“Workers said it moved wrong.”
“Alive?”
“Alive in a way no one could explain without sounding drunk. The tunnel flooded with it. Men were buried before they could climb out.”
He walks back toward the window, looking down at the city lights.
“Investors began withdrawing quietly. Workers went unpaid. The town that had built itself around St. Clair contracts began to blame Augustus. The collapse that formed what we now call The Pit swallowed half the lower shaft.”
“Then what? Why didn’t people move out?”
“The newspapers called it geological instability.” He glances back at me. “Bankruptcy was weeks away. They say that night Augustus St. Clair went down into the collapsed shaft alone.”
“To bargain?”
“Some say to assess the damage. Some say to pray. Some say to put a bullet in his head. No one knew for sure, but everyone agrees on this.” He turns fully now. “When he came back up, he wasn’t the same.”
My throat tightens.
“After that,” my grandfather continues, “the mine never failed again. Output increased with cleaner seams and richer coal. It was as if the earth had opened something and decided to keep giving, so the St. Clairs kept drilling.”
He gestures toward the window overlooking Tar City. “And the town prospered.”
I laugh. “You call this prosperity?”
“Of course. Look out there,” he says, gesturing to the city lights. “Business is booming. The port is moving more cargo than ever. The refineries are running at full capacity. Tar City is blooming.” He lets that hang in the air for a moment, a perverse pride in his voice.
“Old dockworkers say the tar started moving the year the St. Clairs stopped losing money. Miners swore they heard voices below the drills. And when the gas leaks started and people got sick.” His mouth curls faintly. “That’s when the urban legend was born.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, people were sick. The whispers started then. People saying that the tar in The Pit could cure them. Save them. Grant them things. That it spoke to people.” He shrugs. “For a price, of course. Wouldn’t surprise me if the tar made them sick in the first place. Desperate people make the best customers.”
“What the fuck does any of that have to do with me?” I say, my voice rising. “With this mark on my hand.”
He looks down at my palm again. “Everything.”
His voice drops and he takes a seat again. “Because when Augustus made that bargain, he didn’t just save the mine. He sealed the fate of every St. Clair after him.”
My pulse kicks against my ribs. “What are you talking about?”
“Whether he understood it or not,” my grandfather continues, his eyes locked on mine, “something down there wanted continuity. A guarantee of more.”
“More what?”
“More blood. So it requested a tether,” he says simply. “An heir.”
My blood boils.
“And he accepted. Maybe so his name would survive. Maybe so the city would. Pride and fear,” he says quietly, “look very similar when a man is standing on the edge.”
I feel something cold slide down my spine. “You’re saying if I have a child?—”
“It’s not if, Jaxwell.” His voice cuts through mine. “You are the only heir. The Pit will make sure it happens.”
“How?” I snap, my fists clenching at my sides.
He shrugs, a gesture of pure indifference. “I won’t pretend to know. You can fight it,” he continues, his voice lowering back to that calm, conversational tone. “You can try, but the more you resist…” His eyes flick to my palm. “…the tighter the tether becomes.”
