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DARK DRAPES BILLOWED in the humid breeze that blew through Roland’s bedroom window, and the draw cord tapped against the wall. Angry gray clouds shifted in the sky, giving a sickly greenish tint to the world outside.
Taking a deep breath of the heavy air, Roland turned his attention back to the open saint book on his desk. He needed to pick a saint tonight. He wouldn’t have time tomorrow. But none of the martyrs he’d read about clicked with him.
Roland studied a pen-and-ink picture in the old saint book he’d borrowed from Papa’s study. In the image, a soldier’s sword rested on the neck of a decapitated body. The soldier’s eyes had fallen out of his head, judging by the lines drawn from his eye sockets to two eye-sized balls in his hand. A few other soldiers looked on.
The decapitated body belonged to Saint Alban, the first recorded British martyr. He’d sheltered a Catholic priest in his house during the Christian persecutions in the fourth century. The faith and piety of that priest impressed Alban so much that he soon converted to Christianity. When soldiers came to search the house for the priest, Alban put on the priest’s clothing. The soldiers took him to the judge, who ordered Alban to sacrifice to pagan gods. “I worship and adore the true and living God who created all things,” Alban said. For standing on the side of truth, Alban was scourged. And beheaded. And, apparently, the soldier who beheaded him went blind.
Roland rubbed his eyes and flipped a few pages. He stopped on a random page and dropped his finger to a saint’s name. Saint Paul of Cyprus. This eighth-century martyr opposed the decree of the Byzantine Emperors who forbade the venerating of icons. He refused to desecrate a crucifix and so was tortured and burned alive.
Flames shot up in Roland’s mind, turning his thoughts to the tree in Brice’s yard.
Who would’ve done that?
The graffiti on the garage showed that whoever had done it wanted to make Brice feel bad. The others who came along for the fun probably thought up trashing the yard. Burning the tree seemed like overkill. Of course, if they’d just been out in the neighborhood “kicking up a row,” maybe they came across the gas can outside Marshall’s house and decided spontaneously to do it. So that would mean they lived nearby. Gavin lived down the road. He wouldn’t pass Marshall’s house, but he’d pass his street to get to Brice’s house.
Roland’s phone rang, jerking him from his thoughts. He picked it up from the back of his desk and glimpsed Caitlyn’s number—not the number from the phone Peter had given her, her home phone.
His heart leaped. Then worry pushed the elation down as he tapped the icon to answer her call. Could she have received another threat since he’d seen her last?
“Hey, Caitlyn.”
“Hi, Roland,” she whispered, then in a louder voice, “I know you wanted me to stop investigating. But . . .”
A little bell went off inside him and he braced himself for what she’d say next. Had something else happened? He’d blame himself for involving her to begin with.
“I was just going over the evidence board and I had a few thoughts. Plus, I wanted to know if you or Peter found out more.”
He exhaled. She had some ideas. That was all. “Not really. With the camping trip coming up, and I still haven’t picked a martyr . . . but I’ve been thinking about everything.”
“Like what?”
“Like about the burned tree . . . I was thinking it could’ve been an afterthought.” The words poured out, as if he’d been waiting for a sounding board. “The names on the garage were definitely personal, so whoever did it knew Brice pretty well and knew where she lived. Maybe someone in the neighborhood. And I think the gas can came from Marshall’s house, not that he did it, but the kids probably stole it from there.”
“Marshall? What makes you think it was his?”
“He doesn’t live too far from Brice. And his gas can is missing.”
“How do you know?”
Roland flipped a few pages of the book absentmindedly, not sure he wanted Caitlyn to think he and Marshall were friends. Then his conscience nudged him. So what if he and Marshall were friends? It didn’t mean he’d be coloring his hair pink, too, or that he agreed with Marshall’s beliefs or lifestyle. Then again, a person should choose their friends wisely and he didn’t have to be friends just because—
“He needed a ride home the other day,” Roland blurted. “His father couldn’t find the gas can and was complaining about him leaving it out all the time.”
“You think one of the vandals lives nearby, his friends were over and they were out late that night, wandering the streets, probably looking for trouble, stole the can from outside his house, and decided to burn the tree?”
He smiled, liking the way she’d summarized his thoughts. “Maybe.”
“And the reason they picked her house? They could’ve picked Marshall’s for the same reason.”
“That’s true. But maybe”—other ideas came to him—“the one who instigated it had seen her move in and tried to get to know her. Maybe she rejected him, and this was payback.”
“Hmm . . . didn’t you say Gavin lives down the road from her?”
“Yeah, and the woods where I found the gas can run behind houses all the way down the street, down past Gavin’s house.”
“So that makes Gavin a pretty strong suspect. Who else?”
Roland focused his gaze and realized a picture of Saint Stephen lay open before him. A crowd threw stones at him. Oddly, the stones in the picture made him think of the sweetgum tree and the neighbor who hated it. “I don’t think the neighbor is a suspect anymore.”
“Norris Stanton? Why not?”
“He hated the tree, not Brice. He wouldn’t have spray painted all those insults on the garage. That’s something kids would do.”
“Well, I found something out yesterday.”
His stomach clenched. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she was going to put herself in danger to find answers. “What’d you find out?”
“Don’t get mad, but . . .”
“Caitlyn.” Worry and annoyance put an edge in his tone.
“Don’t worry. I was only taking a walk. Down Mr. Stanton’s street.”
With every pause she made, Roland tensed more.
“And I saw a group of teenage boys on the front porch and a few beer cans peeking out of the recycle bin. At least one of the boys was probably his son, the rest his son’s friends.” She spoke faster as she went on. “And maybe they saw Brice move in and one of them tried to get to know her, like you were thinking maybe Gavin did, but it could’ve been one of those boys instead, and she probably wanted nothing to do with them, so they would have a reason for the graffiti and for burning the tree down. They would know how Mr. Stanton hated it. Right?”
“Uh, I guess so.” Disturbed to hear she’d gone over there, he struggled to analyze her theory. Maybe she hadn’t gone alone. Kiara and Phoebe could’ve gone with her.
“What about the other suspects on the list? And does this mean someone different hung up the ‘Outcasts Beware’ posters and put fish in that girl’s locker at school? It all happened around the same time so . . .”
Roland couldn’t transition his thoughts. “Did you go over there alone?”
One second, two seconds passed. “Um. Yes. I was just taking a walk.”
“Right but . . .” Roland slouched back and shoved a hand in his hair. “You didn’t try talking to them, did you? And if they’re the guilty ones, they just threatened us with a rock through your window. Who knows what they’ll do next?”
“Oh. Well. I didn’t talk to them. I was just taking a walk.”
“I know. But let me handle the investigations.” He envisioned going over to Norris Stanton’s house and accusing his son and his son’s friends the way a TV show detective would. So, you know how your father hates that tree in the Escotts’ yard. The spiky gumballs drop over the fence into his backyard, and one day he twisted his ankle on them, didn’t he? And over the summer you saw a new girl move in with the Escotts, and you wanted to get to know her better. When she rejected you, it made you mad, so when your friends came over one night . . .
By the time he would finish with them, they’d know they were caught.
“Well, I want to help too.” Caitlyn sounded pouty. “I’m sure no one even noticed me.”
“I doubt that.” Her long red mane and gorgeous green eyes popped into his mind, preventing him from explaining what he meant. If her looks didn’t draw their attention, her clumsiness would’ve.
“But they didn’t look familiar. I don’t think they go to our school. So, if the vandals also hung the posters and trashed that girl’s locker, it wasn’t them. And I didn’t get any more threats— Oh! You know what we should do?”
“What?” He leaned forward at the sound of her enthusiasm, and he glimpsed another saint in the book: a king with an arrow sticking out of his chest.
“We should go to Brice’s neighborhood after school, get there before the buses drop kids off. Maybe some of the others on our list live in the neighborhood. Like maybe C.W., Trent, or Konner live nearby.”
He shuddered and glanced at his pale arm, remembering the “tan job” they’d forced on him.
“Do you think one of your brothers would give us a ride?”
“No, bad idea. If the vandals do live in the neighborhood, they’ll see us for sure and they’ll know we didn’t heed their warning. And I don’t want you taking more chances.”
She sighed. “I am not afraid. I was born to do this.”
“You’re not Joan of Arc.”
“But I’m still not afraid.”
“I know.” But I don’t want anything to happen to you, he thought but couldn’t get the words out.
“We do have to consider the possibility that it wasn’t the neighbor or Gavin. It might’ve been someone we don’t suspect and for a reason we don’t suspect.”
He nodded, even though she couldn’t see it through the phone. She was right. They could be overlooking the guilty party and the true motive. Would they ever find conclusive evidence or actually get someone to confess? “Okay, well, I gotta work on finding my saint. Call me if you get any other ideas.”
“Okay,” she whispered the way she had when she first said hello.
Roland set the phone aside and studied the picture in the saint book of the king with the arrow sticking out of his chest.
Edmund the Martyr. The crown had passed to him at age fifteen. A model ruler, he prayed often and even memorized the whole Psalter. Invaders captured him and tried forcing him to accept terms at the expense of the Christian religion. Declaring his religion dearer to him than his life, he refused. Then they beat him with cudgels, tied him to a tree, and whipped him. Unable to break his faith, his enemies shot him with arrows until he looked like a porcupine.
Skin crawling, Roland rubbed his chest. Hmm . . . Saint Sebastian was shot with arrows too. It didn’t kill him though. He died after they clubbed him. Roland remembered what Jarret had said after learning Saint Sebastian’s story. “I don’t see the point in all these people dying, all these martyrs. Why didn’t they fight? Why didn’t Sebastian have his own bow and arrows? Ain’t nobody gonna bring me down without a fight.”
Roland smiled. While he preferred to remain behind the scenes unnoticed, he admired Jarret’s fearless determination. Caitlyn had it too. And, apparently, so did Edmund the Martyr.
He turned a few more pages. Then a picture made him stop. An angry mob in colorful robes and leggings stood around a kneeling man in a long brown robe. One man climbed a ladder that reached to the rafters of a barn, and another man handed him a noose.
Roland’s mind took him back to speech class. His classmates were the mob . . . and his speech was the noose. He’d rather do anything other than speak before a group, but this saint devoted himself to speaking before others. He preached against heresy until they swung the noose over his head.
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