The Sacrificial Daughter (28 page)

The girl in black stood out in the fashionably challenged halls as if she had a bulls-eye on her chest, yet she was quick and alert. Two different times people stepped in her way purposely trying to knock into her and both times she dodged with ease. Her biology class was on the first floor and Jesse was only feet away when she saw Ms Weldon come out of the front office.

The art teacher picked her out of the crowd with ease; their eyes locked for a moment and then Ms Weldon looked away. There had been meaning in her look, Jesse was sure of it.

"Ms Weldon?" Jesse called, ducking through the few students between them. "Can I speak with you for a moment?"

"I'm already late," the teacher said turning away.

Jesse touched her on the arm. "I need to know if you think that I'm in some kind of danger."

This stopped the art teacher in place and she turned around with narrowed eyes. "Someone say something to you?" Jesse only gave her a shrug, not knowing if she would be getting the redheaded teacher in trouble by answering fully. Ms Weldon leaned her tall frame back from Jesse and looked down her nose, but not in a nasty way.

"Look," she said, eventually. "You aren't in any more danger than any of the other students..."

"Then why...?"

"Then why the warning?" the art teacher cut in. "Because you are a magnet for trouble. I warned you that this was a bad town to be friendless in and now you are outside the herd, so to speak. Most of these students may not like you, but they won't hurt you. At the same time..." As if she couldn't turn the teacher in her off, she left off expecting Jesse to fill in the blank.

"They won't protect me, either."

"Exactly."

"But the warning seemed more than that...was something over heard?" Jesse asked.

"Not that I know of, but..." Ms Weldon suddenly seemed reluctant to say anything more.

Jesse had just a light touch on her arm before, but now she gripped it, hard. "Please, I need to know."

After giving the hallway a quick scan, Ms Weldon pulled her in close. "There are some in the school who have more reason to be afraid than others. The pressure may be getting to them and they may do
something
. But they may not, I don't know. Now, I've said all that I'm going to say...other than to warn you: don't make enemies if you can avoid it."

"How the heck am I supposed to do that?" Jesse asked in bewilderment.

The art teacher left a flabbergasted Jesse standing in the hall. Not make enemies? Wasn't Ms Weldon herself an enemy of Jesse's? She certainly wasn't a friend and nor was she neutral. She had actively tried to harm Jesse's academic career and she had practically set her class on Jesse. That sure sounded like an enemy.

Not make enemies! The very idea was too much for Jesse; it would be easier to ask her not to breathe. In a snit, Jesse stormed into the lab room and plunked her bag heavily down on the table. As was usual for her, she was late, but Mr. Daniels didn't seem to notice, because as was usual for him, he was running about answering six questions at once.

Jesse took out her lab work knowing well ahead of time she was going to be killing time instead of doing any work. Even if she hadn't been well behind in the class, her mind was spinning over the idea that there were people actually plotting to hand her over to Harold.

Would Amanda do it? Was this her plan for the evening? It was a possibility. Yet how would she do it? Harold wasn't some demon that you could summon. Would she try to reach him by phone? Not likely with Wild Bill and his useless three-man posse hanging around. Tapping Harold's phone was the first thing they would have done, and Amanda wouldn't want it to get out that she had helped in a murder.

Though he might have saved her two days back, Jesse thought Wild Bill was pathetic. Riding around in a coal black car and keeping to the streets, struck her as stupid; Harold would strike from the forest when he made his move. What was worse than Wild Bill, however, was his team, or rather the small size of it. If they worked twelve-hour shifts, at best there would only be two people to cover twenty-five square miles of town and forests. It made no sense.

But senseless or not it left open the opportunity for someone to set her up, but once again, how? First they would have to give Jesse this secret trait that the Shadow-man was so mad over and then they would have to get her in his path. It seemed impossible, but all the same at least three teachers had expressed concern at the prospect.

"Ugh!" Jesse groaned, with her head in her hands. The whole thing was giving her a headache. It was all useless supposition until she could find out more information, which she vowed to get that evening when her father came home.

Putting it out of her mind, Jesse began making notes in her lab work; she poked at long ugly earthworms, stared down a microscope at squiggly shapes, and generally wasted time. That she'd fail the lab was a foregone conclusion. Even Mr. Daniels thought so. After swinging by to check her progress, he only raised his eyebrows and said, "Ok." Then left again just as quick and never came back. They both knew she was too far behind to catch up and neither really cared.

Doodling her way through the lab made her last class of the day go by rather quick. When the bell rang she slowly put away her equipment, letting the other students go first. She wasn't in a hurry. Though it was tapering off, there was still enough of that stupid limerick business in the halls to make Jesse see red. So she slouched on her desk eyeing Ky and thinking how the day hadn't been half-bad.

Jesse only slouched there for a few minutes. Ky was still extra stiff and getting stiffer. She didn't want to annoy him, so she left while the busses were still pulling out of the parking lot. This earned her a raucous burst of confused rhymes, which she ignored. If it wasn't for the presences of her mother, Jesse would have flipped the kids off with both hands.

But she couldn't do that in front of her mother. Only...her mother wasn't there. Her gleaming white Lexus was nowhere to be seen.

"She's in the front of the building. That's all," Jesse said to herself. "Nothing to freak out over."

However, Jesse was freaked out. Her heart told her that her mom had flaked out on her once again. With that same heart in her throat, Jesse tore back toward the building and saw the back door closing.

"Hold that door!" she cried out to Ky. Ky ignored her and the door shut in her face. "No!" Her first reaction was to rage at Ky, yet her second reaction—panic—followed too close on the heels of the first. The misery of the previous afternoon flashed in her mind: the hunger, the pain, the bone chilling cold, the feeling of being lost, the bullies chasing her, the knife at her throat and behind it all the Shadow-man...always lurking. And there was more: there had been tears, and fear in the pit of her stomach at the knowledge of coming death.

Knowing that death was hunting you was the worst feeling...and she had it again, right at that moment.

This time there was no begging Ky, it would have been useless, nor could there be even a half-second of hesitation on her part. She tore around the building at full speed. She thought that she'd been quick the day before but now she ignored the burning need for air in her lungs and the re-occurring pain in her ankle. Her legs pumped for all they were worth, and Jesse flew along at a tremendous clip with her long black coat trailing out. When she finally made it around the far side of the building she took in the parking lot at a glance: No white Lexus, no mom.

It hurt. Knowing that she had been abandoned caused physical pain somewhere deep inside her. In the spot where there should have been comfort and security, there was only pain. But it was a pain that she had endured many times in the past and would undoubtedly feel again. It was a pain that sadly, she was able to ignore.

Her mom's car might not have been there, but she was happily astonished to see half a dozen cars still sitting idly in the lot. Yet they wouldn't be idle for long. Teachers were streaming toward them and one of them was none other than...

"Mr. Daniels!" Jesse called in a feeble voice. Suddenly the pain in her ankle and the burning need for air was no longer something she could ignore. He was not more than thirty yards away and didn't hear her at first.

"Excuse...me," she tried again, doggedly running forward. As she did she pulled her cell phone out and saw the
light of disappointment
blinking up at her. It meant there was currently an excuse stored in her voice mail. It was always an excuse. Just once Jesse would like to hear a message say: We just bought a puppy, hurry home!

"Excuse me?" she said a second time as her thumb hit the voice mail auto dial. Jesse was much closer now and Mr. Daniels turned at her voice.

"Oh, Miss Clarke...what a...what's the matter?" he asked, sounding concerned at seeing her sudden and startling wide-eyed appearance.

A tiny recorded version of her mom suddenly said, "I'm so sorry I won't..."

Jesse snapped the phone off. There was a volcano of anger in her over being left stranded by her mom, but it was swallowed up whole by her desperate fear. She didn't think she could take another afternoon like yesterday.

"I don't have a ride...and the buses won't let me on...and my bike got des-des..." She had to pause, fat tears ambushed her and they were coming before she knew it. "Sorry...Sorry. I don't mean to make a scene...I just need a ride, please."

Mr. Daniels shrugged and then shook his head, "I can't. I don't have a car here. I'm car pooling." He pointed, indicating the one person in the school who really had a reason to hate Jesse. Carla Castaneda stood on the other side of the low green Volvo.

Jesse no longer had a heartbeat. It disappeared as she looked into Carla's brown eyes...those same eyes that were sobbing only the day before. Sobbing because Jesse had hurt her in a way no one else would ever dare.

Those eyes told Jesse that she would have a long cold walk home.

Jesse turned from the green Volvo and looked up to where her fate laid waiting. Her eyes went up into the hilly woods just across the road. If the Shadow-man was hunting, here and now would be perfect. He'd just sit up there invisible to God and everyone and wait for the stray who missed her bus, or for the boy whose mom was running late or perhaps wasn't going to show at all.

He would wait for those unlucky few outside the flock.

Was that how he picked his victims? Was he just penalizing the unlucky ones? Because sometimes Jesse felt like the unluckiest person on God's green earth. Unlike everyone else she had no choice in how she was treated. She could be the sweetest girl in the world and still she'd be spat on. It was her destiny. It was her destiny to absorb the world's hate and anger, its scorn, its bitterness, even its jealousy.

It was a horror to live through, but this time, standing in the parking lot it would be far worse. This time when Carla unloaded her venom on Jesse it would be because Jesse deserved it.

She had not only been rude to Mrs. Castaneda, acting all high and mighty, she had been hurtful as well. She'd caused needless pain. Even if she had done it unknowingly, Jesse had still stomped on the woman's misery.

Her shame kept her from looking at Carla. "I'm sorry about yesterday...I didn't know," she said in a voice of quiet wretchedness.

Jesse decided that she was done running. She would walk down the middle of Schoolhouse road and take her chances. Unable to even say goodbye she started to the road.

"Get in," Carla said from behind her.

Nerve endings flashed throughout Jesse's body at the soft words and she felt her skin come alive in feeling. New and greater tears formed themselves in her eyes and hurriedly she wiped them away before she turned around.

"Hurry up and get in," Carla said with a touch of impatience. "I won't be late picking up my son from day care...no matter what. Not this time." Jesse turned and locked eyes with Carla. The librarian blamed herself for her daughter Mary's death. It was plain to see. What also was plain was that she had forgiven Jesse...despite the pain Carla had forgiven the girl.

The weight of emotions pulled at Jesse's chin and she had trouble keeping her eyes up. She climbed into the back of the car with her head down. "Thank you for the ride, Mrs. Castaneda," she said. "I really appreciate it."

"Don't worry about it," Carla replied. There came a long silence that Jesse didn't know how to break. It ate up the road beneath them until Carla swallowed audibly and asked, "Why don't you have a car? I'm guessing that your parents could afford one."

"I lost my license," Jesse answered, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice.

"Was it speeding?" Mr. Daniels asked. "We have wild speeders around here...in the summer." This last he added almost as if he forgot that the town died, literally as well as figuratively, in the early winter.

"No...it...it." Jesse squirmed in the back seat. "In the last town that we lived in they had too many police officers. They had like thirteen and since the town was small like Ashton, they couldn't afford them all."

"Thirteen?" Mr. Daniels said amazed. "We have six and I swear that's three too many. Except for...around now that is. Is your father planning on firing any of our police force?"

"No...I think he'd normally do that, but under the circumstances..."

Mrs. Castaneda flashed her brown eyes in the mirror. "So how'd you get in so much trouble that you lost your license?"

"Because whenever I took the car out, I had my own police escort," Jesse said, rubbing her head. The memory wasn't pleasant. "I got a ticket every time out. No matter how slow I was going I got a speeding ticket. At stop signs I would have to stop, count to ten and then go, or I'd get a ticket. I had my license for only eleven days."

The car was very silent.

"Well that sucks," Mr. Daniels said.

The way he said it made Jesse laugh. To hear an old biology teacher use the word "sucks" just struck her as the funniest thing she'd heard in a long time and she laughed until she cried.

"Well it does," he added, which had her going again.

She controlled her breathing long enough to give directions. "If you are taking me home first, it's a left at the stop sign."

Mrs. Castaneda had been smiling at Jesse's mirth but her eyes went from brown to black. "I know exactly where you live."

Mr. Daniels stiffened beside her and took to finding the view out the window, a view he had likely seen every day of his life, extremely interesting.

What did she mean by that?
Jesse wondered. She asked in a nervous voice, "Do you live around here?"

The lady coughed out a bitter laugh. "No...if I lived around here I'd burn my own house down."

Now Mr. Daniels was practically paralyzed in his discomfort, and Jesse had come down with a case of it as well. Her face went manikin-like in a half-smile. All she could think to say to that was: "Oh yeah?"

Carla's knuckles had gone white on the steering wheel and her slim shoulders were taunt beneath her blouse. "The man who killed my daughter lives right around the corner from you...I guess you knew that right?" Jesse nodded to the face in the mirror. "Every day I used to drive out here and park in front of his house and I would cry and I would scream challenges at him to come for me too. I...I always had a knife from my kitchen with me and-and I would've used it too...but he never came out and I was too afraid to go in."

Next to Carla, Mr. Daniels was a toad-faced stone. Nothing moved on him and perhaps nothing moved in him either. Jesse didn't blame him a bit; the librarian's swelling emotions looked ready to spew out of her either in tears or screaming anger. Jesse felt split down the middle—she couldn't stand to see the pain in Carla's eyes, yet she needed answers, perhaps desperately so.

"Why don't they arrest him," Jesse asked, hoping to tip-toe a fine line.

"Because the police are all so stupid...no offence, Mr. Daniels."

The biology teacher smiled and Jesse could have sworn she heard the stiff muscles of his face grinding together like stones moving against each other. "That's ok. I understand," he said. Then he turned back toward Jesse and explained, "My son is a police officer here in Ashton. They haven't arrested Mr. Brownly for lack of evidence."

"Can I ask...why aren't there more police running around here?" Jesse asked.

Mr. Daniels head creaked on his shoulders as he shook it sadly. "The state has its own budget concerns, and after three years of trying to catch Harold...they are kind of...scaling back." Jesse knew he had been about to say
giving up
, which would have been a mistake with Carla right there. "In the last two years they had sixteen men roaming all up in the hills and up and down the streets and got nothing."

"And now they think it might be someone from another town," Carla added. "Can you believe that? Like we wouldn't notice a stranger wandering around here. How stupid is that?" She cast a quick guilty glance at the man next to her. "Sorry Mr. Daniels, I'm just so frustrated."

He shook his head again. "It's ok. But I've told you before my name is Greg. You haven't been my student in twenty years so stop calling me Mr. Daniels."

"Right...Greg. I can't seem to help myself. I think to me you'll always be Mr. Daniels—my biology teacher from the eleventh grade—the man I threw up on when I stepped on that frog in class," Carla said, once again smiling.

Jesse smirked in the back seat at the image. It was strange to her to see teachers as real people. It was so hard to picture them as being young once: wearing braces, ditching school...accidentally stepping on frogs. Yet they were. Carla was very real. She wasn't just a school librarian; she was a mother and a woman with problems of her own. Carla's smile of a day long gone made her all the prettier and Jesse was loathe to be the one to make it stop, but she had more questions and her house was coming up quick.

"Why do they think it's not Harold?" There was a thousand pounds of hope in that question. Living next door to a killer was a miserable stress. She crept around her own house, peeking through windows, barely breathing, always on edge and always listening. Waiting for that one moment when the wood of the stairs would begin an inexplicable creaking as the Shadow-man came for her.

As Carla pulled up in front of Jesse's house, Mr. Daniels turned back once again to explain, "Most of them do think it's Harold. The only reason some don't is that he's been able to slip through their fingers so easily. On the night of...uh...last year I should say." He paused with a glance at Carla, whose smile was gone—long gone. She nodded for him to continue. "They had four men watching his house and none saw him leave. He just 'floated by like a shadow' as my son put it. None saw him leave, and none saw him return, but they knew he had left. Only they knew it too late. Later when they watched the tapes they could see only his shadow ghost by the camera."

Carla had her face to the window and whether she was crying or not Jesse didn't know, but her voice was thick with emotion. "So instead of admitting that they screwed up somewhere and allowed that great big man to slip right by them. They make up some stupid theory that it couldn't be him. It had to be someone else...a stranger from another town."

"And it couldn't be a stranger?" Jesse asked, fearing that she had gone too far, but urgently feeling a need to know. Now Carla cried audibly and Mr. Daniels became again a toad-like statue next to her.

"My daughter was found in the Ashton cemetery on the grave of Steven Brownly...presented like she was a gift to Harold's dead son. No stranger would do that. Only someone very, very evil would do that."