Chapter Text
Rain pattered a rhythm atop the umbrella Blue and her mother Maura shared.
“Beatrice Mantz," her mother said.
Blue scribbled down another name on her notebook.
“Luis Garcia,” she said next, eyes staring straight ahead, although there wasn’t much to see, not to Blue’s eyes.
Dense clouds hid any light the moon or stars could have given, and the clouds themselves were hidden by the dark of night. The only thing she could make out was the rain, which drenched the entire churchyard with a passion. It was a vast difference from her last St. Mark’s Eve. Last year, she had sat in the very same spot on the old churchyard’s stone wall, but this time, she didn’t see any ghosts.
Her mother did though. She saw lots of them. All the ghosts of the people in Henrietta who would die sometime this year now wandered the churchyard, seen only by Maura. Psychics like her saw those people on St. Mark's Eve, arriving here at the church as an omen to their last year to live.
“Excuse me, sir,” Maura said in that voice of hers, calm and relaxed, somehow, in a cold and wet graveyard. “What is your name?”
Blue waited.
Maura gave a small nod to the darkness in front of her. “Johnathon Miller.”
Blue jotted it down, holding the notepad close to shield it from any of the rain that swept beneath the umbrella.
Another long pause broke up the last name she said from the next. They had been getting longer as the night and its rain wore on. The succession of ghosts making their way through the churchyard, each stopping to answer Maura's question, had begun trickling down to the last of them. Soon her mother would give the go-ahead, and they would pack up and head for the warmth of the car, the list safely tucked away in Blue's bag.
“Hello, sir. What is your name?” Maura asked. She then nodded as the ghost told her.
Blue held her pencil at ready.
“Declan Lynch.”
Please, for the love of God, Ronan, Declan thought, almost in prayer. Make it friendly.
From where he stood by his car, the outline of the woods, with its simple bushes and normal Virginian trees, appeared unassuming. Welcoming, even, but Declan knew better. A brief field of tall, yellow grass stood in the way between him, and whatever lied hidden in the forest on the other side.
A few trees reached out into the field, where he had parked his car behind and out of sight of the road nearby. He had been standing there for some minutes now and no other vehicles have driven by yet, but Declan wasn't the kind to take needless chances. He still worried that something would happen to his car while he was away, but he didn't plan to stay any longer than he had to.
With a deep breath, he made his way towards the forest.
Nothing appeared out of the ordinary as he walked deeper inside. Birds flitted between branches, singing their tunes, and the trees above whispered among themselves in the breeze. The bushes and trees, and little clearings where flowers may bloom in the springtime made up the scenery of an average Virginian forest.
Declan wasn't fooled. Anything his brother was interested in could not be that simple.
The hairs began to stand on the back of his neck as he traveled deeper and deeper. Anything could happen, literally anything, and his little brother hadn’t given him the faintest clue to what. It might be a normal forest, just with something peculiar hidden inside. A secret path, maybe, or a relic of strange power. Declan liked relics, and runes and codes...but that was wishful thinking. Knowing his brother though, it was probably something much sinister.
This was the forest of Cabeswater. A place his brother had created, a place filled with things from his imagination, his dreams, and his nightmares.
Declan had never been. This place was special to his brother, and therefore assumably off-limits to him. He had no desire to visit, not when he knew it would infuriate his brother should he find out. In the end, Declan decided he could live with that. He had no qualms about missing out on a forest that could very well be the equivalent of a horror house.
More than once he had thought of simply torching down the entire place. Destroying the forest destroyed any of the possible problems that it hid inside. He had been so tempted too, but he could never work up the nerve to do it. His brother loved the place, adored it. He suspected that the forest was a home away from home for his brother. It was his palace of dreams, the kingdom where he ruled, and when everything else in their lives was already falling apart...Declan couldn’t take that away from him.
Then one day, as though his prayers had been answered, Cabeswater had simply vanished. No trace of it had been left behind—Declan knew, he had checked—and for a blissful time he could remove one of the things he worried about from his list of things to worry about. During his day he could breathe a little easier.
For about a month, until this morning when he had nearly choked on his coffee at the sight of one of his machines detecting that damn forest again.
He was going to have to question his brother over it. That was not a confrontation he was looking forward to. As soon as his brother discovered where Declan had been he was going to be pissed. Maybe he could take the edge off by making it sound like he hadn't been to the forest in person. Either way, as soon as he brought Cabeswater into the conversation, all bets were off. As long as the day didn't end in a black eye...then Declan would consider it a win.
Before he could face his brother, though, he had to face the forest.
Surprisingly, so far his search had been...pleasant. He felt calm, and continually calmer, the further he ventured, and he had to wonder if that was normal. He jumped when he spotted movement to his right, only to find that he had startled a little frog into dashing back to its creek. He watched it leap into the water, in turn causing a small school of fish to disperse. The fish, with little red dots on their heads, spread out and vanished beneath the water’s surface.
Visitor…
Declan became very still.
Visitor…
Someone was in this forest with him.
Panic shot up his spine when he realized he couldn’t pinpoint the direction of the sound. He spun in a circle, and froze again, listening. Nothing stood out in the forest that he could see.
All the shrubbery looked the same. The only ones rustled were the ones he had walked through. The sun still shone brightly through the branches, leaving pockets of light on the forest floor. The sounds were still the same, with the birds chirping and the creek moving through the land, the trees still whispering in the breeze.
Except…
Wait.
There was no breeze.
Slowly, in horror, Declan lifted his gaze upwards. The trees didn’t just sound like they were whispering, they were whispering.
In Latin.
“What the hell,” he muttered.
Have you come to help us?
At that moment, he couldn't tell if he was grateful or resentful that he was fluent in the trees' language. God damn his father for convincing him to take Latin in Aglionby. He knew he should have just taken French.
He held his breath for a moment, uncertain. Then, feeling a bit self-conscious, he spoke to the trees.
He tried English first to see if the trees could understand him. “Help you with what?” he raised his voice, wondering how well trees could hear.
We need a sacrifice.
Oh, well, time to leave.
“No,” he said. “No, I have not come to help you. Not at all. So sorry. I’m going to be on my way now. Goodbye.”
He backtracked the way he came. The trees' voices followed him the entire time, never fading with the distance like normal voices. They didn't sound insistent or pushy. Their voices rang with patience and a dash of concern, the sound of someone wanting to make sure you understood your decision before sitting back to let you make it. It was so much more hospitable than hostile, and for that very reason, it made him uneasy.
A sacrifice is needed for us to thrive.
They said, almost singing it like a lively tune.
Our sacrifice will thrive among us.
He didn’t reply, but some instinct tugging at edges of his focus told him there was no need. He could hear the trees along with the crunching of his footsteps, but they also echoed in his mind. It was all too possible that they could hear what was in his mind too.
Do you seek happiness?
Help us, and we will help you.
Declan frowned.
Nightmares will no longer be yours.
Dreams will be all you know.
Your greatest dreams, for yours to keep.
“Get out of my head!" He pressed his hands to ears like he could block the entrance to his mind.
On the scale of oddities he had encountered in his life, this wasn’t that high on the list. Close to the bottom, in fact. It was the notion of it that disturbed him more. The possibility of dying, lured in by a siren’s song and then preyed upon, deeply unsettled him. He tried to shake off the unease, confident that no treasures would cause him to waver. No promises of riches or beautiful sirens, fancy cars or life of luxury could persuade him.
Stay with us.
We will make you happy.
The trees sounded so sweet. Not so much as though offering him a chance in a lifetime or three wishes, but sanctuary. They sounded so desperate to make him happy, as though they believed him unhappy.
Declan grit his teeth together, caught on that last thought when a voice broke through the trees' whisperings.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
He came to a halt so quickly he nearly tripped. Quickly he regained his footing and spun around. He knew that voice, and yet he was still shocked frozen to his spot at the sight of the person coming out of the bushes behind him.
“Hey,” Ronan said.