Trickster s Girl - By Hilari Bell Page 0,5

a messy pile, restraining a tattered writhing thing that suddenly extended two ragged protrusions and shrieked in a voice so rough it held no humanity at all.

Kelsa's mind was screaming, but her tight throat emitted only a strangled squawk. She threw the posthole digger at the dark shape and ran, feet pounding on the packed dirt, moving even faster when she reached the rubbercrete path, though she'd have sworn it was impossible to run any faster.

When she reached the first streetlight the stitch in her side forced her to stop, but she didn't bend over; she spun wildly, trying to peer into the darkness in all directions at once, trying to hear over the beat of blood in her ears. She was back on the grid now, in view of the cameras whether they were scanning or not, so she should be safe. But...

What the hell was that thing?

She had read that people once took drugs that gave them hallucinations, long after the intended effect of the drug had worn off - and if this was what drug users saw, then they had to be even crazier than she'd thought! But one of the things Kelsa agreed with her mother's church about was avoiding drugs, so why was she seeing ... whatever it had been?

The darkness no longer seemed peaceful. Kelsa took the streets back to her house, jogging from one circle of light to the next, her every sense alert for some sign that the thing might be following her.

Assuming he was still alive after ... after being burned to charred rags, in a lightless, heatless fire, in front of her eyes.

Kelsa began to run again.

The PID card in her pocket unlocked the front door as she approached it, and she burst into the house and gasped, "Lights!"

The hall lights responded, filling the room with a harsh glare.

"Kel?" Her mother's voice came from the kitchen. "Is that you?"

Kelsa dashed for the safety of her mother's company as if she were Joby's age.

Her mother's hair was tousled, and she was wearing her husband's well-worn bathrobe. She frowned when she saw Kelsa in the doorway. "I didn't know you'd gone out. I don't think it's safe for you to go out at night without" - she took a breath and finished it - "without your father."

The annoyance in her eyes deepened as they ran over Kelsa - Lord only knew what she looked like - and the words grief counseling hung in the air between them.

If she told her mother what had happened tonight, it wouldn't be grief counseling. Her mother would have Kelsa sitting on the steps of a psychologist's office before the secretary opened the door in the morning. Unless she just called for the men with the tranqs and skipped the intervening steps.

"I couldn't sleep," said Kelsa. "So I went for a run. Sorry if I worried you."

Her mother shook her head, guilt replacing the angry concern in her expression. "I didn't even know you'd gone out."

Kelsa couldn't deal with it now. "I'm going to get a shower. I'll see you in the morning."

***

She left for school earlier than usual, and she was probably going to arrive late; the cottonwood bend was almost a mile out of her way.

In the early-morning sunlight it was hard to believe that ... whatever-it-was had happened the night before. The guy was probably some sort of magician, Kelsa thought, who got his kicks out of terrifying strangers. In a couple of days she'd see an ad for the great Creepo, Master of Illusion, performances every day at three and seven.

She was still going back to check it out.

The glade looked as it always did in the daylight. The posthole digger lay in the dappled shade where she'd thrown it. How was she going to get it back to Mr. Stattler's shed? The flickering light made it difficult to see details on the ground behind the tree, and the dry mud was too hard to take an impression. There were a few scuff marks, but that proved nothing except that someone had been there. And Kelsa and her father weren't the only people who hiked down the creek bed.

Maybe she'd imagined the whole thing. Though if she had, she'd better take her mother up on that grief counseling! If she was hallucinating something like that, she really was crazy.

Kelsa didn't think she was crazy. If she was going to hallucinate anything it would be her father, or at least his spirit. But he