Undone: The Complete Duology, page 3
The trifecta of assholes.
A few years ago, I’d come to the Reverend with a problem. It had taken all my courage to be brave enough to confess, but my entire life, everyone had said to seek him out for guidance. He knew the righteous way. He would know what to do.
Instead, the next day at the congregation, he had publicly cast me out as a sinner. Everyone else followed his lead.
If there was anyone to blame for what was about to happen to this town, what I was about to do to them all, it was him. He’d had every option to rectify what he did, but now it was too late.
Maybe his god would forgive him.
I sure as hell wouldn’t.
As I made my way through the graveyard, I kept my flashlight off. I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself from anything watching. Not all that lurked in the shadows was human.
I didn’t bother to ask the Goddess for protection. She didn’t work quite like that. Besides, I’d already asked—and received—the greatest gift. I had no right to ask her for anything else.
I had to make the rest happen on my own. And I would.
I picked up my pace. My foot caught on a headstone, and I stumbled forward, barely catching myself against a tree before I hit the ground.
The branches above me rustled. I looked straight up and bit down a yelp. Two shiny eyes flared in the darkness. I tried to make out the shape of its shadowy body; I wanted it to be a cat. The more I looked, the more the dark silhouette took shape into something…otherworldly.
Steeling myself, I hissed, “Be gone.”
The creature, still cloaked in darkness, scurried away. It was silent. Too silent.
Nothing from this world moved like that.
Cold swept through me, and I looked back towards the gate, weighing my choices. I could either take my chances with the demons that lurked in the graveyard, or I could face Rose.
The demons had nothing on her.
My empty backpack jostled as I took off through the darkness in the direction of the far end of the cemetery. It would come out on the other side of Lou’s. I just had to keep going, not look back. If I stopped, if I slowed, they would get me.
The demons were on my heels. I could feel them, and when I dared a glance over my shoulder, I could make out their shapes swirling in the shadows, not fully formed. They lunged at me, maws gaping, their paws never striking the earth.
My heart beat painfully against my chest. I clenched the flashlight tighter and focused on my goal. They wouldn’t be able to reach me once I was outside their territory.
They were gaining on me. I stumbled but kept going, my body trembling. The other end of the cemetery came into view, and I veered towards the gate. As I neared, I stretched out my free arm, grabbing the gate as I met with it and barreled it open, crossing the threshold.
The shadows silently recoiled, disappearing back into the night. I could still feel their eyes on me, tracking my every move.
They weren’t the only demons in this town, but these never ventured beyond the graveyard walls.
When I was out of sight of the cemetery, safely behind the wall, I slumped over, catching my breath. Fatigue settled into me. I didn’t often encounter the demons in town—I’d learned when and where to avoid most of them—but every encounter left me drained. I had no doubt they feasted on the fear they inspired.
Finally, I composed myself and refocused my attention on my destination. Near the end of the block, I slipped down the alley that ran between the cemetery and Lou’s. There wasn’t much back here, just some rocks and cigarette butts from kids who wanted a smoke out of view of the parents. In Thorn Tree, they took the whole “it takes a village” a bit too literally. Everyone had more parents than they could count, or that they needed.
In my sophomore year, I had come back here once with Bethany to smoke. She’d stolen the cigarettes from her grandmother, and we’d choked and coughed on them, trying to pretend we weren’t bothered, but neither of us had wanted another.
Lou never locked up, so this was going to be easy. I would have felt bad lifting something so valuable from him, but he’d been in the front row that day at the congregation. Hadn’t said a word, not then and not now.
He could go down with the sinking ship like the rest of them.
I grabbed the knob of the back door and turned. It didn’t budge.
“You gotta be shitting me…”
The one night I needed to get in here, he’d actually taken a precaution. I wondered what had spurred that change.
No matter. That moon ring would be mine before the night was over, even if I had to burn this whole place to the ground to get to it.
The ring wasn’t his. It had belonged to that Voodoo Priestess, and he’d taken it for simple capitalistic gains. Little had he known, his worldly greed had been nothing more than a tool to bring the ring to me.
Destiny, some might call it.
I would have never been able to find the ring on my own without this divine intervention.
In the movies, they often used a card to pop open a door, but I hadn’t brought anything like that. I wasn’t even sure if it would work. Picking the lock was far outside my wheelhouse, and my magic…well, it didn’t work like that either. It was more subtle. I could influence people, like I had done to Bobby in the basement, and I could control smaller elements, but breaking down a door was out of the question.
My spell was something else entirely. The power wouldn’t come from me. I would just be a conduit. That was why gathering all the right ingredients was so important. I couldn’t afford to mess this up. I would only have one chance.
With that in mind, I turned my focus to finding another way into the building. Stupid Lou, locking up this place. At least I was sure there would be no further security inside. No alarm, no cameras. Locking up was as far as anyone would go without risking being deemed paranoid or unstable. No one in Thorn Tree wanted to believe anything bad could happen here, and they dealt with it by shaming anyone who might inadvertently remind them that bad things could happen to anyone, anywhere.
It shattered the illusion that this little town was so watched over and blessed.
I made my way around the side of the building, looking for any options. Lou’s had once been an old house, some said over a hundred years old now. One side had been blocked off with a built-on storage unit that surely would have violated building codes in any other city. The back had no windows, and I wasn’t about to circle to the front and risk being spotted by Rose. The only remaining side contained a large window, but Lou had placed an enormous antique armoire in front of it inside. His place was so crowded I never thought much of it until now. I had to wonder if he’d done it as an additional means of security, right under the noses of all the pious folk.
This whole town was as fake as my last orgasm.
I returned to the alley and stared at the back of the shop, contemplating my next move. The covered electrical outlet low on the wall gave me an idea.
It was time for a little remodeling.
5
GRACE
Headmaster Merrick lived a mile away, in the opposite direction of where Rose was letting out her creativity. At least it was in a less destructive form than she had done in the past.
When Headmaster Merrick wasn’t busy striking fear in the hearts of all the children of Thorn Tree, one upped only by the Reverend’s sermons of hellfire every Sunday and Wednesday, he had his own little creative outlet: carpentry.
I covered the distance in record time, spurred by the desire to feel the man-in-the-moon ring in my hand. Capturing Bobby had been the first step, but I still hadn’t actually crossed off anything from my list. I’d waited so long for this plan to come together, and now it was within my grasp.
Nothing was going to stop me.
One theft beget another theft.
I stopped outside Headmaster Merrick’s house, an old five-bedroom sprawling estate with two chimneys and former “house staff quarters” where his wife tutored struggling children. She was the only tutor in town sanctioned by both the headmaster himself and the Reverend. It was a good gig these people had going.
An added-on garage sat off the left side of the house.
I reached for the gate in front of the property and as my fingers wrapped around the bars, heat flared through me. Icy chills followed right after. I leaned forward, pressing my forehead against the cold bars and breathing heavily. My chest constricted.
Apologize, Grace. Tell them you lied.
I grit my teeth against the voices of the past and shoved open the gate. Like the rest of the town, the Merrick household was quiet, the lights off in the windows and only the single porchlight pushing back the darkness of night.
Adjusting my backpack, I slunk across the yard towards the garage. When I reached the door, I halted and listened, verifying no noise came from the house.
Silence.
Carefully, I rolled up the garage door until it caught halfway up and slid the rest of the way open with a clatter. I winced and scrambled around the side of the house to wait.
When no one came charging out the front door, I stepped around into the garage and flipped on my flashlight.
Headmaster Merrick’s carpentry shop was set up here. I wove my way around a table with a miter saw, a generator, and several devices I didn’t even recognize until I reached the table against the far wall. I’d done a little work here and there on my farmhouse over the years, mostly with my dad when he’d been alive. I hadn’t kept on it as much lately—I’d been a little preoccupied—but I remembered a few bits of wisdom my dad had imparted on me. Of course, much of the standard conventions when it came to buildings didn’t always stand true with the old houses of Thorn Tree. Some of these places were put together with scrap lumber and good wishes.
Prayer, the Reverend would say. The whole town was built on prayer.
Whoever had answered those prayers weren’t godly in the least.
I slid off my backpack and began filling it up with select tools: a jab saw, a pair of scissors, a hole saw, and a jig saw.
Really, I just needed a lot of sharp pointy things.
I also threw in an extension cord and, on further thought, a stud finder for good measure.
Noises came from inside the house.
I snagged my backpack off the ground and darted out of the garage, around the side of the house, as the front door opened. With my back against the wall, I zipped up my bag and listened.
“Who is out here?” Headmaster Merrick called from his porch.
His heavy footsteps pounded down the steps.
I scurried along the side of the house and across the backyard, headed the opposite direction of the garage.
His voice filled the night air: “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
I crouched and peered around the wall as he stepped inside the open garage to assess the damage. I took a leap of faith and shot straight across the yard, aiming for the gates. I didn’t stop, barely even breathed, until I slid out the gates and into the night.
When the house was out of sight, I collapsed on the grass of a knoll to catch my breath and give my tired muscles a break. I’d had more physical activity in the last week than the month prior. It was catching up with me, but I could rest when I had all the elements of my spell. Then all I had to do was wait until the next full month.
Bobby running late with his visit had worked out, after all. At least I had time to finish collecting the items. I still wasn’t sure what the other two on the list meant, but I would unravel them as they came. I couldn’t expect all the answers at once.
I sat under the watch of a honey locust—the eponymous thorn tree—but I couldn’t stay still long. The graveyard demons weren’t the only ones that lurked in this town.
Most of the town was oblivious, perhaps willfully blind. The creatures knew I could see them though, and what I was capable of.
Pushing down the fear threatening to bubble to the surface, I gathered my backpack and made my way to Lou’s. I came in through the back, avoiding Rose down the street entirely, and dropped my bag.
The plan was simple enough: I was going to cut a hole straight through the wall. Luckily, Lou’s wasn’t made of brick, though there were a few of those around here too, and getting through wouldn’t be much more difficult than putting in a doggie door.
I tried the stud finder first, but the exterior wall was too thick for it to pick up anything. Since I didn’t have access to the inside, I would just have to wing it. Most houses had beams sixteen or twenty-four inches apart. That didn’t always hold true for old buildings like those in Thorn Tree, but it had for my farmhouse. The electrical outlet was probably mounted on a stud, so that gave me a place to work from.
I did a little imprecise measuring, then chose an area that should have been roughly between two studs and used the hole saw, plugged into the outlet, to cut several holes into the exterior wall. After I poked around a little and got a feel of what I was working with inside the wall, I used the jig saw to slice a large rectangle, big enough for a Doberman to get through, into the exterior. With a little effort, the piece of wall came out.
With the scissors, I cut free the insulation inside the wall and yanked it out, careful to avoid any electrical wires. It wasn’t the quickest or neatest job in history, but the backside of the interior wall was visible.
If I were actually installing a doggie door, I would go inside and do this next bit a lot easier. No matter. I was close enough to have tunneled my way to the ring. Just a little more to go.
I used the hole saw to get my cut started, then used the jab saw to cut out an approximately same-sized hole as the one I was working through. My shoulder pinched, my neck knotted, and my fingers got smashed around more than a few times, but finally, the interior drywall came free. I shoved it out and onto the floor of the shop.
I couldn’t help the grin. I had a clear passage straight into Lou’s—and to my ring.
I gathered the tools and then tossed my backpack through the opening before wiggling in after it.
The interior of the shop was dark. I flipped on the flashlight as I stood, leaving my bag on the floor. It weighed as much as a baby elephant with all those tools in there.
First things first. I wove through the furniture and fixtures arranged in organized chaos the short distance to the back door, then flipped the lock on it. No way I was going back out through the hole if I could help it.
Next, I propped my flashlight on the faucet of an antique pedestal sink and scooted a dusty old blanket chest in front of the opening I’d made in the wall. It wouldn’t hide my deeds forever, but it should buy a little time before Lou noticed it and began asking questions.
Anticipation tingled across my skin as I turned for the display case at the counter. I doubted the case would be locked, but if Lou had been particularly cautious tonight, I had no qualms with bashing the case open. There were plenty of heavy items in this place that could be used to smash the glass.
I squatted down in front of the display with my flashlight to spot my ring. It had been sitting next to an electroformed ring. That ring was still there, but the man-in-the-moon was missing.
My heart sped up. What were the odds someone had purchased it in the last forty-eight hours? No one in town would be seen with such a worldly extravagance on their hand, and we hadn’t had any new visitors.
No one besides Bobby, but he hadn’t done any shopping since his arrival.
Lou did deal online, though. He could have sold the ring, but I didn’t believe that. The ring was meant to be mine. The Goddess had sent it from New Orleans to Thorn Tree, of all unlikely places, so that I could use it for my spell.
Anger lit inside me. I swung the end of the flashlight at the glass of the display case. The strike glanced off, and my anger flared into an inferno. I slammed the flashlight into the case again, over and over, shoving to my feet. Red rage overcame my vision as I beat the case with the flashlight, rattling the glass with spiderweb cracks.
That ring was mine, god damnit. He had no right to take it, no right to move it. He had no right to ever touch it again.
None of them had any rights.
This whole fuckin’ town would burn.
I came back to the present, gasping for air. My hand ached with stinging pains, and I realized I’d smashed it repeatedly between the flashlight and the shattered glass. Shards scattered through the case, over the vintage collectibles. Blood trickled from my fingers, and I swapped the flashlight to my other hand to cradle my injured one against my shirt.
Nearby, just on the other side of a tete-a-tete chair, the back door eased open.
Someone was coming into the shop.
I darted to my backpack and shoved it behind old barn doors propped against the wall, then dropped behind the counter. I flipped off my flashlight.
Footsteps approached, assured but cautious. A dark shadow loomed over the walls, dancing with the weak light that shone in through the open back door as the person approached the glass case.
I held my breath.
What if it wasn’t a person? A chill wove down my back, and I pressed my bloody hand to my mouth to stifle a whimper.
This whole town was a nexus of activity. I could sense it. This could be one of those. Demon, spirit, something else entirely ghoulish and evil.
I hated this town, hated everything about it.
I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t. Not until I had fulfilled my spell. I would never let the townspeople off so easily.
Please, Goddess. Please.
I knew She wasn’t listening. It didn’t work like that.
I prepared my magic instead. One day I would be stronger; I was getting there little by little every day. I could banish something evil though, if I could just collect my thoughts. That was why they sought me out, after all.
