Sam’s coat is heavier than mine, so I throw that on over my pajamas, add a hat I tug down over my ears, and grab a thick pair of gloves. I’m essentially dressed as Sam during the winter, but since I missed out on the Halloween festivities of getting dressed up, I’m going to consider this my belated costume.
The snap of frosty air when I get out onto the porch makes me burrow my head down deep into the collar of the coat, and I yank on the gloves as I walk around the side of the cabin. Reconsidering the route I chose, I turn around and head the other way.
If I’m going to track Xavier, I have to think like him. There’s absolutely no chance of that happening, so I have to do the next best thing. Something is bothering him about the night Elliot died, and it’s too tangled in his mind for even him to reach. I’m actually a little surprised he’s not just circling around the cabin.
I call him again as I follow around the path he did and look for any indication of where he might have gone. The phone rings several times before I end the call. I look toward the path leading into the woods. The late fall weather has it looking barer than the last time I saw it, but there are still enough evergreens and stubborn trees clinging to dead brown leaves to obscure the view after a few yards.
It’s the easiest route into the woods, but if Xavier is right about the route Elliot walked to get onto the porch after he was shot, that path doesn’t make sense. If he came down that path, he would have been closer to the other side of the cabin. Shot and in pain, I would think he would go for the shortest way to the front door to give himself any chance of help.
There was a possibility he headed for the light on the side of the cabin. The other side was left dark; he could have been drawn to the glow. But I already know he was familiar with the cabin. He didn’t need the light to guide his way. If he had only gone a few steps around from the end of the path, he would have been able to see the light from the porch, anyway.
Making my way onto the path, I pay close attention to my surroundings. The sun is coming up, breaking up the trees so I can see everything around me a little better. I’ve long held the belief that the energy of crimes leaves a scar on the place where the crime happened. Space in the universe doesn’t just go untouched when something horrific happens.
A crime goes against the natural order, against what should be happening and what should exist in that space at any moment. When something brutal or sad or horrific happens, it leaves an impression. It cuts into the energy of the place, and that space never really recovers.
I feel that here.
It doesn’t scare me. It’s not fear that comes over me when I walk along the path and see the same things I saw when I ran through here four years ago. I’ve come to terms with it. It’s more of an unsettling feeling that comes from walking on top of my own steps. I’m catching glimpses of the past, reminders of being here before. As Xavier said, I’m still here.
Off to my left, I know the forked path will eventually lead me past the tree where I found a dog chain wrapped around the base. It was a detail that went past everyone investigating the disappearances and murders. Many people who live in Feathered Nest come to walk their dogs through these woods, they said. It wouldn’t be completely out of the realm of possibility to think maybe one of them had tied his dog in place here while he did something else.
Only, it didn’t take long for me to learn the people in town never came into these woods. If they did, they would know about the house far in the distance. The sprawling mansion once so glorious that time had reduced almost to ruin: the childhood home of Jake Logan.
The dog chain on that tree had a much more sinister purpose, one that failed the day a beautiful woman named Crystal managed to break free and run. The train stopped her. The camera mounted to the engine caught a flicker of the last moments of her desperation.
They found parts of her strewn along the side of the tracks and thought it was just the impact that destroyed her body. But it wasn’t. She had already been mangled by the time she ran in front of that train. It was adrenaline that kept her on her feet for that last sprint through the trees. She likely wouldn’t have lived much longer, even without the train.
In the end, she wasn’t running for her life. That was already gone. She was running to die on her own terms. A final insult to Jake that became a critical piece of his undoing. Few people ever speak her name anymore. But I’ll never forget her.
“I am not going to get the car. It’s barely even morning.”
I think I found Xavier.
“Why not?” Xavier whines, his voice sounding as if he’s trailing after Dean. “It won’t take long. I’m pretty sure Emma left the key in the living room. And if she didn’t, I can hotwire it.”
“You are not hot-wiring my car,” I call out into the trees.
A few seconds of silence follow.
“Emma?” Xavier says cautiously.
I walk in the direction where I hear them and soon encounter Dean stomping toward me. He went for the same pajama approach I did but opted for a bathrobe rather than a coat.
“Nice robe,” I note.
He
