She replied the same as always, too, slow and soft. You were imagining it. We see what we want to see, love, but there are no monsters, just people who do horrible things. I was unbalanced, and I did a horrible thing. Don’t go looking for answers where there are none.
But that’s not what happened. I know what I saw that night, even if it was only through the crack between two cupboard doors. Before the overhead light shattered, leaving us in shadows, I saw the monstrous dark shape vaulting toward my brother. Heard the roaring sound that filled the kitchen. Then all at once, the screaming stopped and my brother was gone, the kitchen floor slick with blood.
My mother wasn’t responsible for Nathan’s death; it was a beast from a banished world. And someone, or something, pressured her into taking the blame. Maybe she feared what might happen to Havenfall if she were ever to reveal the truth.
And what could I do? Because the thing is, you can’t tell people a monster killed your brother. People will start to talk about you. Freak. Liar. Crazy.
But at Havenfall, people believe me. I’ve only told a few people, but they believe me. I have to hold on to that. It’s all I have.
I check my phone reflexively, half-afraid that Dad will somehow sense I’m not on the way to Omaha. I’ll update him when it’s too late to turn back. I have only one bar of service, and that’s likely to blink out once we reach the mountains, but it doesn’t matter. All the people I actually want to talk to are up ahead, at the summit in Havenfall. I’ll see them soon, and besides, no one there even knows what a phone is. To them it’s just a strange, glimmering, blinking artifact.
I grin as a memory from last summer surfaces. I finally wheedled Dad into getting me a smartphone, and my first night at Havenfall, Brekken and I snuck out to the barn and I introduced him to Candy Crush. I wish I had a video of him—serious Brekken, with his soldier’s bearing and noble manners and literally otherworldly cheekbones—hunched over the screen with the tips of his jeweled ears turning red, hissing Fiorden curses whenever he lost a life. I’ve never taken a picture of Brekken, of course. While Marcus doesn’t subject me to the no-phones-on-inn-grounds rule like he does every other human who enters Havenfall, he trusts me not to be stupid. A leaked video could be disastrous, and I’d never endanger my safe place. My birthright. My home.
Anyway, I don’t need a picture. I’ll see Brekken soon in the flesh.
At 3:55, the bus to Haven finally pulls up. It looks older than the others, with scratches and rust gathering around the wheels. But my heart still lifts as I climb on board. The driver, a slight, wrinkled man, smiles warmly at me.
“How you doing today, miss?”
“Great,” I say with a returning smile as I drop my duffel and slide in a few seats behind him, and I mean it. There’s a smattering of people on the bus—an old woman in the back, bundled up as though it’s winter and not June, a young mother cradling a wailing infant, and the two men from the depot. The engine rattles loudly, and the metal roof above me is dented with what looks like the marks of hailstones.
It takes us four hours to reach the mountains, and I let myself doze off against the window, sinking into troubled half dreams. I dream Mom and Nate are on the bus beside me, just as they were when we visited Havenfall as kids, my brother fiddling with the silver jacks Marcus gave him when he was born. And my heart leaps for joy.
But when I say Nathan’s name and they both turn to me, I see the prisoner version of Mom, with her baggy tan jumpsuit and listless expression. My brother’s eyes are wide, and I see something reflected in them, a monstrous shadow—
I’m shaken, grateful when a pothole in the road jars me awake. The sun starts its descent just as we begin to climb into the mountains, painting everything gold. The narrow road hugs a mountainside; to our right are the carved-away stone walls, sometimes covered over with avalanche nets, and to our left, out my window, green pines blanket the valley. In contrast to the sprawl and shine of Denver and its suburbs, the mountains seem like a formidable force against humans, and signs of civilization dwindle rapidly until all we pass are old, half-crumbling mining towns. Decrepit houses and listing trailers are tucked in between the boulders and pines.
The dream lingers, but I breathe out, imagining it leaving me like smog from my lungs. I crack the window, put on my headphones, and focus on the bite of cool mountain air. Crowns of ice gleam in the sun, and the sky somehow feels bigger framed by the jagged peaks. On the horizon, I can see the translucent curtains of rainfall.
We’re getting close now.
Omphalos, I think. A Greek word Marcus taught me. It means navel, technically. The center of everything. Where it all starts. Where it all connects.
The roads get steep, and the bus sputters and creaks. My music blocks out the worst of it, but I can still feel the bus vibrating around me, like a panting beast of burden, as it climbs up these twisty roads. The metal frame shudders in a way that the worn polyester seat cushion can’t disguise. It doesn’t help that the only thing separating us from dropping off the mountain is a metal railing that doesn’t look like it would withstand a strong gust of wind. For a second, I imagine what it would be like to lose control. To hurtle through the misty air, plunging past the soft blanket of fog and into the yawning forest of darkness below.
To shatter like glass.
I blink again and pull out my phone—it’s time to text Uncle Marcus now that we’re getting close. The text goes through, and I hope he sees it amid the bustle of Havenfall’s summit—an annual celebration which is just about to begin that marks the peace between our three worlds.
“What’s that frown for?”
A gravelly voice to my right snakes through my music. I half-turn away, hoping that it’s not me being addressed, but the man across the aisle, the one with the newspaper, is looking at me, lips split to show cigarette-stained teeth. Reluctantly, I take off my headphones.
This guy must be from Haven. He’s wearing a necklace with a teardrop-shaped pendant of the same odd, pearlescent silver that supposedly comes only from the old mines surrounding the town. But I’ve never seen him there before.
I give him a bare, polite smile. “Just happy we’re almost there.”
He rubs the pendant between his fingers. He has sun-weathered skin and pale eyes. “You going to Haven?”
“Yep.” I can’t help popping my lips slightly on the P. It’s a stupid question—that’s the only stop left, which this guy surely knows. “Going to visit my uncle.”
“You from there? You look familiar.”
Wariness curls around my heart, but I push it down and shake my head. Haven has less than a thousand people, and it’s tucked away so high, inaccessible but for twisty county highways. It’s possible the man might remember me from seeing me around town. But he wouldn’t—couldn’t—have remembered me from the inn; Havenfall protects against that.
“Like I said, just visiting family.”
“Well, I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise,” I lie, reluctantly shaking the hand he sticks across the aisle. His hand is clammy, his grip too tight. When he smiles, I notice several fillings made from the same pale silver as the pendant.
To my relief, he doesn’t ask further questions once I turn back toward the window. We’re climbing higher and higher as the sun sets, the air thinning and my ears popping. Clouds creep in from the west, covering the orange sky and casting the craggy mountains in shadow. The driver goes slower as the wind picks up. The towns are almost nonexistent now: the only signs of human habitation are the odd cabin or broken-down car. But the landscape gets more beautiful, even under the gathering blanket of storm clouds. Fog creeps down over the mountainsides, wrapping around the trees and spilling tendrils over the road, but the effect is almost comforting, like we’re the only people in the world.