Free The Rascal by Eric Arvin Page A

founded. We have records that haven’t been shelved here for decades. I’m sure there’s something in there about Bad Luck Hill. In fact, I’m positive there is.”
    “Um… maybe. It’s not that important.” She made an awkward attempt to leave. Mr. Craft’s curiosity for her project seemed intrusive.
    The librarian stepped in front of her with one long stride. “I can help,” he said enthusiastically, his words stretching like snakes on a vine. “I can answer any questions you might have. Or, at least, help spread some rumors.” He smiled with all the charm his slender form allowed. The edges of his smile seemed to lift the rest of his body like a hanger.
    Chloe understood she was not going to be let out of the building until she let him talk. “Okay. Why is it called Bad Luck Hill?”
    “Oh, that’s nothing. Just silly teenagers and their ghost stories. That’s not to say there hasn’t been…”
    “Go on.”
    Mr. Craft looked over his shoulders, yet barely turned his head. There was no one else in the library, but he appeared cautious just the same. “It’s all quite entertaining,” he said enthusiastically. “The hill itself is nothing more than haunt legends. But the big house and your cottage”—he pointed a long, untrimmed finger at her—“those are the real stories. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, really.”
    “Why not?”
    He raised his index finger as if to hush her. “Before the actress bought the place—long before—a family lived in that little cottage below it… your cottage. A mother, a father, and three tykes, if you can believe it, all cramped into that itty-bitty cottage. Can you imagine children? In there ?”
    “No.”
    “No, indeed. Well, apparently, from eyewitnesses”—the librarian drew closer to Chloe—“ apparently , the oldest boy was quite disturbed. He started with animals. He’d kill them, skin them. You know, the sort of thing that might someday manifest itself into a serial killer. That’s what they say on the television, anyway. That’s how they say serial killers start out. Well, his parents didn’t know what to do. Thank goodness they didn’t come into town too often with the children. Nobody wants to be around a future serial killer, after all.
    “From what I’ve been told—I was just a baby when all this happened, mind you—from what I’ve been told, the father died of something. Most likely from the stress brought on by having a lunatic son. One couldn’t then expect the mother to raise three children well, especially if one of them was…” He twirled his eyes and let his strip of a tongue hang from his mouth. “The mother decided to lock the boy in the barn like he was some animal. I guess it was all she could do. After all, she couldn’t have him snapping one day and harming the other children… or anyone here in town, for that matter…”
    “None of the eyewitnesses reported that the boy was living in the barn?”
    “Living?” He smiled crookedly. “Nobody had time to. Soon after, everything quieted down and the family just disappeared. Every last one of them. Poof! Gone. All their furniture, all their belongings, everything they owned, was left there untouched. People had been expecting quite a macabre scene when the rumors of the boy in the barn had reached Wicker. But there was no corpse tied up in the barn or hanging from its rafters. It was quite a disappointment after all that buildup, I can tell you. There were no bodies at all. It was as if they had vanished into thin air.”
    “Surely somebody saw them leave. There’s only one way off the hill from what I’ve seen. And forgive me, but Wicker seems a very watchful place.”
    “Thin air . Poof! ” His hand gestures were that of a magician. “There were rumors, of course. Some even said they had seen one of the children on the side of the hill, but nothing was ever substantiated.”
    “That all sounds like an urban legend to me, Mr. Craft,” Chloe