The Secret Path (2 page)

“Well, that's a relief.”

“They killed themselves.” Sally nodded seriously. “It was an old couple. No one knows why they did it. They must have been going through an identity crisis. They just hung themselves from the chandelier.”

“We don't have a chandelier.”

“They were fat old people. The chandelier broke when they strung themselves up with the ropes. Someone told me they didn't leave any money for a proper funeral. Their bodies are supposed to be buried in your basement.”

“We don't have a basement.”

Sally nodded. “The police had to fill it in, in case you found the bodies.”

Adam sighed. “Oh brother. Do you want to meet my father?”

“Yes. Just don't ask me to stay for lunch. I'm a picky eater.”

“Somehow I'm not surprised,” Adam said.

H
is mom and dad were very impressed with Sally, Adam was surprised to see. Of course, Sally kept her remarks to a minimum and her identity crisis private while she spoke to them. Sally did not have an opportunity to meet Claire, Adam's seven-year-old sister, because she was asleep on the floor in one of the back bedrooms. His father hadn't set up the beds yet. From the way he was hobbling around holding his lower spine as if he were a monkey with a sore tail, he looked like he needed one.
His father winked at Adam and told him to go out and play with Sally. He said that neither of them would be doing any more heavy lifting that day.

Adam didn't know what the wink was supposed to mean.

He wasn't interested in Sally. Not as a girlfriend.

He had no desire to have a girlfriend before seventh grade.

But school didn't start for another three months, so he had a whole summer full of monsters to look forward to.

Not that he believed a word Sally had told him.

“Let me show you the town,” Sally said as they stepped out of his front door. “But don't be deceived by what you see. This place looks perfectly normal, but it's not. For example, you might see a young mother walk by wheeling her newborn infant. She might smile at you and say hello. She might look real, and her baby might look cute. But there's always the possibility that that young mother is responsible
for the disappearance of Leslie Lotte, and that her baby is a robot.”

“I thought you said a cloud swallowed Leslie.”

“Yeah, but
who
was in the cloud? These are the kind of questions you have to ask yourself this afternoon as you check out the scene.”

Adam was getting weary of Sally's warnings. “I don't believe in robots. There are no robots. That's a simple fact.”

Sally raised a know-it-all eyebrow. “Nothing is simple in Spooksville.”

Springville—Adam refused to think of it by any other name—was tiny. Nestled between two gentle sets of hills on the north and south, it had the ocean to the west. To the east a range of rough hills rose sharply. Adam was inclined to call them mountains. Naturally, Sally said there were many bodies buried in those hills. Most of the town was set on a slope that only leveled out as it neared the water. Close to the shore, at the end of a rocky point, stood a tall lighthouse that looked out over the hard blue water as if in search of adventures. Sally explained that the water in and around Springville wasn't safe, either.

“Lots of riptides and undertows,” she said. “Sharks, too—great whites. I knew a guy—he was out on his boogie board only a hundred feet from the shore, and a shark swam by and bit his right leg off Just like that. If you don't believe me, you can meet him. His name's David Green, but we call him Jaws.”

This
story had a ring of truth to it, at least.

“I don't like to swim all that much,” Adam muttered.

Sally shook her head. “You don't even have to go in the water to have problems. The crabs come right up on the sand to nibble on you.” She added, “We don't have to go to the beach right now if you don't want to.”

“Another time might be better,” Adam agreed.

They did head in the direction of the water, though. Sally wanted to show him the arcade next to the movie theater, which, she said, was owned by the local undertaker. Apparently it showed only horror movies. The theater and the arcade were located next to the pier, which, Sally said, was about as safe as a single plank set above boiling lava. Along the way they passed a supermarket.

Parked out front was a black Corvette convertible, with the top down. Adam wasn't into cars, but he thought Corvettes were cool. They looked like rockets. He stared at the car as they strode by, for a moment blocking out Sally's rambling. Like so much of Springville, the market parking lot was built on a hill. Adam was shocked to see that a shopping cart had slipped loose from its place near the front doors and was heading for the car. He hated to think of such a beautiful car getting a dent in it, and jumped forward to stop the cart. Sally screamed behind him.

“Adam!” she cried. “Don't go near that car!”

But she was too late with her warning. He stopped the shopping cart only inches from the car door, feeling as if he had done his good deed for the day. He noticed that Sally was still standing where he'd left her. She seemed afraid to approach the vehicle. As he started to move the cart to a safe place, a soft yet mysterious voice spoke at his back.

“Thank you, Adam. You have done your good deed for the day.”

He turned toward the most beautiful woman
he'd ever seen. She was tall—most adults were. Her black hair was long and curly, her eyes so dark and big, they were like mirrors that opened only at night. Her face was very pale, white as a statue's, her lips as red as fresh blood. She wore a white dress that swept past her knees. In her hands she carried a small white purse. She must have been in her late twenties, but seemed ageless. It was a warm day, yet she had on gloves, as red as her lips. She smiled at his shocked expression.

“You wonder how I know your name,” she said. “Isn't that so, Adam?”

He nodded, dumbstruck. She took a step closer.

“There isn't much that happens in this town that I don't know about,” she said. “You just arrived today. Isn't that so?”

He found his voice. “Yes, ma'am.”

She chuckled softly. “How do you like Spooksville so far?”

He stuttered. “I thought only kids called it Spooksville?”

She took another step forward. “There are a few grown-ups who know its real name. You'll
meet another one today. He'll tell you things you might not want to listen to, but that will be up to you.” She glanced at her car, then at the shopping cart still in his hand, and her smile broadened. “I give you this warning because you have done me a favor this day, protecting my car. That was valiant of you, Adam.”

“Thank you, ma'am.”

She chuckled again, removing her gloves. “You have manners. That is rare among the young in this town.” She paused. “Do you think that is one of the reasons they have so many—problems?”

Adam gulped. “What kind of problems?”

The woman looked in the direction of Sally. “I'm sure your friend has already told you many frightening things about this town. Don't believe half of them. Of course, the other half—you might want to believe.” She paused as if sharing a private joke with herself. Then she waved at Sally. “Come here, child.”

Sally approached reluctantly, and then stood close to Adam. She was so close he noticed she was shaking. The woman studied her up and down and frowned.

“You don't like me,” she said finally.

Sally swallowed. “We're just out walking.”

“You're just out talking.” She pointed a finger at Sally. “You watch what you talk about. Every time you say my name, child, I hear it. And I remember. Do you understand?”

Sally was still shaking, but a sudden stubbornness hardened her features. “I understand very well, thank you.”

“Good.”

“How's your castle ‘keeping' these days?” Sally asked sarcastically. “Any cold drafts?”

The woman's frown deepened, then unexpectedly she smiled. Adam would have said it was a cold smile if it hadn't been so enchanting. This woman held him spellbound.

“You're insolent, Sally,” she said. “Which is good. I was insolent as a child”—she paused—“until I learned better.” She glanced at Adam. “You know I have a castle?”

“No, I didn't know,” Adam said. He liked castles, although he'd never seen one, much less been inside one.

“Would you like to visit me there someday?” the woman asked.

“No,” Sally said suddenly.

Adam glared at Sally. “I can answer for myself,” he said.

Sally shook her head. “You don't want to go there. Kids who go there, they—”

“They what?” the woman interrupted. Sally wouldn't look at her now, only at Adam. Sally seemed to back down.

“It's not a good idea to go there” was all Sally said.

The woman reached out and touched the side of Adam's face. Her fingers were warm, soft—they didn't feel dangerous. Yet Adam trembled beneath them. The woman's eyes, as she stared at him, seemed to pierce to the center of his brain.

“Nothing is the way it looks,” she said gently. “Nobody is just one way. When you hear stories about me—perhaps from this skinny girl here, perhaps from others—know that they're only partially true.”

Adam had trouble speaking. “I don't understand.”

“You will, soon enough,” the woman said. Her fingernails—they were quite long, and so
red—brushed close to his eyes, almost touching his lashes. “You have such nice eyes, did you know that, Adam?” She glanced over at Sally. “And you have such a nice mouth.”

Sally gave a fake smile. “I know that.”

The woman chuckled softly and drew back. Reaching out and opening her car door, she glanced back at them one last time. “I will see both of you later—under different circumstances,” she said.

Then she got into her car, waved once, and drove away.

Sally was ready to throw a fit.

“Do you know who that was?” she exclaimed.

“No,” Adam said, still recovering from the shock of meeting the woman. “She didn't tell me her name.”

“That was Ms. Ann Templeton. She is the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Mrs. Madeline Templeton.”

“Who's that?”

“The woman who founded this town about two hundred years ago. A witch if ever there was one. Witchery runs in their family. The woman you just met is the most dangerous
creature in all of Spooksville. Nobody knows how many kids she's killed.”

“She seemed nice.”

“Adam! She's a witch! There are no nice witches except in
The Wizard of Oz.
And one thing Spooksville sure doesn't have is a yellow brick road. You have to stay away from that woman or you'll end up as a frog chirping in the stagnant pond behind the cemetery.”

Adam had to shake himself to clear his brain. It was almost as if the woman had cast a spell on him. But a pleasant spell, one that made him feel warm inside.

“How did she know my name?” he muttered out loud.

Sally was exasperated. “Because she's a witch! Get a grip on reality, would ya? She probably just had to look in a big pot filled with boiling livers and kidneys to know everything about you. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if she sent that shopping cart flying toward her car just so you could run over and stop it. Just so she could stop and bewitch your tiny little mind. Are you listening to me, Mr. Kansas City?”

Adam frowned. “The shopping cart wasn't flying. It never left the ground.”

Sally raised her arms toward the sky. “The kid has to see a broom fly across the sky before he'll believe in witches! Well, that's just great. Be that way. Get yourself changed into something gross and disgusting. I don't care. I have problems of my own.”

“Sally. Why are you always yelling at me?”

“Because I
care.
Now let's get out of here. Let's go to the arcade. It's pretty safe there.”

“None of the games are haunted?” Adam asked to tease her. Sally stopped to give him another one of her impatient looks.

“A
couple
of games are haunted,” she said. “You just can't put quarters in them. Of course, knowing you, you'll head straight for them.”

“I don't know,” Adam said. “My dad wanted his change back from when I bought the Cokes. I don't have any money.”

“Then thank your dad for a small favor,” Sally said.

T
hey never got to the arcade. Instead they ran into Sally's friend—Watch. He was an interesting-looking fellow. About Sally's height, with blond hair the color of the sun and arms that seemed to reach to the ground. His ears were big. Adam saw in an instant where he got his nickname. On each arm he wore two large watches, four that Adam could see. Maybe he had a couple in his pockets that Adam didn't know about. The lenses on his glasses were thick—they could have been swiped from the
ends of telescopes. Sally seemed happy to see him. She introduced Adam.

“Adam's from Kansas City,” she said to Watch. “He just got here and is finding the change of scenery painful.”

Adam frowned. “It's not that bad.”

“What are your favorite subjects in school?” Watch asked.

“Watch is a science nut,” Sally said. “If you like science, Watch will like you. Me—I don't care if you flunked biology. My love is unconditional.”

“I like science,” Adam said. He gestured to Watch's arms. “Why do you wear so many watches? Isn't one enough?”

“I always like to know what time it is in each part of the country,” Watch said.

“There are four time zones in America,” Sally said.

“I know that,” Adam said. “Kansas City is two time zones ahead of the West Coast. But why do you want to know what time it is in all these places?”