All the Lovely Bad Ones by Mary Downing Hahn

Author:Mary Downing Hahn [Hahn, Mary Downing]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sandpiper
Published: 2008-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

11

Wielding the TV remote, I clicked through horror movies, nature shows, sitcom reruns, and dozens of commercials until I found a dumb comedy on HBO. We’d seen it before, but it was just the thing to take our minds off the ghosts. And to delay going to bed.

Just as we were getting interested in the movie, the scene suddenly changed. One minute, a bunch of rowdy teenagers were laughing it up at a party; the next minute, a pair of horses was pulling an old farm wagon along a muddy road in the country. It was almost dark. Rain poured down. The trees were bare. Mountains loomed against the sky, their tops hidden in clouds. There wasn’t a house or a barn in sight. No livestock. No people. Just woods and fields and mud.

“Did you switch channels?” Corey grabbed the remote from me and clicked the number for HBO, but the scene didn’t change. She tried TMC, MTV, CNN, ABC, PBS, even HTV. The horse and wagon was on every channel.

“Something must be wrong with the satellite dish,” I said. “Maybe the wind or—”

I took the remote back and turned the TV off, but the movie stayed on. The driver hunched over the reins, soaked through. Behind him, a family huddled in the open wagon, heads down, wet, cold, miserable. The camera zoomed in on a sign clumsily lettered “County Poor Farm.”

“Oh, my gosh!” Corey grabbed my arm. “It’s Fox Hill!”

The camera shifted to the inn’s front porch. A short, plump man stood there, watching the wagon approach. His face was round, but there was nothing jolly about his expression.

Beside him was a woman. Her face was pale and hard, her eyes small and close set under straight dark brows. She wore a long black dress, buttoned to her chin. She, too, stared at the wagon.

The man pulled out a pocket watch. “It’s John Avery with the Perkins family, right on schedule.” His voice was nasal, harsh, and unpleasant. “Four of ‘em. Man and wife, baby girl, boy.”

The woman frowned. “More shiftless folks for us to feed and shelter,” she said with a sniff.

“I hear the boy’s ill mannered,” the man said. “No respect for his betters. Ungrateful. Surly. A bad one.”

The woman’s thin lips twitched up at the corners. “Once he’s in my care, he’ll change his ways.”

The man glanced at her with approval. “You have never failed to break the spirit of the most rebellious child.”

The wagon pulled up beside the porch. “All right, you lot,” the driver said. “Ride’s over.”

Hauling their rain-soaked belongings in a couple of small sacks, the Perkins family climbed out of the wagon. The woman looked weak and frail, and the baby clung to her, its tiny hands gripping its mother’s shawl. The man helped his wife to the muddy ground, but he was almost as sickly as she was.

The camera zoomed in on the boy, showing every feature clearly—freckles, chipped front tooth, shaggy blond hair.

“Caleb,” I whispered. “It’s Caleb.”

The short, plump man peered at Mr.

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