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Going out of her way to discard the device might cost her time she wasn’t so sure she had. But that was another risk that seemed worth taking.
An hour later, Grace was finally driving her car through the gap she left in the cones.
She stopped once she had taken the exit, cursing under her breath as she dragged the three cones back to where she found them. It wasn’t exact, though it was close enough, and she felt a weight slip off her shoulders as she started down the narrow road.
The further she went, the tighter the road became. It was rocky, too, her tires bouncing as they rolled over and into dips that seemed to be everywhere. Was she driving on cobblestones or something similar? It certainly felt like it.
She remembered Tessa’s warning about the gulch, whatever that was. Lucas was a little more clear with his instructions. On the bottom of the sheet, he drew what she figured was supposed to be a map. One short road split off into two, creating a wide Y on the page. Inside the mouth of the Y, Lucas colored it in with his black pen before adding on to it until it seemed like he was trying to draw a massive black lake.
He wrote the word GULLEY in big block letters and then, underneath, added be careful in his precise scrawl. Okay, thought Grace. Whatever the hell a gulley was.
Turned out the pitch black gulley—at the end of a sharp fork in the road—was a very big, very wide hole in the ground. A valley maybe, or a crazy big ditch. It was super dangerous and if Grace wasn’t going ten miles per hour, looking out for it, she might’ve ended up nose-first in it.
Even though she stayed on the road and didn’t even come within twenty feet of the edge, Grace’s heart rate picked up as she eased her car to the right. That’s what Lucas said to do when she reached the gulley. Go right. So she did, and she was glad to put the big hole behind her.
The road widened some as the cobblestones gave way to blacktop gravel. Though Lucas didn’t offer any other warnings, she drove carefully, just in case. The trees that bordered both sides of the road grew tall, blocking out the last of the day’s sun. There were barely any street lights tucked in the trees, and the thick fall foliage made the approaching dusk seem even darker.
With the inky rich blackness of the gulley fresh in her mind, Grace turned on her high beams. She was the only car in sight so she didn’t worry about pissing off any other drivers.
As soon as her lights went from bright to full blast, she caught a reflective flash on her right side. She headed toward it, idling her vehicle when she saw the sign standing proudly beneath a tall oak with a cap of orange and red leaves.
It was a wooden sign, staked into the dirt, a bed of freshly fallen leaves at its base. The reflection came from the white paint on a dark background. In a deliberate, decorative hand, the sign said:
Welcome to Hamlet
est. 1941
Population: 190
Whoever made it must have taken inspiration from the setting because, painted in a variety of shades eerily close to the oranges and reds and yellows in the tree, a fourth line read in the same elaborate script:
~ Hamlet Helps ~
Hamlet helps? God, she hoped so.
5
Ten minutes after she saw the handmade sign, Grace was white-knuckling the steering wheel while thinking of better mottos.
Hamlet Hobbles Tires.
Hamlet Has No Damn Street Signs.
Where the Heck Am I in Hamlet?
She took her right hand off the wheel, rubbing at her eyes. How long had she been on the road? She lost count of the hours. Dealing with Tommy’s tracker had pumped her full of adrenaline that had long since faded. Grace was drained. All she wanted to do was pull up in front of this Ophelia and beg for a room.
Yeah… except she had a pretty big problem when it came to that.
Lucas gave her specific instructions on how to find Hamlet. At the bottom of the paper, he jotted down the address for his sister’s bed and breakfast. Grace thought that the name and address would be all she needed.
Until she started driving around Hamlet and discovered there were no damn street signs!
She saw a handful of houses, more peppering the main road she was on as she continued to drive around aimlessly. Each one looked like it was a residence and, as tired and as cranky as she was, Grace didn’t think it was a good idea to knock on a stranger’s door and hope they knew where this Ophelia place was.
Lucas wasn’t kidding when he said Hamlet was small. Apart from the houses and a sign she passed for the Hamlet Inn—which sounded heavenly, but wasn’t the cozy bed and breakfast she was looking for—she didn’t find anything else. No sign of a McDonald’s or a Starbucks or even some kind of knock-off Quick Mart.
So many hours and miles removed from her apartment in Dayton and the fear she left behind, Grace was beginning to wond
