Read Online Scarecrow by Richie Tankersley Cusick - Free Book Online Page A

Then he said quietly, “Yes, once. A lot of us left, but I was the one who came back.”
    “And you’ve stayed ever since?”
    “I don’t feel the need to go off now. I’ve got everything right here.”
    I wanted to ask him where he’d been that could have embittered him so, but some instinct warned me against that. Instead I said hesitantly, “Don’t you ever wonder what else is out there?”
    He stepped easily across a fallen log and waited for me to catch up. “I know what else is out there. And even if I didn’t, it still wouldn’t matter. My life’s the way it is. I just want to keep other people away from it.”
    There was no mistaking his implication. I clambered over the log and kept my distance behind him.
    “They’d change it all,” Seth went on, more under his breath than aloud. “They’d change things plenty and think they were doing what was right.”
    “Changes are scary to me,” I said before I even thought. As he glanced back over his shoulder I stammered, “I mean…I don’t like changes very much…things catching me by surprise. Here you have a place to hide from changes, but—”
    I’d said the wrong thing. I wished I’d never mentioned the word; it seemed to magnify my predicament overwhelmingly, and I glanced in growing alarm at the crushing woods. Without warning Seth stopped square on the path, turning around so quickly that I nearly ran into him. When he spoke, it was through clenched teeth.
    “My family’s been hiding, as you put it, back here in these hills since 1854. Ever since my great-great-grandfather settled. He had a pretty good feel for human nature, and I expect that’s why he came up here in the first place. I don’t figure things have changed a whole lot out there in the world since then.”
    Frowning, he swung the ham effortlessly to his other shoulder and looked for a moment as if he might stalk away. But instead he just stood there, staring me down.
    “I have my reasons for being here—and for why I’ll never leave.”
    “You’re lucky. But I guess you know that,” I said quietly, hoping to mask the growing fear in my voice. He was standing too close…staring too hard…
    “Lucky?” His dark eyes burned with an emotion I couldn’t read.
    “Yes. The land and your roots…your home and your family. You belong.”
    There was a long silence. I tried to step around him on the path, but he blocked my way.
    “This is the one place left in the world that still makes some sense. Everything that happens here, happens for a reason.” His gaze swept upward, soaring over trees and hills, and as I watched him, the wind blew his hair full around his face. “We know about life here,” he murmured. “We know where it starts.” His eyes shifted into mine. “And where it ends.”
    His voice was like a warning, and again I tried to sidestep him; again he filled the path.
    “There’s order here and harmony. Truth. And no—” He broke off sharply, and his face angled down into the hazy green light, strange shadows playing across his tensed jaw.
    “What?” I asked, wanting to run, to find the cool, clear sunshine, the fresh air.
    His lips moved in a whisper. “Betrayal,” he said at last. “There’s no betrayal here.”
    A cold ripple of wind sighed through the helpless leaves overhead—with a death rattle they shook free of their branches and sifted down around Seth’s shoulders. I watched them fall, and I saw Seth’s eyes again, deep and relentless, full upon mine. I stepped back to steady myself against a tree.
    “You’re tired,” Seth said, and he turned, striding unconcernedly into the yard behind the house. By the time I reached the back porch he had disappeared completely, and with my heart pounding in relief, I dragged myself up the steps and reached out for the door.
    The hand came out of nowhere.
    As my mouth opened in a mute circle of fear, the hand clamped about my wrist, nearly pulling me sideways off the steps. In the next instant it