Read Fiendish for Free Online Page B

streets we passed, Chester and Peyton and Main—names like old songs or people I’d known once. At the corner of Broom Street, a pair of ribby dogs loped slowly down the sidewalk. Their shadows made long slashes on the pavement.
    A truck went rattling by with a stack of metal poles laid out in the back, and on top of that, a big roll of canvas, striped like a circus tent.
    Shiny saw me looking after it and said, “That’s the public works crew. They’ll be setting up revival tents and all the bake sale tables and the booths for Green Week.” Then she stopped and squinted at me. “Do you remember Green Week?”
    I started to nod, but it wasn’t really true. Mostly, I remembered a bobbing rainbow of balloons and the warm, sugary smell of cotton candy. No revival or anything green.
    She shrugged. “It’s mostly just like a fair, you know? A carnival. There’s a big camp meeting on Friday night, but no one goes to that, and some games and rides and a funnel cake stand.”
    We crossed the road and turned down Main Street. So many of the stores were empty now, with boarded-up doors or missing windows—a hardware store and a bar and the Tracy Ann Boutique, where Mrs. Ralston had sold perfume and magazines and smoked long, skinny cigarettes that turned her fingers yellow. Now it was nothing but empty shelves.
    Farther down, though, things were more lively. Men in dusty shirts were unloading boxes and sawhorses from flatbed trucks.
    Behind them was another long stretch of deserted buildings, but someone had been hanging up a set of huge painted canvases on the fronts of these ones, at least. All along the block, the canvases hung down almost to the sidewalk.
    Most of the paintings were everyday scenes—bright, pretty gardens and flowery orchards—but the one hanging over the old train depot was disturbing. In it, a dark, proud woman with long hair and a hard face was in the middle of cutting a man down from a bony winter tree. He had a rope looped around his neck and the woman stood on a little stepladder, sawing at the knot with a buck knife. She wore a dark green dress, and at her feet, a whole mess of vines were climbing up the bottom of the ladder, twining around her legs.
    I was inclined to stop and look, but Shiny hurried past like she had someplace to be, so I turned and followed her.
    In front of Carter’s Garage, a bunch of boys were sitting out on the metal bike rack, looking bored and sunburned. They were a few years older than us, hard to tell if they were boys or men, and I didn’t like to get too near, but Shiny strode past like they weren’t even there, although one of them whistled loud enough to make me jump.
    “Hey, crafty girl,” he called, with his hand on the front of his jeans. “I’ve got a piece of craft for you and it’s a doozy!”
    Shiny whipped around so fast her boots left scuff marks on the sidewalk. “You couldn’t find your piece with a jacklight and three hands.”
    She was smiling, but there was an edge in her voice that made me think the smile was mostly for show. Her hand had moved to the pocket of her cutoffs.
    I stood beside her, wishing we’d leave, but she didn’t move as he pushed himself away from the wall and came rambling over. He had a loping, uneven gait, like he’d just gotten off a horse.
    “Shiny Blackwood,” he said, and I did not like his grin, not one bit. “You’ve got a nice little walk on you. I’ve only got two hands, though—maybe you can lend me one of yours.”
    Shiny sighed and pulled out a silver cigarette lighter. “You do not want to test me, Michael Faraday, so step away while you still have your eyebrows.”
    And for a second, it seemed like he
would
step back, but the other boys had followed him and were elbowing each other. I knew that whatever happened next would be less about what he felt like doing and more about saving face.
    He smiled, moving toward her with his hands held out. “Aw, Shiny, don’t be like that.”
    “I will be