by Anne Frasier
Alastair looked uncomfortable. “He and I don’t talk about it.”
The mayor poked his head back inside. “I gotta go. Gotta write a press release. Please put together a quick report, something I can include in my announcement. Thanks, Rachel. I hope you’ll stay. Please think about it. We’ll make it worth your while.”
He left.
“I hope you’ll stay too,” Alastair said. “Not just because of this new development, but because of Graham.” His cell phone rang. He told her good-bye and hurried out the door, phone to his ear.
Once he and the mayor were gone, Rachel walked out to the moving truck.
Her African violet and Christmas cactus were still on the front seat where she’d left them, only now they were dead.
Damn.
Don’t think.
She hated her weakness. She’d just autopsied the skinned body of a woman without shedding a tear. Now, as she looked at the poor plants, a sob escaped her.
Chapter Six
In Old Tuonela, one never knew how the day would end. Sometimes it was quick, sunlight vanishing like an extinguished candle flame. Other times the light became hazy and clung to the day, unwilling to let go.
Evan Stroud hated the evenings that lingered. They taunted him with a promise of darkness. When the night finally came, he was like a released animal.
Now that the sun was gone, Evan strode angrily from the crumbling mansion, shovel and lantern in hand, heading for the stand of trees that marked the actual boundary of Old Tuonela.
The anger helped in so many ways.
He unlocked the gate, slipped through the opening, and relocked it.
He didn’t want any surprise visitors.
A dirt path with cupped edges cut through grass and weeds. It was late fall, and a few hard freezes had killed back vegetation.
He was running out of time.
Old Tuonela was a ghost town originally settled by Richard Manchester, the Pale Immortal. Once Manchester was killed the town packed up and moved five miles away and started over, abandoning history and the past, leaving dark secrets buried in the ground and walls of the decaying buildings.
Evan was after those secrets.
Frustration and anger made the digging go quickly.
He couldn’t explain why he dug where he dug. It was kind of a Zen thing; one spot was probably as good as any other.
He’d started the project in a structure that had once been someone’s home. From there, he’d moved to the mill and now the churchyard.
This felt right.
But he’d thought that before.
He dug.
Tuonela and Old Tuonela lay in a section of a vast zone known as the Driftless Area—ground that had somehow eluded the touch of glaciers. Streams still twisted, and cliffs were craggy. Strange, unnamed plants and rare species of animals inhabited untouched deep, dark ravines. Cold pockets of air left over from the Ice Age sometimes escaped and wrapped around an ankle.
Using the shovel as a lever, Evan loosened a large stone. With both hands he removed the stone and carried it to a growing pile. He tugged the shovel free and continued the pattern.
He dug until the sky began to grow light in the east. He turned off the lantern. Curls of steam rose from his sweat-soaked body.
Evan Stroud had two obsessions: Old Tuonela and Rachel Burton.
On more lucid nights, he could admit to himself that his obsession with Old Tuonela was used to drown out his obsession with Rachel Burton. On less lucid nights, when exhaustion numbed his mind, he could almost forget she existed. And he liked forgetting she existed. He needed to forget she existed.
The night’s dig uncovered nothing.
Maybe tomorrow.
His bones ached and his hands were raw and bloody. But at least he’d be able to sleep. And when he woke up, he would dig again.
He headed home.
He slipped through the gate, locked it behind him, and began the ascent up the hill. A darker shadow stepped away from a boulder. Evan lifted the shovel, poised to strike, when the shadow spoke.
“I knew you were staying out there more than just a couple of hours,” came Graham’s voice out of the darkness. “I knew you were staying out there till dawn.”
Evan swayed in exhaustion. “How long have you been waiting here?”
“All night. Freezing my ass off.”
In the increasing light, Evan saw a blanket wrapped around Graham’s shoulders. Graham relieved him of the lantern. Side by side, they walked up the treeless knoll toward the house.
“What are you looking for?” Graham asked. It was a question he’d asked before.
“The past.” That was all Evan knew.
Graham shook his head. “What difference does it make? The past is over. It no longer exists. What about your book? Aren’t you supposed to be writing a book? Isn’t it due . . . like, in a month?”
Evan brushed a hand across his brow. Book? Yes. He had a vague recollection of a book. An editor. A publisher. A contract. That was his old life. How foolish of him to have toiled so many years on books while this project had been lying dormant.
“I could help you with it,” Graham said. “Not the writing, but organizing your notes. Stuff like that.”
“Maybe when winter comes.”
Hopefully Graham would forget about it by then.
The day lasted forever, and it was so hard waiting for darkness. Evan had just left Old Tuonela, yet he already felt the urgent need to return to the dig site. He’d work around the clock if it were possible.
Graham looked up. “You stayed out too long.”
The light was coming.
Graham removed the blanket and tossed it over Evan’s head. He grabbed his father’s arm and led him back into the house, where Evan collapsed in a chair at the kitchen table.
“I’ll make some breakfast.” Graham glanced down. “You need to wash your hands.”
Evan looked at his dirt-caked, bloody palms. Yes, he needed to do that.
He continued to stare at them.
“Here.” Graham helped him to the kitchen sink.
He stuck Evan’s hands under the faucet and shot green dish soap on them. “I talked to Alastair today.”
Evan watched Graham wash his hands. Interesting. “He’s your grandfather. You should call him Grandpa, or Grandfather.”
“I can’t get used to that. Think I’ll stick with Alas-tair for now. Anyway, he thinks you and I should move back to Tuonela. He thinks we could all live together in your old house.” Graham shut off the water, grabbed a towel, and dried Evan’s hands.
“I can’t leave here. You know that.”
Graham flipped the towel over his shoulder. “You need to quit going out there.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“You could come with me.” Evan sat back down at the table. “Help me.”
“You know I won’t do that. Why even mention it?”
Graham cooked some scrambled eggs, then transferred them to the plate in front of Evan.
“Bad stuff has happened in Old Tuonela,” Graham said. “Not just to me, but to other people.”
“I know.” Evan had no interest in food, but he picked up a fork and took a bite for Graham’s sake. “That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. Those other people have a story to tell. Those people need to be heard.”
Graham stood with arms and ankles crossed as he leaned against the sink. He swallowed. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“Of letting them loose?”
Evan thought a moment. “I think that’s what they might want.”
Graham blinked back tears of fear. “Did you ever think they might be bad? Because I happen to know there’s bad shit out there.”
“Don’t cuss.”
“I’ll fucking cuss if I want to.”
He was shouting now.
Something crashed inside Evan’s brain. Blood roared through his veins. He unfolded hi
mself and shot to his feet. With a single motion he swept his arm across the table and knocked the plate of food to the floor. In the next movement, his hand lashed out. He grabbed Graham by the throat and shoved him up against the wall.
“What did you just say to me?” He asked the question even though Graham couldn’t physically reply. “I don’t want to ever hear you talk that way to me again, understand?”
Graham’s face was bright red. He nodded.
“Understand?”
Graham nodded again.
Evan wanted to keep squeezing. To hold Graham until he went limp, but he forced himself to let go. Graham dropped to the floor, sucked in a few deep breaths, then jumped to his feet and ran.
Chapter Seven
Police Chief Alastair Stroud headed out of town. Old Tuonela was located five miles away, in a rugged, unfarmable area of Wisconsin where deep ravines cut the earth and ancient tree trunks were cloaked in moss and shadows. There had been much speculation as to why anyone would have settled in such a remote, hard-to-reach region when the river valley was just five miles away.
Seclusion. Isolation.
Alastair suspected Richard Manchester had wanted to create an actual physical barrier for his little town. The Tuonela and Wisconsin rivers were close, but not close enough to be a doorway to the rest of the world. A man couldn’t step from his home, hop on a boat, and get away.
Or go for help.
A place of madness.
Nobody knew exactly what had gone on there, and nobody needed to know. Close the door and lock it. The residents had been right.
He turned off the highway onto a narrow lane that wound through towering cottonwoods and aspens. A frost had dipped in from Canada, the chill bringing a change. A hushed layer of leaves covered the path. The golden yellow of the leaves on the trees and ground combined to create light that seemed to radiate from the earth. Poison sumac and Virginia creeper had turned deep shades of purple and red. Closer to the ground were goldenrod and love lies bleeding.
Beautiful.
A place of death shouldn’t hold such beauty.
Fall had once been Alastair’s favorite time of the year, but he hadn’t really noticed the seasons in a long time. Now he looked around and realized with shock that fall was nearly over and winter was almost here.
He pulled up to the sprawling mansion that rumor said had once belonged to the Pale Immortal. Some even called it the Manchester house. Much of the building was in disrepair and uninhabitable, with broken windows, crumbling masonry, and weed-infested grounds.
Alastair cut the engine and sat there a moment.
Evan’s car was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t mean Evan wasn’t home. Graham had recently gotten his driver’s license and was using the vehicle for school.
No one answered the front door.
Alastair left the porch and walked around back. He knocked on the kitchen door.
No answer.
With his hands on his leather belt, he looked off into the distance, trying to gauge how far it was from Evan’s house to the place they’d found the skinned body. Probably two or three miles as the crow flew.
He tested the kitchen door. Unlocked; he opened it and stepped inside.
A shattered plate lay broken on the floor, along with what looked like scrambled eggs. Black ants were busy grabbing what they could carry back to their home. There must have been thousands of them, moving in one crooked line.
“Evan!” Alastair stepped around the shattered plate. He walked down the hallway, then up the stairs. “Evan!”
They say you never quit worrying about your kids no matter how old they got. It was true. And you would do whatever it took to keep them safe.
Alastair’s heart beat fast with an old dread, an old fear.
He hurried up the stairs, hit the landing, and turned. More stairs, then another hallway. He quickly located Graham’s room.
A computer. Band posters. Clothes on the floor. Books and notebooks. On a desk was a framed photo of Graham’s girlfriend.
Poor kids. Isobel’s parents had taken her out of the country to get her away from Graham and Tuonela.
A third room was Evan’s. The windows had been painted black; not a sliver of light penetrated the glass.
Alastair could barely make out a bump under the covers. He flipped on the dim ceiling light, strode to the bed, and put out his hand to touch the shape. “Evan?”
The covers exploded and Evan shot straight up. Alastair recoiled.
Evan recognized him and relaxed. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“The door was unlocked. Not a good idea.”
Evan laughed. “Nobody’s coming in this house.”
“Are you okay? I saw the plate on the floor—”
“A little accident, that’s all.” Evan swung his bare feet to the floor.
How long had it been since Alastair had last seen him? Two weeks? Three? It looked like he’d lost twenty pounds. His cheeks were sunken; he had dark shadows under his eyes.
Evan reached to push tangled chunks of black hair away from his forehead, and Alastair noticed that his fingernails were packed with dirt. Ribs showed under white skin. Raised red scars on his chest and forearm told of more recent tales.
“Did you hear about the woman who was killed?” Alastair asked.
“What woman?”
“A woman. Dead in the woods. She was skinned.”
Evan looked up sharply. “Murder?”
“We don’t know yet. Could be wild animals. Have you seen any packs of coyotes or dogs running around?”
Evan frowned and shook his head. “Where was this body?”
“A few miles from here.” Alastair watched Evan closely.
There had been a time when he could read his son, easily read him, but since he’d come back from Florida he sometimes felt Evan was somebody he no longer knew, and trying to read him was like trying to read a stranger.
“Did you see anything?” Alastair asked. “Hear anything the night before last?”
“No.” Evan frowned with suspicion. “Why are you asking me these things?”
“I’m a cop. It’s what I do.”
Evan grabbed a pair of jeans from the floor, stepped into them, got to his feet buttoning and zipping. “This is more than that.”
“I’m concerned about you and Graham living out here. I don’t think it’s a good idea. Especially with winter coming on. You’ll get snowed in. And now with this . . .”
Evan gave his words some thought. “I’m not moving back, but you might be right about Graham. Maybe he should live in Tuonela for the winter.”
“You should come too.” Alastair glanced at the plaster walls. “I’ll bet this place isn’t insulated.”
“Graham would be better off with you.”
“Not just Graham. You too.”
“Somebody has to stay here.”
“Why?”
“To guard Old Tuonela.”
“Nobody needs to guard it.”
Evan considered him for a long moment. “Why did you come back from Florida?”
“To help out.”
“I think it was more than that. I think it had to do with something that happened a long time ago. When I first got sick.”
Alastair’s heart pounded and his mouth went dry. “What are you talking about?”
“The Pale Immortal.”
He couldn’t know. How could he know?
Alastair’s mind raced, justifying the past. A father did what he could to save his son.
Evan picked up a glass of water from the bedside table, took a long swallow, then looked at his dad. “The heart. I’m talking about the heart. I’m talking about the broth you made from the heart of the Pale Immortal and fed to me.”
Oh, Jesus. Jesus, no.
Alastair swallowed. He could feel the sweat rolling down his spine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you heard some crazy rumor, then that’s all it is. The Pale Immortal is all myth a
nd rumors. That’s just another one.”
“I found it. I found the remaining heart, because you didn’t feed it all to me. My bet is you got scared and stopped.” Evan came and stood directly in front of him.
His eyes. Evan’s eyes were different. They were darker, the pupils large and druggy. There was somebody else in there.
“I found it,” Evan said. “I found it, and I drank it. Oh, I didn’t know what it was at the time. I just thought it was tea.” He laughed harshly. “You know how I like tea. I thought it was just some exotic brew with mushrooms and herbs. But it didn’t take long for me to put it together.”
“Did you drink it all? The entire container?”
“What do you think? Look at me. Do you think I consumed it all? Then you might want to ask yourself if you really want me to come to town and live with you. You might want to think really hard about that.”
Alastair reached behind him. He took several steps back until he hit the door.
“What am I?” Evan asked. “That’s what I’d like to know. What did you do to me?”
Alastair turned and walked blindly down the steps. Out the front door.
To the car. Get in. Turn the key.
Drive.
Away, away, away.
Before he left the last stretch of lane, before he got to the hard road that led back to Tuonela, he stopped and put the car in park.
He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. A sob tore from him and his shoulders shook.
Chapter Eight
Graham stepped from the school building, flipped open his cell phone, and called the camera girl from the museum.
He sure as hell didn’t want to go home, and since he was pissed at Evan he wasn’t feeling all that uncomfortable about spilling his guts in an interview.
Her name was Kristin Blackmoore.
He did feel a little weird about calling a girl, but this wasn’t anything like that. Not like he was asking her out or anything, or even attracted to her. But when she answered, his heart beat in double time, then settled down.
“Can we meet at your house?” Kristin asked. “We like to capture people in their own environment.”