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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

An hour later, after following the twisting path back down to the river, we find ourselves walking in a sunken ditch that, according to Leo, once held train tracks to the mill. A saw mill, not the old-timey grain mill I’d been picturing, complete with water wheel.

Between the trees, I catch glimpses of colors that can’t possibly be natural. Nothing in these woods would be magenta, orange, and lime green, especially not in November. Leo steps off the trail and up onto a slope covered in fallen leaves.

“Come on. We’ve found the town.” He turns back, smiles, and holds out a gloved hand.

I take it, grateful for his sturdiness when the dry leaves threaten to pull my feet out from under me.

As we crest the steep hill, a scene appears before us.

Crumbling stone and brick structures huddle amongst the trees as though they were underbrush.

Inching closer, I see that the forest has claimed them.

Moss covers wall-less foundations in a blanket of bright green, while yellowing vines weave their way around dilapidated chimneys.

Anything wood must’ve long ago decayed, allowing tall trees to stand defiantly in what might have been kitchens and living rooms .

Someone has scribbled amateurish graffiti on the largest, flattest surfaces using the garish colors that caught my eye from the path. I grew up a stone’s throw from Washington, D.C.; I’m not against graffiti. But here, where nature has overtaken what man has made, it’s out of place. And eery.

I wander over to a sprawling foundation and walk along its walls.

Was this all one house? It’s huge. I suppose it could’ve been the mill owner’s.

He would have certainly been the richest guy in town.

Or maybe it was some sort of community building.

A hall or a meeting house? A general store?

I doubt there’s ever been an official excavation of this town.

It’s not a significant enough historic site.

Leo joins me and we stroll from chimney to chimney, foundation to foundation, speculating about what each building might’ve been. Family homes? Bunkhouses for the unmarried men?

“I wonder if this was a church,” he says as we come upon a long, narrow foundation.

Unlike the others, this one boasts a stone floor.

Weeds and saplings sprout between the carefully laid slate tiles.

We step over the shallow wall and into the building.

Inside, it feels like we’re standing in an unfilled swimming pool.

At the far end, the stone floor looks higher. As we approach, Leo sweeps away the leaves with a booted foot, revealing a set of shallow steps. “Definitely a church.”

So far, in the other buildings, I haven’t felt anything too unsettling. But here in the church, a heaviness greets me. I climb the crumbling steps to the altar, hugging myself as the cold forest wind slices through my coat, and fingers of melancholy caress my senses.

Down in the nave, Leo watches me, hands on his hips. He’s shamelessly following my every move. Feeling self-conscious, I turn away. When I dare to look at him again, I find him outside the building, kicking through the leaves alongside the wall.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Trying to see if there’s a graveyard.”

I bite my lip as I gaze out over the town. “It could be anywhere.” The farther away, the better, as far as I’m concerned .

“Yeah, I don’t see any signs of one.” His eyes meet mine. “But I bet you could find it.”

I’d rather not.

As he comes closer, I shake my head, my stomach somersaulting.

Understanding warms the brown of his eyes. “You don’t like graveyards, do you?”

“No.”

He holds out a hand. “Come on. I’ll be right beside you.”

My feet are stuck to the mossy church floor. I shake my head again, like a stubborn child.

“Betts.” He steps over the foundation and circles me with his arms. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” His dark eyes plead with me gently, Trust me . He’s so confident, so earnest, so sheltering. “I’ll stay right beside you. I promise.”

Dammit, why am I nodding?

Side by side, we walk slowly, silently, around the church. No sign of gravestones, no creepy feelings, nothing to sense but the bite of the cold and the crunch of leaves underfoot. When we get back to where we started, Leo sighs.

Shoulders sagging, he turns in a circle, scanning the forest floor. “I thought for sure…” He shrugs and offers me a weak smile.

“Let’s keep looking.”

He blinks at me.

Yeah, I don’t know why I said that. It’s just that I hate seeing him so deflated. The sparkle is gone from his eyes and I want it back.

He tries to suppress the hopefulness in his voice. “We don’t have to.”

“I’ll be fine.” I think. The sun is shining, the forest is peaceful, and with him close by— “Just, please stay with me.”

“Of course.” He takes my gloved hand in his own and draws them both to his chest.

For a moment I stand there, eyes glued to our joined hands, struggling to jumpstart my brain.

Right, graveyard. Okay .

Like a detective, I think of all the churches I’ve seen and been to, especially the one where I went to Sunday School as a little girl. The graveyard wasn’t right next to the church itself.

Tugging on Leo’s arm, I start to climb. The entire town sits on a hill that slopes down to the river. The further down, the greater the risk of flooding. The higher up, the better for digging graves.

Leo doesn’t ask questions, not until I stop a good fifty yards from the church. Even then, all he does is raise his eyebrows. I shake my head. Either there’s no graveyard or I’m a shitty psychic. He throws up a hand and chuckles.

“Oh well,” I say with a resigned smile. “It was worth a try.”

We start back down the hill, winding through a section of ruins we’ve yet to explore.

As we pass the church, this time far on our left, it happens.

A blanket of sorrow drops onto my shoulders, pulling me down and pressing on my bones.

My legs, heavy and cold, don’t want to carry me any further.

I reach for Leo, my fingers sinking into something soft, something I can grip.

“What is it?”

“It’s here,” I breathe, twisting the sleeve of his coat. “If there is a graveyard, then it’s right here.”

He steps in front of me and tips up my chin. “Are you okay?”

I nod and even manage a smile.

At his request, I explain what I’m feeling and together we carefully comb the area.

The sadness clings to me, but with Leo close enough to feed me his strength, I’m not afraid.

We kick aside leaves and yank away underbrush and vines, but all we find is one shard of stone.

It could very well be a piece of a headstone; it’s smooth on its wide sides, like it’s part of a slab.

But if it was ever engraved, the markings are long gone, erased by weather, water, and moss. I toss it back on the ground.

“Maybe my imagination ran away with me?” I suggest, though I don’t think that’s the case. I’d already given up when the sadness hit me. I hadn’t conjured it up in my mind.

Leo doesn’t believe it either. “No, if you feel it, then it was here. Something was here.” He pushes his hair off his forehead.

“Think about it. These people were laborers. How many of them had the money for gravestones? If they couldn’t pay a stonemason or do the work themselves, then they probably just used wood to mark the graves. ”

In my mind, I see crosses made of sticks and twine, lovingly draped with a treasure of the deceased: a handkerchief or a ribbon, a hand-knitted baby blanket. I swallow down the burn in my throat. “It’s grief, isn’t it? That’s what I feel in graveyards.” Not the dead, but the living. The mourners.

Thoughtfully, Leo nods.

Puzzle pieces spin in my mind, still not quite fitting together. I felt Jason because he was panicking at that very moment, one floor below me. Liv was still angry when I found her after the fight with her parents. Those things were happening in real time. But old buildings and graveyards?

I cast my gaze over the carpet of fallen leaves. “But no one’s been buried here for a hundred years.”

Leo stares straight ahead, rubbing his jaw. “The stronger the emotions, the longer their energy lingers.”

A grief potent enough to last a century; and I can feel it. Does that mean emotional energy isn’t bound by space or time?

These are possibilities I can’t fathom, that I don’t even want to fathom.

Shoving them to the back of my mind, I continue on my way toward the river.

Leo jogs up beside me and remains quiet as we roam through the rest of the ruins.

I keep my eyes open for a broken teacup or an old brass button, but nothing turns up.

I’m sure if artifacts were left here, other curious hikers found them decades ago.

We pause for a drink at the top of the leafy slope, and once refreshed, wander back down to the trail.

Leo seems on edge. As we hike along the ditch of the old railroad track, he keeps darting glances at me. Finally, I ask him, “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? Nothing.”

I tease, “You haven’t gotten us lost, have you?”

He chuckles. “No. There should be a bridge coming up soon, and once we cross it, we’ll be on our way back.”

As the bridge comes into view, he relaxes, his pace slowing and his hands going slack in his coat pockets.

Around the next bend, we come upon another pair of hikers, the first we’ve seen in a long while.

The four of us exchange greetings as we pass, but when they’re out of earshot, I lean closer to Leo and whisper, “They look worn out.”

“I noticed that.”

“Do you think the trail is more strenuous on the other side?”

“It shouldn’t be, but if it’s too much, we can always turn around and go back the way we came.”

He’s saying that for me. He could handle a demanding hike. I determine here and now to manage it, no matter how steep the path is.