Page 34 of The Souls of Lost Lake
Ava dropped to all fours and felt in front of her. The corner of the desk. The desk chair. There. The darker alcove beneath the desk. She slipped into it, huddling in the corner. It wasn’t Noah out there, no sir. That much she knew. He didn’t play hide-and-seek with her. She knew this after just two days in his home. Noah Pritchard was nothing if not straightforward.
The footsteps stopped in the office’s doorway. There was a low chuckle. The kind that erupted in a person’s throat and sounded more like a growl.
“Ava Coons took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks...” It was a whisper with just a slight undertone of song.
Ava’s skin broke out in fleshy bumps. She took a breath, heard it shudder, and clamped her mouth tight.
Another footstep. This time closer.
“When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one...”
Another throaty chuckle.
Ava’s lungs burned. She dared to inhale the tiniest of breaths through her nose. She could smell something familiar, metallic. Like iron. Or blood.
“Whack, whack, whack,” the voice taunted.
Silence followed. No footsteps. No breathing. No limerick. Just an ugly silence that convinced Ava of nothing but that she should remain huddled in her hiding spot. Beneath the preacher’s desk. In the innards of the church. The place that doomed souls to the lake of fire for a thing like murder.
Morning light stretching from the doorway of the office alerted Ava to the fact that dawn had indeed come. She’d remained huddled under Noah’s desk for far too long, afraid to make use of the time to search the office for fear that the person behind the taunting voice was lying in wait. Her legs cramped as she stretched them out. Peeking from the alcove beneath the desk, Ava blinked against thesandpapery sensation in her eyes. She’d not slept. Not a wink. Fear had always been a distant thrum in her body, there but not sharp or identifiable. Now it stabbed through her repeatedly. The voice from the night before played havoc with her determination to clear her name—the Coons name—and try to seek some sort of normalcy.
Whack, whack, whack.
The voice had been a cackle, a harsh whisper of sorts, as if the speaker attempted to disguise it from recognition. The words had replayed in her mind throughout the night, and now, even as she slipped from beneath the desk into the morning light, Ava shuddered. Someone knew she’d been here. Someone was goading her. Toying with her. Reminding her of the demons just out of reach.
Ava’s hair had come unraveled from its braid. She rubbed sand from the corners of her eyes and willed her body to compose itself. Being on high alert all night had left her shaky. She looked around the small office, attempting to center herself. She didn’t have time to search any church records. If the light was any sign of a clock, it had to be past seven in the morning. Noah would notice she hadn’t come down for breakfast. Especially without Hanny in the house to distract him now. Ava needed to get back to the parsonage. A quick dart across the street ... she should be able to do so without being seen.
She moved swiftly toward the office door that led into the hall. Looking down, she noticed a few clumps of mud and pine needles, as if whoever had stood in the doorway had traipsed through the woods and marsh. Skirting them, Ava hurried around the corner toward the rear door of the church.
A body slammed her against the wall, forearm under her chin and over her chest, pinning her there as another hand clamped around her wrist. She writhed against the grip, her scream slicing her throat as it echoed in the empty hallway. Ava hiked her knee up and was met with anoompf, a release of her body, and the bulk of the man curled on the floor, clutching what appeared to be his midsection. Yet it wasn’t.
“Lord have mercy!” Ava exclaimed, dropping to the floor beside Noah, whose pained expression told her that, had he been an authentic threat, she had done a fair-to-middlin’ job of incapacitating him.
“G-go-ahhhh!” Noah sputtered, and Ava couldn’t tell if he was trying not to cuss or if he was gasping for air. “...the heck are you doing here, Ava Coons?” he barked.
“Can preachers sayheck?” Ava didn’t know what else to ask, so she asked the first thing that came to mind.
Noah glared at her, uncurling his body and scowling. His eyes were anything but brooding. Yes. There was fire in them. Coals like one might find in a woodstove. All that was needed was a tad bit of oxygen fanned on them and they’d break into flames.
“Did you bust out the church window?” He sounded incredulous as he eased himself into a sitting position.
Ava didn’t move from her spot on the floor opposite him. She also didn’t answer.
He shook his head and blew out a sigh. “You did.”
“Just a tiny bit,” Ava admitted. Better to be honest, she figured, than to lie to a preacher.
“A tiny bit,” Noah repeated, as if her honesty didn’t count for much. “Why in the name of all that is holy are you breaking into my church?” It was more of a supremely irritated hiss than a direct question.
“Thought this was Tempter’s Creek’s church, not your’n,” Ava countered.
“Ava.”
She shrugged, the clasps on her overall straps clanking at the movement.
“Fine then.Whydid you break intothechurch?”
Ava pressed her lips together. Noah’s eyes dropped to look at them, then flew back up to stare into hers. He was a stern one when he was boiling mad. Just under the surface. She could tell a man who was itching to lose it, and Noah Pritchard was one, ifever there was. Stubbornness made her stiffen her shoulders. She certainly would not tell him why she was here either. Not after he’d made things so much worse by lyin’ to the folks of Tempter’s Creek about her! And she sure as shootin’ wasn’t going to tell him about last night’s visitor who hunted her like she hunted her past.
