Nora Roberts - Blood Brothers

“Fresh out. I could offer you actual milk and actual sugar.”

“You could.” And hadn’t she eaten an apple like a good girl? “And I could accept. Let me ask you something else, just to satisfy my curiosity. Is your house always so clean and tidy, or did you do all this just for me?”

He got out the milk. “Tidy’s a girlie word. I prefer the term organized. I like organization. Besides.” He offered her a spoon for the sugar bowl. “My mother could-and does-drop by unexpectedly. If my house wasn’t clean, she’d ground me.”

“If I don’t call my mother once a week, she assumes I’ve been hacked to death by an ax murderer.” Quinn held herself to one scant spoon of sugar. “It’s nice, isn’t it? Those long and elastic family ties.”

“I like them. Why don’t we go sit in the living room by the fire?”

“Perfect. So, how long have you lived here? In this particular house,” she added as they carried their mugs out of the kitchen.

“A couple of years.”

“Not much for neighbors?”

“Neighbors are fine, and I spend a lot of time in town. I like the quiet now and then.”

“People do. I do myself, now and again.” She took one of the living room chairs, settled back. “I guess I’m surprised other people haven’t had the same idea as you, and plugged in a few more houses around here.”

“There was talk of it a couple of times. Never panned out.”

He’s being cagey, Quinn decided. “Because?”

“Didn’t turn out to be financially attractive, I guess.”

“Yet here you are.”

“My grandfather owned the property, some acres of Hawkins Wood. He left it to me.”

“So you had this house built.”

“More or less. I’d liked the spot.” Private when he needed to be private. Close to the woods where everything had changed. “I know some people in the trade, and we put the house up. How’s the coffee?”

“It’s terrific. You cook, too?”

“Coffee’s my specialty. I read your books.”

“How were they?”

“I liked them. You probably know you wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.”

“Which would’ve made it a lot tougher to write the book I want to write. You’re a Hawkins, a descendent of the founder of the settlement that became the village that became the town. And one of the main players in the more recent unexplained incidents related to the town. I’ve done a lot of research on the history, the lore, the legends, and the various explanations,” she said, and reached in the bag that served as her purse and her briefcase. Taking out a minirecorder, she switched it on, set it on the table between them.

Her smile was full of energy and interest when she set her notebook on her lap, flipped pages to a clear one. “So, tell me, Cal, about what happened the week of July seventh, nineteen eighty-seven, ninety-four, and two thousand one.”

The tape recorder made him…itchy. “Dive right in, don’t you?”

“I love knowing things. July seventh is your birthday. It’s also the birthday of Fox O’Dell and Gage Turner-born the same year as you, who grew up in Hawkins Hollow with you. I read articles that reported you, O’Dell, and Turner were responsible for alerting the fire department on July eleventh, nineteen eighty-seven, when the elementary school was set on fire, and also responsible for saving the life of one Marian Lister who was inside the school at the time.”

She continued to look straight into his eyes as she spoke. He found it interesting she didn’t need to refer to notes, and that she didn’t appear to need the little breaks from direct eye contact.

“Initial reports indicated the three of you were originally suspected of starting the fire, but it was proven Miss Lister herself was responsible. She suffered second-degree burns on nearly thirty percent of her body as well as a concussion. You and your friends, three ten-year-old boys, dragged her out and called the fire department. Miss Lister was, at that time, a twenty-five-year-old fourth-grade teacher with no history of criminal behavior or mental illness. Is that all correct information?”

She got her facts in order, Cal noted. Such as the facts were known. They fell far short of the abject terror of entering that burning school, of finding the pretty Miss Lister cackling madly as she ran through the flames. Of how it felt to chase her through those hallways as her clothes burned.

“She had a breakdown.”

“Obviously.” Smile in place, Quinn lifted her eyebrows. “There were also over a dozen nine-one-one calls on domestic abuse during that single week, more than previously had been reported in Hawkins Hollow in the six preceding months. There were two suicides and four attempted suicides, numerous accounts of assault, three reported rapes, and a hit-and-run. Several homes and businesses were vandalized. None-virtually none-of the people involved in any of the reported crimes or incidents has a clear memory of the events. Some speculate the town suffered from mass hysteria or hallucinations or an unknown infection taken through food or water. What do you think?”

“I think I was ten years old and pretty much scared shitless.”

She offered that brief, sunny smile. “I bet.” Then it was gone. “You were seventeen in nineteen ninety-four when during the week of July seventh another-let’s say outbreak-occurred. Three people were murdered, one of them apparently hanged in the town park, but no one came forward as a witness or to admit participation. There were more rapes, more beatings, more suicides, two houses burned to the ground. There were reports that you, O’Dell, and Turner were able to get some of the wounded and traumatized onto a school bus and transport them to the hospital. Is that accurate?”

“As far as it goes.”

“I’m looking to go further. In two thousand one-”

“I know the pattern,” Cal interrupted.

“Every seven years,” Quinn said with a nod. “For seven nights. Days-according again to what I can ascertain-little happens. But from sundown to sunset, all hell breaks loose. It’s hard to believe that it’s a coincidence this anomaly happens every seven years, with its start on your birthday. Seven’s considered a magickal number by those who profess to magicks, black and white. You were born on the seventh day of the seventh month of nineteen seventy-seven.”

“If I knew the answers, I’d stop it from happening. If I knew the answers, I wouldn’t be talking to you. I’m talking to you because maybe, just maybe, you’ll find them, or help find them.”

“Then tell me what happened, tell me what you do know, even what you think or sense.”

Cal set his coffee aside, leaned forward to look deep into her eyes. “Not on a first date.”

Smart-ass, she thought with considerable approval. “Fine. Next time I’ll buy you dinner first. But now, how about playing guide and taking me to the Pagan Stone.”

“It’s too late in the day. It’s a two-hour hike from here. We wouldn’t make it there and back before dark.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark.”

His eyes went very cool. “You would be. I’ll tell you this, there are places in these woods no one goes after dark, not any time of the year.”

She felt the prick of ice at the base of her spine. “Have you ever seen a boy, about the age you’d have been in eighty-seven. A boy with dark hair. And red eyes.” She saw by the way Cal paled she’d flicked a switch. “You have seen him.”

“Why do you ask about that?”

“Because I saw him.”

Now Cal pushed to his feet, paced to the window, stared out at the woods. The light was dimmer, duller already than it had been an hour before.

They’d never told anyone about the boy-or the man-whatever form the thing chose to take. Yes, he’d seen him, and not only during that one hellish week every seven years.