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“You don’t have to, Alma,” said Paul.

Alma was quick to respond. “No, I do. I know
this sounds nuts, and maybe it is, but it’s time for me to deal
with this; to get it all out in the open.” She took off the ring
and started the slip it onto other fingers and then back again, as
if her hands were desperate to be active. “My father’s girlfriend
owned a cabin, and they’d rent movies for my brother and I to watch
while they did their thing. They would go upstairs, and my brother
and I would sit in the living room, watching those fucking movies
while they…”

She pointed up and had trouble continuing,
but forced herself to say it, “While they went upstairs and had
sex. We could hear them, but I didn’t understand what was going on.
They would spend all day up there sometimes, and my brother and I
were left to fend for ourselves. We’d make our own food, and put
ourselves to bed every day while at that cabin. If we ever dared go
upstairs we would get screamed at. I made the mistake of going up
there a few times, and I’ll never forget the acrid stench of the
drugs they were smoking. My father’s been a meth addict for as long
as I can remember. That smell, that chemical, ozone-like stink that
came out of the room is something I’ll never forget.”

“Damn,” said Jacker. “That sucks. Sorry to
hear your dad was such a prick.”

Alma laughed inappropriately and shook her
head. “You don’t know the half of it. We used to get beatings for
seemingly random shit. One day it was no big deal for us to wear
our shoes in the house, and the next we were getting whipped for
not taking them off at the door. He used to have this belt that he
cut holes in, and he only used it for whipping us. He would carry
it around with him, and said that the holes made it easier to
swing, and made it hurt more. I remember him standing in the
kitchen, in his dirty white t-shirt, making breakfast with that
belt over his shoulder, like he was just waiting for an excuse to
use it.”

Paul kissed the top of Alma’s head and
continued to try and be supportive, although nothing he could do
would help her forget.

“I know lots of people had shitty fathers,”
she said and slipped her mother’s ring back onto her right ring
finger. “And at least my mother was good to us before she went
crazy. A lot of kids don’t even have that. But, you get the point:
My dad was a Class A piece of shit.”

“And was his girlfriend’s cabin in
Widowsfield?” asked Paul.

Alma nodded. “Yeah. I remember that our
spring break came one week before the kid’s in the town. My brother
and I used to watch them all walking home after school, and we
would ask if we could go play with them, but my father would always
say no. Anyhow, the last time we went there was the week before the
town disappeared. I can remember everything about that week up
until just after the fog rolled in.”

“The green fog?” asked Jack. “I remember
hearing about that part.”

“Yeah, although it wasn’t so much green as
it was lit up with green light, if that makes sense. It was thick,
and rolled through the street almost like it was more liquid than
cloud. And somewhere inside of it there was an electric energy that
kept bursting into green light, almost like there was a
thunderstorm going on inside of the mist. My brother and I were
watching a movie, Toy Story to be exact, and were waiting for the
kids to get out of school. We always liked to watch them walk down
the street. It was kind of pathetic, really, but we even started
giving them all fictional names and pretending like they were our
friends. We were waiting for school to get out when the fog rolled
in.”

Alma heard the coffee maker start to chug
through the last drops of water. She wanted to get up and go to the
kitchen, but realized that she was just trying to find an excuse to
stop telling her story. She spun the ring on her finger and forced
herself to continue. “My brother and I were terrified. We didn’t
know what to do, and my brother…” She paused and stopped spinning
the ring. “Jesus Christ, it’s even hard for me to remember his
name. His name was Ben. I don’t know why I have so much trouble
remembering it. Sometimes I can’t even remember what he looked
like.”

“I have trouble remembering what my dad
looked like,” said Jacker. “He died in a car accident when I was
twelve. My mom says he looked like me, but I have trouble
remembering much about him.”

Alma recognized that Jacker was sharing his
own pain as a way of trying to help. The big guy was genuinely
sweet, and Alma liked him almost immediately. He was the epitome of
the teddy bear personality.

“Ben wanted to tell my dad about the fog,
but I told him not to go up the stairs. I begged him not to
go.”

Alma paused for too long, and Paul asked
her, “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” She laughed uncomfortably
and looked at them both as she shook her head. “That’s just it. I
can remember everything leading up to Ben going up those stairs. I
was standing at the bottom as Ben went up, and then the fog
surrounded the cabin. It blocked out the sun and I can remember the
shadows closing in over us. The green electricity flashed and the
television died, but there was still light coming from up the
stairs as Ben went up. I yelled out for him to stop, and that’s the
last thing I can remember about what happened.”

“The next thing I recall is driving in the
car with my father. We were in the fog, and there were shadows all
around us, almost like there were creatures running through the
mist beside us. They were huge, like dragons or monsters or
something, but I couldn’t see what they were. The electricity kept
flashing and my father was screaming at me to shut up, but I wasn’t
saying anything. He was driving fast, and was leaning forward as if
he was trying to see through the fog. I was curled up in my seat,
and my brother was gone. The worst part of all it though was that I
didn’t know Ben was supposed to be there. It was almost like I’d
forgotten he ever existed.”

“We got out of the fog, and didn’t stop
driving the whole way home except to get gas. I remember crying, a
lot, and my father kept telling me to shut up. He told me that we
were never in Widowsfield, and that nothing happened. He said that
we were in a different town, called Forsythe, and that we never
went through Widowsfield. And he kept checking his watch, over and
over, for no apparent reason.”

Paul held Alma’s hand and she thanked him by
the way she looked at him. His massive hand was so warm, and her
thin fingers seemed to disappear in his grip. “Neither of us
mentioned Ben until we got home, and then my mother went insane. I
can remember her screaming and crying and shaking me, begging me to
tell her what happened. It felt like she knew that my father had
done something to Ben, and just needed me to confirm it, but I
didn’t remember. Honestly, I didn’t even remember who Ben was
anymore.”

“The police came, and my father was accused
of all sorts of things, but no one could prove anything. I told
them that we were in Widowsfield, but my father denied it. He said
that we passed through the town on our way home, but that we’d been
staying at a cabin in Forsythe. He even had the keys to prove it.
The police eventually assumed I was making everything up, and that
I had heard the rumors about what happened in Widowsfield. They
couldn’t find any evidence that my father had done anything, so he
was eventually cleared of all charges.”

“My mother never gave up, though. She was
determined to find out what happened. She would take me back to
Widowsfield, and try to get me to show her where the cabin was at,
but I lied and said I didn’t know. I just didn’t want to go back
there. My mother tried all sorts of tricks to get me to remember,
including hypnosis, and even herbal concoctions that were supposed
to help me remember past trauma. That’s how she got introduced to
Chaos Magick.”

“What’s that?” asked Paul.

“You’ve actually probably heard of it, but
didn’t know what it was,” said Alma. “Have you ever heard of The
Secret? That book that Oprah used to talk about all the time?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Jacker.

“That’s basically the same thing as Chaos
Magick. It’s the idea that if you focus on one thing, you can make
it a reality. I never studied up on it, but my mother was obsessed
with it. She said that we had to come up with a symbol that we
could focus on that was tied to the day Ben disappeared. She
started with his name, and would write it on slips of paper that
she would hide all over the house, but when that didn’t work she
decided to try the date.”

“March 14th?” asked Paul.

Alma nodded and took her ring off. “To be
more specific, 314.” She held the ring up to show to them. “3.14 is
also the number for pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to
its diameter.”

“Uh oh,” said Paul as he made a goofy grin.
“We’re not getting into math, are we? Because I suck at that.”

Alma shook her head and offered a grin. “No,
not exactly. The reason it was important is because the date that
my brother disappeared was also a symbol; the symbol for pi. In
Chaos Magick, you’re supposed to choose a symbol that you can focus
on to help force everything else out of your mind. My mother
started writing 314 on everything, and then switched to the symbol
for pi. She would force me to stare at it for what felt like hours
at a time.”

“Wow,” said Jacker. “You had some nutball
parents.”

“Well, the crazy thing is that it kind of
worked.”

Both Jacker and Paul sat forward in
anticipation of what Alma was going to say next.

“My mother found a scrap of paper that my
father had written the cabin’s address on. She took me back to
Widowsfield, to the cabin, and forced me to stare at the symbol.
She kept asking about what happened, but I couldn’t remember
anything. And you know how I was saying that I’d forgotten about
Ben?”

Paul and Jacker nodded.

“That was still the case. I couldn’t
remember anything about him except for what I saw in pictures. It
was as if he’d never existed except for how my mother could prove
that he did. It was in Widowsfield, when my mother was forcing me
to look at the symbol for pi that I suddenly remembered who Ben
was. I remember it so clearly. I was standing in the kitchen, and
my mother had drawn the symbol on the kitchen floor and circled it
with candles. She made me sit there and stare at it while I hummed
a tune. Then, suddenly, everything came flooding back. It was the
most intense and terrifying moment of my life. I can’t even explain
what it was like. One minute I had no brother, and the next I was
feeling such terror and grief over his loss. It was
overwhelming.”

“That’s so creepy.” Jacker had moved forward
to the edge of his seat and was listening to Alma intently.

“It was like my brother was born and died
all at the same time. I experienced the emotions of having a
sibling all at once. After that, I told my mother everything I
could remember about our trips to Widowsfield.” Alma sadly shook
her head and stared at her mother’s ring. “It wasn’t long after
that,” Alma closed her eyes and forced herself to finish the
sentence, “she killed herself.”

“Oh crap, Alma,” said Jacker. “I’m so
sorry.” The big man seemed uncomfortable and uncertain how to
respond. “I know we just met, but can I give you a hug? I feel like
you need a big bear hug.”

Alma laughed as her eyes filled with tears.
Then she nodded and stood up to accept Jacker’s kindness. He
wrapped his arms around her and she tried to do the same to him,
although he was too big for her hands to touch behind his back. He
started with a soft hug, but then lifted her off the ground and
squeezed her in a tight embrace. “You’ve got Paul to take care of
you, kid. And I know how much you mean to him, so I’ll be there for
you too if you need me. Okay?”

“Sure, thanks,” said Alma as Jacker set her
back down.

Paul took her hand as she sat back down.
“Thanks for telling us.”

“Thanks for listening,” she said. “It feels
good to talk about it. I need to figure out what happened. It’s
been too long. I need to know what happened to Ben.”

“How do you plan on doing that?” asked
Paul.

Alma got up and went to the counter to get
Rachel’s business card. She brought it back to the living room and
handed it to Paul. “The reporter that interviewed me is going to
Widowsfield today. She wanted me to go with her, which is why my
father showed back up again.”

“How did he know?” asked Paul.

“They contacted him first, to see if he’d be
willing to go on camera and talk about what happened. He followed
them here, which is how he found me. He’s desperate to keep me from
going back to Widowsfield, which is exactly why I have to go.”

“Why do they want you to go?” asked Paul as
he looked at the card.

“They’re doing a story on the disappearances
in Widowsfield for their website. They wanted me to go back there
with them and talk about what happened.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked
Paul.

Alma responded as if he were joking. “No,
not at all, but I’ve been trying to avoid this for years. I can’t
keep hiding from it, and maybe this is the best way to force myself
to confront it.”

“Yeah, but on camera?” asked Paul. “Why
don’t you let me take you there? We can do whatever you need to do
by ourselves instead of with some strangers.”

Alma considered the offer, but was already
set on her course. “I know it sounds insane, but I’ve been hiding
this for so long; I think the best solution is just to fling the
doors open on it as wide as I can. Does that make sense?”

Paul shook his head. “Nope.”

“I get it,” said Jacker. “You want to force
yourself to be honest. I can respect that.”

“I think you should be careful,” said Paul
as he offered the card back to Alma. “I wouldn’t trust these people
at all.”