Devil of the North by Kat Ross

Author:Kat Ross [Ross, Kat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781734618471
Publisher: Kat Ross

15

“Ruth Cortez? That you?”

A white-haired lady with more wrinkles than Methuselah squinted down at me.

”Miss White!” I gasped.

Gnarled brown hands lowered the shotgun. “Where on earth did you come from?” she demanded. “I was feeding the pigs when I heard a bang and you fell out of the damn sky!”

“Never mind that.” I climbed shakily to my feet. “I was with a friend. You seen him?”

Miss White slowly shook her head. “Been strange goings-on around here since you left, Ruth,” she muttered.

I spun in a circle, shading my eyes against the setting sun. Miss White’s place was about five miles outside of town. She kept to herself except for every third Saturday, when she walked into the general store and bought a gallon of whiskey. People were always amazed that an old woman survived out here on her own, but they didn’t know Miss White—mainly because she never let them. My mother and I were the only folks she tolerated on her property. I felt a twinge of guilt. After my mom left, I’d stopped coming out regular to visit.

There was an apple orchard off to my left and a vegetable garden to my right. Between sat a two-story clapboard house with a front porch and a single rocker. The paint was peeling, but it was all neat as a pin.

“Where you goin’?” she demanded, as I took off running.

“To find Ned!” I hollered over my shoulder.

I made a circle of the house. Except for a couple of cows grazing, there wasn’t a living soul. I checked the barn and the pigsty, but Ned wasn’t anywhere.

“Settle down and come on inside,” Miss White said sternly. “I won’t have you trampling all over my yard.”

I felt sick. “It’s my fault,” I muttered. “I pushed him through first.”

She didn’t ask me anything more until I was perched on a stool in her kitchen. Stacks of yellowing newspaper bound with twine sat against one wall, not a single one with a date inside the last twenty years. Miss White went to a cupboard and took out a bottle of Thistledew. She wore a man’s plaid shirt rolled up to the elbows and her arms had the wiry strength of a person who works outdoors in all kinds of weather.

“Thank you, but I don’t drink spirits,” I said.

Miss White poured some and pushed the glass at me. I sighed and took a sip, then coughed. It tasted awful, but it did calm my nerves some. She studied me over the rim of her glass for a long moment.

“Pushed him through what?” she said.

“Interdimensional portal,” I muttered, swirling the Thistledew so I didn’t have to meet her penetrating gaze.

“Ah.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of that ah. She must think I’d gone crazy.

Miss White sucked the stubs of her teeth. “So the invasion’s started,” she declared. “By God, I knew it!”

“Invasion?”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. ”The alien invasion.”

“Who told you that?”

“No one. I always knew the haints weren’t ghosts. That’s superstitious nonsense. ” Her black eyes gleamed.

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