Chapter Four
Levi
T he beam of my headlights blurred the brown trunks of trees and the gravel edges of the road as I drove toward the cabin, swerving to keep my truck from scraping the guardrail.
If the police pulled me over—which was unlikely because of their preoccupation with the body—then I’d explain that I hadn’t been drinking and driving. That was true.
I hadn’t taken a sip since I closed my truck door.
Scratch that.
A drop hadn’t passed my lips since I packed the flask into the guitar case with my Martin D-28.
George Jones’ song “He Stopped Loving Her Today” that played through the stereo distracted me as I wove around sharp turns. I’d found this George Jones album tucked into the driver’s door pocket—one of Daddy’s old CDs. Growing up, we listened to everything from Elvis to Johnny Cash to even Maroon 5. On Sundays, he’d play music from Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, or Fred Hammond.
Apart from passing a solitary car, the road stretched empty before me until a row of mailboxes signaled the upcoming turnoff. Maneuvering onto the winding dirt path, I counted each driveway methodically:
One. Two. Three.
Then it was time to make the turn.
Each property along this secluded route was shrouded by thick woods and at least half a mile separated them from one another. The drive trailed the inside of the mountain, while the homes faced the valley. Dad’s cabin materialized as I neared. The twin beams of my headlights pierced through a few dusty windows, brightening the solid red door.
This log cabin, a sturdy structure aged over seventy years, stood as a testament to time. From the front, it looked like an average log cabin, but its backside was unique. Whenever dusk descended over the far-off mountains, a cascade of light would splash across the valley in such vibrant colors, showcasing God’s beautiful handiwork.
Stepping out of the truck, I was greeted by the rustling of leaves and the resonant hoot of a Great-Horned Owl. The wind carried whispers through the trees as gravel grated beneath my boots. Trying to clear my spinning head with a shake, I gazed at the cabin which momentarily swayed before steadying itself.
I used the flashlight from my phone to maneuver the dark driveway, then I unlocked the front door. The metal hinges squeaked with disuse as I pushed it open.
A dusty, moldy scent overwhelmed me as I hooked right and walked down a hallway. Three doorways framed the walls.
To my right lay Colton and my bedroom, while Dad’s master bedroom occupied the left side. At the end of the hall loomed an entrance leading downstairs. Carpeted stairs muffled beneath my boots as I walked through the third door and into the basement.
Using the flashlight, I maneuvered around stacks of boxes and toward the breaker panel. Dust particles tickled my nose relentlessly until a sudden sneeze erupted from me, sending sharp pain reverberating through my head.
After flipping the main breaker to the On position, I tested a light. The fixture hummed to life, casting a soft glow over Dad’s old storage area, filled with boxes containing his collection of books, VHS and cassette tapes, records, CDs, and who knew what else.
Turning off the light, I stumbled back upstairs, ignoring the kitchen and living room as I turned straight into the master bedroom. If there was any evidence to support that my dad had been murdered, then I would find it here. Besides, I needed sleep.
I snapped the light on and cringed.
A thick layer of dust coated everything. The place smelled like stale air and disuse. Squinting through the dimness, I observed the items beneath the dust: an outdated comforter on the bed, neatly arranged shoes in the closet, nightstands overflowing with novels by Clive Cussler, Stephen King, James Patterson, and Nicholas Sparks.
This made me smile.
The music that my dad had listened to, the books he once read, and the movies he’d watched encompassed a broad range of tastes.
Moving toward his desk positioned in front of windows framing a view of the valley below—a serene writing spot—I surveyed the cluttered workspace. Journals, sheets of paper, and books made the area look like something from the home of a hoarder rather than a bestselling author and music legend’s desk.
I lifted a stack of papers and blew off the dust, sending a puff into the air. The text appeared part of his original manuscript that had later become a bestseller. The paper had yellowed and the ink faded, but I still enjoyed holding something he had once created. Dusting off a journal, I flipped it over to see Dad’s messy script.
When I held his words, I felt like he was near enough to clap me on the back and say, “How’s your next song coming along, Son?” I wished he were that close. And I wished I was still writing songs or that Lillian hadn’t left me.
Those dreams were nothing but smoke.
I snapped the journal shut then stumbled back to the truck to collect my belongings. The cabin enveloped me in an overwhelming presence, heavy with memories of my father. It was like tying a cow to my ankle and jumping into the sea. The pressure was crushing.
Placing my guitar case gently on the bed, I unlatched it and searched for my flask. Nestled snugly against the velvet lining and next to the weathered instrument lay the gleaming metal container. With just one sip, it was already drained. The craving for more was insatiable.
Leaving the bedroom, I ventured into the living room. A hearth covered one wall while an ancient box TV, still attached to a VHS player, occupied one corner. Several couches encircled the space, creating a cozy yet worn-out atmosphere. An archway seamlessly connected the kitchen to this communal area.
After a quick search, I found a dusty and unopened bottle of George Dickel Rye Whiskey in Dad’s liquor cabinet. I didn’t bother pouring it into the flask. Instead, I took it with me as I ambled into the living room and sank onto the sofa in front of the TV. Dust billowed from the cushions, making me cough.
Lost in swirling thoughts under the influence of alcohol, I contemplated my next steps.
A VHS deck nestled under the TV, surrounded by a collection of weathered tapes neatly arranged on the shelf. Setting the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table, I crawled across the ground, popped a plastic video into the slot, and pressed a button on the remote the size of a grown man’s shoe.
The screen flickered to life, casting a grainy image. In the scene, a girl ran through a house with her boyfriend chasing her. When he caught her, he pushed her against a wall and screamed at her. She cowered as he pounded his fist into the drywall beside her head. With a sense of unease settling over me, I shut off the movie just as they were about to lock lips.
My brain swam in an alcohol-induced haze as I staggered toward the sliding glass doors that led to the deck with the bottle of George Dickle clutched in my palm. The night had draped Tennessee in darkness like a heavy cloak when I stepped onto the wraparound porch. Inhaling deeply, I welcomed the warm breeze that erased the stench of the stuffy house. The sky stretched for miles, and the moon shone like a muted bulb overhead.
Nostalgia enveloped me as I sank into an aged wicker chair, its twisted wood screeching in protest.
Three or four times a year, Dad would bring Colton and me to the cabin so that Momma could have a weekend in solitude. We’d spend hours hiking these hills, foraging, and building huge fires in the yard beyond the porch. We cooked venison steaks and shot squirrels.
Then, when we arrived home, Momma had a fresh pie awaiting us on the table, her face glowing clear and young again. She’d smile at Daddy and kiss him long and deep, thanking him. Colton and I didn’t know we’d caused our momma her gray hairs. Thinking back on the way we’d run around with hatchets, and the bones we broke, it was no wonder she needed time to let Dad take over.
What Momma didn’t realize was that those weekends nourished us kids too. I think they helped Dad as well. He did “manly” things with us. These were the weekends when we learned how to shoot guns and dress deer.
My mind swirled as I gulped a long pull from the bottle, trying not to wallow in these memories.
Thoughts of Daddy stirred memories of his passing, which in turn led me to think of Ezra, and then Lillian, her absence a painful realization. I would never hold her hand or kiss her lips again.
Tears burned my eyes. After taking another long swig, I ambled back into the bedroom and fell onto the desk chair. Dust billowed around me before dissipating.
Emotions surged within, begging for release through my pen and onto a blank sheet of paper in the form of song lyrics. I found a blank journal and began to pour out my soul:
I remember holding her hand
She used to look at me like I was her world
She wore that wedding dress like a Tennessee mountain queen
But it wasn’t me who made her twirl
Never again will she be my girl
I scratched the pencil over the words. Lame. So lame. Turning to the next blank page, I wrote.
The Mountain Girl
My pen hovered above the page, its tip poised to inscribe the next words. Titles didn’t come to me in the same effortless manner that song lyrics did. Why did I write The Mountain Girl ? I preferred the mountains, but Lillian cherished the valley. She was made for fields of wildflowers and sunflowers, not the rivers and hills.
I kept writing, and as my pen continued its journey across the paper, I met a girl unlike Lillian.
From a cold night she awoke
Breathless and searching
She was born in mountain cloak
With river eyes
And marigold hair
She wore the scent of pine
Of her love the mountain bespoke
It set her upon her way
She fell upon the doorstep
Of a gentleman astray
-
He loved her like the one he lost
But he didn’t know how much her love would cost
He kept her hidden away
Loved her gently
But she didn’t stay
She left him like he left his last love
The wild mountain took her away
-
He loved her from afar
Not crossing the threshold of her heart
Until she was ready to let him in
He gave his everything to be hers
He cast his heart upon the rock
She took it as a sign
The mountain brought her to him
And they loved together for all time
The words read more like a ballad than a catchy country song. I dropped the pencil and finished the bottle of whiskey.
Standing made me sway.
Placing my guitar gently on the floor, I felt the weight of my duffel bag as I set it down beside it. With a forceful thud, I pounded my fist into the bed, displacing the dust.
Darkness overtook me before my ear grazed the worn pillow.
I thudded my empty shot glass on the bar counter to get the barkeep’s attention. Each smack of the glass sent a sharp pain through my skull. I smacked again and again until the noise startled me awake.
With eyes barely open, I slowly sat up in bed, greeted by a sliver of moonlight seeping through unfamiliar curtains. I blinked away the haze. The sheets tangled around my waist smelled old. It wasn’t until my gaze landed on Dad’s journals and books scattered across the desk that recognition dawned on me; this was his study where I had been reading before drifting off. I had dreamt that I was at a bar.
A persistent knocking roused me further from my haze, and I groaned. Who would be knocking at—I checked my phone. 2:47 in the morning?
New aches and pains greeted me as I forced my body out of bed. Alongside of the throbbing head, every movement sent reminders of Ezra’s violent outburst: pain radiated from my cheek, jaw, and eye socket where his blow had landed. Even my fist felt stiff and sore in the spot where I’d punched him back.
Good. That meant he was hurting, too.
The leftover sound of a shot glass pounding wood echoed through my skull with each step. My eyes refused to peel open. I flipped on the outside light before unlocking the door. “Who’s there?” I groaned with lidded eyes.
“I need help.” A girl’s voice. Urgency rang through her plead.
The squeaky hinges made me wince as I opened the door.
She stood on my stoop wearing a T-shirt wet with dew and blood. Her bare, scratched feet and blood-streaked legs spoke of a harrowing journey. She held her arms across her chest, shoulders hunched and eyes wild with fear. She took a few steps back at the sight of me.
I rubbed my eyes. Maybe I was still dreaming. “Who are you?”
“M-Marigold,” she stammered from the shadows.
This couldn’t actually be happening. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Can you help me? Please?”
“Come closer. I can’t see you.”
A young woman in her mid-twenties stepped into the light. The longer I observed her, the more certain I became that this was not a dream. The cuts marring her face, arms, and legs were all too real. The blood was real. Her fear was real.
The headache drumming between my ears made her form pulsate before me. “Come in. There’s gotta be a first aid kit around here somewhere.”
“Are you sure?” She considered me, gaze lingering across the bruises stretching from my temple to my jawline, and the disheveled state of my clothes.
The porch light glared down on us like a stadium spotlight on my whiskey-fogged eyes. I held a hand to my forehead to steady myself before leading the woman inside.
She pushed past me and stopped on the dusty threshold. “I don’t want to get your home dirty.”
That was funny. “This dump? No way. Follow me.”
I led her to the bathroom attached to Dad’s bedroom. After finding towels in the cabinet, I remembered the hot water and swore.
There was no point in starting the tub without hot water.
She stood shivering by the sink.
Placing two towels gently on the edge of the tub, I maintained a cautious space between us. “I gotta turn on the hot water. Give me a sec before you run a bath.” I turned to leave the room.
She placed a delicate hand on my arm and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Levi,” I said before walking away.
Marigold
Dust as thick as carpet covered the entire bathroom floor. Was Levi a squatter? Did I stumble from one dangerous situation and into another?
Leaning against the counter, I squeezed my eyes shut as a memory surfaced. An image of a man with dark hair and bright brown eyes fluttered to the screen of my mind. No, they weren’t bright; they were fiery, blazing with an intensity that bordered on fury. His brows furrowed together as his spit a torrent of anger.
The recollection made me shudder.
I recalled fleeing from him, only to be cornered in the living room. That’s where he caught me and pressed me against the wall, his voice a thunderous roar that sprayed spittle on my face as he unleashed his anger. Trembling, I instinctively shielded myself as he struck the wall beside my head, sending drywall cascading into my hair.
I snapped my eyes open to banish the image from my mind.
First, I had dreamed of men fighting on the edge of a cliff; now, a vivid memory of a man abusing me surfaced. What sort of girl had such violent and tainted dreams?
Did that man leave me in the forest for dead?
The events of the past hour lingered like an ominous shadow. Dried leaves rustling underfoot. Elusive animals darting out of sight. Branches clawing at me relentlessly.
Fear that suffocated me.
Struggling to recall anything else beyond this nightmare, I strained to conjure images of driving through familiar streets or glimpses of home. Yet, nothing emerged from the depths of my memory.
I tried to remember something else—such as driving to the woods. A name besides my own. Even images of my home and where that was located. And yet nothing surfaced.
The sound of footsteps distracted me as Levi returned to the bathroom. He was average built with the lean, muscled arms and the legs of an athlete. His thick hair, a blend of blond and brown hues, was cropped close on the sides with a wave on top. Purple and yellow bruises splotched across his cheekbone, nose, and eye, giving him an air of mystery that contradicted his age—somewhere between late twenties and early thirties, if I had to guess. Not much older than me.
Grimacing from pain, he reached up to touch his ear before meeting my gaze with a squint that gradually sharpened into focus. His piercing blue gaze traveled up and down my body. “Are you okay?”
I used my forearm to wipe a thick layer of filth off the mirror and examined my reflection.
Twigs and leaves were entangled in my thick wavy red hair. Superficial cuts covered my face, neck, and arms, which were otherwise dotted in freckles. Dirt and blood clung to my green T-shirt.
Shifting my attention away from the mirror, I inspected the bottom half of my body underneath the bathroom light. The lacerations on my legs burned. My knee was warm and sticky with drying blood where it had collided with a rock, while my feet stung with open cuts.
I wrapped my arms around my tummy to keep from panicking and said, “I-I don’t remember.”
“It’s okay. Take a deep breath.” He inhaled a lungful of air and then exhaled slowly, gesturing me to do the same. After a few breaths, he said, “How did you get here?”
The pain surged back. “Where is here ?”
“Ghost Mountain.”
Did he say Ghost Mountain? Did I wake up in a fairy tale? No, that would be crazy. “Where?” There were mountains in lots of states. Was I in Colorado? California? Or somewhere else altogether?
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, and then winced. He must have forgotten about the bruises. “What happened to you?”
I wiped a trail of blood off my arm. “I could ask you the same question.”
He sighed. “You’re in Tennessee. The closest city is Chattanooga.”
Straightening my posture, a flicker of recognition sparked within me. “I think I’m from Chattanooga.”
“You think ?”
Struggling to free a tangled twig from my hair, I admitted, “I’m not sure.”
“Looks like you got a pretty good gash on your head. That injury might be why you can’t remember.”
My fingers hovered over the injury.
“Is there someone you can call?”
“I don’t remember anyone.” It wasn’t a total lie. The man who had yelled at me was hardly someone I could turn to for help. Besides, his name and any contact numbers eluded me.
“You should clean those cuts and go to bed. Maybe things will be more clear after you sleep.” He turned on the faucet in the clawfoot tub. The water gushed brown before turning opaque.
I wrinkled my nose. “Does it always look like that?”
“This cabin was my dad's. I haven’t been here in years.” He scrubbed away the grime with his bare hand and then plugged the drain. “I’ll sleep in the spare room. You can have the queen bed.”
The neglected state of the bathroom made sense now with his revelation about its disuse. But questions lingered in my mind: Why hadn’t his dad been here? When was the last time the sheets were washed? Could I trust this man not to hurt me?
My head throbbed. I didn’t have the energy to find another shelter.
As Levi headed for the door, I called out, “Do you have soap?”
“Huh?”
“Soap.” I gestured toward the water spilling into the tub, its steam enveloping the room in warmth. “For the bath.”
He stumbled to the closet, muttering as he pushed odds and ends around. Finally, he produced a bottle of Mountain Fresh shampoo and set it on the counter, leaving a faint ring in the layer of dust. “This is the best I can find. That is, unless you wish to smell like a man.”
The desire for cleanliness outweighed any concern for scent. “I don’t care what I smell like.”
He shrugged. “Pick whatever you want.”
The sharp whiff of alcohol invaded my senses as I sidestepped him, trying not to recoil. Of all the doors I could have knocked on, I chose the house of a drunken man.
As he turned to leave, my bloodied heels grazed against the denim fabric of my shorts as I knelt before the bathroom cabinet. “Levi, wait.”
“Yeah?”
I hated asking. “Do you happen to have any extra clothes?”
Inspecting my torn T-shirt, the too-short shorts, and the blood and dirt that marred them, he furrowed his brow. “Just a sec.” With hands pressed against his temples as if to contain his throbbing headache, he disappeared briefly.
Moments later, he returned and handed me a pair of gym shorts and an oversized T-shirt. “Sorry, this is all I’ve got.”
“It’ll work. Thank you.”
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said wearily, clearly eager to sleep off his hangover. I nodded in response.
As he reached the doorframe, he halted and said, “I forgot to ask. What’s your name?”
He had asked, but his drunken haze must have erased the memory. “Marigold.”
“Marigold,” he mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m sorry. I need to lie down.” He closed the door behind him.
Listening intently until his footsteps faded away, I cautiously tested the doorknob to ensure he hadn’t locked me in. It creaked as I twisted it open. Grimacing at the noise, I gently closed it again, hoping he hadn’t heard.
I sighed with relief, thankful for the silence that followed.
The pain of my cuts faded, giving way to a deeper ache that gripped my bones. I felt like I’d hauled a body up a hill on my shoulders. What if I had? What if I’d killed the man from my haunting memory? Could the blood staining my skin be from more than just my own wounds?
No. I was just tired. Bone tired.
I turned off the faucet and eased the clothes off my battered limbs. My knee stung as I settled into the water and then leaned my head against the back of the tub, careful to avoid the tender spot.
It took mere seconds for blood and mud to blur the outlines of my legs beneath the filth. I washed the cuts and my hair as best I could. Then I allowed myself to relax.
When the water cooled, I pulled out the plug, hauling myself out of the bathtub while muddy water circled into the drain. My small pile of clothes looked pathetic on the floor; my underwear too dirty to wear again. I had no choice but to go commando for now—at least until I could figure out what I was doing at . . . what did Levi call it? Ghost Mountain?
I slipped into his shorts and T-shirt, opting to skip the discomfort of putting on my sweaty bra. I left everything as tidy as possible before opening the door to the bedroom.
The space felt abandoned, the air stagnant like it hadn’t boasted an open window and welcomed a fresh breeze in years. Dust blanketed much of the stationery items. Rectangle shapes cut through the grim on the desk, indicating the books and journals resting atop it had been recently moved. I was too tired to inspect the room further.
I peeked out the door, but there was no sight or sound of Levi.
With no other choice but to trust him, I climbed into the bed that stank of musty old sheets. Determined to ignore the unpleasant smell, I burrowed into the fabric and rested my head on the lumpy pillow, waiting for sleep to whisk me out of this nightmare. For now, at least.