Small Spaces: Chapters 18–24

"So we can get there before dark. The bridge isn’t that bad.”
A dubious silence.

Despite her bravado, she hated heights.

The bed had a moth-eaten red blanket. A vanity table with empty bottles.

Ollie crept closer to the bookcase. A Bible. A Book of Common Prayer. A Child’s Guide to Virtue. Mrs. Beardsley’s Domestic Sciences.

Ollie crept closer to the bookcase. A Bible. A Book of Common Prayer. A Child’s Guide to Virtue. Mrs. Beardsley’s Domestic Sciences.

The oven was billowing smoke, and Brian and Coco sat at the table, dazed.

She had an image of them cowering in a closet that didn’t lock, while those slow, shuffling scarecrows beat the door down.

Coco’s phone reflected a little light into their faces, making them look like specters in the darkness of that haunted world.

She realized that neither Brian nor Coco could take any more thinking or speculation that night.

“It doesn’t matter if your hands have splinters when you have trowels for hands!” He giggled hysterically.

After a liberal application of alcohol and Snoopy Band-Aids, Coco said, “Thanks, guys.”

Their feet squelched in the mud.

Ollie broke off a piece of cookie and fed it to him. He licked it up with surprising delicacy.

Ollie, a little forlornly, put her empty lunch box back in her backpack, hoping she’d done the right thing.

All the scarecrows were watching her. Ollie’s fingers tightened convulsively on the ladder rungs.

“My hound,” said Seth, and shrugged dismissively.

“Ms. Webster knew who you were,” Ollie pursued doggedly, trying not to hear the sound of scarecrows moving.

His face showed a flash of malice. He really wanted that book destroyed, Ollie thought.

Seth stepped back, laughing. "Lighten up! Why not, when it’s fun? I’ve been scaring you for days. I’m not tired of it yet.” He sobered.

His eyes were earnest, kind.

Well, Ollie wasn’t about to conjure rain from the sky, so she did the only thing she could think of, which was pull her water bottle from its side pouch and fling a scattering of drops at the first scarecrow coming up the ladder.

Ollie threw it off and then Seth was there, tall and terrible, his mouth a great starving maw.

His grin still took up half his face, but the eyes above were malevolent.

And then the smiling man smiled at her one more time. And bowed again, courtly.

Regular cars were lined up on both sides of the road, with crowds of people dressed to tramp through the woods. A search party.

They had been playing for half an hour, the last match of chess club practice, but it had turned into a battle, with pieces racing up the board, daring raids, hard-fought exchanges, and clever pincer moves. Both girls tried but neither could gain a decisive advantage.

Coco had three pawns, her queen, and a rook.

Coco had three pawns, her queen, and a rook.

Coco’s king was retreating across the board as Ollie jostled him with her bishop.

Everyone froze. Even Ollie did, staring wide-eyed at the board, as Coco’s haphazard arrangement of pawns resolved themselves into a clever trap.