Page 113 of The Truths We Burn

I pull the throttle hard when I drive from the gates of Hollow Heights.

I need to make sure Silas is okay right now, that he’s alright.

And then I’ll deal with Sage.

I don’t believe in Heaven or Hell.

Which is an odd revelation for the guy everyone believes is the product of worshiping Satan.

I believe when we die, we die. That’s it.

We cease to exist, and we begin to decay until we are nothing but another piece of the Earth.

There is no eternal damnation or heavenly gates.

Just darkness.

That’s what I believe.

However, my mom didn’t think that.

She would drag me to the cemetery every holiday, every birthday, to pay my respects to the grandparents I’d never even met. Because she believed that visiting graves was a way to let the dead know we hadn’t forgotten about them in the land of the living.

By making me go, it was her way of passing on their memory, in hopes that I would one day do the same with my children, so that even though they were long gone, their memory stayed breathing.

She’d be sad to know that I don’t visit my grandparents anymore. I stopped when she died, but I do visit her, and I visit Rosie.

My mother was buried in my father’s family cemetery, but Rose was buried at the Ponderosa Springs’ local one. Where they leave all the bodies of this town to decay.

Everything is wet.

The ground is dense beneath my shoes, and the air feels moist when I inhale, all the fog that seems to stick to my clothes leaving water residue. The fog rolls with the hills, weaving in and out of the unremembered graves like a wool blanket.

Visitors are sparse during this time of the day, right before nightfall when the sun is starting to set. Personally, I think that’s the best time to go.

It feels almost like the land of the living is retreating and those far passed are waking up.

Silas’s back is towards me, resting against her tombstone, a bouquet of peonies on the ground next to him.

The worry falls off my shoulders because I know he’s breathing. He’s alive.

But the ache doesn’t leave because I know he is hurting.

“You are here some days,” I hear him whisper, his voice cracked from sorrow. “I can feel you, smell you in the air. I hear your laugh in my ears and turn around expecting you to be there, but you aren’t. Not the way I want you to be. Sometimes at night, I see you and we talk, but I know it’s not really you. It’s my mind playing tricks.”

I swallow nervously, knowing this isn’t the time to grill him about his medication, but I won’t let this disease take him. Not when I know with the right treatment he can live a long life.

“They like to see me in pain. So they send me visions of you. They feed off my pain, baby. And they get stronger every single day I’m here without you. They are trying to get out.” He presses his hands into the sides of his head.“And I don’t know how to stop them anymore. So, I need you to come back, okay? Please, I just need you to come back. Baby, I need you to save me.”

His head drops down, and his shoulders shake, vibrating with the weight of his sadness.

It’s then I step up next to him, falling onto the wet ground and letting it soak through my jeans. He doesn’t have to look up to know I’m here. He feels my presence.

I look over at her tombstone, my eyes burning with emotion.

Rosemary Paige Donahue

Beloved daughter, sister, and friend.