Meadowview Acres (21 page)

“Yeah,” agreed Hunter. “Do you really think Mr. Just will know what to do?”

“I think if anyone would, it would be him. He’s got a great scientific mind. He’s really our only hope at this point. It’s got to work.”

Eli reached up and started to massage his temples once again. His headache was back.

CHAPTER 24

Shasta & Darren

S
hasta had picked up the pizza from Hot Slice! and was on her way back to Meadowview Acres. She wasn’t very hungry because her stomach was in knots. She had been going over scenarios of different conversations in her head. How was she going to tell Darren and his mom all that she and Bug and the boys had learned? She knew it sounded crazy and didn’t even know how to begin.

As she pulled into the Jackson’s driveway, she felt even more nervous. Should she be the one to tell them, or should it come from Sheriff Buchanon or Bug’s dad? No, she decided, coming from her, someone so close to the family, was better. She stuck the DVD in her bag and got the pizza from the passenger side of the Ranger.

Darren opened the door and gave her a hug. Looking at him, she saw that he had bags under his eyes, and he looked very sad. It must’ve been a hard day with Mrs. Jackson. Shasta had to remind herself that it had only been a week since Claymont died. So much had happened within that week but not to Darren and his mom. To them, the only thing that had happened was that they had lost a husband and a father.

Balancing the pizza box in her other hand, she returned Darren’s hug. “Tough day?” She asked.

He looked behind him to ensure that they couldn’t be overheard and said, “It was bad today, Shas. I don’t know why this day has been harder on her than any other, but today was really bad. I didn’t know what to do. All I could do was sit with her and make sure she ate something.” He glanced at the box and said, “Thanks for bringing that and the movie. Maybe it’ll help her think of something else for a while.”

“That’s what I’m hoping, but…” she stopped short, nervous about the information she was about to relay.

Darren looked confused and said, “What? Is something else wrong?”

Shasta knew that it would be worse if she dragged it out. She needed to do it quickly, like ripping off a bandage.

“Nothing’s happened exactly, it’s just that I have some information. Information about what may have caused your dad’s brain hemorrhage.”

Darren’s eyes narrowed as he said, “What do you mean? What kind of information? Shas, what are you saying?”

Shasta walked into the adjoining dining room and set the pizza box and her bag on the table. When she turned around, he was right behind her. She took his hands and said, “When your dad died, everyone just thought it was a medical condition and left it at that, right?”

He nodded, still too confused to ask any questions.

“Well,” she went on, “that kind of made sense. But when Heather died a few days later from the same thing, and then Hansen on the same day, it started to seem a little too coincidental.”

Darren’s eyes widened in partial understanding. “You mean it wasn’t just a brain hemorrhage. That something caused him to have it? And caused Heather’s death and whatever it was that got Hansen?”

She nodded, still holding his hands. “That’s right. We’ve tracked down a reason that this has happened. It’s not something that I would ever have believed possible. But it is, Darren. And it’s happening here now.”

He dropped her hands and started pacing the small dining room. “Who’s we? Who told you about this?”

“At first it was Bug. You know how smart she is, how she notices things that most of us don’t. She thought there was probably a connection between the three deaths. It was just too coincidental for three people who lived so close to one another to die so suddenly. She witnessed Hansen die. She knew something was off by what she saw that day. She also was curious because she was there with Hunter and Eli when they found, well, the bulldozer. She noticed something that day as well.”

“What? What is it?” Darren looked tired and worried. Shasta hated doing this to him, but his family had the right to know everything she knew.

“Darren, it’s kind of an involved story. And I think you both deserve to know all of the facts. Do you think we could get your mom, and we could just go sit down and talk?”

For a moment he looked unsure, not wanting to cause his mother any more grief, but then, his mind made up, he gave her a little grin and said, “You’re right. She deserves to know everything there is to know. It might even help if she has some answers. Go on into the living room and I’ll get her.”

Shasta’s stomach was still in knots. Facing Darren was hard enough, but how could she tell Agnes? She had always been so nice to Shasta. The last thing she wanted to do was to give her more pain.

She sat down on one end of the sofa in the living room. She could hear Darren’s voice in the back of the house talking to Agnes. After a couple more minutes, they both showed up. When Agnes saw Shasta, she crossed the room and gave the girl a weak, little hug.

“Shasta, it’s always so good to see you. Darren says you’ve brought us a movie.” She was trying to sound perky, but it wasn’t working at all.

“Hi, Mrs. Jackson.” Shasta returned the hug. “I did bring us something to watch. But there’s something I need to talk to you about first.”

She was on alert immediately. Agnes’ emotions had been on a hair-pin trigger ever since last Friday. Her eyes were wide as she asked, “What’s happened? What’s happened now? Is it someone else?”

Trying to calm her as quickly as possible, Shasta said, “No, nothing has happened to anyone else that I know of. It’s just that there’s some new information that I wanted to share with you both.”

It was Agnes’s turn to look confused. Darren went to his mother and guided her to the comfy blue chair across from the couch. “It’s okay, Mom, Shasta has some news about what may have caused Dad’s brain hemorrhage, and Heather and Hansen too. They all might be related.”

Agnes was calming down but more confused than ever. She had never once contemplated that the three deaths were connected. To her, those other two were just really sad things that had happened after her world had collapsed. She could vaguely remember talking to Lara on the phone and trying to console her. She hadn’t talked to anyone from the Reynolds family. They didn’t know each other well, and Agnes just hadn’t had it in her to make any more calls. As a matter of fact, she hadn’t thought of those other two deaths at all. Her thoughts were only on Claymont. And now Shasta was saying that they might all be related somehow?

She settled herself in the blue chair and looked across the room at Shasta. Agnes knew the girl was no drama queen. She was smart and mature. She had been almost a member of their family for years. If she was bringing them information about her husband’s death, Agnes was sure that it was reliable.

“Tell us what you know, Shasta. Don’t leave anything out.” Darren could tell that his mother could handle hearing the news.

Shasta took a deep breath and began with what she had already told Darren. “So, Mrs. Jackson, after Mr. Jackson died, everyone just accepted that he’d had a brain hemorrhage. That seemed to be the case until Heather and Hansen died. You know Bug across the street? The girl I sit for? Well she’s extremely smart. She’s curious, too, and she was with the boys when they found Mr. Jackson. She also witnessed Hansen die when she was looking out her window. There were a couple of things she noticed that made her question whether the deaths were related. When someone told her about Heather, she was sure that they were.” She shifted herself on the couch a little bit and continued.

“Bug had noticed that Hunter and Eli had a box with them at the construction site, a box they hadn’t had going into the woods. That made her curious. The other curious thing was when Hansen died. He had yanked Hunter’s backpack off of him and had taken out a chunk of rock from the pack when he started to have his attack. We found out later that the same rock had been near Heather when she died.”

Darren interjected here. “What could a rock have to do with brain hemorrhaging?”

“That’s what Bug wanted to know, so she told me that she wanted to research other deaths from around here and see if anything added up. We went to the newspaper’s archives and searched for hours for any mysterious deaths that had happened in close succession. Finally, we found four from back in nineteen sixty-eight. We also found that a man had gotten off of a ship that had lost a lot of crew members to a mysterious virus. We kept checking and were able to place the man at each of the four deaths.”

“Who was this man? Did he kill these people?” Agnes was very interested, and much calmer. Her mind was focused on something more than her grief.

“No,” Shasta said. “He didn’t kill them, but what he had with him did. His name is Professor Preston Monroe. He studied legends and myths and taught a class on them at the State College in Chester. One of the legends that he studied made him curious enough to quit his job and go on a fact finding mission so he could write a book.” Shasta stopped there and reached for her bag. Before she had driven to Hot Slice! she had stopped at Hunter’s house to retrieve the book that the professor had given to her. She handed the book to Darren. “This isn’t the book that he wrote. This is the book that started his curiosity and set him off on his quest. Read Chapter fourteen, Darren.”

Darren looked the book over before opening it to the table of contents. “The Rock Of Varuupi?” He looked up at Shasta, and she nodded.

Agnes was motionless as Darren read the chapter about Chief Maalini, Thuuni, and the curse. As Darren read the last piece of information about the fifteen archaeologists who died while on the island of Shaali, his eyes grew wider. He stopped reading and looked up at his mother.

Agnes was still. She looked resigned. Finally, she spoke. “This curse – the rock that has the curse. Are you saying that somehow this rock found its way here to Hallston? How is that possible?”

Shasta told them of her meeting with Professor Monroe. She told them the story that he had told her and Bug that morning. How, by the time he had gotten off the ship, he knew what he had in his possession – how he made his way to Hallston with people dying along the way. They watched her as she spoke, but Shasta wasn’t certain if they really believed all she was saying.

“So that’s how he made it to the woods and buried the box. Mr. Jackson inadvertently dug it up while he worked, and Hunter and Eli brought it home. They were thinking that there was something exciting inside. There is one more thing about the professor, though. He’s blind. He was struck blind within hours of burying the rock. The curse touched him as well.” She stopped talking and waited.

Darren spoke first. “Where is it now? The rock?”

“After meeting with the professor, Bug and I went to Hunter’s and talked to him and Eli. They have it stored in the shed behind Hunter’s house. The plan is, tomorrow after school, they’re going to talk to Mr. Just to see if it can be dissolved using some chemical composition. If that doesn’t work, we’ll go straight to Sheriff Buchanon.”

“Why not go to the sheriff now, Shasta?” Agnes asked. “Now I’m not sure about many things, but one thing I know is that you don’t mess with any type of voodoo or black magic. If that’s what’s really going on here, why leave it for a few kids to take care of? Let the authorities take it over. That’s what they’re there for.”

“Well, you’re right. But the thing is, that curse is so strong that it killed Hansen within minutes of him touching it. It affects different people in different ways. What if we handed it over to someone like the sheriff only to see it kill him, too? Right now, we think it’s just safer if no one else gets near it.” Shasta was still questioning that decision.

Looking more peaceful than she had in days, Agnes eased back in her chair. Her voice was soft when she spoke. “You know, I had an old great-aunt who lived way south of here. She used to scare the devil out of my sisters and me with her stories of voodoo and dark magic. My sister Shelley said the stories weren’t true, but I believed them. I believed every one of them. If my Claymont unearthed some cursed box, I believe that too. It makes more sense in my mind than my healthy fifty-one year old husband suddenly contracting some kind of brain problem.” She looked up at Darren and Shasta and said, “You know that autopsy wasn’t conclusive. That’s what’s been bothering me this whole time. The autopsy report said that there was more blood loss than normal with a brain hemorrhage. That means it could have been something else. Things just didn’t add up for me, and, as crazy as a cursed rock sounds, it makes more sense.”

Almost dreamlike, Agnes rose from her chair and started slowly walking toward the door to the living room. “I’m going to sleep now, I’m awfully tired.”

Darren and Shasta watched her leave. Then Shasta said, “Do you think she’s okay? She’s acting a little strange.”

He replied, “I think she’s exhausted. And this explanation gives her more answers than anything else. I’ll check on her in a little while.” He looked at her then. “Do you really believe this? A curse? It’s kind of out there.”

Shasta thought a moment and said, “Yeah, I do. It sounds a little far-fetched coming out of the blue like this I bet. But when you read the documentation and see the newspaper articles, it’s more believable. The big thing, Darren, was meeting with the professor this morning. He even looks like someone who’s been cursed. I totally believed everything he said. He’s lived the majority of his life knowing that he is responsible for all of those deaths, all because he brought a relic home from an island in the South Pacific. It’s haunted him his whole life. Now, knowing that he’s responsible for your dad, Heather and Hansen, he must be in a living hell.”

Darren wanted to say, “Good, he deserves to be in hell,” but he was just too tired. He laid his head on her shoulder and said, “I’m so glad you’re here. Can you stay a while?”

Shasta laid her head on top of Darren’s and answered, “I’ll stay as long as you need me.”

“Well, I’ll need you forever. Can you handle that?”