Page 119 of The Executioners Three
“Yeah.” It was all Freddie could think to say. He was hugging her and it was kind of the best feeling ever. She’d visited him every single day in the hospital, but this was their firstrealconversation without nurses or doctors or family nearby.
And it was definitely their first embrace.
Which made Freddie’s heart do unexpected thumpy things inside her rib cage—a drumbeat he could probably hear with his head pressed against her like it was.
It also made her throat ache. Like she wanted to cry—for him, for herself, for Mrs. Ferris and for Dad—but she’d already drained her entire Emotional Quota for the year and there were no tears left to shed.
So she hugged Theo back, and together, they enjoyed a shining sun while the wind held back its fangs.
Autumn had swung back to its expected frost by the time Freddie met with Harris and Li to say goodbye. The partners sat on a bench at Fortin Park downtown, where the maple trees had lost the last of theirleaves in the night. A crunchy covering that brightened an otherwise gray morning.
They both wore sunglasses and nondescript black coats, and it was just a littletooobvious that they were Out-of-Towners Up to Something.
Freddie had to bite back the urge to sing,Here come the Men in Black! They won’t let you remember!
To be fair, it was actually a stunningly accurate song lyric. Except it wasn’t so much that the Department of Unexplained Phenomena wouldn’t let anyone in Berm remember, so much as—just as Li had told Freddie a week ago—people seemedreally goodat not noticing what their brains couldn’t explain.
Which meant, as far as Freddie could tell, she was the only person in all of Berm other than Theo who actually knew what had happened last Wednesday night. Laina, Bowman, the Prank Squad—they were still firmly locked on theIt Can All Be Rationalizedtrain.
It was most certainly for the best, since it was way easier for them than being on Freddie’sThe X-Files Are Realtrain. Because the thing about learning that nature was actually way more deranged than she’d ever imagined meant she had an endless supply of questions brewing in her brain.
It was honestly overwhelming for an Answer Finder such as herself.
Although, it was also quiteexhilarating.
“You’re really quite unusual,” Harris had told Freddie during their first debriefing last Wednesday morning. “Few people can keep it all in their heads, so it’s helpful when we find someone able to fill in so many gaps.”
Sure enough, with Freddie’s assistance, Harris and Li had been able to paint a detailed picture of the Executioners and the original José Allard Fortin curse. Of the bell that had controlled their spirits and the Original Fabre who’d made that bell.
In turn, the agents had painted a clearer picture for Freddie. They told her no one had even known there was a curse, much less that the spirits could be reawakened. Not until Edgar Fabre Sr. had found the old diary—that was the first time anyone had even conceived of such a possibility. And while Edgar hadn’t been foolish enough to try to summon the spirits by killing someone in the manner the poem had described, his son had clearly had no such qualms.
Throughout all of their debriefing sessions, Freddie had tried to also uncover as much as she could about Harris, Li, and the Department ofUnexplained Phenomena. Unfortunately, all she’d come away with so far was that they called it the DUP for short (pronounceddupp) and most questions were countered withWe aren’t at liberty to answer that.
Including the one Freddie asked right now as she rolled her bike to a stop before their bench. “What about extraterrestrial ice parasites?” Freddie toed down her kickstand. “Those were in season one ofThe X-Files,and they sent the host into a murderous rage. Seems plausible to me.”
“We’re not at liberty to answer that,” Harris said right on cue. Of the two agents, she was the More Chill One, and right now, she was pulling a tin of Altoids from her pocket. She offered one to Freddie, who took it happily.
She offered one to Li, who did not. And to be fair, he had a Diet Coke in his hand—because he always had a Diet Coke in his hand. Freddie had learned over the last week that these were their respective schticks: Harris chomped Altoids, while Li pounded Diet Coke. And it had prompted Freddie to do some serious soul searching for her own schtick. Having Xena around her neck wasn’t enough. Carrying Tic Tacs or gum felt too similar to Harris. A thermos of coffee wasn’t interesting, and she had no desire to take up something gross like smoking.
But that was fine. She also had plenty of months before she needed to find her schtick and blend in with the other DUP agents…
Li stood now, more than doubling his height. “Don’t forget to, uh…”Yawn.“Call us if you need any help dealing with all of this stuff. Your historical village should be fully scraped—”
Scraped,Freddie had learned, was what they calledcleaning up all the supernatural evidence and restoring a site to its original state.
“—and things seem to be back to normal in your town. But you’ll be a better judge of that than us. So if anything comes up, you know how to reach us.”
Indeed, Freddie did. But she also agreed with Li that everything in Berm had pretty much gone back to normal. Even the official story of a “murderer loose in the forest” had already faded into the background. People were more invested in the Fête du Bûcheron that was five days away—and in ensuring no funny business unfolded during the jack-o’-lantern contest—than they were in the drama of last week.
Seriously: Harris and Li literally did notneeda Men-in-Black mind-eraser thingie. People just did it naturally.
“Any final questions before we leave town?” Harris asked. She also stood now, crunching into her Altoid.
“Yes!” Freddie leaped at this opening. “I have two questions, actually. First, are vampires real? In season two ofThe X-Files,they are and they steal blood from blood banks. I feel like, if this were accurate, we’d hear more often about blood bank theft. But then…” Freddie bounced her shoulders. “I’ve also seen firsthand how you guysscrapeafter a crime scene. So, are they real or not?”
Harris cleared her throat, noticeably not answering the question, while Li opened his Diet Coke in apfffftof released carbonation.
“We’re not at liberty to answer that,” he said eventually.
