Resolution

Chapter 1

Throughout time, storms caused people to hide, made children cry, and adults lied. Saying things like “Don’t worry, dear, the angels are bowling.” I wasn’t one of those people who found the rumbling roll of thunder terrifying or startling. It calmed me.

I’d sit by my window and watch as lightning streaked through the sky like cracks in glass.

Nature could be calm and comforting, but it could also be violent.

There was an odd beauty in that violence that I couldn’t help but admire.

Maybe that made me strange? Maybe it made me dark—my closet was so full of skeletons that the bones were spilling out.

I didn’t know why I enjoyed watching the world vent its anger. I just did.

This storm, however, was different.

It wasn’t nature’s anger or violence. This storm was full-on rage as if God himself chose today to release the last century of wrath.

The downpour was so bad that the road was barely visible.

Everything beyond a couple of feet was gone.

Even the black flash of the wipers streaking across my windshield washed out.

I had them swiping as fast as they could, and all it did was smear the rain into watery claw marks that blurred what little visibility I did have.

My headlights weren’t helping, either. They bounced uselessly off the asphalt as if the storm itself was swallowing the beams whole, while wind battered my tiny car and thunder cracked overhead so loud, I could feel it in the steering wheel.

One minute, I was driving down a quiet road, and the next, the apocalypse had descended upon me. At least that was what it felt like. Not that I would be that lucky. Then again, if the rapture did indeed happen, I wouldn’t be one of the people taken to the Promised Land.

Leaning forward, I got closer to the glass and tried to see through the curtain of rain surrounding me.

Rain was everywhere. To the left, right, behind me, and on the road ahead. I couldn’t escape the cruel mockery of it. Water damned my soul years ago. Maybe it had finally come to claim it.

For a split second, I could hear her sweet voice, high and bubbling with laughter.

“Come play with me, Mazie.”

My stomach lurched as the tires skimmed over a sheet of water, jerking the car to the right.

Was this what my life had come to? Dying alone on some desolate road with no one around. How sad was that?

I desperately tried to control the hydroplane while a voice in the back of my mind told me that I deserved this.

I deserved to feel suffocated and terrified like she did.

It was my fault after all. And no matter how far I drove, or how many years I was gone, I would never be able to outrun the memory of her smiling face.

“No, not now,” I whispered and forced the steering wheel straight. “Not tonight.”

Tonight, I would have peace. I would get through this storm, find a place to rest, and dream about better times. Tonight, I would forget. It was the same New Year's resolution I made every year. And like every other year, the world wouldn’t let me forget.

The storm pressed down on the roof of the car and hammered against my windows, choking me with the scent of rain and the moisture in the air. Everything was dripping and wet, just like her watery grave. The trees, the road, my car… It all taunted me with the sins of my past.

“Get it together, Mazie. It’s just a storm. You’ve been through worse.” Lately, talking to myself was the only thing that kept me from going completely insane. “Everything will be fine.”

But would it? Did I want it to be?

A fork of lightning split the sky, lighting up a crooked sign up ahead. The letters were warped but still legible.

Craven Hotel.

Underneath that was a bright red saying, vacancy.

I slammed on the brakes and stared at the arrow pointing down a road cutting through trees.

A part of me wanted to keep driving and let the storm take me where it wanted, except another flash put an end to that. The road ahead was not only flooded but blocked by heavy branches.

Sighing, I looked back at the sign. “Guess I don’t have a choice.”

Pushing my foot on the gas, I steered onto the narrow gravel path.

The road wasn’t very well-maintained. Trees closed in around my car, scraping overgrown branches along my roof, like fingernails on a chalkboard. Every screech and scratch sent a shiver up my spine.

I turned up the radio and sang along to Hotel California, hoping to drown out the trees grabbing for me. It worked for a bit, but the longer I drove, the louder those branches got. The road seemed to go on forever.

When the third song came on, the foliage finally broke, revealing my so-called safe haven from the storm.

A sagging neon sign at the edge of a nearly empty parking lot flickered Vacancy.

The letters flashed, disappearing and reappearing, sometimes glowing brighter than they should.

Overgrown hedges lined the cracked circular drive.

When my headlights caught them, the hedges looked like twisted figures reaching out for me.

I stopped the car and stared.

This place looked like the opposite of safe.

If Freddy Krueger, Leather Face, and Pinhead decided to build a house, it would probably be more inviting than this place.

But what choice did I have? Go back, park on the side of the road, and hope I don’t get crushed by a falling tree?

I didn’t have much desire to live, but I wasn’t suicidal.

One couldn’t suffer if they were dead, and I owed her my pain.

Ever so slowly, I crept forward.

The building itself looked okay at first glance, but the closer I got, the more wrong it felt.

The hulking silhouette loomed against the night sky, while angled gables and spires jutted up like broken teeth. Rain streaked down weather-beaten brick and dark stone, discoloring the walls, making it appear as if the building were crying.

I pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine, but made no move to get out. Instead, I sat there, staring at the windows. Some boarded up, others cracked, while some looked new. Yet they all glowed with an eerie light.

Maybe I was safer in the storm?

Looking back at the road I came in on, I contemplated my choices while rain continued to hammer down in a steady rhythm.

I couldn’t go back the way I came.

Washburn, North Dakota, wasn’t the worst town I’d lived in. The people were nice and let me keep to myself. I stayed there for three months, longer than any other place. At one point, I thought it could be home until last week, when my parents found me.

My gaze once again roamed over the building.

It was just a hotel, right? Maybe a little rundown, but it was just a building. And buildings never hurt anyone. One night wouldn’t be so bad. I’d stayed in worse places. Plus, there were three other cars in the parking lot, so I wouldn’t be alone. That made me feel better.

Resigned to my fate, I reached into the backseat and grabbed my jacket.

When I pushed the car door open, rain fought against me.

I ran across the parking lot, holding my jacket over my face for protection, but it did no good.

The rain seeped through the cloth, dripping on my head while wet gravel sucked at my shoes.

By the time I stumbled up to the entrance, I was drenched.

The double doors I stood in front of were tall and arched with peeling red paint that bled down like old wounds.

“That’s not creepy at all,” I muttered to myself.

My hand trembled as I reached out for a dulled green-tinted brass handle. The metal was so cold, a shiver rolled through my body as I pulled the door open.

I couldn’t decide if the hinges were groaning an argument to my entrance, or if they were warning me. Either way, I’d come too far to go back.

Warm air hit me and carried a hint of stale, wilted roses. It wasn’t the hung-and-dried kind, but the half-rotted, black-at-the-edges kind of floral scent, much like the roses I left on her grave.

I almost second-guessed stepping inside, especially when the door slammed behind me, shutting out the storm raging outside. My ears rang at the sudden, almost unnatural silence.

Pushing back the shiver in my spine, I swept my face clear of my wet hair and walked into the lobby.

I couldn’t help but be a little awe-struck.

Back in the day, this place must’ve been beautiful.

All around me were signs of faded grandeur—an ornate chandelier with dusty and cracked crystals.

Walls covered with faded red wallpaper whose golden fleur-de-lis looked as tarnished as the doorknobs.

Crown molding framed the ceiling in thick, ornate, looping patterns that might once have been leaves.

The aura in this place was like stepping back in time as if history had somehow bled into the present but didn’t age well while doing it.

I could almost picture people walking in here, sixty or seventy years ago, dressed in their finest while bellhops with red uniforms and cute little hats carried their luggage.

It was a grand hotel, the kind only the rich could afford, once upon a time. Now, it was as broken and run down as me. What sins did this place carry, and were they as bad as mine?

“I told you not to take that turn.” A woman’s voice rang out, drawing my attention to a couple standing side by side at the front desk.

There was an odd familiarity about them, but I couldn’t place my finger on what it was.

Rain dripped off me onto the floor as I watched the man lean against the counter and sign what I assumed to be a guestbook.

Nothing called out to me. So, why did it feel like I’d seen them? I was probably overthinking it. We probably passed each other on the road or something simple like that.

“You never listen to me.” The woman waved her hand wildly through the air.

Her partner huffed out a sigh. “That’s because you never shut up.”

Apparently, they weren’t a happy couple.

“My mother was right about you,” she hissed while scrawling down her name.

“Look on the bright side, maybe I’ll die in my sleep.”

He took a key from the man behind the desk, who did not look at all like a clerk.

His black coat was all wrong, tailored more like a ringmaster’s than a hotel clerk’s.

It had golden buttons on the front of the military-style jacket that stopped above his waist, while the back continued to drape down in an extravagant tail. All he was missing was the top hat.

“Good,” the woman snarled. “Then we’ll both be put out of our misery.”

She stormed away and up the large staircase with the man not far behind her.

Was it wrong that their argument put me at ease? It made this place feel normal.

“Ah,” the clerk rolled his eyes over to me. “Our next guest has arrived.”

His voice was smooth as velvet and twice as suffocating. His choice of attire didn’t throw me off—some people were eccentric. It was his looks in general. It was wrong how insanely attractive he was. Dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and a chiselled jaw that men on magazine covers would kill for.

But when he smiled at me, the hairs on the back of my neck rose.

“Welcome to the Carven.”

That sounded more daunting than welcoming. There were other things about him that were disturbing. The spiderweb tattoo crawling up his neck, the gloves on his hands that were way too white for a dusty place like this, and the playful glint in his eyes.

I couldn’t move. I just stood there while water dripped off my clothes and pooled at my feet. For one breathless moment, I wished I’d braved the storm.

The ringmaster leaned forward and tapped the open guestbook. “Your turn.”

My turn? Did he want me to sign that?

“But…” I stayed where I was. “I didn’t book a room.”

His smile widened. “No one ever does.”

What was that supposed to mean? I guess it wasn’t that strange a statement. This place was secluded. They probably didn’t get many guests.

“It’s still early. I might drive a little more and stop somewhere else.”

“There is nowhere else.”

“What do you mean, there is nowhere else?” It was a back road, but still a highway. Surely there was another hotel somewhere.

“You can try to leave,” he said more like a dare than a suggestion. “But you’ll find the roads quite impassable.”

Impassable? Who talked like that?

“I’m afraid you’re stuck with us, Poppet.” Once again, his gloved finger tapped the open book.

Something about signing my name in that thing felt wrong, even after I told myself it was a formality and walked over to pick up the pen.

I stared down at the couple’s names scrawled in red ink.

My gaze shifted from their signature to the ringmaster.

He said nothing, just looked at me with that smile on his face.

The second I touched the pen down and scratched out my name, something shifted. The air around me stilled. For half a second, I thought the storm outside had stopped.

The ringmaster closed the book with a snap that echoed in the empty lobby and made me jump.

“Lovely,” he purred, while tucking the book aside.

When his gloved hand dipped behind the counter, temptation to run away flooded me. I half expected him to pull out a knife. Instead, a key dangled from his finger, with the number 237 etched into a tarnished brass tag.

237. To anyone else, that would be a number and nothing else. To me, it was the time her laughter left this world.

“Do you have another room?”

“No.” The key dangled from his finger, clinking against the tag. “This one is yours.”

Yours. As if the room chose me and not the other way around.

When I didn’t move to take it, his smile sharpened. “Don’t be shy, Poppet. Shelter’s hard to come by in a storm like this. You wouldn’t want to go back out there, would you? All that rain. All that water.”

My chest tightened.

“Would you like a nightcap before you turn in? Something to help you ring in the new year? We have a fully stocked bar. Some of the finest wines you’ll ever taste.”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to ring in the new year. I wanted to make the last three disappear.

“Not a wine connoisseur?” His tone dropped an octave as he leaned forward and said, “Perhaps a touch of brandy to warm your shivering soul?”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was trying to tempt me. I hadn’t had a drink in over three years. Not since that night when I got into my parents’ brandy.

“No thanks.” I snatched the key from him before I had a chance to overthink anything. He was being polite and doing his job. Nothing more. “I just want to get some sleep.”

It had been a long day.

“As you wish.” The ringmaster waved his hand toward the stairs. “Your room is on the second floor to the right.”

Not wanting to be around him anymore, I promptly spun around and walked away.

“Sweet dreams, Poppet.” The ringmaster sang. “Welcome to The Craven.”