Chapter 9

ChapterNine

“I don’t feel well.” Jesse leaned her head against the glass as she rode in the passenger seat of Nolan’s truck.

Lily drove like a madwoman. The tires skidded on dirt as she took turns too fast. Mal and Mara were squished in the middle as they all crowded in. Mal’s arm was around Jesse’s shoulders as if trying to help keep her steady as they bounced around.

“Magic is about intent,” Lily said, not for the first time. “Just know what you want.”

“I want to lay down,” Jesse said, closing her eyes. Polly’s guess for motion sickness had come too early.

“I still want a cheeseburger,” Mara added.

Jesse felt a wave of frustration wash over her. Lily wanted sisters who took things seriously.

“I am taking this seriously,” Jesse said. “Dante is in trouble, and I have no idea how to stop gremlins, but here I am. I’ve been screaming at the apparent void for the last two years that I didn’t want anything from the inheritance, but here I am. I didn’t want to open the migraine box, yet here I am with a pounding head. So, you can stop poking at me.”

“I didn’t poke,” Lily muttered.

“And give Mara a break,” Jesse continued. “She’s clearly worried about Dante. After the horror show of her childhood, we’re lucky she only uses humor to deflect when she’s scared. You and Dante are the only family she has ever really known, at least the only ones who care if she lives or dies. Polly, too, but she’s such a noodle that she doesn’t evoke trust in our baby sis.”

“Hey,” Mara protested. “Don’t talk for me. I never said any of that.”

Jesse groaned and dropped her forehead against her arm as she leaned into the door. “Yes, thank you, Mal. You can do something for me. You can rub the back of my neck.”

“Are you hearing voices?” Mara asked. “Your boyfriend didn’t say anything.”

Jesse lifted her head to glance at him.

Mal shook his head and lifted his hand to rub her neck. “But I was thinking it.”

Jesse’s head fell back down as he massaged her. She kept her eyes closed and stated, “Yes, I suppose I would like you to be my boyfriend.”

Mal cleared his throat, and his hand stopped for a moment before resuming.

“I can deduce you didn’t say that out loud either,” Jesse mumbled. “Why are you all in my head?”

That no one had an answer for.

Jesse focused on her breathing as the truck sped along. She heard the clink of pebbles kicking up from the tires and the creak of the pickup as it rocked back and forth. She found comfort in the meditative simplicity. The headache began to fade.

“Hold on,” Lily ordered.

The truck swerved. The motion forced Jesse’s head up. They passed through a residential neighborhood.

“This is Lucky Valley?” Jesse asked, staring at the row of white houses with black trim. They all looked like decorated variations of the same cookie-cutter set. One house had red curtains in the windows, another yellow. The flowerpots varied, as did the toys in the yard. One had a porch swing, another a tire swing, and yet another had a hammock in the side yard.

“Yes,” Mal answered.

“It looks…” Jesse frowned, a little disappointed. She’d built it up inside her head to be a mythical place. “Normal.”

“It is normal,” Mal answered. “Supernaturals are just like humans, with different inherited gifts.”

Lily snorted, and the vehicle sped up.

“Yeah. Gifts,” Mara drawled.

“I just thought it would be more Halloweeny.” Jesse furrowed her brow.

Lily turned the truck. The tires screeched a little against the road.

The idealistic neighborhood became an apocalyptic landscape as they drove down Main Street. Metal light posts were sliced open with claw marks as if creatures had swung around them in circles. A few were ripped open so badly that they had tipped over.

Cars had crashed into each other, and a few even into the sides of buildings. Their dented hoods and tops reminded her of the rental in Lily’s driveway. The doors to a sedan hung open, revealing claw marks on the seats.

Jesse felt a wave of guilt. Was she responsible for unleashing this?

Lily slowed to dodge the cars, driving onto the curb before stopping and shutting off the engine. They peered out of the windows, not seeing anyone.

“Do you think they’re gone?” Mara whispered.

“Come on.” Lily opened the truck door and climbed out. She reached into the cab, grabbed Mara’s arm, and pulled her out. She then waved at Mal and Jesse. “Let’s go. Now.”

Jesse shivered as her feet hit the pavement. Mal pulled her behind him as they moved across the street. Faces pressed against a diner window beneath a sign that read Stammerin’ Eddie’s.

“Open up,” Lily yelled as she reached for the handle. She jerked, but a bearded man on the other side held tight and refused to let them in.

Mal joined Lily at the door. “Paul! Open it!”

“Dante!” Lily yelled. “Are you in there?”

Jesse detected the sound of pattering feet and turned toward the street. Dark images blurred like a converging storm. The sound of tires popping preceded the broken-down vehicles lowering on their flat tires. She felt a rush of anger like a tidal wave coming to pull her under.

Paul must have released the door because she heard a shopkeeper’s bell jingle. Someone grabbed her arm and dragged her into the diner. She stood at the door, watching as the gremlins destroyed everything within their reach. They jerked on wires, dented metal, and pulled parts of the engine to throw them on the ground.

“Why did you let them in here?” a man demanded. “We should throw them all out. They caused this. Let them deal with it.”

“Yeah, throw them out,” a woman agreed.

The aggression and fear were so palpable that they choked Jesse’s throat. They were serious. They wanted the Goodes gone. The fear was ingrained in them from generations of blaming everything bad that happened on a curse.

Jesse watched as someone locked the door. They collectively stepped back as the diners stared out the window like they were watching a drive-in movie.

“Try not to move,” someone whispered. “Maybe they’ll go away like last time.”

Jesse didn’t think the creatures were planning on leaving. They seemed to be searching for something.

“Jesse?” A hand pressed against her shoulder and forced her around. Dante instantly pulled her into a hug. “Why didn’t you tell us you were coming? I wouldn’t have gone out if I’d known. Or at least, I would have come home.”

“Is she a keeper?” Jesse asked, torn between listening to him and watching the threat outside.

“My date?” Dante shook his head. “No. We had fun, but she left for Maryland this morning.”

Jesse turned her full attention back to the door to watch the destruction. How was she supposed to stop this? Why did she agree to come here? This wasn’t her world. She was an unemployed waitress with mommy issues.

“Do you think they’ll come in here?” Jesse asked.

“I don’t know,” Dante whispered. “I don’t know what they want.”

What should she do?

How could she help?

Fight or flight,Jesse thought.

She searched the diner for a safe place to hide. A counter with barstools had been abandoned. Cups of coffee and half-eaten dinners still lined the place settings. The rectangular dining room stretched to the side, long and skinny. Red booths bolted to the black-and-white checkered floor, fixtures hanging from the shiny silver ceiling, and the 1950s tin signs boasting fresh coffee and happy families didn’t offer much in the way of protection.

However, it would give the gremlins many things to dent and destroy.

A distraction, maybe? While they got everyone out of a back door?

Was there a back door?

Behind the bar, standard diner equipment was lined up along a short wall. The old-fashioned soda fountain, heat lamps, blenders, and soft serve ice cream machine might make for good projectiles if they had to fight.

Or perhaps the giant coffee maker could scald if they threw the hot liquid?

“I heard you talking. I’ve never been to Maryland.” A woman with auburn hair and rectangular plastic glasses pushed Mal out of her way so she could stand close to Jesse. Her red polo waitress uniform had the name Sal embroidered on it. “I can’t remember ever wanting to go there. It’s one of those places you never think about. Paris, though, I’ve wanted to go there and get fat on cheese and croissants. But I know it will never happen. Life has decided to trap me here.”

“I was trapped in a well when I was a kid,” Paul, the bearded man who had blocked the door said, crowding closer to inch Sal out of the way. “I jumped in. I thought it would be like that television show where the dog comes and saves the boy. I never told anyone I did it on purpose.”

“I’ve never told anyone I wanted to be a ballet dancer,” said a burly man in a cook’s grease-stained apron.

The confessions kept coming, the words overlapping as those in the diner tried to talk over each other. They seemed more concerned with telling her things than what was happening in the street.

“I’ve never…”

“I haven’t told…”

“That’s nothing. When I was little…”

“What the hell is going on?” Dante thrust his body in front of hers.

“Everyone back,” Mal ordered, shoving the bearded man away as he came beside Jesse.

“Please, I don’t know how to tell my sister I don’t want to keep our mother’s house. It smells like mothballs, and I hate it. I’ve already talked to a realtor,” a woman with short black hair tried to tell Jesse. She bounced up and down, trying to see over the crowd.

The sister jerked her down as she tried to hop up. “You did what? You said you agreed with me!”

Suddenly the crowd surged toward Jesse as one sister pushed the other into the cluster.

Jesse cried out as her hip hit the door lock. The shopkeeper’s bell jingled. The sound of outside destruction suddenly stopped as the diner erupted into chaos. Dante was jerked into the throng. Someone tried to grab Jesse, but Mal leaped in front of her, only to be shoved into her back.

Jesse’s face pressed into the glass. She felt as if their emotions choked her—fear, anger, repression, aggression, denial, longing. They all flowed to congest the air. She grabbed her throat, trying to breathe. Dizziness threatened her consciousness. Desperate to escape, she fumbled for the latch but couldn’t get it to open.

A surge of warm yellow light thrust out of her chest, and she suddenly found herself standing alone on the sidewalk. She pulled at her neckline and took several deep breaths.

The locked diner doors rattled violently.

“Jesse!” Mal yelled, his voice muffled. “Jesse!”

Jesse heard low chittering and slowly turned to look behind her. The gremlins had stopped their destruction as they ambled toward her. They hopped off cars and came out of tattered landscaping containers.

“Hello,” she tried to speak, lifting her hands to keep them calm. “Easy there.”

She automatically started retreating toward the diner, back to safety. But then she heard the rattling doors and knew the people inside were terrified. When she glanced at them, Dante, Lily, and Mal were trying to get out while everyone else tried to stop them. Mara was arguing with the sisters.

Jesse changed directions, trying to lead the creatures away from her family.

“Come on,” Jesse whispered. “Follow me.”

She had absolutely no idea what she was doing. Nothing about this inheritance made sense, and as far as she could tell, magic sucked. Everyone kept trying to tell her stuff, and if they weren’t speaking, they were bombarding her with their emotions.

Jesse stopped walking. She looked over the destroyed street scene. The creatures were angry and frustrated. She felt that much. They were acting out.

Mal had said they usually hibernated in a mine. Her magic had woken them up.

“Tell me what you need,” Jesse said, raising her voice.

They chattered in response. Her hands shook, and she tried not to scream in fright.

“Angry. Frustrated.” Jesse tried to feel what they felt. “Confused. Hungry?”

At that, they perked up. Pointy ears twitched.

“Are you hungry?”

Like when she’d touched the gold nugget around her family, Jesse’s vision blurred with yellow. Only this time, she saw a vision of the gremlins living in a cave. Trails of magic had come searching for a host, for Jesse. It woke the gremlins up and drove them from their home early. They searched for the food offerings meant to be there so they could hibernate for another couple of centuries, but the usual cakes and pastries weren’t there. The town was gone, and they were left trying to find where the food stash was hidden.

The vision faded. Jesse slowly nodded. “Okay. I understand.”

She changed her course once more for the diner. She walked carefully, but the creatures let her pass.

“Jesse.” Mal shook the door, desperately trying to get to her as he fought the press of the crowd behind him.

“I’m all right, Mal,” she said. “I need cake.”

“What?” He frowned and leaned his ear against the glass.

“Cakes,” Jesse yelled. “Pies. Giant bowls of ice cream. Candy. Every dessert you can find. And I need it to go!”

Everyone began to scramble inside the diner.

Jesse crouched next to the door to be more on their level. “It’s coming. We’re sorry. We didn’t know.”

“The door won’t open,” Mal said.

“You have to have intent and focus, but not think about it.”

Jesse remembered Polly’s words and realized that, in her desire to escape the chaos inside, she’d also sealed the others in.

She reached to pull open the diner door. Without trying too hard, she opened it.

Mal was instantly beside her on the sidewalk. He wrapped his arms around her. Jesse felt his need to protect her and his helplessness at being unable to do so.

“They don’t want to hurt us,” Jesse said. “They’re looking for their offerings. They think we hid them like a game.”

“Here,” Lily said. She and Dante appeared with pies.

Jesse took a lemon meringue and placed the tin on the ground. She slid it toward a nearby creature. The gremlin sniffed it before dipping his fingers into the creamy topping. After one taste, he instantly shoved his face into the top and began devouring it.

“Go ahead,” Jesse told them.

Lily and Dante slid the other pies.

“I have cake.” Mara inched forward a few steps and set it down. Three creatures descended on it like three-year-olds needing a sugar high. They squished their clawed hands into the chocolate frosting and were soon covered.

Sal appeared with bowls of ice cream and thrust them through the cracked door. “I hope you’re right about this.”

Jesse pushed to her feet and took the bowls. She walked them forward and set them down.

Mal and her siblings helped pass out the food as the townsfolk handed it to them from the safety of the diner. Someone gave Mal a hamburger platter, but the gremlins only threw that back at the wall.

“Sweets,” Jesse ordered. “We need sweets.”

“I have sugar packets in the supply closet.” Sal left only to return with three large cardboard boxes filled with sugar and sweetener packets.

“It’s working.” Mara pointed at the gremlin falling asleep in the lemon meringue. “Look.”

Soft cheers of excitement came from the diner.

“Lily, go get the truck,” Jesse said. She took the boxes from Sal to hand to Mara and Dante before keeping one for herself.

Her sister instantly went across the street. She backed up, only to drive a new path through the wrecked vehicles to get as close as possible to the diner.

Jesse dumped the sugar into the truck bed, prompting the others to do the same. The gremlins ran toward it, hopping into the truck to converge on the sugar. Jesse lifted the pie tin with the sleeping gremlin and placed it in the back.

“Make sure we got them all,” Lily said through the window.

Mal gingerly carried a chocolate-covered gremlin toward the vehicle. “I think this is it.”

Already more were passing out, sugar packets sticking out of their mouths.

“Mara, Dante, stay here just in case we missed some,” Lily said. “And try to smooth things over with the town. Meet back at the house as soon as you can.”

Mara gave Lily a pained look like she wanted to argue.

“Be careful,” Dante told them.

“I’m coming too,” Mal said, opening the door for Jesse. She slid into the truck and turned to watch the back as Lily reversed down the street.

“We’re never going to hear the end of this from the town,” Lily muttered.

“Maybe they’ll be happy we saved them,” Jesse said. “They’ll see we came to their rescue and helped them.”

Mal gave her a tight smile. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Nope. I bet you fifty dollars that this is going to be our fault. This is just another notch on the Crawford-Goode curse’s belt.” Lily switched gears and drove them toward the edge of town.