Chapter One
IONA
You’ll love me for forever? His voice echoes through my brain as my fingers tighten around the steering wheel. Are you sure?
I’m sure, I vowed with a smile.
Promise? He said as he traced his fingers along my cheekbone before tucking a lock of hair behind my ear.
Promise.
I rest my elbow on the door of the car beside the window and run two fingers over my lips. One conversation after another rushes into my mind, making it difficult to focus on the road passing beneath my tires.
The day is dim, another chilly day, the first of February. Clouds hide the sun, casting the world in an icy gray hue. I turn the dial for the heater up a touch more, chasing away the cold.
I left the nearest city behind twenty minutes ago, and an old map navigates me far away from the rising buildings, gas stations, and all sense of familiarity. I left home nearly two hours ago, with another twenty minutes until I reach the destination that is more of a rumor than a reality; a place without even a name to the modern world.
The Appalachian Mountains loom ever closer as I cut across the landscape of West Virginia, my home state from day one, with its familiar rolling hills, dotted with endless oak, maple, and beech trees. I race toward the base of the mountains, cutting across an old highway that would certainly be considered the road less traveled.
A speed limit sign is the only indicator that I am arriving anywhere at all. A decrease from fifty-five to thirty-five. My eyes drift down to the map again and there’s a note written on it to take a left in a quarter of a mile. With not another car in sight, I take the left when it arrives. The highway continues onward, just minutes from climbing the mountains, but I turn onto what looks to be an abandoned road, taking the bumps and potholes carefully in my Chevy Corvair.
Old growth trees loom over the road, blocking out most of the light. The farther I get down the road, the rougher it gets. My heart races faster the deeper from the highway I get. Considering I couldn’t find the town on the map, I had to go by word-of-mouth directions.
I’m not certain I’m in the right place.
Until, finally, there’s a break in the trees, letting in a rare ray of gray sun, and there’s a sign.
Roselock.
Established 1762.
It’s a sad sight. The wood rotten, sloping greatly to the right. Rust from the nails trails down the chipped white paint.
I roll past it.
Leaves dot the ground, stuck to the earth in wet, soggy messes. The trees only bear the last few survivors who braved the winter.
A house looms to the left. It’s obviously old, with a stone exterior, a collapsed roof. No one has lived there in a century, I’d venture to guess. Another house suddenly appears on the right, not in any better shape.
Another dozen homes line the road before I hit a roundabout. Standing at the center of it are two trees, both of them dead. A crossroad branches off from the intersection, breaking to the west. Looking down that road, I see a few more homes, in various stages of disrepair, every one of them abandoned.
What are you doing here? My heart pounds. You’re crazy. You’re crazy.
But I can’t stop. I won’t turn around.
I continue straight and as I crest the hill, climbing in elevation to the base of the mountain, a steeple comes into view. Quickly I’m granted further view of the old church.
A cross sits atop a small steeple. An old red metal roof spans the entire building. A big broad porch sits off the very front of the building.
It’s large, bigger than I think would have been necessary for this tiny failed township. From the main area jut two wings; one to the east, one to the west.
Climbing up all the sides of the building, there are vines stretching, long and massive, and despite the cold weather, despite the time of year, brilliant blood-red roses bloom all along the vines. Huge blooms, smaller buds, oblivious to the season.
A gravel parking lot sits beside the church, devoid of a single car. I pull into it and shift my Corvair into park.
I’ve anticipated arriving here in Roselock for two weeks now, made the necessary arrangements to get work off. But the reality of arriving leaves me questioning my sanity.
You love me, right? the voice from the past echoes.
It’s all I need to toss logic aside and step out of my car.
I pull my jacket tighter around my shoulders, the moist air instantly clinging to my skin. My boots splash into a small puddle I didn’t see to the side of my car.
Looking around, there’s a graveyard behind the church, circling around to the sides, surrounded by a broken-down fence that can hardly hold that title any longer. Grave markers rise out of the ground here and there, each of them looking just as old as the homes that occupy the town. But there looks to be far too many graves for how few homes there are.
I look forward again, only a dim gleam catches my attention from the damp ground.
A line of pennies cuts right across my path. It stretches to my right, heading into the graveyard, and to my left, toward a house, cutting behind it.
My brows furrowed, I step over it, careful not to disturb the strange sight.
The smell of smoke brings my attention back to the church, and I look up to find a small trail of it coming from the chimney. The first sign of life I’ve yet seen in this place.
I stand in front of the decaying porch for a moment, taking a deep breath.
I don’t want to be here. I feel crazy coming here. But I can’t keep living like this.
I need closure.
One last, great pull of air, and I take the first step up the stairs. Carefully testing my weight on each one, I make it to the porch and to the front doors.
I knock.
Chapter Two
Sully
“It’s pointless repairing the roof when no one will occupy the church in just over three months,” I mutter as I replace the bucket, not really caring that I slosh water onto the floor in doing so. I slide in the empty one, looking up at the slow but steady drip that falls into the Sunday School room.
“This is a house of God,” my father says. “You’ll not upkeep the House of the Lord?”
“He’s obviously forsaken me. Why spend my last days being his caretaker?” I walk out into the hall, opening the door to the back deck and toss out the water from the rain last night into the overgrown roses.
“You’ve abandoned this family’s duties before, Sully, don’t give up now. Not on the final stretch.” His tone is pleading, but resolved.
“It’s been a lovely chat, father,” I say, grinding my teeth as I head back to the east wing, my booted feet clomping over the uneven floorboards. As I push the bedroom door open, my fingers fist around the pendant around my neck. I rip it over my head and forcefully shove it into one of the dozens of tiny drawers that line one wall of my room.
Three days. Then two, then one. And then the real countdown begins.
“It’s pointless,” I mutter to myself again. The sound of dripping echoes from the far end of my room, as if screaming out loud just how much decay has overrun the church.
Decay and ruin.
The embodiment of everything here in Roselock.
Angrily, I grab the pruning sheers from the desk under the window, too forcefully. The open blade catches the fleshy part of my thumb, cutting it open.