Feast (18 page)
Authors: Merrie Destefano
Maddie:
Pine logs crackled and spit in the fireplace, filled the room with flickering light and woodsy fragrance. Family mementoes covered the walls and mantel, black-and-white photos mixed with sepia tones and turn-of-the-century tintypes. The Wimbledon resemblance ran strong—I thought I could pick out Joe’s mother and grandmother, possibly a sister or two. Tucker sulked in an overstuffed chair, while Samwise paced the room curiously, lifting his head whenever Joe started to speak.
“I want to go to the bonfire—” Tucker said in that whine all children have perfected by the age of three.
“Later, sweetheart.”
“But, Mom—” He dragged the word
Mom
out for three syllables.
“No.”
Then Joe walked back in the room with two cups of hot chocolate and a bowl of water. In a minute, both Tucker and Samwise were slurping their respective drinks. I leaned forward on the sofa, elbows on my knees.
“What do you know about the local chupacabras?” I asked.
He shrugged, took a long sip of Coors. “Not much.”
“Now I think
you’re
lying. One of your shape-shifters got into my cabin last night and then today, two of them attacked me in the woods.”
He bristled, then shook his head. “I don’t know how you got that mark on your arm, but if two Darklings attacked you in the woods then you wouldn’t be here tellin’ me about it.”
“Darklings, huh. I knew they had another name. Chupacabras never quite fit.” I pulled a small pad of paper from my pocket and started taking notes. “I found a dead body in the woods today.” I paused to see how he would react. So far, he was still acting like I was making everything up, just like Sheriff Kyle. “The body was almost completely flat—”
His eyes found mine, studied them.
“—and there were two holes, just like all the blood had been drained out.”
“Not blood. They’re not vampires. You really found a body?” He stood up and walked to the mantel, his back to me. “Where is it? How come Kyle hasn’t called me?”
“Why would he call you? He acted like you were the local nutcase.”
“Some folks think so.” I noticed that he held a small picture frame in his hand when he turned to face me again. A young woman, maybe his wife. “But whenever things turn sour around here, everybody suddenly remembers what I been tellin’ them over the years.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re an outsider,” he said. “Ain’t no reason for me to tell ya the Legend.”
At that point, Samwise lifted his head and barked, his body shifted and grew, fur got longer and thicker, his eyes turned silver, his chest and back expanded.
“Whoa! Cool,” Tucker said. “Do you see what Samwise just did, Mom?”
Joe retreated behind a chair.
“He isn’t going to hurt you,” I said.
“What the hell is that thing? It’s not a dog.” Joe had backed into the corner now, his eyes wide, a look of terror on his face.
“My dog bit one of your precious Darklings,” I explained. “What you see is the result.”
Joe continued to stare at the dog, an expression of shock and horror on his face.
“Then it’s a werebeast,” he said. “But he told me they were just a fable, he’d never even seen one before—”
“Who told you that, Mr. Wimbledon? Where did you hear about werebeasts?” I asked.
Before either of us could speak again, the front door swung open and a river of cold air rushed in. Outside, the wind mourned through the trees; sagging limbs, twisting clouds, and all the colors were suddenly wrong. It felt like all the air had been sucked from the room.
Then a lone silhouette stood poised on the threshold. A tall, black shadow framed by swirling snow and moonlight.
Ash
.
Unlike the other Darklings in Ticonderoga Falls,
he
didn’t need to be invited inside.
Chapter 66
Footprints in the Mud
Sheriff Kyle:
We searched the Steak & Ale, but I already knew we weren’t going to find Agnes inside. Most likely she was somewhere in the woods on the other side of the street; I could feel it gnawing in my gut. First Madeline had claimed that she saw a dead body in the woods and now this.
But people didn’t just disappear in Ticonderoga Falls.
Something was wrong here. I had a strong desire to call Joe Wimbledon; as loony as the guy was, he still had a handle on the local folklore and customs.
I stood outside the pub, hands on my hips, staring into the bramble of Sierra currant and bush chinquapin and lodgepole pine across the highway. Right now the pines whispered, branches taunting and swaying—
You won’t find her. You’ll never find her.
I wasn’t about to be spooked by a thirty-acre canyon covered with seventy-foot trees.
“I’m hiking in the woods,” I told Rodriguez.
“Right behind you.”
As soon as I got across the two-lane highway I saw a spot where the shrubs had been pushed aside. Two sets of footprints in the mud and snow led down into the darkness of a steep ravine. “Here,” I said pointing so she could see, then I led the way down the rugged path. Whoever had been down here hadn’t tried to cover their tracks, almost as if they didn’t care. Or maybe they wanted to be caught. Criminals did that sometimes, led a merry chase, secretly hoping someone would stop them and put an end to the madness.
We didn’t get cases like this very often up here, but I’d seen plenty back in L.A. Bodies found in Dumpsters, babies in garbage bags, people tossed out like litter. That was the reason why I had moved up here. I had needed to reconnect, to stop seeing people as victims. Or murderers.
Meanwhile, the wind tossed the trees about, making them creak and moan as it swept through the canyon. Then it broke overhead in a long pitiful wail.
“Creepy,” Rodriguez muttered. “Wish that awful wind would stop.”
“Me too,” I admitted.
The narrow path leading into the ravine turned at a sharp angle, then turned again. Neither of us could see what was up ahead, not through the wild tangle of branches and undergrowth; our flashlights transformed the black night into shades of violet and blue. The mist still clung to the lowlands and it began to roll toward us, billowy clouds that ate up the landscape, that stopped our beams from exposing anything until we were right on top of it. Rodriguez sensed it before I did. She laid a hand on my arm, held me still.
“You smell that?” she asked.
I nodded. I didn’t want to admit it, but there was something dead up ahead. A fresh kill. I’d done enough hunting to recognize the stench.
“Be careful,” I said. There was a chance that whoever kidnapped Agnes might still be down here in the gulley. I gestured for us to spread out. Now our lights overlapped, crisscrossed.
“Agnes?” I called her name. “Agnes, you out here?”
My words echoed across the canyon, returned empty and hollow.
The smell of death got stronger as the trail leveled out onto an old dried-up riverbed. I heard something moving up ahead, scratching and snarling. I pulled out my weapon and motioned for Rodriguez to do the same.
“Agnes!” One last shout as we continued to move forward through the shifting white gloom, reality changing with every step. First a fallen log, then an outcropping of rock that jutted into the riverbed, finally a mound of leaves and twigs driven here by the recent rains.
Up ahead, something yipped and howled.
I flashed the light and it reflected back in four sets of glowing eyes.
Coyotes.
I fired a shot in the air.
Blood dripped from their jaws. The closest one stared at me, head lowered. Then it turned and loped away, revealing a small pack behind it. About six coyotes total. In a second, the pack scattered.
That was when we both saw a body, curled on its side in a nest of leaves and bramble.
It was Agnes. Dead. I approached, swept her from head to foot with the white light. Aside from the recent carnage by the coyotes, this was almost exactly what Madeline had described, back on the Ponderosa Trail. Agnes’s body was flat.
Like all of her life had been mysteriously drained out.
Maddie:
Joe Wimbledon’s front door hung open, the tide of cold air unending and time seemed to hold still. Finally, Ash stepped into the room and the front door closed on its own. In an instant, the heat returned, the curtains fluttered and a soft sigh moved through the living room and into the hallway, as if the house itself was glad to have him here. I watched him, couldn’t stop watching him. It was as if no one existed but him right now.
He sat in an overstuffed chair.
Maybe human. Maybe not.
Pale skin, chin-length unruly black hair. Ash—the name fit him perfectly. What didn’t fit was the way my heart skipped a beat when he entered the room or the way I forgot to breathe until he looked at me.
“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.
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.
Ash:
I could feel the rip, like an umbilical cord being sliced with a knife, as Driscoll embarked on his escape. As expected, the curse forced every dark emotion to the surface—revenge, hatred, guilt—and yet tonight, they were mysteriously quelled as I listened to the Legend. I studied Maddie’s face—rapt with the story, the tale of my fall from grace, my exile in this backwoods town. I found myself surprised that she didn’t see what a horrid creature I truly was. Some other emotion seemed to emanate from her.
But I couldn’t tell whether it was empathy or pity.
Meanwhile, the story coiled about us, rich as music, all the notes in just the right order, all the chords dissonant and minor, as they should be.
Driscoll’s car pulled onto the highway. He was running away. The grandson of the Great Murdering Beast was trying to escape.
Maddie glanced at me.
In the story Lily had just run into the library, had seen the men coming back into the room. My wife then lost her true disguise in the panic, unable to remember what skin she’d been wearing—it had happened to me before, I knew what a dreadful experience it could be.
To be exposed. To be vulnerable.
Driscoll’s car roared, eager to tame the wild road. The forest rose and fell away; one hill after another rolled ever onward. Moon and sky. Black and white. The serpentine road buckled and skipped, as if alive. A thin layer of sweat beaded Professor Driscoll’s forehead as he struggled to make sense of the curving black ribbon that tried to throw him off. He tried to hide his thoughts from the Beast. But it wasn’t working.
Just like Lily hadn’t been able to hide from the net that caught her.
Like I couldn’t hide now from the gaze that Tucker cast at me, eyes tender, almost weeping. He looked so much like the boy who had lured Lily back at the train station, so many years ago.
Ever since the beginning of the curse, Driscoll and his family had been the cattle on the Beast’s thousand hills.
I had been the Beast.
Driscoll could feel my presence now—though far away—probing his mind. Searching. Watching to see which way the car turned, how fast he was going. His fingers clamped the steering wheel, knuckles white.
I closed my eyes and tried to ignore Driscoll’s frantic heartbeat. In the Legend I had just entered the Driscoll mansion. Too late to save her.
Day and night. Good and evil.
Moon in the heavens, full and commanding.
Driscoll pushed the gas pedal to the floor. He was near the edge of Ticonderoga Falls now, pressing against the silver woven net that spread like gossamer magic, created from my flesh and blood, from the wound in my side that would never heal, from the broken heart that would never mend—
Maddie stared at me, tears in her eyes. Listening. Heart thundering.
Maybe my heart could mend.
If I could only let go of the past.
Driscoll’s car tore through the invisible barrier, borne into freedom in an instant, in that moment when I contemplated the possibility of falling in love again.
“No!” Joe stopped telling the story, he cried out.
I smiled. Joe knew what was happening and it was already too late to stop it.
Moon spinning overhead, hypnotic and impulsive. Driscoll fleeing down the mountainside like a dog with the backyard gate left open. Me suddenly crumpling to the floor, unable to speak, unable to move, just like the night Lily had died, wound in my side that matched hers. We had been so in love, so linked in soul and flesh, that the wound that killed her had almost killed me too.
And now a sound like the world being destroyed was rocketing overhead. It began somewhere deep in the valley, then traveled through the village, rushing toward the top of the mountain. An unbearable ripping sound surged through Ticonderoga Falls.
On the floor, I curled in agony, my wound made fresh again, my blood spilling in a red-black pool.
