7. Chapter 7
I jerk back, bumping into Patrick. His wide eyes meet mine.
“Did you hear that, too?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “A voice coming out of a tomb was not what I expected when we opened the doors.”
“I kind of did.” I shrug. “I just didn’t expect you to hear it, too.”
He snorts, then we both creep forward.
“Hello,” I call into the darkness. “Is anyone in here?”
“Yes! Yes! I’m here!” calls a deep voice. “Thank you for finding me!”
I swing my gaze around before spotting a man leaning limply against the wall. His long brown hair is tangled around his face like it hasn’t seen a brush in days. His fingers scramble against the walls, finally catching on one of the plaques, and he slowly pulls his way upright.
“I thought I’d be here forever,” he says, stumbling forward. “But where are my manners? I’m Josh.” He holds out his hand.
“Hey, Josh. I’m Patrick.” Patrick introduces himself first, grasping Josh’s hand in a crushing grip.
When I reach out to shake his hand, he grasps my hand and brings it up to his mouth, brushing his lips across my knuckles. I blush and pull my hand back. Something inside me I didn’t realize was restless settles at the contact. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Morrigan.”
“I’d love to hear how you got in here, but maybe we should go back outside,” Patrick suggests. “This place gives me a bad feeling.”
“Yeah,” Josh agrees. “If we get stuck again, who knows how long it’ll take someone to find us?”
We only make it a few steps before Josh stumbles, almost face-planting into the ground. Patrick jumps back, catching him and wrapping Josh’s arm over his shoulder, supporting the other man’s weight as we exit back onto the lawn.
Josh hisses and throws a hand up, shading his eyes from the sun.
With an excited caw, Quoth swoops down from somewhere above us, landing on my shoulder to nose his beak against my cheek. “Ah, yes. Quoth, this is Josh. Josh, this is Quoth, my feathered companion.” Quoth caws again in greeting as I finish speaking.
“What happened out here?” Josh asks. “When I found this place, it was nothing but dead weeds and rotting leaves. But now… there’s grass. Wait, what day is it?”
“It’s Friday,” I answer.
“August 10 th ,” Patrick adds.
“What the hell?!” Josh murmurs, shaking his head.
“Why?” I ask him. “When did you come up here?”
He pauses, scratching his head. “I think a week or two ago. However long it took me to eat through my snacks in my fanny pack.”
“What happened?” Patrick asks.
“I… I don’t know,” Josh answers.
“Just tell us what you do remember,” I coax.
“I had heard stories of this place,” Josh starts. “I heard there was an abandoned town back in the woods. Somewhere no one had ventured in years. Even other thrill seekers and dark tourists stay away. They try. I’ve read the message boards. They come out here, visit the diner, maybe spend the night at the motel, but most of them can’t shake the feeling of being unwanted long enough to make it through the night.
“A waste of money, most of them called it. Nothing to see and not worth the trip. A complete one-eighty from the energy in the planning for the adventure. Every time Spells Hollow showed up on a message board or in a video, I felt drawn to it. Like something was here for me. Like I had to come here.
“I spent night after night when I got home from work combing through everything I could find online, hoping that I could find a hint of what was waiting for me here, but to no avail. After pretty much not sleeping for a few weeks, I finally decided the only way to solve it was to do what the rest of them couldn’t. I had to go to Spells Hollow and find the abandoned town.” He shrugs like this is the obvious answer to anyone in that situation. “So I packed a bag and hit the road.”
“When I reached the diner, I stopped in and grabbed a bite to eat. The workers laughed when I told them I had to get up here. Said something about no one goes back there, not even them. I just nodded along and listened to all the stories of people leaving in the middle of the night because they heard something or felt like they were being watched. The person who left the quickest didn’t even last ten minutes in his room before throwing the room key back on the desk and hightailing it up the road.
“The whole time I was in there, it was like something was at war within me. Part of me wanted to flee the area, take everyone’s advice, and get the hell out of dodge. The other part of me knew something was waiting for me here that I needed to find. So I checked into a room at the motel, grabbed my backpack, and started hiking into the woods.”
“Why didn’t you come up the road?” asks Patrick.
Josh cocks his head to the side. “What road?”
Patrick’s eyes light with laughter he fights to hold back. “The one that we came in on. It’s been here since the horse and buggy days. A bit overgrown and run down, but it would have been easier on foot than bushwhacking through the woods. Even easier in a car, although it still takes a while to get all the way back here.”
“No one mentioned a road,” Josh mumbles.
“Anyway…” I interrupt. “What happened next?”
Josh nods, pulling the black backpack I’d found the shovel on earlier closer and pulling out a protein bar. He takes a bite before continuing. “Mmmm…” He moans, and heat blooms low in my belly imagining other ways to get him to make that sound. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was. Anyway, it took a long time to hike up here, but eventually the woods opened up to this circle of houses. It was weird, almost like stepping out into a time capsule.”
“Isn’t it awesome!” I gush.
“I guess,” Josh answers.
“It is,” Patrick nods to me. “There are so few places you can see how life was. Anyway, what happened once you were here?”
“I pulled out my phone and started recording and taking pictures. I thought I could go viral. No one had made it this far, or at least no one had shared that they made it this far. I wanted to explore all the houses, but the closer I got to the first few, the harder it was to breathe. It was like something dark and heavy was sitting on me, trying to make sure I knew I wasn’t wanted. At least at that place. I finally was able to move closer to one of the houses.” He waves his hand in the direction of the O’Byrne manor. “When I reached the door, the knob was icy cold and wouldn’t budge.
“I thought a house that big would have to have a back door or a side door or some other way to get inside, so I kept going. If I’ve learned anything from those forums, it’s that these old buildings always have a way inside without having to break in.”
“But you didn’t,” I state. “How did you end up back here?”
“When I reached the backyard, the house didn’t seem as important. Like I knew I wanted to go inside, but that thing inside seemed to draw me farther out. As I got closer, I could have sworn I saw a green light coming from the tree and made my way toward it, but before I could reach the tree, I tripped. It was the weirdest thing. There was nothing between me and the tree when I started walking, but then there were all these vines snaking around my feet. Before I could get up, I was sliding across the ground. It was like the vines came to life. I know I sound nuts—”
“Before a few minutes ago, maybe, but now not so much,” I cut him off, sharing a look with Patrick. “We saw the vines in action,” I add.
Josh nods, then continues, “I tried to fight against them, but there was nothing to grab on to and a vine had wrapped around my middle so I couldn’t get anything out of my backpack. They pulled me over to this building and into the ground.
“It was dark in there and quiet. Well, part of the time… Other times it was like I could hear screams, moans, cries… My backpack disappeared”—he looks at it in the grass—“but I guess it got left out here.” He shrugs. “But it was almost like time stood still while I was in there.. I wasn’t hungry or thirsty. It was almost like being in stasis, but I was awake for part of it. Every time I slept, it was harder and harder to wake up. Almost like something was draining me, like it wanted to keep me there. But now you’ve found me, and I never have to go back in there again. And I can post the pictures of the houses and let everyone see it so they don’t have to come up here and get stuck.”
Reaching in his pocket, he pulls out his phone unlocking it. “What the hell?” he yells, swiping furiously.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, moving closer. My eyes land on a black screen.
“They’re gone!” Josh shouts, showing me black photo after black photo. “All the pictures I took of this place are just black! Not one of them turned out! How that could happen?!”
“It’s like this place doesn’t want to be found,” Patrick says. “The feeling of being unwelcome, the buildings stuck in time… The rumor is this place was cursed long ago. Maybe being unknown is part of the curse.” He shrugs. “That’s probably why no other explorers make it past the main road.”
“But I made it,” Josh says, snapping a new picture of the O’Byrne house, which also shows up black when he checks it. “It can’t be cursed to keep people out if it let me come here.”
“It could if you are part of this,” Patrick tells him.
“Part of what?” Josh asks.
“The curse or breaking the curse somehow,” Patrick states.
“Can a curse be that… smart ?” I ask, stumbling over the last word. “Or sentient?”
Patrick snickers. “You two have a lot to learn. Curses can be a lot of things, depending on the strength of who cast them and the purpose behind them.” He looks around the dead and deserted yard. “This one would have been cast by someone of great power for the effects to still be felt hundreds of years later.” He turns to look at me. “Do you still have the grimoire you found?”
I nod, reaching around and pulling it out of my waistband. It feels heavier than when I first found it.
Quoth flies off my shoulder and onto the ground, thoroughly disgusted with all my movement. He hunts for insects while hopping around our feet, never straying too far away.
“Then I think it is time we get to work on reading it and learning what we can about this curse, but maybe not right here. We have disturbed the dead enough for one day.” Patrick sweeps his hand back toward the house.
Josh grabs his backpack as I close the door on the crypt. With each step I take, I notice the grass turning green for a moment before fading back to a dry, dead brown.