Her smile disappeared. “I’m not exactly at my most fetching,” she said doubtfully.
“No, you’re great. Really.”
“Just one minute? Promise?”
I let her go into the cairn first. When we came out again the world was misty and cold, though thankfully the rain had stopped. I pulled out my phone and was happy to see that my theory was right. On this side of the loop, electronic things worked fine.
“Where’s your camera?” she said, shivering. “Let’s get this over with!”
I held up the phone and took her picture. She just shook her head, as if nothing about my bizarre world could surprise her anymore. Then she dodged away, and I had to chase her around the cairn, both of us laughing, Emma ducking out of view only to pop up again and vamp for the camera. A minute later I’d taken so many pictures that my phone had nearly run out of memory.
Emma ran to the mouth of the cairn and blew me an air-kiss. “See you tomorrow, future boy!”
I lifted my hand to wave goodbye, and she ducked into the stone tunnel.
* * *
I skipped back to town freezing and wet and grinning like an idiot. I was still blocks away from the pub when I heard a strange sound rising above the hum of generators—someone calling my name. Following the voice, I found my father standing in the street in a soggy sweater, breath pluming before him like muffler exhaust on a cold morning.
“Jacob! I’ve been looking for you!”
“You said be back by dinner, so here I am!”
“Forget dinner. Come with me.”
My father never skipped dinner. Something was most definitely amiss.
“What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” he said, marching me toward the pub. Then he got a good look at me. “You’re all wet!” he exclaimed. “For God’s sake, did you lose your other jacket, too?”
“I, uh ...”
“And why is your face red? You look sunburned.”
Crap. A whole afternoon at the beach without sunblock. “I’m all hot from running,” I said, though the skin on my arms was pimpled from cold. “What’s happening? Did someone die, or what?”
“No, no, no,” he said. “Well, sort of. Some sheep.”
“What’s that got to do with us?”
“They think it was kids who did it. Like a vandalism thing.”
“They who? The sheep police?”
“The farmers,” he said. “They’ve interrogated everyone under the age of twenty. Naturally, they’re pretty interested in where you’ve been all day.”
My stomach sank. I didn’t exactly have a watertight cover story, and I raced to think of one as we approached the Priest Hole.
Outside the pub, a small crowd was gathered around a quorum of very pissed-off-looking sheep farmers. One wore muddy coveralls and leaned threateningly on a pitchfork. Another had Worm by the collar. Worm was dressed in neon track pants and a shirt that read I LOVE IT WHEN THEY CALL ME BIG POPPA. He’d been crying, snot bubbling on his upper lip.
A third farmer, rail-thin and wearing a knit cap, pointed at me as we approached. “Here he is!” he called out. “Where you been off to, son?”
Dad patted me on the back. “Tell them,” he said confidently.
I tried to sound like I had nothing to hide. “I was exploring the other side of the island. The big house.”
Knit Cap looked confused. “Which big house?”
“That wonky old heap in the forest,” said Pitchfork. “Only a certified idiot would set foot in there. Place is witched, and a deathtrap to boot.”
Knit Cap squinted at me. “In the big house with who?”
“Nobody,” I said, and saw Dad give me a funny look.
“Bollocks! I think you was with this one,” said the man holding Worm.
“I never killed any sheep!” cried Worm.
“Shaddap!” the man roared.
“Jake?” said my dad. “What about your friends?”
“Ahh, crap, Dad.”
Knit Cap turned and spat. “Why you little liar. I oughta belt you right here in fronta God and everybody.”
“You stay away from him,” my father said, doing his best Stern Dad voice. Knit Cap swore and took a step toward him, and he and my dad squared off. Before either could throw a punch, a familiar voice said, “Hang on, Dennis, we’ll get this sorted,” and Martin stepped out of the crowd to wedge himself between them. “Just start by telling us whatever your boy told you,” he said to my father.
Dad glared at me. “He said he was going to see friends on the other side.”
“What friends?” Pitchfork demanded.
I could see this was only going to get uglier unless I did something drastic. Obviously, I couldn’t tell them about the children—not that they’d believe me anyway—so instead I took a calculated risk.
“It wasn’t anybody,” I said, dropping my eyes in feigned shame. “They’re imaginary.”
“What’d he say?”
“He said his friends were imaginary,” my dad repeated, sounding worried.
The farmers exchanged baffled glances.
“See?” Worm said, a flicker of hope on his face. “Kid’s a bloody psycho! It had to be him!”
“I never touched them,” I said, though no one was really listening.
“It weren’t the American,” said the farmer who had Worm. He gave Worm’s shirt a wrench. “This one here, he’s got a history. Few years back I watched him kick a lamb down a cliffside. Wouldn’t of believed it if I hadn’t seen it wi’ me own eyes. After he done it I asked him why. To see if it could fly, he says. He’s a sickie, all right.”
People muttered in disgust. Worm looked uncomfortable but didn’t dispute the story.
“Where’s his fishmongerin’ mate?” said Pitchfork. “If this one was in on it, you can bet the other one was, too.” Someone said they’d seen Dylan by the harbor, and a posse was dispatched to collect him.
“What about a wolf—or a wild dog?” my dad said. “My father was killed by dogs.”
“Only dogs on Cairnholm are sheepdogs,” replied Knit Cap. “And it ain’t exactly in a sheepdog’s nature to go about killin’ sheep.”
I wished my father would give it up and leave while the leaving was good, but he was on the case like Perry Mason. “Just how many sheep are we talking about?” he asked.
“Five,” replied the fourth farmer, a short, sour-faced man who hadn’t spoken until then. “All mine. Killed right in their pen. Poor devils never even had a chance to run.”
“Five sheep. How much blood do you think is in five sheep?”
“A right tubful, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Pitchfork.
“So wouldn’t whoever did this be covered in it?”
The farmers looked at one another. They looked at me, and then at Worm. Then they shrugged and scratched their heads. “Reckon it coulda been foxes,” said Knit Cap.