The souls of lost lake, p.32
The Souls of Lost Lake, page 32
“Hello?”
Wren screamed. The voice had come from the far back of the blind. In the darkest corner. It was small. Alone. Wren stopped her wild and irrational scream. She steadied her breathing as claustrophobia warred with reason.
“Who’s there?” she breathed.
Silence.
“Who said ‘hello’?” Wren insisted.
A faint voice answered, “I’m Jasmine.”
45
Ava
Birds clamored from the treetops, crows and blackbirds cawing and a hawk screeching its way overhead. The thud of the ax was dull as it planted deep into the earth just shy of Widower Frisk as he rolled away from Ned. Ned tugged at the embedded ax, and it released easily from the dirt. Fury was etched into every crevice of his face.
“Ned!” Ava screamed, her throat raw.
He hesitated as he moved to draw the ax over his head again.
Their eyes met, and in that moment, Ava remembered.
She huddled behind the potato barrel as the man descended the ladder. Heavy shoes—work boots—landed on the cellar’s dirt floor.
“Ava?” the man’s voice cooed gently. Coaxing. Laced with comfort and friendliness but cloaked with the horror of her family’s screams. All was silent now. “Ava, come out. You’re gonna be fine.”
She peeked around the barrel, her gaze traveling up the man’s body as she clutched the doll to her chest. The eyes were familiar. He was young. Not much older than Arnie, but still a full-grown man. His chest heaved with breathing, as if he’d been working hard. There were specks of red on his face, on his shirt, his pants. It was Ned.
Ned had always been safe before. Maybe he’d saved her family. Maybe he’d come along and gotten rid of whoever had made them scream.
Ava hesitated behind the barrel.
Ned smiled. He reached out a hand. “That’s it, Ava. Come here.”
She remembered Ned well. Many times when Pa was gone with the boys to cut wood or go into town, Ned would show up. Ma always seemed to like Ned. They were friendly. She’d caught them hugging once and it’d dawned on her then that maybe they were too familiar with each other. Ma was pretty, but she was older’n Ned. Ned didn’t seem to care. It bothered Ava. She’d almost asked Pa about it, but something had held her back.
Last time Ned had been here, he and Ma had argued. Somethin’ fierce. Ava didn’t know why. She remembered Ma saying somethin’ about “Not doing this anymore,” and Ned getting all huffy. He’d left, but he gave her a peppermint stick before going.
Finally, Ava stood from her crouch behind the barrel. “Is Ma okay?” she asked.
Ned winced, then smiled. “Y-yeah. Ava, your ma, she’s—there’s been a bit of an accident.”
And Ned had led her up the cellar stairs. She’d seen her pa, and then her ma, lyin’ on the floor. And she’d screamed. Ned had reached for her, but she bit him. She’d crawled to her mother, tried to make sense of her mother’s last words, and then she’d smelled the smoke. When she turned, Ned was gone. But the cabin was on fire. She had to get her family to water where they wouldn’t burn . . .
“What did you do!” Ava cried. Her face crumpled as she hollered at her friend. The one person in Tempter’s Creek she could truly abide. The one who’d always looked out for her from a distance and had her back. “What did you do?” she accused with her hoarse throat.
Widower Frisk took the opportunity to roll into a standing position. He sprinted for the woods, making his getaway. Ned looked torn between chasing after him or staying with Ava. He lowered the ax, letting it land with a thump onto the earth.
“It just happened. He was goin’ to kill you, Ava!”
“Widower Frisk?” she cried. “I’m s’posed to say ‘thank you’ for that?” Ava was spittin’ fire, and she was okay with that. Fear of the widower had replaced timidity and then horror of dying, and now it was outright fury. “You killed my family!”
Ned paled. His face shifted from hurt to shock. His eyes widened. He shook his head. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”
“Yes. Yes, I remember. I remember it all now!” Ava was still on her knees. She didn’t have the strength to stand.
Ned hurried toward her, but Ava reared back, and he stopped. “Ava. Listen to me.”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently.
“I saw red, Ava, red!” Ned dropped to his knees across from her. “I met your ma in town one day. Sure she was older’n me, but she was so pretty. An’ we hit it off.”
Ava could barely breathe, and when she did, it raked against the rawness in her throat.
“Then she broke it off, after I’d come out here sometimes. Just her and me.”
“Why did you come back then? If she broke it off, why’d you come back here?” She hauled off and slapped him. Hard. Across the face with a stinging whack that left an imprint of her hand.
Ned’s head jerked to the side, but he swung it back around as if he hadn’t felt it. “I know. I shouldn’t have. But I wanted your mama. I wanted to fix things ’tween us. But your pa, he came back from loggin’ early. Was madder than a wet hornet, and he came after me, Ava!” Ned’s eyes widened. Pleading with her to listen, to forgive. “He came after me!”
Ava gagged and retched onto the ground. Ned stumbled toward her, patting her back. He took a handkerchief from his Levi’s pocket and dabbed at her mouth. Ava twisted away from him.
“Don’t. Touch. Me.” She glared. “You won’t blame my pa for this. You’re the one who went after my family with an ax. Why’d you let me live, huh? You couldn’t have known I’d forget you? Forget you killed my family?”
“Ava, please. I just plumb lost my mind.” Ava saw some of the crazy that had been in Ned that day reflected in his eyes. “Your mama and I, we were meant to be with each other. You all—you were in the way.”
“Then why kill Ma? Why not kill me?” It was the trying to make sense of it that kept Ava still and not racing to be free of Ned.
“She got in the way!” Ned was crying now. Weak and shaking, his eyes growing wilder. “She tried to save your pa, and when I . . . when I hit her, and then your brothers came runnin’, and well, I don’t remember much after that myself. But I’ve watched over ya. Helped make penance for what I did. I didn’t expect you to not remember. Once I came to my senses, I ran off. Left you there. I figured you’d turn me in. I’d planned to leave town, but then you didn’t remember nothin’, and—” he paused, his expression pleading with Ava for mercy and understanding—“and I took care of ya as best I could. For your mama.”
“Get away from me,” Ava snarled. “All these years I’ve wondered—tried to remember. I trailed from the woods draggin’ that ax! The entire town thinks I’m a killer. You killed Hubbard too, didn’t you? Whatever for?”
“I had to!” Tears stained Ned’s dirty face and ran down into his whiskers. “He was comin’ on to ya.”
“He was not!”
“He was! He was givin’ you candy and presents, an’—”
“He was buying my silence so I wouldn’t out him and Jipsy to Widower Frisk!” Ava’s concluding cry was shrill and tore from her throat. She hurtled toward the unready Ned and rammed her palms into his shoulders. He fell backward, his head hitting the ground.
Ava brought her arm down, hauling off and hitting the side of his face. “You killed my ma!” she screamed. Then she hit him again. “You murderin’, lyin’, son of a—” Ava slapped him with every ounce of her pent-up anger and grief and loss.
When arms grabbed her by the waist to pull her off him, she wrestled and kicked and fought. Her hands came up and clawed at the one behind her. She connected with Mr. Sanderson’s face. He dragged her away from Ned. Ava continued to scream at Ned, who lay still.
Officer Larson rolled Ned onto his stomach and straddled him, yanking Ned’s arms behind his back and cuffing him. Ned stared at Ava and kept mouthing “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” while she continued to scream and wrestle against Sanderson’s hold.
“I’m gonna kill him!” Ava shouted.
“Stop it, you little tiger.” Sanderson’s command wasn’t based in care or concern but out of sheer self-preservation as she raked her nails over his face.
“Ava!”
Noah’s voice split through her consciousness.
“Ava, stop!”
His hands reached for her face, palming her cheeks. Ava shook her head from side to side as furious, broken sobs shuddered through her. Her eyes locked with Noah’s as Sanderson continued to hold her back against him.
“He killed ’em,” Ava sobbed.
Noah nodded, not releasing his hands from her face. “I know. We know. We heard everything.”
“Widower—”
“They got him. He ran into me and the others from town as he tried to get away.”
Ava’s knees buckled. Sanderson lost his grip, but Noah caught her. There was an exchange of some sort between the men. Sanderson gave Noah a slap on his back, then left them alone. Ava clung to Noah’s shoulders as he drew her into him. A primal agony took over her, a wailing sob from deep within her soul as she saw the ruins of the Coons cabin, the ruins of her family, and the ruins of her life.
Wren
Wren scurried the short distance between herself and Jasmine. Her eyes were finally adjusting to the darkness. The little girl huddled in the far corner, her own foot chained by a similar contraption. A box of crackers, a bottle of water, and a blanket were beside her. She was filthy. Her dark hair hung in matted strands about her face, and her thick dark lashes were wet with tears.
“Oh, sweetie . . .” Wren reached her and, without thinking, planted a kiss on the little girl’s forehead. “Jasmine, it’s okay. You’re okay.”
Jasmine buried herself against Wren. “I’m scared.”
“Yes, I know, I know.” Wren stroked Jasmine’s hair as best as she could with her hands bound together. She pulled back to look down into the child’s face. “I know your mama and your daddy.”
“Papi?” Jasmine’s chin quivered and dimpled. “I need my papi.”
“I know, sweetie. We’ll find him. We’ll figure this out.”
Wren couldn’t fathom what Pippin had done. Or why. So his story about her own abduction made sense—well, it at least followed a logical progression—but Jasmine? What did Pippin want with harboring a little girl in a deer blind deep in the wilderness?
“Have you been here a long time?” Wren checked Jasmine’s face and hands for wounds.
Jasmine nodded. “First, I was in a dark hole in some old burned-up place by a lake.”
Wren jerked her head up from inspecting a scabbing-over cut on Jasmine’s bare arm. “You were in the cellar of the Coons cabin?”
Jasmine shrugged. “It was dark. There were old things down there and spiders. That man used to come down, and he’d read me stories, but I just wanted to go home. He found a doll, and he told me all about his sister when she was little and how she made his mommy happy. That when his sister came, his mommy didn’t cry anymore. He wrote her name on the doll’s foot ’cause he said it’s hard to remember if you can’t see it now and then.”
“Arwen. Yes,” Wren nodded. “That’s me.”
“You’re Arwen?” Jasmine’s eyes welled with tears.
Wren wiped them away with her thumbs. “Yes, sweetie. That’s me.” Pippin had used the Coons cabin for his lair! It sickened Wren. She squeezed her eyes shut against the questions, then opened them and had to ask, “Did he hurt you?”
Jasmine shook her head. “No. Not really. I cut myself in the woods and got blood on my sweatshirt. He was mad when he realized I’d taken it off and dropped it somewhere. But it was an accident. He told me it’d be okay. He told me his mother was sad a lot, and then . . . she went to heaven. But that he got sad like she did now. He needed me to help make him happy again. When his mom died, there was another little girl—he said she was going to make him happy like you’d made his mom happy, only she did something so he said he had to leave her behind in the woods. And that she went to sleep and didn’t wake up.”
“Trina . . .” Wren breathed. It had to be. Mom dying must have triggered something in Pippin. Instead of showing his depression and regression, he’d secluded himself. Developed a persona that fit the thirty-something adult who lived at home with his remaining parent. He was odd because—he was a nerd. But his hours of aloneness, secreting himself away in the basement . . . he must have the same mental illness—undiagnosed—that Mom had! His response was to attempt what had helped Mom. A child, a companion. Trina had failed. He’d waited ten more years? What had triggered him to act now, and with Jasmine?
Wren shook her head. “But why you?” she muttered, more to herself than to the girl.
“What?” Jasmine asked.
“Nothing.” Wren smoothed the hair back from Jasmine’s face. “He didn’t hurt you? Touch you?” She had to check to be sure.
“No, he just told me stories. Brought me food. Sometimes he talked as though his mama were here with us, but I never saw her. He’d just talk to the air. Say things like ‘See, Mama? Isn’t she what you dreamed of?’ Maybe she talked back? I didn’t hear her or anything, but he’d get a big smile on his face.” Jasmine pulled away and felt around until she found what she was looking for. She lifted another doll, this one a current doll with long blond hair and blue eyes. “He brought me a doll. To replace the one from the hole in the ground.”
Wren sagged onto her heels. She fiddled with the tie at her foot, the chain. There had to be a way out of here. “Okay, Jasmine. Here’s what we’re going to do, all right? I’m going to see if I can find a way out of here.”
Jasmine shook her head. “There isn’t one.”
“There is, sweetie,” Wren assured her. There had to be.
46
Ava
Huddling on the sofa in the front room of the parsonage, Ava looked from person to person. Three of them sat across from her. Four, if she included Noah, who sat beside her.
Councilman Pitford swiped his derby from his head. Cleared his throat nervously. “We’d like to offer apologies from the town of Tempter’s Creek. Things got out of sorts, what with Mr. Hubbard’s death, and then Jipsy. It was uncouth to let the town run rampant with rumor and unfounded accusations.”
Ava’s gaze trailed to the next man, who also swiped his hat from his head. Mr. Sanderson. His expression was far less humble but not unkind. He ran his finger under his nose, over his mustache and beard, and gave a curt nod. “Sanderson Lumber would like to assist the town in making amends to you by rebuilding your cabin on the lake.”
That was unexpected. Ava shot a glance at Noah. He was staring down at his hands. She turned back, feeling the soreness in her throat after yesterday’s events. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t owe us anything,” Officer Larson interjected. “We’re just thankful you weren’t hurt worse in the process.”
Ava rubbed her throat. The town representatives were groveling at her feet now. She’d feel better if’n they just left. Left her alone.
“Don’t rebuild nothin’,” she finally said.
Sanderson’s brows flew up to meet his hairline.
“I don’t want to live there.” Live in the shadows of such violent memories? No. No, thank you. Her entire world here at Tempter’s Creek was splintered beyond recognition.
She sensed Noah shift on the sofa.
“Reverend Pritchard”—Sanderson’s tone became graver—“we would like a word with you.”
“I understand,” Noah nodded.
Ava studied him for a moment. He looked beaten. Haggard. He’d also sacrificed for her, in a way no one ever had before. She straightened and leveled a defensive stare at Mr. Sanderson. “What you got to say to him, you can say in front of me.”
Mr. Sanderson cocked his head to the right, giving her a skeptical look. “Miss Coons—”
“She can stay,” Noah interrupted.
Officer Larson exchanged glances with the councilman. Sanderson seemed unaffected in his self-assured way. He agreed with a slight shrug.
“Well,” Sanderson continued, “there is the issue of your living situation. Hardly conducive to the lifestyle of a man of the cloth. You were advised it likely would become an issue, and you saw fit to disregard it. We simply cannot—”
Ava swept to her feet, thankful to be garbed back in her old familiar overalls. “Now you just wait a second.”
Sanderson held up a hand. “Miss Coons—”
“Don’t be ‘Miss Coons-in’ me,” she shot back, shaking her head. “Seems to me it’s all your fault—yours and the town’s—that Preacher Pritchard is in this position. He was the only one who wanted to help me out, and the only one who believed me when I said I was innocent. Now here tell you’re goin’ to punish him for doin’ what the good Lord asks? To love thy neighbor?” Ava tilted her chin up. “Uh-huh. I know me some Scripture and”—she thumbed over her shoulder toward the picture of Jesus—“I know He wouldn’t see this as somethin’ to punish. Preacher Pritchard done nothin’ wrong. We done nothin’ wrong, and you know what else?”
Officer Larson choked. “What?”
“Ava . . .” Noah put a hand on her arm from where he sat on the couch. She shook it off.
“What else is, there’s a lot of lost people in this here town. I’ve been one of the most lost. Don’t pretend that any of you really care about me. You just want to take care of a problem and make yourselves feel better now’n you got Widower Frisk and Ned behind bars. But I’ve spent most of my life here, and Noah was the first person to give somethin’ of himself for me that would hurt him by givin’ it. His reputation. But he gave it to—to show that what he preaches ain’t nothin’ but the truth. I’d say if’n you want anyone watchin’ over your church, it’d be a man like Noah Pritchard.” Ava colored. “Like Mr. . . . uh, Reverend Pritchard.”
