Ash (Mystic Mountain #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

I f someone had told her that she’d ever have a happy life, she would have laughed in their faces. The one thing she'd learned while she was growing up was that life was a drudge. Things happened and they weren't good. The best she could do was to work and work and work to keep her head above water. If she didn’t, she'd drown in the stagnant waters of everyday drudge.

What she didn't expect was a sudden ring of her apartment doorbell.

Suzannah hadn't even realized that her doorbell worked. No one... NO ONE... had ever used it.

Moving her hands over her plain t-shirt and shorts that she wore at home, she made sure that every one of her curves and rolls were covered. She had no idea who was at the door, but she didn't want to deal with anyone's pitying or judgmental looks.

Suzannah disengaged the deadbolt and opened the door with a hesitant twist of the knob.

The man standing in front of her door was dressed as if he'd stepped out of the United States Postal Service Uniform Catalogue. Pristine white pith helmet, his powder blue collar folded and pressed with sharp precision. Add to that his belted shorts, knee-high socks, black shoes and a delivery bag slung across his chest.

"Are you Misss ..." He looked down at the envelope in his hand. "Suzannah Miller?"

"Yes?" She grimaced at the sound of her own voice. She'd answered him in a question.

Suzannah knew she needed to be more confident, but here she was with her heart in her throat and starting to sweat.

He tilted his head a little, continuing to look at her avidly from the side of his vision. "So is that a yes or a no?"

"Yes." She forced the hint of a smile on her face. "What is that?"

"It's a delivery for Suzannah Miller." He fanned the envelope across his face and she felt the tail end of the breeze on her own. "And that's you."

Her gaze focused on the envelope in his hand. "Can... can I have it?"

He slowed the movement of the envelope, his smile slanting across his lips. "I don't know, can you?"

Suzannah drew into herself. The man had no idea what that phrase did to her.

She was raised by an elderly woman with a penchant for nit-picking everything Suzannah ever did. And try as she might, Suzannah had never... ever gotten anything right.

Something akin to a whimper began to well up in her throat.

It had been a long time since she'd felt this off-center. Ever since she finished high school, she'd moved out of the Janus' house and made her way in the world. Sometimes she'd done okay, but there had been a lot of stumbling around while she tried to find a direction that offered her more than a daily dose of dragging her heels.

"You're no fun." The mailman reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a pen from it. He clicked the back end and the pen nib was visible. A little messy and smudged, but visible. "It's registered mail. You'll have to sign for it."

Registered mail. That was a first, too.

Signing for the letter, she knew that the mail carrier was just as curious as she was.

“You, uh, expecting this?”

She looked down at the envelope in her hands wondering why her palms were dry.

Looking at the return address was a shock in and of itself.

James Redding, Esq.

33 Eagle Peak

Mystic Mountain, USA

“Mystic Mountain.”

She found herself speaking without a conscious thought and smiling because of it. There was something in the words that lifted her spirits.

“What does the ESQ mean?”

Suzannah looked up at the younger man and his hair curling under the brim of his pith helmet made him look like he was cosplaying the hunter from Jumanji.

“The what?”

He reached over and pointed at the return address. “E.S.Q. What does it mean?”

“Esquire.” She heard her voice speaking softly. Softer than she was used to hearing herself speak. “I think it means that he’s a lawyer.”

“Lawyer?” The mailman snorted a laugh. “Then why didn’t he just say that. Put his law firm or something in the return address. ESQ. Essssquire . It makes him sound pretentious.”

Blinking at the return address, she felt a bout of anxiety welling up inside of her.

A letter from an attorney.

One that needed to be signed for.

What kind of trouble was she in?

Drawing herself together before she could fall into a pile of frightened pieces, Suzannah flattened the envelope against her chest and turned around to head back inside her apartment.

“Hey!”

She barely registered the frustration in the mailman’s voice until she saw him take a step closer.

Suzannah reached for the door to close it, managing to get her hand on the edge just as the mailman pushed his palm against the flat the surface of the door and keep it open.

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

She blinked at him, struggling to understand his interest.

“Come on,” he pushed with his voice and his hand, widening the opening of her entryway, “aren’t you going to tell me what it says?”

Suzannah frowned at him, narrowing her eyes at the same time that he narrowed his, the dark centers of his eyes narrowing in an odd way.

“Now you’ve got me all kinds of curious,” he insisted. “Go on.” He smiled and she leaned back and away from him. “Tell me, missss .”

"I'm sure it's personal."

She tried to close the door but he held it open, but before she found herself in a panicky moment, she decided to deal with one thing first.

The door.

Dropping the envelope in desperation, she found her moment when the postman's eyes followed the envelope, and his hand slipped on the door.

It gave her the perfect opportunity to put her whole strength behind her hands and leaned her shoulder into the back of the door and pushed.

When the door sank into the door frame, she heard the first click when the metal bar snapped into place. With her heart pounding in her chest, she clicked the lock, setting it and then reached up for the sliding lock just above her eye line.

It wasn't fail proof, but hopefully it would be enough to convince the all-too-curious mailman that she wasn't interested in letting him into her business.

Suzannah leaned her back against the door and drew in several shoulder-raising breaths before she felt like she could breathe without shaking.

"Crazy." She mumbled to herself. "That was crazy, right?"

There was only silence that answered her.

"And that might be the craziest thing, right? Asking myself a question. When there's no one here but me."

Her gaze slid over to the envelope where it landed on the floor.

Licking at her lip, she hesitated to pick it up.

There could be something good in there, but there could be something... not so good in it, too.

Moving across the floor she leaned down and picked it up, turning it over and over in her hands as she thought about what might be inside it.

James Redding, esquire or not, sounded like a good man.

Suzannah turned the envelope over again and barely resisted the urge to shake it like a Christmas present under the tree.

She'd seen children do it on TV. Movies, too.

But she'd never had something to shake, or something to give her the anticipation that she'd always wanted to feel.

Here it was.

This envelope.

This... question mark with a postage stamp on it.

"Okay," she nodded. "Let's see what's inside."

She put her back to the wall and slid down until her backside hit the hard linoleum floor. She took hold of the little tab at one end of the envelope and pulled it open with a quick yank. Suzannah pulled out a packet of papers and took a deep breath before beginning to read.

Miss Miller,

I hope this letter finds you well.

I hope it finds you at all.

It seems as though you've spent most of your life on your own, but that can change now if you're willing to come to Mystic Mountain. Here, you can find a vestige of your family. Your great aunt was a partner in a bakery here and that half of the business is ready for you, if you want it.

I don't have a phone, not many of us do here in Mystic Mountain. I hope you'll come and meet with me and discover where you truly belong.

I've included some money in this envelope, please use it to come to Mystic Mountain. There is enough for flights and hiring a car to bring you here. Please come as soon as you can.

Your humble servant,

Thomas Redding, Esq.

The papers in her hands felt like they weighed a ton, nearly pulling free from her fingertips as they hung down.

A family.

He'd mentioned her family.

A family who was already gone.

If what she read between the lines was correct, her great aunt was gone.

So, what family would she find there in... in Mystic Mountain?

She'd never even heard of the place before.

Had anyone?

The envelope fell again and she heard the soft swoosh of sound as the envelope flattened to the floor and slip a few feet away, but it was the sound that followed that turned her head.

An envelope, smaller, and almost glassine in nature, was on the floor less than a foot away.

Suzannah dropped the papers, almost enjoying the whisper of sound they made as she got up onto her hands and knees.

She moved toward the smaller envelope, keeping her gaze on the strange little envelope.

When she picked it up, holding it between her fingers, she saw that there were a handful of bills inside.

Her hands shaking, Suzannah ripped open the edge of the envelope and pulled out the money that was included inside.

There were half a dozen hundred dollar bills and a printed map pointing her toward a town called Mystic Mountain.

It seemed like a dream, or rather it was a hallucination.

She wanted to believe in it.

She just wondered how far she could go before it evaporated in front of her like just another daydream.

Suzannah lifted her head and looked at the room around her. The walls had been cheery at one point. She'd painted the apartment shortly after she'd moved in to make the most of having her own place.

That had been almost ten years ago.

She let out a breath and shook her head.

What else did she have to do?

"Do you like your job, Suzy?"

S tartled, Suzannah sat upright and blinked at the world around her.

The factory.

She was back in the factory.

And that voice in her head, it wasn't truly in there, it was attached to the man leaning over her shoulder.

Mister Mattingly.

"I said," he spat the words, and she felt some of his spittle on the side of her face and on her neck, "do you like your job, Suzannah?"

Swallowing, she was acutely aware that everyone was staring at her.

It was like rubber-necking at an accident. People just had to stare. If there was gore? All the better, right?

And Suzannah knew that she was a few biting words away from becoming chum and Mister Mattingly was a shark through and through.

Suzannah knew that he was waiting for an answer, which seemed like a waste because there was only one answer that might save her job.

But did she want to save it?

She still had that envelope back at her apartment.

The envelope.

The map.

And six hundred dollars to get her there.

The whole factory went still and silent when Mister Mattingly's hand slapped down on the table beside her.

Someone across the cavernous floor gasped at the violent slap, but no one turned to look at them.

No, everyone was staring at her and waiting.

So was she.

What was she going to say?

The words were on the tip of her tongue.

"Yes, Mister Mattingly. I like my job. I'm sorry I was distracted. It won't happen again."

Just say it, she told herself. Just say the words.

She heard his voice hiss into her ear.

"We're all wait-ing, Suzy." He almost sang the words. "What's your answer?"

She swallowed, struggling to work down the knot that had formed in her throat, but it felt like it was firmly stuck in there.

Until he spoke again. "You really are worthless, aren't you?"

Something changed.

Something inside of her, because the world around her wasn't going to change.

Not if she stayed there.

Nothing was ever going to change.

Suzannah pushed her chair back, the wheels protesting loudly.

And then she was standing on her feet, feeling a good foot taller than her normal height.

When she turned toward Mister Mattingly, she saw the look of naked shock in his eyes even though his face held that cold mask of fury that it was always fixed in.

"I don't like my job, Mister Mattingly."

Her eyes widened a little, shocked that she'd said what she was really thinking.

Well, hell, what they were all thinking.

Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her chin and tamped down the urge to laugh in his face.

"I can't do this anymore." She shook her head. "I can't... this is killing me."

" Thisss ?" He hissed at her and leaned in. "Then leave."

She felt a moment of abject panic before a strange kind of calm stole over her.

Maybe , she mused, this was what an out of body experience felt like .

"Leave!"

His voice echoed off the rafters above her head and she felt the force of the sound battered the cap she wore over her hair.

Leave .

There was that voice inside her head, pushing her to move.

Pushing her in a way it had never done so before.

Pushing.

She fixed her gaze on Mister Mattingly and lifted her chin, just a hint so she could look him right in the eye. "I’ve been a good employee, sir. I’ve never been late. I’ve never called out sick. You’ve never been nice or even kind. And I finally have somewhere to go.”

“You?” Mister Mattingly laughed out loud, his belly shaking like sugar-free jello. “Where are you going to go?”

Part of her didn’t want to say it and the other part of her, well she couldn’t stop herself from blurting it out.

“I’m going to Mystic Mountain!”

For a moment, he was quiet, his head tilting an inch to the side as he stared at her. He looked like he didn’t believe her one bit.

“Mystic Mountain,” he grumbled. “I think you’re making it up.”

Suzannah lifted her chin and looked straight into his eyes.

“I don’t care what you think, Mister Mattingly. I’m going there and you… you’ll never see me again.”

He folded his arms across his belly and scoffed at her. "You're going to come crawling back, Suzy Miller."

"That's the last thing I'll ever do!"