THE
GUY WITH THE GEORGE CLOONEY EYES
By
A breeze kicked up and sent late October leaves skittering across the concrete parking lot of Sleepy Cove's only gas-n-grocery.
Wendy Brooks smacked her hand on top of her head to keep her straw hat from flying off to parts unknown. Tall dead grass swayed in the wind beside a rusted-out old bus over to one side of the store. Time hadn't stood still here; it had missed this town altogether.
After the wind quieted down, Wendy started toward the store. A chill snaked up her spine that had nothing to do with the cold. She looked over her shoulder.
A little girl stood near the gravel road that ran by the store. She wore a frilly white dress, with matching hair-bows clipped onto curly strawberry blonde locks. Pale skin made her lips appear blood red.
Wendy shivered, then berated herself. Get a grip! It's just a little girl. The door to the store opened, and she cast a glance at the young man who walked out. He tipped his hat. She smiled, then turned her attention back to the child.
She was no longer there.
Wendy glanced from one end of the parking lot to the other, then up and down the road. Where had she gone? An uncanny feeling brushed at her stomach, but she swept it aside. She had other things to do. With one last look around, she returned her attention to the task at hand: getting some cleaning supplies. Assuming the store sold any.
The store smelled of cinnamon and pumpkins. Two jack-'o-lanterns greeted customers from the checkout counter, their mouths cut in jagged lines. Happy Halloween was spelled out in orange crepe paper taped to the counter.
"Excuse me, do you have any cleaning supplies?" she asked.
The woman behind the counter pointed toward the back of the store. "That's all we've got."
"Thanks," she said and took a step toward the back.
"You're new here." It was more of a statement than a question.
Wendy
nodded. "I came to clean up my grandmother's house. She died
last month." Swallowing a lump in her throat she tried to
smile. She'd never really known her grandmother, but the death of
a person always choked her up. There had been some secret feud
between her parents and grandmother, but even so, the house had
been left to her. At this point, she was undecided as to whether
to live in it or put it on the market.
"You're Hattie's granddaughter?" A look of awe crossed the woman's face.
"Yes." That's a small town for you, she thought. They know everybody's business.
A boy about twelve years old walked in. The door slammed on his heels as he paused and cast a furtive glance toward the counter, then scurried down the center aisle.
The cashier narrowed her eyes and followed his every move, then abruptly turned back to Wendy. "I should've known you were some relation. You've got the same jet-black hair as Hattie. Of course Hattie's was gray with age." She leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner. "Some folks around here thought Hattie was a witch," she whispered. "Claimed that she could conjure up ghosts and make them do her bidding."
Wendy stared at her with her mouth gaped open in surprise. This woman had apparently let Halloween go to her head.
"She could also do spells that brought people back from the edge of death." The woman looked at the little boy and frowned. Then resumed talking as if she hadn't the slightest interest in the child. "But you never wanted to cross her. Uh-uh, no sir-re Bob! Old man Dugan lost half a dozen head of cattle just for spitting tobacco juice on her shoes one day. Don't reckon he meant to, but that was never no mind to Hattie. She cursed him anyhow. Or, well, that's what everybody else thought. Personally, I thought she was a sweet old lady."
The phone rang, releasing Wendy from the woman's incessant chatter. Grandma Hattie-a witch? Wendy almost laughed out loud at that. Disappointment replaced amusement when she found nothing but jugs of Clorox and a few bottles of furniture polish covered in a century's worth of dust. "This will have to do for now," she mumbled and picked up two jugs of Clorox and a bottle of the polish. She snagged the last bottle of window cleaner, too.
Suddenly a woman latched onto her arm with cold, paper-thin hands. "Sometimes I see her when the moon is bright outside my bedroom window." A far-away look clouded her milky, blue eyes. "She's always so pretty, with those ribbons in her hair. I feel like she's trying to tell me something, but I'm too afraid to go see what it is." The woman brought her gaze back to Wendy. "You have to find him," she said, then let go of her arm and slipped outside like she'd never been there.
"Him?" Wendy turned her attention back to the cashier. "Hadn't she been talking about a little girl?"
"Oh, that's Franny Malloy. She'd be talking about that nice young man, Adam Mason, who went missing three days ago," the cashier answered. "I wouldn't put it past her locking him up in that old cabin she lives in. She's a few bats shy of a cave full." She rang up the items Wendy placed on the counter. "He was always making sure she had plenty of wood to keep her warm during the cold winter nights, and enough food, too." She shook her head as she shook out a paper bag. "Such a pity. Went out hunting and never returned. Adam was quite good-looking. About your age." She looked Wendy up and down. "All of twenty-two. He had that George Clooney look about him. You know, those beautiful eyes surrounded by thick lashes. And the way he'd hang his head in an Aww-shucks-puppy-dog way, had even us older ladies fanning ourselves." The woman let out a deep sigh. "Really sad about what happened to Franny all those years ago. Can't blame her for being the way she is. And now Adam is missing. She doted on him like he was her son."
Wendy leaned forward caught up in the cashier's tale. "What happened?"
The woman looked towards the young boy again. "You take that out of your pocket right now, mister!" she yelled and hurried from behind the counter.
Wendy gathered her package and left. She had no intention of getting caught up in this sleepy little town. As soon as her grandmother's house was clean, she was out of here. Maybe. The place was nice and cozy, although its occupants were a bit strange. The guy with George Clooney eyes, now that's one man in this town she'd like to meet, she thought.
On the way back, dust boiled out from under a truck, kicked up by its tires, and made visibility almost impossible as Wendy drove behind him. She tried to stay as far back as she could, but every now and then she'd catch herself creeping up close to him. Probably because he was only going about twenty miles per hour, she thought.
She glanced in the rearview mirror and for a split second she thought she saw that little girl standing in the road. Stomping on the brake, she stopped the car and twisted in her seat for a better look.
The dust settled, but there was no one there. "I could've sworn I saw her," she mumbled. A creepy sensation coiled in her stomach, like tendrils of fog snaking its way out of a river toward dry land to curl around dark shapes in the night.
Frowning, Wendy pulled up the emergency brake and stepped out of the car. She shaded her eyes from the afternoon sun. The road was empty. She thought about going back and asking the attendant at the gas-n-grocery if there was a little girl who lived nearby, but decided against it. She didn't want the same reputation her grandmother had had for seeing things.
Late that evening, she stood and stretched her aching back. She'd been down on her knees most of the afternoon scrubbing the living room's hardwood floors. A chilly breeze blew the curtains back from a window she'd opened earlier to let in some fresh air. "At least this room looks better," she said.
The place was cozy and quiet except for an occasional rustling in the bushes as a small wild animal moved about. The house looked like a cottage from the outside. When she'd first seen it, she'd thought of the gingerbread man's home. But the witch's house in "Hansel and Gretal" fit too. She frowned and pushed that thought out of her mind. Her grandmother hadn't been a witch. She didn't think. And if she had been, she certainly didn't lure unsuspecting children to her hearth and shove them into her oven.
For a
brief moment, she wondered if she could live here. It would
relieve a lot of stress brought on by living in the city. She'd
always been a country girl at heart. Maybe because she'd been
born in the country.
Sighing she stepped out on the porch. Her heart shot up into her throat, and she sucked in a scream.
The little girl stood in her yard, staring at her.
Wendy caught her breath enough to speak. "You scar-scared me. Are you lost?" she asked.
The little girl shook her head, then glanced toward the trees.
"Do you live that way?"
The little girl walked to the edge of the woods and stopped. She stared at Wendy as if waiting for her to do something.
"Are you afraid to walk home by yourself?" What was wrong with her? Why wouldn't she speak?
Again she shook her head and looked through the trees. She raised her hand and motioned for Wendy to follow. The night air moved around like something urgent was alive in it.
Wendy hesitated. She thought of the young man, the guy with the George Clooney eyes, who had gone out hunting and never returned. If he could get lost in familiar woods, she'd be a fool to step off her front porch. Still, she couldn't let the little girl go by herself. Maybe there was a trail.
Rummaging around in the glove compartment of her car, she pulled out a small flashlight. Satisfied it threw out adequate light she started after the little girl.
As Wendy followed, she broke off branches to mark her path. There didn't seem to be any kind of trail that would point to some kind of destination. Maybe following her wasn't such a good idea after all. The thought of getting lost in the woods in the dark was enough to cause her to pause, bite her lip, and look back toward home. "Oh, darn!" Curiosity over-rode fear and she struck out after the girl again.
The child zigzagged between the trees, her white dress flashing in and out of sight like a ghost in the semi-darkness.
"Hey, slow down," Wendy called. A saw-briar clutched her sleeve like the skeletal hand of a corpse. She shivered and pulled her arm free. When she looked back up the girl was gone.
"Hey! Where are you?" She played her flashlight over the bushes. Seeing what looked like a break in the trees, she trotted toward it.
Suddenly, the little girl loomed in front of her, with huge dark eyes shooting out a warning, and those blood red lips forming the word no.
Wendy screamed and jumped back, falling over a log behind her. The flashlight flew out of her hands and landed several feet away. The bone-jarring jolt knocked the breath out of her as she landed. She lay there for a few moments, gasping for breath.
Finally, she sat back up. The girl was gone again.
Blowing out a mouthful of air, she crawled to her feet and retrieved the flashlight. The light flickered so she tightened the lid on it.
"Help..." a raspy voice called from somewhere in front of her.
Wendy jerked the light up. The beam shook over the bushes as her hands trembled. "Anybody there?" Her heart flip-flopped in her chest.
"Down..." Someone coughed. "Here," the voice finished.
Wendy slowly walked toward the source of the sound, and stopped short of a dark hole in the ground. If the little girl hadn't stood in this very spot not more than a minute ago, she would have tumbled into the hole, and on top of whoever was down there.
She knelt and shone the light inside. "Hello?" she called.
A young man shielded his eyes from the glare. He was more than halfway down what looked like an old well. The only thing keeping him from falling further was a cluster of broken boards that had wedged between the walls of the well. George Clooney eyes stared up at her.
"Oh my gosh! You're that missing young man," she said. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"My arm-I think my arm's broken," he said.
"Stay right there!" She almost laughed at how absurd that sounded.
"I don't reckon there's any place I need to rush off to right now," he said and managed a small laugh. "I'm Adam."
"I'm Wendy," she said. He smiled at her. At least his spirits were up. That was a good sign, she thought. "I'll go call for help. We'll get you out of there real soon."
Adam nodded, weakly.
Wendy hated to leave him there alone in the dark, but she knew there was no way she could haul him out of there by herself, and she needed the flashlight to find her way home. Praying she wouldn't get lost, she followed her trail of broken tree branches. She didn't breathe a sigh of relief until she reached her front porch.
By the time help arrived, Adam had passed out, and they had to lower someone with a harness so they could pull him back up.
"How did you find him?" the sheriff asked Wendy.
"I followed a little girl out here." She craned her neck to get a glimpse of the guy as they carried him toward the ambulance on a stretcher.
The sheriff gave her an odd look, but asked no further questions.
A few days later a backhoe was brought in. Wendy figured they were gonna fill the hole up so some other person wouldn't fall victim to its hungry mouth.
She'd cleaned all the rooms but the attic in the little cottage. She was up to her elbows in dust when she came across a large brown book of spells. Her mouth dropped open. Surely not! Had her grandmother really been a witch? It certainly looked that way. Instead of disgust, Wendy felt a kind of curiosity mixed in with awe. She heard a vehicle pull up. "Who on earth?" she wondered, and walked over to the attic window.
A four-wheel-drive pick-up sat in her driveway. A young man with a cast on one arm stepped out of the driver's side.
Wendy's heart hammered against her ribs. The guy with the George Clooney eyes. She rushed down the stairs and let him in.
He pulled his hat off, and twisted it in his hand. "Hi," he said, shyly.
Wendy smiled.
"I came by to thank you for finding me the other night. I damn near..." he paused a second. "Excuse me-I thought I was gonna die in that hole," he said instead.
"Well, I'm glad I found you." She opened the door wider. "You wanna come in for a bit?"
"Sure." He smiled and stepped over the threshold, ducking his head a little.
"You want something to drink?" she asked.
"No, thank you. I can't stay long. Gotta go up and check on Mrs. Malloy. She lives just over the ridge from here."
"Really? I didn't know anyone lived that close."
"Yeah. Sad about her daughter, Katie."
"Her daughter?"
"I'm sorry, I forgot you don't live around here. They dug up that old well and found the little girl's remains. She'd been missing for twenty years."
Wendy sucked in her breath. "That's terrible."
He shuffled his feet and looked at the floor then back up at her. "They said..." He cleared his throat. "They said a little girl led you to me."
Wendy nodded. "That's right." Then it dawned on her. "You don't think..." she trailed off.
"Grandma Hattie could see the dead. Maybe you can too? At least that's what the whole town has been talking about. They think you're a witch like she was."
Wendy almost groaned out loud. She'd only been here a few days, and already she was branded a witch. Maybe it wasn't such a bright idea to stay here after all. She could picture the town carrying torches up her driveway chanting, burn witch, burn witch.
"Prettiest witch I ever did see," he said with a grin.
Wendy couldn't help but to smile back at him. He really was cute. "Thanks. I promise not to cast any nasty spells on the town," she said and winked.
"You plan on staying?" he asked.
"Maybe," she answered.
"Are you staying till at least Friday?" he asked.
"Probably longer." She wondered what he was getting at although she had a sneaky suspicion what it was.
"I'd like to take you out to a movie or something if you're free Friday night." He ducked his head, then looked up at her with those gorgeous eyes, and a sexy little grin.
She melted. "I'd like that," she said softly.
"Okay, Friday it is." He backed toward the door. "I best be getting on up to Mrs. Malloy's."
"See you Friday night." Wendy stood in the doorway and watched him drive away. Maybe this town wouldn't be so bad after all. She took a deep breath and wandered into the living room.
Scrawled across one wall with a green crayon in child-like handwriting were the words 'Thank you'. Right below that was 'Katie Malloy'.
Wendy smiled. Even the ghosts were friendly.
