The road home feels longer in the storm, stretching under Mara's headlights like a hallway with no end. The wipers struggle to clear the glass fast enough. Each flash of lightning reveals shapes throughout the forest and every time she blinks she wonders if she was just imagining them.
The town retreats behind her as the trees close in. She knows these woods; she had grown up running and mapping it throughout her childhood. But today they felt unfamiliar.
She chants to herself that it's just paronoia getting to her. Her father's journals ringing in her ears. But then she remembered the sheriffs warning.
Somethings don't want investigating.
The car splashes through a stretch of standing water, jolting her thoughts back into her fists, which where clenched too tightly onto the steering wheel.
As she turned onto the broken, narrow path that leads to her father's house, a movement catches her eye.
There, in the tree lines, stood the figure of a man. The same one from town.
Mara's heart slams painfully-but when lightning forks across the sky with its disappearance flash so does the figure.
Pulling into the drive she kills the engine. The storm presses in with a heavy, suffocating darkness. Wind rattles the porch swing while water gushes from the clogged gutter in an eerie rhythm.
She steps out her car into the cold wet air; flashlight clutched in one hand while her other gripped her coat tightly shut.
Halfway to the door, she stops. The ground is covered in pine needles and mud, slick from the storm- but one thing shouldn't be there:
Footprints.
Fresh. Deep. Leading away from the house instead of towards it.
Bare footprints. They vanished into the woods.
Mara's breath clouded the air. She shouldn't follow them. She knows she shouldn't.
Before she could convince herself otherwise, she followed the prints into the forest.
The mines
The forest swallows her almost immediately. The storm is quieter beneath the canopy, but the sound of dripping water creates an echoing chorus like whispered conversations she'd never understand.
Her flashlight beam cuts through the darkness, jittering with her trembling hands.
The footsteps continue deeper, weaving between thick trunks.
Then they stopped-or disappeared- into one of the old, abandoned mines. Out of the corner of her eyes she sees a mark carved into the surface of the stone.
At first, she thought it was graffiti or natural decay. But as she stepped closer, the shape appeared more deliberate.
The images of her father's frantic sketches crossed her mind. Her fingers carefully traced it. Habitable.
A memory danced forward. She recalled this same marking etched into the windowsill of her bedroom. She had always thought nothing of it. A doodle perhaps left by her parents, but now upon closer examination and her father's notes she no longer held that naive hope.
She pulls her hand back- but the moment her skin leaves the stone; she hears a voice behind her.
"Mara."
She spins. Her flashlight beam sweeps though the tree desperately.
Evelyn stood between two pines, rain dripping from her hair.
"What are you doing out here?" She asked. Her voice is warm but empty and calculating.
"Following you." Mara lied.
"Me? No. You followed him." She tilted her head slightly.
Mara's stomach twisted. "Him?"
Evelyn stepped closer not allowing Mara to back away. "You shouldn't be here. I warned you not to dig around."
Evelyns eyes darkened, "He tried to keep you safe, tried to keep you ALL safe. Even paid a great price for it. Too bad it wasn't enough. Tho if you want," She pets Mara's hair slowly, "you could always pay off his 'debt' if you'd like."
Mara made no noise and stood still, her eyes shaking as she tried to maintain her composure.
A sudden gust of wind tears through the clearing, shaking branches and scattering pine needles.
Eveyln didn't flinch. Not even a little.
As if helping her break the tension Mara used the moment to step back.
Evelyn smiled and walked away with a final sentence. "I'd head back home soon. Curiosity did kill the cat my dear kitty."
Watching as she left Mara sighed heavily unaware that she had been holding her breath the whole time. Her ears rang as her eyes wondered back to the footprints.
Mara slips back into the house, slamming the door shut and locking it all in one fluid motion. She throws her coat over a chair and goes to the table where she left her father's journal.
She leans over the table and her breath catches. A new line had been written in the margin. In her father's handwriting.
Don't be fooled by his appearance or voice. It's not me, don't listen to it. No matter how much it begs to be saved. Again. Its. Not. Me.
Her hands trembled. She wasn't the one who opened these pages nor where these lines there before.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Mara steps away from the journals. The knocking continues.
Growing louder and louder.