5

5

BLESSING ACRES CERTAINLY had changed a lot. Gone were the apple orchard and the small Pick-Your-Own pumpkin patch Katie remembered, and the Christmas tree grove. Also absent were most of the outbuildings, including the Petting Corral and its animals. Only the old lime-green farmhouse and great round barn remained, with a few tents here and there, surrounded on all sides now by sedge meadow and grazing pastures.

After paying for parking next to the buses, Katie trudged up the lane past the BLESSING GRASSLANDS sign, the legs of her denim jeans tucked inside her faux leather knee-high boots. She rolled her head around, feeling the tightness in her neck muscles from sleeping in the chair the way she did last night and waking up so out of sorts.

She could see an American Indian woman at the Welcoming Tent near the barn, black hair tied back from her dark, pretty face. When she got closer, Katie glimpsed a silver ring in her pierced lower lip and at once recognized the woman. Excitement shot through her.

Jodean Blessing.

“Hi,” Katie said, “I’m looking for the high school students out here on their field trip. Do you know where I might find them?”

The woman’s brow creased. “Oh, yes. Our stewardship program. Let’s see. Those classes are probably in section D by now. The kids do seed collecting and weed management. You know, section by section. I’m Jo, by the way.” She carried a stack of pamphlets in hand. “Have you been here before?”

“Yes, but it was a long time ago.”

“Well, Blessing Grasslands is a 2,000-acre habitat comprised of savannas and tallgrass prairie, hosting a wide diversity of plants and birds and wildlife,” she told Katie from repetitive memorization. “The preserve is open daily from dawn till dusk, and is also home to a herd of over fifty wild bison which roam the grasslands. We started years ago with just two, a sacred white buffalo named Miracle and his birth mother, and we’ve now successfully grown the herd and reintroduced the American bison back into this thriving sanctuary.

“Hiking tours are available to the public, and hikers are encouraged to explore off-trail, keeping in mind the ground is very uneven and there can be thick vegetation in spots. You may hike everywhere except inside the fenced bison areas. Bison viewing tours, on a tractor-pulled trailer, are also made available—although the bison aren’t always cooperative. Port-a-Johns are located at each trailhead.”

Katie dug into her jeans for cash. “I’d like a program and the hiking tour please. I think I can find the students. Section D, you said?”

Jodean Blessing gave her a pamphlet and waved dismissively. “We never charge visitors for anything. Only parking. We’re nonprofit. The place is maintained by The Nature Conservancy of Illinois, and through contributions mostly.” She gestured at the farmhouse behind her, adding: “They let us stay here and run things. We’re trying to heal the earth.”

“Okay,” Katie said, removing her hand from her pocket. “So, tell me more about Miracle. Is he still around, Jojo?”

The other broke out in a grin. “Funny, my mother was the only one ever called me that. I didn’t catch—” She hesitated and then blinked, twice, a strange look washing over her face. “Wait. Oh, my heavenly word. It’s you.”

The dark-skinned older woman swayed backward almost imperceptibly, her eyes becoming clear again.

“You’re her, aren’t you? Her.”

Katie smiled. “I am her. How are you, Jodean Blessing?”

“Come here, Katie!” They hugged one another, and Jo began to laugh. “My word . . . I’m doing better now, sweetie. I can’t believe it.” They both laughed together. “I used to talk with you on the telephone when you were little. You and your dad—I remember like it was yesterday. What brings you back here?”

“Welll,” said Katie, “I’m just looking to catch up with a few people from the school, is all. Thought I’d say hello.”

“Welll, hello.” Jodean grinned at her, then turned and started looking around for some help. “Hold on a sec,” she told Katie, spotting a large grizzle-headed man dawdling near one of the tractors.

“Hey, Torsky,” she called to him, “take us out, will you?”

***

“Everything changed after you came here, Katelyn,” said Jo.

Katie tried her best to smile, embarrassed.

They sat in back of the open trailer on attached bench seats as the tractor pulled them along the bumpy lanes.

The sky above was overcast, the clouds hanging heavy and low.

“Miracle got well and it all changed for us,” Jodean went on. “People heard about our white buffalo and started visiting in droves. Native tribes made holy pilgrimages. Of course, Miracle’s not pure white anymore. He has a lot of brown-colored fur on him, like the others, and he’s getting up in age. Anyway, The Nature Conservancy learned what we were doing here and decided to take a chance. They bought us out—our meager 75 acres—appropriated the funds and bought up the rest of the acreage around us, too. All the surrounding cropland was returned to prairie, the way it used to be. With the Conservancy’s help we purchased bison from some private sanctuaries and built our herd up and now tourists come from all over, even from other countries, to see what we’ve made.”

She beamed proudly, almost sagely, as they lurched and were jostled about on their benches. “Blessing Grasslands, we became. The Conservancy kept us on because of our Shawnee bloodline, I think. Let us stay in our own house and everything. Hired me to manage the tours, run the volunteer steward programs. It’s been quite a life.”

“I remember the petting zoo, and the animals vaguely,” said Katie, “and my father holding my hand.”

“Mm, can’t pet these animals, I’m afraid. How is your dad by the way?”

Katie cleared her throat. “He died, Jodean.”

“Oh. I am truly sorry to hear that. He seemed like a good man.” Jo took some wrangling gloves out of her back pocket and held them. “Mine died, too, before we could see all of this realized.”

“That’s a shame.”

The American Indian woman nodded solemnly. Silence hung between them a moment. Then their trailer was entering section D, and a variety of individuals were coming into sight. Teenagers at work in the fields, several adults with them. There were even a few artists with palettes and easels set up, trying to capture the humbling prairie landscape on canvas.

“The kids can earn stewardship grants for college,” Jodean was saying. “Some of their teachers and faculty come out and join in. Right now they’re weeding, removing invasive plants like Queen Anne’s lace and autumn olive. Others are harvesting bush clover and coneflower seed heads for restoration projects, for the replanting crews next year. Keeps the whole ecosystem going, you see.”

The tractor brought them to a halt, and Katie and Jo climbed down out of the trailer.

Jodean pointed to a wire-fenced perimeter in the distance. “One of the bison areas is over there. You can’t always view them clearly, as they prefer to stay hidden from strangers.”

“I know the feeling,” Katie said, sensing the curious stares upon her now.

The older woman suppressed a laugh. “If they do show themselves, which I doubt will happen, don’t approach them. Keep at least fifty yards back from the fencing at all times. They’re really, really big, Katelyn.”

“All right.”

Jo pulled on her scuffed wrangling gloves. “I have some chores to get to, and then hopefully I’ll meet up with you later. Maybe we can have ourselves a proper visit—go see if we can spot our Miracle.” She smiled and turned to depart, but swung back, still tugging at the gloves. She moved closer, her smile yet in place.

“What did you do that day, Katie?” asked Jodean Blessing. “When you laid your hands on him? Miracle.”

Katie paused. “I just said a little prayer,” she spoke softly, a faraway look hazing over her eyes. “So he’d heal, and get better.”

“Mm. I’ll leave you to it then,” was all Jo said before wandering off.

***

Katie scanned the group in the fields, trying to catch something—a thought, a scent. Anything. They were scattered to and fro, teenage girls and boys, a half dozen or so adult males among their number, most of them wearing sturdy boots and work gloves. Crickets chirred in the waving grass. The air smelled like rain might be coming.

What am I told?

She probed their minds as they alternately labored and goofed off, her sensory superiority making open books of them. Seeking. Probing for something. Foraging. And there it was.

An aberration.

The kid was big, side-of-a-barn big, with spiky hair that was so blond it was white: Keifer Sutherland’s hair in The Lost Boys.

This one was wrong, Katie could tell. Irregular. He wasn’t a mass murderer, though. Not yet. But there would soon come a day . . .

—a day when a circuit would blow inside him and he would snap, deviating from the norm, and walk into the high school carrying his father’s fully loaded assault rifle to unleash a torrent of burning ammunition upon his fellow classmates, ignoring their death pleas and their bulletproof backpacks and going for the headshot with whichever ones he could get the gun sights on—

Katie took a step back, her stomach churning. Connection breaking. The big kid raised up and looked around, as if feeling an intrusion of some sort upon him. Katie tasted bile at the back of her throat, and before she could stop it the reflexive thought was away from her and gone.

End yourself. When the urge comes to shoot up your school and kill everyone, end your own life instead. Nobody’s but yours.

The kid flinched like an object had come hurtling at him through the air. Katie glanced away quickly, then looked straight back again. He was staring hard at her now, mouth open, some subliminal thing worming its way into his brain. Katie’s pearl-gray irises swirled, a strange grin spreading over her face as she lifted one forefinger and placed it to her curving lips.

Shhh, and the big kid shut his mouth and went back to his work.

Katie tried shaking the dizziness away, felt gooseflesh tingling all along her arms and scalp after the encounter: what she used to call frittles when she was a young child. Her head reeled.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” came a voice from beside her, causing her to start.

One of the students, a teenage girl, was standing there—small, ethereal, and fretful-looking, with retro purple hair. She pushed her rectangle rainbow glasses back up on her nose.

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I do,” Katie answered, noticing the healed-over scars on the girl’s thin arms and wrists, pretending she hadn’t.

“I’m Bithiah Cotts,” said the petite girl. “You can call me Bee, though. Bee’s for short.”

“My name is Katelyn,” said Katie, thinking: Cuts herself. Self-harms. Suicide attempt? “Nice to meet you, Bee.”

Bee smiled faintly, glancing up at her. “You’re tall. I hate tall.”

“Sorry.”

“Oh, it’s not your fault. Just me. Hurts my neck looking up all the time.” She fidgeted, pushing her glasses back. “Speaking of ghosts, did you know fluoride causes the calcification of the pineal gland, shutting down our so-called sixth sense? This, along with the parents who condition their children from a young age by telling them such things aren’t real, is what basically closes the veil and keeps it closed. Most people can’t even see the resonance of the ghosts around them. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I—” Katie began, dumbstruck.

“Don’t look now,” Bithiah went on slyly, “but the Think Tank might be heading this way.”

“Um, who?”

The girl shifted her eyes left. “School staff,” she said low, “over there. The one wearing the bowtie and hat is our principal, Mr. Schunk. The two with him are Munger and Pritchard. Guidance counselors.” Her eyes rolled behind the prescription lenses.

Katie watched the three men as they milled about, trying to interpret their body language. They looked in her direction. “Are they coming over here? They seem all right to me.”

Bee shrugged. “Maybe. They’re checking us out, though.”

“Bee, do you know that boy right there? The big beefy one digging weeds?”

“With the stick-uppy hair? That’s Derek. Tackle jock. Got kicked off the football team for smoking dope and now he just . . . oh, I don’t know.”

“He just what?”

A pause. “Exists.”

She sees a lot, Katie had time to think, before:

“Have you heard about our serial killer?” Bee switched gears, all breathy.

“What do you know about that, Bithiah?”

“Bee. Bee’s for short.” Her face had pinched up. “I know they found bodies. Corpses, that is. Teenage kids. They were murdered. Some remain missing; they haven’t found them yet.” She pushed her glasses back. “When a corpse is left out the elements wither it, have their way with it, turning it into something barely recognizable. A ghost is like that—an emotion bent out of shape, condemned to repeat itself until it sees the wrong that was done righted.”

Jesus. Maybe she’s one of us. “Did you know any of them, Bee? These teenagers?”

“Sure. I know everybody.”

Could be something. “Does—”

“Uh oh. Told you so.”

The adults were approaching. Principal Schunk, with his bowtie and his tweed walking hat, was out front.

“Miss Cotts,” the elder gentleman said sternly, “shouldn’t you be returning to your tasks? And please refrain from disturbing other patrons of the prairie in the future.”

Bee faltered, so Katie responded instead. “She was answering my questions about seed collecting, sir. Didn’t mean to keep her so long.”

“Ah, well, I see.”

The shorter of the two guidance counselors stopped. He regarded Katie with a puzzled look. “I’m Cornelius Pritchard,” he said, extending a clammy hand. “And who might you be?”

“Kate Franklin,” she said, shaking it quick.

“You’re beautiful,” he said at once, and then went rigid, horrified that this inner thought had slipped out in word form.

“Wil Munger,” the other counselor introduced himself. He clapped Pritchard on the back, shook the smaller man by the shoulders. “Don’t mind old Cuntnelius here. He’s a chucklehead, but he’s harmless,” Munger cracked. “He speaks without thinking sometimes. Isn’t that right, Cunty? Oops . . . Corny. Sorry.”

Cornelius Pritchard—whose eyes were slightly crossed, Katie noticed—flushed in embarrassment, red creeping up his gawky neck and into his cheeks and ears. Katelyn could almost feel his humiliation.

“Ahem,” Mr. Schunk cleared his throat. “Willem? Corn? Let’s keep our minds on what we’re doing, shall we?” He sneezed without any warning and held up a hand in apology, pulling out an initialed handkerchief with his other. “Damned hay fever,” he said, wiping at his nose and sniffling.

“Bless,” muttered Pritchard under his breath, still red-faced.

“Ta,” said the school principal as the men began moving off. “You, too, Miss Cotts. Say goodbye to your new friend and come along.”

Katie frowned. “What the heck was that?” she asked Bee.

“Yeah, welcome to my world,” said Bithiah Cotts, falling in behind them.

“Bee, find me later, okay? Before you leave.”

Another adult was making his way over now, and the petite girl threw a glance directly at Katie, shifted her gaze towards this tall sandy-haired man with a beard, back to Katie, and mouthed the word: “Babe.” With that, Bee signaled thumbs-up, pushed her glasses back and trudged off.

“Come here, little girly,” one of the nearby boys could be overheard telling one of the girls picking berries, “or Daddy will spank you!” The girl shrieked with delight. Both were then rebuked by an ever-baleful Mr. Schunk.

The tall man came closer, and Katie caught the brilliant green of his eyes. “We’re painting the vista,” he stated, gesturing to the artists and easels. “Do you paint? Care to join us? We welcome all.”

“I’m just sightseeing, thanks.”

“Okay. I’m the art history instructor at the high school, that’s the only reason I ask. Christopher Lilak is the name.” It came out Leelake to her ears. “Those fellows weren’t giving you a hard time just now, were they?” His sea-green eyes sparkled with amusement.

“No . . . ” Katie began, but trailed off. Her breath sucked in when he smiled upon her. A fluid, slow-motion sensation tingled at her core, her stomach plummeting strangely.

“Uh, no. Not at all.”

Suddenly, someone exclaimed, “What the shit?” from the group of students, startling her.

“Look at that!”

“Oh—my—God,” somebody else gasped.

Then a sound like thunder came, pounding, and shaking the ground underneath their feet.