Page 31 of Marked By Shadows
“Just out here to the woods to play their ghost games and not disturb the rest of us who were trying to sleep.”
“Did anyone seem really upset with them? Like your host perhaps?”
“Freya?” I shook my head. “Annoyed mostly. I think we all were. It would have been different if we were at an actual hotel with very separated spaces. Though the group screaming might have woke people anyway.”
“And they screamed because they thought there was a ghost?” The detective confirmed.
“That’s what they said. I guess Byrony and the rest were doing scary stories or something. Alex and I went to bed. I think Jonah did too. And Freya came from the middle cabin where we do photoshoots for our craft stuff.” I tried to recall where everyone had been before they left. And couldn’t recall anyone being unaccounted for. “Melissa went with them. She probably knows more.”
“Did anything seem off about their relationship? Byrony and Joe?”
“Off how?” I wondered. “I saw them for two minutes.”
“Did she defer to him, or was there a lot of tension between them?”
“I don’t think so.” I hadn’t really been awake enough to notice. “Joe said something about they had rights at the B&B too. Like it was okay to keep everyone awake because they were, but that’s all I remember about him.” I glanced around trying to find Alex. He was a few feet away speaking to another officer.
“What about the rest of the group? Did you notice any tension between them and your friend or her boyfriend?”
“Everyone was sort of upset that they were playing. I think it was more that they’d been woken up. Sorry. I got woken up by screams and came running. My brain was a little slow to follow, so I probably didn’t notice as much as I would have if I’d been more awake.” I wasn’t sure I was catching all this either. The panic mode had faded a little, but sat just below the surface waiting to pounce again. Too much adrenaline still coursing through me, and my gut churned like a cement mixer with the memories of whatever it had been that I’d seen.
“A lot of people run away when someone screams,” the officer pointed out.
“Well my boyfriend reacted, and so did I. Maybe because he’s ex-Army? If it had been me by myself, I probably wouldn’t have gone running.” Admitting to being a coward wasn’t as difficult as it used to be. Years of living with the late night noises and people looking at me like I was broken while leading ghost tours around the city had taught me there were a lot of levels of brave, many synonymous with stupid. I considered myself a cautious sort of brave. Alex sometimes bordered on the other type. A mix of military training and white knight syndrome perhaps. Either way I wished he did less running headfirst into danger and spent more time thinking out other options. It just wasn’t in his nature.
“If you think of anything else, call, alright?” The officer said.
I nodded, and waited until Alex was free from his questions, standing a few feet away, rolling from foot to foot with impatience and exhaustion. The trickle of conversations only half made sense around me. Freya talking about the plans for the group for the week. Julie and Nicole about their scare the night before. Chad about his short encounter with Joe, which led to nothing more than a backhanded insult about Chad’s size. MaryAnn suggested that she’d heard the pair talking about meeting up with friends outside the group.
“Will you need a search party?” Alex asked the detective he was talking to.
“We’d rather everyone stay out of the woods until we’ve had a thorough search ourselves,” the detective replied. “While there is some concern, we don’t know there is actually anything wrong yet.”
Only we did. Alex saw her ghost. I felt something…
I sucked in air, recalling the cemetery a month earlier and the mess of blood and bone. Lukas had questioned me at length about that night, thinking that somewhere in that mess lay answers to where Alex had gone. I remembered things a lot more vividly than I thought they’d actually been. A muddied mess of blood and a mangled corpse. Not the sort of thing people saw ever, even in the semi-realistic dark horror of movies. I’d had trouble shaking that memory. Not the first body I’d ever seen. But the only unnatural death I’d ever witnessed.
If I had to acknowledge the facts of what I’d seen, it had looked like one of those glass dolls, arms and legs normally made breakable, but wrapped around a fabric core. Only the limbs broken, smashed and mangled, center mass mostly intact, though twisted. A few seconds glance had been all it had taken to burn it into my memory for life. Like when people posted animal torture pictures as memes to ‘warn’ people that some asshole was doing something awful. Two seconds and the brain committed that horror to memory. I so didn’t want that again. I was a simple tour guide and craft shop owner, not a medical professional or even a military member, former or otherwise. Death and destruction was not in my skillset.
“We will let everyone know if we need help with a search or have more questions,” the detective told Alex. “You’ll all be at the hotel for a few more days, correct?”
“Yes. A week or so. The convention we came for starts in a few days,” Alex said. His focus fell on me. “Is it okay if we head back to our cabin?”
The officer nodded. I reached for Alex’s hand and let him pull me into a sideways hug as we walked back to the B&B together.
“You okay?” Alex asked as we emerged into the backyard of the B&B.
“No,” I told him honestly. I had a million questions while being so tired I could barely stand. Did I really want to know the answers? Find out that Byrony was dead somehow? Where her body might be? If some sort of ghost had touched me? The last question brought a million more, some based in legend, others in philosophy, a rolling tide of thought, emotion, and internal noise.
No. I was far from okay. The trembling hadn’t stopped, not even when the adrenaline finally crashed leaving me exhausted and shaken. It had been years since I felt this… broken. Not since after my return from wherever and moving into a new place to hear whatever it was that continued to torment me. Those first few months I’d hid, burying myself beneath covers, and barely sleeping. Mind adding to the tricks the world around me played. The unease soaked into my skin in the same way it was right now. Leaving me constantly on edge. I had thought I’d finally gotten past it. Another lie my brain conjured to lull me into complacency.
Alex paused, pulling me into his arms and holding me. I didn’t realize I was crying into his shoulder until he steered us away from the group. I heard the others protest behind us, but didn’t care. No one needed to see my tears. I hated being vulnerable in front of anyone. Except Alex. He never seemed to judge me. I had no desire to join the group in the main house where I was sure they’d be debating Byrony’s disappearance all night.
“Shh,” Alex whispered. “You’re safe. I’m here.”
Was I ever safe? Whatwassafe? Anything? Nothing? Alex’s warm embrace made me feel safe mostly because I wasn’t alone. He would face whatever I did, head on, if given the chance. That didn’t mean he wasn’t afraid. I’d seen fear in his eyes on more than one occasion. Though what terrified him was more my loss than things that went bump in the night. Was that the difference between us? He ran into danger to keep from losing those he cared about, and I hid from danger for fear of losing myself. Though if I were being honest with myself, the idea of losing Alex again, that would break me.
I’d unraveled too while he was gone. Lukas had come apart at the seams leaving me thinking more than once that he wouldn’t survive the death of his twin. Many days I’d spent comforting Sky, assuring her she wouldn’t lose Lukas over Alex’s disappearance. Everyone spoke like Alex was dead, I suspected they’d done the same thing when I was missing, and it was brutal to hear. But I had been so focused on Sky and Lukas, that when I had time to myself, to think about how he’d been dropped into my life, a storm of humor, apprehension, and adoration, only to be ripped out just as suddenly, my world spiraled into chaos. Free time had not been my friend. The fine balance I’d walked since my own disappearance became an impossible dance while I teetered on the edge of a full breakdown. How often had I contemplated that I was the curse? That he’d been taken because of me? It was a heavy burden to bear.