Casters Series Box Set Page 21

  Connie froze.

  Alex giggled. Even though she couldn’t see Connie’s expression, the surprise was evident in her posture. “It’s all the decorative rivets and grommets on the canvas,” Alex said. “They must be made of copper too.”

  Connie nodded, relaxing into her cross-legged position.

  Alex grabbed for the backpack and pulled it upright again. But as she did so, Connie’s diary spilled out on to the ground. It flipped open to a page with bold letters across the top—So again I faced my own hell. Yes, Billy raped me again tonight.

  Connie stopped as if frozen, obviously looking down at the old page that lay open between them—the old memories.

  Connie had no tears to shed, in her caster form. But the pain that raked through her was apparent as she wilted there. And the shame that showed as she covered her face was just as obvious.

  Alex’s heart broke.

  “Connie, what happened to you... it wasn’t your fault,” she said. “It’s not your fault at all. I know it. I... I know it all too well.”

  Connie lowered her hands and faced Alex.

  Alex pulled in a shaky breath. Her eyes burned and her throat ached with tears held back. She looked down at her own hands, felt the wilting in herself. But Alex sat up straight again to gaze into Connie’s cast face. “I was raped, too. Not long ago.

  “And I haven’t told a soul, Connie, except for you. I haven’t dared. I... I was ashamed. Embarrassed. God help me, I can’t even remember who did it. My memories... he drugged me. But I’m starting to remember bits and pieces of it.

  “The point is, I was embarrassed and ashamed and I blamed myself. You know, like if I hadn’t been so wasted... if only I’d been more careful, or not gone out after dark. All those thoughts. But the more I read your diary, and the more I thought about you... connected with you, I started to see the whole thing differently.

  “What that man did to me wasn’t my fault. Not one bit. None of it! I didn’t ask for him to hurt me. I didn’t want him to, and I didn’t mean for it to happen. He had no right to rape me. No matter how drunk I was or what anyone may think about me. No matter what reputation I may carry. No matter what I did that night, or ever, that bastard owns the sin completely. The blame and fault are on his shoulders forever, not mine. So is the shame.” Alex let a tear spill, but this time, only one. “The pain’s mine; I know that and I’ll have to deal with that. Somehow I will. Because I’ve learned a lot from you, Connie Edwina Harvell. Not just what it means to be a caster. But what it means to be a survivor. And you didn’t do anything wrong either, as you faced your hell. You just survived it. And you helped me to do the same, through your diary.”

  Alex struggled a moment with tears. She swallowed down the lump in her throat. “I... I can almost see his face, Connie. I know I’m so very close to that last memory. It scares me. But I want to know... I have to know who did this. And I’m going to make him pay for what he did to me. I swear I’ll make the bastard pay for hurting me like he did.”

  Connie picked up two pieces of copper fittings. Skillfully pinching them, she picked the diary up off the ground and put it back in Alex’s backpack.

  “Thank you, Connie,” Alex whispered. “For everything.” She blinked hard to fight the tears and then looked up at the sky.

  It looked like it might rain, or worse, snow. The sky was heavy with clouds. Alex glanced around. The shadows had grown deeper in the very short time she’d been here.

  “I’d better get back.” Alex stood. She dug her compass out of her pocket, looked at it again for the reassurance of its presence. Then tucked it away.

  Connie watched her.

  “Bye, Connie,” Alex said. “I’ll see—”

  Connie soared above her. Not high above, but just among the tree branches a few feet above Alex’s head. She pointed in a direction about forty-five degrees from which Alex had come.

  “I shouldn’t just back track?”

  Connie shook her head no, and pointed more sharply this time.

  Alex began walking in that direction.

  It was darker than she’d realized as she walked within the tall trees. And the temperature was dropping. There were, of course, no animals around as the caster escorted her. No coyotes to worry about or deer to startle. No crows, but now Alex didn’t wish for their cawing comfort. She was walking through strange territory, rougher terrain than before. But she trusted Connie above her; and there wasn’t even a whisper of fear when she looked up to see her there.

  She saw the twinkle of light through the trees.

  That was where Connie stopped, lowered to hover beside Alex.

  Alex peered through the opening in the trees. “Oh, I know where we are! We’re at Heritage Park.”

  Connie nodded.

  “You’d better go, Connie.” She’d already taken a risk, coming with her through the woods. She nearly blended in with the darkened treetops, but not enough for Alex’s liking. “Be careful, okay?”

  Connie nodded again. But she didn’t move away from Alex. She just stood there. Suddenly, she opened her arms wide. Just as she had before when she’d communicated that Alex was too big, too solid to help carry the copper goodies into Connie’s shelter. But this time, Connie Harvell—this cast who feared so very much from people—was taking a huge risk. She was asking for a hug.

  Alex embraced her.

  She didn’t know what to expect, but somehow it surprised her that Connie was there. Alex could feel Connie. It wasn’t like when people touched people, with the warm solidity of body against body. Nor was it like when casts touched casts, and the heaviness of that caster energy charge. Instead, there was a press back more than substance to the dark form in her arms. A different kind of heaviness. A different kind of force. A warm one, but not the warmth of flesh.

  But Alex felt something more.

  She felt Connie’s compassion reaching out for her—the pure essence of it. She felt her understanding, somehow. Whether it was a caster thing, or a Connie–Alex thing, Alex knew it. Understood it and believed it. They had a bond. As women. As survivors.

  But Alex felt so much more than that as she clasped Connie in her arms. She felt Connie’s deep, deep loneliness. Dear God, she was so tired! And not just with the heaviness that all casters felt when out. Connie Harvell wanted to rest. Needed her eternal rest. Alex knew it.

  She was reluctant to pull away when Connie broke the embrace.

  “Thanks, Connie, for everything. For letting me read your diary. For letting me have it. For being strong enough to survive, and helping me to survive.”

  The cast moved up and away. Waved down at Alex then blended in perfectly with the trees.

  Alex stepped out from the woods into Heritage Park. As she walked under the park’s tall lights and out to the road, she slung her backpack with its precious cargo onto her shoulder.

  Chapter 27

  Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept...

  Brooke

  “So... I’ve been thinking.”

  Ah, here it was, thought Brooke. The reason behind Alex’s offer to buy dinner at what passed as one of Mansbridge’s nicest restaurants.

  Alex cleared her throat. “We have to find the body.”

  Brooke put down her dessert fork, glanced around the all-but-empty dining room to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. “Connie’s body?”

  “No. Jimmy Hoffa’s.” Alex rolled her eyes. “Of course, Connie’s body. Who else’s?”

  “Her baby’s?”

  They both glanced at Maryanne. She hadn’t even started on her cheesecake yet, and from the look on her face, she wasn’t going to be able to eat a bite.

  Beneath the other girls’ silent scrutiny, Maryanne lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I’m just saying, there was more than one victim here.”

  “I know,” Alex said.

  “But if we find the body—or bodies, plural,” Brooke said, “then what? The police will want to know why we went looking for them. Then you’ll ha
ve to hand over the diary.”

  Brooke’s words had the anticipated effect on Alex, who blanched. “No one is getting the diary!”

  “I don’t know, Alex.” Maryanne frowned. “Brooke’s right. If we did find a body, how would we explain why we went looking in the first place?”

  Alex dragged a frustrated hand through her hair. “I wasn’t proposing we do this for a police investigation,” she said. “I’m thinking about Connie’s cast.”

  Brooke blinked. Holy shit! “You think she can get back into her original? If we find the remains, I mean?”

  “Whoa!” Maryanne, who’d been hunched over the table, sat up straight. “Wait just a minute here. We just found Connie, and now you want to send her packing? You want to knock her off? I thought you liked her?”

  Ouch. Brooke closed her eyes and waited for an explosion from across the table, but what came was Alex’s shocked, tremulous voice.

  “God, Maryanne! How can you say that to me?”

  Brooke opened her eyes to see the last bit of color drain from Alex’s face.

  “Yeah, it is a bit harsh, don’t you think?” Brooke said.

  “Harsh?” It was Maryanne who exploded, but in a controlled way, thank God. Not the kind of way that brought the help rushing from the kitchen. “Are you kidding?” she hissed. “Harsh is sending that girl to her grave. She’s been alone for all these years, going mad with it, unable to touch another living creature. And now she finally has some friends and our first act of ‘kindness’ will be to send her packing?”

  “We’d be doing her a favor,” Brooke interjected. “She’s beyond tired. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “But she has all that copper!” Maryanne protested. “It gives her energy. You know it does. We’ve all felt it. And we can get more for her.”

  “Yeah, we’ve all felt it,” Brooke agreed. “But then we go home, shoot back into ourselves and sleep like babies in our beds. We’re never out there for more than a few hours. We can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like never to be able to come home to our bodies. Hell, that copper is probably the only thing that keeps her going.”

  “Exactly,” Alex said. “She needs her rest now.”

  Tears sprang to Maryanne’s eyes. “But Connie put herself out there. She wanted to survive.”

  “And she did,” said Alex. “She survived far longer than Connie probably imagined she would. If she imagined it at all. I mean, it was probably a split-second decision.”

  “Yeah,” Brooke agreed. “A way to sort of survive the lousy fate she saw coming. And she succeeded. But now her cast is tired.”

  Maryanne blinked rapidly. “How come you guys got that impression but I didn’t?”

  Brooke shrugged. “I don’t know. You do get pretty hard-core out there.”

  Alex shot Brooke a glare.

  “What? She gets into it. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “We all get into it.” Alex turned back to Maryanne. “Tell you what, next time we’re out, touch her, okay? I don’t know—shake hands with her or hug her or just... touch her. And if you don’t come away with the same impression, we can talk about it again.”

  “I will,” Maryanne agreed. “But if we do find her remains, no matter what happens, I can’t see not calling the police.” Maryanne looked at Alex.

  “Of course we’ll call the police. Eventually. After Connie has a chance to see if she can get back inside. But we’ll just have to think up some other reason why we went looking for a body that doesn’t involve giving up the diary.”

  Brooke snorted. “Okay, but if one of us has to pretend to be psychic, it probably should be me. You know, with my reputation for sensitivity and all.”

  That set the girls to laughing, as she’d intended.

  “If it comes to that,” Alex said, drying her eyes, “I’ll claim to be the psychic. Everyone thinks I’m crazy anyway.”

  “Not anymore,” Brooke pointed out. “Well, except the ones who liked you crazy.”

  “Gee, thanks, Brooke.”

  “No problem,” Brooke said, but her mind had leapt on, already on the hunt. “So, Maryanne still needs convincing that Connie is ready for this. Fair enough. But there’s no reason we can’t start looking for the body, is there?”

  “Where would we start?” Alex asked. “They could have put her in a sack full of rocks and sunk her in the river for all we know. Or buried her in the woods miles from here.”

  “Wait a minute—it was winter when they killed her, right?”

  “February,” Alex answered.

  “Well, they couldn’t have dumped her in the river, then. It would have been frozen solid, with months to go before a thaw. And they probably didn’t cart her body off to the woods. They used to get a lot more snow than we do now, right? So it wouldn’t have been easy to get around. The woods roads would probably have been impassable. And the ground itself would be snow-covered and frozen. Hard to bury someone in the dead of a Northern winter.”

  Alex frowned. “Maybe they stashed her body somewhere in the house over the winter, then buried her somewhere in the spring.”

  “Or maybe it’s still in the house.”

  At Maryanne’s suggestion, Brooke shivered. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe. You read about that shit from time to time. Bones found in the walls when a new owner renovates, or in the foundation when they tear a place down, or in an old sealed oil drum in a shed.”

  “Omigod,” Alex said. “You don’t suppose... she wouldn’t still be... in the attic?”

  “No, not in the attic.”

  Brooke and Alex swiveled in tandem to look at Maryanne.

  How could she possibly know that? Brooke drew breath to challenge her, but one look at the other girl’s face stopped her. It also froze the breath in her lungs and sent cold dread snaking through her gut.

  “Have either of you been to the basement?” Maryanne whispered.

  Chapter 28

  Bad Feeling

  Maryanne

  Maryanne shifted in the uncomfortable chair, or rather she shifted again. And the hard plastic underneath her butt wasn’t the only reason for her squirming discomfort.

  She let out a breath of frustration as she glanced at the clock. She crossed her arms in front of her, forearms resting on the desk. Ten minutes she’d been here, waiting in Mr. McKenzie’s room for him to show. Liking him less and less as she watched the sweeping second-hand take yet another turn around the clock at the front of the classroom.

  How long was she supposed to wait? And the more pressing question, why did McKenzie want to see her, anyway? That thought came in on a yawn.

  What a drawn-out day this had been, starting in first-period Math. Mr. McKenzie had paper-clipped a note to the test he’d handed back to her: See me after school.

  That was it; no explanation.

  Well, that had set the mood for the day!

  But she really couldn’t understand the timing of the note. She’d made a decent mark on the test he handed back—88. That was well above the class average, and her own average for that matter. At least this year, anyway. And she hadn’t missed a day in the last ten school days, thanks to Alex’s nagging.

  But today had crept by at a snail’s pace for another reason. Maryanne was just that freaking tired after another near-sleepless night. And this time, unfortunately, it hadn’t even been because they’d cast out. They hadn’t.

  The three of them had actually agreed they needed a night without casting. Quite a thing for them to agree on anything, but especially remarkable when it came to this. But there was no way around it. They all needed a full night’s sleep to combat the deficit they were all rocking. Eight solid hours had sounded positively heavenly. Even Connie had pushed them into it when they’d last seen her, two nights ago. This despite how much Connie loved being with the three of them. Alex especially—that was obvious. The two of them were incredibly tight. But Connie knew how draining, how exhausting, it was to be out so often and so long, even with
the copper bracelets to boost them. They each had three bracelets now hanging on the oak tree by the river, thanks to Connie. She loved to give them gifts.

  Connie joined them every time they cast out now. The girls would unlock the door and sneak up to the attic to tap out on the glass almost every single night. And Connie would be waiting for them along the riverbank, in a dark hiding spot or in the shadowed woods. Then the three became four.

  Maryanne knew they were taking their chances casting out so often. The more they were out, the more they were in danger of being seen. Rumors were starting to spread around Mansbridge—some pretty far out there, but some pretty accurate—about the Mansbridge Hellers. And not just from Melissa. And although she hadn’t mentioned it to Alex or Brooke, Maryanne was suddenly noticing iron horseshoes appearing on a few doors around the superstitious town. Not that the casters couldn’t just move around the horseshoes if they wanted in. But they sure as hell would have to be careful not to touch them. Iron was absolutely depleting! Draining of energy in a sudden and almost sickening way. That time they’d encountered the nails in the walls at Seth’s place had been enough for Maryanne. She wasn’t anxious for a bigger dose of it. But the horseshoes were a sign, if nothing else, that the Heller stories were starting again.

  They’d have to be more careful. But they’d never stop casting.

  She yawned again. What the heck was keeping McKenzie?

  Last night, Brooke had been snoring lightly within five minutes of lights out. She’d heard only one tired sigh from Alex then nothing after that. Maryanne had tossed and turned most of the night.

  The basement. That was all she could think about as she’d lain there in the darkness.

  Why-oh-why had she mentioned the basement to Alex and Brooke back at the restaurant?

  Because you had to, came the answer.

  Maryanne had snuck down into the basement the day after Halloween, heart pounding harder with every one of those thirteen steps she’d descended. She never would have ventured down there under normal circumstances, but that was the day John Smith had changed the lock on the attic door, and desperate times called for desperate measures.