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“It’ll fade soon,” Rafe said. “We just need to be able to find you in case we get left behind again. You want that dollar, don’t you?”
“Come on,” she said, her grimace more frightening than someone her size should have been able to manage.
We followed. The biggest boy seemed to have left us, and the smaller two watched carefully as we approached. The children seemed to be comfortable enough with the idea of witchcraft, but then they had certainly not lived sheltered young lives.
“How far away?” Rafe asked.
The children looked at each other before answering. “Up toward Jackson, I think,” the one called Hammond lisped. “We can take ‘em, Bettany.”
“We’ll all go.” She started off, the younger two right behind her and Rafe and I bringing up the rear.
The patches of glass bricks overhead gave us sufficient light to walk by, so I let the witchlight go out. The children led us up and around, a twisting route that made me wish I’d left us a trail of breadcrumbs to find our way back.
Keeping track of others’ footprints took whatever bit of attention wasn’t keeping track of our route. Rafe kept close to me, periodically flinching as if he passed another patch of remembered fire. We’d been walking for some fifteen minutes when the largest boy came jogging up from the direction in which we were headed.
“They’re gone,” he said. “Now gimme the dollar.”
Drawing himself up to his full height, he made a show of palming another sharp blade.
“No friend, no dollar.” I kept my voice light, my smile amused.
“She ain’t there no more.” He raised the knife. “Now gimme the dollar.”
Rafe stepped out from behind me. “You will take us there now.”
“I could just tell you any ol’ place and you’d believe me.” The cocky little bastard crossed his arms, his grin smug.
Rafe removed his spectacles, giving the child his full, black-eyed glare. “I’ll know if she was there or not.”
“You’re lying,” the boy said, though his face turned pale and his grin faded.
“I’m not.”
“Don’t be a fool, Jim,” the girl, Bettany, said. “Let’s just take ‘em and they’ll let us be.”
He snorted a laugh, pocketing his blade. Bettany waved us on, with Hammond and the smallest boy right behind her. Rafe and I waited until the big boy, Jim, had started after them before we moved.
This search for Margaret had become more complicated than I’d expected.
We followed the children through a series of turns, coming at last to an abandoned storefront that still had an old “pharmacy” sign in the window. The children led us inside, and from the scuffmarks in the dust, the place had seen other visitors.
“See?” the big kid, Jim, said. “She was here but she ain’t no more.”
I turned to Rafe. “What do you think.”
He lowered his glasses and scanned the place. “He’s right.”
“Damn it.”
“Okay. Gimme that dollar,” Jim crowed.
Grimacing, I reached for my wallet. “Can we get to the street from here?”
Bettany answered. “If you want. That door goes to more stairs, but you wanna be careful because you’ll end up in a tavern. The owner goes off his chump when he catches us sneaking in.”
“Thank you.” I gave her a small bow and handed over the dollar.
Jim snatched it right out of her hand. “Ha! It’s mine!”
