I sit at the table. “They arrived in the fall, barely surviving the coming winter as they worked, started the mine, and slowly began building homes for the five families. But as they dug into the ground, they kept finding bodies.”
The wooden spoon in Iona’s hand slips, clattering to the counter. She looks over her shoulder at me, her brows furrowed.
“All the graves were unmarked, but there were dozens of bodies, scattered around the valley. But by this point they were too far into the development of the mine. And they were already finding coal. John decided they couldn’t move, despite the disturbing things they kept finding.”
Iona turns back to the food she is preparing, chopping something before dumping it into a pot.
“But come spring, after the first five houses were done, two more in process as others heard about the job opportunities, a tribe showed up.”
“Roselock was their burial ground,” Iona says, understanding coming into her voice.
I nod. “They’d brought the remains of their loved ones with them, intending to bury them on what was their holy ground. Instead, they found strangers who had built homes right on top of their ancestors.”
“How terrible,” Iona says as she stirs whatever is in the pot. “For everyone. John didn’t know. And the tribe must have been devastated.”
I nod. “You can imagine it didn’t end well. They fought. It was a small tribe, and even though there were only a few families in the township, they had guns. After two days, four of John’s people were dead, but every one of the tribe was, as well.”
The screams. The blood.
I close my eyes, and I can see it all. Played out over and over in my nightmares.
“All of them?” Iona breathes.
I nod, my eyes still closed. “No one had been willing to compromise. John and his people buried the tribe in a mass grave, tried to do the Christian thing. And they tried to move on, despite having killed thirty-three innocent people.”
She looks over her shoulder at the number and I know she hasn’t missed its significance.
“More and more settlers came to Roselock over the next year and the mine was producing well. More homes were built. Talk of a train being brought in was heavily discussed.”
I place my hands flat on the table, rubbing them back and forth across the rough surface, letting my eyes trace the grain of the wood. “But strange things kept happening. The children sleepwalked. Women would forget what they were doing half way through dinner and catch their skirts on fire. Tools were constantly breaking.”
Iona puts a lid on the pot and comes to sit at the table. I don’t look up at her, I just study the table, but I’m seeing an entirely different picture.
“The population rose to one hundred and twelve. They brought in a pastor and started building this very church.”
The wind picks up outside and the building moans under the pressure and age.
“Construction was completed in the spring of 1762. It was dedicated on March third, the anniversary of that bloody battle one year prior. The very same moment the bell first rang, there was an explosion in the mine.”
Iona takes in a sharp breath.
“Thirty-three men and boys were killed in the mine that day,” I say, able to list off every one of their names. “Forever trapped inside the mountain.”
“That’s awful,” she whispers. She reaches forth a hand, resting it over one of mine. “So, the land was cursed?”
I nod. “Everyone believed it after the mine incident. Most decided it was too unsafe to stay, and half of the town moved away over the next few weeks. Including the pastor.”
“But your family stayed.” She squeezes my hand, trying to be comforting.
“No,” I correct her. My chest tightens, making it harder to breathe. “They moved to Carmack with the first wave. John was ruined financially, he had no choice but to try to find a way to survive elsewhere.”
I look up to see the confusion on her face.
“But his family had only been gone for one year when John began having nightmares about that night the tribe returned to their holy ground. Intense, penetrating nightmares. It nearly drove him mad. Finally, he visited Roselock, stayed one night, and the nightmares ceased. He moved his family back the following week, right back into their old house.”
“How old was he when they moved back?” she asks, knowing what is eventually coming for poor John Whitmore.
“Thirty-one. He died two years later, collapsed, just dead, while helping a neighbor with his cows.”
“A heart attack, maybe?” she asks.
“Maybe,” I say. And maybe it’s true, but maybe this ice in my chest says it was something else. “His son, Patrick, was eight years old when he died. Patrick also tried to leave Roselock, met his wife while working in Baltimore, only to nearly go mad from the nightmares of a scene he wasn’t even alive to see.”
“What?” Iona gasps. “Patrick wasn’t even born, but he saw the same war?”
I nod. “And so did every one of the Whitmore men, on down to my grandfather Steven, who only ventured out of town for two months. By the time my father came along, he knew better than to try and leave. He lived his entire life in this decaying town, and never once left its borders.”
“And each of them died at thirty-three, three months and three days,” she states as she sits back in her chair like she’s borne too much weight just saying the words.
“Patrick got sick two days before his death date. It just progressed, and when the day came, by supper, he was dead. Steven was pushed down a well, though none of the witnesses were able to identify the woman who pushed him. She simply vanished the moment after.
“Over and over, the Whitmore men met strange, early ends,” I say. “And then my father simply sat in his bedroom the entire day, under the careful, watchful eye of my mother,” I said, remembering the weight of that day. “She was determined that my father could beat this curse, that if he could only make it to the next day that he could break it for good. So he sat in his bed, staring at the walls, waiting for the hours to count down.”
Iona suddenly yelps and pulls her hand away. I didn’t realize I’d been squeezing it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, blinking quickly, trying to pull myself out of the memory of that day. I’m unsuccessful. I shake my head. “At ten o’clock, my mother started to breathe a little easier. At eleven she brought out a bottle of champagne. But at 11:52, my father dropped his glass, reached into the bedside table, produced his handgun, and shot himself in the head.”
A small squeak slips past Iona’s lips and I look up at her once more. Tears have welled up in her eyes, fat and heavy, threatening to break free.
“And that is the legacy of the name Whitmore,” I whisper. “The town of Roselock is always strange at night. There are always voices, always moans that slither between the trees. But for a month before, and a month after the anniversary of that bloody battle, the spirits are stronger.”
The air is so, so cold. The silence is deafening, as if those dead have gathered round, leaning in, listening to their bloody tale. “The battle replays every night, for sixty days. You’ll not see the dead, never catch them with your eye. But the town, it replays the echo of that night. Over and over.”
The nighttime echoes began two days ago. Now there is less than a month until the anniversary of that battle.
“That is why you shouldn’t go outside when it’s dark,” I whisper.
Iona shakes her head, loosing a tear. She doesn’t ask more questions, though. I’m certain she’s too afraid, as she should be.
“Your food is burning,” I interrupt the maddening silence as the smell wafts into the air.
She looks relieved for the change of conversation and instantly leaps up. She turns down the heat and sets to stirring the food before it’s ruined.
“I hope you’re hungry,” she says as she pulls two bowls down from the shelf with shaking hands.
Chapter Twenty-Five
/> IONA
I draw a bath when it’s nearly eleven. The water steams, hot and fogging the windows which I’m too terrified to look outside of. Stripping off my clothes, which feel cursed themselves after everything I’ve learned today, I sink down into the water.
Tiny flecks of rust swirl in the claw foot tub, just five of them. Like everything else in this church, it’s suffering from neglect and disuse. A single candle burns on the counter, casting me in shadows.
My eyes slide closed and my muscles relax. Suddenly, I’m exhausted. I hadn’t realized how much the mystery of Roselock and Sully’s past had taken out of me.
How terrible. How unfair. The way his fate is sealed.
I’m sure he can’t wait for this day to be over.
Yet it just speeds up the countdown.
Come on, Jack said, aiming that irresistible smile at me. It’s my birthday. I’ve been dying to take you on this trip.
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging as Jack walked me home from work. “I mean, we always made Mom’s birthday a big deal. It was kind of Dad’s thing. And with this being the first one since he died, I just don’t know that I can miss it.”
“I want you to think about it,” Jack said, slipping his briefcase into the other hand before taking mine in his. “I swear, if I’d known your mom’s birthday was the day after mine, I wouldn’t have gone ahead and booked the trip.”
I look over at him, somewhat annoyed, but also entirely flattered at his grand gesture. I’d walked home from work, meeting him at his office as he was closing up, where he sprang the news on me that he’d booked us a surprise trip to Florida for his birthday.
But complications made this not as easy as he’d hoped.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, offering him a small smile. Something tugged in my chest, a war battling for my desires. The loyalty to my family, knowing I’d be needed, and knowing how very badly I wanted to travel to Florida, where I’d never been, to spend time with the man I love.
“Do what you feel is best for you inside,” Jack said with a smile as he hesitated on the corner across from my apartment. He pressed a quick kiss to my lips and we said our goodbyes.
I wipe my wet hands down my face, pressing hard, trying to block out the past. The familiar pain is seeping up through my veins, climbing its way into my heart. My breathing picks up as the panic settles into my chest.
Jack is gone.
Jack isn’t coming back.
He’s really dead.
Water splashes everywhere as I lunge forward, reaching down through the water for the plug. I rip it up, tossing it across the bathroom. My breaths rip in and out of my chest, all too quick. My head spins, the heat of the water letting my blood travel through my body all to easily.
Slowly pulling myself to my feet, I step out and grab the towel on the counter, the one Sully gave me before I came in. But looking around, I realize I forgot to bring in clean clothes.
I listen at the door for a long moment, but it’s silent. It has to be close to midnight, it seems safe to assume Sully has gone to sleep.
Cracking the door, I peer out, and when I see no signs of Sully, I creep out and down the hallway.
I rummage through my bag and begin pulling clothing out.
And nearly jump out of my skin when a small creak sounds through the space.
My head whips up, meeting Sully’s eyes as he steps from the chapel into the main hall.
“I, uh…” he struggles for words. And I don’t miss it as his eyes travel down and back up, quickly, because I do stand here in just a tiny towel. He looks away uncomfortably. “Sorry, I was trying not to wake you. I didn’t expect you to still be up.”
“It’s alright,” I say quietly, standing with my sleeping clothes clutched in one hand, the other holding my towel, trying to pull it higher up on my chest. “I was just getting ready for bed.”
He nods, turning toward his room. He takes a few steps in that direction, when he falters before turning back. “Your tattoo,” he says, his eyes darting momentarily to it. “What does it mean?”
My own eyes look down at it, where it hesitates so close to my shoulder. “Infinity times infinity,” I say, looking down at the two infinity signs intersecting. “Jack had one, too.”
Sully nods. “How long have you had it?”
I bite my lower lip, holding in the smile. “We got them in June,” I tell him. “We’d been out all night. I’ll admit, I don’t remember going to get it, I was so drunk that night.”
Sully smiles too, though it doesn’t look genuine. He nods once. “Okay. Goodnight, then.”
“Goodnight,” I breathe, raising my clothes to cover up the tattoo.
Without another word, Sully stalks down the hall toward his bedroom, his shoulders tense in that animalistic way.
Chapter Twenty-Six
SULLY
“She’s entirely fixated on this man,” I say. Steam billows from my mouth in the cold air. “Everything about it just screams…unhealthy.”
I sit on a dusty chair in a broken and dilapidated house down the road. There’s a hole in the ceiling the size of a bowling ball. An abandoned bird’s nest rests at the top of the wardrobe. Dirt and debris are blown into every corner.
In my hand, I clutch a pair of spectacles.
And in front of me stands a man with wild white hair, his clothes always disheveled, his eyes a little too bright for his own sanity.
“Love makes you do strange things,” Alfred Carakos says, slowly walking around his old home, a look of sadness in his eyes at its pitiful state. “Just look at most teenagers. Their hormones and feelings control their every thought. They let it control their entire lives.”
I shake my head. “This feels different. She’s a grown woman. Smart. Independent. She had her own life before Jack Caraway came into it. But now she’s…”
A shell is what comes to mind, but the word feels too harsh.
“You never knew the woman before this Jack died,” Alfred says as he finally stops his tour of his past life and settles onto the old, very broken rocking chair in the corner. But he isn’t a tangible being, and it doesn’t disturb the old piece of furniture. “I’d wager she only seems worse now. She suffered a great loss. She saw the man she was going to marry be murdered. Trauma can leave deep scars that can have scary aftereffects.”
I shake my head. “And what about this feeling in my bones? The one setting off warning bells? The feeling that makes my skin crawl? Do I just ignore my basic human instinct that something isn’t right?”
Alfred leans forward, fixing me with his gray eyes. “What does it matter now if there was something wrong? The man is dead.”
I lean back at those words. And relief floats up in my chest.
Jack is dead.
He can’t touch Iona. Can’t do anything to her ever again.
My eyes slide back to Alfred’s. They study me, reading down into my core, and I know he’s slipped into professional-opinion mode. “I think the question you should be asking yourself, Sully Whitmore, is why do you care so much?”
I don’t have an answer right away. My brain is turning, over and over, trying to find an answer, because the long dead crazy psychologist, who came to Roselock to live out the rest of his days studying the supernatural, is right.
I do care.
“Because pain and loneliness recognizes pain and loneliness,” I say as I stand. “It’s a basic part of human nature to bond together to remedy those things.”
I look back at Alfred when I reach the door.
He shakes his head. “But in bonding together, you know you’re only going to cause more of it in three months and two days.”
I nod, looking out at the sun dawning over the trees. “I know. I won’t let it go that far. She’ll leave either tonight or in the morning, and we will never see one another again.”
I slip the spectacles into my pocket, and the presence of Alfred evaporates.
Down the steps I go. Something cru
nches as I step off the last rickety stair and I look down to see the crushed skull of a crow beneath my boot, and it’s skeleton extending beyond it, tiny feet sticking straight up in the air.
The day is surprisingly warm as I slowly walk back in the direction of the church. With the sun rising, the temperature is rapidly warming. An unexpected, pleasant surprise on this early February morning.
Carefully, I step over the trail of pennies that cuts across the road, placed there the year after I was born by a child afflicted with madness, a product of this cursed town.
When I come into view of the church, I see Iona standing on the sagging porch, just watching me.
Her hair is twisted up in a bun atop her head. Those dark eyes watch me with all the emptiness of a deep grave. Her shoulders are tensed up to her ears, holding all of the sadness and regret bottled inside so she looks like a human being on the outside.
I nod my head for her, and a moment later, she steps off the porch at my invitation and works her way down the drive toward me.
“What time is it safe to leave the church?” she asks as we head south.
“Ten minutes before dawn, things settle down,” I answer her. “So the time changes with the year.”
She’s quiet. I look over and her face is pale. She swallows, and I can see the tightness of her throat.
“What is it?”
She doesn’t respond immediately. She pushes her hands further down in her coat, staring at the road ahead. “You weren’t there when I woke up. After last night…” She pauses, steam blowing out from her lips. “I was scared.”
I don’t know if she realizes she does it, but she takes a step closer to me, walking side by side. I can feel her body heat through our coats.
“You’re a smart woman, then,” I say, ignoring the tug in my chest that I can’t quite explain. “Roselock is dangerous. Those who don’t have to be here shouldn’t stay.”
Iona nods her head, but I can tell from the distant look in her eyes that my words didn’t connect.