Deegie leaped up from her chair and met Zach in the doorway. His face was ashen, accentuating the dark bruise around his eye, and his hand trembled madly as he thrust a crumpled piece of paper at her.
“He left this on the table. See if you can make any sense out of it. I called Nix and Flower; they should be here any minute. You guys gotta help me find my brother!”
She had never seen Zach this agitated before. He paced back and forth in the small room, dragging his hands through his mop of red hair as Deegie read the note.
It was one of the strangest things she’d ever read. Part of it was easily recognizable as Gilbert’s writing—precise, well-worded, every “i” dotted and every “t” crossed. The rest was a mish-mash of random words, letters, and punctuation. One word in particular had been repeated over and over: Lust.
Her skin prickled as she read over the strange note again. Zach, I have to go away for a little while, the note said. There is something inside me, and it fights me ... LUST … lust … I am LUST! I want her … I will be back when … LUST ... I can get a handle on things … DEEGIE … DEEGIE … I’m sorry for the mess. NEED! NEED HER! We fought. I fought the thing inside me. Tell Deegie I’m sorry … All I know is I need to stay away from her.
“We gotta find him, Deegie! I’ve got the worst feeling about that note! It’s almost like he wants to … to …” Zach stopped his restless pacing and stood in the center of the room, taking deep, shuddering breaths.
“We will,” Deegie said. She put her hands on either side of his head and imagined the scent of lavender and chamomile, the cool, quiet grace of amethyst, and the restful soughing of waves kissing sand. She let it build for a moment, then sent it to his troubled mind, hoping her impromptu spell was effective.
Zach blinked at her, his mouth open in astonishment. “How did you …?”
Deegie shrugged. “I’m a witch,” she said simply.
He took both her hands and kissed them repeatedly. “Thank you. But don’t do anymore magical stuff for now. I need you to save all your powers just in case you have to—you know—zap something.”
Loud knocks on the door announced the arrival of Flower and Nix. “Come on,” Deegie said, “let’s go find Gilbert.”
The four of them piled into Deegie’s van. Flower attempted to locate Gilbert using her psychic abilities, as she had once found Deegie, but a strange interference thwarted her efforts.
“Something’s blocking me,” she told the others. “It’s like some sort of electromagnetic field. Whatever’s possessed Gilbert knows I’m trying to reach him.” She mopped sweat from her forehead and scowled in frustration. “I gotta tell you though—if this thing is powerful enough to possess an experienced witch and scramble my signals, then I think we’re gonna have a hell of a battle on our hands.”
“I’m ready for it,” Nix said grimly. She went on to tell them about Gilbert’s strange behavior during the past couple of days, how he’d argued with her about everything, how he’d snapped at her, and, most of all, how huge his obsession with Deegie had grown. What was once a harmless schoolboy crush had turned into an all-consuming addiction.
“Deegie this and Deegie that,” Nix said, “was all I heard for two whole days. I mean, I knew he once had a thing for her, but come on!”
Deegie bit back the urge to apologize; this certainly wasn’t her fault … was it?
At Zach’s suggestion, Deegie drove to Gilbert’s usual hang-outs, the places he usually went when he needed some alone time. They did not see his car in front of the library, but Deegie and Zach went in anyway, scanned the rows, and questioned a few of the patrons in polite, library tones. A few knew of Gilbert, but none had seen him lately. The coffee shop, the bookstore, and the Dos Hombres cantina all yielded the same results: no one had seen a nattily dressed, red-haired young man with a beard.
“Shouldn’t we just call the cops?” Zach finally asked. “Isn’t that what people generally do when someone is missing?” Worry lines deepened on his forehead, and his hands were restless and shaky.
“He hasn’t been missing that long, Zach. He could turn up any minute.” Flower put the finishing touches on a hand-rolled cigarette and brushed flecks of tobacco off her lap. “We know what’s wrong with him, we know why he’s missing, and besides, if the police find him and see how nutty he’s acting, they’ll most likely lock him up for observation. Do you really want to see your little brother in a padded cell wearing a straightjacket? I sure don’t.” She popped a kitchen match alight with her thumbnail and lit her cigarette. “Witches take care of their own,” she added. “Don’t worry, honey. We’ll find him.”
“The old bridge!” Zach said suddenly. “He goes fishing there sometimes. I’ll bet that’s where he is! Deegie, do you know where it is?”
She did. The remains of an old covered bridge spanned Fiddlehead Creek, the town’s namesake. To get there required a ten-minute drive on a dirt road—little more than a path—that meandered up into the forested hills. From there, it was a lengthy hike through the woods. Deegie had discovered the bridge herself during one of her many solitary hikes through the forest. It was a peaceful place, full of sunshine and birdsong, but she had never seen anyone else there. She couldn’t imagine Gilbert hiking along a muddy, slushy forest path, let alone handling worms and fish hooks.
Deegie turned off onto the dirt road, but after only a few minutes, the road became impassible; a good deal of snow still covered the road, and the melting runoff had turned it into a quagmire. She stopped the van and turned off the already over-taxed engine. “If I try to go any farther, I’ll get stuck. This isn’t exactly a cross-country vehicle, you know.” She tried to smile, but couldn’t do it.
Zach was already getting out. “Then we’ll just have to walk,” he said. He gestured impatiently at the others when they didn’t comply right away. “Come on! Let’s go!”
“Zach,” Deegie said, as gently as she could, “why don’t we go back and get your Jeep. It’s made for roads like this. Then we wouldn’t have to walk through the—”
“No! In the time it takes to go back to town, we could be at the bridge already!” Zach stuck his head back into the van and looked at her pleadingly. “Please, Deeg. I know he’s up there. I can’t explain it, I just know!”
She got out, stepped into ankle-deep slush, and was glad she’d worn boots and jeans today. “Okay, Zach,” she said. “Of course I’ll go with you.” She looked back at Nix and Flower. “Nix? You with us? And Flower, you can stay here, if you … well …” She bit her lip, not quite sure how to word the sentence.
Flower looked down at her own hiking boots and slid open the back door. “Young lady, I appreciate your consideration,” she said with a wry grin, “but I am just old, not dead. If Zach wants us to accompany him up the hill, then that’s just what we shall do.”
Nix followed suit, rolling up her pant legs and muttering, “If one of those creepy-crawlies really has possessed my boyfriend, I’m gonna kick its ass. The only one allowed to make him do weird shit is me!”
The hike up the slushy road didn’t take as long as Deegie had expected, and the closer they got to the creek, the more agitated Zach became. He marched through the snow and slush, yards ahead of the rest of them, and his face was a mask of grim determination. “I know you’re up there, Gil,” he muttered quietly from time to time. “Just hang on, buddy. I’m on my way.”
Flower brought up the rear, but showed no signs of tiring. She’d procured one of Deegie’s ghost traps and added her own touches as she’d done before. She carried it in the wolf-skin pouch on her belt, and she chanted softly to herself as she hiked along.
They found the snowy trail that led into the woods. It was marked by a single set of footprints that wound through the trees, and Zach saw them immediately. He doubled his pace, charging into the woods and calling out his brother’s name.
The women met up with Zach where the trail ended at the ancient covered bridge. He stood a few yards from the entrance, shading his eyes with his hand and peering hard into the dark wooden mouth.
Nix ran the remaining distance to stand beside Zach, and she cupped her hand around her mouth to amplify her shout: “Gil, you in there? I’m gettin’ real tired of this bullshit! Come on out and let’s get this taken care of!”
The bridge creaked wearily against a sudden gust of wind, and the scents of old wood and early spring wafted towards them. Fiddlehead Creek babbled noisily to itself thirty feet below, and somewhere in the trees on the other side, a woodland bird let out a tentative chirp.
Deegie and Flower caught up with them, and the four of them stood there, sweating and slightly out of breath as they scrutinized the cave-like entrance to the bridge. There was no sign that Gilbert or anyone else was hiding inside that dark wooden enclosure, but the trail of footprints led right up to it.
Nix drew in a breath and was about to shout again when Flower stopped her. “Let’s just stand here a minute, girlie,” she said. “If he’s in there, he knows we’re here.”
“Oh, he’s here.” Zach stared straight ahead into the darkness. Goosebumps rose on his arms despite his exertions and the warmth of the day. “I know my brother’s in there; I can feel him!”
Deegie reached out with her senses, but she felt nothing but the cool breeze on her skin. Strange, she thought, Zach is a Normal One, and he senses his brother’s presence, but Flower and I have our psychic circuits jammed. Could it be because they share the same blood?
She was about to ask Nix if she sensed anything when she spotted something moving inside the bridge. Two round spots of yellow light flickered on, one after the other, as if some nocturnal beast was opening its eyes.