“Of course,” I say, picking one out. My fingers burn as I touch them, though, like they have some curse attached to them. I pay the couple bucks for the figurine anyway. Once the transaction has gone through, I start the real questions.
“What’s the story with this witch, anyway?” I ask. “People seem really obsessed with it here.”
“Well, she’s as old as this town,” Cheryl says, her eyes wistful. “And she’s not bad, like you’ve probably heard. She guards the forest around town. If she’s happy and respected, the land stays safe. We’re in a dangerous area, you know. We need a lot of protection.”
Beck hands Cheryl the paperwork. “What happened with the fire ten years ago?”
Cheryl sighs, her shoulders heaving. “Same story as they all are, I think. Some hooligans from out of town lit a fire outside of regulation during the dry season. We lost thousands of acres of forest,” her green eyes well with tears, “and it ravaged the town. All but a handful of buildings burned to the ground. Dozens of animals and human residents perished as well.”
My own throat grows heavy with emotion. “Was it on the news?”
“You two would’ve been too young to hear about it. It was, but there was so much going on that year. It fell under the radar. We builtthe town back up ourselves. We’ve mostly gotten our buildings back up, but there’s no telling how long it takes a community to return emotionally. We used to only have a handful of ghost stories from over the centuries. Now, everyone’s seen something or other.”
I clench my jaw to keep from saying anything I regret. The fire is absolutely a tragedy and ghost stories are fun for what they are, but none of this connects back to thereal murdersthat may or may not have taken place less than a year ago. What kind of useless rabbit hole did the texter take us down telling us to ask about a witch? Someone cut our goddamn fuel line and yet we’re still as ignorant as when we first came here. We don’t need stories; we need evidence.
Beck inspects one of the wood carvings. “Do people really think this witch looks like some bad rendition of lady Satan?” She pauses. “No offense.”
My breath catches in my throat. What is Beck doing? We already pissed off someone in town, and we don’t need another.
Cheryl just shakes her head. “That’s her original form, missy. She’s ethereal. She possesses people nowadays. Only women and girls, though.” Her gaze falls on us, and suddenly the softness in her face goes stern. “And she doesn’t like outsiders, either. Especially not after what one did ten years ago.”
I swallow, my hand itching to grab Beck’s and get the hell out.
“That’s kinda messed up to say, isn’t it?” Beck says. “Especially when those girls actually died here less than a year ago and didn’t start any fires?”
“They ruled that as an accident, didn’t they?” Cheryl says, her gaze suddenly moving away from Beck and me.
“An accident where the teeth of one of the girls were all broken.”
But Gerry steps out into the waiting area before we can dig anydeeper. “Alright, girls, here’s the skinny: I’m gonna need a few more days for our replacement parts to come in. Are y’all good to go back to your camping until then?”
I grip Beck’s arm.
A few more days.Someone probably cut our fuel line and we’re supposed to sit here without even a car to protect us? No. No way. That’s exactly how people in horror movies die.
“Uh,” I say, my throat closing from the panic. “We’d actually like to get a taxi. Maybe you can ship the car to us or we can come back and get it later?”
Gerry looks at us with a blank stare. “I suppose you could. But we don’t really have taxis that leave the area. It’ll take a lot of trips.”
“Can the police come by and drop us off at the nearest area with Uber access, maybe?” I ask. “We have to talk to them anyway.”
Gerry furrows his brow. “Why would you need to talk to the police?”
A wave of dizziness hits me. What does he meanwhy?
“Our fuel line was cut.”
Gerry puts his hands on his belly and starts laughing. “Oh boy, you girls nowadays watch way too muchDateline. The material in the fuel line was worn down. It split from the wear and tear. Some city cars start falling apart when you drive them on gravel and such. The heat only makes it worse.” Gerry looks over to Beck, who is keeping a straight face but has her thumb dug into her side. “What year is your car? Like a 2024?”
Beck looks away, her cheeks growing pink. “It’s my mom’s 2022.”
“Worst year for Jaguars and that brand doesn’t have many good years. Trust me.”
This cannot be real. I look around the room, trying to groundmyself. I feel the heat off the windows, see Gerry’s assistant shining Beck’s car with a rag, and feel the dig of my thumbnail into the meat of my hand. I’m in a mechanic shop in a small mountain town in Southern California, investigating the deaths of my friends after an anonymous source sent us a video and abandoned us. I’m here with Beck Horne, and someone just told her that her fuel line wasn’t cut but it broke because her mom’s car sucks.
I don’t know enough about Jaguars to confirm.
I can’t look it up, because service is so awful here. We’re so far out that there aren’t taxis or rideshares.
