In the Arms of Stone Angels

chapter one


Charlotte, North Carolina

Two nights before Mom kidnapped me and screwed up my summer, she told me I was going with her. I didn’t want to go back to Oklahoma, but she said I was too young to stay home alone. The real truth was that she didn’t trust me. I’d given her plenty of reasons to feel that way. And I had the razor scars to prove it. After she told me, I screamed into her face until I shook all over.

“You never listen. When are you gonna stop blaming me for what happened?” I wanted to throw something. Anything! Instead I turned my back on her and headed for my room.

“You come back here, Brenna. We’re not done.” My mom yelled after me, but I knew she wouldn’t follow.

Not this time.

My heart was pounding and my face felt swollen and hot. I had been out of control and couldn’t stop my rage. And when I got in my mother’s face, I had seen myself yelling like I was outside my body. From behind my eyes—in the heat of the moment—I usually don’t remember much. But this time I was outside looking down. And I saw my mom’s disappointment.

I knew she was afraid of me—and for me. And I still couldn’t stop.

I’m a freak. I’m toxic. I don’t know how to change and I’m not sure I want to. When I got to my room, I slammed my door so hard that a framed photo of my dead grandmother fell off a wall in the hallway. The glass shattered into a million pieces.

I didn’t clean it up.

I wouldn’t.

In my bathroom, I puked until I had nothing left but dry heaves. Whenever I felt like everything was out of control—that my life wasn’t my own—that’s when I usually hurled. I knew getting sick wasn’t normal, but I didn’t care. I refused to let Mom in on my little self-inflicted wound. I didn’t want the attention.

When I went to bed that night, I wanted to be alone, but I felt my mom in the house. Hiding in the dark of my bedroom wasn’t enough. And when the tears came, I couldn’t stand being inside anymore. I slipped out my window in my boxers and tank top, like I usually do, and ran into the open field behind my house toward the old cemetery.

I didn’t make it to the stone angels.

I ran, screaming, until my throat hurt. I knew no one would come and no one could hear me, but I wasn’t sure anyone would care if I kept running. When I finally dropped to my knees, I collapsed onto my back and stared up into the stars. My chest was heaving and sweat poured off my body, making the cuts on my bare legs sting. Brambles and weeds had torn up my skin, but the pain wasn’t enough.

It was never enough.

My mom had given me no choice. In two days, we’d drive back to Shawano, a town in Oklahoma that I couldn’t leave fast enough when I was fourteen.

Just thinking about going back—even after two years—made me sick. I couldn’t catch my breath, no matter how hard I tried. I was dizzy and my chest hurt real bad. And when I thought I would die, I was surprised at how hard I fought to breathe. I had to think about something else, to stop from getting sick again.

That’s when my thoughts turned to White Bird and I pictured his face the way I remembered him from before. Seeing him in my mind calmed me even though being involved with him back then had gotten me into trouble. People in Shawano already saw both of us as losers. And my turning him in to Sheriff Logan didn’t change that.

In fact, it made things worse. The sheriff connected the dots and interrogated me as an accomplice. He just didn’t understand how wrong he was.

Reporting the murder had torn me apart. I couldn’t believe White Bird, a boy I trusted with everything that I was, could do such a thing. Seeing him that day made me question everything I believed about him. And I’d never seen a dead body before. The sight had terrified me. I had to tell what I saw. I couldn’t just walk away and pretend it didn’t happen. But in the seconds it took me to call 911—trying to do the right thing—my life would change forever. And there was no way for me to know how bad it would get.

After the sheriff cleared me, I was released and never charged, but that didn’t mean I was innocent in the eyes of everyone in town. And it didn’t mean my mom wouldn’t feel the pain of guilt by association. Her real estate business dried up and I knew she blamed me.

I never liked that boy. Now look what you’ve done.

I heard her words over and over in my head. And I can still see the look in my grandmother’s eyes the day we left Oklahoma and moved to North Carolina. I talked to my grandmother on the phone plenty, but I heard it in her voice. Even Grams had lost faith and she died not believing in me. Not even the stone angels gave me comfort the day she left this world behind. And when I didn’t go to her funeral—because I believed Grams wouldn’t want me there—I think my mother was relieved.

Now my mom had to settle my grandmother’s estate and get her old house ready to sell. At least that’s what she gave me as the reason we had to drive back. I’m not sure I believed her. I was more convinced that she wanted to torture me for what I had done to her life, too.

Lying on my back in the field, I stared into the universe and its gazillion winks of light and made a pact that I would never lie to the stars or make promises I wouldn’t keep. Whatever I promised under the night sky should be honest and true because stars were ancient beings that watched over the planet. They wouldn’t judge me. Every star was a soul who had died and broken free after they’d learned the lesson they had been born to master.

Me? I was in remedial class. I had more than a lifetime to go. Plus I had a feeling some Supreme Being had me in detention, too. So, speaking the truth, I had to admit that a part of me wanted to go back and see what had happened to White Bird.

But a darker, scarier part wished I’d been the one he had killed under that bridge. And that was the honest to God truth.

Three Days Later on I-40—Morning

“You hungry? There’s a truck stop ahead. We can get some breakfast.”

My mother’s voice jarred me. On day two of our trip, I’d been staring out the car window watching nothing but fence posts, scrub brush and billboards fade into early-morning oblivion. Not even my fascination with friggin’ roadkill had brought me out of my waking coma. And I hadn’t spoken much to Mom since she’d told me about this road trip to hell.

“Whatever.” I mumbled so she’d have to ask me what I’d said.

She never did.

Mom filled up the tank of our Subaru and pulled in front of a small truck stop café. Inside, the place smelled like cigarette smoke and old grease. And as I expected, everyone stared at me. I was used to it. I wasn’t your average Abercrombie girl. I didn’t wear advertising brand names on my body.

It was a life choice. A religion.

I got my clothes from Dumpster diving and Goodwill, anything I could stitch together that would make my own statement. Today I wore a torn jean jacket over a sundress with leggings that I’d cut holes into. And I had a plaid scarf draped around my neck with a cap pulled down on my head. My “screw you” toes were socked away in unlaced army boots. And I hid behind a huge pair of dark aviator sunglasses, a signature accessory and only one in a weird collection I carried with me. I liked the anonymity of me seeing out when no one saw in.

The overall impact was that I looked like an aspiring bag lady. A girl’s got to have goals.

In short, I didn’t give a shit about fitting in with the masses and it showed. I’d given up the idea of fitting in long ago. The herd mentality wasn’t for me. And since I made things up as I went, people staring came with the territory. Mom picked a spot by a window and I shuffled my boots behind her and slid into the booth.

I grabbed a menu on the table and pretended to look at it while I played with my split ends.

“Do you have to do that here?”

“Do what?”

Neither one of us expected an answer.

I seriously hated my hair. It was long, thin and stringy, like me. A washed-out blond color that bordered on red. In the frickin’ sun I looked like my damned head was on fire.

“You ready to order?” The waitress didn’t even pretend to smile.

I asked for nachos with chili and my mom ordered a salad and coffee. Neither of us had a firm grasp of the term breakfast. It was one of the few things we had in common. While we waited for our food, Mom opened a valve to her stream of consciousness. Guess the quiet drive made her feel entitled to cut loose. And her talkative mood didn’t change after we got our order. She jumped from one topic to another with her one-sided conversation, spewing words into the void like people do on Twitter.

Me? I scribbled in a spiral notebook while she talked. I always had a notepad stuffed in my knapsack and a collection of old notes piled in my closet back in North Carolina. Whenever I got an idea for clothes I wanted to make or a line of poetry or a lyric that got stuck in my head and wouldn’t come out until I wrote it down, that’s what usually went on paper. All I was working on now was a layered hoodie skirt thingee that was beginning to look an awful lot like a Snuggie. It looked like crap, but I probably wasn’t drawing it right. Maybe Dana would wear it.

My only real friend in NC was Dana Biggers, who’d been texting me. She was okay, tolerable even. I hadn’t written her back. She was asking too many questions about my trip and I didn’t want to explain it, thinking I might tell her too much. I’d worked hard at keeping my old life in Oklahoma a mystery. I had wanted to reinvent myself and start over. Texting her back might ruin that, so I didn’t. She’d get over it.

Dana was Wiccan and she practiced magic 24/7. Because of her, I got a B-in biology this term. It was the only class we shared, so I figured she had the goods if she could deliver one shining moment in a lifetime of my underachievement. We both needed extra credit, so after we dissected our frog, we took the teacher’s challenge and removed the brain whole. I used a blade, but Dana got her Wiccan mojo on and chanted her part. The frog’s brain squished out in one piece. The teacher shook his head, but gave us the credit anyway.

Dana swears that I was a witch in another life. Who am I to argue with that? I know she’s full of shit, but she lets me make clothes for her and she doesn’t laugh when I read her my old poems. Like I said, she was okay. Kind of cool, actually.

Since I’d left Oklahoma, I hadn’t written anything. I missed it, but I had a hole in me that I couldn’t fill with poetry or music or making clothes. And unlike Mom and what she was doing now, words didn’t come easy for me, not after what had happened two years ago.

Although I couldn’t be certain, I figured Mom’s talking was her way of making an effort to bond. And I had to give her props for timing. I was captive in a moving vehicle for two days. And if she didn’t give me a brain bleed from the ritual, she had a pretty good shot at nabbing my attention once in a while. Picking at my nachos, I’d only heard every six and a half words as I scribbled until she finally got my full attention.

“You know…I heard that boy is still locked away in a mental hospital outside Shawano.” Mom kept her face down and shoveled her fork like she was being timed. And her talking about White Bird, and referring to him as “that boy,” had forced me to listen, especially when she said, “They say he never came out of it.”

I stopped scribbling. Cold.

Parents always had “they” to back them up. And “they” were always right. Kids had squat. It was hard to compete with “they.” I wanted to roll my eyes because I knew that would piss her off, but I got to thinking about White Bird and what “still” meant.

“Still? You mean he’s been there since…” I couldn’t finish. All this time, after I had moved away and taken my miserable butt to North Carolina, White Bird had been locked away. Knowing that twisted my gut into a knot. I felt worse than I ever did before.

And that was saying something.

“Yes. That’s why you were never asked to testify. His case never went to trial because of his…condition,” Mom explained.

I had been so wrapped in my own misery that I had missed the obvious. Mom was right. And I’d never asked about going to court, to say what had happened. I should have known. I should have thought about what that meant for him, but I never did.

“Why didn’t you…” Tell me! Tell me! Tell me! I wanted to scream, but instead I turned to look out at the parking lot and said, “Never mind.”

All I wanted to do was lash out at Mom and blame her for my frustration. I knew it wasn’t fair, but I also knew she’d let me get away with it.

White Bird had never gotten his day in court. Where had he gone? Was he still inside his head, unable to find his way out of a dark maze? Or had he clicked off like a light switch, never to return? What had happened that night to cause such trauma?

“He never says anything. That boy just sits and stares at nothing.” Mom looked up from her salad, making sure I got the point. “Maybe next time you’ll listen to me when I tell you some kid isn’t right in the head.”

Mom always knew how to throw cold water on me. Plus her timing sucked. And although she didn’t come right out and say it, her eyes were filled with the message “I told you so.” I resented her smugness, her certainty that being an adult always made her right, but I didn’t have much going for my side of the argument. With White Bird branded as a crazed lunatic, that was one point for Mom.

Zip for me.

“I’m not afraid of him,” I said as I chewed my thumbnail and stared out the window into the bright sunlight from behind my shades. If it were dark and the stars were out, I’d never let me get away with lying.

“Well, you should be, young lady.”

White Bird had given me plenty of reason to be afraid. And what had happened two years ago would always be with me. I still had trouble sleeping through the night. In many of my dreams, I was the one he stabbed. I watched him do it, over and over. And each time I felt the pain like it was real. I tried to get away, but I couldn’t move. Everything slowed to a crawl like I was sinking into quicksand and heavy mud oozed down my throat so I couldn’t scream.

I’d never told my mom about my nightmares. I had screwed up so much already, guess I never wanted her to know that I couldn’t handle it. And since I was sneaking out of the house at night, she never heard me cry in my sleep. But every time I had those bad dreams, I thought about White Bird and how we first met.

It calmed me to remember a time when things were simpler, but inside I ached with regret for not being a better friend to him.



It was hard for me to imagine being thirteen after everything that had happened, but that was how old I was when I’d first met White Bird three years ago. I used to spend hours away from home, mostly walking through old graveyards and reading headstones or playing along the creek that backed up to our house in Shawano. I only tolerated Facebook and wasn’t into the latest video on YouTube or chatting up virtual strangers. I loved being outdoors, even though most kids made fun of me. To them I was a skinny weird geek who hung out with dead people.

The town kids laughed at me. And I pretended not to care.

One afternoon I found a bird with a broken wing by the creek. It was flopping on the ground near the water and chirping, struggling to get away from a calico cat that was stalking it. The cat was flicking its tail and was ready to pounce. One second later and that bird would have been dead meat. And I would have witnessed a bent version of the circle of life, with me having a ringside seat to something I didn’t want to see.

“Git!” I yelled. “Leave it alone.”

I waved my hands to scare the cat away. It hissed at me and eyed the bird one more time before it took off into the bushes. I was left with a hurt bird and had to catch it to bring it home.

I bent over to scoop it in my hands—trying not to hurt it more than it already was—but the scared little thing thrashed around until I thought it would die. The bird was frantic and I was afraid it would keel over from shock. In that bird’s eyes, I was scarier than the cat and way bigger.

But a husky voice stopped me.

“Don’t chase it. Make it come to you.”

I turned and let out a scream. I’m sure I looked like a lunatic, all wide-eyed and frightened like that panting little bird.

“Back off…or I’ll scream. And I’ll kick you in the nuts. I swear to God, I’ll do it.” I threatened him and tried to look as if I knew where his nuts were, with my heart pounding out of control.

“Thanks for the warning.” He grinned.

I had to remind myself to breathe. Sure I was still scared, but something about this boy tickled a feeling deep in my belly. My stomach was doing flip-flops like hitting the peak of the roller coaster and barreling down the track out of control. And I wanted to hold on to the feeling, but I made the mistake of glancing down.

I was trapped inside the body of a thirteen-year-old girl dressed in neon blue shorts with matching shoes and a floral top that looked like I’d barfed bright yellow daisies down my flat chest. And to make things worse, I smelled like creek water and I had deliberately wiped my muddy hands all over my lame outfit—the only retaliation I had against my mother’s taste. At the time I thought coming home caked in mud would be funny, but at that very moment…not so much.

The boy at the creek wasn’t much older than I was, but his low voice made him sound mature. He wore his straight dark hair long to his shoulders and his appearance made him stand out from anyone else I knew. Most of the boys at my school had a burr cut that looked like they wore a bowl on their heads.

He had on worn jeans cinched with a woven leather belt that was beaded, something handmade. And he had on an unusual shirt—nothing off the rack—a gray-and-white print shirt with pale blue ribbons sewn into a crisscross pattern over his chest. Strands of satin hung down, blowing in the faint breeze. I’d seen a Native American Ribbon shirt before, but not close up. The shirt matched the bead colors threaded into his leather moccasins.

And the boy’s skin was dark as if he spent time in the sun. I liked that. My skin was tanned, too. He also moved with a confidence that I hadn’t seen before. Boys my age roughhoused too much, but this boy wasn’t afraid to be gentle. And when he kept his distance, I knew it was because he was waiting for me to get used to him being there.

“I won’t hurt you.” His voice was calm.

That was the first time I had seen White Bird. I found out later that he liked coming to the creek, too.

“Will you let me help?” he asked. After I nodded, he said, “Then back away and give me room.”

I did as he told me. And when I was far enough away, I watched him ease near the injured bird. He had such patience and even though his hands were bigger, they weren’t as clumsy as mine. He spoke to it in a language I didn’t understand with his voice low. It was comforting, even to me. The bird didn’t move. It stayed put—mesmerized like me—and cocked its head toward him. Eventually that little bird came to him and I’d never seen anything like it. He cradled it in his hands with such gentleness.

“You want to see it?” he said quietly.

Seeing the way he was with that small creature, I knew I didn’t need to be afraid of this boy. I nodded and stepped closer to take a peek. The hurt bird had nuzzled into his hand. It was too weak to move, but it trusted him enough to close its eyes and rest.

“I’ll fix its wing. You want to help?”

I grinned and nodded. A little voice in my head—mostly Mom’s voice—warned me against going with him. I’d heard how perverts lured kids with missing kitties and puppies. But when I looked into this boy’s eyes, I was like that bird with a busted wing and I knew he’d never hurt me.

“Hi. My name’s Brenna. What’s yours?” I whispered and looked up at him. He was taller than the boys I knew at school.

“In town, they call me Isaac Henry, but my Euchee name is White Bird.”

“Which do you like better?”

“No one’s ever asked me that.” When he smiled, I did, too.

At that moment, I remember hoping he’d be my friend—a real friend. But if I had known then what I did now, I never would have let him near me. I would have run and not looked back.

For his sake.



“You didn’t eat your nachos.” Mom’s voice jerked me from my daydream. Harsh, real harsh. I was back at that lousy truck stop and sucked into my life, having faux breakfast with my mother.

“What?”

“I said, you didn’t eat much.” Mom looked at me like she knew I’d been somewhere else. And she was on the verge of asking me about it, but she must have changed her mind. She scarfed cold nachos off my plate instead. “We’ll be there before the sun goes down.”

Was that supposed to make me feel good? She gave her ETA like it was a good thing. I felt my jaw tense and I shoved the cold nachos away. Mom had a jacked-up way of commiserating. We were both heading to a place that would have burned us at the stake in another century. And all she could do was remind me that I had until nightfall before I became the human equivalent to a S’more.

Way to go, Mom!

Shawano, Oklahoma

We turned off the interstate at dusk and I had forgotten how intense the sunsets could be here. The sun was a molten orange ball on the horizon. Even behind my sunglasses, the light made me squint and I had to raise a hand to block the glare below my visor.

Mom hadn’t said much in the past hour. Either my nerves were contagious or she was dealing with her own demons. I wished her silence meant she understood, but I didn’t ask. She could have been quiet because she was tired. And if I had made a big deal about her mood, she would have blown me off and refused to let me in. I was only a kid in her eyes.

“Let’s stop at the grocery store. We’ll need a few things before we head to Grams’s,” Mom said as she turned onto the main drag of Shawano.

It surprised me that she still referred to the house as belonging to my grandmother as if she was still alive and would be waiting for us to arrive. That made me ache inside and I missed my phone calls to Grams, but when I didn’t say anything, Mom raised her voice.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I’m right here, duh.” I rolled my eyes and grimaced out of pure reflex. I could have spared Mom the attitude after she’d driven all day, but attitude was all I had left.

The town was how I remembered it, only way smaller. Most places on Main Street looked dirty and bleached by the sun. And graffiti was the new black. Any fond memories I had were tainted by the ugliness of why I left. I had no real purpose for coming back—except to deal with my past.

I guess Mom had her reason and I had mine. And maybe we both had something to prove.

We stopped at Homeland on the way into town to pick up groceries. The few things I wanted, I tossed them in our cart and I let Mom do the rest while I headed back toward the entrance. I had seen a pay phone at the front. And where there was a pay phone, there’d be a phone book. Yes, an ancient phone book, complete with Yellow Pages.

Mom had bought me a basic phone without the bells and whistles most kids had. Guess that was another way she punished me, so I resorted to desperate measures. When I found what I wanted, I looked over my shoulder and waited until I knew I wouldn’t be caught tearing a sheet out of the damned phone book. I folded the paper and slipped it into a pocket of my jean jacket.

I couldn’t stay the whole night at Grams’s, not when it was my first night here. I had too many things on my mind. And sleep had become a waste of time.

“Honey? You ready to go?” Mom’s voice made me jump. “What were you doing?”

I turned and kept everything off my face as I helped her with the groceries.

“Nothing. I was flipping through the phone book, looking for a few friends.”

“Did you find anyone you know?”

I had to give Mom credit for effort. She knew I didn’t have many friends two years ago—and certainly none who had stuck by me through the worst of it—but she’d given me the benefit of the doubt. Or maybe it made her feel like a better mother if she thought she hadn’t raised such a complete loser.

All I said was, “No.”



In his open garage under a dim light, Derek Bast sat on his weight bench working on biceps curls when his cell phone signaled he had a text message. It was the third one he had ignored. He took his workout seriously and jumping up every time he got a call or message wasn’t something he did during the off-season. His grades were only marginal. And the only way he’d get a college education was through football.

“Dude. Spot me, will ya?” His buddy Justin was setting up for the bench press and needed him to stand behind him, ready to help if he got into trouble with the larger weight.

But when another text message came within seconds of the last one, curiosity got the better of him. He hoisted up his sweatpants when he stood and wiped the sweat off his face and arms with a towel before he went looking for his phone.

“Hold on. I gotta check this.” Derek glanced down at his cell to see what all the fuss was about.

911 brenna nash was at homeland tonight

why is she back???????

meet me at usual place…NOW!!!!!!



Derek grimaced and clenched his jaw when he saw the messages.

“You gotta go, Justin. Go on, beat it.”

“What? I was just…”

“I said beat it, shithead!” He glared and threw his sweaty towel at the guy’s face. “I got things to do.”

Justin backed down and didn’t argue. He wouldn’t dare. He put his damned tail between his legs—like a whipped dog—and headed out without saying another word. Derek knew he had a reputation for losing his temper and it worked to his advantage. He got off on knowing people called him “Alpha Dawg” for a reason.

After Justin took off, Derek shut the garage door and headed for his bedroom to shower and change. If Brenna Nash was back in town, that bitch had the potential of screwing with his life.

And he couldn’t let that happen.



By the time Mom and I got to Grams’s it was almost too dark to see, but the old Victorian home was easy to spot at the end of the street. It was the biggest house on the block and not quite how I remembered it. In the past few years, Grams had let the place go. The yard and flower beds were overgrown with weeds and the house needed painting. Brick steps that led to the front door needed repair, the wraparound porch railing could use paint and the bay windows and gabled roof looked scary at night without lights on. The place was real creepy and reminded me of a slasher movie.

Very cool. I could totally shoot a video here. But I had a bad feeling the inside would need work if Mom expected to sell it.

“Wait by the car till I get in and turn on the lights.” Mom had parked in the driveway and was fumbling through her purse for house keys as I got out. “No telling what it’s gonna look like in there.”

“Come on, Mom. What if it’s gross? There could be—”

She didn’t let me finish.

“If it’s bad, we’ll find a motel until we can do a little cleaning.” She pretended to be cheery. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“In North Carolina. I forgot to pack it.” I crossed my arms and slumped against the car.

“Stay put. I’ll need your help with the groceries if we stay tonight,” Mom yelled over her shoulder as she headed toward the front door.

I heaved a sigh and stared up at the old Victorian after my mom left me alone on the driveway. I wasn’t afraid of the dark since cemeteries were my thing, but living in small town suburbia scared the crap out of me.

Hours Later—Near Midnight

After we ate and made up our beds—at least good enough for one night—I lay in the dark listening to the creaks and groans of the old house. And I swear to God that I heard my grandmother’s footsteps walk down the hall and stop by my door. That would have disturbed most people, but feeling Grams in the house gave me comfort. It felt natural and I welcomed her spirit.

And I would have done anything to feel her brush the hair out of my eyes or tell me a story about when she was young. In the dark, I heard her laugh again and could picture her rocking like a big bowl of gelatin. Green, my favorite flavor and the color of Grams’s eyes. In my memory and in my heart, she was alive.

But I knew I’d never see her again. She was a star in the night sky. I was sure of it.

When the house was quiet enough, I knew Mom was asleep. I crept out of my room and slipped outside. I hadn’t changed my clothes, except to ditch the scarf and sunglasses and trade my old army boots for vintage Keds high-top sneakers. And I brought my trusty cell phone, like I usually did, just in case I got into trouble. Walking in the dark and breathing in the warm muggy air felt liberating compared to the old house. I picked up my pace until I was running through the streets of Shawano, heading to a place I knew well.

Pioneer Cemetery on Fifteenth Street. It didn’t take me long to get there.

A wrought-iron gate marked the main entrance with the name of the cemetery on a sign overhead. And the barrier around the grounds was made of a dark mottled stone that looked like it was bleeding rust down the mortar. I wedged my foot into the stone, hoisted my leg over the wall and dropped on the other side.

The cemetery hadn’t changed much.

I loved really old cemeteries, not the new kind that had no soul. Really old graveyards were like outdoor museums. And after getting familiar with where everyone was buried, a cemetery became familiar and comforting to me. And the headstones were like…family. I would read the names and wonder who they’d been or how they died. Or I made up stories about them. Being at the Pioneer Cemetery again was like coming home.

With a small flashlight that I’d taken from Mom’s car, I shined a light onto the headstones in a newer section of the grounds, looking for a name. When I found it, I took a deep breath and knelt beside the grave.

I ran my fingers over the name on the marker and remembered her face, but when I tried to imagine her alive, I couldn’t do it.

“I’m…sorry,” I whispered. I didn’t know what else to say.

I took out the page I had ripped from the phone book at Homeland and shined the light on it. The only mental hospital near Shawano was on the outskirts of town. And tomorrow I would find a way to go there. I wanted to see if what Mom had told me was true, that White Bird was in that hospital and sitting like a dead stump with vacant eyes.

I prayed my mother was wrong.

In my mind, I wished to God that I could see him again at that creek with the little bird in his hand, that tall boy barely older than me. And I tried to picture his gentle smile and soft brown eyes, but the image of him under the bridge at Cry Baby Creek—rocking back and forth and mumbling in his Euchee language—was burned into my brain.

To imagine his world frozen in that moment scared the hell out of me, but then again, I wasn’t much better off than he was. My life had stopped that day, same as his. I couldn’t move forward and I couldn’t go back. I had to know why he did it. That was the reason I had to come to the cemetery tonight, to connect with someone else who had been there.

I curled up on the grave of Heather Madsen—the dead girl White Bird had killed.

Heather and I had our differences in the past when we were freshmen in high school, but no one deserved to be killed the way she was. Her dead body…all that dark oozing blood…and her filmy white eyes flashed in my head as I knelt on her grave. I couldn’t shake the grotesque visions I had of her and I didn’t deserve to be let off that hook. Imagining her in the ground now made my stomach hurt.

Guilt and regret had forced me to come here. I had no choice.

I put my ear to the ground and listened to the sounds of the cemetery in the dark. I heard the crickets in the grass and the breeze through the pine trees as I stared up at the stone angel on the next grave. Heather didn’t have her own guardian angel, but she was in good company. She had one close by.

And in the bluish haze of the moonlight, I saw that the angel’s nose was chipped and dark streaks lined her face like tears. But the angel’s eyes looked so real, I could imagine them opening and seeing me. And her spread arms and faint smile made me feel safe as the graveyard stillness closed in.

Until the night air sent me a message that I wasn’t alone.

A wave of electricity swept over me, causing the hair on my arms and the back of my neck to stand on end. And static pops swirled around and through me. I knew what it meant and I turned, peering through the dark.

A door had opened to the other side. I’d felt it before.

And a gust of cold blew through my hair and made me squint. Movement near the stone angel grabbed my attention. Fingers crept out from behind the angel’s shoulder—a slow and deliberate move like the silent stealth of a tarantula—and a small hand slid down the stone arm.

Sometimes the dead had a weird sense of what was funny.

Heather Madsen peered out from behind the statue—more timid and frail than I remembered her—and dressed in the clothes she had been buried in. Her mother’s choice. Heather wouldn’t have been caught dead in that dress. So I knew her coming had to be important. In life Heather had never smiled at me, but tonight she did for the first time. And it made her look sad.

The dead never speak. I don’t know why. So I didn’t expect that to change with Heather. For whatever reason the drop-dead gorgeous brunette with fierce green eyes had come, she’d let me know in her own sweet time. Without a word, I waved a hand to say “Hi” and stretched out on the grass over her grave.

I knew I wouldn’t sleep, but I hoped that Heather would rest easier knowing she wasn’t alone…even if she only had me.

Pioneer Cemetery

Heather wasn’t alone. And neither was I anymore.

While I was lying on her grave, I heard the crunch of grass behind me. Someone was coming and they were searching for something…or someone. What the hell? No matter how I figured it, this wasn’t good news for me. A beam from a flashlight swept over my head onto the branches of the pine trees. And when the light hit the chipped face of the stone angel, I looked for Heather, but she was gone.

The dead always knew when to leave. And I suddenly wished I had her exit strategy.

I stayed low and rolled onto my belly, looking back over my shoulder. The dark shadow of a man moved between the trees and through the old headstones. I held my breath and watched the beam move. It helped me track him.

I had to keep my cool. I couldn’t get caught on my first night back. Damn it!

When the light moved away from where I was hiding, I crawled toward the trees. And when it felt safe, I got to my feet and ran the other way. All I needed was a head start. If I could make it to the rock wall, I could use it for cover, but I ran from hiding too soon.

“Stop!” A man yelled. “Stop right there.”

The flashlight pointed at me and nailed my back in its light, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

“Shit!” I cursed under my breath.

Now the man was running after me, yelling something I couldn’t hear. As he closed in, I felt my heart pounding and my lungs were on fire. If only I could make the stone wall, I’d know where to hide, but the man’s footsteps grew louder.

And I knew I’d never make it.