Free Jane Was Here by Sarah Kernochan Page B

fast for you to jump out, and then he reaches over and gives you…” Hoyt’s hand pounces on the muscle just above Collin’s knee, pinching it in a viselike grip. “… a horse bite! ”
Collin lets out a high-pitched girly yelp. Chuckling, Hoyt releases him. Gita calmly takes out her cell phone, punching in a number.
“Who’re you calling?”
“The police.”
“Be my guest. You’ll look like a little fool. There’s no statute covering horse bites.”
She slaps the phone shut. “Let us out right now. ”
Hoyt swerves to the shoulder and lets the kids out at the foot of a steep hill. He tosses their bikes onto the road. Jumping back into the cab, he starts to pull away.
“You suck!” Collin shouts after him, a belated show of audacity for his girlfriend.
Hitting the brakes, Hoyt leaps out. Collin dives into the bushes. The girl stands fast, pointing imperiously like Moses with his rod: “Get thee hence, demon!”
Reaching into the cargo, Hoyt pries open the garbage pail, and before she can dodge it, pitches the skunk at her feet.
THE LOOK ON the Poonchwalla girl’s face when the skunk turned tail and blasted her! Hoyt is still laughing when he stops off at the package store to pick up a gallon of gin and some Tylenol. Still laughing when he parks at his house. Not laughing when he finds his door ajar.
He often forgets to lock it. The house, a squat 30s bungalow, is at the end of a deeply rutted dirt road, shielded by dense pines, in the shadow of Rowell Hill. People don’t come out here unless they’re invited and they’ve run out of excuses.
His mutt growls, hackles rising. Hoyt quietly sets the liquor store bag on the landing and retrieves the .357 Magnum he keeps in the wood box, pushing his door open with the gun’s barrel. Pete shimmies impatiently through the gap and bounds into the house, disappearing into the kitchen. Hoyt hears savage barking, plates crashing to the floor.
A raccoon streaks out, headed for the door, Pete in pursuit. Hoyt steps aside to let them settle up outdoors.
He enters the kitchen. Shattered dinnerware crunches under his boots: the coon was probably feeding from the tower of dirty dishes in the sink. Still, the animal didn’t open the front door by itself. Nor did it pull up a chair to his table and peel an orange onto a plate. Yet there they are, the curved scraps of orange rind, with seeds from the devoured fruit neatly grouped beside them. A drained glass of tomato juice, poured from the can in his fridge. A box of crackers from the cupboard, the salty crumbs scattered about. An empty cheese wrapper, the final affront. Someone made a meal here.
Hoyt’s bowels churn; his skin fizzes; the alien presence feels everywhere, touching everything. Standing stock-still, he listens for sounds. The house is silent. Outside, Pete’s collar tags jingle. Hoyt looks out the window to see him trotting to the woods, limp raccoon in his mouth.
Hoyt moves stealthily through the house, his gun cocked. No one is there. He returns to the living room, where the front door is still open; the first mosquitoes of the evening whine around his ears. Plugging the bug zap-per in, he fetches the bag of liquor from the stoop, locks the door and retreats to the couch, where he wrenches the cap off the gallon jug, pouring three fingers of gin into a smudged glass on the coffee table.
Who was here?
He senses something altered in this room. He can’t put his finger on it, just a feeling. The heaps of books around his armchair are undisturbed; the sofa cushion, which Pete uses for a bed, still lies on the floor.
Washing down four Tylenols with gin, he looks around for something to read.
On the coffee table beside his cell phone charger sits a book he doesn’t recognize: a small bound volume with gilt-edged pages. He turns to the flyleaf: The Holy Bible , King James version, printed in New York, 1851.
He flips through the mottled tissue-thin pages, the march of miniscule verses. Though he doesn’t remember