Ashley and Logan eyed him impatiently.
“I guess it’ll come out one way or another since it technically has to do with both of you. You can’t tell your parents I told you about this.” Paris put his cowboy hat back on. “I know the property is Tammy’s. For whatever reason, she sold the place to your dads. Maybe she gave it to them. I don’t know. But they’re the ones who built it.”
Ashley blinked.
Next to the piano, Logan exhaled. “They built it?”
“Yeah.” Paris nodded, solemn. “I wasn’t as close with your dad at that point. I think the two of them just wanted a way to get a little farther out of town.”
Ashley eyed the walls, the crumbling ceilings, the shattered windows. Brandon and Alejo had built this place by hand, and this was what was left of it. It was as though the wood itself exhaled disappointment. “What happened to it?”
Paris shrugged. “No idea.”
The three of them remained for a moment in silence. Logan’s eyes were wide, but she said nothing. Ashley felt the urge to go to her side, to put a hand on her shoulder and make sure she was all right.
She didn’t know why.
“If you girls don’t mind, I’m gonna check down closer to the water.” Paris stood and made his way out the front door, leaving it open behind him. “Hang tight until I get back.”
When he was gone, Logan dropped her tote bag. It landed on the wood floor with a sickening thud. She said nothing. She only paced the main room, eyes closed as if trying to imagine what it looked like before the destruction. Ashley tried to picture it, too. There had been life here once. It felt miles away now.
When she opened her eyes, she froze.
Brandon sat on the couch in the corner of the room, looking out the window facing the lake. His expression was blank, eyes glassy and fixed on the distant shore.
It took Ashley a moment to realize that Logan didn’t see him. The ghosts were back. The girls weren’t alone.
Ashley braced herself against the wall.
Logan turned to face her. “What’s going on?”
“I, uh—” Ashley swallowed and motioned to the couch. “He’s here. Brandon. The ghost version. Something’s weird.”
The scene was dark and cold and wrong. The wrongness of it permeated the air, casting a shadow over the cabin so deep it was difficult to breathe. Ashley felt the darkness like an oily film on her skin.
Logan blinked. She moved to the couch and pulled several devices from her bag, methodically turning them all on.
Brandon’s ghost was silent, just like the last time Ashley had seen him. He ran his hand through the space next to him, eyes fixed on the lake outside. His expression was steely. It wasn’t an expression at all. He was a shell, as if there were nothing human in him.
A voice whispered, but she couldn’t make out what it said.
“Do you feel that?” Ashley asked.
Logan arched a brow. “Feel what?”
Ashley’s jaw chattered in the cold. It made no sense—outside the lakefront window, the sun shone warm and golden over the dirt. She’d just been outside, she’d just felt the heat. But inside the cabin it was as cold as winter. Voices whispered outside, soft as running water. Too many voices, as though there were a crowd gathered just outside. Ashley’s stomach sank with the distinct feeling that something was circling them, pressing at the walls, looking for a way inside.
“He’s just sitting there,” Ashley said. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Describe it,” Logan said.
“I think he’s…” Grieving, Ashley wanted to say. But the voices outside continued to hiss, circling the aching wood like vultures circling prey. “Close the door.”
Logan ran to the door and closed it. She held her phone up like better service might give her a message from the Scripto8G. “Is he saying anything?”
Ashley looked down. Brandon Woodley wasn’t vague like Tristan’s scent or Nick’s disembodied voice. Just like last time, he was unsettlingly present.
“One day,” a voice breathed, “we’ll be happy.”
Brandon stiffened.
And then he looked at her.
Ashley jolted back, crashing into a collapsed table. Her knees buckled on the corner of the wood and Logan’s palms flattened against her back to hold her upright. The floorboards cried out, but the sound was muddled like she heard it from underwater. She clutched her chest, but she didn’t look away.
After a moment, Brandon blinked. He shook his head slightly and the room changed. The air loosened, shedding its shroud of cold as though it were shrugging off a blanket. Ashley felt Logan’s hands at her back—actually felt them—and then she was in the cabin. Sunlight glinted through the shattered windows, but the skin of her forearms still prickled with goose bumps. The voices outside were gone. Instead, she heard the rustling of juniper branches high above the cabin’s collapsing ceiling.
“What just happened?” Logan asked, trying to hide the shaking in her voice.
“He saw us,” Ashley hissed. “I don’t know how, but—”
Brandon pressed his fingers under his glasses to rub his eyes. “I thought I saw something.”
“What’s—” Logan started.
Ashley hushed her.
Brandon paused like he was listening, then shook his head. “I can’t be around them.”
Ashley let go of Logan’s arm and stood in front of Brandon. Up close, his face was full of nothing. He looked out the window into the undefined void. She didn’t know what a killer looked like, but if she had to picture their expression, she’d picture this.
Brandon paused again, listening, then nodded. He watched the space beside him—the space where Ashley had stood seconds earlier—and narrowed his eyes. After a moment of tense quiet, he swiped a hand through the empty air and closed his eyes.
“Not real,” he whispered.
Quietly, he made his way to the front door and out of sight.
Ashley let out a pent-up breath and wiped beads of sweat from her brow. “I’m … so confused.”
“You’re confused?” Logan snapped.
“Follow me.”
They made their way out of the cabin and down to the lake, away from where Paris paced the shore. Once Logan was seated on a small boulder, Ashley recounted the moment as well as she could. But the strangeness of it was impossible to put into words. It was a feeling that settled in the pit of her stomach like stones. Even on the lakeshore, with the sun beating down on her and a warm breeze rustling through the trees, she felt the cold under her skin. She felt Brandon’s stare, relentless and empty and dead.
“It’s like he wasn’t alone,” Ashley said. “There was something else there. I could hear it outside, whispering.”
Logan scratched her scalp. “Who would it be, though?”
“I don’t think it was a person.”
Logan arched a brow.
“I don’t think it was human.”
“I just don’t get it,” Logan said. She kicked a smooth oval stone into the lake. “Was it just Brandon?”
“Just Brandon that I could see. I heard something talk to him, though.” Ashley closed her eyes, conjuring up the voice in her memory. “It said they’d be ‘happy again.’ I don’t know why. It kinda … sounded like someone died.”
“Is this just you filling in blanks?” Logan asked.
“What?” Ashley asked. “I’m not making it up. I’m just telling you what I saw. And what I saw looked like they were grieving someone.”
Logan pressed her palm to her forehead. “Who, though?”
“Maybe family?”
Logan scoffed.
“When I heard our parents talking, my mom told your dad she was sorry for his loss,” Ashley said. “Did your dads … ever mention someone dying? Maybe before you were adopted? I know you don’t wanna talk about it, but—”
Logan stiffened.
“—that grave at Pioneer Cemetery.”
“No.”
“If t
hey lost someone, maybe that’s why they left.”
Logan shook her head. “No. It’s literally not possible. They would’ve told me. Alejo would’ve…”
Logan didn’t finish her thought. They sat in silence for a moment. The lake ebbed up along the shore, carrying dust out into the water with each pulse. Logan wanted to believe Brandon had nothing to do with the deaths, but his footsteps were everywhere they looked. He was the only thing that’d changed in Snakebite.
“I thought we were supposed to be looking for Tristan,” Logan said. “We’re supposed to be clearing this up, not making it worse.”
“I don’t think this is someone just killing people,” Ashley said. “The voices I heard outside were … what if they’re connected to all this?”
“You think something paranormal is behind it.” Logan said this like a statement, not a question.
“It wouldn’t be weirder than everything else going on.”
Logan pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know it looks like Brandon is involved, but … let me talk to my dads and see what I can find out. I don’t wanna jump to any conclusions. Please.”
Ashley’s frown was involuntary. There was desperation in Logan’s face, but she wasn’t sure if it was desperation for Brandon to be innocent or desperation because she thought he wasn’t. Logan’s straight black hair rippled with the wind. She cupped a hand over her mouth.
“Okay,” Ashley said. “I can ask my mom some more stuff, too. But we don’t know how long it’ll be before someone else goes missing. There’s not that many kids here. It could be one of my friends. It could be one of us.”
“Promise me you won’t do anything until I’ve talked to them,” Logan said. “Just trust me.”
Logan’s eyes narrowed, glassy like she might cry. Ashley looked beyond her to the cabin. The cold under her skin was almost gone now, but the weight in her stomach still pushed her down. It felt like she was sinking. She closed her eyes.
“I promise.”
20
A Whisper Soft And Staying
At the end of all of this, Snakebite would never be the same. A piece of Ashley already knew that, even if she pretended otherwise.
The sky was open wide and bright blue with morning. From the peak of the massive hill on the eastern edge of the Barton property, the rest of the hills were only gentle ripples reaching out to the horizon, the lake twisting between them like a vein. The wind carried the sweet scent of juniper up the hillside. This was the Snakebite etched into Ashley’s bones. It was the one she saw when she closed her eyes. It was her Snakebite, just out of reach as darkness rolled into the valley like an impending storm.
It was just another thing she was losing.
Ashley had climbed to the grassy cap of this hill for picnics with Bug and Fran since they were in middle school. It’d been months since they’d been here together, but even with everything else changing, this was exactly how Ashley remembered it.
She was nervous about coming here. She was nervous about seeing Bug and Fran. She’d spoken to them a few times since Nick’s funeral, but this was different. Nothing between the three of them had ever made her nervous before. There was a silence that settled between them, holding them an arm’s length from one another, wordlessly seeding doubt into Ashley’s chest. With everything going on, hanging out with friends felt like a lie.
Ashley’s horse reached the crest of the hill. Bug and Fran trotted up behind her on borrowed Barton horses. Quietly, the three of them made their way to a knotted juniper that stood alone on the hill’s bald face. Bug laid a blanket across the dead grass, and Fran unlatched the picnic basket from her horse’s saddle. They assembled turkey sandwiches and mason jars of lemonade like they had every summer, lying back on the blanket under the shade of the juniper tree. The air was crisp and clear and Ashley immediately wanted to sink into the ground if it meant she could stay here forever.
“I miss you guys,” she said between bites of sandwich. “Like, so much.”
“Whose fault is that?” Fran laughed. “You’re the one always hanging out with Logan now.”
“She means we miss you, too,” Bug said.
“Yeah, sure.”
Fran’s attitude was justified, but Ashley had hoped everything would just be normal. Bug was harder to read—she was the nicest of the three of them, which meant she was the least likely to say how she really felt. Both she and Fran looked up at the sky and not at Ashley. She wondered how many worried conversations they’d had about her over the last few weeks.
“Sorry I’ve been weird,” Ashley said. “There’s just been a lot going on.”
“Yeah. But you can talk to us,” Fran said.
“I know.”
“Good.”
Ashley grimaced up at the withered branches overhead. It wasn’t like she didn’t trust Bug and Fran. It was just that they were her last patch of normalcy in Snakebite. They were the last thing left that was untouched by this looming shadow.
Ashley closed her eyes. “Okay. You know I’ve been out of it since Tristan. And you know I told you I was still kind of … sensing him, like he was still around.”
“Sure,” Fran said.
“Well, I think I can kind of … I don’t know. I think I can see ghosts?”
Bug and Fran were silent.
“Not literally,” Fran said.
“Literally.”
She could feel Fran’s frown radiating from next to her. Fran shifted onto an elbow to stare at the side of Ashley’s face. “You wanna elaborate?”
The sun burned through the blue morning as Ashley explained it all, from the first sighting to the cabin to the body at Pioneer Cemetery. She explained the way she had smelled Tristan in the woods, the way he’d told her where to find Nick’s body, the way he lingered with her, even now. She explained it while Bug and Fran listened and sipped their lemonades. She couldn’t look at either of them. Her heart raced up her throat and tasted like iron. “I thought I was just losing it at first. So I asked Logan for help. Because, I don’t know, she knows about this stuff.”
“Jesus,” Fran huffed. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I don’t know.”
Fran sat up. “You told a stranger.”
Ashley covered her face.
Bug was quiet—even quieter than usual. After a moment, she said, “Do you think it’s really him?”
“Obviously not,” Fran cut in. She flipped honey-brown curls over her shoulder. “Logan’s whole thing is this ghost stuff. She’s trying to make you think you’re crazy, seeing ghosts and all that. It’s disgusting.”
Ashley narrowed her eyes. “I know what I saw.”
“Being sad about Tristan doesn’t make him a ghost.”
“I saw him.”
“Yeah, and if you told me that, I would’ve told you to see someone,” Fran said. “That’s what a good friend would do.”
“If I didn’t investigate it with Logan, I never would’ve seen all that other stuff.” Ashley sat up and put her sandwich down on the blanket. Suddenly, she didn’t have an appetite. “If Logan didn’t believe me, we never would’ve found Nick.”
“Finding a dead body isn’t a good thing,” Fran said. “None of this stuff is good. Do you know how messed up that is? You found a dead body. Of a person we knew. That’s, like, a serious problem.”
“Yeah. I found proof that someone is killing people,” Ashley hissed. “I knew both people that went missing. It could be one of us next. I can’t just … not do something.”
“Police catch killers,” Fran said.
“Paris gave up on Tristan. Everyone did.”
“Are you serious?” Fran snapped. “We spent hours out there every morning looking for him. Paris, too. No one gave up on him.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t think we’d find him.” Ashley swallowed the tears that barreled up her throat. She thought of the graffiti at the Bates. For months, everyone had assumed Tristan was dead. “What was I supposed to do?”
&
nbsp; Fran’s eyes widened. Ashley had never seen her angry like this before. Her fists clenched at her sides, jaw tight with rage. “Ash, Tristan is gone.”
“No, he isn’t.”
“Guys—” Bug tried.
“You know what, I’m not hungry.” Fran stood and stormed over to her horse. “You guys have fun. I’ll take the horse back. Just … whatever.”
She ran the horse down the hillside toward Barton Ranch, leaving Bug and Ashley in silence. The warm wind blew between them, painfully quiet. Ashley lay back and waited for Bug to get up and leave her, too. She waited to be alone again.
But Bug stayed. She reached across the blanket and took Ashley’s hand gently. “That was … intense.”
“Yeah,” Ashley croaked. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I’m glad you did, though.” Bug lay on the blanket next to Ashley and laced their fingers together. “I was really scared for you. Fran’s just mad because she loves you a lot. We both do. You really think it’s Tristan?”
“I do. I can’t explain it. But it’s him.”
“I believe you.”
The three words were heavier than she expected. Ashley closed her eyes to keep from crying. They lay there in the quiet and Ashley slowly remembered how to breathe. “Thank you.”
“I can help you look, too,” Bug said. “Have you done any of your investigating at the motel?”
Ashley turned to face her. “Why?”
“Not trying to be mean,” Bug said, “but Logan’s dads are clearly part of this. Somehow. I don’t know, they’re…”
“… suspicious,” Ashley finished. “I know. But I promised Logan I would let her talk to them first.”
“She doesn’t think they’ll just lie?” Bug asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I think Logan seems cool, but maybe she can’t really see the obvious,” Bug said. “I’m just saying it’s worth a look.”
“We’ll see,” Ashley said.
Maybe Bug was right. Either way, if she wanted her old life back, she needed to end this. She needed to find Tristan, find the killer, and find the old Ashley who didn’t spend every day afraid of the dark. She wanted the old Snakebite back one way or another.
The Dead and the Dark Page 15