Crooked Hills (19 page)

“But you don’t have all the pieces,” I blurted.

“Aren’t you a smart child?” Mrs. Brewster cackled dryly. “Seems you know more about my work than you ought to.”

I clamped my teeth down on my tongue to keep it from wagging.

“That’s good,” Mrs. Brewster said. “Very good. Because you’re going to help me find the last piece.”

“I’m going to what?”

“The fetch was never able to find the final piece of Maddie’s body,” Mrs. Brewster said. “It had been buried out in the woods at one time, just like the rest, but I think it must have been moved. I don’t know why anyone would want to take her arm from its burial place.”

“Maybe someone else is trying to bring her back from the dead,” I said.

I couldn’t tell if she was angry with that idea or frightened.

“The fetch was failing me, but it was still a useful creature,” Mrs. Brewster said. “Since you killed it, you’re going to take its place.”

She’s going to turn me into a dog!

“W-w-what do you mean take its place?” I stammered.

“I’m offering a simple trade, child,” she said sweetly. “If you ever want to see your little brother alive again, you’ll find the arm and bring it back to me.”

“How are we supposed to find the arm?” Lisa asked.

The woman made the
tsk-tsk
sound again, and said, “You should have thought of that before you stuck your nose in my business.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Do we have a deal?”

I knew if I refused, she’d kill Alex—and probably the rest of us—right then and there. I didn’t trust her, but what choice did I have?

“Do you give your word you won’t hurt him?”

Witches were bound to keep their word, I knew, so if I could just get her to promise, I knew Alex would be safe.

She tilted her head and gave me a wicked grin. Some of her teeth were gone. Others were worn down to stubs.

“And if we find the arm for you, you’ll let Alex go?”

“Are you trying to trick me, child? You’re in no position to barter, and you know it. Either you do as I say, or I’ll kill your brother right now and bury him with my dog.”

“All right.” Reluctantly, I nodded. “I’ll do it.”

“Good,” the witch muttered. “Wait right here.”

She dragged Alex to the root cellar doors. He squirmed and struggled. She dug her nails into the flesh of his ear.

“What are you doing?” I yelled.

“I’m just putting your brother back somewhere safe and sound until you fulfill your end of the bargain.”

Mrs. Brewster released Alex, and he sprawled back to the ground, clutching at his ear and sniffling. He stood up, and the old witch prodded him with her cane. Crying, he stepped down into the shadows.

“I’ll get you out of there,” I called after him. “I promise.”

“And I’d hurry if I were you.” The woman hobbled toward me now, the end of her cane scraping the earth. “There’s not much in the way of food down there, unless he takes to eating worms.”

She threw the doors closed behind him.

She crossed the yard in three long, quick strides. I blinked, and she was standing in front of me.

She doesn’t need the cane at all, I thought.

Her fingers snaked around the wrist of my right hand and squeezed tight. Her touch was hot. It reminded me of the feel of Greg Crewes’ cigarette so close to my skin. My fingers flexed open. She pulled my arm up. I realized the scars on the back of her hand matched the witch’s brand on the fetch’s side.

“Let him go!” Lisa snapped. She grabbed her slingshot off the ground and took a step.

“Stay back, Lisa Summers.” Mrs. Brewster glared at her and snarled like a wild animal. “I’m not hurting him—”

I relaxed just a bit.

“—much!” Mrs. Brewster laughed, and she dug her claw into my flesh.

As much as it hurt, as bad as I wanted to scream, I bit my lip and kept quiet. I wouldn’t give the old hag the pleasure of hearing me cry out in pain. She scraped her nail across the back of my hand. It couldn’t have possibly burned any worse if she’d pressed a hot poker against my skin. Her nail scratched a circle with a line slashing through it into the back of my hand. It matched the symbol I had seen on the dog’s side and on Mrs. Brewster’s own hand.

She pulled me close and whispered in my ear. Her voice was a rattling hiss. Her breath was a graveyard stink.

“You’re Maddie’s creature now!”

I jerked my hand away and checked the wound. For all the pain, there wasn’t as much blood as I would have thought. The scratches weren’t very deep at all. But it burned fiercely, like hundreds of fire ants chewed at my skin.

“What was that for?” I asked.

She hummed a somber tune as she turned her back on me, walked to the house, and climbed the steps.

“Better hurry, child,” she said.

My eyes narrowed as I watched her. I hated her so much, and it drove me crazy that I couldn’t do anything about it. I hated her for locking my little brother in the slimy root cellar. I hated her for sending me out after the dead witch’s arm. I hated that she planned on bringing Maddie Someday back to life.

I hated that, in more ways than one, I was her fetch now.

I FELT WEARY down to the very center of my bones. Even breathing felt like work. All I wanted to do was sleep for a week. But there was no chance of that.

A fetch’s work is never done, I mused.

After Mrs. Brewster re-entered her house, Lisa and I scrambled for the woods. We found Marty where we’d left him, squatting in his hiding spot. He had grabbed a heavy branch to use as a weapon, and he clutched it close. For a few minutes, nobody said anything about what had happened, but Marty and Lisa both wore the same dazed, frightened expressions.

“What are we going to do?” Marty asked at last. “We’ve got to save Alex... right now!”

“The only choice we have is to find the arm.”

“Well, we’d best hurry and start looking.”

“Actually, Marty... you’re not coming with us.”

“What? Why not?”

“I need you to go back to the witch house, keep your head low, and keep an eye on Alex. I want to make sure Mrs. Brewster doesn’t do anything to hurt him. Besides, the two of us will be able to sneak around a lot more easily than three. I don’t want you to try anything foolish. Just keep watch until we come back with the arm.”

“You make it sound simple.” Lisa rubbed her hands together nervously. “We don’t even know where to start.”

“Well,” I said, “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“What’s the good news?” Lisa asked.

“I think I know where we can find the arm.”

“You do?” Lisa asked.

I nodded.

“What’s the bad news?” Marty asked.

“That’s another reason you need to stay here,” I told my cousin.

“I don’t understand,” Lisa said. “Where’s the arm?”

“The Crewes brothers have it.”

“GREG AND HATCH are mixed up in this, too?” Lisa asked as we trekked through the woods.

“I won’t know for sure,” I said, “until I get into their house and search for the arm.”

“Wait a minute. I must not have heard you right. You’re going to break into their house?”

I shot her a look but didn’t answer.

We slipped through the woods at a brisk pace, and while Lisa knew the way better than me, I stayed right alongside her.

“I still don’t know why you think they have it,” Lisa said.

“The fetch led us straight to their house, remember? Greg chased it off before it could figure a way inside. It must have followed Maddie’s scent trail to their house, so the arm was most likely somewhere around there.”

I didn’t even bother spitting when I said Maddie’s name. Our luck couldn’t get any worse.

I didn’t know why Greg and Hatch Crewes had Maddie’s arm, and I didn’t know how they had found it. I didn’t really care, to tell the truth. All that mattered to me was that they stood in between me and the grisly thing that would save my brother’s life.

From what I gathered, most people in the area didn’t bother locking their doors, and I hoped that was the case with the Crewes brothers. If the door was unlocked, it wouldn’t feel so much like “breaking in.” Maybe Greg and Hatch were bad news, and maybe saving my little brother was a worthy cause, but I didn’t want to think of myself as a common thief.

“What if they’re home?” Lisa asked.

“I hadn’t really planned that far ahead,” I told her.

As luck would have it, no one was home. The house was dark and quiet. The beat-up truck was not in the driveway, and the Firebird wasn’t under the cover of the parking shed. The doors of the shed stood open. We walked right up to the back door.

“They sure do stay out late,” I muttered.

“Look who’s talking,” Lisa said.

“Good point.”

I took a deep breath and gently turned the door knob. With a click! the door opened, less than an inch.

“All right,” I told Lisa. “You stay out here and keep lookout.”

“You’re going in alone?”

“It makes the most sense. If someone shows up, I’ll need you to let me know. And if I can’t get out of the house fast enough, you can at least hide so we both won’t get caught.”

She nodded.

I opened the door another few inches and shone the flashlight inside.

“The coast is clear,” I said. “Wish me luck.”

“Be careful,” Lisa said.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” I said. “If you see someone coming, let me know and I’ll get out as quick as I can.”

I entered the house.

The back door opened into the kitchen. What a mess! The floor looked like it had never been mopped or swept. Crumbs of food and splashes of spilled liquids covered the tiles, as well as the counters. A stack of dirty dishes teetered in the sink, and a couple of greasy frying pans sat on the stove—leftover, I thought, from this morning’s breakfast.

Now if I was a severed arm, I thought, where would I be?

I half-heartedly checked a few kitchen cabinets, knowing I wouldn’t find Maddie’s arm within. I even looked in the fridge, just in case they were keeping the moldy relic on ice. All I found was decaying leftovers.

I stepped into the dining room. Old newspapers and muscle car magazines covered the table. It didn’t look like they ate many meals together.

The rest of the house was just as filthy. Furniture needed dusting. Carpets needed vacuuming. The almost choking smell of cigarettes clung to the air.

In the living room, the stuffed heads of deer were mounted on the wall, their glassy eyes staring at me as I explored the house. A rack full of hunting rifles dominated one wall. The room gave me the creeps. I didn’t have anything against hunters in general. I just didn’t have the killer instinct.

I searched closets and cabinets, but couldn’t find the arm. I looked under couches, but discovered only dust bunnies. What had I expected? A withered arm hanging above the mantle with the rest of the dead things?

I tiptoed down the hall. The walls were lined with framed photographs. Most of them were a few years old, and they were all very dusty. Many of them had a woman—Greg and Hatch’s mother, I guessed. I noticed how different the Crewes boys looked in those pictures. They were younger, of course, but they also looked happier. Their faces didn’t have the cruel edge.

The flashlight’s beam scanned across the floor, walls, and furniture as I moved through the house.

The first bedroom I checked belonged to Mr. Crewes. I could tell by the work clothes and work boots scattered throughout the room. It was as cluttered and unclean as the rest of the house. It smelled sour. I didn’t find the arm there.

The next room must have belonged to Greg, because posters of muscle cars—often alongside girls in bikinis—lined the walls. I searched beneath the bed and in the dresser.

Nothing!

So Greg’s room was a bust. Only one more to go.

I opened the door to Hatch’s room. Again, it was cluttered and disorganized. I started to search through the closets and drawers. A pile of dirty laundry covered much of the floor, and I wrinkled my nose as I kicked around in the mire of smelly clothes.

My foot struck something. I couldn’t tell what it was, but I nudged at the shape until a vague outline showed through the sweat-stained shirts and underwear. It was just about the right size. Could this be where they kept Maddie’s arm? As disgusted as I was, I picked up some of the clothes and flicked them away.

Instead of an arm, I uncovered an aluminum baseball bat beneath the clothes. It was a beauty, too, but not what I’d expected.

I heard a noise, and turned around.

Beneath the unmade covers on the bed, something moved.

I wasn’t alone in the house after all!

THE BEDCOVERS MOVED, and I heard a soft snoring. Hatch was home after all—sleeping in the very room I was in! I quickly covered the flashlight with my hand. I’d been making quite a bit of noise already, but now I started to move more slowly, more quietly. He snorted and stirred. For a dreadful second, I feared he might be waking up, and if he caught me in his room he’d kill me for sure.

Slowly... very slowly... I flipped the flashlight’s power button. The snap! seemed deafening. Some moonlight filtered in between the curtains on the bedroom window, but it wasn’t much.

I wrapped my hand around the aluminum baseball bat. I’d need something to defend myself with if he actually woke up.

When I looked up again, a squeak of fear escaped my throat.

Hatch stared right at me.

He had rolled in my direction, and his eyes were wide open.

I looked around the room, checking the exit. Hatch was bigger and faster than me, and he knew the house a lot better than I did. There was no way I’d be able to outrun him. My mind raced, trying to zone in on a possible excuse, but I knew Hatch would never give me the chance.

He stayed still, staring at me. Taking his sweet time as he figured out how to kill me, I guessed. Any second and he’d be out of bed, barreling right at me with the speed and force of a runaway freight train, and he’d—

He snored.

He was still asleep!

Asleep with his eyes open! I’d heard that some people did that. Seeing it in person, I thought it was kind of creepy, like looking at a dead body—only a dead body that snored like a chainsaw.