The Curse of Crow Hollow Read Online Free PDF

You’d have to talk to him first.”
    Hays snorted a laugh. Cordy tried to keep peace by telling Naomi that wasn’t fair, knowing as well as anybody that people dealt with their own problems in their own ways. It didn’t work. John David started yelling at Naomi and Naomi started yelling back, and there was nothing Cordelia could do about it because now another problem presented itself in the form of Scarlett, who must’ve decided this would be the perfect time to step out of the woods.
    You’d have to be a fool not to feel how thick with strain the air around that campfire had grown since Scarlett had left to pretty herself up. And make no mistake, friend—that girl was plain, but she was no fool. She scratched at her arms and stepped into the brightness of the firelight near Naomi, flashing her chubby legs where that tight skirt ended and the curves under that sweater, trying on a smile as she gave a little wave to John David so he could see the sparkle off Angela’s bracelet, but John David didn’t so much as give her a glance.
    â€œYou can’t make me leave,” Naomi was saying. “You’re not Daddy.”
    â€œIt ain’t right, being up here,” he said.
    â€œHi, John David,” Scarlett said. She waved again. “Been waiting for you.”
    Cordelia rolled her eyes, Scarlett trying to be coy and sexy but looking instead like she might as well have a bow on her head and a sign that read C ONTENTS P ERISHABLE , O PEN I MMEDIATELY hung around her neck.
    â€œIt ain’t right?” Naomi asked. “You got a nerve telling me what’s good and not, John David. When’d you grow a conscience? Chessie teach you?”
    John David shot out a finger that ended near the tip of Naomi’s nose. “You leave Chessie out of this. You want to call what she does sin, that’s fine. But everybody knows it’s Chessie’s sin, not Daddy’s sermons, that keeps the Holler alive.”
    He turned then, aiming for his truck, and finally saw Scarlett standing right there. He said to Hays, “Keep that fire bright. Somebody’s gotta stay up all night, it’s gonna be you. Something happens, boy? I’ll kill you. And Scarlett, you must be out of your mind to come up in the mountains dressed like that. You’re gonna freeze.”
    Cordy and Naomi lowered their heads. Hays tried swallowing a grin.
    John David climbed into the truck and revved the engine, shouting through the window as he grated the gears. “Any of you got the sense God gave a rock, you’d leave right now. I mean it.”
    â€œJohn David,” Naomi said, but he didn’t hear. Didn’t hear, or didn’t want to.
    Cordelia turned back to the fire, knowing what came next would be to try and talk Scarlett off whatever ledge John David had made her climb out on. But the place where Scarlett had stood was empty, and as the noise of John David’s truck faded in the distance, the only sounds left were the fire cracking and Hays asking if anybody had seen where his knife had gone.
    -5-
    Scarlett didn’t care where she ran so long as it was away.
    She pushed through the trees and low branches in a darkness so thick it seemed a living thing, driven by the shame of how foolish she must’ve looked—all fancied up for a man who hadn’t even seen her and who’d never be interested in her without half a jar of moonshine in his belly. She ran, beating back limbs that groped for her arms and rocks that snagged her feet, wiping her tears with one hand and clawing at her sweater and skirt with the other, wanting them off , and in all that thrashing and crying out, Scarlett never felt the diamond bracelet slip free of her wrist.
    When her lungs and legs could take no more, she collapsed upon the path, where she sobbed and wailed at the night. Despair gave way to anger, anger to rage. Scarlett began hurling what bits of the mountain she could