by Sarah Jude
“Mamie said acorns are for protection,” I said.
“When I made it, I didn’t know what danger was in the Glen.” He ran his thumb over the brown nut. “Maybe it’s why you’re still here.”
We trundled down the bank to the river. The water was shallow, and rocky shoals and parched earth stuck up along the shores. Still, there was a chance we could step off the shoal into three feet of water or be sucked down thirty feet. The river was dangerous and unpredictable.
“Are you sure about this?” Rook asked.
“I can swim,” I replied.
He deflected the lead to me to cross the river. It was scarcely deep enough to wet the hem of my skirt. I held my shoes and socks to keep them dry. We made it to the other side and dragged ourselves to the outer band of the tree line. As long as we stayed near the river and watched the sun, we’d go in the right direction. Rook trusted my instincts, and I released a tentative breath once we reached Potter’s Field. No one from the Glen was stationed here. They were probably watching the fields or farther north by Denial Mill.
Yet I knew that opening in the trees and squashed undergrowth where Heather had gone into the woods. Maybe she’d come too close to Birch. Maybe he’d seen girl skin, smelled her, and was drawn back from where he’d come.
According to Heather’s directions on the map, which were crude at best, we were at the end. But shouldn’t there be something more? There was nothing here. What was I missing? The cover of the trees was denser, trunks like posts for watchmen. The interplay of dark and light, sun and shadow, blurred the leaves above with shrubs below. In a large oak, a tree surely two centuries old, the trunk was partially cleaved and moss unraveled down the side and spread out in a grayish-green berm on the ground.
Rook knelt, running his hand over the raised hump in the soil. “It’s cushion moss. The only other place it grows in any amount ’round here is Potter’s Field.”
“Is that strange?” I asked.
“It makes me wonder what’s underground.”
The way the moss spread in strange heaps, it didn’t follow the oak tree’s roots, as if someone formed the ground’s swell in time long past and the earth did as it always did—reclaimed what was its own. These were the mounds on Heather’s map, I had to believe. I wandered along the length of the berm, pushing back the undergrowth with my toe. Chunks of lichen-coated stone sank into the ground every so often.
“Rook? Look at this.” I pointed to the stones. “They’re too exact to be natural, right?”
“Shit.” He wiped his mouth and measured out a few more rocks. “They’re graves.”
I wrapped my hammer within my fist. “I don’t get it. I expected to find something—a shack or something—but not a cemetery. If you lived out in the woods, where would you go?”
“A cave,” Rook replied. “You’d stay dry, maybe build a fire. The river’s to our east, but Pops had some old maps that showed it wound back in these woods. There are bluffs. Odds are there’s a cave or two near those. Are you sure this is where Heather’s map ends?”
I retraced the moss along the ground. Something crushed under my foot, something that didn’t snap with the crispness of a twig. My skirt hem lifted.
A shard of white.
A scattering of pointed, pale stones.
Teeth.
“R-R-Rook.” Suddenly, my back pressed against something hard. Unyielding, the same way Birch Markle’s body felt behind me the night in Potter’s Field. Whipping around, hammer in fist, I buried the hammer’s claws into the old oak’s trunk. And immediately felt foolish.
“You okay?” Rook asked, jogging toward me.
“Look down.”
He nudged aside a fern and wrinkled his nose at the bare bones and teeth. “What animal’s that?”
“Maybe a skunk.” I grabbed for my hammer, tried to yank it from the tree, but it wouldn’t budge. The claws were too embedded in the bark.
Rook braced his foot against the trunk, near the deep fissure at the oak’s base, and curled both his hands around my hammer. The bark was so lush with moss his footing slid before he gave a decent jerk. The tree yielded.
Instead of only my hammer sliding out from its hold, the fissure in the oak opened, and a burlap bag tipped out, landing on the undergrowth.
“What the hell’s that?” Rook asked.
I examined the bag. It’d been wedged inside the tree for ages, the fabric patchy with stains. A length of rope tied it closed. Rook handed me his hunting knife, and I cut at the rope. My fingers were numb as I opened the burlap.
Something dead was in the sack.
Something that had died long ago.
Rook wheeled away, his stomach revolting, and stooped over behind another tree. My gag reflex kicking in my throat, I lifted the bag—no heavier than a thirty-pound dog—and dumped it out. The clunks like small logs hitting each other shook my teeth, and I opened my eyes to the pile of bones.
Ribs. The spiny worm of vertebrae.
A human skull with a hole fracturing the forehead.
Rook wiped his mouth. “That’s a bullet hole.”
Amid the bones there were trinkets. Animal claws strung on a necklace. Tufts of fur. This was a body that’d been murdered.
Long before Heather and Violet.
“We gotta get my pops,” he said, and hooked his hand under my arm to pull me from the skeleton.
Find it.
I rolled away the skull and used a stick to poke through the remnants of clothing until I saw a hand. The bones were dark from decomposition, fingernails protruding from the bone’s tips. Something glinted even in the forest light. It was metal but so tarnished I might’ve overlooked it if the sun didn’t eke through when the trees swayed in the breeze. Amid the bones, a ring was slid halfway down one of the skeletal fingers. I lifted the dead hand into mine and took the ring into my palm, turning it over.
“Did Milo tell you his mother’s last name?” I asked.
“I assumed it was MacAvoy and she changed it to Entwhistle when she married his father. He said his mama’s name was Laurel, which—”
“It doesn’t go with Terra,” I finished. “Terra’s a land name. Laurel’s a tree.”
I held up the ring for him to see and fumbled for another ring I had strung on Heather’s necklace of found things: Milo’s. They were similar but not totally the same.
Rook took the rings and looked them over before handing them back to me. “Milo’s has laurel leaves. But this one, they’re birch branches.”
“You sure?” I asked. “That means someone’s pretending to be Birch Markle.” That metal tang in my mouth, the tightening of every cord in my neck and throat. “Wh-who would do such a thing?”
Why Heather didn’t want me to know who she was seeing. It hadn’t been an M for MacAvoy in the family crest carved on the ring.
It was an M for Markle.
Chapter Twenty
You can’t know the kind of evil that runs in folks’ souls, but you also can’t know the good that lies there until you look hard enough.
Legs scissoring over fallen branches and divots in the ground, I ran as fast as I could out through the woods. Rook kept pace with me, urged me, “Keep running. Keep going.” My chest heaved, and no matter the humidity in the air and mosquitoes buzzing near, the sweat layering my skin was cool. I batted away the branches sticking out to tear at my sleeves, snatch at my cheeks, and snag my hair.
Two figures came into view.
Milo had a crate filled with pillows and shrouds, crystals and pieces of metal. Emmie’s arms held discarded silver cups weathered by tarnish.
They’re taking Heather’s things.
I clamped my hands over my mouth to keep from shouting at them while they sifted through Heather’s treasures as if collecting them might command her spirit to laugh one more time, tell one more secret, all to taunt her soul.
I tapped Rook’s shoulder and pointed. How could they raid Heather’s things? To destroy evidence against them?
A hurt stewed inside me so furious my mind throbbed.
Rook crept closer, waiting, lips moving in a silent count, before he broke into a run and smashed hard into Milo’s back. They fell in a heap and sprawled on the forest floor.
“Motherfucker, get off him!” Emmie shouted and attempted to haul Rook off her brother. Milo kicked out from under him, but Rook was too fast and got on top of him, holding him down again.
“What’s wrong with you?” Milo hollered.
I caught up to Rook and the Entwhistles. I tugged Emmie away from Rook, then knelt beside Milo.
“We know,” I said.
Milo drew his eyebrows together. “What are you talkin’ ’bout?”
“They say things run in families.” I locked on those pale blue eyes. “So does murder run in yours? We thought you were MacAvoys at first, a Glen mama who left after a family tragedy, but you’re Markles, ain’t you?”
Milo’s nostrils flared. “You know damn well where I was when Heather died.”
“You were gonna run off with her, but she”—I whipped around and pointed at his sister—“never would’ve let you go. Or maybe the two of you decided to work together and take some revenge for your family’s disgrace.”
“Y’all are sick!” Milo shoved Rook back so that both boys were spread on the ground.
“Not as sick as someone goin’ ’round and dressin’ up like a murderer!” I yelled. “We found your kin’s bones in the woods. Heather found where they were hidden, too. She had a map that led to ’em, even if she never got to show them to Sheriff. So did she tell you what she knew? I deserve to fucking know what you’ve been hiding! She was my best friend! She was my blood, and I hate you for what you did to her, how you changed her! You took her from me! And the only reason I’m not dead is that I want to know what happened!”
My voice was frayed. The tears tasting salty on my lips did nothing to quench the fire burning through me. Rook stood and put his arms around me, burying my head against him. The leaves above swayed, but the four of us were ghostly in the empty woods.
A muffled sob that wasn’t my own caught my ear.
Milo’s sister sat on the ground and pulled her knees to her chest, hiding her face. Milo crawled over to her and held her in a close hug. “Shhh, Em.”
“I can’t,” she croaked. “I promised Heather.”
“I know,” Milo replied. His eyes closed and wiped her cheek. “It’s okay.”
I broke away from Rook and knelt beside Milo and his sister. “What did you promise Heather?”
“You don’t have to answer that,” Milo interrupted.
Emmie’s head slumped forward, and the sobs she attempted to quiet racked her body. I crouched in front of her. The well for my own tears was drained, but this girl ached in a way I knew too well. Heather, before she was angry with me, had loved me, and when she loved you, it was impossible not to love her in return.
She reached into her pocket and withdrew the stationery I recognized as Heather’s. “You gotta read this.”
My hand quaked as she slipped the letter between my fingers.
M,
I’m so scared. Something bad’s happening in the Glen. I think I have it all figured out. I need to tell Sheriff, but I don’t know if he’ll believe me. It means admitting that I’ve been meeting you in the woods.
Please don’t hate me. I’m not ready for anyone else to know except Milo.
I might not be able to run away with you on May Day. Not yet. I know you’re worried about me. I am too. But I’m also scared for Ivy. Even if I go, she’ll live in the Glen. I can’t go until I know she’s safe. That she’s happy.
If anything happens to me, make sure she’s okay. Tell her I love her and that I’m sorry.
I love you.
—H
I looked from brother to sister, confused.
Milo’s sister sniffed. “My name’s Mary Jane. I’ve just always hated it.”
“You know you can’t get enough of Mary Jane.” The echo of Milo teasing Heather outside the trailer park scrolled through my memory.
Mary. Emmie. Em.
M.
My lips parted. All the intimate things I knew about my cousin. All the secrets. The words blurred with grief renewed. Rook took the letter, and when he was finished, he refolded it to hand back to Emmie, then took off his glasses.
“All those letters to M . . . it’s you,” I said to her.
Heather had been in love, but not with Milo. With Emmie.
I didn’t know what kind of path love was supposed to be—it seemed like it could be anything. Stumbling, tripping over your own feet, hoping that the hand you reach out is caught by someone who stops you from falling. Someone who got you. Wasn’t that what mattered? Weren’t these things Heather and I could’ve talked about, shared with whispers and giggles and tears? She didn’t have to cut me off. And her being gone cut too deep.
“Why was Milo meeting her in the woods on May Day?” I asked. “Why didn’t you come?”
“That was what Heather decided. I told her I’d be there, but she said it’d be easier to get out with him than me, especially if she ran into trouble. I was supposed to be waiting at home for her. She didn’t show up, and then Milo had a broken arm . . .”
She shivered again and sniffed.
“Why did you let me think Heather was sneaking off to see you?” I asked Milo.
He shook the hair from his eyes. Ever defiant and yet he seemed to pull the last threads of fight within him. “You can walk around with your hand in his”—he gestured to Rook—“and no one blinks a goddamn eye. Heather couldn’t do that, and believe me, it tore her up inside. So when you came to me, who was I to spill her secrets?”
He was her friend. He’d protected her.
I thought I’d done the same.
I felt regretful that she didn’t trust me enough. I’d have been there for her. Didn’t she know that? But she didn’t. She was too afraid. All I thought was what a loss that was.
“You have Heather’s necklace?” Emmie asked.
“Yes,” I replied. I showed it to her, and her fingers hesitated on the two halves of the broken glass circle I’d restrung on the chain.
“I found this,” she said. “It was near the trailer. Heather thought it was cool.”
I took the glass pieces off the chain and placed them in Emmie’s palm. Then I reached into my pocket and gave Milo his ring. “I know this means a lot to you.”
He squeezed it within his hand. “My mama said her daddy was a metalworker and made a couple of rings when she and her brother were born. She gave one to our brother Mark, but he gave it to me when he got sick. Thank you for givin’ it back.”
Rook climbed off the ground and took off his glasses, rubbing the heel of his palm against his forehead. I didn’t know what to say to Milo or Emmie. No apology sufficed for accusing them of murdering Heather, of the other death and harm. All Mamie’s tales of Birch Markle, all the forced promises to come back in after dark, the screams from the woods, they were lies. Lies the Glen believed. Lies someone had made sure seemed like truth, and not even Mamie knew what was real.
“What’s going on out here? The woods are off-limits!”
We looked to the path. The hillmen from the bridge—Coyote Jones and Ash Fitzgerald, I saw now—came into view with their rifles up. As the men realized it was Rook and me, they lowered their weapons.
“Who are you?” Coyote asked the Entwhistles.
“We were friends of Heather’s,” Milo replied.
Coyote helped Milo to his feet. “Y’all need to get outta here. These woods are dangerous. You shouldn’t be out here.”
“We found a body,” Rook blurted out. “We think it’s Birch Markle.”
The hillmen looked at each other, all disbelief and surprise. Coyote tightened his grip on his rifle and warned, “You best not be foolin’ with us, or your daddy’s gonna have a word with you.”
“He’s not,” I added. I pointed from where we’d
come. “It’s back there.”
Ash paled. “I think they’re serious.”
“We’ll check out it,” Coyote said. “Y’all drop everything and head back to the Glen.”
Ash reached for Emmie’s box. She held tight until he wrestled it away, saying, “We might need this for evidence.”
Emmie cast a forlorn look and took a few steps toward me. “But I need what’s in there.”
Rook put his hand on her shoulder and spoke so softly I could scarcely hear him, despite being right beside her. “I’ll come back for it later. Once we show my dad the real Birch Markle, they won’t need this stuff. Ivy and I’ll get it up to the road and leave the box. Come by after dark. It’ll be there.”
Emmie let out a deep breath. Coyote grabbed Rook around the arm and pulled him down the path leading back to Potter’s Field. I trailed behind, leaving Milo and Emmie to take their own path out of the woods while I struggled to keep up. The hillmen rushed through the graves. Graves kept secrets. The woods kept secrets. Finding the truth meant digging deeper and in the least obvious of places.
“Where are you takin’ him?” I asked Coyote, who still held Rook’s arm as we crossed Promise Bridge, jingling chains and crackling wood.
“To see his daddy,” the man answered. “Sheriff needs to hear what’s goin’ on.”
As we charged up the hill to the road, the clang of the warning bells resounded over the field.
“Something’s happened,” I murmured.
Rook looked back to me. “It’ll be okay, Ivy.”
My gut didn’t agree, though. It was an exhausting trek to Sheriff’s station. The bells continued to ring, and curious folks peeked out from their homes or looked up from the fields as Rook and I were marched down the dirt road with two strangers. Yet when we reached the station, Sheriff was gone.
Coyote called to a farmer working out in his field, “Where’s Jay?”
“You ain’t heard?” the farmer asked. “Violet Crenshaw’s body is missin’.”