The Dark Divine (20 page)

Those strange things had stopped years ago—before Daniel ever left town—but now they were happening again. Maryanne had died from the cold, but her body had been abused like the ones found on Markham Street. Then James went missing … and the blood on the porch. And I couldn’t forget what had happened while I was stranded on Markham Street itself. What might have happened if Daniel hadn’t come along?

Could it really be a coincidence that any of these things started happening again only after Daniel had
come home? Could the monster have followed him here? Or maybe he was the one who was tracking it.

Daniel said he’d returned because of art school, but I’d felt there was something more to it. Was this it? Was the Markham Street Monster back? Was Daniel here to protect us from it?

MORNING

I must have fallen asleep eventually, because I was startled awake by a loud
thunk
outside my bedroom window. I rolled over and looked at the clock: 6:00 a.m. I heard the
thunk
again, so I stumbled out of bed and went to investigate. It was mostly dark out, but I could still see that the side yard was empty. The
thunk
ing continued. It seemed to be coming from the backyard. My legs were so stiff I practically had to slide down the stairs on my butt.

I was in the kitchen when I saw Daniel out in the backyard. He was driving a wood fence post into the frozen dirt—with his bare hands. I couldn’t tell for sure because his back was to me, but it looked like he was holding the post in one hand and then swinging his arm, presumably whacking the top of the post with the butt of his hand. No mallet, or hammer, or any tool was even nearby from what I could tell. He’d probably gotten such an early start so he could do it
his
way.

I was about to go out and join him when I ran my
hand through my hair, and my fingers lodged in a nest of snarls. I watched Daniel take another swing, sinking the post a good three inches into the ground, and I suddenly felt compelled to be cleaned and dressed in something more flattering than my flannel yellow-ducky pj’s.

By the time I’d done my makeup, flat-ironed my hair, and changed my sweater three times—why was everything I owned so boxy?—Charity was in the kitchen perusing one of her science books and eating sugared cereal from her private stash. Which meant that Mom wasn’t up yet. The
thunking
noise had stopped, so hopefully Mom and James would sleep in for a while longer.

I peered out the window. “Did you see where Daniel went?”

“Nope,” Charity grumbled. “I was about ready to go strangle him for making all that racket, but he was gone by the time I got down here.”

“Sorry,” I said, like anything Daniel did was my fault.

“Meh.” She shrugged. “I was gonna get up early today anyway. I’ve got to write a whole first draft for my research paper this weekend.”

“Oh.” I stared farther out the window. “I wonder where he went.”

“The Corolla’s gone. Maybe Dad took him to the hardware store or something.”

Or maybe whoever took the car last night never came home. I didn’t hear the garage door last night, and I hadn’t fallen asleep until at least three a.m. Dad’s study was closed and locked, and the light was out. If Daniel wasn’t with Dad, then where had he gone?

I sank into a kitchen chair. Perhaps Daniel’s reason for fixing the fence so early was because he’d changed his mind about wanting to see me again.

“May I?” I reached for Charity’s box of Lucky Charms.

She nodded. “Did you hear about Mr. Day’s granddaughter?”

“Jessica or Kristy?”

“Jess. She’s missing.”

Little frosted three-leafed clovers tumbled into my bowl. I hadn’t seen Jessica in years. She was in Daniel and Jude’s grade growing up, but her family had moved to the city when she was a sophomore. “Doesn’t she run away on a bimonthly basis?”

“Yeah, but never seriously. She’s never missed a holiday before. When she didn’t show up for Thanksgiving, her parents called the police. Her friends said they were with her at a party downtown the other night. They said she was there one minute and gone the next. It was in the paper.” Charity scraped the bottom of her bowl. “The Markham Street Monster strikes again.”

I dropped the cereal box. “Is that what they’re saying?”

“Yep. There was even a little blurb at the end of the article about James wandering away. I don’t know how they even heard about that. They say the monster might have tried to take him.” There was a sudden edge to her voice. She looked at me over the cereal box. “You don’t think—”

“They’re just trying to freak people out to up their sales.” I wished I could believe what I was saying, but I knew now the article might be right. “Where’s the newspaper anyway?”

“Jude surfaced a few minutes ago. He took it back downstairs,” Charity said. “The paper said the police are waiting for test results on that blood before they release a statement.”

My heart did a little flip-flop in my chest. What
would
they find with those test results? I pushed away the bowl of too-sweet cereal.

Charity turned the page of her book. A large silver-gray wolf stared back at me from the page. I couldn’t help shuddering as I thought of those animal tracks deep in the ravine.

AFTERNOON

I told myself I was not
waiting
for Daniel. I was simply working on my make-up assignment for Mr. Barlow, out on the porch, in November, where I might just happen to see Daniel if he decided to come back. I settled
sideways into the porch swing, where I could see the walnut tree in the side yard, and the street—but like I said, I was not sitting around waiting for a
guy
.

It may have been the lack of focus, but no matter how hard I tried, my attempts to draw the walnut tree still didn’t
feel
right at all. I was fighting the urge to chuck my charcoal pencil across the porch when I heard someone come up beside me.

“I’m glad to see you haven’t given up on me,” Daniel said.

“Took you long enough,” I said, trying not to betray that I’d worried he wouldn’t show. “Where’d you take off to anyway?”

“Maryanne Duke’s.”

I glanced up at him.

“Apparently, she left her house to the parish. Your dad is letting me stay in the basement apartment until I figure some things out. I moved my stuff over there this morning.”

“I’m sure Maryanne’s daughters are just crazy about that.”

Daniel smirked and sat down next to me on the swing.

“Did you see the newspaper this morning?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. Daniel’s grin fell into a frown.

“Do you think they’re right? That the Markham
Street Monster is responsible for what happened to Mr. Day’s granddaughter? That it tried to take James?” He shook his head.

“But you’re the one who said James couldn’t have gone that far on his own. And how did his slipper get down in that ravine?”

Daniel just stared at the palms of his hands, like he was hoping the answer would somehow be written there.

“Monsters
are
real,” I said. “They still exist right here in Minnesota, and in Iowa, and in Utah. Don’t they?”

Daniel scratched behind his ear. “Yes, Gracie. My people wouldn’t still exist if monsters didn’t.”

I suddenly shivered, even though we were sitting in the sun. I’m not sure I
wanted
to be right. “That’s just too weird to wrap my head around. To think that for nearly seventeen years I’ve been walking around completely oblivious to what the world is really like. I mean, I could have walked right past a
monster
without even knowing it.”

“You’ve met one,” Daniel said. “The other night.”

“I did?” Then my mind drifted back to the party at Daniel’s apartment. “Mishka,” I said, thinking of her black, black eyes and how I’d felt so fuzzy in the head around her. “And you’re friends with her?”

“It’s complicated,” Daniel said. “But she’s only dangerous when she doesn’t get what she wants. That’s why I went with her. I didn’t just abandon you for a haircut.
I knew if I chose you over her, she might decide to … target you.”

My heart felt like it was twisting into a knot. “You don’t think that’s what happened, do you? Maybe she followed you here and decided to go after my little brother—”

“No. That’s not what happened.”

“Then what did?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. He was quiet for a moment, and then he looked at the drawing I held on my lap. “I can help you with that.”

“You’re doing it again,” I grumbled.

“What?”

“Dodging my questions, like everybody else. I’m not stupid or fragile or weak, you know.”

“I know, Grace. You’re anything but.” He blew his floppy bangs off his forehead. “I’m not dodging your questions. I just don’t have any more answers to give you.” He tapped my sketch pad with one of his long fingers. “Now, do you want help with your assignment, or not?”

“No, thanks. I’m in enough trouble over the last time you ‘fixed’ one of my drawings.”

“That’s not really what I meant,” he said. “I’ll be staying after school every day to work in the art room. I could use your company. Help keep that Barlow guy off my back. But we could start today. I could show you some new techniques I’ve picked up over the years.”

“I bet you could.” I sighed, realizing that our discussion about monsters was over—for now. “But this drawing is totally hopeless.” I tore the page out of my sketch pad and was about to crumple it up.

“Don’t.” Daniel grabbed it from me. He studied it for a moment. “Why are you drawing this?” He pointed at my skeleton of a tree.

I shrugged. “Because Barlow wants us to draw something that reminds us of our childhood. This is all I could think of.”

“But why?” Daniel asked. “What exactly about this tree are you trying to capture? What does it make you feel? What does it make you want?”

I gazed at the real tree in the yard. Memories trickled into my mind.
You
, I thought.
It makes me want you
. I looked down at my drawing pad and hoped mind reading wasn’t one of Daniel’s many hidden, demon-hunter talents.

“Remember when we used to race up that tree—see who could go the highest the fastest?” I asked. “And then we’d perch up there, and we could see the whole neighborhood? It felt like if we could just climb a little bit farther into the thin branches, we could stretch up and brush the clouds with our fingers.” I rolled the charcoal pencil between my hands. “I guess that’s what I want to feel again.”

“Then why are we down here?” Daniel grabbed my pencil and tucked my pad under his arm. “Come on.”
He pulled me up from the swing and down the porch to the base of the walnut tree. Before I could blink, he’d kicked off his shoes and was halfway up the tree. “You coming?” he goaded from his perch.

“You’re crazy,” I shouted up to him.

“You’re losing!” He jumped from his branch to a higher one above.

“You’re cheating!” I grabbed the lowest branch and tried to swing myself up. My stiff legs groaned. I grabbed a different branch and climbed up a few feet. This was a lot less scary than the ravine, but a lot harder than the stone pillar in the Garden of Angels. My injured hand didn’t make it any easier.

“Pick up the pace, slowpoke!” Daniel shouted down at me like we were kids all over again. He was higher in the branches than I’d ever climbed.

“Zip it, or you’re going to lose an appendage.”

My feet scraped against the ashy-white bark as I pushed and pulled myself up through the tree. I was a few feet below Daniel when the branches felt too thin and wavering to support me. I stretched to reach him—to reach the sky, like I tried when I was kid. I slipped a bit and hugged the closest branch. Daniel swung down to meet me. The tree shuddered when he landed. I hugged my branch tighter. Daniel didn’t even blink. He sat in a crook of the tree, his legs swinging in the open air.

“So what do you see now?” he asked.

I willed myself to look down. I gazed out across the
neighborhood—a bird’s-eye view of the world. Through the branches, I could see the tops of houses, smoke coming out of the Headrickses’ chimney. Kids playing street hockey in the cul-de-sac where Jude, Daniel, and I used to run with our light sabers. Where Daniel, after much bossing on my part, taught me how to skateboard. I looked up. Tree branches swayed above me, dancing in the blue, cloud-spotted sky.