“You know, I’ve heard rumors about that town you’re staying in,” Simon said, breaking the silence. His tone was suspiciously upbeat. “It’s supposed to be filled with inspiration. All the Hollywood writers used to go up there, back in the seventies, whenever they . . .” He paused. He’d unwittingly crossed back into dangerous territory.
“Whenever they ran out of words?” Nobody but another writer could fully understand the terror of the blank page. There had to be therapy groups for what I’d been going through.
“The reporters are hunting for you,” he said then. “That’s why I called. I thought I should give you a heads-up, before one of them tracks you down for an interview or something. Look, I’m sorry. About it being Lacey, I mean.”
I stood up and walked away from Tucker, cupped my hand around the phone, instinctively lowered my voice. “They deserve each other,” I said with a long sigh. I cradled the phone on my shoulder and rubbed my hands together. Maybe it was going to snow. I wondered whether I still had the tire chains for the SUV or if they had ended up in Dan’s Mercedes by mistake. My ex-husband had just married my former best friend and I was grinding my teeth together, and right now, more than anything, I wanted to go search the cargo compartment for those damned chains. I didn’t hear the soft approach of my son until he stood in front of me, hair the color of toffee, eyes just like his father’s.
Tucker stared up at me and my heart nearly broke in two.
“I’ll call you back later,” I told Simon, then I flicked the phone off.
“Mom? Can we?” Tucker asked.
Somewhere along the way, I’d missed the question.
“Can we go for a hike before we unpack?”
Samwise seemed to sense the answer was yes even before I did. The dog spun around in a black-and-tan circle, yipping at the unending stream of crows in the sky. I shoved my cell phone and Bluetooth inside my pocket, then pushed a smile into my eyes. A real smile this time, one that talked about Christmas and birthdays and body surfing at Santa Monica, one that remembered reading the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy out loud when Tucker was three years old. One that knew he was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
“Absolutely,” I said.
He slid his nine-year-old hand in mine.
“Come on,” I told him. “We’re going on a hunt for a new story, something magical, something wonderful, something so incredible—”
“—that they’re going to make a movie out of it,” he said.
“Exactly.” I turned my face from his for a moment so he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes.
Then, as if he knew exactly which way to go, Tucker pulled me toward a section of the forest that seemed to open like a door as we approached. The trunks stepped aside and boughs swung out of the way, arching overhead like a secret tunnel into another world. All the trees whispered and sighed in the breeze as I stepped onto the path.
It almost felt like the forest had been waiting all these years for me to return.
Chapter 4
A Century of Magic
Ash:
The house held a century of magic twisted into its cupboards and narrow crevices. It remembered me, the old me, I know it did. I know that somewhere in its wooden heart, it woke up and wept on the day of the curse. When my wife lay crying and dying and hoping that I would find her, this old house had watched every moment. An unnatural wind followed me from room to room, like a sigh, moving curtains, sometimes tossing small objects from tables. My clan says it’s nothing but my own magic, gone awry from the curse. But they’re wrong, of course.
I think hauntings start like this.
A spirit stays too long in one place, with bad intentions, like I did, and then they get stuck. Might be torment for the humans, but nobody ever seems to wonder how the house feels about it.
Sometimes I think I’ve succumbed to the enchantment of my own curse.
I put the groceries away, stretching, my human skin feeling too tight. Probably because I saw her—Maddie. She was disturbing my thoughts, intruding into memories I didn’t want dredged up. The look in her eyes, and that mouth—how had that little girl grown up into something that lovely? It just wasn’t right.
“Not much right in this world,” a voice spoke at my side.
Sage, my sister, emerged from the shadows, unexpected, as always. She loved to catch me by surprise. I didn’t even have her room ready yet.
“Don’t need a room, you know that. I’ll just stretch out on one of those green boughs, watch the stars, wait for the moon to rise, full and sweet.”
Music sparked in her voice, casting even more memories about the room. “You’re early.”