The Winslow Incident (6 page)

Hazel’s breath caught in her own
throat. “How do you know about—” Then she stopped herself, realizing it
best not to say any more. Fearing Aaron might hyperventilate, she cupped his
small shoulders. “Calm down,” she said. “Take a long, deep breath.” Beneath her
hands, she could feel him trembling. She shot another worried look at Sean as
he joined them.

Sean squatted down until he was
face to face with his brother. “Aaron, what’s gotten into you?”

“They’re
everywhere
,” Aaron
whispered, looking about to cry.

“Who’s everywhere?” Sean asked.

Aaron glanced over his shoulder at
The Winslow, then looked back at Sean with fear in his eyes. “The ghosts,” he said.
The tears did start then.

“No.” Sean hugged his brother.
“Those are only stories—you know that. There aren’t any ghosts.”

“But I seen them, Sean,” Aaron
said, voice muffled against Sean’s shoulder. “All over the hotel.” He pulled
back from Sean, his expression grave. “I seen the lady who looks like Patience
only she’s dripping wet. And the other lady with the bloody neck.”

Hazel angrily wondered who in
their right mind would tell Aaron about what happened to Patience’s grandmother
Lottie Mathers that violent night at The Winslow—a night Hazel had spent
five years trying hard to forget.

Sean looked up at Hazel, clearly
struggling with how best to handle the situation. After she gave him a helpless
shrug, he stood and mussed Aaron’s hair. “It’s okay. I won’t let ’em get you. I
promise.”

“Can you do that?” Aaron asked,
wide-eyed and hopeful.

“Can I do that?” Sean mocked
disbelief that he would even ask. Then he reached into the back of the van and
came out holding a bear claw. “Let’s start with this. Ghosts hate pastries.”

“I hate those too.” Aaron pouted.
“Nuts are gross and my stomach already feels yucky today.”

“Now you’re choosey?” Sean brought
out another. “Apple fritter?”

“Yeah! I like apple.” Aaron
snatched the pastry from Sean’s hand and darted away.

“You’re welcome,” Sean called
after him. Then he shot an anxious glance at Hazel. “Now I’m really late.” He
rushed toward the driver’s door.

After Hazel jumped back in too,
Sean started up the van and they headed down the drive. She watched the imposing
mansion recede in the side view mirror. Everyone perpetuated the notion that
The Winslow was haunted. Good for business because tourists love a good ghost
story. But having grown up in the hotel, Aaron had heard tales of ghosts in the
tower his entire life and had never seemed afraid of them before.

“More weirdness,” Hazel muttered.
“Maybe the heat wave is making the whole town go strange.”

H
er back to the fence, screams erupted behind
Hazel from inside the House of Horrors each time a car rounded the third bend
and the skeleton popped out of his grave. It had startled her the first time
she rode through, but not the second . . . or the seventh.

From the ticket booth fifty feet
away, a carny barked, “Every ride’s an adventure!”

Where are they?
Hazel wondered, the sun scalding her scalp the longer she
waited. Her boss at the Crock had let her off early for the rodeo. It wasn’t
looking as though her friends were so lucky.

Looking past the ticket booth to
the far side of Prospect Park, she watched two ranch hands complete
construction of the rodeo stage by draping red-white-and-blue bunting across
the front. Every summer the park was transformed into the rodeo grounds by
installing tents, fences, corral pipes, and aluminum bleachers.
We’re going
to burn our asses on those seats
, she thought.

Calliope music started up from the
kiddie Go-Gator ride, apt accompaniment to Patience sashaying up. She wore
short shorts and a pink tank top, black hair waving halfway down her back, and
she pretended not to notice every male over the age of twelve ogling her.

Hazel glanced down at herself, at
the cutoff jeans and loose t-shirt she’d thrown on without any consideration,
and yanked off the ponytail holder strangling her own long hair.

“Let’s go in,” Patience greeted
her.

“We have to wait for them,” Hazel
replied.

“No we don’t.” She tugged at the
hem of Hazel’s t-shirt. “It’s more fun just us.”

“We’re waiting.” Hazel searched
Patience’s porcelain doll face for any sign that she might have cracked. But no
shame marred her clear skin, no doubt clouded her thick-lashed eyes. Hazel had
to ask anyway: “Did you say anything to anybody?”

“No!” Patience appeared taken
aback. “You told me not to so I won’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Hazel murmured.
Patience was right: questioning her loyalty was an insult.

Something behind Hazel caught Patience’s
eye. “They’re here,” she said, sounding disappointed.

Hazel turned to see Sean and Tanner
approaching. Sean toted a brown paper sack just the right shape for a
twelve-pack he must’ve swiped from the Mercantile. When they reached her and
Patience, Hazel glanced at the line of tourists baking in the sun at the
entrance gate. She started in the opposite direction, saying, “Let’s sneak in
by the goat pen.”

As they casually climbed over the
fence and passed eager kids manning 4-H livestock displays, Hazel hoped a new
attraction might’ve shown up this year, like a lobster boy sideshow or pickled
punk display. But glancing around, she saw only more of the same: squealing
piglets and mean goats, caramel apples sure to give the little kids massive
bellyaches, crafty goods and antique farm gear, and rides trucked in and
operated by carnies much scarier than an actual turn on the Tilt-A-Whirl or
Octopus.

“I’ll catch up with you,” Patience
called over her bare shoulder, making a beeline for the fortuneteller’s tent.
Decorated with moons and stars, the hand-painted sign out front challenged:
Discover What Lies in Wait—If You Dare
.
Daring, Patience disappeared through the clatter of beads that curtained the
entrance to the dark tent.

Hazel wondered how many visits Patience
would pay to Madame Marcelle this year, and how much mumbo jumbo it would take
this time around to quiet the grim expectations that were Patience’s constant,
chatty companions.

Sean slung an arm across Hazel’s
shoulders and steered her toward his mother’s dessert stand, with Tanner
pulling up the rear. And after talking Honey Adair out of three bulging slices
of blackberry pie, they made their way to the nearest shade beneath an ancient
oak that overhung the duck pond.

Sean plopped onto the low wall
surrounding the pond and barked, “Scram!” at the two Rhone girls playing
beneath the tree. Ducks scattered as if he’d meant them.

“You’re big fat fatheads,” said
seven-year-old Violet Rhone. “So there.” She concluded by sticking out her
tongue, bright pink from the cotton candy she was chewing.

“So there,” echoed five-year-old
Daisy Rhone, accentuated by a swing of her hips.

“That the best you’ve got?” Hazel
laughed. She babysat the round-faced, redheaded sisters on the rare occasion
Zachary Rhone took his wife Melanie down to Stepstone Valley for a special
night out.

Daisy tugged on the front pockets
of Hazel’s shorts with her little hands. “We’re gonna be in the rodeo parade. Will
you watch us? You have to!”

“I will, I will!” Hazel promised,
prying off Daisy’s sticky fingers and then scooting her away with a few pats to
her behind. “But you’d better be good,” she warned the lingering girls in the
most menacing tone she could muster, “or else the bogeyman will getcha.”

The sisters took off running,
flapping their arms and screaming, “Hawkin Rhone! Hawkin Rhone!” until Daisy
ran smack dab into Old Man Mathers’ midsection.

Ben Mathers fumbled and his hot
dog hit the dirt. Then he glared at Hazel as though it were her fault. Hazel
was used to it. Anytime anything bad happened, Mathers blamed a
Winslow—even before the death of his wife Lottie. But after that, it had
only gotten worse.

He threw up his hands as if to say,
Why do I even bother
,
before he marched back to the hot dog
stand, his spindly legs poking out of the Bermudas belted just below his chest.

Tanner’s laugh was high-pitched.
It annoyed Hazel and when she glanced at Sean, his pinched expression told her
it bugged him too.

“Is that Hawkin Rhone?” Tanner
asked after he’d caught his breath.

“No.” Hazel watched the old man
wrangle a free replacement out of the hot dog vendor. “That’s Patience’s
grandfather.”

Tanner sat down next to Sean on
the low wall. “Then who’s Hawkin Rhone?”

Hazel looked at Sean but his face
was unreadable—all pie chewing and no emoting. She sank down to the cool
grass and sat cross-legged, facing the pond. “He used to be town baker until
there was this incident,” she told Tanner. “Then he was banished to live out
his days across Three Fools Creek. But that was all a long time ago,” she
added. “He’s been dead for a long time.”

“Then why’s every kid in Winslow
so scared of him?” Tanner asked.

She glanced at Sean again, who
pretended to pay no attention. “He’s a restless spirit.” She fluttered her
fingers like
ooowheeooo.
“He’ll getcha for filching apples out of his
orchard.” Hazel always found it odd that Violet and Daisy, especially, seemed
to savor living in a constant state of dread of their grandfather’s ghost. She
prayed they would never know what haunted really felt like.

Several ducks moved back in,
lingering not too close but on the lookout for leftovers, while an irritating
tune looped from the Gravitron across the pond.

Tanner spit a mouthful of pie to
the ground and then sniffed at his slice. “Does this taste weird?”

Sean inspected his. “It’s all
right, I guess.” He forked in another mouthful.

“Here ya go, Jinx,” Hazel said,
holding out her untouched slice to the approaching Irish setter. Despite
competition from one brave duck, the dog snatched it off the paper plate. After
the two seconds it took him to devour it, he stood panting berry breath in her
face. “No more.” She held up empty hands.

Jinx decided to perform his doggy
duty by chasing away the ducks in a chaos of barking and quacking. Then he
loped over to Sean, tried his best to look deserving, and licked his chops.

“Not this one, buddy.” Sean tore
into his pie with exaggerated relish.

Jinx chuffed in indignation before
giving up, resigned to sprawl on the grass next to Hazel.

Tanner began tearing off chunks of
piecrust and chucking them at the ducks. “So what’s the deal with Patience? Is
she unclaimed goods or what?”

Sean was rinsing his hands in the
pond. “All yours, man.”

“I just might get me a slice of
that country pie,” Tanner said. He had a growing fan club in the ducks, vying
for the last of his food.

Hazel grimaced. “Country pie?”

Sean affected a western drawl:
“Round these parts we refer to little gals like Patience Mathers as low-hanging
fruit.”

“Not low enough to go out with
Kenny Clark twice,” Hazel reminded him.

“Yeah, but remember what happened the
last time we were in Stepstone? We weren’t at Gino’s long enough to get our
pizza before she took off with some skate punk to the backseat of his Nova.”

“I suppose she does allow herself
to be easy pickins,” Hazel admitted. “Sometimes.”

“Sounds like my kind of girl.” Tanner
grinned wider than Hazel cared for, making her instantly regret that she’d told
him anything at all about Patience. Tanner reached for the paper bag, saying,
“Let’s drink this beer before it gets any warmer.”

Digging into the bag after Tanner,
Sean retrieved two cans and handed one to Hazel just as she noticed Patience
returning from the fortuneteller’s tent looking rattled.

“Hey, juicy fruit,” Tanner called
to Patience.

Hazel sat up and slapped him hard
on his bare arm while Sean made a noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh.

Patience ignored them; her eyes
were fixed on Hazel and she came in close to her face. “Madame Marcelle says
something’s itching to be set in motion.”

“Patience!” Hazel rolled her eyes
and pushed her away. “Stop looking for more trouble.”

“Yeah, enough with the prophecy
shit already,” Sean said.

“In threes,” Patience blurted as
if she simply had to get it out. “They’ll come in threes.”

“
Enough
,” Hazel said.
Already on edge, she didn’t need Patience’s superstitious hooey added to the
queasy mix. They had plenty of real problems on their hands; why invent more?

“Okay, okay,” Patience
surrendered. Settling primly on the grass, she accepted a beer from Tanner only
after first glancing around to make sure no one was looking.

“Maybe it’s Hawkin Rhone itchin’
for you.” Tanner made clawing motions toward her neck. “Scritch scritch.”