"It was my fault," Kaitlyn said.
"No, it wasn't," Rob said stubbornly. The T-shirt bandage Anna had made hung over one eye, giving him the rakish look of a pirate. "There was a goat in the road."
Lewis stopped twirling his hat. "A goat."
"Yes. A gray goat…" Rob's voice trailed off and he looked at Kaitlyn. "Gray," he said. "Colorless, really."
Kaitlyn stared at him, then shut her eyes. "Oh."
Anna said, "You think it was an apparition? Like the gray people?"
"Of course it was," Kaitlyn said. She'd been so shaken by the accident that she'd forgotten what had happened just before. "I'm so stupid—it had red eyes. Like some sort of demon. And—oh, Rob!" She opened her eyes. "The brakes didn't work. I kept pressing and pressing, but they didn't work!" The trembling at her core seemed to expand suddenly until her whole body was shivering violently.
Rob put his arm around her, and she clung to him, trying to calm herself. "So it was a psychic attack," he said. "The goat was some kind of illusion—maybe an astral projection. At Durham I heard of psychics who could project a part of themselves in the shape of an animal. And the brakes had been tampered with—it must have been long-distance PK. The whole thing was a setup."
"And we could have been killed," Anna said thinly.
Gabriel's laugh was harsh. "Of course. They're playing for keeps."
Rob straightened his shoulders. "Well, the van's not worth salvaging—and besides, we'd better not let anybody find us here. They'll ask questions, want to call the police."
Kaitlyn could feel her heart skip a beat. She lifted her head to stare at Rob in dismay. "But—but, then, what do we do?"
"We go to my house," Anna said quietly. "My parents will help us."
Rob hesitated. "We agreed, no parents," he said. "We could end up putting them in danger—"
"But we don't have a choice," Anna said, just as quietly but with steel behind the softness. "We're stuck without a car or food, we don't have anywhere to sleep… Listen to me, Rob. My parents can take care of themselves. Right now we're the ones in trouble."
"She's right," Lewis said soberly. "What else can we do? We can't afford a hotel and we can't sleep out here."
Rob nodded reluctantly. Kaitlyn allowed herself to feel some relief. Just the thought of having somewhere specific to go was comforting. But Anna's next words dispelled the comfort.
"It means we'll have to give up following the coast."
Anna was saying. "We should just cut straight across to the Sound. We'll have to hitchhike, I guess."
"Five of us?" Gabriel said. "Who's going to pick up five teenagers?"
Secretly Kaitlyn agreed. Standing in the rain trying to get a ride—in a strange state—when there were five of you—and you had to be on the alert for the police… well, it wasn't her idea of fun. But what other choice did they have?
"We've got to try," Rob was saying. "At least, maybe somebody will take Anna and Kait with 'em—and then maybe the girls can find a phone and call Anna's folks."
Helping each other, they climbed through the wet ferns and bracken, up the embankment, and to the road. Rob said they had better walk a little distance away from the van to lessen the chance that they'd be connected with it.
"We're lucky," he said. "You can't see the creek from the road, and nobody was around to actually see the accident."
Kaitlyn tried to keep reminding herself she was lucky as she stuck her thumb out, staring down the lonely road.
There weren't many cars. A long truck carrying huge logs passed without stopping. So did a black Chevy pickup full of orange and green fishing net.
Kaitlyn looked around as they waited. The rain had eased to a drizzle, but the world had a sodden look that was rather menacing. All the trees here, including the alders, were covered with thick mint-colored moss. It was a disturbing sight, all those branches that weren't white or brown, but lumpy unnatural green.
She felt a glow in the web just as Lewis asked, "What are you doing, Rob?"
Rob was standing with his eyes shut, an expression of concentration on his face. "Just moving energy around," he said. "I could think better if this cut would start healing." He opened his eyes, pulling the T-shirt bandage off. Kait saw with relief that the cut had stopped bleeding. There was even a little color in Rob's face.
"Okay," he said and smiled. "Now, how about the rest of you? Anybody starting to hurt?"
Lewis shrugged; Anna shook her head. Gabriel kept looking down the road, ignoring the question.
Kaitlyn shifted, then said, "No, I'm fine." She wasn't; she was chilled and miserable and her entire left side had begun to ache. But she felt somehow that she didn't merit healing. She didn't deserve it.
"Kait—I can feel you're not," Rob was beginning, when Lewis said, "Another car!"
It was approaching slowly, an old Pontiac the color of pumpkin pie.
"It won't stop," Gabriel said sourly. "Nobody's going to stop for five teenagers."
The car passed them, and Kait got a glimpse of a young woman behind the rain-splattered window. Then brake lights flashed, and the car slowed to a stop.
"Come on!" Rob said.
As they reached the car, the driver's window opened. Kaitlyn heard the beat of Caribbean music, and then a voice. "You looking for a ride?"
It wasn't a young woman, Kaitlyn realized. It was a girl. A girl who didn't look any older than they were. She was slender and small-boned, with a pale and delicate face that contrasted sharply with her heavy shock of dark hair. Her eyes were gray-green.
"We sure are," Lewis said eagerly. Kaitlyn could feel his admiration in the web. "We're a little wet, though," he added apologetically. "Well, more than a little. A lot."
"Doesn't matter," the girl said carelessly. "The seats are vinyl—it's my granny's car. Get in."
Kaitlyn hesitated. There was something about this girl—she seemed fragile, but there was something almost furtive about her.
Rob? I'm not sure we should.