At twilight, when the moon emerged like a scoop of vanilla ice cream, we loaded up the supplies. I climbed into my truck, where the leather seats were still warm from the sunlight that had snuck so softly away.
Lindsey, Faith, and I waited in the idling vehicle while Abbie and Juliana rested their elbows on Levi’s open windows, talking and laughing. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but I sensed they were volunteering us to participate in criminal trespass.
Abbie and Juliana finally pranced back to us after Levi had driven away with Grayson in tow, followed by Vanessa and Bryce in the Jeep. “We’re meeting them at Sawmill and riding together to the cabin,” Abbie said as she hop-stepped onto the bench seat.
“No, we’re not,” Lindsey said, her tone intense.
“Juliana has to,” Abbie said. “Her followers are expecting it.”
“All the more reason not to,” I pointed out. “What if it goes viral? We’ll get caught.”
“You don’t have to show your face if you don’t want to,” Juliana said.
“Or you could just drop us off at our car, Nat,” Faith said, surprisingly game for this adventure.
“No,” Lindsey said, glaring out the window. “If you’re going regardless, you might as well have more people with you.”
I was pretty sure Lindsey meant for the sake of safety, but Abbie clapped her hands. “Yay! It’s more fun with a group.”
“But I’m only going if you promise not to climb the fence,” Lindsey said. “We are just going to look at the cabin. No trespassing.”
“Natalie’s dad is best friends with the sheriff,” Faith said. “It’s not like we’ll get in real trouble.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate his willingness to teach us a lesson,” I muttered.
“Fine, no trespassing,” Abbie agreed. “Just drive or they’ll be waiting on us.”
Grudgingly, I followed Levi’s taillights down the road. The dark woods were a vast expanse of mystery outside the blinding brights that charged before us.
About fifteen minutes later, we turned into the dusty Sawmill parking lot, empty and lit by a single streetlight. We parked next to Bryce’s Jeep and climbed into the bed of Levi’s truck.
The wind slithered along my neck as we cruised down dark and lonesome back roads. The farther we ventured, the more dilapidated the sparse houses became, leaning into the earth, the paint stripped from their weatherworn surfaces.
Finally, we turned onto the dirt road that would stop dead within sight of the cabin in the clearing. The loud whirring of insects and the droning of frogs died down. Even the wind seemed stiller. That god-awful stench pervaded the air.
Levi slowed to a stop in front of the towering chain-link fence with the sign COUNTY PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING. Just outside the reach of his headlights, cloaked in wild wisteria and tucked among towering hardwood trees, the shadow of the abandoned log cabin awaited us.
I found myself wishing one of Jason’s deputies would drive up and tell us pesky kids to go home.
EXCERPT:
PAGANS OF THE PINES: THE UNTOLD STORY OF MALACHI RIVERS
Lillian Pickard, 1968
After Ruth Rivers lost her first child, her son, in the storm, she felt a disturbance in the pregnancy of her second. The child went still in her womb.
According to Ruth’s own telling, rather than seek out a midwife to deliver what she knew would be a stillborn baby, she fled to the woods. Superstitions about a sacred power in the glade had endured for generations. Something older than humankind resided there. It had moved beneath the earth and whispered through the boughs long before San Solano had a name in any language. The place had seduced many a searching soul.
A logging family had built a cabin homestead on the hallowed spot but abandoned it only five months later. Most people found the wild glade and its mysterious force unsettling.
Ruth turned to this arcane power as a last resort. Her husband, the reverend, would have accused her of faithlessness for beseeching an entity other than their Christian God for help. But God had allowed her son to die, and she no longer trusted him to revive the child she carried.
Before setting foot in the glade, Ruth removed her shoes and clothing and released her golden hair. She sank to her knees and dug her hands into the earth. She wept and wept under a summer moon, crying out to the untamed power there.
And the power answered.
The trees rustled in a phantom wind. The earth moved beneath her fingers, warm and alive. She heard a tortured caw and turned to find a bird with a broken wing ambling near.
She understood the message: a life for a life. She reached for the bird and wrung its neck.
The child quickened again.
At the time, Ruth was too desperate to know or care that deep magic stakes a claim. One day she would realize and would feel ashamed of the bargain she had made in the sacred glade where the vacant cabin sat like a watchman. She would not speak of the shame until she was an old woman, mere hours from the grave.
But that unspoken shame drove her daughter back to the dark power that had left its mark, that had made her what she was.
EIGHT
Natalie Colter
Levi slammed his door and flicked on a flashlight. Abbie stumbled out of the truck bed, tipsy, and she and Juliana laughed.
Lindsey slung her alert gaze through the shadows of the surrounding pines. In the mellow moonlight, her long-lashed brown eyes swam with terror.
“You okay?” I asked her.
“Yeah, fine,” she answered, landing softly on the dirt.
Vanessa and Bryce hopped out of the cab and fell into step with us, their arms around each other. Our crunching footsteps were too loud in the quiet.
“You can’t see anything from here,” Juliana said, balancing on her tiptoes for a better view.
A metallic rattle made me realize Abbie was mounting the fence. “Grayson, give me a boost!”
Quicker than a snake strike, Lindsey caught Abbie’s wrist and hissed, “You promised.”
“Ouch!” Abbie twisted away from her. “You’re being a buzzkill.”
“If you go in there—”
“It’s okay,” Vanessa interrupted Lindsey in a low voice. She clutched her elbow and guided her away. “We can wait in the truck and keep a lookout.”
“Do whatever you want.” Abbie clumsily planted her flip-flop on Grayson’s laced fingers.
“Here, take the keys,” Levi said, and tossed them to Vanessa.
“Should I stay with you, Ness?” Bryce asked.
Vanessa waved him off. “We’re fine. I’ll call you if we see someone coming.”
Grayson helped Abbie and Juliana to the other side, and Faith, who was wearing sneakers, scaled the fence without assistance.
“Need a boost?” Levi asked, shining his flashlight in my direction. His freckle-dusted skin took on a silvery cast in the moonlight.
“Um…” I curled my fingers through the chain links and lodged the toe of my sandal in an opening, but it was too small to find purchase. “Yeah, sure.”
Levi gave the flashlight to Bryce and presented a hand for me to step in. I obliged. He wrapped the other just above my ankle, his fingers warm and steady as he launched me upward with ease. I pushed myself the rest of the way and dropped down on the other side, staggering.