and snipped the thick twine holding it together. Sassy freed the top flaps and tossed the shears onto the table next to her rocking chair. Shredded newspaper filled the box. She tossed some of the paper aside and reached in, fishing around. She felt something solid, not quite halfway down.

Near the bottom, beneath her knobby fingers, something rustled, like skeletal leaves in the fall. She pulled the object out and stared into the box. Nothing moved. She unwrapped the object to find a small porcelain doll, just like she had always wanted as a child. But this doll was very old, much older than the dolls she remembered from the Sears catalog of her youth.

She slowly turned the figurine over in her hands, examining its fine detail. Tears stung her eyes. “How lovely,” she cooed. “How sweet of those church gals to give me such a fine gift.” But how did they know? She stepped to the counter, grabbed a damp washcloth and dabbed at the dusty doll.

Behind her, inside the box, something stirred. Sassy froze. It was too much of a coincidence for those church gals to know that she'd always wanted a doll like this one. The hair on the back of her neck bristled. No. They couldn't have possibly known.

Sassy set the doll in the sink, watching it dissolve into a lump of dirt.

“Is that you?” She turned, locking her gaze on the box. “You done come for me already?”

Eyes. A forked-tongue. In a smooth liquid motion, a black snake emerged from the box and dropped to the floor. Carefully, Sassy reached for the meat cleaver beside the sink, the wooden handle nearly touching her fingertips. The snake hesitated, leering with vertical pupils.

Sassy wound her fingers around the weapon. In an instant, the snake lunged. Its needle-like fangs sank into her flesh, injecting its venom into her foot. Sassy kept hold of the cleaver, shrieking as she fell. The back of her head bounced off the wooden slats. She blinked, staring up at the ceiling, drifting away, but the searing pain in her ankle brought her back. Just as bad, if not worse, was a sword of pain cutting through her right hip, where she'd slammed against the floor.

The snake lay motionless, coiled nearby, watching with unwavering eyes. For a moment, Sassy's mind clouded. She couldn't think at all, listening to the drum of her heart, agony soaring through her body.

The snake hissed, dancing closer. Fear took hold. Fear and bitter anger, consuming her like the flames of hellfire.

No. She would not allow this to happen. Not this time. She'd lived in fear for nearly seventy years—it was time to stop. She struck with the cleaver, but the snake was quicker, retracting just out of her reach. The weapon sank into the floor boards, its blade glinting in the morning sun. Within minutes the poison would spread, stealing her oxygen, stopping her old heart and she'd die—die without being able to warn those folks. Exactly what the demon before her wanted.

“You're not real,” Sassy said, fighting the panic in her mind telling her different. “You're just a conjurin' of my mind.” Somewhere in the far reaches of her brain, a voice screamed to get help, but who would hear her?

“You plant seeds of fear in folks to reap power. Well you ain't scarin' me. Not no more.” Sassy grabbed a fistful of brick dust from the floor and blew it at the reptile. “Go back to the grave—back to the rot where you belong.”

The snake coiled, its elliptical eyes fixed in hate. Then, with a whip of its tail, the serpent vanished, taking the searing pain in her foot with it.

Sassy pulled herself up and leaned against the counter. Funny how that brick dust worked now, it should have kept the spirit out entirely. Then she remembered, by packing that box inside, she had invited it in.

Her head throbbed with the gnawing pain in her hip and leg. She wiggled her toes and bent her knees. More bruised than anything. She'd been lucky this time, with half of her body landing on the throw rug. She knew the evil was capable of far worse and next time she'd be ready. She hobbled to the rocker and stared at the empty box, now a lump of dirt and swamp water.

Sassy knotted her fist. The marsh was no place for a hobbling old woman, let alone one with a bum hip, but she had to get over there and warn them folks. First, she'd have to rest a spell and let her old bones heal.

Lord help them.