The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson Read Free Book Online

I’ve been looking for other spirits all along the shore, wanting to ask my questions, but it seems I’m the only one.
    In the cellar, where I sleep, there’s one thing that frightens me, and I’d like to ask about that too—maybe most of all. It’s a pinprick of light coming from the floor by the far right wall. It’s impossible for that to be, but there it is.
    I won’t go near it. Something deep down tells me it spells the end of me. I’m not ready.
    And I think something is coming for one of these girls, or both.
    I think I’m here to save them.

5
    THE BEAUTIFUL, PROMISING GRADUATE WAS FOUND THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY, floating by the main dock in Ephraim, arms spread out like she was trying to fly away. As with the first girl who’d died, there wasn’t a mark on her to indicate a struggle. The coroner ruled it death by drowning. Everyone at Elsa’s Lost World Emporium was talking about it when Maggie walked in on Sunday morning.
    The temperature had dropped drastically overnight, and after hurrying across the parking lot without her coat, Maggie welcomed the warm air of the Emporium despite the smell of dust and burned coffee. Elsa had the Gill Creek Crier spread out across the front counter and refused to look up from it even when a customer stood waiting for her.
    “It’s antiques,” she said unapologetically, after Maggie slid in beside her and watched her slowly ring up the woman, “it’s not brain surgery. People can wait.”
    Maggie leaned against the counter and read over her shoulder. Elsa poured her a cup of coffee. “It’s getting cold out,” Maggie said.
    “A fisherman found her while he was headed back in. Her parents lost it.” Elsa pointed to the article as if Maggie needed proof that parents would “lose it” in that situation, then fanned her face with her hand, getting flustered. “It’s too much of a coincidence—two girls in three weeks. Someone killed those girls.” Elsa shook her head. “Why them? Is it because they were young, or are older women a target too?” She shook her head again, harder, this time clicking her tongue. “Things like this don’t happen here,” she sighed. It seemed to Maggie that Elsa was enjoying herself a tiny bit. Maggie tried to change the subject, but Elsa kept circling back to it: the girl, her straight As, how pretty she was. “I’m not a good person in situations like this,” Elsa went on. “I’m the first person to get hysterical. I drove all the way to Target this morning to buy pepper spray.”
    “You know, you just have to think of the statistics,” Maggie offered. “Statistically it’s highly unlikely anything will happen to you.” She didn’t like to linger over the terrible things in the news.
    “Do you know some guy drove to Nashville from California because he wanted to capture Taylor Swift and keep her in his basement?” Elsa went on, as if she hadn’t heard her. “There are crazy people out there.” Elsa had a pile of People magazines beside the cash register to prove it, and Maggie was beginning to think that Elsa saw Taylor Swift, and possibly Lindsay Lohan too, as part of her extended family. “Some crazier than others.” Elsa’s eyes lifted to follow Gerald as he walked past carrying the horn of an old gramophone.
    Two weeks in, Maggie was already getting used to the Emporium’s rhythms and its weird smells and quirky vendors. Gerald had a stall near the back of the store, where he sold mostly gramophones, old radios, and old record players, one of which was usually going at any time. He always played oldies, and Maggie liked to hear the music drifting from the back of the store, usually Billie Holiday or Etta James. He did look crazy—he had stark-white hair, a bony face, and big, protruding, piercing, blue eyes that reminded her of an eagle. Maggie sometimes caught him eyeballing her. Now, with Elsa staring him down, he apparently didn’t have the nerve to gawk and kept walking to the back of the