IN THE DARKNESS OF the cab, Joel traced Emeline’s fingertips, callused from her guitar strings. There was no piney scent here—only leather and air freshener. No moss creeping up through the cracks in the floor.
No beetles.
Emeline shivered.
It was just her and Joel and the cabdriver. Perfectly normal. Nothing strange.
She watched Joel’s long, tanned fingers trail over her white knuckles, waiting for the relief to wash through her. In the last few months, Joel was the lifeboat she climbed inside when her fears tugged like an undertow: fears of losing the career she’d worked hard to build so quickly, fears of something dark and looming prying her oldest dream out of her tightly clasped hands.
Her delusions of the woods receded when she was with Joel. Sometimes she wasn’t sure if it was him that she liked, or the normalcy he represented.
The cab turned down his street. Emeline stared out the window, forcing her thoughts away from the woods, choosing instead to think about Daybreak Records. Of what she’d accomplished tonight. Of how far she’d come since leaving Edgewood.
She would never have made anything of herself in that backwards town. She couldn’t chase her dream there or live the life she longed for.
Two years ago, when she was just seventeen, Emeline packed up her rusty blue hatchback—the one she and Pa saved for years to buy—and drove seven hours to Montreal. She’d had nine hundred dollars to her name, and a lease for a closet-sized room in an apartment shared with three art students.
Back then, Emeline took every gig that came her way—birthday parties, weddings, fundraisers—and when she failed to make ends meet, she busked in the streets. She ate instant noodles and drank instant coffee. She slept on a secondhand mattress on the floor.
She did it because singing was the one thing she was good at, and the only thing in this world she wanted to do. She did it hoping that one day she’d swap out the cold concrete sidewalks for the brightly lit stages of packed-out venues, singing her own songs, making a living with just her voice.
Had she been naïve? A little.
Had she made compromises? Absolutely.
But Emeline’s naïveté, her compromises, her sheer stubborn will, had landed her here. In just over a week, she would open for her idols, a folk band called The Perennials, on a fourteen-city tour that spanned three countries. If she impressed the Daybreak reps on opening night, she would soon be in possession of a record deal with one of the biggest labels in the country.
If anyone can do it, you can, duckie.
It was what Pa told her in the minutes before she drove away from him and the neighbors gathered on their lawn, all waving good-bye. Back when he was still Pa, not some hollowed-out shell of a man. Back when he still remembered the girl he’d raised.
She withdrew her hand from Joel’s, wrapping her arms around herself. Trying to stave off the ache.
Everyone leaves home, she told herself. Everyone moves on.
“We’re here,” said Joel as the cab slowed to a stop, pulling up alongside the curb.
But as he opened the door to step out, Emeline’s phone buzzed in her purse, and the sudden smell of earth and moss filled the cab.
Emeline froze, glancing to Joel. But Joel—in the midst of paying for their ride—had discovered the cabdriver was a Morrissey fan. It would be ten minutes before she dragged him away.
As Joel and the cabbie argued in French over which Morrissey album was the best Morrissey album, Emeline dug her phone out of her purse.
The name of Pa’s neighbor and friend lit up the screen: Maisie Decker. Emeline had given Maisie power of attorney over Pa in order to make things easier for everyone.
She immediately answered.
“Maiz?”
“Hey, baby girl.” Maisie’s warm voice always made Emeline think of cinnamon rolls. Fluffy and gooey and sweet. But right now she heard the wrongness in it. The tremor. The worry verging on panic.
This is about Pa.
Something was wrong with her grandfather.
Leaning closer to the window, Emeline plugged her ear to block out the conversation between Joel and the cabbie.
“Ewan said I wasn’t allowed to bother you. Except for emergencies. But it’s been forty-eight hours now, and…”
Emeline’s body hummed anxiously. “What’s been forty-eight hours?”
Joel called her name, motioning for her to get out of the cab. He’d paid their fare, and the cabbie needed to leave. He had other passengers to pick up.
“Ewan’s gone, sweetheart.”
Emeline didn’t move. A chill colder than winter swept through her. Turning away from Joel, Emeline tried to keep her voice calm as her eyes pricked with hot tears.
“Gone? You mean he … he’s…”
“Missing,” said Maisie.
Relief slammed into her, stealing her breath. Not dead.
“He’s been missing for two days.”
Missing?
Emeline opened her eyes, staring at the four-story yellow-brick building beyond the cab. Joel’s building. An old tannery converted into lofts a few years ago.
“The nurse called yesterday morning. Said he wasn’t in his bed. He must have wandered out in the middle of the night and got lost. That’s what they think.”
They being Heath Manor—the care facility where Pa lived. The one Emeline had moved him into this past April when he fell, broke his hip, and could no longer live in their old farmhouse by himself. Emeline had canceled her gigs, driven seven hours back to Edgewood, packed up his things, and checked him into the closest care home.
Forty-eight hours.
Surely, someone would have found him by now.
Why hasn’t someone found him?
Maybe she’d made a mistake, putting him in the closest facility to Edgewood. Maybe she should have found something better. Taken him to the city …
“Except the doors are locked at night,” Maisie continued, lowering her voice to a whisper. “There are cameras in every corridor. He couldn’t have walked out. It’s … not possible.”
Emeline’s pulse beat loud in her ears. The back seat darkened as the pungent scent of the forest thickened around her. You’re imagining it, she told herself. It’s not really there.
“There’s only one explanation,” Maisie said.
Joel called her name again, but he sounded a world away.
“Emmie, sweetheart. We think he’s been tithed.”
Tithed. Frustration sparked through her at the word. The Wood King’s tithes were one of many ridiculous rituals she’d grown up with in Edgewood.
The Wood King was an ancient creature who resided deep in the woods—or so Pa and all his neighbors believed. This king demanded quarterly sacrifices from those living on the border of his eldritch forest: tithes that kept them safe from him and his bloodthirsty monsters.
Four times a year, the Wood King sent his tithe collector to take offerings from the residents of Edgewood—or so the stories went. Emeline had never seen such a person.
When bad things happened—when cows stopped giving milk, or crops grew diseased, or loved ones went missing—the people of Edgewood didn’t consider it the misfortune and unfairness of life. They considered it an unpaid tithe. They believed the Wood King was retroactively taking what was owed him.
It was one of many reasons Emeline left as soon as she could.
And yet, if tonight was any indication, perhaps she hadn’t escaped soon enough. Whatever madness had infected Pa and his neighbors was clearly starting to infect her too.
“I’m so sorry, baby girl.”
Emeline shook her head.
No. It was ludicrous. Nothing took Pa. She’d lived on the edge of those woods for most of her life, and nothing sinister ever came out of them. Her grandfather’s mind was fettered by dementia. He had wandered off. That was all. He simply needed to be found.
He’s a seventy-five-year-old man. How far can he go?
Emeline thought back to April, the last time she’d seen Ewan Lark. She remembered the confused look on his face as she walked him into the dining area of Heath Manor, then left him there. Remembered the discordant flop-flop of her Birkenstocks against the blue tiles as she hastened down the whitewashed halls. Remembered the piercing ache as she stepped out the doors, abandoning the one person she loved most in the world, handing him over to strangers.
Emeline squeezed her eyes shut.
What else could she possibly have done? Pa himself told her to go.
But she’d heard the fear in his voice. He wanted to be home, in his own house, with his vineyards around him. The ones he planted with his own two hands.
He’d wanted to stay in Edgewood.
“Emeline?”
She opened her eyes. Both Joel and the cabbie were staring at her. Joel’s hair was damp with the rain that was starting to fall. The cabbie’s forehead crinkled with concern in the rearview mirror.
“You okay?”
Her fingers tightened around the cell phone, still pressed to her ear. She heard Maisie breathing on the other end.
I have sets to perform. A tour to prepare for. I can’t just leave.
But the thought of her grandfather, lost and afraid, overrode everything else.
Glancing to the driver, she asked in stilted French if he could take her back downtown, where her car was parked. “Pouvez-vous m’emmener sur la rue Sainte-Catharine Est?”
“Bien sûr.”
“Em?” said Joel from outside the cab. The rain fell harder, clinking on the pavement. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Pa.”
Joel’s brow darkened. He opened his mouth to respond, but they’d had this conversation a million times already. She knew everything he’d say, and she agreed with him. It was why she’d put Pa in Heath Manor. It was the reason she listed the farm for sale.
Emeline couldn’t let her grandfather hold her back. It was the last thing Pa wanted.
“I’ll only be gone a few days. I promise.”
Before Joel could reply, she pulled the passenger door shut.
The cabbie signaled, then started to drive.