Page 11 of The Souls of Lost Lake
The pit in her stomach grew. Wren had been trying to see this search mission as an adventure of sorts—through a heroic lens—one that would ultimately result in finding the dirty uninjured child curled at the base of a tree, sleeping. Or something like that. She hadn’t allowed herself to go down the path of wolves, black bears, or coyotes. Hunting human prey wasn’t high on the bear or coyote list, but still... Wren shuddered, remembering ghost stories from campfires and tales of lurking monsters in the woods.
“C’mon. Pull it together. We got this.” Pippin’s tone of voice had shifted into one of encouragement. She’d take any of that she could get.
6
Sticks crunched under their hiking shoes, interrupting the strain to hear for any sounds a little girl might make after hours alone in the forest. The trees and foliage were thick, an overhead canopy that all but excluded the daylight, plunging the woods into its own kind of bluish-green darkness.
“Just a sec.” Pippin motioned for Wren to stop. Tugging his water bottle from his pack, he flipped the top and took a long draw. The day was warming up, and thankfully what was left of the night chill had now dissipated into a comfortable mid-seventies.
Wren battled discouragement. They’d been canvassing their assigned section for over an hour. Yet besides the occasional birdcall, squirrel scampering across their path, and the one white-tailed deer they’d frightened, all was silent. Her dream from the night before was becoming more vivid as they searched. Maybe the tentacles of fear it’d placed into her subconscious were stronger than she’d bargained for. Maybe she should have just blurted out the nightmare in all its haunting depths and allowed Eddie to debunk it for what it was. A dream. Not a vision. Not a premonition.
“Okay.” Pippin’s voice, coupled with the snap of his closing the water bottle, made Wren jump. The corner of his mouth tilted up in a slight grin. “Jumpy?”
“Shut up,” Wren snapped, resorting to fourth-grade techniques for silence.
“Maybe Ava Coons got her.” Pippin jammed his water bottle into the side pocket of his pack.
“Not funny.” Wren bent and picked up a small stone. She launched it at a nearby tree, bouncing it off the trunk.
“You know how it goes. Ava Coons is always lurking—wanting her next victim.”
Wren glared at her brother.
He wagged red eyebrows. “I saw her once.”
“No, you didn’t.” Wren hooked her thumbs beneath her backpack straps and started forward. Her brother was annoying. Almost immature sometimes. She’d heard him claim this many times before. Ava Coons, the ghost story, the ax murderess who went Lizzie Borden on her family.
“No one believes me,” he muttered.
Wren awarded him a sideways glance. “Yeah, well, most don’t believe ghosts are real either.”
“I do.” Pippin stepped over a fallen rotted sapling.
“I know.”
Pippin halted and studied her intently. Wren followed suit but squirmed. She hated it when her brother did that. He’d always been like that. Psychologically reading her as if she were some anime character in one of his cartoons, which always played in the background while he coded.
Pippin muttered, “We don’t know what we cannot see.”
“Don’t be like Dad.” Wren rolled her eyes. Their father’s way of weaving bookish wisdom into everyday life had aged itself out of being tolerable by the time she was the missing girl Jasmine’s age.
“Don’t believe Ava Coons exists. That’s fine. But don’t put the entire responsibility of finding Jasmine Riviera on your shoulders either.”
Wren avoided her brother’s frank stare. “First I’m too flippant, and now I’m too serious? I’m never quite what you want me to be, is that it?”
Pippin cleared his throat and rubbed his hand over his goatee. “Don’t start with that.”
“You’re always trying to influence how I think,” she argued.Now wasn’t the time for this. She needed to focus on Jasmine, but she also got irritable anytime Pippin tried to program her thoughts the way he believed they should be. She wasn’t a gaming app. She was his sister.
“Something has you out of sorts.” He was also far too observant. It came with his intense nature.
“Yeah. A missing kid.” Wren skewered him with a look.
“No.” Pippin tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at her. “No, there’s something else.”
They engaged in a silent standoff, until Wren admitted defeat. There wasn’t any point in hiding it from Pippin. He’d make it his mission to find out, and it would distract him from finding Jasmine. “I had a dream—more like a premonition. That’s all. Last night when I stayed at the Markhams’ house.”
Pippin was laser-focused on her. “I’m sure Troy loves it when you stay there.”
