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  On the ground, three real smiles appeared behind the witches’ skeletal masks. Months of preparation for this moment had all been worth it. The plan was in motion.

  The tall witch unwrapped the locket from the tripod’s remnants. She placed it around her neck. The heated locket seared the skin between her breasts. She pressed it tight and relished the pain.

  Chapter Seven

  “I’ll see Ms. Laura today, won’t I?” Dustin said from the Ford Explorer’s backseat.

  Theresa sat up, always a bit petite for the Explorer’s big seats. She checked her son in the rearview mirror. Her heart broke over the look of anticipation on his face. She felt sad for his loss at Laura’s departure, and furious at Laura for making it necessary.

  “She’ll be there,” Theresa said. “But you worry about your new classroom and your new teacher first, okay?”

  Theresa coasted the Explorer to a stop at a red light. She’d let her red hair grow to shoulder length over the summer. She swept it back into a pony tail and tied it off. The low morning sun made her squint and she donned a pair of sunglasses. Freckles sprinkled her high cheekbones under the glasses’ graceful curve. The light turned green.

  They approached Moultrie Elementary. The old veteran hadn’t changed. Red-brick walls bordered weathered sidewalks. A shiny nylon version of the Stars and Stripes flicked against the steel flagpole. The same as last year. The same as decades ago when little Theresa walked through the then-much-larger front doors. Time rushed around the school, like a river around boulders, and left but imperceptible changes.

  The Explorer stopped in front of the school. Theresa pivoted around to face the backseat. The school might not have changed, but Dustin certainly had. He’d grown enough that she no longer had to angle the rearview mirror down to see him. He’d devoured art supplies over the summer, kindling the fire that Laura had lit inside him last year. The burst of creativity had banished the reserved, shy Dustin that Theresa’s acrimonious divorce had helped create. For the first August in years, Dustin had looked forward to returning to school.

  “I left everything from the school supplies list on the kitchen table,” she said. “You put it all in your backpack?”

  “Yeah, Mom.”

  “And you have your lunch?”

  “Yeah,” he said with dramatic exasperation.

  “Remember, your classroom is down on the right this year, number—”

  “Mom, I know.” He released his seat belt and popped open the door. A rush of humid air rolled into the SUV. “I was here last year, remember?”

  “Fine.” Theresa reached into the backseat. “Give me a hug.”

  “Mom!” Dustin shot a fearful glance out the window. “Are you trying to humiliate me?” He backed out of the SUV. “I’m not a little kid anymore. I’m almost ten.”

  He closed the door and marched into the building, hunched under the weight of his slightly oversized backpack. The hems of his new jeans grazed the sidewalk with each step. He’d soon grow into both, just as he’d outgrown having his mother kiss him goodbye. Theresa stared after him until he disappeared into the school’s corridor.

  The blip of a car horn broke her trance. Cars were backed up behind her to the main road. The Ford’s tires chirped as she stabbed the gas in embarrassment and headed into town.

  She parked in the alley behind Treasured Things. The summer had been good to her antique shop on the old town square. The fire at Galaxy Farms had made statewide news, both for the loss of life and for the loss of history. Suddenly, the house no one in town would buy transformed into a vanished historical landmark. Interest in it peaked, and Theresa’s online auctions of anything Galaxy-related attracted high rollers. She’d made enough to pay Ruby for the antiques she sent Theresa’s way, instead of taking them on consignment.

  The summer had been good for her premonitions as well. She hadn’t had one since the Galaxy Farm fire. It was the her longest stretch of peace she’d had since her initial vision at age fourteen. Since The visions universally hinted at awful events to come, so she didn’t miss them. But part of her felt like a coastal resident making it through the year without a hurricane. The relief just made the dread of the inevitable next arrival all the worse.

  She’d only had the shop open a half hour when the bell on the door announced her first customer. Ben Taney shuffled in. The lean old man wore the only the thing he ever wore outside of Sundays, denim overalls over a T-shirt, and one of his current rotation of Plantation Seed Company gimme hats. His narrow, rugged face had the weathered look of a lifetime in the outdoors.

  “Ben!” Theresa said. “Shouldn’t you be harvesting about now?”

  “Gotta let the dew burn off,” he said. “Can’t be baling wet alfalfa.”

  He slung a bridle up on the countertop. The thick old leather straps had the uneven stitching of hand manufacture. Years of use had rounded the buckles’ corners. The decorative silver and turquoise which studded the brow band caught Theresa’s eye.

  “Ben, this looks like a donkey bridle. Pretty fancy model.”

  “Buttercup was my daddy’s favorite donkey, did a hard day’s work with never a complaint. He wanted Buttercup to have something pretty to wear out in the fields, make her feel special. My daddy had it made special by Indians in Arizona.”

  “Ben, you can’t sell this.”

  “Ain’t had a donkey in a dozen years. Have got a John Deere that needs a muffler before it makes me deaf as a post. Figured now was the time to get top dollar.”

  He pointed to a flyer posted next to the counter, where Theresa let the local events advertise themselves. The banner read, Donkey Day is Back!

  Donkey Day had been a Moultrie tradition for over a century. Each fall after the harvest, farmers would bring donkeys from the county in for tests of strength and beauty, the latter being a pretty subjective evaluation. Over the decades, the event had gone national. Owners packed up donkeys and burros from around the country to attend and compete in the Moultrie celebration. This year there would be an auction, several tests of strength and a ferocious judging competition that would send the Westminster Dog Show running, tail between its legs. It would culminate with carnival rides at night and a performance by Deloris the Diving Donkey, billed as able to leap from a diving board into a pool of water from over a hundred feet up. Treasured Things’ business boomed around everything equestrian during the event.

  “Ben, I think I can help you there. Let me give you—”

  “No, no. You just pay me when you sell it. I trust you to get me a fair price.”

  “Well, let me get a consignment receipt.”

  “Now, Missy, if I trust you on the price, goes to reason I trust you with the bridle. I’ll be back by week after next and we’ll settle up. See you then.”

  Ben left and Theresa smiled as she checked off one of the reasons she had never left Moultrie, even when her divorce made it the common sense thing to do. There were some circles where the gossip got intense, but the overall feeling of community amongst the townspeople could not be beat.

  She scooped the bridle up off the counter. An impending premonition, the gift that kept on giving, announced its long-dreaded return like a stick of emotional dynamite inside her head. The world grayed out under an intense wave of tortured pain. Then a surge of blinding terror ripped up her spine and everything turned flash-blind white. Her knees went weak. She grabbed the counter.

  Snippets of animal close-ups blazed by, a collage of split-second found footage, shaky, blurred. A tortured chorus of their screams pierced her head like an ice pick. Theresa stifled a scream.

  The vision receded and her shop came back into focus. The bridle lay coiled on the countertop like a live electric wire. She backed away.

  Terror gave way to depression. As usual, the gift that kept on giving had not given enough. Something awful was on the way. Or it might be here already. It might have to do with the bridle. It might have to do with Ben Taney. It might have nothing to do with either. One
puzzle piece at a time was all the gift gave. She would have to wait on the rest, and hope that the clues arrived in time for her to act on them.

  She grabbed a pearl-handled umbrella from a corner stand and picked up the bridle with the tip, like she was wrangling a poisonous snake. She hung the bridle on the corner of an old cane chair. Every item always had only one charge to it, but Theresa never took a chance if she didn’t have to. The customer who bought this bridle would need to bag it himself.

  And she hoped someone bought it soon.

  Chapter Eight

  A dead cow.

  There were times when Sheriff Sam Barnsdale questioned if his new position in the department had divorced him from doing actual law enforcement. Looking down into the glassy eyes of a dead Holstein made him chalk this up as one of those days.

  “What time did you find her dead?” he asked.

  “Him. It’s a bull. Bulls are male,” Ben Taney said.

  Sam grew up in Nashville, the home of country music, not country living. He wanted to tell Ben there was more to police work than telling bulls from cows. But going from deputy to sheriff meant holding your tongue a bit.

  “I went into town this morning to drop off a bridle,” Ben said, “came back out to feed the herd about 10:30 a.m., and there he was, laid out on the ground.”

  Laid out wasn’t how Sam would describe it. It was more like field-dressed by a knife-wielding blind man. The bull had puncture marks along its shoulders and a bite wound at the nape of the neck. Its rib cage was shredded open and just bits and pieces of the internal organs remained inside. The dried, caked blood on the grass and the roaring buzz of the flies put the time of death at well before ten in the morning, probably some time last night.

  “Looks like it was attacked,” Sam said. “Maybe coyotes.”

  “Coyotes? Take down an adult bull? Son, you watch too much Animal Planet. Coyotes ain’t wolves. They eat rabbits and such.”

  Sam probed one of the wounds with his blue-gloved finger.

  “Something bigger maybe. A cougar.”

  “My grandfather killed the last cougar in Shaw County. Ain’t been one here since before the Depression.”

  Sam stood and snapped his gloves off in frustration. “Well, we can agree that it was some kind of animal attack, right? Teens or adults, no one’s going to make a mess like this and not track a trail of blood and organs back across the field. And the grass isn’t trampled, so no one killed the bull elsewhere and dropped it here.”

  “Whatever you say, Sheriff,” Ben said. The word sheriff held a touch of derision. “I just need to file a report with you before I call my insurance.”

  “Big case here, Sheriff?” someone said. This time the word sheriff dripped with disdain.

  Sam turned to see Deputy Macaulay Chalmers behind him. Somehow, the nearly 300-pound deputy had silently arrived during Sam’s bovine autopsy. Big Mac, as nearly everyone called him behind his back, had a stupid, malicious grin on his puffy, pale face.

  “Looks like a bull-mo-cide’s been committed,” Big Mac said. He pushed his department baseball-style cap back by the brim and scratched the top of his close-cropped hair. A bead of sweat rolled down one cheek. “Have you questioned the cow? It’s usually the spouse in these things.”

  Sam bristled at Big Mac’s disrespectful familiarity. Sure, a few months ago they had both been deputies. And Sam had been the only one who’d not been Shaw County born and raised. But the mayor appointed Sam to fill the vacant position after Sheriff Mears’s death. Sam was junior to damn near everyone in the department and it had not sat well, especially with Big Mac.

  The two were polar opposites. Sam was as fit as Big Mac was fat. Sam had a Nashville State AS, Big Mac had a GED. Sam did police work with his head. Big Mac was rumored to do it with his hands, sometimes clenched into fists.

  “I didn’t call for any backup,” Sam said.

  “Came on my own initiative,” Big Mac said. “Was right nearby.”

  That was a lie. Big Mac had the west, not east side of the county today.

  “Well, then, since you’re here,” Sam said, “give Mr. Taney a hand getting this bull to the end of his driveway for pickup.”

  Big Mac’s face screwed up in protest. Sam rolled his blue gloves in a ball and tossed them at the deputy. Big Mac caught them at his chest.

  “Don’t get your hands dirty,” Sam said. As he passed Big Mac, he bent to his ear and whispered. “Leave your assigned patrol area one more time, and you’ll never see your badge and gun again.”

  Big Mac’s face went red, but for once he was smart enough to keep his big mouth shut.

  On the way back to the department, Sam again mulled over how he got into this uncomfortable position. Mayor Maggie McCormack, herself only in office for a year, had pulled him from the bottom of the department’s seniority list to replace the late Sheriff Mears. Sam hadn’t stood out as a deputy. He was average height and looked a shade underweight without his Kevlar vest, while the rest of the force ranged from muscle-bound to Big Mac’s rotund. He hadn’t made any noteworthy arrests. He wasn’t even from one of the families that constituted Moultrie’s long-term elite.

  The mayor was young and female, two rarities in the town’s political history. She told Sam she wanted the same kind of fresh perspective in the sheriff’s department when she offered him the job. He’d never even met the mayor before. But financial needs and personal pride kept him from turning her down.

  He pulled into his parking space at the department. On the RESERVED FOR sign, Sheriff Mears’s name was painted over, but Sam’s wasn’t stenciled in yet. That was so fitting.

  As he got out of the car, he grabbed the wide-brimmed sheriff’s campaign hat from the passenger seat. Except for the day of his promotion, he hadn’t worn it. Tradition was he’d ditch the ball cap that deputies wore in favor of the big hat only the sheriff wore. It didn’t seem to fit, either on his head or in his life. But he carried it out to the car each day, along with the shotgun and road flares.

  So far, he hadn’t used any of the three.

  Chapter Nine

  The little girl closed the door behind her and left Laura alone in the remedial reading room.

  Room was a generous term. Laura swore the place had started life on the Moultrie Elementary floor plans as a storage closet. Her demotion had given her a desk the size of an end table. One table with three undersized chairs nearly filled the small space. Any paperwork or personal items were relegated to the battered filing cabinet in the corner. Outdated posters on the wall tried to sell the concept that Reading Is Fun! and made the room seem even smaller. If Laura’s school supplies hadn’t been buried in the chaos of moving, she would have redecorated the place on day one with something more engaging.

  Laura had what she called her student sixth sense. The Triple S kicked in when one of her students had something amiss: a disability, a mood issue for the day, a desire for mischief about to boil over. The perception had served her well over the years, a bit too well in her time at Galaxy Farm. With her new position, she thought it would be a great advantage.

  But the departing girl had been the third of the day and the second with the same problem. Until last week, they had not had glasses. Were parents oblivious to their children squinting all the time to make sense of the world around them? Her frustration was mitigated by the relief that she’d be able to make rapid progress with these children. There was a good chance they were below grade level without any underlying disabilities.

  She flipped open the notes on her next student. Luther Gowan was another story altogether. His records were transferred up from Mississippi, where he attended school last year. He was doing most of his work well below his third grade level.

  Third grade! She could not read it without adding her third grade, the classroom these people tore her from at the last minute. She took a deep breath and refocused on Luther’s file.

  A behavioral diagnosis. Well, she’d see.

  The door o
pened and Luther walked in. The slight boy had a head of curly platinum hair and green eyes filled with fear of the unknown.

  “Come in, Luther.”

  The boy entered and took a seat without a word. His eyes never left his shoes, which had the logo of comic superhero Arrowman on the toes.

  Her old Triple S pegged the meter. Laura fumed at the “behavioral problem” diagnosis. In his first few seconds this kid had displayed all the symptoms of low self-esteem.

  “Luther, I’m Ms. Locke,” she started. “You’re new here this year, right?”

  He nodded without looking at her.

  “So am I,” she said. “This is my first year as the reading teacher, so we get to both be new together. Looks like you are an Arrowman fan.”

  He sat up a bit straighter. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Laura liked that someone had taught the boy manners. “Did you see his movie this summer?” Laura stayed current on all the kid trends.

  Luther’s eyes went wide and he looked straight at Laura for the first time. “Oh yeah!”

  “Did you worry when the Black Cowl sent the missiles at him?”

  Luther gripped the edge of the table. “Never! Arrowman has antigravity vision. I knew he could deflect the missiles as soon as he tore off his blindfold. He sent them into the ocean, but he could have flung them all the way into space.”

  This boy didn’t have a behavior problem and he wasn’t suffering from low intelligence. Good imagination, understanding of complex concepts like gravity, creative. Luther was the classic case of a learning disability.

  “Well, Luther, you and I are going to play a few games today. Are you up for some games?”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  Twenty minutes later the screening tests confirmed Laura’s initial general diagnosis of a disability. Luther had a strong case of dyslexia. But nothing some intense tutoring could not overcome. And she was just the one to do it.