The librarian sprang out from behind a bookcase and shushed me. I clapped a hand over my mouth.
We returned our attention to our search. “Hey, here’s something,” Tucker said. “Not about the scoreboard, but it mentions Scarlet again.” He turned his screen to me.
“‘Though only numbering 151, East Shoal’s graduating class of 1992 includes several remarkable names, including Scarlet Fletcher, daughter of politician Randall Fletcher, and the class valedictorian, Juniper Richter, who tested top in the nation in both math and language comprehension. . . .’” I let my voice fade away. “Is that . . . ?”
“It’s Miles’s mom, yeah.”
“They went to school together? That means she was there when the scoreboard went up—maybe she could tell you something about it.”
Tucker rubbed his neck. “That’s . . . probably not going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“She’s, ah, in a mental hospital up in Goshen.”
“A . . . a mental hospital?” I paused. “Why?”
Tucker shrugged. “I don’t know anything else. She calls Finnegan’s sometimes when he’s there. One time I redialed after he’d hung up, and an orderly answered.” He waved his hand around. “And now you see why I don’t mind eavesdropping on people’s personal lives.”
I sank back in my chair. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah. Are you okay?”
I nodded. That was why I’d trusted Miles when he’d said he wouldn’t tell anyone. He knew what it meant to hide a secret like that.
I dove back into the articles, trying to shove thoughts of Miles and his mother and Blue Eyes to the back of my mind. I had a strange, intense desire to see him.
My eyes began to glaze over and my legs went numb right about the same time I found it. I was well into ’97 when the headline reached right off the screen and smacked me in the face.
MEMORIAL SCOREBOARD FALLS, CRUSHES DONOR’S DAUGHTER
“You’re kidding me,” I whispered. “I think I just found your story, Tucker.”
“What?”
“Scarlet died in ninety-seven,” I said. “The scoreboard fell on her when she went back for the class reunion. And . . . Jesus, McCoy was the one who tried to lift it off of her. He was electrocuted. Scarlet died in the hospital a few hours later from sustained injuries, and they hung the scoreboard back up.”
I showed him the article. His eyes widened as he read.
“McCoy went to school with Scarlet,” Tucker said. “McCoy tried to save her and couldn’t. Now he worships the scoreboard because . . . why? It killed somebody.” He sat back, raked his hands through his neatly combed hair, and stared at me. “How messed up is this guy?”
“It didn’t just kill somebody,” I said. “It killed Scarlet. He’s made it like . . . like a monument. A memorial for her.”
A memorial for a dead woman.
There was definitely something strange going on. I just didn’t know what it was.
Chapter Twenty-two
I sat in the copse on the hill behind Red Witch Bridge that night, trying, for a little while, to forget what I’d learned in the library. Not the part about Scarlet, even though that was interesting. It was the information about Miles—about his mother—that had kept me from falling asleep.
The night was quiet aside from the breeze ruffling the leaves and the whisper of the stream. Most cars didn’t come down this road at night because of the bridge. People said it was because they didn’t trust the bridge’s integrity, but the real reason was the witch.
A long time ago, back in the days when people still got pressed to death, a witch lived on this side of the river. Not the misunderstood kind of witch who only wants to heal with her chants and herbal remedies, but the creepy kind who cuts off crow heads and eats children and small pets.
So the witch was fine—or so the story goes—most of the time because everyone else lived on the other side of the river and didn’t bother her. But then they built the bridge, and people started coming onto her land, and she got pissed. She would wait by the bridge at night and kill those unlucky enough to cross after dark.
Eventually she got pressed to death or something. But even now, when a car drove across the bridge at night, you could hear the witch scream. She was called the Red Witch because she was coated with the blood of her victims.
I was probably the only teenager in the state who wasn’t scared of the witch. Not because I was extra fearless or anything, but because I knew where the legend came from.
Two sets of headlights appeared around the bend in the road. I scooted farther behind my tree, cracking twigs and fallen leaves, even though I knew they wouldn’t see me. The cars pulled off on the shoulder. Doors opened and closed. Voices floated to me, words scrambled. A girl’s high-pitched giggle, a boy’s low murmur. Teenagers come to play with the witch. The headlights threw their long-legged shadows across the pavement.
There were five of them: four in the first car, one in the second. All with their shoulders huddled up around their ears in the chilly autumn air. The first four seemed to be reasoning with the fifth. The girl giggled again.
The fifth person broke away from the group and started across the bridge. His steps echoed against the old wood. Brave guy. Usually it took more persuasion. The others wouldn’t be able to see him when he reached my side because of the trees, but if he walked up the hill, the moonlight would let me see him.
He crossed the bridge and stood in the darkness, looking around. Then he started up the hill.
“Miles?”
I stood and stepped out of the trees. I should have known. I didn’t want to freak him out or anything, but he still stopped in his tracks and stared at me.
“Alex? What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
“No, I asked first, and since you are literally chilling here behind these trees, and no one does that at Red Witch Bridge at night, your answer is infinitely more important than mine.”
“Well, you do it when you’re the witch.”
He stared at me. “You’re the witch.”
“I’m the witch.” I shrugged.
“You sit out here at night and scare people?”
“No,” I said. “I sit out here at night and watch people scare themselves. It’s fun. What are you doing here?”
Miles motioned over his shoulder. “Cliff, Ria, and some others pooled their money to pay me to walk the bridge at night.