Chapter 6
“My legs are killing me.” I groaned and stretched them out beneath the table. “I really thought I was fitter than this.”
Jasmine smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners. “You’ll get used to it,” she said. “But yeah… for the first week, you’ll be discovering muscles you didn’t even know you had, because they’ll all be on fire.”
“Thank god I was stuck doing indoor stuff all day,” Tamsin cut in, looking down at her plate as she sliced up a baked potato. “But tomorrow I’m on rock climbing and rappelling.”
Jesse’s gaze slid back to me. “Aside from the sore legs, how was the Wander for you?” he asked.
“It was good. It’s beautiful out here, and the kids were mostly well-behaved.” I paused for a beat, nose wrinkling. “But I would’ve liked it more if Jensen wasn’t there. He really is a total ass.”
“What about Zach and Rhys?” Jasmine asked. “How were they?”
“Honestly, they were fine. Zach seems pretty easygoing.”
Wren snorted. “Oh yeah, he seems fine at first. But just wait until he’s drunk off his ass at a bonfire and starts talking about how he believes that poor people are only poor because they have low IQs.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, there’s a reason we hate the Legacies,” Jasmine said. “We’re not just petty and jealous, which they love to imply.”
Tamsin snorted. “Speaking of Legacies… your not-so-secret admirer has returned, Alissa.”
“Hm?”
“Don’t look now, but Rhys is staring at you. Again.”
Even though she’d told me not to look, I reflexively whipped my head to the right to peer over at a nearby table where Rhys was seated with five of his buddies. He was indeed staring right at me.
He didn’t look away instantly, embarrassed to be caught. Instead, his lips curved upward in that infuriatingly knowing smirk that he seemed to reserve for me. Then, after a few more slow, deliberate seconds, his gaze finally slid across to Jensen.
I returned my attention to my own table. “Sorry for the sudden subject change, but all four of you are from Millhaven, right?”
“Yup. Born and raised,” Jasmine replied. “How come?”
“I was wondering if you know much about Edmund Strake.”
Tamsin groaned. “Oh god, are they still trotting out that story for the newbies?”
“Isn’t it true?” I asked, brows puckering.
“It is. But it was like, a hundred years ago,” Jasmine said. “Almost, anyway. I’ve never understood why anyone finds it interesting.”
“Same,” Tamsin said. “Maybe it’s just because I grew up hearing about it. So it seems kinda blah.”
“I think it’s pretty interesting,” Wren said. “It’s got that whole Blair Witch vibe to it. If the Blair Witch was a dude with Gilded Age wealth.”
Tamsin rolled her eyes. “Strake was just a rich, self-aggrandizing asshole who started a weird cult, and honestly, I think the world would be better off if we all stopped paying attention to pricks like that.”
“My great-great uncle was one of his victims,” Jesse said casually.
Wren’s mouth dropped open as the rest of us turned to stare at him. “What?” she said. “How have we never heard this before?”
He grinned. “I only found out a couple of months ago when my grandpa got drunk at a family fry-up. He started talking about it, and it turns out he has a bunch of old photos and letters from back in the day. Stuff his parents kept.”
Jasmine lifted a palm. “Okay, scratch what I said about the Strake case not being interesting. It’s very interesting now.”
“Tell us everything,” Wren added, nodding fervently.
Jesse leaned forward. “So, it was my grandpa’s uncle on his mom’s side.
James. Apparently he was always the black sheep in the family.
He’d disappear sometimes for weeks or months at a time.
Then he got involved with Strake when he moved to the area,” he said.
“Grandpa told me he got really weird after that. He didn’t actually see any of it, because he wasn’t born until after all the shit went down, but his parents told him all about it. ”
“Weird how?” Tamsin asked, arching a brow.
“Like… he started leaving raw meat and bones outside overnight in specific patterns. And he'd go into the woods for hours and come back with his hands covered in dirt or blood. He'd never say where he'd been or what he'd been doing.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s really weird.”
“After the last time they saw him, they didn’t hear from him again,” Jesse went on.
“They didn’t think anything of it at first, because like I said, he had a habit of disappearing every so often.
But then the Lodge was raided after a tip-off to the police, and they found his body along with all the others. ”
“What exactly happened to them?” I asked, brows rising. “I heard the cops never released that information to the public.”
He nodded. “That’s right, they didn’t. And honestly, I have no idea what happened to the other six victims. Only James,” he said. He paused to lower his voice. “He was found nailed to a tree with stuff carved into his skin. Symbols from that book Strake wrote.”
“Oh my god.” Wren’s face scrunched up. “That’s horrible.”
“Grandpa said one of the cops claimed it was a spell that Strake used to give himself the power to turn invisible. That’s supposedly how he escaped.
He waited for the cops to open his cell once they realized he wasn’t in it anymore, and then he walked right past them through the open door, because none of them could see him. ”
Tamsin snorted. “What a crock of shit.”
“Yeah, I think we all know what really happened,” Jasmine said, rolling her eyes. “One of the cops was incompetent and didn’t lock the cell properly.”
“Yeah, no shit. But it’s a good story, right?” Jesse said. “I mean… apart from the bit where one of my relatives was murdered.”
“Ooh, so maybe you’re the Woodsman,” Wren said, making spooky gestures at him with her fingers. “You roam the woods every night, looking for any descendants of Strake so you can finally have your revenge.”
Jesse lifted his palms in mock surrender. “Damn, you got me.”
“Did he have any descendants?” I asked, cocking my head. “Strake, that is.”
“Not that anyone’s aware of,” Jasmine replied. “But no one knows where he went or what he got up to after he escaped custody, so who knows?”
“Now there’s a creepy thought,” Wren said with a theatrical shiver. “He could’ve had a whole bunch of kids somewhere and kept the cult going through them.”
Jasmine shrugged. “I doubt it. Raising kids while you’re on the run would be way too hard.”
“Hey, you never know,” Wren said, lifting a brow.
I leaned forward again. “Do you know where the Lodge was?” I asked.
“Where the staff offices are now,” Jesse replied. “But it was totally demolished back in the day. All that’s left is old photos.”
“Which you have, apparently,” Wren said, playfully elbowing him. “I still can’t believe you didn’t tell us about this before!”
“Honestly, I forgot all about it until Alissa mentioned it.”
“Um, how?”
“Let’s just say my grandpa wasn’t the only one who drank too much that night,” Jesse replied, grinning. “I was—”
His sentence was cut off by Sutton’s arrival at our table. “Sorry to interrupt, guys,” she said, not sounding remotely sorry. “Have any of you seen Piper?”
We all shook our heads.
“Wasn’t she in bed all day nursing a hangover?” Jasmine asked.
“Yeah, she—” Sutton abruptly cut herself off, voice turning haughty. “I mean, no, she had period cramps. Like I said this morning.”
Tamsin and Wren quietly snickered.
“Anyway,” Sutton went on. “I thought she’d come out for dinner, but she didn’t, so Grace and I went to check her cabin, and she’s not there. We can’t find her anywhere, and she’s not answering her phone or replying to texts.”
Jasmine raised a brow. “Maybe she drove to Millhaven to get some painkillers for her cramps?”
“There’s a nurse here with all that stuff,” Sutton said, giving her a withering look. “And she hitched a ride with me to camp this year, so she doesn’t have a car.”
“Maybe she felt better and decided to go for a walk somewhere,” Jesse suggested.
“We thought of that too, but she’s never liked going for walks alone. She’s scared of running into a bear.”
“Right, well… we haven’t seen her all day. Sorry,” Tamsin said.
Sutton let out a small sigh. “Let me know if you do, okay? We’re getting worried, because it’ll be dark soon.”
I didn’t really like Sutton, but I could tell she was genuinely concerned about her friend, so I spoke up.
“Does Piper know anyone in Millhaven?” I asked. “Or anywhere else around here?”
Sutton frowned. “I don’t think so. Why?”
“Well, seeing as she had the whole day off, she might’ve called someone she knows to pick her up so they could hang out. And maybe she just hasn’t checked her phone for a while. Or maybe there’s no service where they are.”
“I don’t think she—” Sutton stopped abruptly, brows shooting up. “Oh, wait. She does know someone around here.”
“Who?” Wren asked.
“There’s a guy she’s been on and off with for a while back in the city, and she told me his parents have a vacation house near Saranac Lake. That’s not too far from here, is it?”
Wren nodded. “It’s about a forty-five minute drive.”
“So maybe he came and picked her up,” I said.
Sutton didn’t look convinced, but some of the concern had faded from her expression. “That could be it,” she said, nodding slowly. “But I still think it’s weird that she’d leave without saying anything.”
“I guess so, but you know her. She’s always been pretty flaky,” Tamsin said with a small shrug.
“Yeah, I’d only be worried if she doesn’t show up before lights out,” Jesse added. “But I’m sure she will.”
An awkward silence followed that. Sutton remained at our table for several more seconds, eyes moving across our faces like she was looking for something more solid to hold onto, but I didn't have anything to offer her. Neither did anyone else.
“We’ll let you know if we see or hear anything, okay?” I finally said.
Sutton nodded, but the furrow between her brows didn't quite smooth out as she turned to go. I found myself watching her walk away with a faint, crawling unease I couldn't entirely account for.