Levi climbed and assumed an impressive side plank position in the air before landing next to me with a thud. As we hiked up a gradual incline behind the others, the thick grasses tickled my exposed calves, shooting shivers up my spine. I found myself wishing that we could fast-forward to eating buttery waffles at the twenty-four-hour diner.
The immense pines stood in a crescent-moon formation around the cabin. Knit closely together, they filtered the celestial light and lent a bewildering beauty to the clearing they guarded—the place that Lillian Pickard had called the “sacred glade.” A stray wind shuddered through the boughs, stirring up the musty-sweet scent of wisteria and pine needles and making my damp bathing suit feel cold and slimy beneath my clothes.
Even though we’d already climbed the fence, it was here—in the clearing—where I sensed that we were truly crossing a barrier. One that shouldn’t be crossed, I couldn’t help thinking.
Juliana, Grayson, Abbie, Faith, and Bryce forged heedlessly ahead. Maybe they were just being plucky. Or maybe they were unreceptive to the menacing energy of this place.
Everything in me wanted to turn back. And if Levi hadn’t been there, restraining his long-legged pace to keep even with me, I might have.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, brushing my hand with his, probably by accident.
I shook my head.
“Do you want to go back to the truck?”
“No,” I answered.
“You can’t think of any reason we shouldn’t be here?” he asked, oddly probing.
I stopped and looked up at him, frowning, but could only see a glint of his eyes in the dark. Shoving away thoughts of Grandma Kerry’s mental break and the gift I’d received from Miss Maggie, I said, “Other than the obvious? No. Can you?”
“No,” he said, his tone layered and indecipherable.
As we drew close, Bryce shined the flashlight on the crooked front porch. I felt the tingling of unease crawl up the back of my neck. And that awful, rotten smell coming in waves—what could it possibly be?
Death, my imagination supplied.
Invasive vines and debris cloaked the steeply sloping roof. The rundown cabin looked and felt so eerie that I almost expected to see a figure leering at us through the window.
Grayson took long strides so he could be the first to conquer the creaky porch steps. But he hesitated when he reached the front door, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Only after the light from Juliana’s phone camera dwelled on his face for a few seconds did he locate the courage to shove it open.
He screamed.
Most of the group scampered backward, tripping over one another. I yelped but couldn’t move, engulfed by fear. Levi alone remained perfectly calm, at least enough to shield me, his rock-solid forearm like a wall in front of me.
“I got y’all so bad!” Grayson cackled.
Abbie screeched his name and added a few choice words. Faith stomped onto the porch and smacked the back of his messy blond head.
Dropping his arm, Levi looked sideways at me, as though wondering whether I’d noticed the protective gesture.
Bryce raked a rough hand through his tousled brown curls, straightened his glasses, and picked up the flashlight he’d dropped in the scuffle. “You scared the shit out of me, man,” he said. Grayson gave a self-satisfied grin and led the way into the one-room dwelling.
Soft purple-gray puffs of wisteria and snarls of vines draped over the entrance. A lock of my hair got snagged as I ducked to pass through. I trapped a squeal at the back of my throat as I freed myself.
Once inside, I blinked until my eyes adjusted to the musty-smelling darkness. For all my interest in our town’s history, I had never visited the cabin, content to study the black-and-white photographs in Lillian’s book.
Now that I had come, it felt inevitable. Like it had always been waiting for me.
I was spellbound by the place that had lived in my imagination for so long. Maybe, in a corner of my mind more remote than this cabin, I had sheltered a child-like belief in the wondrous, dark, dangerous magic of Malachi Rivers.
Dust motes churned with each of our tentative footfalls. The only natural light was a ghostly moonbeam falling through the obscured window, reaching across the weatherworn wooden boards. No furnishings remained besides rickety chairs, shelves holding growlers and pots, and a tarnished mirror that warped our reflections.
At the center of the room, a deep ring had been carved into the wooden planks.
“This is where Malachi and her friends did their magic,” I whispered. “Inside the circle.”
“So creepy,” Juliana said, brushing away dirt and dust from the carving with her sandal.
“It’s colder inside the circle!” Faith gasped. Arm extended, she wiggled her fingers.
The others tested her claim, but no one stepped across the line, preferring to edge around it. I inserted my hand and felt a chill, like slipping off a warm wool glove on a crisp day.
“Probably just a draft.” Grayson shrugged.
“From where?” Faith asked. “It’s warm outside.”
They bickered, but my mind muted their voices. Mesmerized, I crossed to the center of the circle. The sensation reminded me of submerging my head at the lake, listening to the world go silent, and letting the gentle current carry me where it willed. I felt peaceful.
But that didn’t last long.
There was an unmistakable brush of phantom fingers traveling down my cheek, almost affectionately.
With a shriek, I leaped backward out of the circle, upending one of the chairs. A chorus of questions began, but all I could manage was, “Something touched me!”
“It’s okay,” Bryce said softly, showing me his palm as though trying to calm a wild horse. “It was probably a spider or a cobweb or something.”
“No, I felt fingers.” My breaths rasped as I traced the lingering sensation that tickled the curve of my jaw.
So far, Juliana had respected my request for privacy, but not anymore. This freak-out was being live streamed. As I considered the hundreds, maybe thousands of people watching, my cheeks flamed.
“Do you think there might be something here with us?” Juliana asked. “What if it’s Malachi?”
“Trying to communicate with her descendant from beyond the grave?” Grayson mocked.
“Wait, what?” Juliana turned to me with a flash of hunger in her eyes. “Are you related to Malachi?”
“Okay, I think we’re done here,” Levi said from across the circle.
“Seriously?” Juliana scoffed. “I’m just trying to—”
“She didn’t even want to be in it, Juliana,” Faith reminded her.
Irritably, Juliana relented and gave a sugarcoated sign-off to her followers.
“We should replay the video,” Bryce suggested. “Maybe we’ll see something.”
The comforting sensation that only a moment ago had settled over my skin like a balm had turned sinister, pricking every hair on my body. “I’m going back to the truck,” I said.
“I’ll go with you,” Levi started to say. But he was nearest to Abbie when her foot broke through a rotted board, and she clung to him as she sank calf-deep through the floor. He twisted around to extricate her, but she was laughing too hard to be of much help.
I left, trampling down the sagging porch steps and forging alone into the wooded shadows. My breath caught in my throat, and I was reminded of coughing up dirt in my dream. That last one had felt so real, realer than ever. Was I losing my mind, imagining things? Things like magically appearing journal entries and otherworldly contact?