Read Some Kind of Magic for Free Online

program had moved on to something new.
    She had to get to a phone. She had to get to the police.
    ~0~
    Claire was used to cold weather. And snow. And walking long distances. That was good, because the nearest neighbor was three miles across country, almost four if she stuck to the road. The Herman family. They were a spooky bunch, a father and three sons, none of whom practiced good dental hygiene. Claire had run into them a few times, enough to know that they were suspicious and scared of the strange woman who lived alone.
    That would be her.
    Claire dressed in several layers of clothing, filled her backpack, then headed in the direction of the Herman homestead, sticking to the road because of the snow.
    She’d gone about a mile and a half when she spotted something near the side of the road. About fifty yards in front of her and to the right was a vehicle resting flush against a pine tree. And that snow-covered vehicle looked suspiciously like her Jeep.
    Claire waded through the deep snow, sinking to her thighs when she hit the ditch that ran along the road.
    With mittened hands, she dug the snow away from the Jeep until she was able to open the door. The cab was a dark cocoon. An empty cocoon except for Dylan's jacket. Correction— Trevor’s jacket. She circled the Jeep. The snow had already partially covered her tracks. Dylan's—Trevor’s— were long gone.
    She made another circle, this one bigger than the last.
    She almost stepped on him.
    Like her grandmother would have said, If he'd been a snake he would have bit her.
    Trevor was lying on his back, his eyes closed, head bare.
    She peeled off one of her mittens and felt his face.
    Ice cold.
    She placed two fingers against his neck, the way she'd been taught in CPR class.
    He groaned. Slowly, he opened his eyes.
    He didn’t look good. Not good at all.
    She found herself staring at his head, at the fresh cut on his forehead, an inch above the old one.
    The voodoo doll.
    No.
    It couldn’t have been. She didn’t believe in such nonsense. If she did, she would never have done it. The pin-jabbing had merely been an outlet for her anger and frustration. She’d never meant to hurt him.
    She visualized the doll, lying on the kitchen table where she’d left it, the black pin sticking in its little head.
    She had to get back and remove the pin.
    Trevor stared up at her with glassy eyes. His mouth moved as he struggled to form words, struggled to speak.
    She leaned closer, straining to hear.
    “Is this ... hell?”
    A simple question. A direct question.
    “No, ” she told him. “It's Idaho.”
    He made a sound deep in his throat, something she thought may have been a laugh.
    “I wanted to see snow," he said, snowflakes melting into the darkness of his eyes. She placed a mittened hand against his forehead, to shield his face.
    “Nobody ever told me it’d be a fucking Siberia.”
    He’d already mentioned his touchingly quaint affinity for the area.
    “Hey, I know you,” he said, his eyes clearing slightly. “You're Max.”
    “Max?”
    “Maxfield, but I’ll call you Max. I prefer one syllable names, don't you?”
    “Like Trevor?”
    That didn't seem to sink in. His eyes were getting that vacant look again.
    “We need to get you someplace warm,” she said. “The Jeep is only a few feet away.”
    “It’s shot.”
    “We might be able to get the heater going even if it can't he driven.”
    He rolled his head in denial. “Radiator's busted.”
    “Then you'll have to walk.”
    Unfortunately her house was the nearest shelter by over a mile.
    “Can’t walk.”
    “You have to.”
    He reached up, placing frozen fingers her cheek. “I feel like shit,” he explained.
    “It's not that far.”
    “My head hurts. I have a headache.” To further emphasize its severity, he added, "A shit big headache.”
    He took his hand from her cheek, kind of waved it in the air until he found his own forehead. “Here. I hurt here.”
    Had she done this to him?
    He frowned,