Jill lowered her voice. “The bud wasn’t normal. It had abump. Like a wart, but it felt hard—like there was a pebble inside. When I peeled it open, this yellowy thing fell out into my hand.” Jill squeezed her eyes closed and spoke so softly that her words were nothing more than a fragile whisper. “It was a tooth.”
Una went very still. “A tooth?”
Jill nodded.
“From an animal?”
Jill shook her head and pointed at the metal braces glued to her front teeth. “It had one of these on it.”
When Una gave her a searching look, Jill knew what she was thinking. Everyone knew how much Jill liked telling stories. She had notebooks full of them. She whispered them to her friends at school assemblies and during sleepovers. She added details to real-life events to make them more interesting. She was always getting in trouble for bending the truth, but she wasn’t lying now. She prayed Una could see that.
The second hand on the kitchen wall clock ticked and ticked. If Jill didn’t leave soon, she’d miss her bus. But she couldn’t go until she told Una everything.
Finally, Una said, “What did you do with it? The tooth?”
Jill let out a sigh. That was where things really got weird.
“It freaked me out, so I dropped it. I yelled at J.J. to come back because I wanted him to see it, but he wouldn’t stop. When I looked back at the sand, I saw the tooth... sink. It happened so fast—like it got sucked up by a vacuum.” A tear slid down Jill’s freckled cheek. Her story sounded so ridiculous that she couldn’t blame Una for not believing her. “I’m not lying. I swear.”
Una came around to Jill’s side of the table and gave her shoulders a squeeze. “My amma would’ve said the tooth was a piece of elf treasure. Did I ever tell you the story of the men who tried to build a road through a hill belonging to the elves?”
Jill didn’t care if she missed her bus. If Una could explain what she’d seen, Jill could forget all about the gross tooth. She could stop feeling scared every time she remembered how it had looked sitting in her palm. “No.”
Una returned to her seat and cradled her teacup in her hands. “Elves are invisible, but just because you can’t see a thing doesn’t mean it isn’t there. The men who wanted to build a road learned this the hard way. They used every machine they could get their hands on, but the machines failed. The engines jammed. Rocks cracked the shovel blades. The men tried dynamite next, but every time they lit the fuses, a strange burst of wind or sudden rainstorm would snuff them out. Finally, the men brought in the strongest horses in the country to pull down the trees. The horses refused to budge. The men threatened them with whips, but the horses wouldn’t move. One night, they ran away and were never seen again. In the end, the road was built somewhere else, and the elves were left in peace.”
“So, your grandma would’ve said the tooth belonged to the elves?”
Una nodded. “All they want is to stay hidden—to be left alone. If you don’t disturb them, they won’t harm you. If you make them angry, they’ll seek revenge. But since you gave the tooth back, they won’t be angry.”
Relieved, Jill got to her feet and pulled her book bag onto one shoulder.
“What would your amma say about Mrs. Smith?”
Turning in her chair, Una glanced out the window facing Mrs. Smith’s yard. “Amma believed in witches, trolls, ghosts, demons, wind spirits, and all kinds of monsters. She wore charms around her neck and wrists. She carved runes over the door and into the leather of her saddle. She believed people needed protection from the wild things. She would’ve toldyou to stay away from Mrs. Smith’s yard.” Una made a shooing motion at Jill. “Now, hurry, or you’ll miss your bus. J.J. left ten minutes ago!”
Jill did as she was told.
She hadn’t heard J.J. leave, but because his room was in the basement, he used a different door.
Will he hold the bus for me?
He probably wouldn’t, but Jill’s friends would. It was the last week of school, and her entire grade would be watching a movie after lunch. Jill didn’t want to miss it, so she ran as fast as she could up the driveway, her book bag bouncing on her back like a loose turtle shell.
As she left her house behind, she felt a feathery tingle on the nape of her neck, like someone was watching her.
And even though Jill had never seen the woman, she knew it was Mrs. Smith.
Everything about Mrs. Smith’s property was wrong.
The thorns on her pricker bushes were too big. The berries on her winter creeper oozed a bloodred sap. No matter the season, poison ivy and poison sumac clung to every inch of the fence. Deep purple mushrooms with gills that moved as if they were drawing breath sprouted all over her yard.
Then there was her soot-gray house.
It sat on the hill like a howling wolf. Its top half was narrow and pointed, while the bottom half looked like the haunches of a large beast. No windows faced the street on the ground floor, and the windows that gazed out over the harbor were tall and skinny. Sunlight never winked off the glass or the metal railing of the widow’s walk. Shadows spilled out from under the eaves and the front porch and pooled around the bushes and trees.
Jill and J.J. didn’t agree on much, but they both believed the house was meant to be some kind of fortress. The iron fence surrounding the property had spear-tip finials, and the electric gate across the driveway sent a clear message that visitors were not welcome. There were no potted ferns or rocking chairs on the porch. No dining table with an umbrella and chairs on the patio. No wind chimes or gazing balls in the overgrown garden.
The only splash of color came from the pair of round windows in the attic turret. Made of stained glass, their central figure was a purple octopus suspended in blue water. Because the purple was so dark that it was nearly black, and the blue was a deep indigo, it was difficult to see the octopus. It hid on sunny days but came alive during lightning storms.
