Free The Witch at Sparrow Creek: A Jim Falk Novel by Josh Kent Page B

that he could see each separate, tiny jewel of her eye.
Something moved behind her eyes, a shape, a sign. Something curled and twirled
there like a smoky, dark flame.
    He wished he knew where the old book his pa kept was
now, or could call its pages up in his memory. If wishes were horses . . . but this
town didn’t keep horses.
    What was a spook doing down here in Sparrow? In some
ways it might make more sense if he saw one of them lurking in the shadows of the
docks in Hopestill, but he still wasn’t ready to think of that.
    Then, in his chest, he felt something move.
    He squinted, and the trees seemed to take on a watery,
glassy quality, shifting dim windows. Through the trees, he could see a dark
shape up there in a piece of the woods way toward the top. It swayed this way
and that. His heart beat as the leaves and the whisky grew strong in him again.
    The dusk was almost complete now; only the thinnest gray
light came in through the rickety trees.
    There, between some low branches, just almost out of
sight, he could see the eyes, winking, yellow, round as eggs.
    The jitters jumped in him. Even in the cold, the leaves
broke through and helped him to feel. He moved slowly. His gear sack was unrolled
by his knee; with one hand he slid out the butt of his long gun, nice and slow
and neat, into the cold grass by his leg.
    The eyes winked.
    Now, with nimble fingers, he attached the chamber quick
and squeezed it locked with a quiet click.
    The eyes lowered and thinned and bobbed.
    Jim knew the thing could feel him too. That’s the toughest
part to get by on one of these beasts. More than sight or sound or smell, the
spooks had a way of feeling what it is you’re meaning to do. Jim was pretty
sure the thing wouldn’t have full command of its special sight until pitch
dark.
    With a silent slide and a few twists, he assembled his
long gun and then brought the long silver bullets from his satchel and slipped
them into the chamber; he held still and breathed slowly and let his mind begin
on the wander.
    The wander was a trick his pa had taught him.
    “Once,” his pa told him, “there were an evil kind of
people in this land. Long before even the first people lived here. And these evil
people were in league with the Evil One. Bendy’s Men is what they still call
’em in stories. And they used to live up high in these woods and way back on
old roads and in the hollers where folks don’t go anymore. But folks like us,
James, we travel in the Old Paths—the paths that are almost now forgotten. We’re
the ones who were born to see. You and me. Bendy’s Men have a different kind of
seeing; they could see what was on your mind. That’s a power the Evil One give
’em. Maybe they couldn’t even see you. Maybe, maybe they wasn’t even near you,
but they could see thoughts that was in your mind. Old Magic Woman showed me a
way of making your thoughts wander, or even go blank and black. She said that
you shouldn’t learn to do that when you’re so young like you are now, but I’m
gonna show you how. I am going to show you anyway.”
    Jim fired.
    He lost his own sight for an instant in the flash, but
the gun made only the smallest sound of a sneeze.
    The spook made another noise, a hoarse, empty whine that
started low and went high. That noise meant that the silver-lode had hit the
spook deep. The whole of the woods seemed to shiver with the noise—and then,
then started the wolves.
    The howls came first from the north and then the wind
picked up and whirled the noise around. Answers came from all directions now,
covering up whatever yowling the spook might be doing.
    Jim watched the yellow eyes falter and then lurch off
into the ever-darkening trees. He slung his gun on his back, rolled up his sack
quick, and gave chase.
    The jitters were hot in Jim’s heart now; he could nearly
see them waking out behind the fleeing beast. Through the darkling trees, he
could see here and then there, its hulking shadow stopping to turn