Chapter Seventeen #4
I know that I could start talking about clock tower demons and all the slurping and they wouldn’t blink an eye.
For the first time in my life, I don’t have to censor myself.
It kind of feels like flying—and I don’t think it’s the wine.
I don’t want it to end, but eventually the wine is gone—mostly thanks to a valorous effort by Nora and me, since Cleo has
to drive back out to the airport. She talks about not wanting to leave for a while, and then stands up from where we’ve taken
over the end of the table.
“How often do you guys do this?” I ask while Cleo shrugs on her coat. I note she made almost no progress in her knitting—a
basic one-color scarf that doesn’t even require a pattern—and I remember what she said about not having a crafty bone in her
body.
She isn’t here for knitting, I understand. Cleo’s here for Nora, and roped me in, too, because Nora wouldn’t presume. And she’s probably also here for
the same thing I felt here tonight. Camaraderie.
I think about the scowl she would turn on me if I said that out loud to her, and smile.
“Once a month for the official Knit and Sip, but you’re always welcome to stay after hours and drink and knit with me,” Nora
says happily.
I want to take her up on that. I will take her up on that. “You’re on,” I tell her.
I trail after them as Cleo marches toward the back. She’s saying her goodbyes as she opens the back door, and then a horrible screech fills the air.
Pained. Horrifying.
We all crash to a stop in the doorway and look around, trying to locate the source of the noise. It’s continuing—something out there is gasping and screeching in pain. I have the wild thought that the garden gnome is to blame, but then I catch
sight of a gross, hairless tail wriggling in a shaft of light.
“Just a possum,” Cleo says, but her voice is strangled.
I look closer, across the yard. Only the tail is visible, because the rest of the poor creature is clearly being pulled into
the shadows against its will.
The shadows that seem to have a heft they shouldn’t. And a body.
My stomach lurches. The possum screams.
“Guys . . .” But I don’t know what to say.
I grab their arms and hold on for dear life. I think we should close the door, but then I’d have to let go of one of them
to reach out and shut it and everything in me insists that if I do that, we all die.
It’s Nora who breaks whatever spell is keeping us in one place. She nudges Cleo and me back into the store and calmly shuts
the door.
Cleo sounds like she’s having the same trouble breathing steady that I am. “Nora, I still have to go.”
Nora doesn’t argue with Cleo, so I do.
“You have to stay.” I’m still clutching her arm while my heart beats wildly. “You can’t go out there.”
“Whatever is eating animals is just doing that,” Cleo says calmly, but her voice is weird. Hiding something, I think. “Eating
animals. Circle of life, city girl. I have to get back to the airport. Dad can only handle things on his own for so long.”
But she doesn’t try to shake off my grip. Outwardly, she seems perfectly at ease, but I don’t buy it.
“What things?” Nora asks, clearly concerned about Cleo’s home life while I am concerned about shadows eating animals.
Cleo shakes her head. “It’s okay. We both know it’s okay. It always is.” She breaks out of my grasp and opens the door. I’m
trying to argue with her, but it’s just a sputter, and Nora is busy flipping light switches on.
When I dare to look outside to where Cleo has gone I see the entire back pathway lit up by the lights Nora must have just
turned on.
“Text me when you’re home safe,” Nora calls after Cleo.
Because neither of us can stop her.
There’s no sign of the possum. The horrible screeching has stopped. But I still grab on to Nora again because this is all wrong.
“Nora.”
“It’s okay,” she says, patting my arm. But her eyes are on Cleo’s slowly disappearing form. “That’s the deal. It’s okay, except
on Halloween.”
She says this more like she’s trying to convince herself than like she believes it. She tries to smile at me.
“That possum is not okay,” I point out.
“No, but it could have been a stray dog that got it. There was talk of a mountain lion over in Dubuque. Did you know that?
Predators might prefer the wild, but they’ll come into town for food. It could have been that.”
It wasn’t. We both know it.
“You’ll text Logan to turn on all the lights before I walk you over,” she tells me, still calm and orderly.
I glance across the yard at the house. Right now there is a porchlight on and the living room window glows. But it is dim
against the darkness surrounding the house.
I do not want to walk through it.
“The thing is, Lexi, we have to live,” Nora tells me, serious and quiet now. “Through the scary things. In between the Feeds.
We still have to live. It’s kind of the point. And maybe we want to break the deal and send the demons back to wherever demons come from, but in
the meantime . . . there’s a deal that our ancestors sacrificed for. So we trust it. Because we have to.”
Kind of how I’ve always tried to live my life in between dreams, really.
But I look past her, out into the inky dark.
And trust nothing.