3. Chapter 3
I type the address into my GPS and hit the road, singing along to some of my favorite artists to help pass the time, and sharing snacks with Quoth. After leaving the city, there’s nothing out here for miles aside from the occasional gas station.
Finally, as the sun is about to rise, I see lights up ahead. It looks like a gas station. Once I’m closer, I see it’s also an old timey diner and a motel that looks like more people pass it up than stay.
I guess it’s not totally abandoned then, but I don’t see any houses or places where locals would live. GPS says that I’m only a few miles away from Spells Hollow but I can’t imagine such a thriving town in a place like this.
I slow the car, and a fog settles on the road in front of me. The GPS cheerily announces my exit on a dirt road I can barely see between the trees, and I take it rolling forward to look for anything that could relate to the journal. This doesn’t feel right. I feel a pull that I’m missing something. Looking to the side, I notice a small dirt path barely big enough for a car to pass through with large rocks and plants growing in the middle, like it hasn’t been maintained in years. A shiver creeps down my spine as Quoth caws softly.
The fog is dense enough that I can’t see anything more than a few feet in front of me as I turn onto the path. My hands ache from the white-knuckled grip I have on the wheel. Letting my foot off the gas, I quickly turn my music down, then squint at the dirt road ahead of me. I don’t know how, but I know I have to go this way.
I shriek. A man wearing jeans and a plaid shirt and looking the part of a lumberjack is in the middle of the road. I slam on the brakes, hoping there is enough time to stop. He turns slowly, his eyes locking with mine as I jerk to a stop.
He blinks, cocking his head to the side. Throwing the car in park, I jump out.
“Are you okay?!” I ask. “I swear, I didn’t see you there. I’m a good driver. I’ve never been in a wreck or gotten a ticket or anything!”
The man looks at my hands waving wildly before opening his mouth, but no sound comes out.
“Wait, why are you just standing in the road? And where did you come from?” I pause, sucking in a deep breath.
The man shuffles forward, and I take a small step backward. I almost hit him with my car, and if that doesn’t give him a reason to attack me, I’m not sure what would.
He pauses and shakes his head. I freeze too.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t let you answer yet. Are you okay?”
He shakes his head, his mouth moving like he’s talking, but again, no sound comes out.
“Hmm… I don’t have any paper with me, but you could type on my phone.”
I turn back to my car and bend down, retrieving my phone from the cupholder. Spinning back around, I pull open the notes app.
“Here.” I hold it out to him.
His shoulders slump, and he shakes his head. He turns toward the side of the road, and I swallow down a scream. An axe is lodged in his back, the handle broken in half.
“Oh shit! I’ll call someone! Hang on! You should probably sit down.” I look down to see a No Signal across the top of my phone. “Shoot! I’m sor—”
The man is gone.
How could he move that quickly when he’s so injured? I’m debating going after him or going farther into town to see if I can find help when the fog lifts like it was never there. I move to the side of the road and look down the wooded path. He’s not there. He’s not walking up the trail or lying on the ground passed out.
“Not again. I thought coming here would give me answers.” I rub my eyes, then check one more time before getting into the car and crawling slowly across the bumpy path that GPS insists is the correct route..
Cresting the hill, I find myself in a dilapidated area that could have been a nice neighborhood at one point. What’s left of the houses sit on lots that have some of the large trees cleared out. The houses look like log cabins, and I’m hit with a wave of nostalgia for simpler times. Most of the windows are boarded up, and the ones that aren’t appear to be broken in their frames. The yards which may have been beautiful gardens are overgrown with weeds. Whoever lived here has been gone a long time.
“What happened here?” I ask Quoth.
He caws, then turns to look back out the window.
I speed up, hoping to find someone who can clue me in on what this town is and why I was drawn here. My car bumps down the road, and I cringe, hoping I’m not condemning it to the mechanics when all is done.
A woman standing in her yard catches my attention. I stop in front of her and roll the window down.
“Hello,” I call out. “I hate to disturb you, but I am hoping you could help me.”
She looks around like she is searching for someone else before turning back to me.
“Are you from here?” I try again.
The lady cocks her head to the side, then points to herself.
“Yes. Are you from here?”
She glides forward toward the car, still scanning around like someone is going to jump out of the weeds and take over.
“I’m sorry if I spooked you,” I try again. “Can you tell me if there’s somewhere I can rent a room for tonight? I work in the city and have been transcribing journals from when the town was founded, and I just can’t get this place out of my mind, so I came to see it for myself.”
She pauses a few feet from my car. She smiles and lifts her hand, pointing farther up the road. Her mouth opens, but again no sound comes out. Her hand moves this way and that, as if she is going through telling me how to get somewhere, but I can’t hear a thing. My brow furrows. What’s happening to me? The woman moves closer to the car and places her hand on the window frame where mine is. A rush of cold, like stepping into a freezer, fills me.
Suddenly, I’m not in my car in the middle of the road; I’m standing in a living room with a glass of champagne in my hand. I’m waiting for someone to arrive, but I can’t remember who. I lift the glass and take a sip. It tastes weird, but maybe it’s a new brand.
I gasp and blink rapidly, bringing my surroundings back into focus. The woman is nowhere to be found, but I don’t care. I hit the gas pedal and shoot up the road. I desperately need to find someone or somewhere normal.
* * *
Coming out of the forest, I find an area that looks slightly better off than the area I left. Ten houses sit in a circle around what could have once been a park. It’s hard to tell. The space in the middle is a large open area filled with… nothing. Well, almost nothing. There’s a wooden structure with what looks like a rope noose hanging from the middle of it.
I park my car, grab Quoth, and get out to take a closer look. After a few steps, I stop looking around. I could swear I feel eyes on me but don’t see anyone. I see a large crack running through the earth in a circle just behind the houses; ranging from a few inches deep in some spots to deep enough I can’t see the bottom from where I stand in others. It’s almost like something attacked this area, or maybe the area beyond. The houses inside the circle seemed to have fared better than the ones I passed on the way in.
I shake my head and continue toward the center. The ground is red dirt, not a blade of grass or weed to be seen in the whole space.
“I wonder why nothing grows here?” I say to Quoth. “It’s like the land is dead.”
He flaps his wings from his perch on my shoulder.
I continue closer, wanting to look at the rope that survived whatever happened here. As I cross onto the dirt, I blink, then startle. I’m suddenly surrounded by at least a dozen people. My breath catches as air refuses to enter my lungs. I spin around trying to figure out how they snuck up without me hearing anything
Men, women, and even some children mill about the area. If I believed in magic, I’d say this place had a concealment spell on it, but I know that’s not real. A few at a time, they seem to notice me. Some smile. Some glare. Some look me over before turning and continuing on with what they were doing beforehand. A woman walks over with a smile plastered on her face. She’s dressed in a long black dress that loosely covers her from wrist to ankle, along with a white apron and bonnet. She looks like she stepped out of a story about pilgrims.
The more I look around, the more I realize that most of the people are dressed like they are from the 1600s. I wonder if there is an event they are getting ready to host. A reenactment of some kind of what life was like when the town was founded. A handful of people are in more modern clothes ranging from the 1920s flapper dress, to some dressed like 70s flower children, to some in jeans and t-shirts.
The lady holds her hand out toward me like she wants to shake.
“Hi, I’m Morrigan.” I place my hand in hers. Well, I try to, but my hand seems to pass right through hers. Shivering, I tuck my hand under my arm, trying to warm it up from where it feels like I was holding ice for the afternoon.
When I blink again, I’m standing in the same square, but it’s filled with grass and people. Everyone is chatting loudly like a show is about to start. A man with a tall hat stands in front of the rope, a scroll in his hands. It’s dark. The full moon hangs high in the sky and casts just enough light for us to see by. I catch bits and pieces of the conversation around me. The words execution and witch are repeated by many. Horse hooves sound from behind us, and I turn to see who approaches.
Someone touches my arm, and I jerk. I’m back in the dead square in the middle of the day.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” a deep voice says from behind me. “I was passing through to check on the area and saw you standing here staring at nothing. I was worried you were having a medical episode.”
“Thanks for checking on me, but I’m fine,” I tell him, meeting his crystal blue eyes. “I just came to learn more about the town and must have gotten distracted. I’m Morrigan O’Byrne.”
“I’m Patrick. Nice to meet you, Morrigan.”