“Nothing’s going to make what happened here better,” Gretchen said. “But folks keep paying for the things these people did centuries ago.”
“Yeah,” Hawk said. “And it’s the same people. Look at Esther’s photographs, Vietnam, Hiroshima . . .”
“Fidelia’s journal,” Gretchen said, “where she’s barely allowed to even work outside the home, can’t go to school. The faces of the people who are downtrodden are different. The faces of the people keeping them down are the same. Men with money, white men with money, who believe the world belongs to them and will do anything to protect their power.”
“We need to get over there and talk to Annie,” Hawk said. “See if she can get us some information from someone who was a witness at the time. You didn’t get very far talking with Celia and Rebecca—they’re children, even if they’re more than one hundred years old. I don’t think they’re reliable sources.”
“How you gonna get there?” She looked at them warily. “You’re not taking the car.” She set her papers aside and got out her keys. “I’ll go with you, Gretchen. Hawk, you stay here. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
“You better be,” he said. “Or you might not be back at all.”
TWENTY-ONE
THE ROAD TO SHADOW GROVE VEERED OFF MAIN Street into more forests and hills, but after several miles the trees turned to pasture, and a bright sliver of water ran alongside the road. There were farmhouses and red barns dotting the fields, and sheep and cows standing so still it seemed they had been painted onto the landscape.
The air was fresh and the car windows were down and if they weren’t on a gruesome mission, Gretchen would have felt like she could drive forever beside Hope, the girl’s steady hands on the steering wheel of the beautiful vintage car, windows down—her hair blowing in the breeze. She punched in the cigarette lighter and then sighed to herself as it popped back out.
“All the women who were working on figuring this stuff out are gone,” Gretchen said. “Esther, your mother, my mother.”
Hope gave her a wry smile. “When you put it like that it doesn’t sound like such a good idea to find out what happened.”
“Just when these women thought they’d made a breakthrough, they died—almost like some secret world protecting itself.”
“And my father was just an innocent bystander? Killed ’cause he was in the car with my mother?”
“You haven’t talked about your father,” Gretchen said.
“He was like Hawk.” Hope squinted, drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, then rubbed an eye with one hand.
This surprised Gretchen. She knew their father had been in the military; they had talked about it last night when they stayed up late. Hawk was a gentle spacey musician who had no interest in driving a car.
“Really?”
“Before he came out here with my mom, our father was the head of Remote Viewing for the air force,” Hope said, as if Gretchen knew what she was talking about.
“He worked with some kind of surveillance technology?”
Hope laughed. “Sort of,” she said. “He was part of an elite group who could see where the enemy was with their minds.”
“Oh my God,” Gretchen said.
“Yeah,” Hope said. “Try skipping school with a dad like that. He died before he’d managed to teach either me or Hawk much about it. But Hawk turned out to be a natural.” She took a deep breath. “I do think if my parents had lived none of this would be going on. Anyway, none of this stuff happened exactly on the anniversary. Not Esther, not my parents.”
“Did they all die in days or hours before the anniversary?” Gretchen asked. “I mean, we know these forces have been getting stronger, but the rest of the town, all of history says it was an accident. Celia and Rebecca say they started the fire, because of how they play. And now the town is gripped by an epidemic of accidents every year.”
“We know it wasn’t Celia and Rebecca,” Hope said. “Like you said before. The killers have the same faces. And those faces do not belong to a little white girl and a little black girl who like to put dresses on cats.”
Hope opened her mouth to say something else but just as she did a massive form plowed out of the woods and tumbled over the car. Hope hit the brakes and the car spun, tires shrieking as blood sprayed across the windshield and the girls were thrown forward, then jerked back suddenly by their seat belts.
They were turned nearly ninety degrees in the road, the mangled body of a deer splayed over the road in front of them.
Hope and Gretchen breathed heavily. Looked at one another in terror.
Hope turned the key in the ignition and the engine started again, making a grinding whining noise.
“That does not sound good. I hope this thing can get us the rest of the way there and back,” she said.
Gretchen unbuckled her seat belt. “I’m going to get out and survey the damage.”