Chapter 4
EVERYONE’S LYING
Istep inside the pizza parlor, the cold November air blowing at my back, ruffling papers tacked to the community board.
Two of them, missing person flyers for Ivy and Lainey.
The restaurant smells like heaven—oregano, garlic, the slightly sweet scent of baking dough.
Twinkling lights wind up wooden beams and around foggy windows.
Several televisions play the football game—West Virginia University—while chairs scrape and conversations unfold.
Twig sits in our favorite corner booth looking at his phone, a pitcher of water on the table along with a basket of pepperoni rolls.
I take Jude’s hand and pull him with me, suddenly ravenous.
I scoot into the booth, sliding over to make room. “Did the news on Lainey break?”
“Not yet,” Twig says, reading his screen. “Two hikers went missing in Dolly Sods, though. I just got the 411 alert.”
“That’s close,” I say.
Jude pours me a glass of water. “What’s a 411 alert?”
I pluck a pepperoni roll from the basket and dunk it into the ramekin of marinara. “Missing people. It’s a book-turned-online-conspiracy theory about unexplained disappearances in the wilderness. Twig and I have been planning an episode about it, so he gets alerts whenever a hiker goes missing.”
“Do you get a lot of alerts?” Jude asks, looking faintly alarmed.
“It happens more often that you would think,” Twig says, continuing to scroll.
“You’d be surprised how often hikers wander off a path and get disoriented.
Most of the time, they’re found. These two have been gone for awhile.
A ranger tagged their car. It’s been sitting on a trailhead since mid October. ”
Twig sets his phone down, face up. He’s pulled up the local news station’s website. When Lainey’s return finally breaks, WMTM News 12 will certainly be covering it.
The waiter arrives with a root beer for Twig. I get one for myself. Jude sticks with water. We order the Founder’s Feast—a massive meat-lovers pie that could feed a small village. The waiter takes our menus and leaves to get my root beer.
Jude casually slides his hand over my knee beneath the table, momentarily distracting me from my quest for answers. Namely, did Twig learn anything new at the hospital? There’s a gap of silence that wouldn’t otherwise be there, an opening for Twig to go first.
“So,” he says, looking excited. “Is it still there?”
I reach for words, but Jude’s thumb is now gently stroking the very sensitive spot above my kneecap.
“It was when we got there,” Jude answers. “But it’s not anymore.”
“What happened?” Twig asks.
“It collapsed when we approached it.”
“It collapsed?”
“Like a black hole,” I say, finding my voice. “What about Lainey—did you get any more information at the hospital?”
“Actually, I did.” Twig sets his knobby elbows on the table and pushes his glasses up his nose. “I overheard Griffin talking to Kate while we were in the waiting room. Lainey told him she left town with Rafe.”
Jude’s thumb goes still.
A drop of marinara falls from my roll and plops onto the table.
The three of us look at each other meaningfully.
Then I tell Twig what I saw in the hospital mirror.
His eyes go as round as flying saucers. But before I can finish the story, the waiter returns with my root beer—one eye on us, one eye on the football game, joining several patrons who let out rowdy cheers as the West Virginia team runs the ball into the end zone.
As soon as he leaves, I tell Twig everything—from the freaky sighting of Rafe to the jarring vision I had the first time I touched the seed. When I finish, I sit there finger-tapping my glass of root beer. “How does someone combust into flame, then show up alive a week later?”
“This other dimension must not adhere to the laws of physics,” Twig says.
“So what does it adhere to?” I press. “What even is it, exactly?”
“A breeding ground for demonic squid,” Twig mutters.
Jude leans back in the booth. “And apparently, furry creatures that cough up glowing seeds.”
I offer him the basket.
I really think a pepperoni roll might help him absorb some of this insanity, but he just gives his head a curt shake.
Twig helps himself instead. “It could be the Nachtdier’s home away from home. Or the place the Woman of the Woods lives when the moon isn’t full.”
“Might as well throw the Hollow Walker in there, too,” I add.
Jude narrows his eyes. “The Hollow Walker?”
“Foggy Hollow’s very own boogeyman.”
Twig wipes his hands on a napkin. “Season one, episode seven.”
“Right,” Jude says. “I vaguely remember that one.”
My cheeks grow warm.
I’m still not used to the fact that Jude Vandenberg took the time to listen to every one of our episodes on Accounts of the Uncanny, twenty-four in all, two of which included his family’s infamous disappearance thirty years ago.
“You don’t believe in him,” Jude says—not looking at me, but Twig.
I take a drink of my root beer. “He thinks there’s a real lack of evidence.”
Jude quirks an eyebrow. “But not so with the Nachtdier?”
“There’s a whole history of evidence when it comes to the Nachtdier,” Twig says, sounding slightly affronted.
“Numerous sightings by actual people who have gone on record. The Hollow Walker, on the other hand, is folklore. Settlers brought superstitions with them from the Low Country, married it with indigenous belief about a consuming spirit, and created a monster to warn people against greed and isolation during times of scarcity. It’s basically an Appalachian knock off of the Wendigo. ”
“Twig thinks the Hollow Walker is a cautionary tale, but you can decide for yourself at Night of the Howl.” I pick up the last pepperoni roll. “If there even is a Night of the Howl.”
“What is Night of the Howl?” Jude asks.
“A storytelling event at Willowmere Park. It’s supposed to be next weekend, but I haven’t heard a peep about this year’s storyteller. Given everything that’s been going on, it’s probably cancelled.” I pull the roll apart and watch the steam escape as my mind returns to the mystery at hand.
Was Lainey really with Rafe?
If so, why is she back while he’s stuck in a mirror?
Jude scoots forward. “It’s breaking.”
My attention jerks to Twig’s phone which plays footage of Lainey leaving the hospital.
Twig turns up the volume until we hear the authoritative voice of Karen Foster, lead anchorwoman of WMTM News 12.
“… missing since last week following a high school party at the town cemetery. Today, one of those girls has been found safe. Foggy Hollow’s Chief of Police, Douglas Perry, tells us she left voluntarily.”
The footage switches to Chief Perry standing behind a podium at the police station.
“After an extensive interview with Lainey, we have learned that she was unaware her absence had caused any panic, and equally unaware that another student, Ivy Winslow, has gone missing. Ivy’s case remains active, and at this time we have no evidence linking the two incidents. ”
The footage returns to Karen Foster in studio as she taps a stack of papers onto the desk. “One girl found safe. Another still missing. WMTM News 12 will continue to follow this developing story.”
I look up. “She’s lying.”
Twig shrugs uneasily. “So did we.”
He’s right, of course.
We lied to the police, too.
Because they never would have believed the truth.
Lainey must have felt the same way.
I pick up my phone and scroll through my list of contacts.
“What are you doing?” Twig asks.
“Calling her,” I say.
Twig pulls at his earlobe, like maybe that’s not such a good idea.
His worry is for naught.
My call goes straight to voicemail.
The waiter sets our pizza—a large, steaming pie loaded with meat—on a stand in the middle of the table. He’s distracted by the football game again. This time, WVU’s safety has intercepted a Hail Mary. He forgets to ask if we need anything, like a drizzle of hot honey or a refill of root beer.
But I’m not very bothered by his negligence.
An overwhelming sense of bewilderment has stolen my appetite.
I can’t stop picturing Mrs. Winslow, a shrunken version of the mother she used to be.
I bite my thumbnail, trying to make sense of it all.
The strange creature, the glowing seed, that jarring vision, and the brief appearance of Rafe in a mirror.
Is the creature somehow connected to Rafe and Lainey, or is it just a distracting, unrelated conundrum?
I haven’t a clue how my mother fits into the picture, or how Lainey could have possibly survived.
We only know that she did. Somehow, some way, Lainey Sikes is alive.
Which means Ivy could be alive, too.
My insides hum with urgent curiosity.
If she’s alive, we have to find her.