Page 25 of The Sister's Curse

I reached out for a fish, but my mom caught my hand. “Don’t touch them.”

“Why not?”

“They’re poisoned. It’s not just our well.”

I leaned forward and inhaled. The water smelled sweet, artificial, like something I might smell in the detergent aisle at the grocery store. Like something that was made to smell sweet but would taste awful.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“We cover this up for now.”

“And then…?” It didn’t feel like enough.

“We look for the source.”

Mom and I followed dry creek beds and unseen veins of water. We walked for miles, from morning until dark, always in the lowest, most shaded parts of the forest. I drifted in my mom’s wake as she was guided by the twitching of a stick.

When night fell, we found ourselves at the river, at a spot where it curled in on itself beneath a stone with the profile of a woman.

I gawked up at it, exhausted, and feeling her chilly shadow permeating me. I took my shoes off and let my bloody blisters air. Blood trickled into the cool sand.

“That’s good,” my mom said. “She likes blood.”

“Who is she?”

“She’s a spirit who lives in the rivers and streams in this place. The water is special here, you see. It flows up from deep, deep underground, from places light has never seen.”

“Like the underworld?” I’d been reading Greek mythology.

“Like the underworld. She brings all that power up in the water. She rules the water. And it’s polluted now. It killed your sister. And now we have to stop this poison before anyone else gets hurt like your baby sister.”

I squished my toes into the sand. This was the first time I remembered my mom actually telling me a story. I wondered why my dad never took me here. This place was special. It felt sacred, in a way the forest didn’t. I could feel the water, swirling in its cauldron, around my mom and myself.

For that moment, I felt like her daughter.

—

Sand crunched behind me, farther back on the trail. I ducked behind the cattails.

More distant steps.

I stayed low, watching. I peered above the cattails, spying a figure above me. Not a guy I recognized. He was wearing cargo shorts, a camo T-shirt, and hiking boots. A ball cap was low on his brow, covering a scruffy ponytail. He was skinny, too skinny, and his arms and face were speckled by sores he absently scratched. He was a young man, but missing a few teeth.

Was this the guy Timmy was meeting? He must have arrived after me.

I dropped to my belly, feeling cool mud under my fingers and soaking through the knees of my pants. My heart slowed to a steady, reptilian beat as he drifted away from my sight.

I crept forward soundlessly. I slithered through the undergrowth, watching the edge of his camo T-shirt moving against the background.

I pursued him as he swept down the trail, casting right and left. He crept down the path, still making noise, looking clumsily for footprints in the dirt. Was he looking for Timmy, or…?

He was following me. He must’ve seen my car in the lot, maybe followed me from the plant…or even farther back.

I almost laughed aloud, and I clapped a muddy hand over my mouth. The thought was ridiculous. Here, in my element.

I decided to hunt him back. Just for fun.

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