A genderqueer hillbilly and a haunted woman must break a generational curse that has entwined their lives in the abandoned coal-stripped mountains of the Pennsylvania Wilds.
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Desperate to flee a dark past, Finley drives off a cliff and prays to...
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05. || to be alone.
The echo of the voice vibrated up every vertebrae in River's spine, but they didn't turn around. A trick of the trees, it surely had to be; too many blows to the head, also likely. Or maybe it was that damn Ghost Cat throwing his voice in the wind to get a rise outta River. They'd be sure to skin and tan his spotted white hide if his soul ever took root this side of the earth again, but nary a purring chuckle rumbled in the dark branches above.
"Oi! Now I know ya heard me, River Hawthorne."
The cadence from the old country in her voice couldn't be mistaken. As River turned around, the miller's wife sat upon the raised gnarled roots of the hemlock. Her black skirt dusted the bed of pine needles as she leaned against the slope of the trunk, swinging her foot idly. The white of her blouse glowed blue in the twilight, cinched tight at her waist with the belt River had tooled for her as a birthday gift. Every blonde hair of hers was perfectly rolled and pinned into a low coiffure like a golden crown atop her head.
But River had watched flames consume that golden crown. They'd watched on as the hem of that dark skirt caught fire; as that very blouse with its buttoned collar melted into her skin. Her flesh had bubbled and split raw, charring black 'til she was nothing but ash and rubble, her bones abandoned by her husband in the cove where the scald came to be. Nae, this couldn't be her.
As she ran her teeth over her lip, a glint of moonlight caught in her smirk. "I expected ya to be a wee more excited, love. Been a hundred years since I saw ya last."
"Hundred and twelve," River corrected, watching closely as the corners of her lips turned up. "But who's countin'."
"Hundred twelve, eh?" She seemed to consider that length for a moment before eyeing River up. "Ya dinnae look a day over thirty, finally all caught up to me now. The spell was kind to ya."
"Not a spell, Demon, a curse—your curse."
Her sly smirk fell with the accusation; the idle swing of her boot stilled against the roots. "You still believin' the demon took to me after all this time? Thought ya knew me better n'at. Thought ya were the only one who did."
The delicate lines of her brows knotted just as they had when she caught fire all those years before. But this time, River turned away, which didn't do a damn thing to ease the guilt all gaumed up in their gut.
"Why'd ya ever bother luggin' me bones back to this hemlock, then?"
"'Cause there was a chance you might come back," River snapped, spinning back around. They started towards her, but stopped abruptly, shaking their head with denial and fear of getting too close. "A chance Vera might come back, but I shoulda known better. If it weren't for the preacher's boy, you'd still be spreadin' your darkness, wanderin' free."
"And so would you, yeah? Be wanderin' free?"
But River needn't be reminded. They'd taken her bones, still hot from the pyre, to the hemlock with every hope the demon had been extinguished with the flames and cast back to the black bowels of the earth, not knowing they were being followed. The preacher's boy went and tattled to his mama and she marched up the hill through the woods to see for herself, except she got a mite too close, started smacking River around, and them roots snagged her up before she could scream.
