Chapter 1
B rittney
My grandfather died in a plane crash. They said he didn’t feel a thing, that the impact and fiery explosion was so great he was annihilated instantly and burnt to a crisp like a piece of fried chicken.
They didn’t use those words exactly, but they may as well have.
My grandpa had this little piece of shit plane that sounded like a lawn mower. He’d wear earbuds and blast the Beastie Boys, joyriding over the Long Island Sound. When he flew low enough, you could see him screaming the lyrics.
He was infamous in White Plains, New York. People would pull over on the side of the road to watch the “crazy old man” do his loops and low passes. Sometimes he would purposely wave the wings. Somebody always called the cops, but nothing ever came of it.
Being the smart individual that I was, I never let him take me for a ride. My mother would have killed him—provided we both made it back in one piece so she could finish him off.
My grandpa and I bonded over checkers and dominos, and his nasty habit of sneaking me boxes of Nerds candy when my mom wasn’t looking. But it was more than just that.
Our love of what we called, “old stuff,” knickknacks and sentimental items, ensured we always had things to talk about and that we were always on the hunt for the next cool find to show the other.
I had a jar of two-dollar bills and Indian head nickels stashed on my bookcase, remnants of our friendly competition over who would find the most pristine specimen.
My grandpa had left me his wedding ring and a gold herringbone chain.
It was in his will that the items were to be given to me.
He never took either item off and as a child, I played with that necklace for countless hours while I sat on his lap and he dumped rainbow candy down my throat.
My mother whipped him with a towel once, smacking me in the eyeball.
She never did that again, but he was much more discreet about his illicit candy missions.
As I traipsed through the woods, the box of tiny candy pieces jangled in my pocket, sounding like a container of beads. It couldn’t have been very loud, but the noise was the only thing I heard above the chattering squirrels and squawking grackles.
The crash site was a very large area, spanning several acres. You wouldn’t think such a small plane would make as big of an impact as it did. I’d gotten a lot of exercise, trekking all over the place through the forest with a metal detector, searching for the ring and necklace.
They weren’t on his body when they recovered it.
When someone is cremated, they remove jewelry and any other metal objects before sticking your corpse in the furnace.
Someone would have put the ring and necklace to the side for family.
Granted, my grandfather showed up mostly cremated, but the process was the same.
I stopped slugging metal detecting devices around and started just using my eyes, shifting dirt around with my feet, or glancing up at tree branches. What if grandpa’s stuff was just dangling from a branch for years? Nobody ever looks up .
My friends used to come on my searches with me, Sam and Sophia, before they got tired of hiking. Now I just wandered around alone, whenever I had the time. Monday through Friday, I spent answering phones for a propane company. Saturdays and Sundays, if I wasn’t sleeping, I was out here.
It’d become my favorite thing to do. It was peaceful, quiet, and sometimes I came across cool things like the foundation of a house or the skeletal remains of a deserted car. At this point, I’d pretty much given up hope of ever finding what I was looking for.
I didn’t have anything left. My friends had deserted me due to my “obsession,” and I really wasn’t great at making new ones.
Ordering my morning coffee at the drive-thru and listening to customer complaints over the cost of propane made up the extent of my socializing.
Didn’t most thirty years olds have more friends?
They tended to have boyfriends or husbands, too.
If I was to meet someone, he’d either have to visit a propane company, carjack me, home invade me, or randomly bump into me in the woods.
And he’d have to accept that I considered pizza a complete food group, never mind my penchant for wearing all black. All of the time.
My parents were the crunchy granola type that didn’t allow artificial flavors or coloring in the house and got pissed off if you weren’t “happy.” Can’t have any negative vibrations getting you down.
Naturally, I turned my childhood bedroom into a funeral parlor.
I even insisted everyone call me Wednesday.
That stopped when I was twelve and realized how ridiculous that was.
They moved to Australia to “find themselves” and save the kangaroos when I was nineteen. I hadn’t heard from them since. And I wouldn’t since we weren’t on the same frequency, according to them.
My mind always strayed to the past when I was out here. I figured the fresh air and quiet helped me process my emotions and I always felt great afterwards. Today, I’d gone a different way, one I hadn’t before and I found something new.
The chunk of metal looked like it had been white at one point in time. I was no expert but after looking at tons of online photos and finding the few shreds of the plane that I had, I would have bet large sums of money this came from Grandpa Daniel’s plane.
Placing the small sheet to the side, I rooted around in the dirt, shining my phone’s flashlight on the ground. I used a stick to loosen the soil and dig in, but all I found were some angry worms. They twisted and coiled, trying desperately to get away.
The jewelry wasn’t there, but I did find a mouse skeleton. Well, part of one. I collected the bones and put them in a plastic baggie before tucking them in my bag. They would go with the rest of the random bones I collected, after I washed and cleaned them.
Sitting against a tree trunk, I shucked my backpack off and retrieved my water bottle, taking long swigs. I rested my head against the bark and looked up. There was a shit ton of crows sitting in the branches, all of them watching me.
“Did I take your food?” I asked them. “There was nothing left. Just bones.”
I held my water bottle out as if I was toasting them. They just stared.
When I moved to get up, my hair got caught in the tree. I pulled my long, blond strands away and loosely tied an elastic around it. My hair was very long and heavy and ponytails gave me headaches. I usually just leave it alone.
Brushing dirt and debris from my black leggings, I scanned my surroundings. The crows flapped their wings and lifted into the air in a massive cloud of black. Tracking them, I watched them fly east.
After checking my phone for the time, I decided to follow them. It’d been years since grandpa died but crows were scavengers. They may know something I don’t.
There wasn’t any kind of path, so I shoved through branches and navigated rocks and logs. This area was foreign to me, but I recorded my path with my phone so I could find my way back.
Several minutes went by and I felt my phone vibrate. Pulling it from my pocket, I went to flick it on. The screen lit up and then promptly went black. I held the side button down, but nothing. The device was dead. I’d left my apartment with my phone fully charged.
The prudent thing to do would have been to leave and see if I needed to buy a new device or not, but that wasn’t what I did. I pushed through farther and then stopped when I spotted a wall.
The barrier was smooth stone, about ten feet tall and heavily weathered.
A thrill ran through me over the realization there was a whole new area to explore.
I could see the roof and bowers of a home beyond the wall, all beige and tan stucco and brick.
The home appeared large and if I was right about the general area, there was an excellent chance no one lived there and I could search for the jewelry without incident.
The crows hopped around on the roof, cawing and fluttering their wings, doing the whole crow-thing where the birds scream at each other that there’s a dangerous human nearby.
As if . I wouldn’t hurt a fly.
I walked back and forth a bit, trying to figure out how I could scale the wall. The rock was indented in a few spots, maybe enough to shove the front of my boot in and get leverage. But the possible spots were still too high.
I jogged several feet back and then ran full tilt at the wall, leaping into the air and scrambling for purchase. My foot grabbed the nook perfectly; however, my hands couldn’t find a single thing to grip on. I landed on my ass.
I wasn’t a quitter, so I dusted myself off and tried again.
Yet again, I fell, but this time on my hip. Two more tries and I broke a nail, but I was able to stay plastered to the wall. When I peeked up, a crow was peering down, and he canted his head at me.
“Stop staring at me you weirdo.” The bird tilted his head the other way.
The top ledge of the wall was within reaching distance, and I chose the hand with the shakier grip as the one I used to pull myself up. When I got a hold of the rim, I carefully lifted one leg and felt around for a cranny to shove my boot in.
That gave me the leverage I need to haul myself on top of the wall. Fortunately, it was just wide enough that I could sit for a moment and catch my breath.
Unfortunately, I discovered I wasn’t alone.
“What are you doing?”
I twisted my head around, searching for the voice. A man that looked like the devil himself stood below me, wrapped in layers of black, with heavy white and black makeup covering his face.
Screaming, I lost my balance and fell.
The impact was hard enough that the wind knocked out of me. When I looked to the side, one of the crows was in my face.
“Personal space, bro. Personal space.” I flapped an arm at the bird, and it hopped backward before screeching at me.