The dark and rain didn’t help my navigation. Holly found the last building—an old warehouse barely standing—and started counting turn-offs on her fingers. Something knotted in the pit of my stomach. She tugged my shirt and pointed to a dirt path a few miles out of town.
I couldn’t call it a road. The path zigzagged up the mountain but was so overgrown and narrow that it was more like a game trail. Dense brush and trees squeezed us in, their roots growing up through the dirt. If I thought the roads were bad, they had nothing on this. The land was so uneven, and the weather and foliage so dark, it felt like we were going to tip over the mountain and never see it coming.
Mud sloshed against the tires despite the creeping pace. More than once the car whined and slid back when the incline turned treacherous. The only thing that kept us from getting stuck was the endless roots that gave the tires enough traction to keep going. Thunder roared from overhead, the night turned blinding white for a heartbeat. Holly jumped at every sound and bump.
I wasn’t doing any better. From the second I turned, I knew I made a mistake. I might not have remembered the way to the Manse, but I knew it was paved. There was no way this path had seen use in . . . I couldn’t imagine how long.
That woman was a serial killer, I thought. She pointed me to her den of cannibals and I was stupid enough to drive us right there.
If I was capable of fearing anything else along that drive, I would’ve worried about breaking my teeth as hard as I clenched my jaw.
But what else could I do? Branches scraped against what little paint was left on the car, the trees so close I could elbow them from the window. There was no way I could turn around—nowhere to turn around. I was barely making it up. I had a better chance of driving us off the cliff than trying to retrace our path backward. Slowing down with the rain—or worse, stopping—would have sunk us into the mud or carried us with it down the mountain.
There was nowhere to go but forward.
I saw a curve in the road too late and the car whined as a tire found air instead of ground. Lightning struck. For a moment I could see the ledge we teetered on and the forest far, far below. The back tires spun for a nauseating heartbeat, then caught and jerked us back onto the trail.
Every foot down this path is another closer to death. If that woman doesn’t kill us, this drive will.
Holly wrapped herself around my arm. It was harder to turn with her in the way, but I couldn’t bear to pull her off. Her finger dug into my skin, but the pain was grounding. I gritted my teeth and pressed the gas.
I couldn’t afford to take my eyes off the trail to check the time, but it felt like an eternity. It never straightened or cleared, but at some point, we leveled out. There was only ever a few feet of visibility, so I had to slam on my brakes to keep from running into the wrought iron gate that materialized around a bend.
I wasn’t going fast, but Holly had to brace herself on the dashboard. It took a moment to understand what I was looking at until I picked out the figure of a bear rearing up on the family crest.
“We’re here!”
I was out of the car before I remembered it was pouring. I was soaked in seconds but didn’t feel the cold. The thick chain around the gate held fast no matter the rust and my jangling. I looked around for something, anything, to get us through, but the headlights revealed only black iron disappearing into the forest and the ruins behind it. With the storm raging, no one could hear me shout.
I held the chain uselessly in my hands, so close to our home that it took all I had to keep my heart from bounding out of my chest and down the path I couldn’t follow.
Holly was beside me, the little glitter wand in her hand. She clicked a button on the end I hadn’t seen and aimed the flashlight at the padlock. She turned it over, wiggled it, pulled with all her might, and with a final yank, the metal disintegrated. As the pieces clambered to the ground, I scooped her into a bear hug and covered the top of her head with kisses.
She helped me unwrap the chain and throw it into the woods, then wrench the ancient gate open through the mud and roots.
Miraculously, the car spun in the mud but made it to gravel. What little I could see of the ruins I didn’t recognize, but the path was clear. I must have driven as far inside the grounds as I had up the trail in a fraction of the time. A violent lightning strike blinded the world and I saw spots.
But—no, not spots. Those were lights, little lights growing bigger and brighter the faster I drove. The old guest house caught the headlights and I skidded to a stop before the porch.
The front door and the driver’s side opened at the same time, but I was up the stairs before the woman’s brows could properly knit. I tackled her into a hug before I could think better of it.
“I’m home, Grandma.”