Troll Or Derby, A Fairy Wicked Tale by Red Tash Read Free Book Online Page B

they’re tarot, you know?
    She might not tell me everything I needed to know about what was going down, but I could at least read her facial reactions and attempt to piece together whatever truth was in her words.
    It wasn’t that Zelda lied. She saw so many truths flash in front of her eyes that she sometimes forgot what she had told to whom, and free will had a way of canceling them out. I don’t know if she actually kept it all straight. How could she?
    I would find this girl—Roller Deb—and take her with me to see Zelda. I took a deep, quenching breath and caught her scent, this time mixed with fear and muscle car. Not her fear—someone else’s. A human who smelled strongly of Dave. A teenager. Great .
    If Dave wanted her, this could not be good. My mouth watered at the thought of combat with my cousin, and as far as this girl was concerned—well, all of a sudden I cared for her more than I thought possible.

Chapter Seven
    Old Man Graber Had a Farm
    Deb

    The sun set quickly, and cool air filled the Mustang as Yoder broke speed limits all through town. In a few minutes, we were past the city limits sign, and deep in the heart of Country. The smell of cowshit and broken dreams filled the air. Aw, yeah. Or should I say “yee haw”?
    “Who sent you?” I asked.
    Yoder didn’t answer.
    From Easter through Halloween, Graber’s was a busy tourist destination with a massive U-Pick operation and apple cider distillery. Graber’s Farm Market & Cidery occupied quite a few heavily-trafficked acres, but past the homemade caramels and the wine tasting booths, the original farm sprawled across a significant chunk of Laurents County.
    It was said that the Graber family had once owned three counties in Indiana, before they started selling off land to other settlers. The Graber family was huge, and factioned. There were Amish Grabers, Mennonite Grabers, and those who’d cashed in on the agritourist biz, who were only costume Amish on the high-tourist weekends. Those were the Town Grabers.
    The old-school Grabers were sort of a mystery, except for when Rumspringa was going on. They lived in a compound deep within Graber’s Farm. I’d never been there, but it always sounded like the movie The Village , to me.
    Yoder turned the car down a gravel road about a mile from the Graber Family Eats and Bait Shack. The road was bumpy, and he drove the Mustang slowly through the dark woods with only the parking lamps on.
    “Where’s your girlfriend?” I asked.
    Silence.
    I had no idea how deeply into the woods we had gone before we came to a clearing. Yoder parked next to a line of cars that I recognized from the school parking lot—though I hadn’t the foggiest idea who drove them.
    I slipped my tennis shoes out of my backpack and traded them for my skates. We got out of the car, and by the light of the moon I could see a huge line of Amish buggies on the other side of the clearing. An old weathered barn hulked in the shadows beyond an enormous bonfire. Bales of straw ringed the fire and kids or adults (I couldn’t honestly tell) in street clothes and Amish dress were drinking cans of beer and laughing. A boombox up against the old barn blasted classic Metallica tunes.
    “Now what?” I asked Yoder.
    “Have a beer, I guess,” he said. “I done my job—I’m gonna make sure they know it, then I’m going to get my drink on and forget all about it, girl.”
    The grass was high and wet, sticking to my jeans and seeping through my shoes. I couldn’t say I really wanted a beer—I hate them, actually—but once I sat down around the bonfire to warm up, I needed something to do besides wait in dread.
    Despite his promise to leave me alone, Yoder and his girlfriend sat down next to me on the bale. Drunk and giggly, she sat on his lap, falling off every few seconds. Yoder handed me a beer.
    “Word is, Dave is coming here to talk to you about your sister,” he said in a low voice.
    “Is Gennifer coming to the party, that