Page 10 of A Curse On Black Lake (Black Lake Gothic Cowboys #1)

Chapter eight

Eliana

The sun sears my closed eyes, and I groan, turning on my side. It’s been two weeks since she passed. All I want to do is stay in bed, but there are animals relying on me to feed them.

Rolling out of bed, I get dressed and get the coffee going. The house is so quiet. No scooting footsteps, or whispered curses from dropping something. No singing. Only silence, as if I’m living in my own grave.

Tears spring from my eyes, and I take a deep gulp of my piping hot coffee and get to work. I’ve been doing this by myself for a while now, since Grams couldn’t. But today and the week before it feels like it’s getting harder.

I’ve had the apothecary closed since Grams died.

I can’t go in there, even though I have to.

I’m the medicine woman in town now. But the irony is, I don’t think anyone will come asking me for help.

Grams taught me all she knows, and I’ve been studying and learning from her my entire life.

I’m confident I can meet the need, but I’ll never be able to fill the shoes.

Because I used to do it every morning for Grams, I ran out to the mailbox to get the newspaper.

She loves — loved — doing the crosswords and riddles they put in them.

The Black Lake Sentinel is one of the only forms of news we get that includes the outside world.

With only a few TV channels, Grams and I don’t bother.

Today the front title reads, Another Body Found at Black Lake. I stare at it for a minute. It’s not a new headline. It’s actually probably one of the more common headlines. I never read the thing, but maybe I should.

I inhale a shaky breath, going straight for the garbage can on the side of the house to toss it. I’ll never read the paper again.

After I’m done with the animals, I force myself into the apothecary and work on the herbs that have been drying for a couple weeks.

I strip them first, sift them, and organize them for their various uses.

Some of it will make tea, tinctures or glycerites, and the rest will go into lotion or soaps.

My stomach churns and my heart hurts, but I concentrate on what’s in front of me.

Since Grams was laid to rest, my grasp on the line between reality and a separate plane is getting hard to see. The edges are blurring. But there is no one who can help me stay here, but maybe I don’t want to be here anymore.

By the end of the day, I’m exhausted, and food tastes like ash, but I force myself to eat. Otherwise, I’ll feel worse in the morning.

You have not listened. You have not listened. You need to listen! The Spirits yell.

I groan and ignore them as my head hits the pillow and my eyes shut, too tired to discern what they’re saying. The only place I find peace, the calm, is in sleep, but even then, sometimes it’s not good enough. Hopefully, tonight will be.

Wake up!

Wake!

Wake!

Wake!

My eyes spring open, and my heart races in my chest. I look around, expecting to see a threat, but nothing is there.

He is here. He is here. The Spirits tell me.

“Who?” I whisper.

They don’t respond.

My stomach lurches, and I reach for the shotgun behind my bedroom door. I might not have good aim, but I don’t have to with this. I can only hope that it’s not something that goes bump in the night because a shotgun will do nothing to stop it.

I step into the hall, don’t see anything, and quietly make it to the living room and kitchen. Nothing. Lowering the barrel, I reach for a glass of water and fill it. As I lift it to my lips, that’s when I see him.

The glass falls from my hand and shatters at my feet. The hooded figure is in the back of my garden, standing there. I could go out there and shoot him, though it might not be human, but something else entirely.

Indecision and fear grip me. I can taste the sourness of death on my tongue. I need to know if he’s human, but deep down I know it’s a man standing there, watching.

I didn’t turn on any lights, so he might not see me. I remain still, hoping he moves on. My feet ache, and I can feel blood seeping from a cut on the top of my foot, but I don’t move.

We are told you must find the one. You must listen. He will kill you if you don’t. You must find each other, as the past will become the future.

I want to snap back at them to explain, but sometimes they don’t know. And I’m too afraid to make a sound, afraid he might hear me. Eventually, the man turns and walks away. I stay there for what feels like hours until it feels safe enough to move.

The fear has turned to anger, and I dab at the cut on my foot and leap over the shattered glass, running for my boots.

With the shotgun in my hand, small flashlight in my mouth, wearing nothing but my nightgown, I stomp out to my garden ready to shoot whoever thinks they can trespass on my land. This is Texas after all.

Swinging the barrel back and forth, checking the garden and then the barn. It’s all clear. I stop at the far end where I saw the hooded figure and flip on my flashlight to the place I saw him standing, and gasp, confirming my instincts.

Anxiety washes over me, and I look around again using the flashlight this time. But no one is there. There are perfect indentations of boot prints in the black soil, as if he stood there so long the ground wanted to remember.

So he’s not a ghost.

You must move quickly. You cannot delay anymore.

“You have to give me more than that,” I whisper.

Flipping the flashlight off and going back inside. I lock the door behind me, checking all the doors and windows again. After bandaging my foot, I crawl back into bed with a new form of exhaustion.

You have to find him, but you have already seen him.

“I would really appreciate if y’all stopped speaking in riddles. If time is that much of the essence, then you have to tell me,” I say to them as I rest the shotgun next to my headboard, ready for me to grab it if I need to.

You must find the man from your dream. That is all we have been told.

“Thank you, that’s so helpful,” I mutter.

He will kill again. Everything will get worse.

“Are we talking about the same person now?”

You need another to help you. Blood will feed the soil.

“That makes no sense!” I scream, wiping my tears, and throw myself back into bed.

Regardless of what they’re telling me, someone has been here.

It’s probably a stupid teenager trying to mess with me.

I could call the Sheriff, but what would they say?

What would they do? Nothing. It’s not like I can get security cameras.

We barely have internet here. Very few modern electronics work in Black Lake.

This town is stuck crumbling in time while the rest of the world continues without it.

If I want to catch this guy, I’ll have to wait and surprise him.

Or maybe I shouldn’t bother. There’s nothing keeping me here. Not anymore. I could leave. I probably should leave since there’s some creep watching me. But what would life be like to start over, where no one knows my name? No one knows what I am, or maybe someone would accept me for who I am.

Running away could be the answer to it all. The Spirits would have to deal with it.

You must stay. You must. You must.

“But what’s the point? I have no one now,” I say to them.

They don’t respond.

I furiously wipe my wet cheeks and turn on my side.

What is life if I’m destined to be alone? Is that a life at all? I want more than what is, but I’ve convinced myself I’ll never have any of it. Which is not to say I’m not grateful for what I have. I am.

With Grams, life wasn’t so bad. I had someone who loved me.

Maybe now I simply need to accept my life will always be this way.

I have been trained and taught to heal people, to help them.

That is a life worth living. Our family is here and has been for generations.

My ancestors built the apothecary here in Black Lake with their blood, sweat, tears, and their lives. Except I’m the end of it.

So who am I to walk away from it all because I have no one to tell me they love me or give me a hug because they want to?

Of all people, I trust my grandmother. She said I had a purpose here, so she would want me to stay.

And so I will. I’ll stay for her. I will continue her legacy, our family’s legacy of Greer Apothecary, for as long as I can. She deserves that much. They all do.

I release a long breath and close my eyes.

It would seem I have no choice but to find the man from my dream and help him, so he can help me. Whatever the hell that means.