Read Online The Book of Daniel by Z. A. Maxfield - Free Book Online

cigarette without hearing about it from Jake later on.
    When I checked the mailbox, the overnight delivery from Bree was tucked inside. I didn’t really want to read what my father had to say. Surely, it was more of the same. He’d been young and unhappy, he’d handled it poorly. He’d learned from his mistakes and was trying to do better. He might say he had done better with his new family, as though my mother, Jake, and I were his practice pancake and that was perfectly all right.
    “Not today.” I put the mailer, unopened, beneath the stack of bills and junk mail I always found in our mailbox.
    A flutter of movement among the trees that surrounded our rented house caught my attention. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen it, the flutter of a hand-dyed peasant dress, a colorful ripple of fabric as whoever was wearing it darted for cover. In fact a number of similar incidents had been happening, over the weeks and months I’d lived in St. Nacho’s, and I had a pretty good idea who was behind them.
    Well, I guessed.
    It seemed I’d picked myself up a stalker or three. Sure enough, when I headed toward the street and looked around, the pavement was covered with chalk symbols in pastel colors and they looked an awful lot like the one Muse had scrawled on my coffee sleeve. I wasn’t imagining things.
    I sat down on my padded chaise longue and lit up a cigarette while I gazed thoughtfully around me. From where I sat, I could hear the slight susurration of waves on the shore. There was a salty crispness in the air. Seabirds wheeled overhead.
    Whoever had covered our sidewalk with seals and signs apparently had an ax to grind, but I wasn’t worried. Whatever they wanted, I wasn’t about to let it get to me.
    Nothing could feel quite so benign as a warm spring day in St. Nacho’s.
    So… For some unknown—and probably unknowable—reason, the Witches of Westwick were trying to freak me out. I blew out a long, thin stream of smoke and grinned.
    Cool.

Chapter Seven
     
    In mockery of everyone’s sadness, the day of the funeral turned out to be brilliant. Perfectly beautiful. The sky was a vast and clear cerulean blue, and the sun radiated down to bake the pale golden brown adobe facade of Iglesia Santo Ignacio. Not only did the crowds fill the church itself, the attendees overflowed into the social hall next door to watch on video monitors. Some folks milled around outside, having found no seat in either place but unwilling to go home without a chance to show their support to the families.
    I watched the funeral from the banquet hall, but when the video panned the crowd, I saw Cam and JT in their dress uniforms. They sat with several members of the SIFD, somber and serious.
    At the center of everyone’s attention, four closed caskets sat covered with sprays of beautiful white lilies and gladioli.
    After mass, Cam and JT were among the many men who bore the caskets from the church to the cars waiting to take them to their final resting places. The receiving line was endless. After spending some time with their neighbors and friends, each family left to bury its dead.
    The death of kids that young was unbearable. Unthinkable. Their deaths left behind too many broken hearts, and eventually people would start asking hard questions about blame and restitution. The families, united now in grief, would splinter under guilt and the exhausting process of starting over.
    Everyone was already asking themselves what they might have done differently, and whether they could have averted the tragedy in the first place if only they had been a little more careful.
    I cornered Cam after he talked with the families and told him to come with me. The look on his face was priceless—like I’d grown another head—but I’d done odder things since coming to St. Nacho’s. He blinked at me but didn’t argue. I imagined he was so surprised he followed me because he couldn’t think of a reason not to.
    “Where are we going?” he asked