“It’s time for the Legend,” he said, his voice both compelling and chimeral at the same time. Dark eyes reflected an even darker light.
I sat back, my muscles finally relaxed, and I realized that I was going to hear everything I needed to know. Everything about this village was going to be revealed. I glanced at Tucker, saw that he was leaning forward, eyes wide, eager for whatever was coming—both he and the dog had taken the same positions they always did when I told them bedtime stories. Samwise curled on the floor beside the fire, tail thumping with anticipation, eyes on the man who had just walked in.
“Tell them,” Ash said with a glance at Joe.
Joe hesitated. “But Mr. Ash, they’re outsiders—”
“Not anymore,” he answered. “Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”
Then sparkles drifted from the ceiling, almost like the snow outside. An enchantment had been cast, time was standing still, and we would have as much time as we needed to hear the whole story.
All tales begin somewhere.
This one started with a whispered mountain legend, nearly a century ago.
Chapter 68
The Best Legend Keeper
Ash:
The engine roared to life at the same moment that Joe started telling the Legend. The two events weren’t connected and yet they would change the destiny of Ticonderoga Falls. I could feel a shift in reality, like summer wind on naked flesh.
Welcome and uncontrollable.
The story flowed from Joe’s lips, caught in his rough mountain cadence and transformed into something almost holy. He was the best Legend Keeper of them all.
It was too bad really. This would be the last time he would tell the story.
I didn’t know what was coming, still I could feel it like a tsunami, building someplace far, far away, one unseen event that would lead to another and then another. If I stopped the story at any point in time, then the ending would have remained the same.
Everything in this village would have remained the same. Almost forever.
And I would have remained alone.
She needed to hear all of it before she would believe.
In my mind, I could see images, pictures of Professor Eli Driscoll. But they were mere interruptions. Just more of Driscoll’s incessant cry for freedom and peace.
All humans wanted it, didn’t have any idea that they told their own horror stories in silence. I don’t like to gaze inside their minds during the day, for all the darkness they carried. But during the night, that is an entirely different matter.
So I refused to react. Instead, I sat there, listening to the Legend, watching the expression on Maddie’s face, while Driscoll cast out secret messages like a blackjack dealer tossing cards.
Chapter 69
Paintings of Lily
Driscoll:
I cringed. The car engine growled, a loud, steady rumble. Surely Ash could hear it and he would come flying through night skies at any moment, would pounce on the hood as soon as the car backed out of the carriage house. I waited for a long time, until finally, the motor settled to a soft purr, and the exhaust fumes cleared. Then I rolled down my window, hoping the cold air would invigorate me, give me courage and resolve. It didn’t work. Instead the car filled with the smells of lumber, old tires and linseed oil. Moonlight poured in the open carriage doors, illuminating canvases stacked against the far wall, more evidence of my father’s visitations over the years.
Paintings of Lily.
The most haunting one had managed to find its way to the top again, despite my efforts to keep it buried.
She stood posed as a turn-of-the-century little girl, her disguise perfect. The only way I could tell it was her was by the eyes: no human had eyes that color. She stood inside the mansion, surrounded by other children, though they all paled next to her in detail, in composition, in beauty.
It was the night of the birthday party. The night of the curse.
Of course, I hadn’t been born yet—my own father had been just a boy—but I’d heard the tale so often that it was embedded in my DNA. It was my curse now.
But not if I could get away. All I had to do was cross over the border of the old Ticonderoga Falls purchase, the piece of land bought by my great-grandfather. As far as I was concerned, the map of the world suddenly shrank, all of the boundaries were now defined by this village called Ticonderoga Falls. It stood like an invisible cage that had held me too long.
One hand on the steering wheel, I looked over my shoulder, pressed my foot ever so gently against the gas pedal, and began backing the car out of the carriage house.
Inch by inch, heartbeat thundering louder than the howling wind, I ventured forth, every bit of me as excited and terrified as Magellan.
This was going to be my journey into the New World.
Chapter 70
Moon and Sky