Page 18 of A Curse On Black Lake
Indecision and fear grip me. I can taste the sourness of death on my tongue. I need to know if he’s human, but deep down I know it’s a man standing there, watching.
I didn’t turn on any lights, so he might not see me. I remain still, hoping he moves on. My feet ache, and I can feel blood seeping from a cut on the top of my foot, but I don’t move.
We are told you must find the one. You must listen. He will kill you if you don’t. You must find each other, as the past will become the future.
I want to snap back at them to explain, but sometimes they don’t know. And I’m too afraid to make a sound, afraid he might hear me. Eventually, the man turns and walks away. I stay there for what feels like hours until it feels safe enough to move.
The fear has turned to anger, and I dab at the cut on my foot and leap over the shattered glass, running for my boots. With the shotgun in my hand, small flashlight in my mouth, wearing nothing but my nightgown, I stomp out to my garden ready to shoot whoever thinks they can trespass on my land. This is Texas after all.
Swinging the barrel back and forth, checking the garden and then the barn. It’s all clear. I stop at the far end where I saw the hooded figure and flip on my flashlight to the place I saw him standing, and gasp, confirming my instincts.
Anxiety washes over me, and I look around again using the flashlight this time. But no one is there. There are perfect indentations of boot prints in the black soil, as if he stood there so long the ground wanted to remember.
So he’s not a ghost.
You must move quickly. You cannot delay anymore.
“You have to give me more than that,” I whisper.
Flipping the flashlight off and going back inside. I lock the door behind me, checking all the doors and windows again. After bandaging my foot, I crawl back into bed with a new form of exhaustion.
You have to find him, but you have already seen him.
“I would really appreciate if y’all stopped speaking in riddles. If time is that much of the essence, then you have to tell me,” I say to them as I rest the shotgun next to my headboard, ready for me to grab it if I need to.
You must find the man from your dream. That is all we have been told.
“Thank you, that’s so helpful,” I mutter.
He will kill again. Everything will get worse.
“Are we talking about the same person now?”
You need another to help you. Blood will feed the soil.
“That makes no sense!” I scream, wiping my tears, and throw myself back into bed.
Regardless of what they’re telling me, someone has been here. It’s probably a stupid teenager trying to mess with me. I could call the Sheriff, but what would they say? What would they do? Nothing. It’s not like I can get security cameras. We barely have internet here. Very few modern electronics work in Black Lake. This town is stuck crumbling in time while the rest of the world continues without it. If I want to catch this guy, I’ll have to wait and surprise him.
Or maybe I shouldn’t bother. There’s nothing keeping me here. Not anymore. I could leave. I probably should leave since there’s some creep watching me. But what would life be like to start over, where no one knows my name? No one knows what I am, or maybe someone would accept me forwhoI am.
Running away could be the answer to it all. The Spirits would have to deal with it.
You must stay. You must. You must.
“But what’s the point? I have no one now,” I say to them.
They don’t respond.
I furiously wipe my wet cheeks and turn on my side.
What is life if I’m destined to be alone? Is that a life at all? I want more than what is, but I’ve convinced myself I’ll never have any of it. Which is not to say I’m not grateful for what I have. I am.
With Grams, life wasn’t so bad. I had someone who loved me.
Maybe now I simply need to accept my life will always be this way. I have been trained and taught to heal people, to help them. That is a life worth living. Our family is here and has been for generations. My ancestors built the apothecary here in Black Lake with their blood, sweat, tears, and their lives. Except I’m the end of it.
So who am I to walk away from it all because I have no one to tell me they love me or give me a hug because they want to?
