Outside it was cool and windy. Ollie took a deep breath ofnotcow-smelling air. There was a vegetable garden behind the house full of runner beans and kale, turnips and carrots. She went inside.
A garden after rain was much better than that echoingbarn. Ollie loved gardens. Her mom always planted a garden in the summer; Ollie had been snacking from vegetable patches since she was old enough to chew. Ollie broke a broccoli flower out of its stalk and ate it happily.
Munching, she wandered toward the middle of the garden. Three scarecrows stood in the very center, holding hands. They smiled big smiles at each other, their lips pierced with thread. The biggest scarecrow wore overalls. His smile was more like a snarl. A crow perched on his head.Kraak,said the crow, beating its wings.
“A great job you’re doing,” Ollie told the scarecrows. She bent for a rock, aimed just below the crow. She’d once made the mistake of aimingata bird and never forgot how terrible she’d felt when she knocked it out of the air.
She caught the scarecrow in the forehead. The crow flew up, unhurt, cawing indignantly, as the scarecrow’s head burst open.
Ollie got a good look at what her rock had left—ripped-open burlap, leaking straw, and, below it, the big yarn grin, unchanged. She shuddered and hurried away.
To her left she could see where the berry bushes grew in summer. To her right was the edge of the forest, and the faint silver gleam of the creek.
Ollie stepped into the forest. It was like a different world there, golden with autumn. Wet earth squished underfoot. It would be a good morning for mushrooms.
Footsteps crunched in the leaves. “Hello?” Ollie called.
Silence. Maybe she’d just heard a chipmunk. She went a little farther in. A stick cracked right next to her. She jumped and turned. No chipmunk. No one. But she caught sight of a small iron gate. Ollie went closer. The gate led to an old cemetery with graves tilted like bad teeth.
Ollie put a hand on the gate. The hinges gave with a shrillwheeee. Ollie looked around to see if anyone had heard. No one had, of course. She was definitely alone.
She tried to ignore the shivery feeling going up her spine.
She slipped inside the cemetery. Green gravestones stood in messy rows with their inscriptions blurred by time. Ollie brushed dirt off the first.Ezekiel Hopkins, the first one read,b. 1836, d. 1869 of the falling of a tree.
Sorry, Ezekiel,Ollie thought.
She went on to the next.Fanny Collar, she read.Nov. 11, 1801—June 28, 1886, wife of Amasa Piper, first white child born near this spot, God Have Mercy on Your Servant.
That’s a weird thing to be remembered for,thought Ollie.
A big stone, with a plaque and a long list of names.Dust to dust,it said.But they will rise up out of the ashes.
The schoolhouse fire,Ollie thought.There is a memorial, after all.
Then she spotted three headstones a little apart from the others, right against the tumbledown fence at the back. These three were in a cluster, one big and two smaller. Theylay at awkward angles, as though someone had not taken care where they put them. Ollie, curious, went closer.
Jonathan Webster,Elizabeth Webster, said the bigger one,d. 1894.May the dead lie quiet.Ollie frowned.
Caleb Webster, said the headstone on the left.
Catherine Webster, said the headstone on the right.
Ollie’s fingertips got cold.
“Four graves, three stones,” said a raspy voice. “But only two sets of bones.”
Ollie squeaked, jumped, and whirled. The bus driver stood behind her. Where had he come from? The ground was thick with dead leaves—they should have rustled. Alone in the woods, the bus driver’s, red lips, his mushroom-gray skin, and his sideways grin weren’t just strange—they scared her.
“Yeah,” said Ollie, heart beating fast. “Sorry, I got lost, was just heading back...”
She trailed off. The bus driver did not react.
Ollie’s heart beat faster and faster.
The driver began to whisper, and it took Ollie a moment to realize he was murmuring in a singsong:
On a fair and sunny day
