A Latent Dark by Martin Kee Page A

closely. The second question was: Why aren’t they helping me up?
    A foot landed just beyond Skyla’s head. The girl completely ignored her; she glowed white. She wore a pea coat and an oversized, square rucksack that stuck out beyond her shoulders. She was wearing a pair of aviator goggles…
    Skyla’s mouth dropped open as she watched the other girl take a few more steps and then slip. The Other-Skyla made no noise when she fell. A second girl sprouted from that one and continued to walk as if nothing had happened. She stopped and spoke to someone. A third Skyla sprouted from that one. In the meantime, the first one who had fallen was sitting and crying, goggles still raised above her eyes.
    Her world went bright as another Skyla fell almost directly on top of her. The goggles slammed shut over the girl’s eyes and for a strange moment, she was looking into a mirror. The two girls could only stare at one another as they lay on their stomachs. Skyla reached a tentative hand out and watched it pass through the girl’s face as if it were mist. It was no reflection; it was another her.
    Nausea gripped her stomach. She quickly grabbed the lenses and turned them upward with a deep breath as the world returned to normal. All the other versions of herself vanished, leaving nothing but deep, green forest.
    She pulled herself up and sat on the root that had tripped her, feeling the warm pain from her wounded palms. Orrin was on a nearby branch.
    “You weren’t with any of them,” she said. “Why is that?”
    But Orrin wasn’t looking at her. Instead he stared at something just outside her field of vision as a sound startled her.
    It was the click and twang of a crossbow being cocked and armed.

Chapter 7
     
    “You do realize,” said Father Thomas, “that you are maybe the only person in all of Bollingbrook who has ever seen that house.”
    The Reverend Summers sat across from him, hands clamped casually behind his head. Father John Thomas couldn’t put a finger on it, but something about the man made his scalp itch. Maybe it was the fact that he had been given so much sudden authority, or maybe it was just the way that those pale eyes never blinked.
    “Well I am good at my job,” said Lyle with a smile that faded just short of his eyes.
    “I suppose that’s the reason they hired you without notifying me.”
    The Reverend Lyle Summers feigned confusion. “Now why on God’s green earth would they notify you?” There was a hint of amusement in his voice.
    “Because,” said Father Thomas, “the girl and her mother were my parishioners. I was responsible for them.”
    “You ejected them from your church, Father.” Lyle spoke slowly, as if to a child. “I believe that when you decided to do that, you pretty much abandoned that cause.”
    “Well, cause or not, I would like to think that I could have helped before all this happened.”
    “And just how would you have helped?” said Lyle, leaning in. “I’m genuinely curious. You know as well as I do that something was protecting that house, otherwise your citizens would have burned it years ago. They were sharpening their pitchforks as soon as she got that woman killed.”
    “I could have gotten them to invite me,” said Father Thomas. “I honestly think that the daughter trusted me.”
     “Well, it was bound to happen eventually,” said Lyle. He reached into his jacket pocket and winced. “A woman with those kind of problems. Poor thing.”
    Spare me the theatrics , thought John.
    “I still would have appreciated some notice before you went ahead with this investigation,” said Father Thomas.
    The Reverend Summers held his hands out, palms up. “Father Thomas, if I had done that, it would have meant contacting every parish in the archdiocese. Do you honestly think that I had time to go through your bureaucracy? Events were already in motion.” He grabbed the silver cigarette case from his coat and drew a small white roll from it.
    “I’d