13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

S ome weeks drag. Others you wish they would.

This week was one that did not drag. It sped by like it had downed a six-pack of energy drinks. By the time Friday evening arrived I, too, was wired just like this week had been.

My midterms were done. And I had a strong suspicion I was going to squeak by, maybe. My Asian studies paper was completed, and while it wasn't as strong as I would have liked, I felt it would get me through with a weak B or strong C. The midterm test grade? I wasn't sure if that was a pass or fail. I'd studied the night before, hard, an all-nighter, but my focus was stretched thin between my schoolwork and my new side gig. The closer our second episode came, the tenser I grew as did Phil. Reggie was frantic, streaking about the shop, chattering incessantly, prodding poor Caleb about his dreadful white bowtie. Why the bowtie was a problem, I didn't know. I mean, the guy was eternally stuck wearing white from chin to toe, so what did a bowtie matter? I felt it was simply Reggie using Caleb's bowtie as a venting board, and I told Caleb that just last night.

"Oh I know. Reggie is worried about you and so he picks," Caleb replied with a knowing smile. Yeah, he had the right to it. If only I could be as gracious as Caleb.

So much was riding on me. My grades had to stay decent. If I failed Asian studies, I'd not be able to tutor Phil in Mandarin, which meant that he wouldn't be fluent enough to take it next semester, which would be a hassle for him because of my failure to balance my life. If I flunked out, I'd have to take it again, which would set me back and cost more money, money we didn't have, which was why I was doing livestream ghost shows so we had a place to live.

Ugh. Being poor was the shits.

"Hey, are you still okay with all of this?" Phil asked, his voice shattering my spiral into despair as we drove to the old railroad bridge that would lead us to Aradia, or what was now representing as Aradia. "We can call it off. Say we had technical difficulties or something."

"No, I'm good." He shot me a fast, concerned look, then went back to watching the road. "I was just thinking about my Asian studies midterm test. Six questions. That was all but man, were they tough. Compare and contrast the military achievements of the Mongols, the Huns, and the Ottoman Turks." Phil's mouth fell open. "Right? I made shit up on the fly. I know Professor Hayashi is going to birth a damn cow when she reads the word vomit I spewed out on that paper."

"Man, Asian studies sounds way harder than I thought it would be," Phil said, and I could only nod sullenly as the miles flew by far too quickly. "Are you sure that school is the only thing wrong? I mean, I'm kind of scared about this show tonight. We have double the viewers, and the static cameras, but none of that will help if the water witch gets into your head or turns you into a bird. What do I do if she turns you into a blackbird?"

"Take me home and put me in a cage?" The comment, which was supposed to be humorous, fell flat as a pancake. "That sounded funnier in my head," I confessed as Phil's fingers white-knuckled around the steering wheel of his truck. "We'll have to just play it by ear. I think we should be fine." He harrumphed, a sound that was cute and old mannish all at once. "No, seriously. We have the ghost bead bracelets." I shook my arm. The bracelets caught the light of the dashboard. They weren't pretty ones like you see on Etsy. No flashy rainbow beads or bangles, but the beads had been blessed by my distant cousin, a Buddhist monk. Three cheers for expedited delivery. Guess our relatives felt we needed lots of blessings living here in the US of A. "Grandpa is mostly sure that shipping them from China would not lower the blessing in any way."

Phil nodded, his jaw set, his four ghost bead bracelets stretched tightly around each of his thick wrists.

"I'm just nervous." He shot me a look. "Like this was a fun, spooky thing at first, right? A way to bring money into your shop while I get to hang out with you. Maybe see a foggy form or catch an inexplicable light on the cameras. Real-life Scooby-Doo stuff. Kind of like when we were preteens, and we'd get drunk on our parents' wine and then try to summon Bloody Mary in front of the mirror. You know?" I shook my head. I didn't know about that at all. My childhood was vastly different from most other people. If I had had the nerve to call forth a spirit, it would have been all too real. "Oh crap, yeah, you can really talk to ghosts. Well, it was a dumb party game. But now…"

"Yeah, now it feels way more serious. I feel that too. We'll be fine. We have the bracelets and the book." I tapped the ancient tome in the backpack between my feet with my sneakers. "I'm going to approach the siren with kindness and a gift."

"Girls like gifts." He winced. "That was sexist, wasn't it? Shit."

"Everyone likes gifts," I hurried to say. The road was narrowing now, feeding into a one-lane which would lead us to the abandoned railway bridge. My stomach was bubbling with acid, a small belch escaping that burned my esophagus. "We'll proceed with caution. Turn here, yeah cool, now go slow, this old forest road isn't maintained."

The headlights of the truck panned across an old logging road, totally engulfed with briars and brambles, then they settled on the lane leading to the bridge. Both of us sat there, staring into the twisted masses of wild roses, blackberry bushes, and inky darkness. The engine rumbled under the hood as "I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight" by Cutting Crew filled the cab. I hoped it wasn't a prophecy.

"I like this song," I admitted as my gut churned. "On any other day."

"Me too." He looked from the night to me. "I want you to hold my hand and do not let go, okay?"

I smiled. It was wobbly and weak. "I promise. I'll hold tight."

And with that, he slid the truck into Park. "Running up the Hill" by Kate Bush flowed out of the speakers. "Oh hell, sorry." He dove on his phone to quickly move to the next song.

"It's fine." I wasn't entirely worried about a song that had played a huge part in a TV show about facing off against terrifying supernatural forces. Okay, it had freaked me out a little, but this wasn't Stranger Things . I mean, yes, things were strange, and yes, one of us had some gifts that couldn't quite be called normal, and yes, we were about to go nose-to-nose with what could turn out to be a monster but…oh, fuck it. The song was an omen.

"You look like you want to puke. Seriously, Arch, tech problems can get us out of this right now, baby." I glanced from my shaking hands to him. That term of endearment wiggled into my heart, loosening the stranglehold that fear had taken.

"No, I was just having a moment. Let's do this."

He cut the engine. The cab fell silent save for our slightly rapid breaths. "I'm going to open the door now." And so I did, bracing for the onslaught. The pain struck like an ice shard, piercing through my head. I yipped at the first thrum as it sliced deep. Then it eased. Just a little. Enough that I could breathe. Enough that I was still in control of myself. My sight flew to Phil. "I'm okay," I shakily said. "I think it could be the ghost beads," I whispered as if whoever was reaching out to me might hear me and rip off the bracelets. Truth was, she might. "Do you hear anything inside your head?"

His eyes narrowed as he concentrated. "Sort of…" He shook his head. "No, yeah, well I don't hear someone calling to me like by my name, but I hear my inner Phil reminding me to make sure I bring the camera."

That made me smile. "Yeah, the camera would be good. Okay, so we're starting out well." Mostly. At least I still had my faculties. I turned to face him as the motor cooled and ticked. "Okay, so here's a thing. I told you about my water phobia." He nodded. "The last time I was here, Aradia's powers were so overpowering that I was nearly in the lake before I knew it. Please, do not let me fall into the lake. I don't know how to swim."

He reached over the console to hug me to him as well as he could, given the seat belts and cup holder between us.

"She will not get you into that water, I promise on my life," he swore beside my ear. I let my eyes close for a second, breathed in his warm skin and soapy scent, and then eased out of the embrace just enough to look into his eyes. I almost told him that I loved him, but I didn't. Coward, yeah, I know.

"Thanks." I kissed him softly, then freed myself from the belt and slid to the ground. Phil did the same. I hefted my backpack to my shoulder. The air was as crisp as an apple. My breath floated in front of me. The pulse of ghostly energy encompassing this area was like nothing I had ever sensed before. Aradia, or what she now was, had become quite strong. Much stronger than when I'd been here recently. The tendrils of paranormal prana dug at my brain like claws. I could sense the entity now with more clarity, her pull strong, yes, but not blindingly so. Could mere beads aid me in this way, or was there more at work here? I eased my arms into the straps of my backpack and felt a warmth from within my secondhand LU bag soak into my back, a shower of heat and light dancing up my spine. Either my thermos of tea had leaked or the skinny tome filled with ancient Cantonese was glowing like a psychic briquet. Whatever it was, I was grateful for the succor and assistance it/they were bringing. Could Aradia feel the rebuff from the lake? Head aching, I dared to reach out mentally to her but felt only a wall of compulsion that told me she was here, waiting.

A bright light hit me, pulling me from my fugue, and I looked over at Phil.

"You've been standing in that same spot for ten minutes just staring at the bridge," he told me, all his gear riding on his back and shoulders in Liverswell Lions duffel bags. His camera was on standby, a small orange light flashing. "You're kind of worrying me."

"I'm okay. Honestly, I am fine. Let's open the show. Is it time?"

"Yeah, past time. I called to you like five times."

"Sorry, baby," I whispered to ease his concern. Given how tense his scruffy jaw was, the sweetness didn't do jack. "Okay, let's get this show on the road. Property taxes wait for no man or ghost." Again, not even a snort of amusement from my cameraman. He nodded, whispered something into his Bluetooth for Tray, I assumed, and within seconds, that amber light went to green. "Hey, everyone! Happy Halloween! I'm Archimedes Kee and welcome to our stream." Phil mimicked biting into an apple. Oh right. "Before we get too far, Phil and I would like to thank our two new sponsors, Smiling Sally's Vape Shop and Schmidt Orchards." My cameraman gave me a perky thumbs-up. "I'm at the old Lemm/Preston railroad bridge tonight with my partner, Phil Kestrel. Last week on Kestrel and Kee, we found a family of unhappy spirits who were seeking some aid from us. After speaking with the deceased members of the Schmidt clan, and doing some research on our own, we've come to Lake Killikee where I've experienced some strong paranormal bioelectric surges in the past, surges that I suspect are due to a lingering manifestation of the late healer Aradia Flores, who was accused of witchcraft and dunked until dead in the lake on the other side of the bridge." I paused, as Roxie had suggested, to let the viewers soak up the creepiness. I was no showman by any means, but I could take a breather now and again to build the suspense, even if the inside of my head felt like the LU marching band was stomping around inside it. "Tonight, we're going to set up some static cameras around the lake to see if we can get any physical evidence of a wraith. Many say the lake is haunted by a siren, the very same Aradia, who leads men to a watery death like she suffered. No bodies or bones have been found in the lake or nearby by the local sheriff's department."

I left out the not-so-pleasant email from Sheriff Paul Wright advising us not to be assholes. Those were Roxie's words, not Sheriff Wright's. The sheriff merely suggested, strongly, that Phil and I remind the good folks of Liverswell that law enforcement has done its job well and if there were dead bodies in the lake, they would have been found. He also asked us not to stir shit up with the radical college kids who would see us and want to start smoking dope and tromping around the woods looking for witches and hobby goblins.

"We thank the Liverswell Sheriff's Department for their hard work and due diligence given to each missing person's case that they have handled." There. That should make Sheriff Get-Off-My Lawn-You-Damn-Radical-Hobby-Gobby-Young-Adults Wright happy. "So, let's get to the lake. I'm anxious to see if Aradia will show herself."

I wasn't anxious about that at all. What I was anxious about was Aradia, who I strongly suspected might be a woman of the water, grabbing me with her hook to pull me in and drown me just like Maria Enganxa, the famed water woman of Majorca, does to little children who venture too close to the wells and cisterns she inhabits. I knew for a fact Aradia was here. I could feel her the moment my feet touched the overgrown ground. I just prayed she was not feeling mad at every person with testicles right now.

Phil handed me the camera. This way he could go first, bulling through the worst of the thorns and nasty bushes to clear a path for me. Always so gallant. His fingers clung to mine in a death grip that made the tips of my fingers go dead in mere moments. I did not let go, though. I'd promised him. I clung to his hand when the thorns tore at my coat and hair. When flesh was ripped from my ear as well as the hand holding the camera, and even when we had to duck down to shoulder our way through a large patch of stinging nettles as high as Phil. All the while trying to ensure we stepped on rotted rail ties. The bridge was perhaps only fifty or so feet as it spanned the now-dry Newman Creek, but that fifty feet was fucking long and harrowing. How I had managed to blindly cross it before and not break an ankle, I had no idea.

I'd never been so happy and so scared to clear a bridge in my life. As soon as we tugged free of the thistles, our cheeks and hands were red from the stinging little hairs filled with formic acid. It was like being bitten by ants wherever the nasty stems touched. The wave of supernormal power hit me like a brick in the frontal lobe. My eyes watered. Being this close to the water, the pain was almost impossible to ignore, but at least I still had my wits. As did my guy.

"Fuck that burns," Phil growled, leading me a few feet from the end of the bridge. The air here was damp and foggy and the branches of the trees enveloping the water were filled with birds.

"Ten bucks says that the birds are blackbirds," I said to Phil then slowly panned to the trees. Yep, hundreds of them, perched on thin branches, shiny eyes casting no reflection. They began crackling and calling to each other as fog spread out over the water. "There are so many…"

Phil stopped pawing at his stung cheeks to stare into the trees. "Shit."

I couldn't be sure if they were all just migrating birds drawn to roost by the lake to enjoy the water or if they were victims of the water woman. If so, Aradia had sapped the life force of a lot of people over the years. My pulse started to ramp up as Phil moved around the lake as I followed on his heels, filming, and talking about my research into the healer Aradia Flores. I jabbered mostly, trying to fill the cold air with the sound of my voice while the inside of my skull writhed in just barely controllable agony.

Pity there was no editing available for a livestream. This had to be boring AF to the viewers. Some skinny Asian dude prattling on about water ghosts around the world while his boyfriend—if we weren't birds when this was over, we were so settling our terminology—scurried around setting up little black cameras on little black tripods. Yes, he had a gorgeous ass which surely helped to keep our faithful fans—all three hundred who had paid in advance—something to ogle even if that ass was mine. Seemed I was a greedy top. Who the hell would have guessed?!

"…just need to set up this last camera, then we'll be able to dim the lights on my camcorder and get the feeds all downloading to the—ahhhhhh!"

Phil, who was standing not five feet from me, shrieked and flew to his face, his nose smacking the overgrown grassy shore before shooting into the water, feet first. A cloud of blackbirds rose into the sky, the air thick with their rusty calls, wings beating in tandem. I dropped the camera onto the shore and dove to my belly, grabbing his hands as he screamed and clawed at the muddy bank. My fingers circled his wrists. His eyes were round, his mouth open, and then we were both in the water. Mouth filling with cold metallic lake water, I refused to let go, even when Phil was shaken to and fro as if a shark had hold of him.

The water was bitterly cold and murky, but I could see the glowing entity gripping Phil so tightly. Panic was shredding my ability to think clearly, so I screamed mentally for her to release us. The ghost recoiled, rising out of the lake like a rocket with a shriek that nearly stunned me into unconsciousness. Phil and I fell back into the water with a splash, his elbow meeting my nose. I sank like a rock, sucking in water, fear riding me hard. A hand found my flailing arm. I was hoisted upward, losing a sneaker. My head broke free of the water. I sucked in air as I was hauled to shore like a bass on the line. I flopped around on the ground, cattails shaking madly overhead, as I coughed up quarts of dirty lake water. My spine rested on my backpack, sodden as the both of us.

"Arch," Phil said, rolling me to my stomach, as the spirit of the lake wailed and keened as if she were being torn asunder. Each screech sent shockwaves through my head. "Cough it up, come on, baby, clear your lungs. I got you. I got you. I love you. Do not drown on me, baby, do not drown on me."

Phil began pushing on my back, two-handed, and with so much force, I feared he would crack a few ribs. I harked up another few cups of dingy water before I could catch a full breath to bark out a plea to stop. When I was panting, Phil gathered me up into his arms, shielding me from the spirit glowering down at us.

"I forgot to hold your hand," I sputtered as we both began wiggling away from the shore and the form of a woman wearing a simple dark frock with a mantilla covering her head. A young woman, pretty, with eyes that burned like Dante's firepit. "Do you see her?"

"No, I…maybe?"

Damn it. Figures. "Okay, well, Aradia is here, and she's not pleased with us," I informed him, the light from the camcorder shining on an old muskrat hut to our right. We would barely be in the shot, if at all. Super. No awards for us at the Liverswell Student Film Festival in the spring.

"Can you ask her not to pull us into the lake or turn us into birds, please?"

She started speaking to me, her voice thick with what sounded like pond slime, the words a tangled heap of Spanish. Super. I reached a trembling hand around to find my cell phone. Water ran from it when I held it in front of us.

"She's spitting mad, and my phone is toast," I mumbled, and Phil inched around in front of me to put his bulk between the irate entity and me. "Please tell me your phone is not in your back pocket."

"It's in my duffel with the backup batteries. If I move, will she strike?"

I glanced up at Aradia. Her mantilla floated around her now, her ire giving her more strength. The rush of cold wind from a flock of a hundred or more birds sweeping down low gave me goose bumps as it set her liturgical head covering into motion. Free-flowing dark hair to her waist floated upward now, her bare toes hovering five or so feet above the surface of the lake.

"Did you take any Spanish in high school?" I asked as the pain in my head doubled now. Nose running, I swiped at the snot, looking down only to realize it was blood. "Shit," I whispered, fishing out a wet napkin from my front pocket and dabbing at the nosebleed.

"In ninth grade," he replied.

"Can you tell me how to say please don't drown us or not turn us into birds?"

"Uhm, well, I can count to ten. Oh! I do know this." He began singing the happy birthday song in Spanish. Aradia actually stopped rising into the air with her eyes sparking.

"She's not looking like she wants to kill us anymore. Keep singing while I try to get your phone," I whispered. Phil sat on his heels as I shimmied to the left, reaching out with horribly cold fingers to snag his bag. Her gaze stayed on Phil as he belted out his song. Reaching back as far as I could, my fingertips grazed the strap of his bag.

The song ended. Aradia snarled at us in Spanish.

"Sing something else," I coughed, blood trickling over my blue lips as I slyly pulled the bag closer, my hand diving inside to paw around blindly. "Anything!"

"Oh shit, Mrs. Espinoza will be so ashamed of me when I see her at my high school reunion," Phil muttered before launching into "Living La Vida Loca" in Spanish. Aradia and I both stalled in what we were doing, her fiery eyes cooling slightly as Phil hit it and hit it hard. I rummaged around with more speed, finally locating what felt like a small phone. When I opened it, the light pulled Aradia's confused look to me. "Open the translator app," Phil snuck in, then went right back to black cats and voodoo dolls. I flipped the brand new phone with live translate then nudged Phil in the side. The blackbirds in the trees grew silent. Aradia moved closer, her fingers clutching a mud-covered rosary as her nose came within a foot of Phil's.

"We're here to help," I shouted into the phone. A robotic female voice translated it into Swedish. "Shit, wrong button." I tapped Spanish and repeated myself. Aradia threw a wild look at the phone in my hand and began speaking. Rapidly. "Okay, slow…down," I managed to say through chattering teeth. "Slowly…habla despacio."

She touched her chest, her damp bosom heaving under mossy garments. "?dónde está mi bebé?" she said and then pointed at the sparkly blue phone in my quaking hand. "?dónde está mi bebé?"

I repeated her words into the phone. "Where is my baby?" I gaped at the ghost drifting in front of us, her fingers fisting over and over while she waited for a reply in her language. I shot Phil a glance. He shrugged and edged back and to the side, slinging his arm around me to share some of his meager body heat. The light from the camcorder, lying on its side throughout this whole encounter, moved torpidly until it rested on me as I conversed with a woman who, it seemed, had lost her child. The viewers would see me sitting beside Phil, slowly dipping into hypothermia, talking to myself in Spanish.

"I don't recall anything in that article about Aradia having a child," I said to Phil, but the phone picked it up and spat it out into the brisk night in Spanish. The blackbirds on the boughs chattered amongst themselves as Aradia replied at such breakneck speed I couldn't possibly hope to repeat it clearly. I asked her to slow down once more. She was highly agitated now. Her eyes flared brightly, her hand flying out to clamp icy cold fingers around my skull, and the beads on her rosary dangling over my nose. I screamed and contorted, dropping the phone as she downloaded memories into my brain.

The lake, Phil, the show…everything faded away as her mind overtook mine. Dark passageways of long ago flew by, glimpses of a sea journey, an older man patting her head, a young man making eyes at her. Visions rushing by faster and faster. The pain of childbirth, the joy of motherhood, the cold of winter, the warmth of summer. A child's laugh, a peek at ebony braids running among the wildflowers while Aradia gathered herbs. A tuxedo cat on a roughhewn window pane. A pot of soup over a fire. The door to a small home being kicked in, the cat hissing, a child screaming, and a woman fighting through accusations. Her tiny baby was carried away into the night, the wails of the infant crushing the woman's soul as she was dragged into the lake, kicking and screaming…

She released me, her ghostly fingers leaving an icy impression on my skull. I collapsed backward, eyes open, agony tearing through my head, the stars twinkling above. Next year I was staying home to hand out Snicker bars. This was bullshit. Bile clogged my throat. I rolled to the side and got to my hands and knees before bringing up the light meal I'd had at lunch. I could just hear Phil's voice through the pounding in my head.

"Arch, holy shit, what the hell just happened?" He knelt beside me, his hand on my back to rub soft, warm circles into my cold, cold skin. "You just seized up. Did you have a stroke?"

"No, I…" I sat back on my soggy heels, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and turned a withering look to the siren of Lake Killikee. "Don't ever do that again!" I shouted to the ghost levitating above us. The phone lying beside me on the damp grass translated. Aradia drew back several feet, her mantilla rising and falling like a dandelion blown on a summer breeze. She looked contrite, which seemed totally out of place for the spirit that randomly killed men just for shits. I turned to Phil, who was as pale as a bowl of mashed potatoes, his camera still running. Roxie would be thrilled that we were still feeding content to the masses. Phil tugged up his shirt, soaking wet as it was, and swiped my chin tenderly. "She says there was a baby."

"A baby?"

I nodded, waiting for the world to stop spinning, my gut to settle, and my nose to stop leaking. Yeah, next Halloween I was not leaving home, no matter what kind of paranormal catastrophe was taking place.

"She showed me her past," I murmured, the light from the camcorder far too bright. I turned to look out at the woods and the birds shuffling restlessly in the trees. "They came in the night, took her infant, and then hauled her to the lake."

"Oh shit, that's the shits. Shit, shit, shit," Phil mumbled as he panned over the lake. The blackbirds' ebony feathers and bright yellow eyes glowed. "So many birds. Are they all people she killed?"

"We don't know if she killed anyone," I replied using my own sweatshirt to wipe at my face. "We need to find out about the child. She's looking for her baby," I whispered, and Phil's groovy new flip phone spit out my words in Spanish to the world.

"?dónde está mi bebé?" Aradia wailed. Her pain now settled deep in my soul. I felt her loss so keenly that I started crying. Phil chucked the camera aside, pulled me close, and tucked my head into his shoulder, my snotty bloody nose resting on his madly thumping jugular.

"We…we need to f-f-f-find her baby," I coughed out. The phone interpreted.

"Gracias, gracias, gracias," Aradia cried as her form slipped back into the water. The last thing to be seen was the black lace of her head-covering fanning out over the surface before sinking out of view.

"We need to get you home," Phil said, sliding an arm around me, his body just as cold and wet as mine as he eased me to my feet. I stood there in one wet shoe, blood on my face, my brain about to shatter, and stared at the lake while Phil hurried to gather his expensive cameras. Cameras that never had the chance to be used. The viewers were going to be pissed all the way off over this terrible episode. "We need to get warm."

"S…s…she's in misery…"

"So are you," Phil answered, his big body tight to mine, the camcorder the only source of light to lead us from Aradia through the tangle of roses, thorns, and misery to his truck. I fumbled along at his side. Phil curled around in front of me, taking the brunt of the sharp spines. We were silent, soaked, and sorrowful. Aradia's plight foremost in my thoughts.

Phil loaded me into the truck, chucked his gear into the back, and climbed in. The engine roared to life and cold air blew out of the vents. We both cursed. Shivering in our boots, or in my case one shoe, we curled in on ourselves until the heater began circulating warm air. Then we sighed as the vents blew so much warmth into our faces my wet hair was pushed from my brow.

"Ghosts are scary," Phil muttered as he rubbed his hands in front of a vent. His cheeks and the backs of his hands were torn and bloody, his hair filled with bits of dead plant and some drying pond scum.

"Sometimes, yeah," I had to concur. "We need to find out about that baby. I think if we can find out where the child was taken, we can go there and…"

Phil's gaze met mine. "And what?"

"I don't know," I answered earnestly. Right now, I didn't know much other than I needed some hot tea, a hotter shower, and a look at the microfiche at the Liverswell Library. "We need to go to the library."

" Now? Arch, it's nearly midnight."

"I know. This is important. She's lost her baby." He studied me in the light of the stereo while Sting and The Police softly flowed out of the speakers. "Phil, she's lost her child…" I implored and watched as he folded. "No woman should have to suffer an eternity of mourning for her child."

He nodded. "Okay, Arch. Just…just stay super close to me."

"I promise to hold your hand this time."

His lips flattened as his gaze softened. "I hate wet underwear."

Didn't we all?

I made some hurried calls on Phil's phone as we raced back to Liverswell.