Sweet Dreams, Irene

She looked around nervously. I wondered if it was real nervousness or more drama. “Will my name be in the paper?”

“This whole thing may never actually reach print. I’m just trying to be ready in case something breaks. And for that matter, I don’t even know your last name. What is it?”

“You won’t contact my parents?”

“Not my business.”

“Garden.”

Holy Mary. No wonder the kid had problems. Anyone who had been given a handle like Gethsemane Garden had an uphill battle. I tried not to let my face reveal that I knew what Sammy stood for.

“Okay, Miss Garden, why don’t you tell me about the coven?”

“Don’t call me Miss Garden. I hate my name. I’m going to change it. Anyway – call me Sammy, okay?”

“If you’d prefer that, sure. Look, Sammy, I’m not here to cause you problems. Tell me about this group you’re in.”

“Well, last Friday night our coven gathered, and I went and Jacob came by and tried to get me to leave. End of story.”

“Not quite. What kind of group is this? Satanist?”

She rolled her eyes. “No. Satanism is a different thing altogether. We’re not Satanists, no matter what that moron Montgomery says.”

“So what are you?”

She sighed, and looked at Jacob. He just watched her silently, but his eyes were willing her to keep talking. She turned back to me.

“We’re into what you would probably call paganism. It’s a very old religion. It’s a religion of the earth. That’s what we worship – the earth and her creatures are holy to us. It’s a very female thing. Satanism is a very male thing.”

If any of that bothered Jacob, he didn’t show it.

“So these witches met last Friday. Are they male and female, even though this is a female thing?”

“We don’t discriminate.”

“So what happened that night?”

“Jacob came along and he asked me to leave with him.”

“Jacob didn’t participate at all?”

“No.”

“What would participating include?”

“I told you, he didn’t participate.”

“And I asked what participating includes.”

She stewed for a moment. “I can’t tell you.”

“Sworn to secrecy? You take some blood oath or something?”

“No! I mean, yes, I am sworn to secrecy and no, it is not a blood oath. Look, this is like my religion, okay? I won’t tell you what we do. It’s between the members of the coven; it’s not for outsiders.”

“If what Jacob tells me is true, at least one other person not only knows what you do, but has taken photographs. Don’t you want to tell your side of the story?”

“I can’t tell you that. Besides, I left with Jacob on Friday.”

“Really? Does that put you on the outs with the group?”

She shifted uncomfortably. I decided to take a stab at something.

“What are you afraid of, Sammy? Has someone threatened you for leaving that night?”

“No!” she said, betraying herself with her vehemence, and catching herself at it. “If anyone could scare me, would I be sitting out here talking to you?”

“You’re not even afraid of the guy in the goat’s mask?”

She turned white, a startling contrast to her hair and clothing. She turned to Jacob, her eyes brimming with tears. “You told her that? You asshole! Don’t you ever speak to me again!”

She jumped up from the table and would have run into the house, but I was quicker and stronger – I grabbed her by the wrist.

“Let go of me, you bitch!”

“Apologize to the guy who may be the only real friend you have, and maybe I will.”

“Fuck you.”

“Look Sammy, if you want to have a cuss-out, you should know you’re up against a pro. You’re not going to shock me – not with bad ma

I hadn’t noticed that Jacob had moved up out of his chair. He put an arm around her. “Please let her go,” he said to me.

I shrugged and let her go. She crumpled up into his arms, crying on his shoulder. Twice in one day, I thought. Maybe I really was the meanest reporter in town.

“I’m sorry, Miss Kelly,” Jacob said quietly. “I owe Sammy an apology, too. This whole thing was a bad idea. I never should have bothered you.”

“Jacob, Jacob, Jacob,” I said softly, shaking my head. “It wasn’t a mistake. Sammy, you need to figure out who your friends are. Jacob needs your help. Seriously. Believe me, I don’t get up and jump every time there’s a troubled teenager somewhere. I’m sorry if I scared you or bullied you. It’s just that if I don’t know at least as much of the story as whoever is feeding Montgomery his information, then I can’t present a balanced view of whatever happened. I’ll get one side of this story from the Montgomery campaign. I need your help to get the other side.”

She sat back down in the chair, her face a mess from crying. I pulled out a couple of tissues and handed them to her.

“The… person you were referring to… that person wasn’t there that night. It wasn’t that kind of gathering. That’s all I can say.”

Looking at her, I could see that the fear she had of the character in the goat’s mask was not feigned. It didn’t seem to me that we were going to get much farther. I took out a business card and scribbled my home phone number on the back. I handed it to her.

“If you think of anything more, give me a call.”

I stood up and started to go. Some movement inside the house caught my eye. I remained still for a moment, then realized that the curtains on one window were swaying slightly, as if someone had been watching us. This seemed so strange – we were off to one side of the activities of the recreation room, but surely it would have been easy for someone to have planted themselves within earshot. Why hide in the house, where he or she would be unable to hear us over the music?

I looked back at Jacob and Sammy. He was saying good-bye to her. We left together, and I offered him a lift home. He hesitated only a moment and then accepted.

“Jacob,” I said, when we were in the car, “do you think there’s any possibility that Sammy is in real danger?”

He turned his face away, staring out the window, but answered, “I don’t know. I guess I must think that she is, or I wouldn’t want her to stay away from the coven.”

“Do you know any of the other members of the coven?”

“Yeah – a couple of the other kids at the shelter are into it. Sammy was hanging out with them at school a lot. That was before she got kicked out of her house. Now I kind of feel like it’s my fault.”

“Why?”

“She wasn’t really very into it until she got kicked out. Then I mentioned the shelter, not knowing these kids lived there, and then she really got seriously involved in it. I never should have mentioned the shelter. I should have talked to my mom about it more than I did. I asked if Sammy could live with us, and she said no, but I didn’t really – you know – beg and plead with her or anything. Now look.”

“Sammy is your age?”

“A little older. She’s seventeen, I’m sixteen. I won’t be seventeen until January.”

“She’s free to make her own choices, even bad ones, Jacob. Don’t feel guilty. There are other kids at the shelter she could have chosen as friends, and you said yourself she was already into it before she moved there.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I just wish there was something I could do.”

“Keep her occupied with other interests, other friends.”

“You probably saw why she doesn’t have too many friends.”

“You saw through it – other people can, too.”

He was quiet until we pulled up in his driveway.

“Thanks, Miss Kelly. Thanks for trying, anyway.” He walked back into the house in the same glum mood I had seen him in first thing that morning. I was, at that moment, happy to be heading toward forty after all. I wouldn’t be sixteen again for anything.

I STOPPED BY the store on the way home and bought some candy and a pumpkin. Pickings were slim by then, but I did manage to find a bag or two of not-too-unpopular candy bars. At the checkout stand I had an inspiration and bought something for Frank.