The grandfather clock chimed from the bottom of the steps as I shoved more clothes into my suitcase, pacing back and forth from the armoire to the creaky bed. I lasted three days, cornered by the town, the headlines, the Heathens. It had been seventeen years since feeling so…trapped, and the only way to break free was to break out.
I wrote a note for Gramps and left it beside his coffee maker. By the time he would see it, I would be halfway through Connecticut. But he’d be happy I was leaving. He never wanted me to come here, anyway.
In the dead of night, I tossed my bags into the Mini Coop. I didn’t have much and didn’t bother changing. After a few attempts and pleads, the engine kicked and the car roared. “I put a spell on you,” crackled through the old speakers as I plugged the charger into my iPhone and waited for the screen to light up again.
The townspeople’s eyes followed my car as I rolled through the foggy streets and around the gazebo. Milo snapped up from the park bench, children paused their dizzying dancing, and Mina from the diner held a hand to her chest beside a disappointed Jonah.
They were all out and about, and I tore my eyes away and kept moving forward at a turtle pace. Agatha Blackwell pushed through her apothecary shop door. The outside winds whipped her silky black hair from her low bun as she stumbled upon the steps, a pained look in her clouded eyes. She shook her head, hurt on full display.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise after what Milo had said about me. The townies should have been happy to be getting rid of me so quickly. Instead, they looked as if they were hurt, insulted. Was it because I was leaving Gramps? A man they loved and respected? They all knew him better than I did, why was it up to me to be there for him?
I reached the arched sign of Weeping Hollow, and my car crawled under it. I pressed my foot onto the gas and sped down the narrow and winding road, only able to see ten feet in front of me with my birthplace in my rearview mirror.
My gut whispered to turn back around. My head screamed to move forward, and I turned up the volume of the radio to submerge my thoughts in music.
The same metal sign appeared, this time reading, You are leaving Weeping Hollow. Don’t look behind you, with a pair of ravens sitting over the sharp edges, crowing into the night.
On both sides of me, the trees turned dense, skeleton-like figures tunneling Archer Avenue. They were white against the black backdrop of the night and seemed as if they were twisting and turning and … moving?
I shook my head, certain it was my imagination.
But after a few miles, I couldn’t believe what was in front of me.
I slowed the car to a stop, staring at the entrance to Weeping Hollow.
The arched sign hovering the road.
“What?” The single word came out like fog.
I turned to look behind me, seeing nothing but a road fading into darkness.
I faced forward again, the town’s radio station pumping a new eerie song through my car speakers. A chill skated up my spine. I gripped the wheel tightly, pressing on the gas to maneuver the car around in a three-point turn.
“You can’t keep me here,” I whispered, straightening the steering wheel. With hesitance, my gaze moved to the rearview mirror. I didn’t know what I was expecting. The town couldn’t be moving. I was surely losing my mind.
My foot pressed on the gas. My eyes darted back and forth from the rearview mirror to in front of me when a sharp static broke through the radio. The engine stalled, the steering wheel locked, and I’d lost control of the car as it veered off the road.
Panicking, I turned the key, spewing curses, banging my palm against the locked steering wheel, trying anything as the car rolled off the pavement, heading straight for the woods.
The front of the car crashed into a tree. Metal crunched as it crumbled. Smoke rippled out from under the wrecked hood, floating up lazily toward the stars.
Defeated tears pooled at the corners of my eyes, and I dropped my head back against the headrest.
Marietta was right.
Weeping Hollow wouldn’t let me leave.
Not until it was done with me.
Having no other choice but to go back, I sucked in a breath and pushed against the car door. Metal screeched as it opened, and I planted my foot onto the pavement.
As I reached for my bags in the backseat, a pearly-white cat pounced from the woods and took a seat in the middle of the street. One green eye and one blue eye fixated on me, the Weeping Hollow sign behind him.
I yanked the suitcase through the small door. “You must be in on this too,” I said to the cat, and dropped the suitcase onto the street with a thud. “And I’m talking to a cat.” I’d lost my mind.
The ravens mocked me as I trotted past with my suitcase rolling behind, the white cat in tow––the long walk back to Gramps’ house.
“Good morning, Wiccans. It’s Thursday, and September is closing in on us, celebrations already igniting the streets at midnight. But, in the midst of celebration, the body count is rising. Please keep the Gordon family in your thoughts, and let’s give thanks for the good fortune we have received. This is Freddy in the Mournin’, and remember … no one is safe after 3 a.m.,” the broadcaster announced solemnly from the kitchen radio.
Moans grumbled up my throat as I took the stairs down in a sluggish manner.
It had been close to five in the morning by the time I’d returned to Gramps, and I barely got any sleep. Flashbacks of the Hollow Heathens, the fire, the woods, the goat, all kept me up the remainder of the night.
“Great, yah still heyah?” Gramps mumbled with sarcasm from his chair in the same butter-yellow kitchen with the daily crossword puzzle laying across the table in front of him. “I thought yah got fed up and left. Just like Tobias, leavin’ me heyah with a lousy lettah. Didn’t have tha guts ta tell me ta my face,” he growled, pinching a pencil between his fingers.
“Please, Gramps, I’ve had a long night.” I brought my fingers to my temples and moseyed toward the coffee maker.
The cat from last night weaved between my legs, having not left my sight since we’d met.
He’d followed me to Gramps’, and when I didn’t let him inside the house, he’d climbed the outdoor staircase to my bedroom and cried on the other side of my French doors with the neurotic wind.
I’d caved. I’d named him Casper.
Static crackled through the old radio, and Gramps pounded his fist over the top.
“This damn thing,” his husky voice rattled, cut short by a coughing fit. I turned to see him pull a tissue out of the box and cover his mouth. His shoulders lurched forward until he cleared his lungs. “What happened to yah? Yah look like roadkill. And wheyas yah cah? It’s not out theya on tha street.”
I ignored him, more concerned over the subtle shivering he was trying to hide and marched over to him, pressed the back of my hand against his clammy forehead. “Oh, my god, Gramps. You’re burning up.”
Gramps pushed my hand away. “I’m fine.”
“No, I’m taking you back to bed.”
He cursed under short breaths and shook his head.
“If you don’t go to bed, I’ll get Mina over here,” I threatened.
Gramps’ eyes bulged out of their sockets, staring blankly at the newspaper.
I knew Mina’s name, the elderly lady with the braided hair from the diner, would get his attention. There was a reason he didn’t want me to go there and had recommended The Bean instead. He didn’t want me talking to her.
“Come to think of it, the bed doesn’t sound so bad aftah all, Moonshine,” he muttered, standing to his feet. “Make me that tea, will yah? I can walk on my own, no need ta coddle.”
A slow smirk formed on my face, and I pulled it back as Gramps balanced himself over the table, preparing to walk.
After getting him situated, I retreated to my bedroom and pulled my suitcase off the floor and onto the mattress before zipping it open. Casper watched from the top of the armoire, his long white tail swaying across the wood while I grabbed clothes and headed to the bathroom.
The shower cried out as water sprayed my hair and back, my long locks sticking to my skin. Once dressed, I swiped the beeper from the top of the armoire and noticed I’d missed an alert.
I’d never been fired from a job, and Jonah had every right not to give me the job back after he had watched me drive out of town last night. But if I was staying here, I needed this job.
I glanced over at the clock on the nightstand. It was already late in the morning and way past the time I was supposed to be there. I’d have to explain myself to him.
The sun had risen over the sea cliffs, and my chapped skin soaked up the warm rays as I drove the scooter through the quiet town. Everyone hid from the day now that the festivities were over. Bulbs inside the corner lamp posts faded out, the music had died, and evidence of last night littered around the gazebo. Goblets cluttered the rails, and candy wrappers blew with the wind.
I paused the scooter once I reached the town exit sign and peered down the winding road where my car had crashed.
Except, my car was no longer there.
It was gone.
The scooter skipped forward, a part of me wanting to drive down Archer Avenue to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, but I gripped the handlebar and turned the wheel toward the funeral home instead.
Jonah’s head snapped up from his computer when I pushed through the funeral home door, surprise in his eyes. He rested back against his chair and crossed his arms.
“Before you say anything,” I immediately started, closing the door behind me, “I am cut out for this job. I never partied, I never had friends. I never even had a boyfriend. I devoted my life to school and my apprenticeship. This is all I have and all I want to do. Being late this morning and not answering the call last night isn’t me—”
Jonah’s sigh cut me off. “Fallon—”
“You have to give me a second chance. I can’t stay here in this town without doing this. It’ll drive me crazy. I need this.”
“Fallon,” Jonah repeated, and this time I stopped rambling. “I thought you left.”
“Truth is, I tried to leave. But then I crashed my car outside of town.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just had a long night.”
“And now … what? You’re staying?”
I nodded. “I’m staying. I got freaked out, but it won’t happen again. I’m usually not like this. My mind’s all …” I lifted my hands to my head and imitated a bomb going off. “Can we just forget this morning happened? Like an Etch-A-Sketch? Slate clean?”
Like an artist had to paint or a singer had to sing, I needed to do this. This… this passion of mine, this calling, it was the only thing that didn’t leave or die on me.
Jonah tapped a finger over his chin, pretending to be in deep thought. I flashed a pouty lip, and he dropped his elbows on his desk. “Fine, but only because I need you more than you need me right now.” He rose from his chair, walked around his desk, and sat over the edge. “I’m not too cocky to admit it.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I lurched forward and wrapped my arms around him. The smell of his rustic cologne filled my senses before it clicked inside my brain how unprofessional this was, hugging him. “Shit,” I said through a breathy exhale, slowly releasing him from my tight hold. “I’m sorry. That was…”
“Like an Etch-A-Sketch,” he cleared his throat, standing, “Never happened.”
We exchanged a tight smile. I took a step back. “Are we good?”
Jonah smoothed down the front of his black button-up shirt and fixed his blood-red tie. “Yeah, we’re good. Why don’t you take the day off, get some rest and restart tomorrow?”
“Will Monday be able to handle everything? I feel terrible. I noticed the alert on the beeper,” my words trailed as Jonah walked back around his desk. Then it dawned on me that I’d left her in the woods last night. “Monday is here, right? She’s okay?”
He lifted his tie as he sat back down. “Monday’s here. She can handle it.”
A relieved breath escaped my lips. I never had to consider anyone else before. I was so used to it just being me. “You sure? I don’t mind, really. I got a few hours of sleep. I just need a few cups of coffee—”
“Fallon, please,” Jonah interrupted through a chuckle. “Get out of here.”
“Got it,” I turned, then whipped back around with my finger in the air, “And one more thing. If you had a car stranded off Archer Avenue and it disappeared, where could it have gone?”
Jonah’s face wrinkled from behind his desk, making him look twenty years older. “Well, the first place I’d check is the body shop next to Town Hall.” The hesitation in his voice was undeniable. “It’s on the opposite side of town, near Voodoos Bar.”
“Thanks.”
“Get some rest, Fallon,” he added authoritatively.
“Yes, sir.”
Town Hall was north of the gazebo, the two locations that split the town in half. Facing the large white building, I peered left down Seaside Street off Main and spotted the auto body shop right next to Voodoos, just as Jonah had said.
I drove the scooter up the empty street until it jumped the curb of the hole-in-the-wall brick building. Inside the garage, my Mini Cooper was lifted in the air as someone worked underneath.
I kicked the stand and hopped off. “Excuse me,” I announced myself, walking closer. The man under my car had his back to me, wearing a backward hat. He paused at the sound of my voice, the muscles in his arms flexing. “That’s my car.”
He dropped his head and dusted his hands before lifting himself out of the hole. “I know,” his indifferent voice said, walking around the car in the shadows to the front. From over my car’s hood, I watched as he turned his cap around before he came into view.
Liquid gray eyes pierced through me, and I stumbled backward as he took another step forward.
“Don’t come any closer,” I said with my hand out between us.
Julian tilted his head, wearing a stretchy black cloth over his mouth and nose. “You shouldn’t be walking the woods at night.” He continued his trek toward me, wiping his grease-stained hands over the front of his shirt. “You could end up hurt,” his brow arched, “or worse.”
“Are you threatening me?” I asked, but it came out all wrong and fragile and breakable. I narrowed my eyes, mustering the Grimaldi strength. “I hear the things they say about you, but none of that scares me.”
The cloth stretching across his mouth puffed out as he released a breath. “Yet, you ran from me.”
I wanted to say it wasn’t from him. I ran because I had been caged in by them as a whole. But I didn’t. The close proximity of him pulled an unwanted desire straight from my heart down to my core, making my tongue feel swollen. It was only the night before he’d slit a goat’s throat, and now, standing only inches away from him, unable to muster a steady breath, I’d felt as if he were holding me and slowly slitting mine.
He took another step closer, and gravel crunched beneath his heavy boots. “Why did you come back?”
“W-w-what?” The only thing keeping me upright was our locked eyes.
“You left twenty-four years ago and just decided to come back. Why?” The bill from the hat cast a shadow over his eyes, the sun no longer hitting them like before. Still, behind the stone-cold and chilling color, there was a gentleness hidden behind the reserved and potent shield.
My brows pulled together. Had he read the article? Did he think I was hiding something? “Benny needs me.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
Julian’s eyes dropped to my hand where I was twisting my mood ring around my ring finger, then ripped his gaze away, taking off for the garage. “Your car should be ready in a few days.” He grabbed a tool from a shelf and threw a rag over his shoulder. “I’ll see that it gets returned.”
The connection snapped, but I wasn’t ready to let it go. I wasn’t done yet. I had so many questions.
“Wait, what was that last night? What were you guys doing in those woods?” I followed after him up the hill, into the garage. “Why did you kill that goat?” And how did you get all those scars?
He readjusted his cap, ducked under the car, and hopped into the hole, going back to work.
I stood there for a few moments to see if he would turn around and acknowledge me again, but he continued working, hands moving swiftly, oil staining the fingers where blood once dripped from.
“Julian?”
But nothing.