Chapter 1 #2
Marlowe looked to her brothers, who smiled broadly as they turned their backs on the barn and the house and headed down the other side of the Rise, toward the wooded gully.
They traversed a thicket of trees and underbrush to reach the narrow valley carved from a dried-out streambed.
After climbing out, they found themselves on the western edge of the Flats—another field, which was wider, more unkempt, and distinguished by a maze of birch trees, weeds, and brambles guarding their trunks.
The Flats rolled in gentle hillocks, their northern side lined by the swamplands.
At the northeast corner of the Flats, the Bean River emerged from the murky pools and gnarled trees of the bog.
The river cut steadily across the Flats from north to south, about a hundred yards from where Marlowe stood with her brothers.
This land had never been a pasture or planted with any crops.
It was too uneven and rocky. But it was beautiful—not quite wilderness but not tamed either.
The tall grass, once lush and green in the summer, had turned a soft yellow hue by November.
Somehow, this made the field look even more lovely.
The trees grew dense near the winding Bean River.
As a child, Marlowe had imagined the name came from an actual legume, or perhaps the river’s shape resembled one.
Maybe beans had once been cultivated along its banks.
In truth, the name traced back to a family who had lived near the river long ago, though no one could quite recall exactly when, or who they were.
With what felt like an ancient instinct, Marlowe turned her head away from the swamp and toward the mythical Bend, hidden among the trees in the southeast corner of the Flats, where the river turned at a right angle and the water widened into their old swimming hole.
“Might be a good day for a dip, Mar,” Henry joked.
Marlowe shook her head. “I’m ready to go back.”
She cursed herself for not eating breakfast before the walk. The freezing cold and the exertion were making her woozy. She was starting to crave the armchair by the fire.
“Come on, we have to at least get to the Bend,” Nate said.
Marlowe huffed a few more steps and then stopped to take in the scene. Her eyes froze on a black shape near one of the solitary trees about three hundred feet away.
“Is that a tent?” Henry had spotted it as well.
“Must be a deer hunter,” Nate said.
Marlowe’s father occasionally granted hunting leases to some of the locals in exchange for a chest freezer full of venison, which kept the Fishers well fed throughout the year.
It was a quiet exchange that tied the family to the rhythms of the land, even in their absence.
Marlowe rarely saw or heard from the hunters.
She had spotted their blinds and perches in the woods her whole life, but the men themselves came and went in the silent predawn hours, their presence more imagined than real.
They had a few wire seats rigged up in tree crowns with ladders, and there were some lean-tos as well, but a tent was unusual.
Not one like this, with its bent poles and sagging canvas top.
Nate moved first, and Henry a second later. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and the rims of his ears had turned bright red. Part of Marlowe wanted to turn and run home on the spot, but she’d never once let her brothers venture without her.
As they approached the tent, the silence turned heavy. Marlowe didn’t hear any rustle or movement from inside, and the front was zipped up almost all the way.
Henry let out a small chuckle, but it lacked any real mirth. “Well, let’s see what’s inside.”
He reached out and yanked hard on the zipper so that the flap fell open at once.
Marlowe clapped her hand over her mouth as Henry reared backward, his shoulder colliding with her chest.
Had the body been arranged differently, it wouldn’t have been so bad.
If the thick boots and mud-splattered pants had fallen out first. But it was a man’s misshapen head that appeared at the opening, one vacant eye staring straight up at Marlowe.
He was wearing the type of camo jacket local hunters donned, with brown leaf patterns.
In one swift, sharp movement, Nate turned his entire body to the side, but Marlowe couldn’t look away from the matted hair twisted over the indent in the man’s forehead where his head had been bashed in, where the white of his skull gleamed.
“Jesus, who is that?” Henry had taken several steps back.
Nate tugged on Marlowe’s arm. “We need to go.”
Marlowe didn’t let him lead her away. She reached out and nudged the flap lower.
“Don’t touch anything.” Nate’s grip on her arm tightened.
Henry pulled out his phone and held it up in the air. “There’s never any service out here—I can’t get a signal.”
“We need to get back to the house.” Nate took off in ground-eating strides, and Henry followed, matching the pace.
Marlowe tasted bile on the back of her tongue. She swallowed hard and ran after her brothers.