Spirit Mountain (7 page)

Chapter Sixteen

It was our second visit to the wishing well and I still didn’t get my wish… to find out what was going on in this crazy town.

“Something’s wrong, Logan.” I leaned my back against the wishing well next to him. The smell of rancid water deep in the well was stronger than it had been the day before. Birds circled overhead, and the crisp air, mixed with our warm breath, caused streams of vapor each time we exhaled.

He sighed, dropping a coin into the deep well, listening to the hollow sound and quiet thud as the coin hit the water below.

“What did you wish?”

“I can’t tell you or it won’t come true.” He paused. “You shouldn’t have treated my grandmother like that, Beth. She would have told us if she knew anything else.”

I could hear the hurt in his voice. More than anything, I wanted to apologize and hug him, even make things right between us, but the reality of it all still settled uneasily in my gut. Edith knew more and yet, refused to share that
more
with us. I was almost certain of it. “Can we do one thing? I won’t ask again after this one time.”

“What?” He moved his gaze from the mountain, miles away, to my eyes.

“Can we go back to your grandma’s house when she’s gone?”

“Now, you want to break into my grandmother’s house?”

“Well, technically, it’s not breaking in since you’re her grandson.” I cringed as I waited for his response. I could feel his cold stare against the side of my face. “I just want to figure out what I’m feeling right now.” I slid my gloved hands into my coat pockets. The sound of paper crinkling drew my attention to my jacket pocket. Grabbing the item between my fingers, I yanked it out of my jacket.

“What’s that?” Logan asked.

“It’s an envelope. That guy in Winslow gave it to me, but I forgot about it.”

“How did I miss that? Did he tell you what it was?”

I shook my head.

“So, he just slipped you an envelope, and you took it, stashing it in your pocket. And you’re just now opening it? A day later?”

“I forgot about it, Logan.” I rolled my eyes, frustrated by the growing tension between us. Taking off my glove, I ripped the envelope along the seam. “It looks like an old photo.” I carefully grabbed the old black-and-white photo that was stained in a faded mustard-yellow color around the edges and pulled it out of the envelope. I glanced at Logan and back at it again.

“Let me look at it. Hmm, that’s odd.” His eyebrows came together.

“Who do you think that looks like?”

“That woman looks like Grams.” Logan narrowed his eyes, glanced at me and then back at the photo. “What’s the point of this?”

I shrugged. “I’ve no idea. If it is your grandmother, then that sure is an old picture. I mean, it looks like the mining days here in Castleborough. Look at the mountain behind her.”

“What are you saying, Beth?” Irritated, he thrust the photo back at me, a scowl resting on his lips and his body growing rigid.

I noticed how distraught Logan appeared, and I couldn’t blame him. I could only imagine what investigating the death of your own family member could be like. To make matters worse, this mystery was growing more mind numbing.

Taking a deep breath, I moved closer to him near the well. “Let’s just search your grandmother’s house and if we don’t find anything, then I’ll apologize and never bring it up again. Besides, don’t forget that my days are limited to four now.” Saying that struck me hard. How could I die in four days? Would it be in my sleep, the way Logan’s sister had died? Or would an autopsy reveal more?

Logan placed his arms on my shoulders and pulled me into him. “Hey, I’m not going to let anything happen to you, New York.” He pressed his lips against the top of my head. “You’re right, we need to get to the bottom of this, no matter what it takes. We’ll go to my grandma’s tonight. She’s a heavy sleeper. We can search for whatever you want to search for, but when we’re done and we find nothing, we need to lay out our clues and do what we must to stop Simon or Ty or whatever has been cursing this town. Okay?”

I nodded into his chest. I couldn’t help but wonder why I felt his grandmother was hiding something. What could she possibly know that she wasn’t telling us and why couldn’t Logan see the same thing I saw? With one deep breath, I sucked in the cold air and wrapped my arms around him. If I did only have four days left, next to Logan was where I wanted to be.

Chapter Seventeen

The temperature outside had dropped even more on this quiet night, so we’d both added another layer of clothing. We stood in the dark living room of Logan’s grandmother’s house, each of us as nervous as I imagined first-time burglars would be. The old walls shifted and creaked as if the house was settling. A faucet in the kitchen dripped water into the metal basin, creating an echoing ting.

Logan gripped my hand. “So, where should we look?”

“The attic, maybe?”

He let out a whispering chuckle. “You’re crazy. There are rats up there. I’m not going in the attic to rummage through my grandmother’s things.”

“Then, I’ll go.” If rats were the only threat we’d have to deal with tonight, I could handle it. The streets of New York City had almost numbed my fear of rodents.

“You’re not going either, Beth. Why don’t we go through her desk drawer, for starters?”

I let out an exaggerated sigh, scanning around the living room, which although old, was well-decorated with aged furniture. Shifting my gaze from the walls, which I’d noticed had no pictures whatsoever, to Edith’s only grandson, I shook my head. “Logan, your grandmother has nothing in her desk drawer, trust me.”

“How can you be sure?”

“It’s like a feeling I get, Logan. I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s just there. And my gut is telling me that we need to go into her attic.” I knew nothing about clairvoyance, and part of me was still doubtful I had this mystic ability. I’d always chalked up my correct instincts as just that, good instincts. But the fact remained that I did have a dream before my mother’s death and that dream had played out in the exact way she’d taken her last breath on Earth. Like a movie in my head, the dreamed details had been as vivid as the reality.

Logan huffed out a deep breath and gave me a sideways look. He glanced up at the peeling white ceiling before staring at me. “You better be right about this, New York, because there’s no telling what’s up there.”

He dragged me down the hallway of his grandmother’s single-story home. Placing a tall kitchen stool just under the attic trapdoor’s position and climbing on it, he reached toward the ceiling and pulled a string that brought down a squeaky, attached ladder. Each time it made a noise, Logan slowed down and tried to muffle the sound. His grandmother’s room sat at the end of the hallway. With her door closed, we didn’t think the unoiled hinges would wake her up. That didn’t stop us from being anxious, though. Even though Logan was related to Edith, legally, this was still a break-in.

Once the wooden ladder extended as far as it could go, Logan raised his hand for me to wait so he could go first. Climbing carefully, he stopped when his head poked through the hole. He scanned the interior of the attic.

He gasped. “Whoa.”

I glanced up at him as my heart jolted. “What is it? Hurry up.” My eyes kept darting from the attic entrance to Edith’s bedroom door. If we didn’t wake her, it would nothing short of a miracle.

Logan whispered down to me, “You’ve gotta see this, Beth. It’s crazy.” He slipped up into the attic and disappeared.

Swallowing nervously, I took the ladder rungs behind him, scared that Edith might wake up and see us climbing into the attic of her home. Once inside, I reached down and pulled up the ladder, securing it in place. The odor took me back to another era—the scent of mothballs, mildew and basil wafted through the air, singeing my nostrils. But that wasn’t what scared me. It was the lived-in appearance of the place. The old rocking chair in the middle of the room, an ancient throw rug in front of it and an oval floor mirror with burn marks around the edges of the glass made me feel like I’d traveled back in time.

Although the place looked lived in, it wasn’t the kind of cozy dwelling that reflected the rest of the house. It was creepy, to think that someone might sit in that rocking chair and stare at themselves in the long mirror with unusual symbols embroidered along its wooden frame. I noticed red candles scattered about the attic.

“Hey, Beth, take a look at this.” Logan motioned for me to come closer.

I carefully moved across the planks of wood toward the corner of the room where he found mortars and pestles stacked one on top of the other. Glancing at the peculiar rocking chair, I stopped and ran my hand over the wooden seat. It felt warm. When I stood next to Logan, I swiped my finger inside the mortar and brought my finger to my nose. “Smells like thyme.”

Four old boxes stacked in the corner caught my attention. “Logan, can you grab the third box and bring it down?”

“Why the third box?”

“I don’t know. It’s like that box is calling me to open it.” I could almost hear him roll his eyes. “Just do it, will you?”

“Fine.” He moved the two top boxes from the stack and pulled out the third box.

My heart raced. I wanted to open it, but I feared what I might find inside. A thick layer of dust caught the moonlight coming through the triangular window near our position and the particles flew about the room, covering our clothes and skin.

“This is crazy. What if my grandma has something private in there?”

“Everything up here is private, I’m sure. Look at this place.”

“That’s just old furniture, New York.”

“Logan, do you see how much dust these boxes have on them?”

He nodded.

“That rocking chair doesn’t have a speck of dust. That means someone uses that chair regularly. And maybe I’m mistaken, but the damn thing still feels warm.”

“That’s crazy. Why would my grandmother sit alone in the attic when she has an entire house to herself?”

“I don’t know.” My hands trembled as I reached for the box to open it. “Can you flash your cell phone light here?”

He fumbled with his phone, but managed to turn on the flashlight app and shine it on the old, weathered box. Three small spiders scattered. I jumped. “Oh my God, that scared me.”

With a mix of fear and anxiety, I lifted the lid and stared into a box of photos and old memorabilia-type items.

Logan sighed. “It’s just her old photos.”

I grabbed one in particular that appeared different, shiny, actually. Bringing it closer to the light from Logan’s phone, I took in the fine details. “Look at this.”

He took it from me and studied the miniature oil painting. “That’s Grams in the background, next to a few townspeople.”

I leaned forward, pointing at a young boy who had the same eyes and stoic look as Logan’s grandmother. He even resembled Logan. “Who’s that kid?”

“I don’t know. But this guy right here must be Mitch Castleborough because he’s pointing to the new town sign that has his name on it.”

“That’s him. I can feel it. That’s Castleborough, for sure, which dates this picture back to 1795, Logan.”

“Maybe that’s a relative of Gram’s and not actually her.”

I heard Logan say those words, but I hardly processed them. Everything started piecing together in my head like a jigsaw puzzle—the attic, the rocking chair with the mirror burned around the edges, the mortars and pestles with finely ground herbs, the old oil painting with his grandmother standing next to a boy. My stomach was tied in knots.

The room felt like it was closing in on me, its darkness threatening to drown me. My heart raced and I circled around reaching for something to brace myself. Then a scary thought crossed my mind. I frantically glanced around. I had to know. Stumbling toward the old rug on the floor, I flung it up to reveal a pagan star—the pentagram—etched into the floorboards.

Logan ran to my side and grabbed my arm. “Are you okay?” Just as he said that, he saw the engraving, too. “What the hell is that?”

Everything came flooding toward me like a broken dam. My hand trembled as I reached for Logan’s cell phone, the light now shining toward the floor. I slowly lifted it to shine it in the darkened corner in front of us.

Two beady eyes glared back at us as Grandma Edith rocked in the corner, a godawful smirk across her face.

“What the heck?” Logan jumped back. “Grandma?”

“We’ve got to go.” I dropped the wooden stairs and nearly jumped down, but Logan caught my arm.

“We can’t run,” he said through his teeth. “We have to get to the bottom of this.”

“You have no right being in my attic, Logan. This is not your fight.”

“What are you talking about, Grams?”

Edith stood and shuffled her feet toward us. All I could think about was hightailing it out of the attic. When Edith spoke, her words quavered with emotion. “It was
my
son who they strung up on that mountain because he tried to spare the life of the mayor’s daughter.”

Confusion swept across my face. “Who is your son?”

She whipped her head toward me, revealing jet-black pupils. “You have created this havoc.”

Logan slightly pushed me behind him. “Who are you talking about, Grams?”

“Simon, of course. He’s my innocent son who was murdered upon that mountain more than 250 years ago. This town had to pay for his death!” Turning to me, she frowned. “And now, you’ll have to pay for interfering with the work of a tormented mother.”

I gasped, my legs trembling.

“This is not your fight, Logan. Stay out of this.”

Logan turned toward me and whispered, “Get to the window. It’s almost 9:00. Warn Ty.”

“What about you?”

“Go!” He whipped his head back to his grandmother. “You’ve put a curse on this town by keeping your son locked up on that mountain so he could strike out in vengeance on our good people of Castleborough.”

“
Good?
You simple-minded child. Get out of my way!”

As I climbed down the ladder, I saw Edith swipe her hand through the air, sending Logan across the room, slamming him into the wall. He rolled to the entrance of the attic as his arm dangled down the opening.
No, she couldn’t possibly kill her own grandson.
That was the vision that haunted me as I took off through the snowy night toward my aunt and uncle’s house.

When I got there, I used the portal.