The Winslow Incident

THE RHONE PLACE

Zachary Rhone never sat on the porch swing, yet here he was: swinging and whistling and feeling so happy. No—that wasn’t the right word. Joy. He felt full of joy. And why not? he mused as he looked over at his daughters. My darling baby girls.

Violet and Daisy sat on the steps clapping and slapping hands and singing, “Say say my playmate, come out and play with me, and bring your dollies three, climb up my apple tree . . .”

Even the cat seemed happy, Zachary noticed, lolling in a shady spot by the clothesline.

Melanie came out the screen door from the living room, where she’d been resting on the couch ever since they returned from the rodeo yesterday. “I still don’t feel well,” she said.

She has the bluest eyes, Zachary marveled. Blueberries. He leapt up and grabbed her around the waist, dancing her around the porch.

“Slide down my rain barrel (clap-slap) into my cellar door—”

Suddenly Violet groaned, “Ewwy yuck!”

Daisy was throwing up, while Violet backed away in disgust.

Zachary simply stared for a long moment. Then it struck him that this was quite hilarious. “That’s funny, right?” he asked Melanie, but she was already shuffling back into the house.

Once Violet and Daisy both began to cry, all of a sudden it wasn’t so funny anymore.

And Zachary wondered, Who’s going to clean up this mess?





SUNDAY EVENING

NOT A SOUL IN TOWN

Outside the Crock, up and down Fortune Way, and as far as Hazel could see into Prospect Park, there wasn’t a soul in town.

She gazed at The Winslow hunkered on the hill rising beyond the opposite side of the park. After she’d left Three Fools Creek and delivered a deliriously queasy Sean home to the hotel, Hazel had watched the last of the guests pack up their cars and head out, trying to beat nightfall for an easier time navigating Yellow Jacket Pass. Fully occupied before the rodeo, now entirely vacant, The Winslow would receive occasional guests over the rest of the summer and early fall, hopefully enough to keep the roof patched and taxes paid for another year. Then once the snow came and the pass required chains and hours of treacherous driving, they would close up the hotel until spring, save for the second floor quarters of her grandmother and the Adairs, and Samuel Adair could take to drinking in earnest.

She looked left over to Park Street.

Nobody.

With the rodeo over, she had expected the place to empty of all the tourists and carnies.

But where is everybody else? She raised her eyes to the blank sky. Usually townsfolk would be rehashing events: who made how much selling what, who got drunk and busted by her father for conduct unbecoming, and who took top prize or suffered worst injury at the rodeo.

Only now, downtown Winslow had become as much of a ghost town as Matherston.

She turned from the front window to face the dining room: nobody in here either. Maybe the stomach flu really was going around.

The interior of the Crock was early rustic, gingham style, and like all of the original structures on Fortune Way, had rough-hewn paneled walls, wide plank floors, and tall multi-pane windows.

“An embarrassment of Old West architecture,” Hazel once heard a tourist say.

An embarrassment, all right, she had thought.

Hazel jumped when a voice broke the silence directly behind her: “Are you still open?”

She turned to find James Bolinger towering in the doorway. Nearly six feet tall at only fifteen, he still hadn’t grown all the way into his hands and feet, like Jinx when he was a puppy. And he sported studded leather wristbands and a dyed black Mohawk. Despite his best efforts to look tough, James was still one of the gentlest spirits in Winslow.

“Hey, Hazel,” he said, and then smiled sheepishly, his eyes bright behind heavy kohl liner.

“Hey,” she said. For whatever reason (perhaps the time he happened upon her skinny-dipping in Ruby Creek), she was the love of the poor kid’s life, and she always tried her best not to encourage him.

“I need something to settle my stomach,” he said.

“What’s wrong? Do you have the stomach flu?”

“I don’t know. I feel pretty bad. And my parents locked me out of the house.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I have no idea.” He glanced down as if he were embarrassed that they had. “They’ve been acting like total freaks all day.”

“Who hasn’t?” Hazel said. “Here, sit. I’ll make you some toast.”

“Thanks.” He shuffled over on his clown feet and collapsed into the chair she had indicated. In the sunlight streaming through the window, she could see the green around his gills.

She hurried to the waitress station. After she popped a couple of slices of rye into the toaster, Rose Peabody careened out of the bathroom wearing the same pale shade of green as James.

Rose wiped her face with a bar towel. “This is the nastiest bout of food poisoning I’ve ever had.”

No wonder the place was deserted—not because of stomach flu, but food poisoning. Hazel was glad she hadn’t eaten whatever was causing it, and instantly realized that it couldn’t possibly be related to bad beef. Rose hadn’t eaten beef since they found that first mad cow in Canada several years back, but Hazel had eaten steak just two days ago and felt fine.

“Does Owen have it too?” Hazel asked.

Rose nodded once but then stopped as if the motion worsened her nausea. “He’s so sick he took to bed right after church this morning.”

“What do you think it’s from?”

“Don’t know . . . something at the rodeo? Didn’t come from my kitchen. I know that much.” Confusion washed over her face.

“What is it, Rose?”

“Did I eat one of Missy’s apples?”

“Missy? Missy who?”

Rose gazed at her a moment before placing two clammy hands on Hazel’s face. “You’re like a daughter to Owen and me.”

Uncomfortable with this sudden intensity, Hazel tried to pull away but Rose held fast.

“Like the daughter we never had. I hope you know that,” Rose said.

The toast popped up, startling them both, after which Rose rushed back to the bathroom.

Hazel’s heart fluttered as she buttered the toast. And when she took the plate into the dining room, James was gone, the chair pushed back in as if he’d never been there at all.

She looked down at the toast, picked up a slice and was about to take a bite when the sound coming from Rose in the bathroom spoiled her appetite. She returned to the waitress station to toss the toast and plate into a bus tray. As she did, she glimpsed Ben Mathers pushing into the Crock. She scurried deeper into the waitress station, wishing that if she hid there, he’d just go away.

No such luck. “I’ll take coffee!” he shouted from the dining room.

Hazel scoffed—only Ben Mathers would drink coffee during a heat wave. “I’ll have to brew some,” she grumbled. After she got a pot going, she dragged her feet into the dining room to where Patience’s grandfather sat at his usual table, looking anxious, as always.

“Do you want something to eat?” she asked, hoping he didn’t because Rose obviously wasn’t up for making anything. That would mean Hazel—the worst cook around, as her father would attest—would have to prepare his order, and Mathers complained even when the food was good.

“Two eggs. Over easy. Side of sausage.” His staccato manner suggested that she wasn’t worth the trouble of complete sentences.

Without spending any more of her own words on him, she left Mathers to stew in his impatience. In the kitchen, she fried up eggs, buried them in salt, and nuked some sausage, all the while curious about the old man’s blood pressure. Then she returned to the dining room and set the plate in front of him with a clatter. “Enjoy,” she said in her best monotone.

His bushy gray eyebrows shot together at the bridge of his beakish nose. “Any day now, Miss Winslow.”

“Any day now what?” she asked, her hackles raised by his threatening tone.

“Coffee,” he chided. “Remember?”

Grudgingly, she fetched the pot of freshly brewed coffee and returned to his table. When she went to fill his cup, he grabbed her by the left wrist. “Is that hot?” he asked.

“Yes.” She shook him off and poured coffee to the very brim; he’d never get the cup to his lips without spilling. That was the wrong wrist for him—or anybody else—to grab, ever again, and her blood began to boil even hotter than the coffee.

“And I don’t want to see you with my granddaughter anymore.” Mathers poked at the eggs with his fork. “How many times must I repeat myself?”

“Don’t waste your breath,” she said. He needn’t bother repeating himself, though he seemed to enjoy doing so. Once was more than enough.

You Winslows are treacherous, he had told her five years ago, right after his wife Lottie died, when Hazel was just a terrified girl shaking on his doorstep, who only missed her best friend and wanted to help her through the grief of losing her grandmother. But he’d refused to allow Hazel to see Patience, yelling, Stay away from us, you devious girl!

Now Hazel marveled at Mathers’ ability to carry such a heavy grudge, for so long, without so much as stooping beneath its weight. She was tempted to ask him how he managed when she heard someone coming up behind her.

“Rose,” Mathers said, looking past Hazel. “You need to teach your employee some manners.”

“That is it, Benjamin Mathers!” Rose said in her best I’m-not-messing-around-here voice. “You’re the one who needs to learn some manners. You, sir, are eighty-sixed.” She pointed to the door. “Out!”

After the old man groused his way outside, Rose closed up. What was the point? James and Mathers aside, they’d had no customers in over two hours and Rose’s condition was only worsening.

When Hazel left the Crock it wasn’t dark yet, making the empty sidewalk along Fortune Way all the more eerie. She noticed that nobody was in the Buckhorn Tavern either except the bartender, Marlene Spainhower, who sat on a stool behind the bar watching baseball on the TV that hung in the corner. And Clemshaw Mercantile was shuttered up tight. Unusual also since Tiny Clemshaw squeezed every dime possible out of the day before closing up—never before nine o’clock in the summer.

Rounding the corner, Hazel suddenly wondered, Where’s Jinx? She hadn’t seen him since that morning at The Winslow. It wasn’t like the dog to make himself so scarce. She truly hoped he didn’t have food poisoning too, courtesy of all the people food she allowed him to snack on.

Things weren’t any livelier when she turned onto Park Street. She passed Ben Mathers’ mansion first and could see no activity there. Then she went past the Holloway and Foster homes. Nobody lived in those anymore. That was the way it would be for Winslow . . . a slow lingering death as the town emptied out one house at a time.

Upon reaching her own house at the corner of Park and Ruby Road she considered continuing to The Winslow to check on Sean. But then she noticed her dad heading down their front porch steps.

“What’s up, Dad?” she asked, surprised when he got closer to see how sweaty he was. And the way his hand trembled when he put on his hat disturbed her.

“Melanie Rhone reported a wolf lurking about their property. Angling for their cat Boo, I suspect, but she’s worried about her girls,” his voice sounded forced.

Like his throat hurts, she thought. And his deep blue eyes were bloodshot. “Dad, are you okay?” She placed her sore palm on his forearm, which felt cold. So why was he sweating like that?

“I’m fine,” he said. “Go on in.” Then he added, “Stay out of trouble. And lock the door.”

“Why?” They never locked their doors.

“Just do it, sweetheart.” He started away from her, down the stepping stones.

“But you don’t have your gun!” Inexplicable panic struck her. He looked vulnerable, and she was suddenly overcome with worry. “Don’t go, Dad.”

“Everything’s fine,” he said. “Go inside now.” Then he was gone down the sidewalk.

Hazel climbed the steps to the porch and stood for a while—puzzling over the idea of a wolf in Winslow since she’d never heard about any here before—until the hot dead quiet gave her the creeps. She hustled inside the front door and locked the deadbolt.


She folded herself into her mother’s old overstuffed rocker in the living room. The chair had brought Hazel comfort when she was small and felt alone. So that now, even though its rose print fabric was worn and torn, and its innards stole every opportunity to escape, she wouldn’t let her dad get rid of it.

Dark out but still too warm to sleep, she rocked back and forth, worrying about why it was taking her dad so long to shoo a wolf away from the Rhone place, hoping it didn’t turn out to be the Bigfoot she and Sean had heard in the woods that afternoon.

Urgent knocking started up from the back of the house and then she heard the kitchen door whine open. So much for locking up. She sat forward in her chair, heart thumping like mad.

A moment later Patience appeared in the foyer. From the light in the hallway, Hazel made out the look of alarm on her friend’s white face. “I need to see Sadie,” Patience said.

“What’s wrong with you?” Hazel rose from the rocker. Patience’s jittery eyes and the way she rubbed her arms as if she were itchy and cold at the same time further unnerved Hazel.

“I need to see Sadie,” Patience repeated. “I had the worst nightmare ever.”

Patience rushed over to the photograph taken at the 1889 Prospector’s Day picnic that hung on the wall at the foot of the staircase, and pointed to the dark-haired girl that looked a lot like her—her great-great aunt. Patience turned back to Hazel, eyes panicky. “Sadie keeps telling me to come into the pond even though I told her I can’t swim.”

“You wouldn’t have nightmares like that if you’d just let me teach you how,” Hazel said. “I swear, Patience Mathers, you’re going to learn to at least dog paddle this summer even if it kills you.”

Coming up beside Patience, Hazel peered at the black and white image, at Sadie center stage in Prospect Park. “The Fairest of the Fair,” Hazel said softly. As evidenced by the bouquet in her hands, Sadie Mathers had just been crowned. And she had that spooky pale-eyed stare resulting from the long exposure required to take the photograph.

“The Fairest of the Fair,” Patience repeated in a voice so strange that Hazel turned to look at her.

Patience’s features suddenly shifted, as though she’d just remembered something crucial. Then she whipped around toward Hazel, her frantic face just inches away. “It’s happening,” Patience said.

“What is?” Hazel asked.

“It’s happening again, Hazel. And it’s our fault again.”

“No, Patience.” Hazel felt her stomach fill with lead. “That was just a stupid game.”


Five summers ago, when Hazel and Patience were twelve years old, Hazel’s grandparents threw a dinner party in the formal dining room of The Winslow. Having no interest in that dull event, Hazel and Patience had rushed through plates of macaroni and cheese in the kitchen nook, anxious to get started on what the musty old book that Hazel had discovered promised to be a more thrilling venture.

After heaping their plates in the sink, the girls climbed the winding servants’ staircase, on tiptoe at first to minimize the volume of each creaking, bare wood step, then abandoning all restraint and racing up to the fourth floor of the hotel’s tower.

At the top, Hazel stopped on the staircase landing and whipped around, sloshing water out of the large glass she held tight with both hands. “Do you have the egg?”

One step behind her, Patience nodded, a sly grin animating her doll-like features.

“Good.” Hazel continued into the circular room, well aware that The Winslow’s ghosts resided there. But she wasn’t afraid of the ghosts then. Back then, she had no reason to be.

Right away Hazel determined that the spookiest spot was in front of the floor-to-ceiling stained glass window and she headed for it, Patience on her heels. They positioned themselves cross-legged on the hardwood floor, each facing the other. Ceremoniously, Hazel placed her grandmother’s crystal glass in between them, then she lit three candles to set the atmosphere and ensure the full effect, all the while feeling sneaky, feeling as if they were about to do something they really shouldn’t.

Patience placed the egg against the rim of the glass, poised to crack. “Here goes.”

“Hold on!” Hazel grabbed her by the arm. “Remember—just the white.”

“Okay, okay.” Patience carefully cracked open the egg and held it above the glass, transferring the contents back and forth between half shells until the yolk separated and the white slipped into the water. She glanced up at Hazel through strands of dark hair. “Are we supposed to chant or anything?”

“The book didn’t say to.” Hazel shrugged. “But go ahead if you want.” She gathered up her own long hair before leaning forward to watch the egg white mingle with the water.

“How long till it tells our fortunes?” Patience whispered.

Hazel scratched her nose, staring into their homemade crystal ball. “Guess we’ll know when we see the future. Like the girls in Salem did.” She heard a commotion in the dining room three floors below. Her grandfather must have told a really good joke.

The egg white sank to the bottom of the glass and Patience leaned closer, face screwed up in concentration. “Should we ask it a question?”

“Oh, great and wise crystal ball—” Hazel started.

“Wait!” Patience splayed her fingers as if to say, Hold on everybody. “That sort of looks like . . . no . . .” Suddenly she jumped to her feet as though something had bitten her on the behind.

“Do you see something?” Hazel asked.

Patience pointed at the glass, her face stretched in fright. “Don’t you?”

The din rising beneath them increased. It sounded as if somebody had decided to rearrange the furniture in a hurry. “I don’t see anything.” Hazel wanted to, but she didn’t.

“It’s there,” Patience insisted.

“Where?” Hazel stared hard at the egg white, increasingly distracted by the noise from downstairs. She lifted her head to look at her friend. “What do you see?”

Patience’s skin had gone even paler. And when she spoke, Hazel could barely hear her above the clamor emanating from the first floor.

“What did you say?” Hazel asked.

“It’s a coffin,” Patience repeated.

Hazel scoffed and tilted the glass back and forth, swirling the egg in the water. “You’re just saying that ’cause that’s what the bewitched girls saw.”

“Am not!” Patience clutched her hands to her chest. “Hazel, what does it mean?”

Hazel stood to look her in the eye. “It didn’t look like a coffin to me.”

“I don’t like this game.” Patience pursed her lips.

Hazel rolled her eyes and turned to leave, wondering why she ever thought this stupid trick would work, let alone be fun.

The crashing sounds coming from the dining room didn’t seem so bad once the screaming started.

Hazel spun back to Patience, whose face mirrored her own shock. Another scream from downstairs spurred her to grab her friend’s hand. “Let’s go!”

On her way to the door Hazel kicked over the glass and spilled raw egg and water across the wood floor. Fighting not to slip, she rushed for the stairs, panic striking in bright flashes of ugly imagination: her grandparents held hostage by a gun-wielding maniac, her grandfather’s head crushed by a falling chandelier, her grandmother running around with her hair on fire.

More voices joined in the screaming and shouting as both girls hastened down the staircase. When Patience knocked into her from behind, Hazel flew down several steps, arms flailing in thin air, before her hand found the railing and she regained her footing.

After the girls landed on the ground floor, they raced through the kitchen, pushed open the swinging door to the dining room—and stopped dead in their tracks.

Chairs lay overturned. The table was littered with broken porcelain. And Hazel’s grandfather had Lottie Mathers’ arms pinned behind her back, while Jules Foster held a knife to the woman’s throat.

“Stop!” Patience shrieked. “What are you doing to my Gram?”

Lottie tried to jerk her head away, straining to break free, her mouth gaping in a silent scream.

“Hold her still!” Jules shouted. Sure and swift, he plunged the knife into Lottie’s neck.

Hazel and Patience both screamed as blood spurted Jules in the face and then splashed the others crowded around.

A cold meat smell touched Hazel’s nose just as Lottie’s blood rained on a platter of rare roast beef on the table, and Hazel swooned on her feet.

“No no no!” Ben Mathers howled, rushing at Jules. “You’re killing her!”

Hazel’s grandmother Sarah shoved both girls back into the kitchen, where they created red footprints across the tile floor, reminding Hazel of the wounded deer she and her father found the winter before, gut shot in the woods and leaving crimson, cloven hoof prints in the snow.

Before the dining room door swung shut, Hazel glanced back into the room.

Blood: dripping from the low-hung crystal chandelier, pooling on the white tablecloth. The screaming had stopped. Everyone stood frozen, stunned faces fixed on Lottie, who lay in her husband’s arms, glassy-eyed, a wet red bib growing on her chest. Moaning, Ben Mathers rocked his wife as if her life depended on his keeping her in motion. Instead, each back and forth movement created a sodden smacking sound that made Hazel want to scream again.

Then the door slammed closed in Hazel’s face and Patience grabbed her hand, squeezing it so hard Hazel feared her bones would break.

“This is our fault!” Patience whispered feverishly. “We made it happen. The coffin—”

“Don’t say that!” Hazel couldn’t handle another helping of horror; she was full.

Hazel’s grandmother kept pushing the girls outside through the kitchen entry, repeating, “Shush, shush,” as if the only thing wrong was their refusal to be quiet.

Patience stopped on the back steps and seized Hazel by the wrists. “Don’t tempt fate, my Gram always says.” Her eyes sparked with panic. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

“It’s not our fault.” Hazel tried to raise her hands to cover her ears.

But Patience held fast, mewled hysterically. “Tempt fate and your worst fears come true.”


It was after that that Patience had begun to collect her lucky charms. Now she stood in Hazel’s foyer on the verge of tears, working that bracelet, her fingertips compulsively stroking the tiny talismans. “It is happening again,” Patience insisted.

“Listen to me,” Hazel adopted a firm tone. “Nothing like that is going to happen now. Don’t even start thinking like that.”

Patience’s expression remained bleak. “Tanner shouldn’t have broken that mirror.”

Hazel frowned. “That’s just a silly superstition. Besides, you told me you buried the broken glass outside in the moonlight like a good little witch. Didn’t you say that wards off the evil spirits?”

“Wards off bad luck,” Patience corrected.

“Then you’re safe, right?” Despite Hazel’s attempts at reassurance, she sympathized with her friend. Not only had they sorely tempted fate again, this time they’d taunted it—practically dared it.

“I feel really, really weird, Hazel.” Patience’s tears welled higher. “I threw up in front of the whole town. Everything’s ruined. I ruined my best chaps and everyone saw me and my gramps is mad that I embarrassed our family.”

“It’s just food poisoning.” Hazel backed up a step, her heart suddenly racing. “Lots of people have it. You’ll be okay tomorrow.”

“No I won’t. I’m sick.” Patience looked desperate. “And I’m scared.”

Hazel wondered again how Sean was feeling. “It’ll be okay. Don’t worry.” She tried to keep calm for both their sakes. “Everything’s fine,” she said, realizing how hollow that sounded. “We’re all fine.”





THE WATER TOWER

Sean and Tanner perched on the water tower platform, the highest point on Silver Hill, with the lights of Winslow spread out below them like a Lite-Brite missing most of its pegs.

Sean hadn’t been feeling too good since he and Hazel left Three Fools Creek. His stomach was slippery and it seemed as though his heart was beating too fast, the blood pumping around his body with sickening speed. His mom and Aaron were sick too, taking turns in the bathroom, and the sound of it had made Sean feel even worse.

So when Tanner came by inviting him to go have a smoke, Sean had said okay, figuring that the weed would settle his stomach and slow the pounding in his chest. The fresh air couldn’t hurt either, especially if he ended up retching anyway—who wants to stick their face in a toilet?

He watched Tanner roll the joint. After Tanner licked and sealed the paper, he held it up for Sean to admire. Sean had known instantly that he didn’t particularly like—and definitely didn’t trust—Tanner Holloway. But whatever, it wasn’t like there were a lot of other guys his age to hang with around Winslow.

Sean decided that it might be useful to know what Tanner was capable of. “What’d you get busted for back home, anyway?” he asked.

“A little of this.” Tanner waved the joint. “A little of that.”

“You miss home?” Sean was starting to hope that he did and would go back there soon.

“Nah.” He lit up, took a hit, passed it to Sean. “It sucks too,” he squelched, holding the smoke, “just in a different way.” He let out a billowing breath. “More chicks though.”

“That’s cool, I guess.” Sean took a hit, eyes narrowing. He could see how some girls might go for Tanner, but he struck Sean as the kind of guy who’d sell out a buddy for a six-pack.

Reaching into his pocket, Tanner retrieved a cell phone, flipped it open, waved it around.

“What are you doing?” Sean scoffed.

“Thought I might get reception up here.” He glowered at the unreceptive phone.

Sean pointed straight ahead. “Happen to notice that mountain?” He pointed the opposite direction. “What about that one?” Turning forty-five degrees: “Or those?”

Tanner slapped the phone shut and crammed it back in his pocket. “F*cking boondocks. How can you stand it?”

“I don’t know.” Sean shrugged. “I’ve always lived here.”

“Too bad for you, man. So what’s up with you and my cousin?”

“Not much,” Sean replied through a huge exhale.

“Bullshit!” He laughed. “You’re so far gone on Hazel it’s embarrassing.”

Sean felt his face heat up. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothing, I guess. Just hate to see a friend get suckered, that’s all. Like I said—embarrassing.”

Friend? Sean did not like this conversation. At all. He carved the ash and took a deep hit before handing back the joint. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.

“Now Patience, on the other hand,” Tanner ignored his question. “Low-hanging fruit. Isn’t that what you called her?”

“She’s a trip.” He coughed. “I can tell you that. And don’t hotbox that joint.”

“So what?” Tanner hit too hard again. “She’s hot. Screw it—I’m goin’ for it.” He held the joint back toward Sean.

“No thanks, man.” He shook his head, which set it to spinning. “Had enough.”

“Lightweight.” Tanner took one last hit before he stubbed out the joint on the bottom of his lighter.

They sat back against the metal tank and Tanner started jabbering again. Sean could barely hear him through the buzzing in his ears, but it sounded like he was saying something else about Hazel, something about her playing him . . . then Sean felt it coming and shot up and rushed to the platform railing. Leaning out as far as he dared, he threw up over the side—threw up a lot, and it was hot and disgusting but he felt better with it finally out.

He turned back to Tanner, swabbing his mouth with a shaking hand. “Damn. I don’t feel so good.” He wiped his face with his t-shirt.

“Too stoned?” Tanner jeered.

“F*ck off,” Sean said, and then stumbled toward the ladder.

Even though his stomach was in turmoil and his throat and eyes were burning, he started down the side of the water tower. His hands felt sweaty and slick on the ladder rungs that he hardly saw through watering eyes but he hurried down anyway because he knew he was about to hurl again. Partway down his right hand lost hold, then both feet slipped, and he dangled for a moment, nervously wondering how far away the ground might still be, until his left hand surrendered to gravity and he was sent hurtling through the air.

Sean hit the dirt with an impact that jarred his bones. Then he leaned forward, hands on his knees, and gagged. But there was nothing left to come out except a trickle of yellow bile. Now his throat really burned like hell when he dry heaved again. “Shit,” he said in a voice so quavering that he made himself even more nervous.

He reeled over to his motorcycle and tried to start it up. On the fifth kick he put all of his weight into it and the bike finally sparked, but then he sat there idling, blinking to clear his vision. Is there something in that weed? he wondered.

No, he’d felt crappy all afternoon.

But now his heart was as sick as his stomach. Am I making a fool out of myself?

His confusion was sudden and total. What did Tanner mean? Is Hazel just playing me?

Sean started slowly down Silver Hill, not taking the bike out of second gear, hoping to make it home without wiping out.