by B. Groves
The accident happened in the spring when the currents of the river were at their most dangerous from the melting snow running off the mountains.
It wouldn’t be the first time that someone went missing in the rivers in Lingate and certainly not the last.
Mac frowned. He’d had a nagging feeling about Rose’s case since the day he found her.
The sudden onset of illness when he arrived at the house was the strangest feeling he’d ever had.
He would have sworn on his grandfather’s grave the curtains to the front room where Rose’s body was located were closed when he walked up to the front door.
He remembered going to the doctor after his dizzy spell and he was done with the house after the body was removed, but the doctor said his vitals were perfect. After a quick workup of blood, he was released with a clean bill of health.
The doctor passed it off to dehydration, so… why did he feel chilled to the bone that day?
Mac rubbed his chin and thought he might have been thinking too much into this.
There was a nagging feeling about not telling Claire that he found Rose.
He didn’t think it would upset her too much, but he wanted to wait until the right moment.
Mac looked over at the little shrine on his desk. His memories of his son taking him to a place he hated visiting daily.
Strange how Claire lost her family, and so did he.
Mac sighed and stood to leave the station for his beat today.
The thought of Rose lying there on the floor on the forefront of his mind.
As he walked out to his car, he decided to text Claire and see how she was doing today.
He knew she said she was busy, so he didn’t expect her to answer right away and that was fine.
Mac didn’t want to admit the granddaughter of Rose Kinsey made emotions reawaken in him that he thought were long dead.
He shook his head as he checked his cruiser to make sure all the equipment was in working order.
The granddaughter of Rose Kinsey. Of all the women in town, it had to be her.
Mac believed in God. He didn’t believe in fate. He said that humans made their own fate, but he questioned the chance meeting he had with Claire Westcott. Was it fate?
Mac laughed at himself. Don’t be stupid. That was impossible.
He drove off the lot and started his day, still laughing.
14.
C laire knew she had to be in a dream state. The bedroom was once again shuddered in the gray light she’d seen in her previous dream.
She sat up in bed, squinting her eyes at the dull light shining through the bedroom window and into her face.
Her vision wouldn’t adjust as she cleared her eyes from sleep. The blur stayed within her peripheral vision no matter how hard she rubbed her eyes.
She shivered and tried to pull the duvet up and around her to keep her warm, but the chill penetrated the blanket and her skin was icy to the touch.
She breathed deeply and found her breath coming out in icy puffs.
Claire turned when she heard a noise and a voice to her left.
Her brother’s fuzzy vision sat on the hardwood floor on the other side of the bed. He looked up and grinned at her.
Claire couldn’t tell what he was doing on the floor, and as her vision focused, it was as if he was playing with an imaginary toy.
“Hi, Claire,” he said.
Claire flinched as his voice echoed off the walls. Did he move his mouth? She couldn’t tell.
“David?”
Claire cringed at the sound of her own voice. It was a high pitch squeak.
“It’s me,” he said as he stood up.
Claire looked around the room wondering if this was a dream or real. She didn’t know. She couldn’t grasp that she was awake and alert in what was supposed to be a dream.
“You’ll wake up soon,” David said.
Claire threw off her blanket and gasped from the temperature of the room.
This was beyond freezing. This was a cold she never felt in her life. A cold so penetrating that she thought her lungs were turning to ice.
“It’s okay, Claire,” David said.
She turned at the sound of her brother’s voice.
That was a mistake. Her neck throbbed. The pain coursed through her head, hit her sharply in the eye, and then down her right arm.
She looked down at her right arm and found the same bruises forming. She’d seen them before.
She gasped and jumped out of the bed, but another awful pain shot up her leg and she sank to the floor moaning.
“What’s wrong with me?” She asked.
“You’ll know soon,” David said, solemnly.
Claire’s head shot up at the sound of her brother’s voice.
He had moved closer to her while she sat on the floor in pain.
She gasped for air and panicked when a tiny hand placed itself on her arm.
“Don’t worry,” he said.
Claire wanted to cry, she wanted to scream. She never experienced such pain before.
It not only affected her on the outside of her body, but it went deep, so deep that she thought her soul would freeze also.
“Is that you?” Claire asked.
The little boy with the purple lips and blue skin frowned at her question.
“Am I really me?”
“Are you my brother? Are you here?”
David’s lips turned down and Claire thought he would burst into tears.
“No, no. Please don’t cry. I’m making sure,” Claire said putting her hand over his.
The boy’s hiccups started and then tears rolled down his face.
He ripped his hand away from her and said, “I knew you would forget me.”
Claire shook her head and tried to reach out to touch him. “No, David, no. I never forgot you. That’s why I came back home.”
He turned back to her with a hopeful look on his face. Claire saw the innocent suspicion in his eyes, but they changed to one of trusting as Claire never turned away her gaze.
“I’m trapped,” he said.
Claire sat back against the bed. “What do you mean?”
More tears and this time he burst out into wailing sobs. “Mom-mom wouldn’t let me go.”
Claire tried soothing the wailing boy with soft words. She reassured him that she was there for him, and his sister was home.
The more Claire heard the boy speak the more the memories came flooding back into her mind of a time lost in her memories.
Memories of playing hide and seek in the huge house they had to live in after they lost their parents. Memories of holidays, pictures, school, and fighting over who wanted the better toy.
The memories of Claire playing children’s games with the boy and hugging him whenever he cried.
Claire remembered a time where David was ripped violently from her arms by a mysterious figure.
She thought about the situation, but she was only faced with darkness.
She looked back at David and found he had stopped crying. A knowing look passed over his features.
“What couldn’t Mom-mom do?” Claire asked.
Her curiosity was piqued. Why was the ghost of her brother haunting this house?
Was it because he drowned? Was it?
Claire realized her memories were tricking her.
She looked at her brother in confusion.
“David, what couldn’t Mom-mom do?”
“Dig,” David said.
“Dig what?”
“Dig.”
Claire woke up in a fog after her dream. She opened her eyes as they adjusted to the room, and she realized she was back in the real world.
She lay there for the longest time staring at the ceiling wondering how to set his soul free once and for all.
She still questioned her sanity about this whole situation with her brother.
Claire looked at her digital clock and found it was six in the morning.
Claire turned her face back to t
he ceiling and tried to fight back tears.
She wanted to deny it. The dreams, the visions and the shadows, but she couldn’t any longer.
Her brother was here.
Claire wiped her eyes wondering why her brother couldn’t move on to the afterlife.
Was it because his body was never recovered?
Did he drown? He kept telling her to dig.
The tears flowed down her cheeks and stained her pillowcase.
She turned over and closed her eyes, mourning the brother she lost so long ago.
What did he mean by dig, though?
Dig what?
Claire was becoming suspicious. Every time she had a vision about her brother she was in tremendous pain. Why? Why had it felt like someone ran her over with a semi every time she saw him?
Claire got out of bed, cursing the onset of a pounding headache.
She wiped her eyes and tried to pull herself together while the wave of grieving emotions kept slapping her across the face.
Her eyes turned to her nightstand, and she picked up the golden butterfly, the cool metal bringing her back to reality.
“Mom-mom couldn’t do it,” David said.
Rose couldn’t do what?
Claire put the butterfly back on her nightstand and rubbed her temples.
The memories were there, she just needed to reach down and grab them whenever they surfaced.
But, was she ready to dig deep enough into the darkness to find what David was trying to tell her?
Claire groaned and stood on her feet. She was free today. Most of her unpacking was finished, and she didn’t have to meet with George until tomorrow.
She contemplated calling Mac but didn’t want to bother him with her troubles.
She needed a friend.
She thought about talking to Shirley but didn’t want to face those old guys who were whispering behind her back.
Claire took a few deep breaths and walked out her room and into the bathroom.
After cleaning up, she headed down the main staircase into the kitchen.
The house was turning from a purple hue into lighter colors as the sun was rising.
She smiled from the brightness in the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee.
She was happy to open the clean refrigerator to grab her creamer.
It was nice to see the fresh food inside the refrigerator.
No more rotted food.
Since she had time today, she thought she would finally explore the attic and see what was waiting for her up there.
Her emotions were returning to normal when the sliding glass doors caught her eye.
As she sipped her coffee, she walked over to the doors and leaned against the cool glass as the morning mist dissipated in front of her eyes.
Her eyes turned to the right and she thought the trail to the river looked clearer today than it did when she first set eyes on it when she moved in.
Claire turned and sat down at the breakfast table and turned on her laptop.
She would check her messages and get dressed.
She closed the laptop and left her coffee next to it.
Claire ran up the stairs and dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans. She tied her sneakers and was on her way back to the kitchen and stood in front of the sliding glass doors.
Her hand hesitated on the latch.
She tried calming her raging emotions and almost turned back, but she knew she had to face it one way or another.
Taking a deep, calming breath, Claire slid the door open and stepped onto the back deck.
The cold blast of air gave her a renewed sense of purpose as she walked down the stairs and into the frosty grass.
She came upon the trail and stopped to squint into the woods looming in front of her.
She remembered reading the river was about a 200 yards from the house.
She strained her ears she thought she heard the distant sound of water.
Claire decided it was time and stepped into the trail.
It was overgrown with branches and leaves, and she could tell no one had been on the trail for years.
Claire pushed overgrown brush out of the way for the first half of the path and then it cleared.
Her sneakers crunching leaves beneath her while she walked sent small animals scurrying away from the noise.
The forest was blanketed in a fine mist, giving a creepy feel that made Claire shiver.
The scent of pine and dead leaves filled her nostrils as she walked.
Claire came upon a tiny meadow of dead grass and heard the river on the other side of another set of evergreens and oak trees.
The more she walked towards the river, the more she wondered how David made it all the way down here without Rose noticing he was gone.
Wasn’t he afraid of being here alone?
She frowned and stopped to look around.
How could David—who was only three years old—make it through the forest like this?
She knew it could happen. Stories of children getting were lost in national parks and other areas like this were always on the news.
What would have possessed him to come out here?
Claire walked through the rest of the meadow and through the trees.
She came upon the river bank. The water rushed to the east. The morning sun made the water sparkle in front of her giving it an otherworldly feeling.
Claire edged her way to the water over some slick rocks, and onto a small beach of white sand.
She carefully stepped onto the sand to make sure she wouldn’t sink and found it to be secure.
She admired the clear water as the sound soothed her troubled soul.
She breathed in deep breaths of fresh but humid air and tried not to imagine her brother’s suffering.
This was her brother’s watery grave… or was it?
The lingering doubts about what David had been telling her in her dreams and visions were nagging at her.
Claire turned to see a huge boulder to her left.
On it was a carving of a cross and a dead wreath of flowers.
Claire placed a hand over her mouth and tried not to shake. She had no memory of this little memorial.
She squatted and ran her fingers over the dead flowers but stopped when they disintegrated from her touch.
The cross was intricately designed on the boulder, and Claire could tell it was the work of a professional.
She stared at the tiny memorial for a few minutes letting the grief take over and feeling the emotions of having all these tragedies happen to her family within a span of three years.
Not just her parents. One day she wanted to drive on the road where they were killed and not only that, she’d never seen their graves.
But, she didn’t expect to find something for her brother near the riverbank.
Claire stood and stared at the memorial for the longest time trying to stifle the tears that threatened to fall.
She knew she needed to go back to the house and find another distraction to deal with all the reality she’d walked into only days before.
Claire turned to walk back to the house. Living in New Jersey all those years, Claire grieved her lost family, but from a distance. One where she could keep her own remorse at arm’s length.
Now, the realness and coming back to Lingate were almost too much to bear.
That’s why she came back. She had to face the past.
Claire was so deep in thought she hadn’t realized the world changed around her until her breath—once again— came out in frosty puffs.
She froze in place and looked up to see the garish and gray world had once again formed around her.
She rapidly blinked trying to focus, but all her vision turned into a blurry tunnel around her peripheral vision.
The familiar pain shot up her arm and down her legs. It was so intense that Claire thought she would fall to knees.
She gasped for breath and tried to walk, but her feet wouldn’t cooperate.
> “David?” She asked through gasping breaths.
Straight ahead her brother appeared before her. He cocked his head with an emotionless expression saying, “I’m sorry, but that’s the only way I can get your attention.”
“Why are you doing this?” Claire asked. “I came home. I came home for you.”
“I have to show you,” David said.
Claire noticed this was the clearest David’s voice had been since she first saw him.
“Show me what?”
“Dig.”
Claire shook her head in frustration while trying to ease the pain shooting through her arms and legs.
“You keep saying that, but what do you want me to dig?”
David smiled, but there was no humor in his voice. Claire could only see a bitter sorrow when his lips curved upwards.
“Me.”
Claire opened her mouth to say something, but the shock kept the words from exiting her mouth.
“I’m not in the river,” David explained further. “I never was. You know this.”
“What?” Claire asked. “What… what do you mean?”
Claire could tell her brother was frustrated. He shifted on his feet, his mouth turned down into a pout, and his eyes flashed.
“You know this,” he said.
“No, I don’t,” Claire confessed. “All I remember from that day is Mom-mom picking me up from school early.”
“You saw me,” he said.
“I saw you every morning,” Claire said with a smile. “I miss you now.”
The little boy facial expressions softened into a sad smile.
“I miss you too.”
“Why do you want me to dig?” Claire asked.
“For me,” he answered. “I can’t rest. Mom-mom wouldn’t let me.”
Claire could see the tears gathering in his eyes. His lower lip trembled. He was fighting back tears.
“David…” Claire said reaching for him. “Don’t cry, sweetie. Don’t cry. I’m here for you.”
David’s sobs turned into small hiccups. “I hate this world. I want to see Mommy and Daddy. They are waiting for me.”
“How did you get trapped?” Claire asked.
David wiped his eyes. “Because Mom-mom wouldn’t let me.”
“Let you what?”
“Rest.”
Claire sat back and ignored the pain coursing through her body. She reached into her jacket and took out the butterfly brooch, her hands shaking from the realization.