Chapter One

  “I’m gonna be sick.”

  Saying it out loud somehow made it worse. The bagel she’d scarfed down for breakfast churned uneasily in her stomach. Greer hit the button on her door to roll down the window.

  Hot summer air swept through the car. She breathed deep through her nose, the bitter tang of summer hay hitting the back of her throat. The skin of her face prickled in the warmth as the heat tightened the scars that crisscrossed her cheek. On the radio, Kitty K’s latest hit crackled with static.

  “You’re almost there, hold on,” her mother said. Maggie's voice echoed through the car’s stereo, cutting through the interference. For a moment, Greer almost forgot Maggie was dead.

  A cramp burst in her stomach and a bloom of bile crawled up her throat.

  “For the love of—,” she groaned, gripping the steering wheel tight. She pressed the gas pedal harder, letting the car pick up speed. Why now? Couldn’t it wait another couple of miles? The odometer crept upward. 45. 50. A cramp washed over her middle and she gripped the wheel harder, knuckles turning white. 55. 60.

  “Greer,” her mother cautioned.

  Greer clenched her jaw, teeth grinding. “I’ve got it.”

  Ahead, the road curved to the left, and the little car skidded on the gravel that lined the edges. For a sick second, the wheels lost their grip on the asphalt. The car’s center of gravity shifted and the back bumper fishtailed.

  “Watch out!” Maggie’s voice cut through the chaos even as Greer yanked the wheel to the left, correcting the spin.

  The burgeoning sickness inside her twisted in her guts. She slowed the car, the speedometer sinking back down to something reasonable. “Oh come on,” she growled, fisting her hand in the fabric of her tee shirt. A second cramp followed hard on the heels of the first. She doubled over and cried out, pressing her fist hard against her middle.

  Hands shaking, she pulled over to the side of the road. By the time she put the car in park, her skin was clammy and cold, and her heart was beating so hard she could hear it in her ears.

  “Breathe, baby,” her mother urged. “You’re okay.”

  A desperate laugh bubbled inside her. “Yeah, right,” she gasped, looking down at her hands. Her nail beds had gone dark purple, her palms damp with sweat. She wiped them on her shorts as the all too familiar feeling began to wash over her.

  “Nnm,” she groaned wordlessly as her head began to spin. “It’s coming.” Her skin prickled, like ants marching up and down her bare arms.

  “You got this,” Maggie whispered through the speakers.

  Her insides cramped again and she let out a low, pained moan. She clamped one hand to her middle and let her head drop back against the headrest. She forced herself to breathe through her nose. In the pits of her chest, her stomach gurgled dangerously. The panic started to rise, clawing its way up her throat.

  Fear swept over her like a tide and suddenly she was drowning. Tears burned a line down her cheeks as nausea and anxiety battled within her.

  Her nails dug into her arms, a pitiful attempt to ground herself, but it did nothing to stop the inevitable. “Make it stop,” she rasped. The words barely scraped past the knot in her throat. But she knew Maggie could do nothing to change what was about to happen. She curled around herself in the cramped confines of the driver’s seat, pressing a cold hand to her forehead. She tensed as the pressure trickled over her shoulders and slid down her collarbone. She squeezed her eyes shut as nausea surged in her throat and the buzzing spread across her chest.

  It was coming.

  “Breathe, baby,” her mother repeated from the car stereo. “It’s gonna be—”

  But before Maggie could finish her sentence, it happened.

  The sun’s heat vanished. A sharp cold seized her skin, forcing her eyes open. The sunny afternoon was gone. In its place loomed a purple twilight that cloaked the countryside in gloom. The car around her was warped and rusted, its windows gone and seats crumbling with decay.

  A sharp wind moaned through the overgrown fields, bending the rasping dry grass. The tall pines boarding the field were black against the twilit sky. They formed a dense wall that swallowed the last remnants of light. As she stood there, the air thickened. Shadows rippled at the treeline, a distortion just at the corner of her vision. It was gone when she turned her head, but still there, somehow. Watching.

  Terror bled down her arms. It had never been this close. In the library, she’d felt it—distant, no more than a shadow at the edges of her mind. She’d been more worried about the library’s roof collapsing than running into it. Even at the supermarket weeks ago, it was just a faint ripple of unease, a whisper that something wasn’t right. Now… she shuddered. Now it was close enough she could almost taste its hunger. Its need pressed against her like a living thing.

  She had to get out of there.

  She shoved open the rusted car door. The hinges screeched in the gloom and she winced at her own carelessness.

  Around her, the wind fell silent and Greer felt Its eyes turn toward her, focusing her for the first time. The air shifted and she could taste something sharp and electric in her mouth.

  “Fuck.” The word barely left her lips before she lunged for the door, adrenaline shoving her forward. She tore herself free of the seat and hit the ground running. In front of her, the road was a barren stretch of rock, cracked and overgrown with weeds. She reached down and grabbed the nearest hunk of asphalt. Its broken edges dug into the soft flesh of her fingers and she squeezed it hard, swallowing thickly.

  “Come on,” she muttered, turning in a circle, her eyes scanning the treeline. “Time to go back.”

  The wind picked back up, howling in the gloom, and Greer felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up straight. A trickle of cold fear shot down her spine.

  Her fingers clenched the jagged rock, the rough edges biting deep into her palm. She stepped back, heart slamming against her ribs. “Time to go back now.” The words wavered, thinning into an unsteady sing-song. The muscles in her legs shook as the adrenaline ate its way through her body.

  It was coming. Fast. She could feel its hunger and desperation to reach her. Something was wrong. She’d never stayed this long before.

  What could she do? Where could she go?

  She spun in place, her eyes darting between the dark treeline and the cracked, overgrown road. There was nowhere to hide. The barren landscape stretched out around her, empty and unforgiving. The car, rusted and skeletal, offered no protection.

  The world funneled into a pinpoint—dark trees, cracked road, the uneven rise of her own chest. A distant roar filled her ears, deafening, until she realized it was her own pulse hammering in her skull. She scanned the treeline again, her breaths quick and shallow, each one sharp enough to hurt. The aspalt bit deeper into her palm as she flexed her fingers around it. “It’s fine—it’s fine—it’s fine,” she whispered, her voice trembling.

  If she said it enough, maybe she’d believe it.

  The pressure in the air shifted, like the moment before a lightning strike. She knew without looking that It had arrived and was just on the other side of those trees, watching her. She bit down on a scream. Why wasn’t she going back? Why was it taking so long? Heat burned behind her eyes.

  This was it. The end.

  She would never make it to Europe, never see the ocean. She was going to die here, in this nowhere place, without ever doing anything that mattered.

  Her jaw tightened. She squeezed her eyes shut, tears slipping free and tracing cold lines down her cheeks. She willed herself to move, to shift, to let her own world pull her back.

  “Please.” The plea scraped from her throat, raw and cracking, tossed into the empty night like a dying ember. “I don’t know how to do this—please, just let me go back.”

  She tensed and coiled every muscle as if she could somehow force it to happen, but nothing came. All she could feel was the unnatural stillness, pressing against her.

  Greer tightened her grip on the jagged rock, her fingers numb. “I want to go home.” The words broke apart, swallowed by the cold air. The sense of It drew closer. It was in the field now, hidden by the swaying grasses. “Plea-”

  “You?” A voice cut through the air behind her.

  Startled, she whipped around, her heel catching on a crack in the road. Her arms flailed for balance… and then she was back, blinking in the bright sunlight. She was standing in the middle of the road, the late August afternoon heat baring down on her. A pickup roared past her, blaring its horn as it swerved to avoid her. She careened out of its way, heart hammering, still tasting the heavy air of the other world.

  “Get out of the damn road!” a man called from the truck’s open window before blasting down the road, blowing exhaust fumes in her face.

  She dragged a ragged breath through her nose and swallowed thickly, knees shaking. Her gaze dropped to her hand, still clutching the jagged hunk of asphalt. She yelped, startled, and flung it away from herself. It landed beside the rear wheel of the car, where it sat innocuously. Horrified, she edged forward and kicked it away. It went spinning into the road, where it wobbled on its uneven edges.

  She could hear her mother calling from the open door of the car. “Greer? Greer, where are you? Are you okay?” Greer stumbled toward the open door, her legs suddenly thick and useless.

  “I’m-,” she reached for the door, but her stomach heaved, and vomit leapt up her throat before she could finish. Slapping one hand against her mouth, she lurched around the car to the side of the road. She made it to the grass seconds before she lost the contents of her stomach. She kept one palm on the hot car while she retched. The warmth of its paint was a reassurance, a reminder of which reality she was in. When her stomach was finally empty, Greer sank into a shaking squat against the car. She dug her elbows into her knees as she hung her head. Around her, the world spun and she had to close her eyes.

  “Are you okay?” her mother asked through the open window.

  Greer pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I’m fine.” Her mouth felt like sawdust and she swallowed thickly, trying to keep the lingering nausea at bay. “It felt different this time. Like I was stuck or something.”

  Maggie was silent for a long moment. “Don’t say that. ??We’ll figure out how to make it stop.”

  Greer’s heart clenched. Figure it out. Like it was that easy. She let her head drop to her knees, dragging in a breath that tasted like heat and bile. The spinning was slowing, but inside her chest, the pressure only grew. It wrapped itself tighter and tighter.

  Her mother continued on, oblivious. “We’re almost there and then we’ll figure out what to do next—”

  “Stop,” Greer mumbled, her voice hoarse. She pressed her forehead harder against her kneecaps. She breathed through her nose and inhaling the smell of sunscreen that clung to her skin. Her mother fell quiet, the silence filling the space between them like a weight.

  With a sigh, Greer squinted up at the blue summer sky and rubbed her hands over her arms. The lingering prickle from the shift still buzzed under her skin. She wished things could go back to the way they used to be. A white sedan roared past, spraying the side of the road with a burst of pebbles.

  “You can’t stay here,” her mother said, her voice crackling over the airwaves.

  “Yeah, I know,” Greer said, forcing herself upright. She pushed her dark hair out of her eyes and glanced at the line of pine trees that stood at the back of the field. Their lofty tops swayed in the stiff summer breeze. She shivered, forcing her eyes away from the sight.

  Back in the driver’s seat, she wrapped her cold hands around the steering wheel and took a deep breath. “I can’t keep doing this,” she said to the empty air as she shifted the car out of park and back onto the road. Her arms ached with the effort it took to turn the wheel. Her body felt raw and abused.

  “Don’t worry,” her mother said. “We're gonna figure this out.”

  Greer’s grip on the wheel tightened, ache flaring in her knuckles. “Stop saying that.”

  “Baby, I know it’s hard, but-”

  Greer slammed the heels of her hands against the hard curve of the plastic steering wheel. “Stop!”

  “I’m just trying to help you fix this-”

  “But you’re not listening to me!” Tears welled, burning the edges of her vision, and she swiped at them. “I can’t do it anymore!”

  Her mother was quiet, and somehow, the silence broke through the dam holding her words back. “It hurts,” she blurted, the words rushing out of her mouth. “And it’s getting worse. Every time I shift, it’s harder and harder to come back— like It wants to keep me there or something.”

  Static hummed in the car’s speakers, stretching out like the pause before bad news. “Greer,” Maggie finally said, her voice tight, careful. Too careful. “What do you mean, ‘It’?”

  Shit. She hadn’t exactly meant to let that slip.

  She wasn’t keeping things from her mother, not on purpose anyway, but she knew either one of two things would happen. Either Maggie would blow it off and say she was imagining things or, worse, Maggie would worry.

  They both knew there was nothing Maggie could do about Greer’s sudden shifts. They’d started out of the blue several weeks ago, but Greer knew her mother. Maggie would take the guilt onto herself, and blame herself for what was happening to Greer. Never mind that Maggie had been dead these last four years. Maggie had never stopped blaming herself for taking Greer away from this place. Like escaping this hellhole had somehow been the worst mistake of her life.

  Greer wasn’t sure if she could handle Maggie in full guilt mode.

  “Greer, what do you mean ‘It’ ?”

  “Nothing,” she said quickly, glancing at her phone in the cupholder. The map app tracked her progress through the winding countryside. The car jolted over a pothole, rattling the phone and her stomach. She rubbed a hand over her middle. The nausea and cramps had faded, leaving only a shaky aftermath that made her feel hollow and used up.

  “Greer-” her mother admonished.

  “I’m fine,” Greer said. “It was nothing.” The second the words were out of her mouth, she knew they were the exact wrong thing to say.

  “Greer.” Maggie’s tone sliced through the thick quiet, sharp as a knife. “What’s happening to you isn’t nothing. You can’t just say something like that and expect me to drop it.”

  “I didn’t mean—” Greer started, but the words got tangled in her throat. She couldn’t find a way to untangle them, couldn’t summon the energy to form a plausible lie that Maggie would accept.

  “Yes, you did,” Maggie pressed. “And I need to know. What is it, Greer? What’s happening that you’re not telling me?”

  Greer let out a shaking breath. The pressure was back as her chest constricted under the weight of everything she hadn’t said. “It’s just... when I’m there—wherever there is—something is watching me.”

  Maggie’s silence was louder than any response. Greer imagined her mother’s expression, the purse of her lips, the line that formed between her brows. As the silence stretched, Greer glanced at her phone. Her turn was coming up.

  “Are you sure?” Maggie asked.

  Irritation spiked within her. “I’m not making it up,” Greer snapped.

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  Greer wanted to argue that the question had been implied— because everything was always implied with Maggie— but she bit her tongue.

  “And this… It—” Maggie prodded, “you think it’s the one watching you?”

  “Yes,” she said immediately, nodding even though her mother couldn’t see her. Her throat tightened as she thought of the hungry way it had sped toward her.

  “Jesus, Greer.” Maggie exhaled, static lacing her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “Because I didn’t want to scare you!” Greer’s voice rose, but it wasn’t in anger.

  It was desperation. “What could you even do about it? You’re not here, Mom-”

  The car flew past the dead-end sign that marked the entrance to Rease Hill Road.

  “Shit!” Greer slammed on the brakes and threw the car into reverse. Gravel crunched beneath the tires as she backed up. Half hidden by the tall, dark pines that flanked the dirt road, the sign was on the other side of a deep ditch. It stood thick with rust and barely visible through the day lilies that crowded its base.

  “Careful,” Maggie warned as the car’s tires came perilously close to the edge of the ditch.

  “I see it,” Greer muttered, putting the car back into drive and turning onto the dirt road. The narrow lane was darker than she remembered, the towering pines pressing down on her. “The fact is,” she continued, her voice tight, “you’re dead. I’m dealing with this—this thing—on my own.”

  The car bumped over the stone bridge, and for a moment, the only noise was the sound of the engine.

  Finally, Maggie spoke, her voice quiet but firm. “You’re not on your own, Greer. I’m here, even if I can’t be there. And we’re going to figure this out. I promise you, baby. We’ll figure it out. That’s why we’re here.”

  The car passed the old Clarke farmstead. The wide porch sagged beneath a heavy roof, and the once bright yellow paint was peeling. It watched her pass, silent with judgment.

  Greer’s chest tightened as she glanced at the house in the rear view “Are you sure they’re there?”

  “They’re there,” Maggie said. “Mom kept a journal every day of her life.”

  The car turned a bend in the road. The thick trees fell back to reveal the small white house where Greer had spent the first seven years of her life. The white farmhouse hunched atop a small grassy knoll, thick with dandelions and uncut grass.

  Fifteen years melted away as Greer guided the little car into the half-moon driveway and killed the engine. The old farmhouse seemed frozen in time. She took a deep breath and leaned down to look at the house from the passenger side. Her past stared back at her through the small upstairs windows. They rose from the slope of the porch roof, half obscured by the white roses that climbed the side of the house. As the wind raced up the knoll, it caught the roses in its grasp, making their dark leaves dance and flutter. The glossy leaves glittered like knives under the bright afternoon sun.

  As a kid, she’d loved this untamed, remote hill, filled as it was with birds, and streams, and wild strawberries. She’d been oblivious to her grandmother’s cruelty and her mother’s desperate attempts to break free.

  Motion at the corner of her eye made her turn her head. Kat stood at the edge of the porch. Her thick gray braid lay over her shoulder like a rope. Her grandmother tracked some point on the horizon with her steely eyes. But then, Greer blinked, and the shadow was gone.

  Resisting the urge to rub at the scars on her cheek, she grabbed her phone and backpack from the passenger seat. Stepping out into the August afternoon, she shoved the phone into the back pocket of her cut-offs. Greer squinted up into the bright sky. Blue stretched out as far as she could see and thick white clouds dotted dotted the sky. A breeze sprinted across the lawn. The roses dipped their heavy white heads, and their heady scent filled the summer air. A trail of slab stone stairs had been set into the hillside by one of her ancestors, and she slipped her headphones into her ears before starting up. She skipped the white step out of habit. High above, the sun's heat beat down, soaking through the thin cotton of her tee shirt and warming her skin.

  “Do you have the keys?” Maggie asked through the earbuds.

  “I do,” Greer nodded, eyeing the porch at the top of the stairs.

  As she neared the shaded porch, it was clear not everything had remained the same. The front door of her grandmother's house had been painted green in her youth, but someone had covered that memory with a thick coat of blood red. It gleamed in the porch shade like tar. Greer set her backpack on the ground and opened the old screen door, digging in her pocket for the key Sheriff Shannon had given her. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at the empty spot on the porch where she’d seen Kat, and, for a second, the fear returned, making her sun-warmed skin clammy. She dragged her eyes away and breathed sharply through her nose as her stomach writhed.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Shadows,” she reminded herself.

  “You got this, kiddo,” her mother said through the headphones.

  “In and out,” Greer said, pushing the door open. It creaked inward reluctantly. She stepped over the threshold and immediately gagged as the antiseptic smell of rosemary hit her full in the face. Her eyes watering, Greer searched the floor for the blue glass insulator door stop. Finding it, she kicked it in front of the door, propping it open, but it was a band-aid at best. The air in the house was stifling, baked by the summer sun outside, and she could barely breathe.

  Beneath the sun-baked scent of herbs came the acidic tang of magic, sharp and biting. She’d forgotten how strong it could be. It burned her nostrils, stung the back of her throat, and clawed its way into her lungs. Gagging, she stumbled outside and doubled over, coughing hard.

  “Well, my sense of smell is still working,” she gasped, bracing her hands on her knees as she fought to pull clean summer air into her lungs. Straightening, she rubbed her nose like she could scrub the scent off her skin. “But why is it so strong?”

  “Must be the heat,” her mother said. “She's been dead for a week. With no one to open up the house, it had nowhere to go…” Maggie hesitated. “Can you feel it?”

  Greer took one last deep breath and laid her hand against the house. Kat may have taken her power to wield magic, but she could never strip Greer’s ability to sense it. Now, if she concentrated, she could feel the trembling magic beneath the rough siding, how compacted it was, how agitated. She wished now that she hadn't skipped the white step. Maybe it would’ve told her the same story—that something was wrong.

  She just wished she knew what.

  “Maybe it’s related,” her mother suggested.

  Greer looked back at the spot where her grandmother's shadow had stood. “Maybe,” she admitted. Another stiff breeze ran up the knoll, and the roses shook on their vines, a rasping sound like the warning rale of a rattlesnake. “Only one way to find out,” she said, stuffing the memories down and picking up her backpack.

  Pulling her tee shirt up over her nose, Greer made a beeline across the large rectangular room that served as both the kitchen and living room. She dropped her backpack on the floor and headed toward the pantry at the back of the house, where the backdoor waited. She unlatched the old-fashioned hook that served as a lock and pulled it open, letting the summer breeze cut through the house.

  A rickety screen door stood between her and the outside. She could see the overgrown field at the back of the house through its battered screen and the line of milky white stones at the bottom of the stairs.

  She let her tee shirt slide down from her nose and breathed in the fresh air. At the back of the field, the dark tops of pines swayed in the summer wind, preventing her from seeing the houses she knew sat at the top of the hill. Remembering her most recent slip out of reality, a shiver of dread spilled down her spine at the sight.

  “Might as well get this show on the road,” Greer said, turning from the sight. She grabbed her backpack from the ground and set it on the table, looking around. If she didn’t know better, she might’ve guessed her grandmother had just left. A mug of coffee, half full and cold, sat on the table beside a stack of mail. A laundry basket waited at the base of the stairs, with clothes folded and ready to be put away. It was the image of a life interrupted.

  “Do you remember where grandma kept her journals?” she asked, fingering the unopened mail. Somewhere outside, a crow cawed.

  “If they’re not in her bedroom, they’ll be in the attic,” Maggie said. She hesitated. “Honey, I know you’re hoping she wrote about what she did to you back then, but we need to focus on finding out what she’s doing to you now.”

  The summer wind pushed through the open doors, flooding the house with the smell of earth and pollen and driving away the burning tang of stale magic. Greer found herself wishing it could chase away the memories too. She drew in a deep breath and heaved it back out again. As she did, her eyes fell on the stairs against the back wall.

  Greer set her jaw and came to stand at the bottom of the L-shaped stairwell. “I know.” The white ceiling of the stairs was awash in brilliant sunlight. The light poured in from the small, rectangular windows set into the back wall. The wallpaper, once vibrant with red rose bouquets, had faded and was now peeling at the corners.

  “Greer,” her mother cautioned.

  “I said, I know,” Greer said snapped.

  “And I know you,” Maggie countered. “I want to know what she did to you too, but we have to find a way to stop your time slips. Right now, that’s all that matters. We can come back later, or there are people we can talk to—”

  “No,” Greer said, cutting her off. It was an argument they’d had before. The idea of asking another witch for help made her stomach turn. She didn’t need to bring her problems to someone else. She could figure it out.

  All she needed were those journals.

  Greer took a deep breath and let her hand trail along the wall as she climbed upwards, feeling the texture of the paper, her fingers catching on the seams. Greer knew Maggie was right—figuring out how to stop the time slips had to come first. But that didn’t mean she was happy about it.

  Now that she was here all she could think about was that summer night fifteen years ago. It was hard to ignore the gnawing need to understand why Kat had done it in the first place.

  She clenched her jaw, pushing the thought aside. One problem at a time.

  The second floor was barely more than a loft. The roof dipped low and sloped overhead, running toward the front porch like the incoming tide. At the top of the landing, Greer looked up and froze, her breath catching in her throat. The three doors at the top of the landing, each painted as white as the first snowfall, were thrown open. She could see open closet doors and clothes on the floor through the nearest door, the one that led to Kat’s bedroom.

  “Oh my god,” Maggie whispered.

  Greer stumbled into the ransacked room with disbelief. The drawers of the large wooden vanity were torn open and hanging off the side, their contents scattered across the room. Underwear and stockings littered the wooden floor. Something crunched under her sneaker, and she looked down at an old beaded necklace, its clasp broken and darkened with age. She stooped, picking it up delicately, fingering the mangled clasp.

  “What the hell happened here?” A sudden flash of panic swept over her. The journals. She turned, the necklace dropping from her fingers, forgotten. Her stomach dropped at the sight of the low, old-fashioned bookcase in the corner. It had received the same treatment as the rest of the room, with most of its books strewn across the floor.

  “Careful, baby,” her mother whispered fretfully as Greer rushed across the room. She kicked aside the clothes and underthings in her way.

  Greer frowned as she squatted down in front of the case. “Why would someone do this?” she asked, pawing through the discarded books.

  “I don’t know,” Maggie sounded agitated. “But something about this isn’t right.”

  “You think?”

  Greer picked up a few of the books to read their titles. Old herbals and useless almanacs. She tossed them aside and picked through the rest of the mess. She was about to turn away when one thin, unmarked volume caught her eye. It was under several almanacs, the corner of its spine barely visible in the chaos. She reached for it, pulling it free with trembling fingers.

  “Looks like they missed one,” she murmured.

  The brown cover was old, and she carefully thumbed through its onion-skin pages. She was rewarded by a narrow, spidery script in a sloping hand. She paused and skimmed one of the pages.

  “Margaret missed the bus this morning,” she read, “and I put her to work in the woods, collecting the herbs and mushrooms I’ve neglected to harvest because of my leg. She complained but did an excellent job, even getting a handful of John in the Pulpits-” Greer paused and frowned. “What is this?”

  “I remember that day,” her mother mused as Greer irritably thumbed back through the journal. “I was pissed as hell at her.”

  Unable to find what she was looking for, Greer flipped to the first page. Her hopes fell, dashing against the date written in blue ink: 1995. The year before she was born.

  “This is useless,” Greer said, flipping through the pages. Her thumb caught a gap in the middle, where some were missing. She fingered the ragged edges, then sighed and looked behind her at the mess. “This doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Why would anyone want Grandma’s journals?”

  “I don’t know,” her mother said. “But we need to check the attic—if anyone got in there…” She trailed off.

  Greer hesitated, staring at the doorway to the hall. Her stomach twisted at the thought of what she might find—or what she might have to confront. Part of her wished someone had emptied it completely, sparing her from whatever was left.

  Reluctantly, she stood up and picked her way back through the mess. The air felt heavier in the hallway as if the house were holding its breath. She pulled the attic door open and was greeted by the familiar sight of time-worn stairs framed by rough-paneled wooden walls. Each step bowed under the weight of generations, leading her gaze upward to her grandmother’s private workroom. The squat one-and-a-half-story house defied logic, concealing an impossible attic. The expansive, cathedral-like space lurked at the top of the attic stairs where no room had any physical right to be.

  As she put one sneaker on the first step, a gust of pine-scented air— warm and fresh— rushed down the stairs. A wave of nostalgia washed over her, filled with memories of childhood summers spent exploring this hidden sanctuary.

  Back when things weren’t royally fucked.

  At the top, she froze. The attic stretched out before her, a panorama of devastation. An unknown ancestor had built shelves into the sloping line of the roof. Shelves that had been once filled with rows and rows of books containing the collective knowledge of her family’s past. Now, all that remained of the handwritten grimoires were their outlines in the dust.

  “Oh my god,” she said, stepping further into the wreckage. “It’s all gone.”

  She was acutely aware that she’d just wished for this very thing, but now that it was real, it felt like a punch to the gut. The emptiness wasn’t a relief—it was a wound, raw and gaping, and it felt like it had been carved into her own flesh.

  Her mother’s voice crackled in her ear. “Are you sure? Look carefully. There has to be something left.”

  “I am looking,” Greer snapped, nudging a broken jar with her foot. The faint scent of lavender wafted up from the spilled herbs. “This isn’t just a mess. Someone gutted it. They took everything.”

  Greer halfheartedly picked through the broken jars and herb boughs, but it was useless. Everything was gone. She collapsed into the thick, old-fashioned armchair next to the stairs, feeling like a failure. “This was a waste of time.”

  “At least you found one of the journals,” her mother reminded her.

  Greer looked down at the slim journal in her hand and pursed her lips. “I doubt it’s going to help much,” she said.

  “It’s better than nothing.”

  Maggie’s words hit like a punch to the gut, and Greer sucked in a breath. Nothing. She had found nothing. Nausea gripped her, and she leaned forward, threading her fingers into her hair. Hot tears slid down her cheeks. What was she going to do now?

  Her mother’s reaction was immediate.

  “Hey, it’s gonna be okay, baby.”

  Greer curled her hands around the thin spine of the book and dragged in a deep breath. The window at the far end of the attic had been left open, and a breeze drifted through the empty room. It sent dust motes spinning brightly through the late afternoon sunshine. She could almost imagine the weight of her mother’s hand on the back of her head.

  “We’re gonna figure this out,” Maggie whispered.

  “How?” Greer blurted out. “How are we going to fix this? Because I can’t see a way out of this without the journals.” Her voice cracked, and she buried her head in her hands, letting the journal drop to the floor.

  “It’s time to talk to one of the others,” Maggie said.

  Greer let out a bitter laugh and dropped her hands. “You think any of them will help me? They wouldn’t help us then, Mom. What makes you think they’ll help now?”

  Maggie’s silence felt heavy in the narrow attic. Greer hated herself for saying it, but she hated even more how much she believed it.

  “It’s not the same,” Maggie said finally, her voice trembling slightly. “We have to try. I can’t keep watching you disappear like that-”

  Even though it was the last thing Greer wanted to do, hearing her mother break like that hurt a piece of her.

  “Fine,” she said quickly before Maggie could go on. She scooped up the fallen journal and stood to her feet. At least it was something.

  She dragged in a deep breath, feeling the scars on her cheek tighten with the motion. She squared her shoulders, steeling herself against the dread clawing at her chest. “Something’s better than nothing,” she muttered, more to herself than to Maggie. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  ---

  Tad took another sip of his coffee and eyed the scene in front of him.

  “Run me through it again, Bobby,” he said, not because he didn’t understand the first time. But rather because he thought there was no way he could have heard it correctly.

  The older man rubbed his bushy, ginger-brown beard. “We think it touched down here,” he turned and waved his hand at the carnage behind them. “Then there was an explosion, probably the propane tank behind the house,” he said. He pointed past the black crater.

  Tad set his coffee on the hood of his squad car and exchanged it for the five-page report he’d taken from the office. His arm ached, and he shifted it in the sling, trying to ease the pressure. “So, to clarify, you’re saying a tornado wiped out Richard Dane’s house.”

  Bobby nodded, a short upward thrust of his chin. “Yeah. That’s our best guess.”

  “Then,” Tad continued, “the propane exploded.” Bobby nodded along. “And then what?” Tad asked, his brow furrowing. “I mean, did the tornado just vanish into thin air?”

  Bobby frowned at him, and Tad felt a twinge of irritation. Did Bobby think he was questioning their competence? Tad clenched his jaw, trying to keep his frustration in check. “It ain’t unheard of,” Bobby said, his frown deepening. “Why are we doing this? Your dad already cleared it.”

  Tad could feel his blood pressure rising, but he forced himself to remain calm. “I just want to get things clear in my head. I wasn’t on the scene.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that. How’s your arm?”

  Tad hefted the sling in response. “It’s okay. Doc’s got me on painkillers and antibiotics. Truck’s totaled, though.”

  Bobby clucked his tongue in sympathy. “Tough luck, man.”

  Tad gave a tight nod, brushing off the comment. “So about this theory,” Tad pressed, “you gotta admit, it’s pretty damn implausible.”

  He expected some kickback, braced for it even, but it never came. Bobby shrugged. “Maybe, but there’s an eyewitness.”

  That grabbed Tad’s attention. He flipped awkwardly through the report. “That’s not in here.” He looked back up at Bobby. “Who?”

  Bobby pointed east to a house. From this distance, Tad could barely make out the roofline. “Neighbor saw the whole thing.”

  “Okay,” Tad said, setting the report on the hood and reaching for his pen. “What’s their name? Do we have any contact information for them?”

  Bobby shrugged apologetically. “Dunno, kid. Not my job. But she’s the one who called it in.”

  Tad sighed and ran his hand over his face, feeling the stubble on his cheeks. He should have shaved that morning. “Alright,"” he sighed. “I’ll sort it out. Any word on Clint? When is he coming around today?”

  Bobby shrugged again, this time less apologetically. “Teddy Pelton’s barn burned down this morning. Once he’s done there, he’ll head back this way.”

  Tad nodded, half to himself. That meant it would be a couple of hours, at least, if the Fire Marshall managed to get there at all that day. “Thanks, Bobby.”

  “No problem. Need anything else from me? I gotta head back to the office and pick up some forms for Clint.”

  Tad shook his head. “No. Thanks for coming.”

  Bobby nodded and headed for his truck. Then he paused and turned back to Tad. “I suppose it goes without saying, but don’t go down into the wreckage,” he said. “Those beams are unstable. Lyle’s coming by tomorrow to lift them out with the crane. Until then, no one goes down there.”

  Tad didn’t think he'd be able to climb down into the crater with his arm the way it was, but he smiled and waved his thanks anyway. He watched Bobby pull out of the drive before approaching the crater.

  He peered over the edge gingerly, looking down into the hole. It was filled with debris and blackened beams. Somewhere in the distance, a crow jeered. He sighed and, taking one last look at the debris-filled crater, turned and walked back to his squad car. He collected his things off the hood and eyed the house in the distance before folding himself into the driver’s seat of his car. Then, with a sense of determination— partially fueled by a desire to prove the stupid tornado theory wrong— he started the engine and drove toward the neighboring house.

  Blackriver Road was a short stretch of paved asphalt set into the sloping base of a valley that connected Meeker Road to State Route Six. Despite being so close to two of the largest thoroughfares in the county, the hills around Blackriver made it feel small and isolated. At one end was Richard Dane’s house, or at least what was left of it, and at the other was one of the many nameless family farms that covered the county like a patchwork quilt. Between the two was his eyewitness. In all honesty, it took him more time to get in his car with the sling on than it did to drive up the road. Before Tad got out, he double-checked the report. There was no mention of this witness. He picked up the radio.

  “Hey, Karla?” He waited a minute for her to respond. After thirty seconds or so, the line crackled to life.

  “What’s up, Tad?” she asked, her smoker’s voice deepened by the cheap hardware.

  “My dad around?”

  “Just stepped out for lunch with Jeb. Need me to call him up?”

  He shook his head, even though she couldn’t see him. “No, I’ll talk to him when I get back.” He hesitated, not sure if he should. “Hey, there’s some information missing from the report about the 911 call for the Dane fire. Do you know anything about that?” He held his breath, waiting for her rejection.

  “Wasn’t on duty, kid,” she said, her voice clipped.

  “Yeah,” he pressed, “but did my dad say anything about it?”

  The line was silent, and he shifted uncomfortably in the pause, wondering if he’d pushed too far. When Karla finally responded, her voice was colder than the steel receiver she spoke into. “Can’t remember that he did,” she said sharply, each word clipped.

  Tad blinked, the frost in her tone drawing a sharp contrast to her usual dismissive indifference. It wasn't the first time he'd felt this chill when asking questions that touched too close to his father's shadow, but it still hit like a splash of cold water. “Okay, thanks,” he said, trying to sound cheerful, but his grip on the radio tightened. The knot in his chest wasn’t guilt—he hadn’t overstepped—but frustration, the kind born of walls he’d never quite learned how to breach. “I was just wondering. I’m on my way to check on it now. I should be back in the office in an hour or so.”

  “Okay,” she said. Her voice remained distant and coldly professional, and he quickly signed off. He really should be put in for a transfer to another station. No matter what his dad said, they didn’t need or want him around. He knew he threw off the office dynamic just by being there; he could see it in their faces when he walked into the room. But part of him didn’t want to leave. Eliasburough was his home. Any other place wouldn’t be the same. Being the sheriff’s son, he knew people saw him as an extension of his father, a legacy rather than a person. It was hard to forge his identity when everyone else had already decided what he should be.

  He sighed and looked at the house through the dirty windshield. It reminded him of a larger version of his grandpa’s cabin at the lake. It had a deep porch and a high-pitched, sweeping roof. Only this roof was set with solar panels, and cherry tomatoes were in hanging pots lining the edge. He struggled out of the car one-handed, wincing as he finally managed to get out of the car and started up the short walk. His arm throbbed with every step. The painkillers barely took the edge off. He felt a wave of frustration wash over him as he made his way up the short steps to the porch. He just wanted to be better, to be back to his normal, fully functioning self. He hated feeling like an invalid. He took a deep breath, and knocked on the front door.

  The woman who opened the door was well past middle age but wore it well. “Can I help you?” she asked, pushing an unruly lock of curly hair out of her face.

  “Afternoon, ma’am,” he said, affecting his most wholesome, good ol’ country boy charm. “I’m Deputy Shannon with the Eliasborough Sheriff’s Department. I wanted to talk to you about the incident next door.”

  She gave him a critical once-over, then peered beyond him at his squad car parked in the driveway. “You got a badge?”

  Tad reached into his pocket, fishing out his badge. “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a polite smile, presenting it to her.

  She barely glanced at it. Instead, her eyes roamed his face. “You're Joe’s boy?” When he nodded, she looked thoughtful. “I knew your grandma. She was a special lady.”

  Tad’s eyebrows shot up. He supposed that’s what he got for working in the same place he grew up. “My dad’s mom or my mom’s?”

  “Joe’s mother, Helen.”

  Tad shrugged apologetically before he remembered it would hurt and shook his head. “I never knew her. She died before I was born.”

  She pursed her lips. “That’s a shame.” She gave him a once over. “How come you're not in uniform?”

  He motioned to the sling. “I’m still on temporary medical leave, but the office is shorthanded, so I’m helping out where I can.”

  “What happened?”

  “Deer.”

  She nodded in understanding. Stepping aside, she invited him into the house, her bare feet whispering against the cool wooden floor. The house was a verdant oasis, a realm of green that breathed life into the rustic setting. Potted plants— a riot of ferns, vines, and leafy tendrils— sprawled across every surface.

  What wasn’t sprouting in pots was hanging dried from the wide, sturdy beams set into a cobweb-dappled ceiling. Dried herbs and flowers, their color leached by time, dangled above his head, their brittle forms rustling with the draft that meandered through the house.

  He trailed behind her, each footstep muffled by the thick, worn Persian rug that stretched across the wide expanse of the living room. She led him into the heart of the house where a long galley kitchen sat against the back wall. The narrow space was dominated by a large window that spanned the entire side wall, giving Tad a view of the woman’s lush garden outside. Sun pierced the veil of steam rising from a simmering pot on the stove, giving the otherwise cramped kitchen a sense of expansiveness and warmth.

  “You want something to drink?” she asked, gesturing to the fridge.

  He shook his head. “Can you tell me about last Tuesday?” he asked, pulling his notebook from his breast pocket.

  She pierced him with a sharp gaze. “What do you know?”

  He tilted his head and considered her question. “Why don’t we start with your name and what made you call 911? That’ll give me a better idea of where we stand.”

  Her name was Simone Calhoun. “I was out in my garden, clipping mint before full night set in,” she said. “The garden faces Anne’s house, and I noticed a new car in the drive. I figured the in-laws were over for dinner or something. I didn’t find out until later that it was Kat.”

  He consulted the report. “Katherine Dane?”

  Simone nodded. “Anyways,” she continued. “There was this big dark cloud over their house, but I didn’t think anything of it until I heard this sound, like a bobcat. When I looked up, the cloud over their house had turned black and was circling the roof. I ran back inside and tried to call them, but I only got a busy signal.” She blew out a breath. “By then, it was too late.”

  “So you saw the tornado touch down?” he asked, making a mental note to check the weather reports from that night.

  She shook her head. “That was no tornado,” she said. “That was a curse if I’ve ever seen one.”

  Tad stopped writing and looked up at her. “A curse,” he deadpanned.

  She nodded. “That’s what I said.”

  Even new on the job in a small rural town, Tad had already seen his share of crazy shit. He tried not to judge the people he met by their words, but it was hard not to scoff at her. “How do you know it was a curse?” he asked, trying to keep his tone mild.

  He must have failed because she glared at him. “How much has your dad told you?” she asked instead.

  He blinked at the sudden change of topic. “About what?” he asked.

  She gave him a pointed look. “About witches.”

  ---

  “We went to high school together,” Maggie said as Greer closed the front door. The roses fluttered in the breeze. Out in the yard, a crow took flight, disturbed by her sudden appearance.

  “Are you sure you know where she lives?” Greer asked.

  “Simone’s family-owned farmland over on Blackwater Road,” her mother said. “She’s probably still there. People around here don’t give up land easily.”

  Greer nodded and thumped down the stone slab steps to the car. Behind her, the wind rustled the rose bush again, and for a second, it almost sounded like the leaves called her name. She paused and glanced back. From the porch, Kat silently watched her leave, her gray eyes hard and unforgiving.

  A rush of electricity ran down her arms and pooled in her hands, a memory of the magic she used to have. She clenched her fists and forced herself to turn away from her grandmother. She slammed the car door shut and shoved the key into the ignition. She pulled the headphones out of her ears as the car crackled to life.

  “Don’t let it get to you,” her mother said from the speakers. “She can’t hurt you anymore.”

  Greer eyed the specter on the porch and threw the car into reverse. “I think I liked it better when she was content to ignore me from afar,” she said, turning the car around and heading back the way she’d come. She forced herself not to watch the little white house as it receded in the rearview mirror. “At least then I didn't have to worry about seeing her shadow around every corner.”

  The car bumped over the uneven dirt road, the tires kicking up small clouds of dust as it descended the hill. Greer drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, her restlessness matching the steady rhythm of the car’s vibrations.

  “Do you think this other witch will help me?”

  “Probably,” her mother said. “She was always kind to me, even when I was a brat.”

  Greer snorted. “I guess we’re lucky then,” she said, picking her phone up from the cup holder. Keeping one eye on the road, she brought up her map app. She carefully tapped in Blackriver Road, Eliasborough, PA and pressed GO once the route was calculated. But, instead of showing the route, the screen flickered and then died.

  She frowned, glanced up at the road, watching as she passed the Clarke's house, then pressed the power button on her phone.

  Nothing.

  “Greer!”

  The dashboard beeped. Her attention flew back to the car. A sudden burst of fear flashed through her when the interior dash lights blinked, then died. She dropped the phone and grabbed the wheel with both hands.

  The engine stopped.

  An unnatural silence fell over the car as it continued down the road. It no longer propelled itself. Instead, it fell down the slope. Realizing the car had veered off course, she panicked and hit the brakes. Nothing responded. She yanked the wheel to the side.

  The car slammed into the ancient stone bridge that crossed the creek.

  The momentum jerked Greer forward. The seat belt tightened painfully like a punch to the chest, and the sidewall of the bridge crumbled under the force of the impact. Greer shrieked as the car fell through the air and plummeted into the creek below.

  Silence fell over the hill.

  Somewhere high above, a crow cawed.