| |
By Kay Hanifen
“I’m so sorry,” John said, giving Rich’s shoulder a squeeze. “That’s awful.”
Rich laughed wetly, still wiping the tears from his eyes. “I couldn’t stand the smell of cooking meat after that. All I could think about was him in that fireplace. So, I became a vegetarian. It’s not as noble a reason as yours, John, but it’s the truth."
Bethany’s mouth had gone dry as she listened to the uncomfortably familiar story. Her chest had been aching—likely a bruised rib from the bus spinning out—but as she listened, the pain felt like a burgeoning black hole ready to collapse and devour her from within. “It was an accident,” she choked out. “Not your fault.”
Rich stared at her in surprise. He and Bethany were not particularly close. Admittedly, though she liked them all well enough, she wasn’t close to anyone in the choir. Or anyone, really. Not after Joshua. People were less disappointing when kept at a distance.
But Rich reminded her of her cousin. They both bore the weight of guilt on their back, but each carried it differently. Rich was a straight-laced vegetarian and a bit of a meek guy while Joshua had turned to drugs and alcohol, anything to take away the pain for a little while. Maybe it was because Joshua had been so young when it happened. He didn’t know how to handle being haunted. Or maybe it was just something fundamental to who they were as people.
She guessed she would never know.
“Carrie’s missing!” Kate announced, rushing into the room. Bethany had been so entranced by the story that she didn’t even realize that Kate was gone. But now, she stood in the doorway, her eyes wide with panic. “I went to apologize to her, and I couldn’t find her in her room. The front door was open, and she was so confused before, talking about wanting to go home. You don’t think she tried to leave, do you?”
“Carrie is fine,” the Innkeeper said. “She was asleep when I left her in her room.”
“Were there footprints in the snow?” Ronnie asked, getting to his feet. Bethany followed suit, preparing to grab her coat and snow boots for their impromptu search party.
Kate shook her head. “I don’t know. I was so focused on the fact that she was gone and the door was open, and—” She buried her head in her hands. “Oh, this is all my fault.”
“Eh, more like forty percent of it,” Maven said under her breath.
Mildred elbowed her in the ribs. “Now’s really not the time.”
“Okay,” Rachel said, getting to her feet and taking on the tone of authority she always used when directing them. “Kate and Ronnie, stay here with the Innkeeper and search the inn. She might just be wandering the halls, or if she’s confused, she might find her way back here. Everyone else, get your winter gear on. We’ll split up into groups of three to search.” Everything Rachel said made sense. Kate and Ronnie were the oldest in the group and wouldn’t do as well in the cold. In groups of three, if someone was injured, one could stay with them while the other got help, and it would be extra hands if they found Carrie and she was unresponsive.
Bethany joined Erica and Rachel’s group, all three throwing on their snow gear. Like Kate said, the door was open, and even though the depressions in the snow remained from their arrival, there was a clear set of footprints on the freshly fallen powder. Strangely, they seemed to end at the edge of the front porch. No sets going forward, no sets going back.
“Do you think she started to leave and turned around when she realized how cold it was?” Bethany asked.
Erica shrugged, her face impassive. “It’s possible. If so, Kate and Ronnie will be able to tell us soon. But I saw her coat still in the closet. At these temperatures, hypothermia will set in quickly, so we should still look for her just in case.”
Bethany had a difficult time reading the doctor. While the others were wide-eyed with worry, she seemed eerily serene. Maybe it was just because she was a surgeon. People like that have to keep a clear head when people’s lives are literally in their hands. She could just be in surgeon mode. Still, the lack of concern was unsettling.
“Well, if she’s out, she can’t have gone far, right?” Bethany asked.
Again, Erica shrugged like this was nothing. “Probably not, but who knows. People who are confused after a concussion like that, especially an elderly person, can get lost quickly in a blizzard like this.”
“Carrie!” Rachel called over the howling wind as she descended the stairs. “Carrie Lane!” She trudged north of the inn, Bethany and Erica trailing close behind. The remaining six also began to call, all fanning out in different directions as they yelled for their reverend. But there was no sign of her in the snow.
The combination of the whistling wind and the muffling snow made it almost impossible to hear each other, let alone anyone nearby. Bethany shivered, making her bruised ribs ache even more. Still, they forged their way through drifts that almost came up to her knees. There was no way that Reverend Lane could have gotten this far without leaving any signs of her presence.
There was something terribly wrong here, and not just the reverend disappearing. The gifts were all wrong, and the stories that went with them were as true as they were disturbing. In some ways, Bethany was glad to hear that she wasn’t the only fucked up person in her circle—everyone seemed to be, to some extent—but it still unsettled her how little she knew these people. Not that she trusted herself to be a good judge of character anyway. She’d learned that lesson the hard way from Joshua.
But there was something more to the stories being told. Aside from the reverend, all these awful secrets seemed to be torn from their unwilling lips. What kind of secrets would she spill when it was her turn?
She paused at a tree to catch her breath. The others were nearby, though in these conditions, she could barely see and hear them when they were less than ten feet away from her. In the whirlwind of white, she felt utterly alone in the world.
Then, she heard a giggle, high and sweet like a little girl’s. It was a sound she hadn’t heard in years but still haunted her nightmares most nights. Stepping backward, she spotted something underneath the snow blown onto the trunk. She wiped it away, revealing a carving of a child’s drawing of an angry face and a word, one that she had once seen cut into her cousin’s back: Jerk.
“Amber?” she whispered.
A hand grabbed her shoulder, and she yelped. Whipping around, she found herself face to face with the Innkeeper. He held an old-fashioned lantern in his other hand and shouted to get Rachel and Erica’s attention. “She’s not out here,” he shouted over the din. It took Bethany a moment to realize that he was talking about Reverend Lane, not the girl who haunted her most painful memories. “You’ll be lost if you go any further. Come back with me.”
As much as she wanted to argue and keep looking, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle at the feeling of being watched. Were there wolves or bears in the area? The thought filled her with an irrational mortal terror. If there were predators, they likely wouldn’t attack a group of noisy humans. But in her peripheral vision, she glimpsed something. Red eyes. Black shadows. The smell of Sulphur. And she knew that if she spent a minute longer in these woods, she would be dead.
Her legs seemed to move of their own accord, following the Innkeeper back to warmth and safety.
The rest of the group was already seated in the living room again, the tension palpable. No one seemed to have any luck finding Reverend Lane.
“Why did you call us back? We need to find her,” Maven demanded. “She could be freezing to death as we speak.”
“It’s not safe,” the Innkeeper replied. “If she’s out there, she’s already gone, and I don’t want anyone else to get hurt looking for her, especially in these temperatures. You don’t know what’s out there.”
Maven crossed her arms. “I know one thing that’s out there. Reverend Lane. And she needs our help.”
The Innkeeper’s eyes blazed with irritation. “She doesn’t. All she needs is for her flock to stay safe and finish the Secret Santa in her absence.” He turned to Bethany, and she shrank under the intensity of his gaze. He seemed to sense her discomfort because his eyes softened into something kinder. The cat swirled around her ankles, she absently reached down to pet it. “I know you’re all worried, but I promise that Carrie is fine,” he said. “Bethany, I believe it’s your turn to open a gift.”
Somehow, despite all evidence to the contrary, she believed him. The rest of the group took their seats as she headed to the tree and picked up the gift with her name on it. Returning to her chair in the far corner, she unwrapped the present.
Somehow, she knew it would be this. A reminder of the worst thing she’d ever seen and the terrible secret she’d kept since she was a child.
Joshua, forgive me, she thought as she lifted the single fuschia mitten from the box. Everyone exchanged confused looks, but her eyes were only focused on the Innkeeper’s intense gaze. “Is this what you want? To tell you all about the worst parts of ourselves?”
He slowly shook his head. “It’s not about what I want. It’s about what you need.”
“Whatever,” she muttered, dropping the mitten back in the box. “You still want to hear the story, right? Well, here it is.”
