Brian turned his head to follow her finger. “I don’t see anything.”
He looked like—no. What was she thinking? It was just a scarecrow in a suit. Ollie didn’t like scarecrows. When the light was weird, like now, in the rain, they almost looked alive. Stupid scarecrows.
“Never mind,” Ollie said.
They passed a sign.MISTY VALLEY FARM AND GARDENS.
In the last moments before the bus rolled to a stop, Ollie paged back to the book’s epigraph.
Avoid large places at night...
Ollie touched the words, wishing she understood.
The sun was coming out. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. Thick, surprising sunbeams slanted through the clouds.
The bus turned in the farm gate. They parked in a big gravel parking lot and the engine cut out. A few people had put down their windows when the rain stopped. The smell of cows and garlic floated in. The students filed offthe bus. When she got to the front, Ollie glanced sideways toward the bus driver. To her surprise, he was gone. A tall woman was waiting at the bus door, directing the kids as they came off. She wore a plaid shirt and muddy boots.
Ollie saw her and froze.
Linda Webster, owner of Misty Valley Farm, was the woman from yesterday, the woman whose book Ollie had stolen.
8
“WELCOME TO MISTY VALLEY!”Ms. Webster called, smiling. Her face looked pleasant now, wholesomely weathered. Her eyes were calm, sane. The streaky black makeup, the tears, the skull smile were all gone. She might have been a totally different person, except Ollie recognized her long amber-honey braid. The bus sighed and settled. People were clogging up the aisle. Ollie hurriedly ducked her head, coughed into her hand, hoping Ms. Webster hadn’t gotten a good look at her. She got off the bus and hid in a group of her classmates.Small Spacesseemed to be lying extra heavy in her backpack.
Maybe Ms. Webster’s not crazy? Maybe she’s really scared of something?
But what?
Ollie looked around. A red farmhouse stood on thetop of a little rise. Just below lay a long, low barn. Behind the barn was a slim slice of pasture, muddy and gently rolling, with a herd of dairy cows. Chickens wandered around the open spaces between the buildings, pecking. Next to the cows, a field of late sunflowers nodded in the breeze. The sound of Lethe Creek came faintly to her ears, and the sun peered through the hurrying clouds, turning the leaves gold.
Really nothing to be scared of. It was beautiful. Except... A group of three scarecrows stood on the edge of the parking lot, smiling stitched-on smiles. Their garden-rake hands were raised to wave. The tips of the rakes gleamed in the sun.
Ollie kept turning. More scarecrows. Scarecrows everywhere. Someone had set up scarecrows between buildings, in the vegetable garden, on stakes in the cornfield. Their hands were trowels or garden rakes. Their smiles had been sewn or painted on. Scarecrows, Ollie thought uneasily, should not be used for decoration. Piles of pumpkins were much better.
But creepy though the scarecrows were, they hardly explained Linda Webster crying by the creek the day before.
“Man,” said Brian Battersby’s voice behind her. “I wouldn’t want to meet these guys on a dark night.”
Ollie turned. Brian was eyeing a particularly sinister scarecrow: tall, dressed in an old-fashioned black suit. It hadgarden forks for hands. “No,” Ollie said, a little puzzled, but in complete agreement.Whywas Brian even talking to her? “I wouldn’t either.”
Brian grinned at her and reached up to adjust the tall scarecrow’s straw hat. “Good thing they’re just scarecrows. Have fun today, Ollie-pop.”
He sauntered away with Phil and Mike.
—
“Come over here, please! Gather round!”
The sixth grade clustered around Ms. Webster, except for Ollie, who hung back. “Welcome!” Ms. Webster said. “We have alovelyprogram for you—” Just then, the bus driver popped up beside her: pale, gray bearded, and red lipped. Where had he been? Also... did Ms. Webster flinch away from him slightly? Washethe one Ms. Webster was scared of? Maybehe’dmade her go dump a book into Lethe Creek? But why?
The bus driver’s skin really was the gray-white of an old mushroom.
Ollie loved mushrooms. On weekends, she and her mom used to go foraging for wild ones. It had been an autumn day like this one, clouds chasing sun, when they had found Ollie’s first chicken-of-the-woods. “These are pretty rare, Olivia,” her mom had said, glowing. “Look. Chicken-of-the-woods only grow out of the hearts ofdying trees.” She tapped the elm in question. “This tree is a goner. Forest rangers don’t like to see chicken-of-the-woods because they mean the good hardwoods are dying. But this mushroom...”
“What?” Ollie cried, stroking the orange-red thing with a forefinger.
“You’ll see,” said her mom, smiling, pulling out her pocketknife.
