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“No, I saw it. I saw—” she stopped. Even if she saw Vera holding the knife, did she want to report it? Did she want to be the one to suggest she’d played a part in a murder? She bit her tongue.
J’s tone was dubious. “You kept saying that when we were with the medics. Kept saying he was there, that they, whoever they were, were there but we found no one and no evidence of a crime, T. On top of that, remember how I mentioned the female DNA we found on the swabs? None of it is a match for anyone in the system. I’m sure the Feds are finding the bodies as we speak, I gave them the coordinates to the building myself.” She shook her head, adding the sentences up to make sense of it all. “I dunno what you saw but there wasn’t a murder. Are you sure you’re alright? I can see the veins under your skin you're so pale.”
The vision of Vera holding the knife over the body came back so vivid it felt like she was still in the glade. The whip of the wind, the burn of smoke in her throat. She saw her with that bloodied knife. Her eyes were vacant and dark, her face slack as if in a trance. Maybe that was it. Maybe they did something to her too, drugged her or something.
And then she remembered the thing from the woods. The creature, entity, ghost, she didn’t know what it was. The movement of it through the trees and its body forming next to Vera inside the circle. The mug fell from her hand, breaking into a hundred pieces at her feet.
It had climbed on top of the body and that was when…
“Shit.” J jumped up, trying to pick up the ceramic pieces.
“J,” she whispered. “J, I think I saw something.” Her friend’s warm hand landed on her knee. “There was something in the woods. It touched… it touched me. It touched him. I think it killed Sheriff Malis.” Teddi's eyes filled with tears as fear coursed through her.
“What?”
“It was Sheriff Malis on the rock. He was the one murdered.” Teddi’s mouth was cotton.
“That’s what you’ve been saying for hours and I’ve told you, it’s impossible. He wasn’t there.”
“Where is he?”
J’s lips parted in trepidation. “I… no one can find him.”
“Holy fuck.” Teddi stood, hands on her face, not caring that it pulled on her wounds. “He was there, J. They killed him.” She began pacing.
“Well, if they did, they covered it up well. There was no one else there, I’m telling you. The Feds will be there for a long time once they find those bodies in the cellar. All we’ve got is the female DNA and Deputy Butler’s prints on the note. They haven’t found him yet either.”
“They knew.” She fell onto the chair. “They knew you were coming, that we would be left there. They planned it from the beginning.” The blood drained to her toes when it hit her. They planned it from the moment they went to identify Alex’s body. Maneuvered them exactly where they wanted them. Every interview, every visit to the crime scenes, the thing in the woods watching Vera…they knew about it all. “Where is Elaine Malis? Danielle Maller? Nora Howe? Alice Grennan's neighbor, the older woman. Have you seen them? Talked to them?”
“T, calm down. Mackey is still in Sylen wrapping things up, you’ll know when I know.”
“No, you don’t get it. They’re getting away with it!” She flung her arms out, desperate to make her understand. “I found them in the glade with Sheriff Malis. All of them were there. The wives, the mothers. They were there and they…” She couldn’t say they’d killed him because she truly didn’t know. Did Vera deliver the final blow or was it that terrifying creature that caused goosebumps to awaken along her nape at the thought of it?
"What about the blood on my clothes?" J's brow furrowed. "We can test it to prove that it's his DNA. I'm not crazy, I know what I saw."
J’s cell began vibrating on the coffee table. Mackey’s name lit up the screen.
“What’s up?” She answered it without taking her eyes off her. “What? No, it’s correct.” Her brows bunched together. “That can’t be right. I’ll double check but I’m sure. But… alright, call me back as soon as possible.” She placed the phone on the carpet and began rubbing her arms.
“What is it?” Teddi’s voice was getting louder, the anticipation a physical pain.
J stared at her cell for a moment before answering warily. “Mackey went with the Feds to the abandoned building to find the men’s bodies.” Teddi’s pulse thumped like a kick as J's eyes met her. Confusion intertwined with fear. “There was nothing in it. The cellar was empty. Not a trace of anyone ever being there. All they’ve found was Alex in the morgue inside the Sheriff’s department where you left him.”
The story of how Sylen was formed. The men who came to take it away. The generations of women pressed beneath them captive, coerced, concealed. “We made our own gods from what the land gave us.” They were never going to find the bodies. Not a single weapon would be unearthed within that rich, black soil. The women’s hands were bleached clean through the blood of those men. Their god, that wretched creature that struck her face saw to it. Sylen wasn’t just a speck on a long-forgotten map. It was a hole carved out of the world.
Acceptance settled in as she spoke. “I know what’s taking the men’s hearts.”
"What?"
"There was something following Vera. She never told me what it was but the Grennan neighbor mentioned it. That there's something in the woods to fear, that they made their own God from whatever lives in that place. J, I saw it."
She sat back on her heels, dumbfounded. "We've been researching what could cause the disintegration and coming up with nothing."
"That's because it isn't human. I don't know what it is but it's a specter. It didn't have a full body, not like you and me. That's how I got this cut on my face." She could almost feel the burn of its slice again, its brutality at her defiance. "It touched me because I looked at it. It was inside that circle and it approached Vera before everything disappeared." She tried to make sense of what she saw, adding each misshaped moment up to an impossible sum.
"It was a ghost?" Teddi couldn't blame her dubious tone. She wouldn't believe it if she hadn't witnessed it firsthand.
Rubbing her brow, she winced at the sharp pain. "I don't know what it is. Those women called it into that clearing and onto his body. I think it ate the victims' hearts. A sacrifice to their god, homage to something they believed would save them." Teddi couldn't say she spent much time weighing the possibility of ghosts or phantoms or even gods being real but she wouldn't deny what she saw and felt. It was ethereal yet physical enough to touch her and Vera. To touch the men laid out for its feast. "I think that's why there were the sigils marked in the trees around the glade. It was for the creature, their god, all along. A tally for what they’d given it for their cause.”
