Chapter 22
Jenna followed her cousin as they walked up through the dense trees along the mountainside.
They'd driven in as far as they could, and she was grateful she’d dressed very casually and worn her good sneakers.
They weren't hiking boots, but Annelise was dressed much the same—apparently with no intention of seeing clients at the office today.
Given her initial success at not being chopped into pieces by Ford Velasco after being dragged to the woods, Jenna was a little more open to this trek.
Still, it was one of those things that, if the police questioned her later, she'd have to say she was being stupid.
She'd known these people less than ten days, and each time they left the path they were on, it was for a smaller trail Annelise found and followed.
They were heading deeper and deeper into the mountain woods.
Holding up her cell phone, Jenna checked one more time but, sure enough, there was no signal.
Wouldn't it be a riot if Ford Velasco hadn’t killed her the first day because he was waiting for now?
Jenna laughed at her own thoughts. Thinking he was a serial killer then being relieved to find he wasn’t, only to have him show up now to finish the job.
He’d even called and asked her to come here, and she had.
Then again, he’d actually asked Annelise something about moving a stream and she’d tagged along out of curiosity.
Jenna calmed herself down. They were stupid racing thoughts, and the odds of it were actually unlikely. She was probably safe from dying in a great twist of irony today.
“What exactly are we doing?” she asked Annelise again. “Ford said something about Wharton and deer?”
“Wharton is the old man who owns this whole side of the mountain.”
Jenna craned her neck, taking in what view she could from between the dense trees. “Does he live out here? It doesn't even look like there's power.”
“Yes, he does. And no, there's not. His family has homesteaded here for at least five or six generations.”
Wild small-town trivia, Jenna thought. They all just knew these things about their neighbors, and the families seemed to be deeply embedded and meshed with the land. Her family, she reminded herself. Her genetics.
“With the flood, all the water that gathered at the top of the mountains had to find paths down, which is why the hollow flooded,” Annelise explained.
“It seems, in the process, the creeks have cut some new trails. The deer don’t like the new creek location for some reason and Wharton doesn’t like that they won’t move on. ”
“How did he even call Ford?” Jenna asked, her skepticism growing. The pieces didn't quite line up.
“He heads into town once a week. He used the pay phone at the dollar store.”
Okay, Jenna thought. They’d driven a good distance, and they’d walked further than she'd planned to today.
That was a long trek to make on foot. Maybe he had a vehicle of some kind.
Jenna wasn't familiar with her Appalachian history, but she thought she'd heard of these things. It was past time to learn more.
Then her heart kicked as she spotted a person in the distance. Quickly she realized it was Ford—bright green shirt, blue jeans, hiking boots, broad shoulders, and an affable smile as he turned to wave at them. “Ladies! Thank you for coming.”
Annelise returned her own sunny greeting, the cloud of misery and fresh-fucked-glow finally morphing into something more normal.
Jenna had tried to ask, but Annelise shut her down fast. Jenna might be new to town, but in Belle Hollow everyone talked.
Even though they didn't talk to her, she hadn't been immune to the whispers of Annelise and Rowan—again.
And things like might just blow up this town or kind of like they did last time.
She pushed the curiosity back down because it wasn't her business.
“What have you tried?” Annelise asked Ford as they got close and he'd explained the creek had gotten too wide. Though the deer could cross it, they generally wouldn't.
“Well, I had Jasper make them a dish.”
“Jasper cooks for the deer now?” Annelise laughed, and Jenna wished she could slide into the conversation, but she didn't quite fit. She was used to it, but she didn’t like it.
Still, she couldn’t expect to show up on their doorstep, claim their genetics and suddenly be an old member of the family.
But she’d vowed to push for what she wanted.
It had resulted in her promotion to regional marketing manager, and it could help get her in with the locals.
She joined in. “Jasper made the stew at the house, right?”
Ford nodded, “He’s got a restaurant this side of Richmond.”
Jenna felt her eyebrows go up. The Velasco boys weren’t messing around.
Rowan was a lawyer, he’d been helping people along with the government emergency services she’d seen.
They had that huge house up on the hill.
Alder was a doctor in Charlottesville. But they’d started at the bottom of the hill, like the other creekside families.
She wanted to ask what they’d done but wasn’t ready to push her way into the family that much.
Plus, the Velascos weren’t her cousins, Annelise Lockheart was.
Ford sighed, “Only a few were willing to cross even for Jasper's food.”
“Can't train them, huh?” Annelise asked, looking around but Jenna didn’t know for what.
“I've tried,” Ford commented.
“You work with the deer?” Jenna asked.
“I'm a veterinarian,” he added. “I also try to take care of all the local dogs and cats, the feral colony as best I can, and the wildlife. The day of the flood, I was actually out looking for trapped deer, raccoons, and—hopefully not—bear, but maybe, when I found you.”
She remembered he said he'd been out looking for strays and that he was the opposite of a serial killer. He was a serial rescuer.
The halo bubble she held around Ford suddenly popped. The last thing she needed was another rescuer or a bad boy, and here was Ford trying to prove himself to be both. Jenna hoped it didn’t show on her face. “What are you going to do?”
“We're going to divert the water,” he told her with a smile and an assurance that said he actually thought he could change nature. Then he added, “Actually, your cousin Annelise is going to do it.”
A tight grin from Annelise and a nod answered Ford. Whatever that meant, he caught it, though Jenna did not. She was watching them like a tennis match as Ford’s blue eyes widened and he said, almost incredulously, “You haven't told her?”
Annelise shrugged. “She’s going to see it now.”
See what? Jenna had no idea what this was about. It was like being a little kid, or being in middle school and invited to the cool girls’ party only to find that you were the topic of discussion and they spoke in a code you couldn't understand so they could make fun of you better.
It must have shown on her face because Annelise lifted her hands and said, “Watch.”
It was stupid, Jenna thought. Annelise was just waving her hands around.
Sure, there was a pattern to it—it looked almost like a dance.
But what was she doing? Turning, Jenna looked to Ford, who crossed his arms, raised one eyebrow at her, and tipped his head as if to repeat Annelise’s command: Watch.
The tinkling sound of the creek began to change. The water moved slowly. The edge where they stood slowly became shallower and shallower until there was only wet ground.
“What just happened?” she asked, stunned. Annelise had just waved her hands around like a fool, Jenna thought.
Sensing her confusion, Ford once again spoke over her head, right past her to her cousin. “Are you going to tell her, or am I?”
Annelise turned, hands up as if she had nothing to hide, and said, “The Lockhearts are witches.”
“That's ridiculous.” The words burst out of Jenna’s mouth, and she hadn't imagined herself smacking back at her cousin this way, but she also hadn’t imagined her cousin saying something so stupid.
“You just saw it.”
“I saw a creek dry up.”
“And Annelise did it,” Ford said, a smirk on his face.
“With magic?” She couldn’t hold back the sarcasm that came to the surface. But neither of them laughed. Neither did anything other than agree. “Everyone in the hollow believes this?”
Jenna looked back and forth between the two of them, once again realizing she was stuck out in the middle of nowhere with these two crackpots.
But they weren’t crackpots—or they hadn't been until just now.
Ford seemed the saner of the two, maybe only because he wasn't claiming any magical powers himself. So she asked him, “Do you believe it?”
“Not only do I believe, I called her here to do exactly this,” he added. When Jenna continued to stare at him like he was nucking futs, he added, “I believe it because I've seen it.”
He was reaching around to his bag, pulling out thermoses.
He handed one to Jenna, the cool metal soothing in her hands.
She did need a drink, though it’d be better if it was whiskey.
She was glugging the water and trying to think this all through as he handed a second thermos to Annelise and said, “Show her.”
Untwisting the cap, her cousin tossed it to Ford, who caught it easily—muscles flexing in a way that reminded Jenna that she was not going to do this. Then Annelise put her hand in the air over the thermos and moved her fingers, almost as if she were pulling back.
As Jenna watched, the water came up and over the edge as if gravity suddenly decided to go the other way.
“You're shitting me,” she said, still disbelieving, before turning to her cousin. “It's a cool party trick, but—”
This time Annelise held her hand up in a stop motion and turned to the thermos, tipping it to where the water should have poured out. But it didn’t. Then she held the thermos out to Jenna, sloshing it back and forth, showing that the water really did move like it should.