Page 27 of The Witching Hours

“I know, Jen. I can see that.”

“What happened to ‘it’s a brand-new car’? That’s what you said. Remember? Nothing can go wrong with a car when it’s right off the showroom floor?” All playfulness had left Jeanette’s tone.

“That’s not exactly…”

He almost jerked back when she hissed at him. Actually hissed. “Don’t even.”

“Okay. Okay.” He held up his hands in surrender. “You’re right. What about your phone?”

She’d deposited her phone into the side console after the 911 call had ended. It didn’t take much feeling around in the dark to find it and see the comfort of her screen light up with her favorite photo of hergrand-mère’s house. She located the maps app and got directions.

Tristan was feeling antsy. He didn’t like the feeling of sitting in dark woods with a ground fog growing in density and a girlfriend who was understandably jumpy as a cat. He checked his watch while he was waiting for the navigator’s verdict. The time was lit up on the dash, but after failure of the GPS, he needed a second opinion. It wasn’t yet seven, but seven was just an abstract expression of a fallible construct. It didn’t feel like seven. It felt like the middle of the night. He didn’t want to test it, but thought that, if he cut the engine, he’d hear nothing but silence.

“U turn.” Jeanette’s voice cutting through the silence was a welcome sound. “We need to go back to the last road we passed and take a right.”

Tristan didn’t have to be asked twice. They’d done a one-eighty and were headed in the opposite direction before she reached the end of that sentence.

“Done,” he said.

“Don’t go too fast or we’ll miss it. It’s hard to see with the fog coming in. Turn on your brights.”

“Trust me. You don’t want that.”

That was the kind of challenge that couldn’t go unanswered. “Now youhaveto show me what you mean. Just for a minute.” He flicked them on, but had to slow down because they made it so hard to see. “Ohhhhhh,” she said. “Yeah. You’re right. Turn them off.”

“Weird, huh.” It wasn’t a question. The phenomenon would be called weird in anybody’s book. He was just trying to keep up the pretense of cheerfulness and lighten the mood.

God bless him!

“Definitely. Weird,” she said. “I just don’t want to miss our turn and it’s kinda hard to see.” Tristan fought his impulse to floor the accelerator and slowed a little more. “There!” She pointed to an intersection ahead.

They turned right, but found the new road was even narrower with deeper flood ditches on either side and trees that met overhead blocking out moonlight. Tristan doubted a car and a pickup could pass without one or the other offering right of way. After a short distance the road narrowed to one lane for access to a decrepit bridge spanning the bog.

“This can’t be the way.” Jeanette almost whispered. Tris was going so slow that Jeanette’s near-whisper could be heard.

He was already jumpy. So, when Jeanette screamed, he jerked the steering wheel and almost went off into the ditch.

“WHAT IS IT?!?” he yelled.

“Something jumped into my lap,” she said.

“Where is it now?”

“I don’t know. I kind of shoved it away?”

Tristan grabbed her phone and turned on the flashlight feature. Shining it around the passenger side

“There,” he said. A little green tree frog was stuck to the passenger door panel trying to decide whether to look scared or innocent. “Tree frog.” He reached over, picked it up and tossed it into a watery part of the bog. “Harmless. Christ, Jen.”

Jeanette’s emotions were warring. She wanted to cry. At the same time, she was ashamed of wanting to cry. Jeanette Guidry was not the sort of person who cries without a really good reason. “Just… get us out of here.”

“I will, Jen. Don’t worry.” He hoped telling her not to worry reassured her more than it had him. “What’s the next turn?”

Just as they breathed a sigh of relief from safely reaching the other side of the old bridge, Jeanette looked down at a blank screen. She shook her phone. Nothing.

“What’s wrong?” Tristan asked, glancing her direction.

“I, uh, don’t know. Phone’s not working. I’ve got the black screen of death.”