Witch in the White City: A Dark Historical Fantasy/Mystery (Neva Freeman Book 1), Nick Wisseman [best novels for students .TXT] 📗

Yet Neva still couldn’t move. Not with the stranger continuing to whistle as he lifted a lock of her hair and let it fall, raised her arm and considered a finger, only to let it drop as well. Was he toying with her? Deciding where to make his first cut? Both? And Jesus in Heaven, why couldn’t she do anything about it?

The stranger cupped her chin and tilted her head back, forcing her to trade gazes with him. His face remained obscured, a pit of charcoal distinguished only by lips and eyes. But she could see enough to tell when his expression changed from anticipation to confusion.

Why, she couldn’t say. When his whistling faltered a moment later, however, Neva seized the opportunity and spasmed into motion.

A minor distortion helped her cast off the bugs and wriggle free of the halter.

A quick sidestep saw her beside the stranger and out from under his knife.

A backward slash of her hand sank her sharpening fingertips into ...

Nothing.

His music was still in her, sloshing back and forth, unbalancing her to the point that her momentum took her crashing into the opposite wall—the swipe she’d aimed at his throat missed by an inch.

So she kicked instead.

Daggering the toes of her right foot, Neva punched its elongated nails through her shoe and into the stranger’s calf, felling him like a tree while she clapped her hands to her ears. But he caught the next kick and threw her leg up so violently that she flipped over and spun about, her arms spreading wide and her face landing just outside the stall, teeth-deep in the aisle’s neatly packed dirt.

“Help!” she sputtered before the stranger began whistling again and his notes reinfected her faculties. A cow brayed in response, perhaps unsettled by the scent of blood as the stranger limped up behind her.

Breath coming in gulps, she closed her eyes and waited for the blade to fall. Her hair had parted to either side. Would the stranger end matters quickly by striking the exposed skin above her collar? Or revenge the cut she’d given him and slice her leg in the same spot? From there, he could go anywhere, everywhere—had it been able to, her whole body would have quivered with dread.

She didn’t have to wait long: the blow came quickly.

But not against her. The stranger dropped the knife on the floor, the impact muffled by the dirt. Then he staggered down the aisle, turned, and vanished from view, stray insects trailing in his wake. The whistling continued for several minutes, growing fainter and fainter until fading to nothing.

Leaving her free—completely free. Free of fever (but not the subsequent chills), free and unharmed, free to move.

And free to wonder.

“NEVA, SOMETHING HAPPENED in—what are you doing?”

She whipped her right hand behind her back, restoring her fingers to normal length by picturing a cat retracting its claws. But there was no putting back the blood: the undersides of each nail dripped red where the bone had jutted through. At one point, five drops fell on her left calf in near-perfect unison. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Horseshit,” Augie said, his favorite curse since they’d turned thirteen a few weeks ago and judged themselves old enough to swear. “You tore your skin again, didn’t you?”

She clenched her hand into a fist, pressing her fingers tight against her palm to staunch the bleeding. “Not on purpose.”

“Horseshit,” he repeated. “Neva, you’re not some wax doll. Not all of you, anyway. You might be able to melt your bones and reform them, but the rest of you ... If you’re not careful, you’ll tear a muscle, or bleed to death, or—God in Heaven, will you just show me?”

She bit her lip and moved her hand into view.

Augie studied it a moment before motioning for her to follow him out of the DeBell’s garden. His voice was flecked with flint: “You need to see something.”

“We have chores to do ...”

“The DeBells will be out for hours yet. No one will miss us. Come on.”

Slowly, she trailed him into the street and, after several minutes of walking, out of the Gold Coast and into the less-opulent neighborhood of Old Town. “Where are we going?” she tried again. “What is it you want me to see?”

He answered only with “It’s important,” as he had every other time she’d asked.

Finally, he led her into a deserted park and pointed at a towering elm tree.

“Augie, why are we—”

“Look up.”

She did, and immediately looked back down.

If his voice had been stony before, it was an avalanche now, each word hurtling like a boulder: “Look up, Neva.”

She shook her head, but raised it anyway, forcing herself to take in the colored corpse dangling above her. The swollen face. The lolling tongue. The flies in the eyes, and the ears, and ... “I can’t.”

“Then remember it,” Augie whispered, his tone softening. “This is what happens to ordinary Negroes when they do more than they’re supposed to. But if you are caught, even for something small—bending in a way you shouldn’t while you hang the wash; marking yourself with freakish scars—what do you think they’ll do to you?”

He took her hand. “Promise me, Neva. Not your skin. And only for emergencies.”

She tried to pull away, but he held fast.

“Neva, this is important! What I do isn’t as visible, but I’ll stop too. We can’t risk—”

“Only for emergencies,” she said softly. “And dancing. That’s when it feels natural.”

“And dancing,” Augie said after a moment. “As long as you’re careful. Thank you.”

She pulled away again, and this time he let go.

DEREK CALLED HER NAME and knocked on the door again.

Clearing her mind of dreams and questions as best she could, Neva swung herself out of her bed, trying not to dwell on its empty twin on the other side of the (very small) room. She’d thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep last night. But after she’d hurried back