"Lorelai, I'm not gonna waste my energy on the weather just because you hate getting wet."
"Oh come on, it's not like I'm asking you to move the entire front from above town. Just clear out this area."
"Lorelai, shut up and concentrate!" Before he even finished talking he opened his palm and hit his sister in the chest with such force that she went flying backwards and crashed into the trunk of a tree thirty feet away. She landed on her feet like a cat and remained in a crouched position, with one leg bent at the knee, the other extended to the side, and both arms spread wide. Connor was smiling at her from the same spot he'd hit her, his fists resting on his hips. "I told you your skills are rusty."
The girl jumped to her feet, her arms still open wide to her sides, and turned her palms up. Smiling, she looked at one hand, then the other, and finally back at Connor. "Very well, Brother," she said, as a fireball the size of a Christmas globe lit up in each of her palms. "Let's see how rusty my skills really are."
3
Curses
"I can't believe you're taking Chestnut Road," Marion complained, looking in the pocket mirror and fixing an inexistent flaw in her impeccable makeup. "And at the speed you're going, it's gonna take us forever to get to school. Mrs. Whitaker is going to kill us for being late. Again."
When she finally turned on Chestnut Road fifteen minutes later, Iris was still shaken up from the accident, but the knot in her stomach had loosened up a bit. She felt relief at the thought that there were no more cars or pedestrians—or crazy motorcyclists that jumped in front of you out of nowhere—to avoid, and her only focus now was the open road ahead, curving itself through the woods like a snake in the grass.
On each side, the forest vibrated, restless under the heavy raindrops whipping its multicolored leaves. Sudden bursts of rain beat violently against the windshield and, even with the wipes at maximum speed, Iris still couldn't see anything but blurry shadows on the other side of the glass. She looked at the meter and, indeed, she was driving really slow—so slow in fact, that if they'd been in town, the sheriff would have probably signaled her to pull over for blocking traffic. But right now she didn't care about that. All she wanted was to get to school and finally step out from behind the wheel.
"Marion, you saw what happened. The day I decide to take a chance, we nearly run over someone. Thankfully, we all got out unharmed, but that doesn't mean we should tempt the Fates twice. Besides, math is useless if you're not alive to apply it. And right now, my only concern is to keep us alive."
She tightened her fingers on the wheel to reclaim control of the tires, which skidded a bit on the wet road. The knot was back and that wasn't a good sign.
"Careful," Marion cautioned her.
"I know!"
"Sorry. It's just that, we're about to enter Silver Hollow Valley and trust me, we don't want to be too close to the edge."
Despite its otherworldly scenery, Silver Hollow Valley was not one of the most loved areas in town. In fact, most people in Forest Hills would rather take a detour than pass through it. The reason behind their reluctance was an old folk tale about how the town was built and, of course, a curse. However, Iris' fear of water was scarier and more real than any superstition and she was actually glad that the locals avoided Chestnut Road, especially on a day like that, when it seemed like the sky was about to open up and swallow the earth.
Forest Hills was built in and around three valleys—a bigger one to the north, home to the largest part of town, thanks to the Cinnamon River that flowed right through the middle of it, and two smaller ones to the south, separated by the Silent Peaks, a small range of steep, rocky summits that blocked the river and forced it to split in two. One arm formed the Sleeping Lake, in the smaller, enclosed valley to the west. The other crossed the Silver Hollow Valley in its journey towards the Silver Hollow caves that led it on the other side of the mountain and into the Atlantic.
On the lower parts of the skyscraping mountains that surrounded this isolated landscape were steep, serpentine roads, winding upward towards the high peaks. Seen from above they looked like gray snakes resting in the sun in a field of green grass and multicolored flowers. Those flowers were the locals' homes, mountain houses built to last for hundreds of years on terraces cut into rock and leveled with instrument precision by ancient laborers.
Legend had it that, in the early 1800s, a rich industrialist by the name of Benjamin Elliot wanted to build a bridge to connect the west and east ends of the town. A man of extravagant taste and great vision, Elliot often used his unlimited resources to bring his ideas to life, most of which contributed immensely to the town's progress and prosperity. The project was impressive, to say the least. The bridge would be split in two parts, one over Silent Lake and one over Silver Hollow Valley, connected by a portion of road that would cross right through the middle of the Silent Peaks.
Elliot spent months consulting with experts from all over the country and, when the plans were ready and he was sure he'd gone over every detail multiple times, he finally set the date to launch the project. He decided to start with the portion that would cross over Silver Hollow Valley, in spring, to take advantage of the summer months, when the rains were scarcer and they wouldn't flood the river too much. When that was over, they would start digging into the Silent Peaks to create a tunnel right between the two massive blocks of stone and connect the two portions of the bridge. Finally, when the passageway was done, they would start building the second half of the bridge, over Silent Lake.
The day before the launch, a strange woman came to Elliot asking him not to build the bridge and warning him that if he would go ahead with the project, a lot of lives would be lost and he still wouldn't finish building it. A practical man, who didn't believe in superstitions, Elliot sent her away, dismissing her warning as crazy talk meant to prevent him from accomplishing his life's dream. The next day at dawn, he set the first stone to what he envisioned as the biggest and most beautiful bridge the world had ever seen.
The entire town was excited about the construction and his men worked assiduously from dawn till dusk. Elliot was right there with them, supervising and making sure everything went according to plan. Every piece of wood, every nail, every block of cement was a step forward towards accomplishing his dream and he was often seen staring into space in the direction where the bridge should have been, as if he already saw it completed.
For a few months everything went smoothly until a series of accidents started to happen. One day the scaffolding gave in, killing three of his men and injuring another four. Around the same time, a massive convoy of materials coming in from out of town was lost into the depths of Silver Hollow Valley. An investigation later retraced their steps and found a pile of boulders blocking the way in the middle of Chestnut Road, a narrow road built halfway up the mountain, circling the valley. It was assumed that the men leading the convoy had probably tried to avoid the rocks and eventually fell into the Silver Hollow Valley. A month later, a heavy rain that lasted for two weeks flooded the lake, bringing the work to a halt.
Elliot tried to move ahead with the eastern part of the bridge, but the team was demoralized and reluctant to resume their work. To make matters worse, people started remembering the warning of the strange woman that had come to Elliot the day before work began, and a rumor about the project being cursed started going around town, adding fear to reluctance among his men. Elliot tried desperately to get them to return to their jobs; he offered them incentives, bigger pays, he even stepped on his pride and agreed to perform a ritual to break the curse, like some of the more superstitious townsfolk had suggested. It was all in vain. Even with the guarantee that, should anything happen to any of them, their families would be taken care of financially, they still said no. The fear of the curse was so deeply rooted in their hearts that no amount of money could pull it out.
Eventually, exasperated by how ridiculously narrow-minded the people in his town were, and frightened at the thought that he wouldn't be
able to make his dream come true, Elliot decided to form a new team with men brought from out of town who either didn't know or didn't care about the curse. With his right-hand man by his side, he set off to Charleston, the nearest town to Forest Hills, just on the other side of the mountains. As he was leaving town, a storm was rising on the pink and purple horizon behind the high peaks but he didn't mind it. All he wanted was to move ahead with his project.
As the gray clouds descended and a dark mist headed rapidly towards the sleeping town, the strange woman appeared to him again, urging him, like before, to stop trying to build the bridge. Death was waiting for him in his journey and this time he wouldn't manage to escape it. Elliot pushed her aside, cursing at her for ruining his plans with her crazy talk, and went on his way. He was never seen again.
There was a lot of speculation around his disappearance, especially after his contacts in Charleston called to ask about him because he'd never made it there. Some said that he'd gotten lost in the mountains and had been eaten by wild beasts, others that he'd had the same fate as the cargo that was buried under a pile of rocks fallen from the top of the peaks. One thing that everyone agreed on was the fact that he'd died and with him died his astonishing project. All that was left of what should have been the most impressive bridge the world had ever seen were the massive pylons meant to support it, which were now set in a straight line across the east arm of the river, like a gateway that marked its entrance into the ocean.
No one dared to resume construction of the bridge afterwards, because of the curse that plagued Silver Hollow Valley. With time, a lot of smaller bridges were built along the river but they were all in Cinnamon Valley. The only means of access to the southern part of town remained Chestnut Road, but it too was under the curse and so Silver Hollow Valley, once a flourishing area, striving to reach the same level as its northern sister, remained a desolated, forgotten land where the only things that kept on expanding were fear and superstition.
It was that land that Iris chose to cross twice a day, once from her home on the east edge of the Cinnamon Valley to school, on the other side of the river, and then once again back home. She started that routine soon after she got her license and thus earned her right to decide which road to take to school and back. She was willing to face a curse than crawl up into a ball, shaking like a wet cat on the passenger seat in Marion's car every time they crossed Pine Brook Bridge, the last and closest to school of the seven bridges that crossed over the northern section of the river.
Chestnut Road had been initially built for peasants who dragged their carts up and down the mountain and it was barely wide enough to accommodate a car. With no space to turn it into a proper two-way street, and the curse that kept the townsfolk from stepping foot within a hundred feet from it, many wondered why the Mayor didn't close it down completely. Iris was not one of those people.
The rain kept beating violently against the windshield. From the inside of the car it sounded like the dissonant song of a group of unskilled parade drummers. Iris narrowed her eyes in an attempt to better focus them on the space on the other side of the windshield. It was useless. She couldn't see anything other than two short semitransparent yellow rays coming from the front headlights. On a sunny day, you could see the otherworldly beauty of the Silver Hollow Valley, the kind of beauty that nature preserves only in places that man can't access and corrupt with the mere touch of a hand, places like a deep river valley surrounded by forest-covered mountains with cloud-piercing, white tops. But on that day, beyond the dim lights in front of the car was nothing but a thick, gray curtain of water falling from the dark sky.
The car slipped on the wet road again and Iris turned the wheel, bringing it back to the center. Instinctively, she released the pressure of her foot on the acceleration pedal. They'd entered the most dangerous portion of Chestnut Road, a curve a few miles long, going round the south end of the Silver Hollow Valley and then back up towards the town center. Iris had to constantly turn the wheel to the right, very gently, just enough to stay on the invisible centerline. If she pulled too little, they would hit the wall of rock flanking the left side of the road; if she pulled too much, they would break through the road rail and dive into the steep valley underneath.
"At this rate we'll never get to school," Marion protested. "Senior bikers go faster than us."
"I can't see anything through this damn rain. Excuse me while I'm trying my best not to get us killed."
"You should have let me drive. I'm a better driver than you."
"Uhm, your car in the shop would beg to differ."
"Hey, it's not my fault that the town bum jumped in front of it and started yelling at me that evil's gonna get me on the night of the full moon." Iris laughed imagining the whole scene, and for a moment she forgot about the knot in her stomach that had been intermittently tearing at her all morning. Marion pointed her index finger at her. "Don't laugh. I heard on the news that the next full moon is going to be huge. The biggest we've seen in the past twenty years. What if that's a sign? You think he cursed me?"
"There's no such thing as curses, Marion," Iris said laughing, but she barely finished her sentence when an impatient beeping pierced through the monotonous drumming of the raindrops hitting the outside of the car. At first they couldn't tell where it was coming from. They looked around but it was impossible to see anything past the rain. Finally, Iris looked in the rearview mirror. A single dot of dark yellow suggested a motorcycle. She realized it was signaling her to move out of the way. She turned the wheel as gently as she could in an attempt to create just enough space to her left for the motorcycle to pass but the car slid like a sled on ice and she immediately brought it back to the middle of the road. The motorcycle behind them resumed its urgent honking.
"I'm doing the best I can, okay?" Iris yelled, although she was perfectly aware of the fact that the rider couldn't possibly hear her. She was annoyed and nervous and the knot in her stomach was getting tighter and tighter.
"Pull over," Marion said, looking back over her shoulder at the stranger behind them.
"What?"
"You obviously can't keep the car steady long enough for this idiot to pass, so pull over. Let him pass, and then we'll be on our way."
It seemed like a reasonable idea. Envisioning the scene, Iris eased her foot off the acceleration pedal but then a dark, blurry figure materialized in front of them. It came from behind, flying over the car and literally landing in the middle of the road, like a bird, or a cat. The back tire drew half a circle on the wet cement then stopped, just like before, crossways, a few feet away. Iris pushed the brakes but the asphalt was slippery and the wheels wouldn't obey. The car spun like a figure skater on ice, and suddenly the only thing Iris could see through all the windows was the dark green forest. Marion, her hands covering her face, gave a long shriek that went in tandem with the screeching of the wheels scraping the asphalt.
Iris couldn't breathe. The seatbelt dug into her chest but what was really cutting off her airways was the sudden image of another car driving off the road, another set of desperate screams, a man, a woman and a little girl whirling inside a metal carcass that was rolling over through a bridge railing and plunging into the icy waters of Cinnamon River.
After what seemed like forever, the car finally stopped spinning. Marion stopped screaming a few seconds later. They were crosswise to the road, facing the open valley. The dark stranger on the motorcycle was staring at them from a distance.
"Are we dead?" Marion asked through her fingers, her eyes still closed behind her trembling palms.
"No. But we came close. Are you okay?"
"I think so." Marion inspected herself as if to make sure she was all intact. "You?"
Iris nodded, although she wasn't. Her heart was pounding, threatening to break out of her chest. Her hands were still shaking uncontrollably, hard as she squeezed the wheel to steady them, and her head felt like it was going to explode, as the memory of her parents' freakishly similar ac
cident took over her mind. Her eyes were locked on the man dressed in black staring at them.
"Hey, is that the same guy we nearly crashed into earlier?" Marion whispered, staring at the stranger on the other side of the driver's window.
"I don't know." She lied. She lied because she did know. It was him. She was sure of it because, again, she felt like she knew him. Again, time slowed down. Again, she was pulled underwater. And she didn't know how to explain that to Marion without sounding crazy. And then, just like before, Marion's voice broke the spell and returned everything to normal.
"Did we hit him? Iris, did we hit him?!"
"I don't think so." She was looking at her friend but she could still see him, like an afterimage when you stare too long into a light. That feeling of familiarity was still lingering in her chest and that bothered her. It bothered her because it made her curious as to its origins. She closed her eyes and tried not to think of it anymore. She'd been so tense that morning, her mind was starting to play tricks on her. So, what she had to do was get her mind something else to focus on. And she didn't have to work too hard at it because an ear-piercing howl exploded somewhere in the woods and she was again overcome by one single emotion—blinding fear. She felt the blood drop to her feet and, judging from Marion's colorless cheeks, she could tell the same thing was happening to her friend too.
The howl seemed to come from a distance and at the same time from right behind them, and it was so loud that it made the ground underneath them shake. Iris could swear she'd felt the car move under the force of the vibrations. Marion started screaming again, covering her ears and closing her eyes, and Iris would have done the same if she could move. But every cell in her body was paralyzed with fear, and she just sat there, listening to that hellish sound mixed with her friend's cries until they both stopped, a few moments later.
Her ears were ringing and she felt lightheaded, like she was going to faint. When she realized that she could move again, she closed her eyes and tried to focus on one of her breathing exercises. She was well aware that, sadly, they weren't in one of her nightmares. What was happening then was as real as it got and she needed more than a breathing exercise to get them out of there, but it was the only way she knew to calm herself down. And possibly avoid a sudden cardiac arrest.
The Fountain of Truth (Tales of the Dark Fae Book 1) Page 4