CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sierra was so badly shaken about the hives on her face, she wouldn’t leave the house the next day. The doctor concluded that the hives were probably brought on by stress. Manda felt sorry for her. If that wasn’t horrible enough, Sierra was also devastated about missing her meeting with the MTV execs, and was sure she had blown her chance. When Nik finally called her back, she begged him to speak to the execs on her behalf–give them any excuse–and get her another meeting with them soon. She was too afraid that if she called them herself, she might break down on the phone and lose her professional edge. Manda remembered how Nik had said that Sierra belonged at the radio station, and she didn’t trust him to make that call for Sierra.
Especially now that Nik was acting strange. When he stopped by to see Sierra the next evening, he was so quiet that Manda felt uneasy. And he left after only a half hour. Even Sierra must have felt something was wrong. She clung tight to him, but he barely hugged her back. At the door, when Sierra lifted up her shirt and asked him to touch her belly and tell her if it felt any bigger, Manda saw a look flash in his eyes that bordered on fear. If Sierra saw it, she chose to ignore it.
When Nik reached up to push his sunglasses back over his eyes, Manda gasped. On the back of his hand, right above his wrist, there was the distinct red mark of a burn. The hands in her vision–the ones she had seen reaching out–one of them had had a red mark on the back.
“Oh, look, you’ve hurt yourself,” Sierra said, taking his hand.
“It’s nothing,” Nik said, pulling it away. “Just a little run-in with the toaster oven.” He gave Sierra a quick kiss on the forehead and went out the door.
“He seemed a bit somber,” Manda said, when she and Sierra were alone again. “Is he angry with you?”
“For what?” Sierra asked, staring at the door.
“I don’t know. But he seems to have something on his mind.”
“He’s probably just worried,” Sierra said, with a dismissive flick of the wrist. “He knows what I’ve been going through lately. Anyway, he wants us to go up to his cabin for the Labor Day weekend. He thinks we need some time alone.”
“His cabin?” Manda jumped up. “You’re not going, are you?”
“Of course. I’m looking forward to it, after this week I’ve had.”
“Oh, hell-.” Manda paced up and down before her sister. “Sierra, you can’t go.”
“What’re you on about? Oh, let me guess. Your vision, right?”
“Yes,” Manda shouted up at the ceiling. “Yes, my vision. I told you what I saw-.”
“And I told you it was just a dream, and I don’t want to hear any more about it. Enough!”
“No, Sierra…”
But Sierra was already on a fast exit out of the living room. Manda reeled around the room, her head in her hands. Nik’s cabin. This is where it will happen. In her mind she saw the forest and the cliff, and the river below it. It all made sense now. Nik and Sierra alone, with no one to witness…Manda grabbed the phone and dialed Angie. When Angie picked up, she blurted out what Sierra and Nik were planning.
“How’re you gonna stop her now?” Angie asked.
“I can’t stop her. Not alone, anyway. I-.” She paused as an idea struck her. “Angie, I’ve got to find Darette.”
“Darette? Are you mad?”
“Yes…I mean no. I need her to undo whatever she did to Sierra, and I need her to break the curse her mother started.” If she had any hope of healing the rift her family had caused with Darette’s, she would have to go straight to the source. Nothing else had helped, and Sierra had only made things worse.
“Manda, you don’t want to stir up that woman no more than she stir up already,” Angie cautioned her.
“I don’t have a choice. Nik’s taking Sierra to his cabin. I know that’s where it’ll happen. I’m sure of it.”
“Oh, Lawd. And Labor Day holiday is this weekend,” Angie said. “That don’t give you much time to find her.”
“Angie, you said you bought the oil from a woman whose aunt makes them. Can you find out who’s the woman’s aunt? If she’s into all that stuff, who knows? She could know Darette.”
“Alright, let me give her a call,” Angie said. “I’ll ring you back.”
Manda curled up in a corner of the couch, a cushion clutched to her chest. Her stomach was a churning mass of nerves. She felt like she herself was backed up to the edge of a cliff, and the only hand that could help her was the very hand that had helped to put her there in the first place. What if Darette wouldn’t help? What if it would just stir her up even more, like Angie had said?
Angie rang back five minutes later. “You’re not gonna believe this,” she screeched into Manda’s ears. “Guess who the woman’s aunt is?”
“I…”
“Darette Brown,” Angie said, laughing. “The Obeah woman herself.”
“What?” Manda dropped the cushion.
“She live with her niece, just a half mile from here. Practically in my own yard.”
“So that’s why she knew about your restaurant. That’s why she was there.”
“She probably saw us together and come there to frighten you that time,” Angie said.
“But how did she even know who I was? Or where Sierra lived?”
“Who knows? Them Obeah people have many tricks.”
“Angie, give me their address,” Manda said. She picked up a black pen. The logo FM-102 was blazened in yellow along the barrel. The pen was out of ink. She flung it down and went searching for another.
At the 8th Avenue station, the train was delayed and a Saturday evening crowd packed up the platform. When the train finally arrived, Manda pushed her way through the crowd and squeezed inside. She was on a mission and no amount of people, no train delay, nothing was going to stop her. She hadn’t even told Sierra she was leaving the house, but had just fixed herself up a little, grabbed her red bag and flown out the door.
The train trip out to Queens felt much longer than it had on her previous trips, and Manda had to stand all the way. When she finally stepped off the bus that wound its way through Darette’s neighborhood, and found the little brown house Angie had described, her back was stiff from the long journey and from the pressure of preparing herself to face Darette.
Manda stopped on the sidewalk and studied the house with its green-painted door and dark curtains that were drawn so tight, she wondered what secret rituals took place in the rooms beyond them. She rolled her head on her shoulders, cracked her knuckles and ordered herself to calm down. She took a deep breath and marched up the stone path leading to the front door.
She had barely touched the doorbell when a woman suddenly pulled the door open. She looked about fiftyish, and was dressed in a white nurse’s uniform, white stockings and white shoes.
“Good afternoon,” Manda said, feeling somewhat of an automatic kinship with the woman, who was a nurse just like herself. “Is Darette here?”
“Who’re you?” the woman asked, scowling down at her.
“Manda Love.”
“And you want to see Darette?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
The woman looked Manda up and down as if she couldn’t believe what she was asking.
“Well…is she home?” Manda asked her.
The woman shook her head. “I’m her niece. No, she’s not here.”
Blimey, why didn’t she say so in the first place? “Well, do you know where I can find her? I really need to talk to her. It’s urgent.”
“Aunt Darette always leave when the weather goin’ drop.”
“Leave? Where did she go?”
“She’s gone back to her house in Jamaica. We won’t see her again till at least May, when the weather warm back up.”
“May?” Damn it.
“What do you want her for? If you want to buy her oils, I have a whole box left.”
A nurse who was into Obeah. Manda wondered if she rubbed oils on her patients. “No, I just needed her help with something, but…never mind. It’s pointless now.”
The woman’s face softened. She let go of the doorknob and crossed her arms over her chest. “Where are you from? England?”
Manda nodded.
“It must be some help you need, to come all the way here to get it. But sorry, honey.
You’re too late. Aunt Darette gone since Tuesday. And speaking of gone, I’m gonna be late for work.” She reached into the house and grabbed her purse. “If you’re heading to the bus, I’m passing that way. I can give you a ride.”
“No, it’s alright, I’ll walk. Thanks.” Manda turned away and headed back down the path. She could feel the woman watching her, but she didn’t turn around.
Darette was gone. Now what was she supposed to do? She had come all this way for nothing. She swallowed down the grape-sized lump that had formed in her throat.
“Hey,” the woman called out behind her.
Manda turned around.
“Do you want her address? You can write to her in Jamaica. Tell her your problem.”
“Sure. Alright.” Manda headed back up the path. The woman had given her an idea.
“Jamaica? You’ve got to be joking,” Sierra said, when Manda told her about her plans.
“I’m serious.” Manda sat down on Sierra’s bed.
“But why would you want to go there?” Sierra screwed up her mouth in disgust. She had been seven-years-old the summer their parents had sent them out to Jamaica, and she had hated every minute of the trip. Whenever she misbehaved, their mother had often threatened to send her back to their grandparents for some real country discipline. Out there, children couldn’t get away with being rude and out of order like they could in England.
“I just thought it would be good to see Papa Gord and the family again before I go back to England. I’ve already come all this way.” She didn’t dare tell Sierra her real reasons for wanting to go out there. Or how nervous she was about the trip. Darette had Obeah on her side, and Manda could still remember how dark it was up in the country at nights. She had no idea what to expect.
“But I thought you were going to help me make the final arrangements for my party.”
“Sierra, I’ll only be gone for a few days,” Manda said. “And I thought you said everything was done.”
“Well, not exactly.”
“You’ve already booked the caterers and sent out the invitations…what else is there to do?”
Sierra dropped down on the bed. She laid back and stared up at the ceiling. “Everything was ready, but now Nik doesn’t want me to hold the party in his flat. He says he’s not in the mood to entertain. He wouldn’t even be doing anything really, except standing around. Lately, he’s been such a…such a…”
“Mystery?” Manda asked.
“Party-pooper,” Sierra said.
Angie made all the arrangements. Bill, a distant cousin of theirs, was to meet Manda at the small airport in Kingston. Angie had even emailed him a picture she had taken of Manda, so he would know her on sight. But after Manda got off her flight and joined the crowd of passengers waiting for their rides in front of the hot, chaotic airport, no one stepped forward to claim her. While she waited for Bill, she went over to a food stand and bought herself a beef patty and a soda. Every seat in the sitting area was taken, and Manda had to lean against the airport wall while she ate. She had never in her life felt heat so intense, but in spite of it there were a good number of men wandering around dressed in warm wool hats.
Cousin Bill finally arrived when Manda was ready to faint from the heat. He was about twenty-five, with smooth, sun-blackened skin and taut muscles. He wore a white shirt, khaki-colored pants, and his own wool hat. He apologized and told her that he had to drop someone off to catch their flight first. This was how he made his living, taxiing people between Pebble Beach and the airport in his little white Honda. Other than that, there wasn’t much else for him to do up in the country.
The drive from the airport to Papa Gord’s house up in the hilly countryside of St. Catharine took nearly three hours. Bill’s car had no air conditioning. Manda leaned close to the window, where she could feel the wind on her face as they zipped through one town after another, past houses and shops painted in dazzling blue, pink and yellow colors. So this was where her parents were from, this island that was prettier than any postcard she had ever seen. Manda could see why so many people made Jamaica their favorite holiday spot. She had been so small the first and only time she had visited the island, and she barely remembered the place.
At a crossroad, the car was suddenly surrounded by pushing, shouting children carrying baskets of fruits. Bill bought some mangos and sweet sop, and a large bundle of quinneps for Manda to try. She sat beside him, biting the green shell-like skins off the little round balls, and sucking the thin layer of pink fruit from the big seeds. It was sweet, sour and slimy all in one. They drove by a busy marketplace, where prune-faced women in head scarves sat over baskets of fruits and vegetables, calling to passersby.
“It’s less than an ‘our from ‘ere now,” Bill said, as they sped along a road banked on both sides by gorgeous green cane fields that stretched so far into the distance, it felt like they were driving through a parted sea. Above them, the sky was its own blue ocean, with ships of white clouds sailing on it.
Manda stared at the land around her. It was the kind of beauty that pulled at her gut, and made her want to jump from the car and throw herself joyfully into the landscape. For a moment, she forgot why she had come to Jamaica.
They turned onto a bumpy, hole-riddled road that led up into the hills, and took the steepest, most prayer-inspiring climb Manda could ever remember in her life. Bill sped around the hills as if he was on a racetrack, while Manda gripped the seat with all her strength. She was sure at any moment they would go plunging off the barrier-less road and down an embankment into a gully. She didn’t let go of the seat until they had reached the more level ground that ran through Pebble Beach. More pink, blue and yellow houses and buildings lined the road, some so hurricane-battered, there were still big stones on the roofs to prevent them from blowing off. They finally turned up a paved path and stopped before Papa Gord’s blue and yellow house. Manda climbed out of the car and heaved herself up the veranda steps, while Bill retrieved her bag from his trunk. She was so glad to be on solid ground again.
Papa Gordon may have been a thin-boned eighty-two-year old, but he carried himself like a much younger man. He came climbing up the veranda steps a few minutes later with a bag of flour slung over one shoulder, and a battered old brown hat on his head. When he saw Manda, he threw down his bag, sending flour dust everywhere, and he gave her a rib-crushing hug. He took her in the house and showed her to his bedroom, where she would be sleeping.
The other bedroom was used by Tim, a teenage girl who cooked and cleaned for Papa Gord in exchange for a place to stay while she finished her studies at the local high school. Like half the people in the area, Tim was also a cousin of theirs, by some roundabout, labyrinthian route. She was immediately obsessed with braiding Manda’s hair, but Manda wouldn’t let her. Tim said if she could braid that heap, she could braid anything. In spite of that, Manda quickly came to like Tim, whose real name was Wilhelmina, although nobody called her that. She was hardworking and industrious, and seemed far older than fifteen. When Manda and Sierra were her age, their mother still made their beds and did everything for them except wipe their noses.
That first day in Pebble Beach, Manda got to see various relatives who stopped by when they heard Bertram and Myrna’s daughter had come from Foreign. One cousin brought sugar canes, because he remembered when Manda was visiting as a little girl, she had loved to suck on cane sticks. Another cousin told her how she had looked that first day in the country long ago, sitting there on the veranda in a pair of white patent shoes, with her little pink purse on her lap. She listened to their stories, fascinated to hear about this Self she could barely remember. While she and Sierra had been busy living out their lives in England and America, these relatives had held onto tiny nuggets of memories of them from so long ago. It was like finding childhood pictures of herself in someone’s album, that she didn’t even remember taking. It made her feel important.
After the sun had set and night surrounded the house like a fog, Manda sat on the veranda with Tim and Papa Gord, sucking the juice out of cane sticks and throwing the trash in a bucket. The moonless night was so black, Manda kept staring beyond the veranda’s light in amazement.
Papa Gord started telling her about the various cousins who lived in Pebble Beach.
“What was Mum like when she was young?” Manda asked him.
Papa Gord laughed.
“Dat Myrna give me all kind a’ trouble, man.,” he said. He told Manda about Myrna’s youth – how she loved dressing up in miniskirts and going to dances, and how many times she had fallen in love with the wrong types of men. “But dat Myrna, she fickle like river water,” he said. “She had this boyfriend…what was his name again? Cecil, that’s it! Then one day she come tell us she goin’ marry Bertram Love. Her madda nearly drop down when she hear it. We never even see her bat an eye in his direction, but she goin’ marry him. When we ask her why she tek away a man from Obeah woman’s dautta, she come say she never mean it to happen. She was nursing him and they fall in love.”
“Do you really think they were in love?” Manda asked.
Papa Gord tossed a piece of dry cane into the bucket. “Well, I don’t want to say she didn’t love him, but Myrna never seem to know her own mind. But the Love boys, dem did like to flash money around and dress up like pappy-show, and Myrna, she always did love the flash.”
Just like Sierra, Manda thought.
“But Myrna stubborner than a ram goat, so we let her marry him and just like we knew goin’ happen, Obeah woman come to the yard and curse her.”
“Dar. I know all about her,” Manda said. “Papa Gord, do you believe in curses, duppies and what-not?”
“Curses, duppies, what-not. I believe in the whole lot. If I tell you some things I’ve seen in my life-time, you would say I lie.”
Here, she didn’t doubt anything. She remembered how alive the darkness had felt, when she was alone in Sierra’s flat during the blackout. But that was nothing in comparison to the living, breathing darkness that lay at the edges of the veranda, with its mysterious night sounds.
“Papa Gord. I see things too,” Manda said. She told him about how she had been seeing Dar, ever since her wedding eve.
“It mus’ be trying to tell you something,” Papa Gord said, grasping his hands together and looking into the dark.
Manda couldn’t imagine anything good Dar might want to tell her. The old woman’s eyes were so cold. So loveless.
“So? Do you think I should try to find out?”
“Of course, man.” Papa Gord picked up a piece of cane and looked at it. “The next time you see your duppy, ask it what it wants. You will get an answer.”
When Manda looked out the window and saw the first flush of pink appear in the sky between the branches of Papa Gord’s mango tree, she got up and went to sit on the veranda. The morning air was cool and breezy. Manda wrapped her sweater around her body and curled up in the chair. She wanted to do what she had come to Jamaica to do, then get on the plane and get back to her life. When Tim got up and came onto the veranda, Manda asked her where Darette Brown lived.
“Why you want to know?” Tim stood by the veranda’s low ledge, a wash bucket in her hand.
“Can you take me to see her?”
Tim shook her head. “Me not going anywhere near her yard.”
“Well, can you at least take me down by her? You don’t have to come in with me, I promise.”
“A promise is a comfort to a fool,” Tim said, dipping her mop in the bucket.
“Please, Tim,” Manda said. “I’ll let you braid my hair.”
Tim stopped to consider this. “I will tek you as far as the gully, but I’m not gonna tek you any further than that. No, siree.”
Later that afternoon, Manda sprayed herself with mosquito repellant, put on her broad sunhat and a pair of boots, and strapped her big red bag across her body. Tim watched and shook her head. It was clear in Tim’s eyes that she thought her cousin was crazy, but Manda didn’t feel like explaining to her why she had come to see Darette.
True to her word, when they reached the top of the gully where Darette lived, Tim stood by the side of the dirt lane and wouldn’t take another step. Manda looked down at the green tangle of palm and fruit trees swaying below them. She heard the cackling call of some hidden bird, and the whispery sound of the breeze passing through leaves. She imagined snakes, scorpions, mongoose and other unfriendly creatures slithering and crawling around the dark gully floor, and felt a chill run through her. She pleaded with Tim to accompany her just to the bottom of the gully, or even partway, but Tim wouldn’t budge.
“I will wait for you right here,” Tim said. She sat down on a rock nearby and crossed her legs daintily.
“Have it your way then,” Manda said. “But I change my mind. You can’t braid my hair after all.” She hoped this last bit of negotiation might stir Tim.
Tim shrugged. “Like you will have any left ‘pon your head when Darette done with you.”
Manda spun away from her. Sod it. This was her mission. She had to do it, whether or not anyone was willing to help her. She headed down the thin dirt path that led into the trees. The afternoon sky was as gray as the inside of a Dutch pot. When she reached the thick of trees and peered into the gully, she could barely see ten feet ahead of her. She reached into her bag for the flashlight. It wasn’t there. She remembered exactly where she had left it – on the veranda’s ledge. How was she supposed to get through the dark gully without it? She chided herself for being so unprepared. For a minute, she thought about turning back and coming another time, but she would be returning to New York the next day. There was no other time.
Manda stepped over the fallen fruits that lay on the gully floor, rotting and infested with insects. The smell of rotting nature was overpowering, and she felt her head swelling up like a balloon. She walked down and down, swatting insects away from her face. The gully seemed endless. In some places, the earth was soft and wet and sucked at the bottom of her boots like it was eating her from the feet up. There was a large raised platform up ahead, in a clearing to the left of the path. When Manda got closer, she saw it was a crypt, made of white-washed cement, with a red cross painted on the head. She stiffened. It was the last thing she wanted to see. She glanced at it as she stepped by, and was stunned to see a familiar name written in black lettering below the cross. Dar-Lynn Brown. Dar, the Obeah woman. Darette’s mother. The same woman she had been seeing for weeks now. Just the surprise of coming upon a lone grave anywhere, especially this grave, and especially here in a shaded gully when she had no one for company, spooked Manda to the roots. She hurried away from it, half expecting to see Dar appear before her again.
She was just coming around a tree, squinting into the shadows ahead, when she saw a pair of yellow eyes fixed on her from yards away. Manda stopped. Her body flushed so cold, she began to tremble. The eyes moved towards her and she could now make out the shape of an animal, darker than the darkness around it.
Alright. Don’t run, she told herself. She knew if she did, it was likely to chase her, whatever it was. She took a slow step forward, certain that the thing could hear the loud thud of her heartbeats. The animal moved a little closer. Manda stayed rooted to the ground for what seemed like an eternity. Could it see her eyes? Could it feel the fear that had filled her heart to bursting? She tried to draw a breath, but her lungs had shrunk to the size of a change purse. Her head swam and she felt herself growing faint. She started to whimper. What did Noah do when he was in pain? Hummed commercial jingles? She tried to think of jingles, but not a single one would come to mind. But just the effort of trying was enough to give her mind something else to focus on. Her fear diminished slightly. She took a step. This time, the animal let out a low growl. It jumped forward and sprang towards her.
Manda yelped. She leaped forward and raced through the shadows, smacking away tree branches that threatened to blind her, stumbling over the living and dead things scattered on the gully floor. She could hear the animal’s feet crunching on leaves as it followed her through the gully floor. She ran faster, propelled by the fear that threatened to stop her breath for good. Ahead of her, stripes of gray light showed between the trees. Manda rushed forward. She didn’t stop until she had broken through the trees and into a clearing where a little house stood by itself in the shadows.
She stopped running and turned to look back at the woods, her body heaving. She could see no movement in the shadows, no yellow eyes watching her. Whatever had been chasing her, had decided to stay hidden in the forest. She dropped to her knees and bent her head, then lay down on the ground. Her lungs ached. She rolled onto her back and lay on the ground, panting, her eyes closed. She could feel the sunlight burning hot against her lids. It was over. You did it, she told herself. You made it. You’re through.
Something warm and wet splashed down on her cheek. Was it raining? Manda popped one eye open. She froze. A large black dog stood over her, its lips spread apart to reveal red gums and sharp yellow teeth. The sides of its mouth trembled as it snarled, and drool ran down the sides of its face. The dog glared down at her, the muscles twitching on its back. Its soulless yellow eyes seared her own.
Manda lay absolutely still. The dog leaned its face closer to her own. She could smell the rot of its breath, worse than the decay of the gully. One wrong move and its teeth would be in her jugular. Her blood turned to ice. She lay as still as she could, afraid if she called out for help or so much as moved a finger, she would be torn to shreds. This was not some tame pet dog, brought home from a pound as a pup and raised on store-brand dog food poured into dishes that read “Fido” or “Fluffy”. This dog probably didn’t even have a name. It was a backwoods dog, raised on table scraps and the chunks of flesh it tore off other animals while their hearts were still beating. She could tell. Probably because of the red bloodstains on its incisors. Either way, she wasn’t about to move, even if her body would have allowed it.
She heard footsteps coming towards them. She opened the other eye and saw Darette appear beyond the dog.
“Please,” Manda said quietly. “Please call off your dog.”
“Heed, Killer.” Darette said, pulling a black pipe from her mouth. She smacked the dog hard on his bottom and he ran off into the trees.
So he did have a name after all.
“Thank you,” Manda said, drawing a breath of relief. She got slowly to her feet, breathing heavily. “I thought it was going to kill me.”
“He would,” Darette said. “He don’t like trespassers.”
Manda nodded. “Well, I’m glad you called him off. I’m-.”
“I know who you are.”
“Um…my throat is really dry. May I have some water?” Manda tried to swallow.
“You think you come to tea party?” Darette said. She was wearing a long black dress, with stockings rolled down to her ankles and a red scarf on her head. Around her neck, she wore the same type of little satchel that had held the substance she had blown into Sierra’s face. “Get out of mi yard if you know what’s good fi you.”
“I can’t. I’ve been looking for you,” Manda said. “I need to talk to you.”
“I have nothing to say to Myrna’s pik’ney.” Darette turned and swaggered off towards her house. It was a small cement structure, painted the bright pink of a stomach medicine.
“Well, I’ve come all this way…” Manda said.
Darette kept walking.
“Listen,” Manda said, hurrying after her. “I’ve come all the way from New York, I’ve just been nearly eaten by your blood-thirsty dog, and I’m not going anywhere till you hear me.”
Darette climbed the step that led into her house. She turned around and raised a fist at Manda. “Go away before I call back Killer,” she said.
“But I need to talk to you.”
Darette went inside and slammed her door, leaving Manda standing alone before the house.
Manda glanced around to make sure Killer was nowhere in sight. “Please, Darette. Listen to me,” she said, turning back around. “My sister and I need your help. I know you hate my family, I understand that.”
“Come outta mi yard, you mauga wretch,” Darette called out, her voice muffled by the door.
“We’re not your enemies,” Manda continued. “And I didn’t come here to argue with you. I come to make peace.” Manda stepped up on the porch.
“I will curse you so-till you wish you never draw breath,” Darette said through the door.
“What have we ever done to you?” Manda kicked at the porch step in frustration. “Nothing.”
“You call police to come drag me to jail. You call that nothing?”
“Look, you were threatening my sister. She had to protect herself.”
“And I have to protect me too.”
“Have a conscience, Darette. It’s not us you really hate. It’s our parents.”
“Your madda tek Bertram from me. It’s she who have no conscience.”
“But that was decades ago,” Manda pleaded. “People make mistakes, especially when they’re young. You’ve got to put it behind you.”
“You’re vipers, all of you. Evil, devilous vipers.”
“You’re going around trying to hurt people. You’re the one who’s a viper,” Manda said.
The door flew open and Darette glared down at her, her eyes dark with hatred. “Killeeerrrr,” she shouted towards the trees.
Manda dashed up on the porch and knocked Darette backwards out of the doorway in her haste to