Free Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke Page B

head around it. 
    Goose bumps broke out down my arms. I looked at River. His face was dark. Dark and stormy as the sky. And, worse than the dark,his face looked . . .surprised.His eyes were wide, wider than usual, and a bit . . . lost. 
    It was a disconcerting look on him. 
    I turned to my left and saw a small girl crouching behind a big headstone.Her black hair was frizzing in the wet mist and her black eyes were shifting left and right, left and right. 
    I knelt beside her. “Hey,” I said. “Are you here to kill the Devil?” 
    She nodded. 
    “Do you know where Jack is?” I asked. “I need to talk to him.” 
    She nodded again. “He’s up by the Glenship mausoleum. He’s been there since last night.” She talked fast and quiet,liked she didn’t want to be overheard.“Jack figures it’ll be the first place the Devil will go,because that’s where he saw him last. But it’s been light out for hours. And I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for.All Jack would say is that he had red eyes and that he wore pilgrim clothes, but what does that mean?” 
    The girl looked over her shoulder, up at the gray sky, and shivered. 
    I looked at the gray sky too. I wondered what Freddie would have said, if she heard the Devil was a red-eyed man in black who flew across the night sky and kidnapped kids. I couldn’t decide if she would have laughed at the story, or believed it. 
    Believed it, maybe. 
    I shifted my gaze to River,but he was watching a group of six policemen coming through the gates. A tall blond man in his forties lifted a megaphone to his lips and began to speak. 
    “LISTEN UP KIDS. EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU NEEDS TO GO HOME. NOW. WE’VE GOT A MISSING GIRL ON OUR HANDS, AND WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE TROUBLE. ANYONE CAUGHT LINGERING IN THE CEMETERY WILL BE ARRESTED. I REPEAT: GO HOME OR YOU WILL BE HANDCUFFED AND TAKEN TO JAIL.”  
    It was an empty threat, obviously. But the kids believed it. 
    Dozens of small shapes started walking out of the fog and making their way to the exit. Their small faces looked upset and agitated, though, and I noticed that they took their stakes with them when they left. 
    I watched for Jack,but didn’t see him.He was the least likely to believe the cop’s bluff, anyway. 
    A white van pulled up and parked outside the gates. A short woman with long hair jumped out. She walked through the gate, and aimed a CHANNEL 3 NEWS TEAM video camera right at us. 
    “Ah, hell,” River said. “That’s all I need. Come on, Vi. Let’s get out of here.” 

Chapter 10
    T he search parties continued looking for Isobel throughout the day. Luke and I joined one and hunted through the woods behind our house with a group of earnest retired people and a couple of old hound dogs. But nothing. 
    I prayed to Freddie that Isobel was okay. That everything would turn out all right. But I was pretty damn worried. 
    River disappeared. He walked me back from the cemetery, right after seeing that news camera, got in his car, and drove off. 
    I didn’t know if he would come back.I didn’t know anything. After I returned from the search party, I just sat on my front steps.Not reading,just waiting.Just waiting,and praying to Freddie. 
    Luke told me that I had scared River off,with my knowit-all gaze and my being-a-girl-ness, and thank God we had already gotten the rent in cash. But I ignored him. 
    The hours dragged by. 
    No Isobel. 
    No River. 
    The kids returned to the cemetery once it got dark. They crawled back when their parents were asleep. I knew this because I was there too. I scraped up the bravest bits inside of me and walked to the graveyard after night fell. I figured Jack would still be there, waiting for the Devil. But what I found, after I crept past the front gates, were dozens of kids returned to their posts—their pale faces shining through the dark. It was just silence and shadows, the dead buried below and the distant sound of the sea in their ears for