Page 6 of The Witch's Orchard
“Oh. It’s Mrs. Drake. Deena Drake. She doesn’t live too far from here.”
“Okay, I need her information if you have it.”
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll text it to you.”
“So, you said your dad is a trucker now? But he used to be a teacher?”
“Oh… right… after Molly—” He stops and takes a deep breath. “Well, after she was taken, he… had a hard time being around. He took the trucking job because it paid well and we still got insurance and stuff. He’s been doing it ever since.”
“And your mom—”
“My mom shot herself three years after Molly was taken. I was eleven.”
My mouth snaps shut. I hadn’t had time to scour the databases for background before I left. I knew I’d end up stopping at least once to give Honey a drink of oil and then again to let her cool down. I’d just packed up and got on the road. But I should’ve expected this. I’d seen the damage that befalls a family when they lose a child. And the death of Max’s mom correlated only too well with when he started keeping the casebook.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and mean it. I get up and get Max a glass of water, if for no other reason than to give him a break.
“Thanks,” he says, and takes a long drink.
I feel like he’s probably malnourished and some latent mountain woman instinct makes me want to hand him a peanut butter sandwich and watch while he eats it.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. As if I can’t say it enough.
“It’s been a long time,” he says eventually. “But that’s part of why I had to… to look for someone to help me. I could never have solved it on my own.”
And I probably can’t either.
Outside, there’s a scream. Long and loud and hoarse.
“The hell was that?” I ask.
He tilts his head toward the door.
“It’s the crows,” he says.
The noise screeches again. Low at first and then high and strained and throaty. I shudder—can’t help myself.
I say, “What? No, that doesn’t sound like a crow. Do crows even call at night?”
The scream comes again. Shorter this time. Sharper.
“The ones here do,” he says. “Out in the forest there’s this big rock formation that’s some kind of natural amplifier. The crows found it a long time ago and they go out there and…”
“Raise hell?”
He breathes out a half laugh, half sigh, nods.
“There’s a story. It’s in the book but…”
“What?”
“It’s just an old legend. And… probably illegible. I wrote it down when I was a kid.”
“Okay. Tell it to me.”
“It’s just a story,” he says.
“Tell it to me,” I repeat, and hold his gaze so he knows I won’t be budged.
