At the sound of skidding gravel, we all turn. Stone Rutledge’s bright red Corvette whips into the yard. My footing stutters at the sight of it.
Lorelei Rutledge, Ellis’s twin sister, jumps out of the passenger side of the car. Stone eases himself out as well, terror leaching the color out of his face.
“Where is he?” Her frantic cries cause the sheriff to step into action and hold her back. He’s doing his best to calm her. But it’s the doctor’s solemn confirmation that breaks Lorelei.
Stone stumbles backward at the news, as if he’s going to pass out. He catches himself on the hood of his car and sits, looking stunned and lost. His shaky hand worries over his face, his life shattered by the loss of his only son. I might have felt sorry for the bastard if I didn’t hate him so much.
“We should go,” Bone Layer whispers next to me, pulling me toward the truck. I couldn’t agree more.
“Somebody killed him!” Lorelei screams in a panic.
Inside the truck, I keep watching as we pull away.
We’re not too far down the road before a deputy flies past us, lights ablaze. Urgently headed to the house.
“Do you think he was murdered?”
Bone Layer shrugs, then he flicks on the windshield wipers as the rain begins to pour.
SIX
Unto the Otherworld
It’s well past midnight when I decide to sneak out of the house. That zinger death jolted me with still has my nerves frazzled. A single beer—is that all it took to keep me from saving Ellis? I push the guilt out of my head. Nothing a little bit of whiskey can’t fix. I take another long slug of the warm liquor from the flask I have with me, then tuck it away into my back pocket.
Carefully, I remove the screen to my bedroom window and crawl through. Something scratches my stomach as I do. A tiny clatter hits the porch at my feet. Kneeling, I search the darkness for whatever tumbled from the windowsill. Heat lightning rips through the sky. A glimmer of something shiny on the worn wood catches my eye.
A trinket.
A gold square with a toggle on the back. Reminds me of the clip-on earrings the old ladies wear at church. I tell the hope that quickens in my chest to stop lying to me. Trinkets have been left on my windowsill before, but it hasn’t happened in some time. Then again, I haven’t failed in some time, either.
I remember the chilly autumn we found Cindy Higgins in the woods. She didn’t come home the night before, and her mama reported her missing the next morning. Her car was left abandoned out by the highway, and the sheriff put together a search party, mostly locals. I was twelve at the time, Cindy was sixteen, but for some reason when you’re that young, teenagers seem infinitely older. I wandered off from the search team, zeroing in on the carousel music I was hearing—Cindy Higgins’s soul-song.
She sat unconscious, slumped at the base of the tree, badly beat up and half-dressed. I knew even then someone evil had wronged her. She was probably too far gone to save, but I wonder if my fear and shock of what had happened didn’t play a part.
Then I heard a caw from the tree branch above me. It echoed out into the vastness of the woods, reminding me how alone I was, away from the fold of the others.
One minute Rook was a crow in the tree, the next he was a boy on the ground next to me. He knelt down, reassuring me that everything would be okay. That he would take care of her now. I don’t remember if I called for the other searchers or if they just found me, but I didn’t let go of Cindy’s lifeless hand until they came.
There have only been ten or so souls I could not save. Every time they brought Rook back to me. Usually only for a few days. It always depended on how quickly he could move their soul over.
The whisper of flapping wings shushes across the lawn. I jump off the porch and run after the sound as it disappears into the woods.
A hundred yards in and I’ve lost the patch of dark I was chasing. Whatever I thought I saw has disappeared into the night.
Leftover rain drips from the branches in sporadic plops around me. The leaves beneath my feet a shushing rustle. Filtered moonlight sneaks through the canopy, offering glimpses of my surroundings. As my eyes adjust to the stillness of the night, I scan for some inclination as to where it might have gone, if I saw anything at all. Whiskey haze already muddying my thoughts.
It’s the sound of a sweet violin that turns me toward the north. Whisper-soft. A light kiss. Then it’s over before I can be sure I heard it at all. Maybe it’s just remnants of Ellis’s soul-song still playing in my memory.
I’m just about ready to tell my imagination to take a hike, when off in the distance a faint white orb floats. It dissipates into the darkness, only to reappear a few feet farther on. Then again. Luminous before fading, it bobs and sways through the trees like the blinking glow of a lightning bug.
There are tales of the dead who lure you into the woods. Some are helpful, sending you a warning. Then there are the others, the ones who stand the hairs on your neck and have intentions that could only please the Devil.
This soul...seems lost. A sad sight to see. I follow it.
It floats down an invisible river through the waist of the forest. To the backside of our property where a creek bends toward the quarry pond.
The orb winks out as if spooked. I wait to see if it returns. After a long silent nothing, I turn back around to head home—
Then I hear it again, the soft imploring of a violin.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a ghostly figure standing at the edge of the trickling water. Wisp-thin, like smoke you could easily blow away. His lean frame and lazy curls immediately recognizable.
Ellis Rutledge.
He waits there, seemingly stopped by an invisible force. Haints can’t cross water, I realize, as he stands in front of the creek bed. Wherever he’s intending to go, that trail of water keeps him from it.
The last thing I want to do is invest any more effort in someone whose family has done so much harm to mine. But I can’t help but feel like he’s called me here. Whether it makes sense or not, I’m inclined to help him.
“You’re with me now,” a voice from nowhere speaks. I dip back behind the tree, stealing just a peek.
A dark figure holds in the shadows of the night on the other side of the narrow creek. The moonlight alights on a single inviting palm offered to Ellis. My pulse quickens. I study the dark, trying to catch sight of what my heart tells me is Rook.
Ellis’s spirit steps back, wary of the man. There’s half a breath where I wonder if Ellis’s fearful hesitation might have some validity.
“What’s your name?” the man says, his tone soft. I roll the sound of his voice around in my head, assessing it for any sign of familiarity. That deep thump in my chest says, Yes, yes, it’s him. But I have nothing to compare it to, only the memory of a boy who I haven’t spoken to in years.
He steps slightly farther into the light. Shadows and dark still mask his face.
