Page 135 of Mazywood

His mother had called his dorm at six in the morning Iowa time when a sheriff’s deputy confirmed that Uncle Ricky was missing after a hunting trip. He had left stew heating in a Crock-Pot, expecting to return in a few hours. Mom hadn’t called to comfort him, but because she needed comfort. At only nineteen, Johnny had been horrified to hear the parenthood stripped so thoroughly from her, to feel the weight of her expectations while he insisted, I’m sure he’ll show up. You know how he is.

The truth was, Johnny had cried on his dorm room floor that night his mother called about Uncle Ricky. He had loved him more than any other man in the world. That had made Uncle Ricky’s betrayal sting as much as his grandmother’s hot comb.

Instead of honoring his promise to keep Johnny in his cabin with him, Uncle Ricky had folded to his mother’s demands. After the hot comb, Mom had explained to Johnny that Uncle Ricky had been like a guardian angel to her, protecting her from their mother’s temper, and she had believed he would protect Johnny too. He never could pull away from her, but he didn’t let her turn him into what she was, Mom said. Forgive him, Johnny.

A sob tugged at Johnny’s throat. He waved again to Uncle Ricky’s visage, the closest he could come to forgiveness today, no matter how far Uncle Ricky’s spirit had traveled to aid him. Too fucking little, too fucking late. If Uncle Ricky had told him Mazelle’s secret, Johnny would not be here with his family—and if Johnny couldn’t save his children, he would curse his uncle until his dying breath.

Johnny was afraid that Tasha’s visage would appear beside Uncle Ricky on the cliff top, freshly mauled from the Creature’s killing floor. Who knew what had happened to Tasha by now, and what sight was awaiting them if they found her? Was his dread of finding precious Tasha in pieces why he’d been so eager to keep his promise to her and get the girls as far away as he could? If Tasha was truly gone (and your baby—don’t you dare forget your baby), Johnny would never forgive Uncle Ricky. His secret had razed Johnny’s present and future to dust.

Tasha’s with me in the bone room, Johnny, Uncle Ricky had told him under the trees.

With Tasha, at least he and the girls would have the closure his mother never had with her brother. Johnny could have guessed that Uncle Ricky’s hint was leading him to the caverns, but Uncle Ricky should have given him longitude and latitude and drawn him a fucking map.

Now, finally, Johnny knew what his mother had died without ever learning.

He had found Uncle Ricky’s resting place.

Imani’s panting body was tired, but she would have pushed on if she hadn’t seen Sharise racing behind her with the rifle, lagging by thirty yards. Dad, farther back and more indistinct, was plodding in his snowshoes. If she didn’t die today, she thought, Dad would want to kill her.

But he had given Sharise the rifle, so he understood that the plan had changed—not that she had given him a choice. He wasn’t going to treat them like helpless little kids. They were doing the right thing now. Or the wrong thing. Anything but leaving Mom behind, all alone.

Imani skidded to a stop ten yards from the base of the rocky climb in the mist ahead. She had hoped that an obvious cavern would spring into view as she got closer, but up close all she saw was precarious footholds with too much distance between them and a steep climb with shadows above that might conceal passageways to underground caverns. But they also might not.

Imani scanned the area for other movement, from the top of the cliff ahead of her to as far back as the distant hollow tree. She and her family were the only living beings in sight.

Three snow-covered boulders stood near her in a crooked line of successive height, the shortest about six feet, the tallest twice that, all of them partially covered in snowdrifts that had sloughed off from above. Even these closest boulders looked too steep to climb without rope, much less the higher rocks, which looked slippery from ice. She had ten feet of black paracord wrapped up in her emergency kit—good for anything from trapping and fishing to hanging materials for a shelter—but it wasn’t enough for rock climbing.

Imani wished an obvious entryway could lead her to Mom, but the Beast could not have stayed hidden out here if it were that easy to find.

Now she better understood why Dad hadn’t wanted to bring them this way. These rocks had never looked promising. They might be closer to Mom, but Imani had never felt farther away from her. The cliff was a monstrous wall between them.

Where had Mom’s voice come from? Had she been closer to the creek after all?

Dammit. No matter what they did to find her, it was never enough.

“Mom?” Imani’s call fell from her lips before she could stop herself, compelled by her certainty that her mother was close enough to hear her. She wasn’t shouting, but she had raised her voice. “Are you here?”

Snow flew up near Sharise as she glided closer, only a dozen yards away. Sharise fell over, losing control of her snowboard.

“No!” Imani shouted, hoping her voice could scare off an attack.

She expected to see the Beast swallow Sharise from below, but Sharise quickly righted herself and got back on her feet, signaling that she was fine. She had just lost her balance. Since the grade was shifting from downhill to sharply uphill, Sharise pulled off her snowboard and left it behind to hold the rifle instead. She raised her finger to her lips for Imani: Shhhhhh.

Imani gave herself a slight push from the snow-covered boulder to glide a bit closer to her sister. “Dad gave you the gun?” she whispered.

“For you,” Sharise whispered back, more like mouthing the words. “He said to wait.”

“We should look for tracks—” Imani began.

But the words caught in the roof of her mouth, her tongue stilled. She realized that her hand was vibrating where she had touched the boulder, which had been solid, yes, but it had yielded to her palm beneath the snow, far softer than a stone should be. More like fur and bones. Her body knew something was wrong with that boulder before her mind caught up.

Imani didn’t have to look behind her. She knew.

“Sharise—stay back,” she said, her voice loud enough to stop her sister’s march.

“What?” Sharise asked. Imani’s terror was mirrored in her sister’s face, her features hollowed with fear. She took a step back.

“Shoot it,” Imani said.