I know the telephone machine’s a fine invention,” Clara said that afternoon. “But I’m afeared it’s causin’ a heap o’ trouble.” She gave her brother a meaningful look. “If’n you know what I mean.”
“Shh!” John put a finger to his lips. “The little ’uns will hear you.”
The four Spencer children were heading home from school along the sun-dappled path that led to their cabin. Up ahead, six-year-old Lulu and ten-year-old Zady were picking wildflowers for their mother. Clara and John hung back a little so that they could talk in private.
“Trouble with you is, you think too much,” John scolded.
Clara stopped walking. John could be such a know-it-all! She shook her head at her big brother. Like all the Spencer children, he had wide eyes fringed by long lashes. And like the others, he was dressed in worn but clean clothes, carefully mended again and again by their mother.
“All I’m sayin’,” Clara said, “is it could be him doin’ it, John. To scare people off.” She chewed on a thumbnail, something she did whenever she was worried.
“Stop chewin’ off your nails,” John said. “Ma says you keep that up, one day you’ll wake up without any fingers.”
Clara rolled her eyes. John was only three years older than she was, but he liked to act like he was her pa. It drove her crazy.
Of course, the truth was, they were a lot alike. They were always thinking, always looking at things and asking, “How come?” They loved school, and they both thought Miz Christy was the finest thing to ever happen to Cutter Gap.
“You got to admit, it could be him,” Clara said, sighing.
“I don’t know,” John said darkly. “Could be you’re right. It’s like you were sayin’ yesterday, when we found those tracks. About how the Boggin just wanted to be left alone, like a wild critter.” He gave her a playful punch in the arm. “’Course, you shoulda just kept your tongue from waggin’.”
“It just plumb popped outa my mouth,” Clara admitted.
“I understand,” John said. He frowned, scratching his head.
“Stop scratchin’ your head,” Clara teased, “or someday you’ll wake up and be bald as a turkey buzzard.”
“Hurry up, you slowpokes!” Zady called.
“We’re comin’!” John yelled.
Clara gazed upward. Through the dense layer of leaves, she could just make out the towering peak of Boggin Mountain. They passed it every day on the way to school. She used to think it was beautiful. Like a fancy blue-green party skirt, the kind she could only dream about owning.
Now, with all the latest scary signs, it was hard to walk past it without shivering, just a little.
“Clara, John! Come quick!” Zady cried.
Zady and Lulu were standing next to a tall tree, staring at something.
“It’s proof, I’m a-tellin’ you,” Zady said when Clara and John reached the spot.
She pointed nervously. There on the tree were huge, long gashes. It was as if a giant bear had scratched his claws deep into the bark.
“The Boggin left it as another warnin’ to us,” Zady said.
Lulu clutched at Clara, hugging her close. “He’s goin’ to eat us all for supper!”
“Hush, Lulu. He ain’t goin’ to eat us, not for supper or breakfast, either,” Clara said.
“How do you know?” Zady demanded.
“’Cause you’re too bony for eatin’,” Clara replied.
“It ain’t like you’ve ever seen him. Besides, you heard Ruby Mae a-talkin’—”
“Ruby Mae ain’t seen him, either. And you know she just likes to hear the sound of her own voice,” Clara said. Ruby Mae was one of Clara’s very best friends, but Clara knew her friend had a way of talking on and on without thinking things through.
“Look,” John said.
Clara followed John’s gaze. Hanging from a branch high overhead was a man’s shirt—or what was left of a shirt. It was shredded into strips and stained with what looked like blood.
Clara shuddered. “It’s just more tricks,” she said, trying to sound calmer than she felt.
“I’m not never comin’ this way again,” Zady vowed in a trembling voice. “I don’t care if I have to walk clear over to Wildcat Hollow and cross the creek. I don’t care if it takes me four hours to get to school. I ain’t never comin’ past Boggin Mountain again.”
Clara put her hands on her hips. “You can’t take the long way around. Besides, even if this is the Boggin leavin’ warnings, he ain’t mad at us.”
“Maybe he don’t want us goin’ near the mountain. He figgers it’s his, and that’s that,” Zady replied.
“That’s just plain stupid, Zady,” Clara said, rolling her eyes.
“I’m a-tellin’ Ma you called me stupid!” Zady cried.
“I wasn’t callin’ you stupid, I was callin’ what you said stupid.”
“Same thing.”
“Is not.”
“Is too.”
John cleared his throat. “That’s enough, you two. You sound like a couple o’ hens cacklin’.”
Lulu’s eyes went wide. “Maybe . . .” she whispered, “maybe he don’t want the telephones and all. Maybe he figgers this is his mountain to haunt, fair and square.”
“That’s silly, Lulu,” Clara said. She met John’s worried gaze. “Now, come on.” She gave Lulu a gentle push. “Ma’s goin’ to be worryin’ somethin’ fierce if ’n we don’t get home soon.”
As Zady and Lulu ran ahead, Clara turned to John. “How will we ever know for sure and certain what’s behind all this?”
“If it’s the Boggin,” John whispered, “there’s only one way to find out.”
Clara gazed up at Boggin Mountain, looming above them. Today it certainly didn’t look like the pretty party skirt she dreamed about. Today, it looked like a place where an evil creature lived, hovering in the darkness, waiting to pounce.
She tried to smile at John. “Come on,” she said, swallowing past a lump in her throat. “I’ll race you the rest of the way home.”