Chapter Twenty-Seven

Richie and Marty watched as Ang/Kirstin walked carefully across the open area between the lake and the rhododendrons, as if afraid of getting her shoes dirty. She walked lightly, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. As she approached the shrubs, she reached out a hand, as if trying to sense where the path was. Back and forth she walked along the rhodies’ edge, smiling and trailing a hand across the purple blooms.

Richie frowned. "Angel Rose?" He got no response, and tried again. "Kirstin?" This time, the woman turned to him. "We want to find you," he said gently, "but we don’t want to lose Angel Rose. Please," he said, reaching out to take her hand, though it was so cold it burned. "Please hurry."

Kirstin sighed and pulled her hand from Richie’s. "Very well," she said.

She turned toward the bushes and peered at their bottoms, looking for a gap in the thick branches. Marty and Richie helped, pushing the bloom-laden boughs out of the way. "Here," she finally said, triumphantly. "See how the branches twine at the bottom? They weren’t like that when I lived here."

Marty and Richie started pushing their way bodily through the bushes, wincing as branches snapped and poked at their arms and legs. They could just make out a path, or a strip with no roots, and followed it until they came to a spot where nothing grew. Sitting on the spot was a woman in a tattered peach dress, her face all beaten and bloody, a wan smile on her lips. "Here," she said, scaring the hell out of Marty. He hadn’t seen her before without Ang as a buffer.

"Where is Angel Rose?" Marty asked, looking around. In their haste to get through the dense shrubbery, they had lost the young woman.

Kirstin pointed back in the direction the men had come from. "She pried my hand from the locket, and I slipped away." She ran a hand lovingly, gently along the ground. "Be gentle," she begged, and rose from the ground.

Richie looked back along the thrashed path, but couldn’t see anything.

"She is drained from our partnering," Kirstin said sadly. "She is sleeping now." Richie started to run down the overgrown path back to Angel Rose, but Kirstin stopped him. "There is nothing for her now but to rest. She will come back to you. Dig."

Richie looked at Kirstin, incredulous. "I am not leaving her alone," he said, and started back down the path. He hadn’t taken more than a few steps when he felt as if he’d run up against a stone wall. He staggered a few steps backwards and tried again, putting his hands out in front of him. He could only move forward a short distance before he was stopped again.

"What the hell are you doing, boy?" Marty asked, incredulous.

"I’m trying to get back to Ang," he answered, "but I can’t get seem to move down the path." He whirled on Kirstin. "Let me pass."

She shrugged delicately. "Once you have finished what you have set out to do, you will be able to pass. Dig," she commanded again, her voice colder than it had been thus far.

Kirstin moved off to one side while the men began to dig. Marty dug with enthusiasm, Richie more reluctantly. They got into an argument about how deep to dig, and how quickly. Richie wanted to keep going until they hit something, speeding up the process so he could get to Angel Rose. Marty wanted to be more careful, to not disturb the remains any more than necessary; if in fact they were buried here. In the end, Richie got his way, but only because he threatened to hit Marty with the shovel, and the older man didn’t know Richie well enough to know he would never really do such a thing.

Finally, the hole was close to waist-deep, and Richie’s shovel turned up something that was decidedly not dirt. He shared a look with the realtor, and tossed his shovel aside.

"What are you doing?" Marty asked.

"What the hell does it look like I’m doing, man?" Richie shot back, "I’m giving you your way." He had dropped to his knees, and was pulling handfuls of dirt from the hole they had dug. He traced the shape of an arm, revealing gray bone, one inch at a time. He kept one eye on Kirstin, who was still visible and sitting on the ground a few feet away. Her face was a mixture of sadness and elation. He kept looking down the path, willing Angel Rose to come out of the shrubbery so he’d know she was alright.

"Pay attention to the task at hand," Kirstin said softly.

Riche looked down and saw he had revealed most of a hand. He swallowed back a curse, and willed his stomach to stop rolling. He traced the bones in one direction until he uncovered all the fingers. He then reversed direction, and cleared dirt away until he found what looked like a smooth, rounded stone. As he moved more dirt, he saw three openings appear – the eye sockets, and the relief where the nose had been.

"Holy shit," Richie said, sitting back on his heels and shaking his head. "We need to call the police. We have to do this right. I can’t do anymore." He looked at Kirstin. "I won’t."

Marty looked into the hole, at the arm and skull Richie had unearthed, and touched it reverently. A strong jolt, like an electric shock, raced up his arm. In that moment, he saw the final flashes of Kirstin’s life, and the first few moments of her death. He saw Isaiah strangle the life from this poor creature, and Jeremiah try to stop him. He saw his ancestor bury the woman and drag his brother from the site. He got a flash of Jeremiah running down a lane as men’s voices called out.

"What’s happening?" Richie asked, startled by the blank expression on Marty’s face.

"I see…" he trailed off.

"What! What do you see?"

"Isaiah Halstead. He killed Kirstin." Marty looked down at the remains of Kirstin Maddox. "I’m so sorry, dear," he said, before looking at Richie. "You’re right, we need to call the Sheriff."

"What do we tell him about how we came to find this skeleton?"

Marty shrugged. "The truth."