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Maybe I should try writing a novel instead… But she wouldn’t be good at writing a full-length book—she was lucky to manage short stories. The process would be much more tedious, less character-driven than a screenplay, and she relished the dialogue the most. She’d been dabbling in stories ever since she was ten years old—some awful, some satisfying. With her screenplays over the past five years, it had been continuous failures. Failed submissions. Failed attempts to get an agent. Failed words. Maybe she just wasn’t good enough…
Sadie’s phone dinged, startling her. She grabbed it from beside her bag, finding a text from Skyler.
River looks like a poor version of Victor, but you look all right.
She rolled her eyes and messaged him back. At least we dress up still. You’re never too old to have fun.
Hey, I wear a police uniform for nearly the whole year.
Sadie had been friends with Skyler ever since they’d met in elementary school. He’d had a crush on her older sister—Charlie—for years, then they finally started dating in high school. That was until Skyler broke off the wedding a few months ago. Not because he didn’t love Charlie—he was worried he wasn’t good enough for her, that she could do better. He just needed time to find himself, but Sadie’s sister refused to talk to him. Charlie was hurt—she loved him too much and wanted to protect her heart.
Sadie looked around the woods again, the setting’s mood now lost on her. She needed to find inspiration somewhere else.
Packing her things into her bag, Sadie glanced toward the cabin where a murder-suicide had occurred—the main reason she liked to come to these woods was to get the juices flowing. Twenty-something years ago, a young man had decapitated his girlfriend outside the cabin with an axe, then slit his own throat. Years before that, deeper in the woods, a man had shot his fiancée, then himself while camping.
As many times as Sadie had been out here, she had never once experienced the slightest bit of supernatural anywhere in these woods. Brushing the dirt from her jeans, she headed toward the cabin, its paint faded and chipped. However, the structure had been kept up, the slate roof still in good shape. The place had been abandoned for several years, but a sold sign now rested near the road. She peered through a window, and there were no longer missing wooden floorboards or warped walls. Instead, new glossy boards covered the floor, their color a dark cherry stain, along with vintage-style wood paneling across the walls. It was perfect, her dream home. Envy crawled through her.
The garden in front of the cabin was dead, not a single leaf on any of the bushes. If she lived here, it would stay that way—plants preferred not to thrive around her. Since, apparently, one of her “curses” was to forget to water them…
A murder outside an old cabin where only a dead garden bloomed at the edge of a secluded woods might’ve been a bit morbid, but it only sparked her creativity.
Sadie pushed away from the cabin and trudged through the dirt to the truck her grandfather had left to her after he’d passed away a few years ago. The truck still smelled faintly of him—a hint of tobacco and spice.
Once inside, she finished off a water bottle, the liquid too warm as it slid down her throat, before she started the engine. The drive took about fifteen minutes, venturing down curved streets with dilapidated houses, until she reached the secluded cemetery. Something about a place that housed death could always draw a few lines from her, like the Phantom of the Opera getting inspiration from Christine’s alluring voice.
She stepped out of the truck and walked past rows of graves—some headstones were new with fresh flowers, others cracked and crumbling, their vases empty. Holding up her phone, Sadie snapped a few photographs when the camera angled on two teenage girls farther ahead. They knelt before two faded headstones, rubbing wax over paper, creating gravestone rubbings. She took a picture, knowing she probably shouldn’t have, but their expressions were so serene, focused, something she could possibly add to a future story.
Sadie glanced one more time at the two girls, and even though she wasn’t much older, high school felt like a lifetime ago when there were fewer worries and dreams, or brilliant nightmares, seemed within reach.
Besides the teenage girls, the rest of the cemetery was empty, quiet, and only the dead were listening. A faded cement bench on the opposite side of the cemetery caught her attention, and she sat in front of a stranger’s grave. Part of the headstone was cracked off and missing, the edges jagged. Some of the words were eroded, but not the person’s name. Stephen Forrest.
“Hello, Stephen. I hope everything is splendid where you are.” Sadie smiled and sent River a text with a picture of the headstone. You’re missing out on lunch with the dead.
At some point, after he came across her words, she knew he would roll his eyes and message her back something sarcastic. Once she wrapped up here, she would head home to get ready for their date with a film. Eighties slasher boys was what she was in the mood for.
Fishing out the notebook from her backpack, Sadie wrote down words with ease. A spirit haunted the cemetery, wearing a billowing white ankle-length nightgown while carrying a candelabra, longing for her loved ones and stealing the life of anyone who came too close when she couldn't take over their bodies. It didn’t matter if what she penned down at the moment was garbage—some of it would be salvageable, something for the short story she needed to write for an anthology if it didn’t go well with the screenplay.
As the sunlight started to fade, Sadie jerked her head up. “Of course I’m late.” She hadn’t realized she’d been at the cemetery for hours. River wouldn’t mind her being late, but it was their date night, and it mattered to her. On the other hand, her sister would be irritated—she was supposed to have called Charlie earlier. Sadie still didn’t know how to prepare a meal to save her life, and Charlie insisted she needed to learn for when she had babies one day. It was always plural with the “babies”—Sadie only wanted one, which could happen sooner rather than later. She rubbed her stomach, thinking about the night before between her and River. They hadn’t used protection the past month, knowing that whatever happened—or didn’t—was meant to be. But she hoped…
Sadie gathered her things and hurried through the cemetery. She found Charlie’s missed call on her phone and rang her sister back just as she hopped into her truck. It took a few rings before Charlie answered with a huff. “I called.”
“Sorry, my phone was on silent while I was writing,” Sadie said, backing out of the cemetery.
“You’re spending too much time doing that.”
Sadie rolled her eyes. “It’s not going to write itself.”
“Are these places paying you enough for all your hours? You’re worth more than pennies from these tightwads.”
“It is what it is.” With all the time she put into the stories and articles, it didn’t add up to that much if she were to break it down into hours spent on them. But it was experience.
Charlie groaned, changing the subject. “I have night shift at the hospital, so we don’t have time to discuss the meatloaf recipe.”
“Next week, we’ll prepare two meals then,” Sadie drawled.
“Hey, I’m not the one who wants to learn how to cook here.”
“Don’t be like that, Charlie.” Sadie knew when her sister was irked, and she was reaching that point now. After their grandfather passed away, their parents had moved to the west coast, saying they wanted to live near a prettier beach, but they hadn’t kept in touch with either of them much since leaving. So grumpy or not, Sadie loved her sister and would fight to the death to protect her.
