Inner Demons

10. What Did I Really Know About Jackson Hunt?

I laid my new black dress across the bed and felt a chill. My window was open and the air outside was getting colder as the sun started to go down. It was that strange time of year in Georgia when the days were still nice and warm, but the nights were freezing. I rubbed my arms to warm them, and walked over to the window to shut it.

Voices in the garden caught my attention. It was getting darker outside, but there was still enough light to make out the two figures half-hidden in the tall weeds. Mary Anne and Jackson. They were talking. I saw Jackson hold something out to her. She hesitated, looked around, then took a small vial from him and shoved it in her pocket.

I stared down, confused. What exactly had I just witnessed? Some kind of drug deal?

"Come on, Jackson, give me what I want."

Tori's voice came back to me. I'd seen them down in the garden together the first night I moved to Shadowford, and Tori had wanted something from him that he wouldn't give her. It was another one of those memories that seemed to come out of nowhere. That had been happening to me a lot, lately. As if my own memory was a puzzle slowly putting itself back together over time.

I thought about the way that girl Morgyn had touched the scar on my palm that afternoon. She had said something about me not remembering things. How did she know about that scar? Ella Mae told me I got it when I passed out from the fever, but sometimes I wondered.

I looked down at Jackson and Mary Anne in the garden. They were still talking, huddled close together like they shared some great secret.

What had he handed her in that vial? He didn't seem like the drug dealer type. It didn't really seem to match the softness in his eyes, but what did I really know about Jackson Hunt? I looked down at my scarred palm. Maybe I knew more than I could remember.