Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I'm an Ohio Cop. Our town DISAPPEARED from the US Map | Scary Stories

Episode Date: May 11, 2024

Our town has a secret. Story from Max Voynich Make sure to check out more of their work at u/Max-Voynich  Cover Art from Neil Goodman             Original Post: Room 127: Dead Air, Live Wire : r/nosleep  Original YouTube link: I'm an Ohio Cop. Our town DISAPPEARED from the US Map          For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube  Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Merch: lighthousehorror.com  Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube  Incompetech Darren Curtis Music - YouTube  Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every week, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

You won't find our town on any map. I've lived here a long time, but I never really thought that was strange. It wasn't until recently that I found the dark truth on why we were hidden from the world, and why people like me were somehow chosen to find this place. It all started with the girls. It was always those Salado girls causing trouble. It was dark out, sometime near 3 a.m. The clouds peeled back and the sky was full of stars.

I'd finished my nightly beers on the porch and was just getting ready to sleep. I wanted to ease myself into bed and spend a while staring at the ceiling before drifting off. You know the feeling. Thought suspended. Half dreams. Thinking about the things that you shouldn't. And then. A banging at the door.

Hammering, even. Something real desperate to it, too. Haven't heard a hammering like that, since, well, I'll tell you later. And then a voice. High, female, a twang to it. She fell off the map. She fell off the edge of the map. Shit, Dennis, please.

Dennis, that's me. That's what they call me. Though, that being said, it's not often that. the Salado girls have much to do with me. They're still a little suspicious of me, I think, considering I used to be a cop. Not any longer, though. Department told me a few years ago that I should consider retirement. They made a couple of offhand references to my consumption of cheap booze. A few shifts missed here and there. I got the picture. Folks still think of me as a cop, though. So I found myself investigating, helping out. You know the score. I guess you

call me a private investigator, but I wouldn't go that far. Well, okay, maybe I would sometimes, if the right person was asking, but for the most part, I help out where I'm needed. I considered for the briefest moment rolling over and trying to sleep, but my dreams aren't so fun anymore. And once I'm up, I'm up. You know? No point trying to sleep again. Dennis, hey! And it sounded briefly like she was turning to someone else. Lazy, son of a bitch. Dennis. Dennis!

Oh my God, Elena Salado. At three in the morning. With the nerve to call me a son of a bitch. I shouted something back. I can't remember exactly what. But probably not best repeating it if you catch my drift. But I heaved myself out of bed, dressed, and made my way downstairs. Now there are rumors about the Salados, that they're in witness protection, and that the four sisters are only half of a brood of eight. All girls and all the favorite daughters of a mob boss.

I've heard the Salado family used to make their staff fight bare-knuckle on their private yachts, that they hunted endangered animals for sport. That when you get them all together, they speak fast and argue a lot. I don't know. I never seen them do much of anything, you know, but hey, people talk. Last rumor I heard was a couple months ago. It was that each Solado sister, before Witness Protection, had to commit an act of arson. Their dad, this fictional gangster, would cover for them.

But it had to be a business they didn't like. Somewhere they'd been wronged. I heard that it was only by setting something on fire that they could claim their family name properly. The townsfolk make them out to be these villains, but when I opened that door, all I saw was a scared girl. They moved here when they weren't even knee-high. And in that time, I had never, ever seen Elena look so scared.

For the record, I'd never seen anywhere burn down either. She was as white as a sheet and shaking. Her car, a beat up, a rusty thing, sat in an old angle in my driveway. The headlights cast a white beam of light against my house and into the woods behind. They made the trees the color of bone, I remember for some reason. In the passenger seat sat Elena's sister, Sophia. She's a little younger than Elena. Less loud, but twice as mean.

I once caught her stuffing fireworks in the tailpipe of Marty's van after he accused her of stealing. That was a hell of a week. I know I said I've never seen anywhere burned down, but look, not that there was a lack of trying. I'm telling you this, because Sophia was usually so full of life. Animated. Red ringlets, uneven teeth. She'd bite your finger off if you got too close. But here, now, she was completely still. Motionless. In the distance, there was the sound of cicadas. The car engine was still running. Elena's door hung open. Sophia stared straight ahead.

Her eyes were vacant. She reminded me of a crash test dummy or something, you know? Like no one was home. I had to shield my eyes from the headlights to get a better look. Sophia was paler than usual. And I noticed something else, too. Something like dirt behind her ear. And then her head turned just a fraction.

To look straight at me. Vacant eyes. A small, barely noticeable smile. As if she felt me look at her. As if, just for a moment, she could hear me think. Elena spoke behind me. I need to talk to you. Her breath was ragged.

Her voice was cracked and shaking. I turned to her. were nice and slow. That was the trick. Act like you are in charge. The adult. Show people that you were in control of the situation. Sure, Elena, I said. Of course. Do you want to tell your sister she's a right to come in? Elena shook her head. She stays out here. Okay, Elena. You know, I can't have you Turn it up to my house at three in the morning, the two of you, and letting one of you sit out in the dark, all right. If she comes in, I go, Elena said. Okay, we make this quick, then.

I replied. Elena nodded. Her hair was short and greasy. Her eyes were a little red. I assume she'd been smoking out by the leg, maybe got some. Spooked and saw something in the dark, a hunter maybe, or a wild animal. The dark played all sorts of tricks on your mind out here. I'd seen men who'd spent their whole lives in the woods think they've seen something impossible.

I've heard them describe strange creatures lurking through the trees. Elena took a seat at my kitchen table. She looked around, and I was suddenly embarrassed. Since Lucy, that it all fallen apart. There was an overflowing stack of beer cans in the kitchen. A full garbage bag slumped against a bin. An overflowing ash tray. And plates of food piled up behind the sofa.

Every single surface had something on it. A packet of chips or a glass filled with beer and cigarette butts. The only thing that was clean was the fridge in the area around it, posted on it, was a child's drawing. We won't go into that. Not yet. But the truth was, I don't think Elena was taking any of that in. She fell off the map, Elena said.

I'd made her a tea and placed it in front of her. It steamed gently. The light overhead flickered once, then twice. I coughed and made a sign for her to go on. I stood instead of sitting. It made me feel more like an adult somehow. More, I don't know, in charge of the situation. We did it, you know?

The Dumont Lighthouse. We flick the switch. Charlie Atkins dared us, and we did it. And then... Elena started to cry. Sophia fell off the map. I can't say I handled her crying, brilliantly. I offered her a dirty dish cloth, which she refused. Instead, I stood up,

half to get away from the crying, and have to check on Sophia. I looked out the window with my hands behind my back, trying to take it all in, trying to figure out what the hell these girls had seen. The car was still there, but the headlights were cut clean into. A long, thin shadow stood on the porch. Sophia was standing in front of the car, completely still, head cocked just an inch, the same wide, vacant look to her eyes, with nothing behind them. Her mouth was open just a little now, and I could have sworn she was speaking, or at least trying to. Her mouth trying to make a shape around words that made no sound.

Fell off the map? I asked. I turned back to Elena, and for a moment, it was as if her face was doing the same thing, her mouth trying to make words. And then she was back. She took a deep breath and drank deeply from the tea. The water must have been almost boiling. She didn't even flinch.

She took a deep breath. The light shows the way and the way things can be and have always been. The light is the link. The light is the link. Ah, Elena, I interrupted, confused. She blinked and started chewing her lip. Her nails were ragged, but she bit them anyway. A hang nail on her thumb started to.

bleed. She shook her head, as if shaking off a dream. Inhaled, and spoke again. Sophia is still out there, Dennis. I can't explain it. When we were taking the boat back across from the lighthouse, she saw something in the water. She was telling me about it. You know, Sophia, she's not well sometimes. She thinks she sees things. And she reached out, you know. She let go of the oar, and she put her hand into the water. It was dark, I couldn't see. But she kept it there for a while. And then when she looked up, she wasn't there.

She had these in her hands. Elena threw a few wet pieces of paper onto the table. And then the lighthouse lit up again. And I could see just for a moment someone standing all the way at the top. Looking down. Elena was still shaking and just staring down. The story seemed to tire her to take it all out of her. I guess that they got the boat from June.

Now June was the resident Madwoman, which headcase, mudwalker, whatever you want to call her, okay? She'd let you borrow her boat in exchange for a smoke or a joint, and there was an urban legend about the lighthouse. that pulling the lever or turning it on summoned something. I guess that the story spooked them and made them suggestible. They saw something and they were in shock.

Kind of made sense. But what exactly they saw? I couldn't quite figure out. I took a look at the wet sheets of paper on the table. They were basically in tatters. The ink had run. They looked like old records, the kind you might find in an office in the 80s. And on them were faces that had blurred from the water.

In the dim light, they looked almost familiar. More familiar than I wanted to admit. Of course, you might be quite wondering what a lighthouse is doing in Ohio. It's a good question. Lake Bain. It's time. That's for sure. Barely even a lake by many descriptions.

But it has a power over people. Alfred Dumont moved to Itchmouth after the war and built a lighthouse right in the center of the lake. That's how a lighthouse ended up here. Now as for why, now that I can't tell you. Money drives people crazy, I guess. Makes folks do all sorts of strange things. Another rumor I heard at the nail was that Alfred Dumont released pythons in the legbane,

or a rare kind of shiny snapping turtle. You can't believe anything you hear, not in a small town like itch. They'll have you believe in ten-foot snakes lurk under the water. Hell, sometimes you might even start to believe it yourself. But Alfred Dumont was a strange character. No one knew how he made his money or where he came from, only that he rolled into town on a gray horse, and that he wore a loose-fitting gray suit, as if he'd been a monk who'd become a banker, I don't know.

He walked straight into the town hall and dropped $70,000 cash on the table, said he wanted to buy land. And so he did. A big house on the hill. After buying the house, he paid a few young men to smash every window in the place and carry off the shards of glass. He left the windows like that. Like open mouths. Doesn't make any sense, really. But he bought the lake too, Lake Bain. And with a story like that, there are bound to be rumors, you understand. Teenagers like to get all kinds of messed up

and dare each other to swim to it, to avoid the pythons and turtles, and to climb to the very top and pull the lever. Only the very, very bravest manage. I would know. The lever turns the light on, and you can see the great white beam sweep across the shore. It's a beautiful sight, all things considered. So I made a deal with Elena. I'd drive them to their mom's house and I wouldn't mention the bloodshot eyes.

If they stayed out of trouble for a little while, I'd go check it out. I'd take a look in the lighthouse, just in case there was some nutter who was going around scaring teenagers. I could believe it, too. We get more drifters than any other town, believe me. Men would wander in speaking in tongues and then wander off again. I've seen it with my own eyes. How they find this place is another question, though.

But they're drawn to it. Like maws to a flame, as the cliche goes. See, that part of the legend is my favorite. Probably because it's the only part of the myth that's true. The thing about Itchmouth is it doesn't appear on any map in the United States. Not even Google, Satnav, whatever. That much is true. But the rest of the story stumps me a bit.

The legend goes that Dumont paid cartographers, officials in the government, supernatural forces, whatever, to remove the town from the map so he could keep his secret, his little lighthouse and Lake Bain. It was his domain, so to speak. I don't know what his secret was, or rather. I didn't know at the time. I drove the Salado girls home, told their mom I'd found him smoking cigarettes. She was drunk, half awake, and lying in the dark on their long white sofa.

I don't think she cared or even knew what was happening. I thought about Lucy as I watched Elena carry her mother up the stairs and take her to bed. I went to the car and took Sophia inside. She didn't say much, but she hummed something just under her breath. A throaty sound, like a soft, musical breathing. When we did get in, I couldn't see Elena anywhere. I could hear the ticking of the clock, though, and the crackling of the fire. Sophia sat alone at the kitchen table and stared out into the night.

For a moment, something like that. a smile passed over her face, before turning blank again. And then she turned to me and placed both hands over her mouth, real creepy-like. The kind of gasp you might see in an amateur theater production. Like she was mocking me. You know, the dope these kids smoke just gets stronger and stronger. Well, she'd be right by morning, I thought. And of course, as As with most things, I was wrong. The first place to go was June's. I wasn't sleeping any time soon, and it was almost 4 a.m., so I figured why the hell not?

I drove out to the woods around Lake Bain. Dawn was pulling itself up the horizon. The night was quiet, and with the windows open, I could hear the rush of air and the wine of insects as I got close. Elena seemed real rattled, I thought. Genuine. Not like some of the scams she tried to pull on me in the past. I'll admit it. I like the salado girls always had. They caused trouble, but they were good kids, really. Taking care of their mom like that. No dad in the house. Taking care of each other. Which was why it was so strange that she didn't want Sophia to come inside. And how she seemed so scared of Sophia. hearing what she had to say. I let the car crawl to a stop and got out. I took a deep breath of fresh air and let it fill my lungs.

The air was clean and open and wonderful, and then I lit a cigarette immediately. I flicked on a flashlight with my other hand, and I started to walk down the thin path that led to June's. A low mist hugged the ground. Now, June, how can I describe her? I heard she's a witch. That's a good place to start.

I've heard she was a hedge fund manager who lost her mind. She threw her desk out the 43rd floor window and stapled her supervisors tie to his tongue. I've heard she speaks to the mud that she bathes in it. I've heard she collects the bones of drowned things and, picks her teeth with them. I've also heard from a drifter who I gave a lift to, that June knows about places under the skin of the world. She spends half her days there walking amongst the forgotten and the nameless. I kicked him out soon after that, not because of the rumor, just that he'd started to vomit. By the smell of it, it seemed he'd only been eating paint for a few days.

if you're sick of the rumors by now. Try spending half a day an itch. Now, all in all, June is a strange one. She can be spiteful and very rude. But she owns a few boats, she rents to whoever wants to go out in Lake Bain, and dives for things people lose there. She always finds them too. Lockets, wallets, waterlogged phones. I've heard people call her a swamp person behind her, back. No one wants to say it to her face. The truth is, she knows the land like no one else somehow. Like she's a part of it. June was awake when I arrived. No surprise there. I found her sitting on the tiny porch of her crooked wooden shack. She was dressed in a small knitted top and a long black skirt. Her eyes were closed. Her legs crossed. Meditating, maybe. Well, I would

have thought that, were it not for the cigarette in her left hand. Without opening her eyes, she brought it to her lips and inhaled. On the exhale, she said, Dennis? Yeah, I answered back. I never quite got over how she could tell who people were from footsteps alone. Did I stand out that much? I suppose I carried a little weight around, but, you know, it still gave me the creeps. She was silent. Maybe she was waiting for me to speak. A few small lamps hung from the corrugated iron roof that covered the porch. Flies buzzed around them. Mosquitoes whined. Some bird called from deep in the woods around us.

She's a strange sight, June. For one, she's a bit over six feet tall. Tallest woman I've ever seen. He might put her somewhere just shy of 40. Her hair is a dusty red piled up on top of her head and her skin. You know, you have to see it to believe it. It is absolutely covered in tattoos almost every square inch. Her arms, her stomach, her chest, her throat is entirely black.

The rest of her skin is covered in intricate designs, words, and strange shapes that almost seemed to move in the half-light. Even her face, a spider web from one ear that covers half her left cheek, a sword on her right temple, stripes on her right cheek, a downward sword bisecting her forearm, four black dots under her left eye, and five under her right. Her forehead covered in an intricate pattern. Even the palms of her hands are inked. June, I said. She took another slow inhale. Salado girls are telling me they saw something out this way. I assume they borrowed your boat. Any ideas? I sighed. This wasn't going to be fun. If you tell me now, June, you can save me a trip to the lighthouse. Nothing. She's

stayed silent, which pissed me off a little, if I'm honest. No respect for my time. Okay, look, they come to me all messed up, saying they saw some guy in the lighthouse or something, talking about falling off the map and her eyes snapped open. I felt quiet. I'd go home, Dennis, she said. Ignore it. It was strange seeing her suddenly so focused. Well, June, I began. I said I'll check it out. So I can't exactly just turn around, can I?

Drove all the way out here and all, so unless you want to pay me for gas. She stood up now and walked over to me. She was a little taller than me, I can admit, but not by much. I peered up. Go home, Dennis. Go home. She said. I looked into her eyes for a moment.

There's something in there that I hadn't seen before. A few chimes that hung near the lamps began to knock against each other. The skull of a small bird hanging on a chime slowly rotated. She smelt of incense and dirt. Her skin glistened with a thin layer of sweat. She was almost beautiful. She had a large, broken nose, huge hands, a mouth just curling into a mocking smile. I've only given the Salado girls a boat, she said, only for a few hours.

They said they wanted to get out on the water, that's it. No one in the lighthouse. I'd know if there was, okay? She turned away briefly to tap the ash from her sig. I saw the tattoo on her back. It was a single complex piece, the most intricate tattoo I'd ever seen, and strangely familiar too. Long winding stripes of black all connected around small points, small dark flecks of color in a shape that twisted and grew and collapsed in on itself.

It moved with the muscles on her back, with a central point in the center of her spine. It was almost a spiral, but not quite, moving almost like a living, breathing organism. She turned back and caught my eye. Just the Salado girls out there tonight. Take my word for it and go. Give a woman some peace." I started walking towards the lake, waved my hand up. That's all I needed to know, June.

I'll be taking a boat out. She called after me. Go home, Dennis, please. This doesn't concern you. And that was the first and last time. I heard June use anything that came close to manners. I wasn't scared on the water. I'd like to make that clear.

I wasn't scared of pythons or turtles, or whatever the hell people thought lurked under the water. I wasn't scared at all. But the mind can wander, like when there's just the slapping of oars for company, and the clouds begin to block the sky. The waters start getting dark, like it's one thick, oily mess. The shore slowly fades behind you, and the lanterns can't do much to the. the mist that's rolling in. Sounds were amplified. The world as I knew it faded away.

The water the only constant. You're alone out there on the lake that time of day. Just you. And whatever the hell lurks beneath the surface. I tried not to think like that. I hummed a little tune and then stopped. It was as if just for a moment. Something could hear me.

It felt like that. My voice didn't echo exactly, but it carried. Like the fog slowed it down. Tiny waves beat against the side of the boat. It rocked back and forth. The oars squeaked and cut through the water. I could hear myself breathe. I lit a cigarette, smoked it to the filter, and lit another.

My hands were shaking. I'd like to say it was because of the cold, but that morning was strangely warm. The air was as warm as human touch. I kept thinking that I could hear something, a whisper here there, a sound like a distant voice, like someone swimming towards me. I rode a little faster, smoked a little faster too. Eventually I was close enough, that the beam of my flashlight illuminated the side of the lighthouse. I could see the weathered stone covered in grime and the red door. I moored my boat on the short dock and double-checked my gun was in its holster. It was. I exhaled and realized I've been holding my breath.

Even in the dim light, the lighthouse was intimidating. It held some sort of intense, intensity. It seemed realer than real, like it came from another world. It had gravity, I guess. The same kind of gravity a black hole maybe has. There's an urge to escape it, but a deeper part of you is pulled in somehow. I made my way towards it, and I put my hand flat against the door. It opens slowly. The bottom scraped along the stone floor. Inside, there was nothing. No sign of anyone.

Empty. A few wine bottles in a corner that had been here for almost a decade. They were dusty and distorted by the beam of my flashlight. There were remains of what looked like a small campfire. A few crumpled cans of beer here and there. An old threadbare backpack sat slumped in one corner. The black mold coming from inside it let me know it had been here much longer than a month or two. And the smell cold and musty and sad.

I don't know if you've ever been in a room where someone's dying. There's a smell when that happens, or at least your nose is picking up some signal, you know, saying, damn, something's wrong. It was like that. I didn't call out, hello. I knew that if there was someone here, they'd have heard me enter. That was enough. And sure, I can admit now, maybe I didn't want to know what would happen if someone did reply, if some voice came back to me, if I wasn't alone. I unclipped my holster at the top. Always better to be careful. The stairs were worn and made of stone. It took a little while to climb to the top. I'm in worse shape than I'd like to admit, and that made me confronted head on. All those beers, those whiskeys, you know, those

cigarettes, they were catching up to me. And the sound in here. The place echoes. sure, but that echo kept going until it seemed to change somehow, to collapse in sound like a dozen other voices, voices that were whispering, humming, and the sound of wet tongues sliding against sharp teeth and wide-open mouths. The top floor where the light is was empty as I'd expected. The view was hardly impressive, a faint bit of light at the horizon, but nothing else. I saw the switch to the lantern, the source of so many legends, and just above it, carved into the rusting metal, were words.

The shallows at Bell's Creek, with a light broken, and what the light sees, the light It split and has split, and what the light shall make. The ramblings of a madman. Probably written by some teenager or drifter. I mean what? Bell's Creek. What that meant I couldn't tell you. But it was the only sign of any life up here.

I hadn't heard a peep about Bell's Creek, not in all my time here. Didn't know what the shallows might mean either. Or what the light meant. How important the light might be to all of this. Now what I should have done is left the scene alone. I should have climbed back down those steps, rode back across the lake, told June, thank you very much, and gone home. I should have slept like a baby, dreamt of TV dinners, and the endless stream of titles

on Netflix, taking a six-pack of beer or a cigarette on the porch. I thought of Lucy, my little girl, my kid. I remembered Frank Jenkins hammering on my door and screaming in my face. He was telling me he caught Lucy climbing all the way to the top and pulling the lever. The damned light blinded him in the woods. And Lucy stumbled in. She was frail, shaking, with her head bowed, when Frank had buried. even closed that door, we'd both bust out laughing.

Of course she pulled the lever. How could I even be angry? Lucy, who was so sick she was coughing up blood, still managed to sneak out and climb to the top of the lighthouse to pull the lever. It was to prove to her friends that she still got it, and she's still one of them. Like I said, you have to be very, very brave to do it. She was brave, that girl. Always.

That was a few months before she couldn't move much at all. A few months before she fell into a low depression. Kids that age, they shouldn't have to think about it, you know. What comes next after? She passed not long after. It drove her mother half mad. did the same to me. And we fell apart.

I don't know where her mother is now. We don't talk. It's almost like if we pretend the other doesn't exist. We might find some kind of peace. But it's not working for me. I don't know if it's for her. I hope she's doing well. Hope she's getting good use out of that Chevy.

I thought of how Lucy's weakened heart must have been hammering in her chest, how after all the tubes, injections, and doctor's appointments, she'd still wanted to show her friends show that she, Lucy Miller, had it in her to pull the lever to face whatever demons that brought. And so I pulled it.

For her, you understand. And instantly, I wished I hadn't. It was a long unbroken beam of light. It was so thick that it was visible as a solid shaft of burning white light. It was like a long arm stretching from the lighthouse to the shore. It burnt my eyes. The sound was unbearable too. There was a deep, low screeching in a rumbling from the rusty gears. It was almost like a howl. Like somehow the guts of the place had started to twist, and the lighthouse was a creature waking up from sleep. And at the end of the beam of light, it wasn't the shore of Lake Bain, at least, not the shore that I know.

It shone on the strangest city I've ever seen. There were spires and marble buildings and long winding roads. but it only appeared for fractions of a second as the light moved round and round. And in that city were people, faceless people, or almost faceless, I couldn't be sure. They had long, pale limbs, human maybe, all in strange loose suits, as if they were going to work or commuting. They were all moving so fast, climbing up the spires and crawling along the roads. And then, dear God, even as I remember this, it makes my mouth dry. As the light passed them, they turned and looked straight at me,

up and at the lighthouse. And then they started to move. I know earlier I told you how out of shape I was. But damn it, I moved quickly then. I sprinted down the stairs, almost falling several times. I slammed the door open and damn near jumped into the boat. I heaved those oars like my life depended on it, rowed until my shoulders started to burn and my muscles nodded.

I couldn't shake it. That strange city. The marble spires were like long distended fingers, the winding roads that don't make sense, and those people faceless, desperate, hungry. I moored the boat, and I ran a little way into the forest before stopping. I bent down with my hands on my knees, sweat dripped from my brow, my shirt damp and soaked in sweat. There was no sound now. Daylight peeked through the trees. Birds began to sing, how long had I been out there? I walked a while. I told myself that maybe I'd caught some of

what June was smoking, or maybe it was what my therapist kept saying when I still showed up to my appointments. Trauma, the loss of a loved one rears its head at all the wrong times. But I couldn't shake the feeling that what I'd seen was real somehow. Realer than real. June was waiting for me as she sat on a stump. She held the bowl of porridge in her lap and the wooden spoon in her left hand. I told you, she greeted me. I didn't dignify that with a response. I spat on the floor and wiped my brow with the back of my hand. I don't know if I moored your boat, I said. I left it in the shallows, I think.

June smiled and took a spoon of porridge. She chewed thoughtfully before smiling. The shallows? I spat again and left June in her shack behind me. Now, I tried not to think of the lighthouse for a long time. But it was hard. After seeing what I'd seen, everyday life, it took on some other quality. Things were not how they had once been. I saw Elena a day later. She was completely shell-shocked as she lined up to buy groceries. She looked at me like she didn't know me. I didn't

ask, Sophia. I didn't want to know. Bell's Creek, the shallows. I couldn't get those words out of my head. They hung around me, and at night I heard voices whispering the words around me. I heard them in the wind, in the call of a bird, or in the dripping of a leaky faucet. And sure, there were no maps about our town, but I figured the library might know something. I'd never bothered to look into the Dumont rumor. I was sure it was something we just told Turr. A little joke.

But surely, there must be a map of the town somewhere. And with it, maybe I could find Bell's Creek. And once I did, maybe I could discover what had happened to the Salado girls, what they'd seen. I could help him, I thought. Their mother was an alcoholic, and sometimes when I thought about him alone in that house, It made me feel, I don't know, sad maybe. Scared?

Something fatherly, at least. I missed Lucy dearly then. It hurt. There was a tight ball in my chest and in my stomach. I drank more than I should have. I liked talking to her about these things. She had an easy way about her. She listened.

She told me when I was being stupid, arrogant, or misled. You know, even when we fought, and God did we ever fight. She was always right about it in the end. I thought about Sophia Solado and those vacant eyes. And I thought about Elena alone in that house with her catatonic mother. I had to help. I had no choice. The sun was up then, and I drove in silence.

I didn't put on the radio nor my CDs. Through the windshield, the light was weak and pale. For a moment, the shadows it cast through the thin branches looked like a map. The sky was cloudless. It was a vacant blue, the color you might see in hospital waiting rooms or pharmacies. And beneath it, the town of Itch slowly dragged itself into the day. I saw Roseanne Atkins setting up shop. The Peters Boys were smoking as they sat on their bikes.

The light made their curly hair look like halos, though they were not angels of any sort. And then I passed by the rusty nail, the only thing that passed for a bar. Their door was propped open with a motorcycle helmet filled with cement. That was the way of things. The slow rhythm of life in this town. Coming in like the tide. I stopped in the nail for a coffee. I ended up having three, one after the other.

I started talking to Rick Castello about the weather. I asked him offhand if he'd heard anything funny last night, or if he'd seen anyone make their way down to Lake Bain. But he just shrugged. He was eating bacon straight off the grill. He was holding it in this dainty, delicate way with two fingers. I thanked him for the coffee, and I was out of there. As I left, there was a strange thing that happened.

One of the Peter's boys sped past me on his motorcycle, and the wing mirror caught the light. It flashed, and for a second my vision was blinded by a burning white light. And just for a moment, the town I saw wasn't itch. It was the towering, twisting spires, the same long wet rink. roads that reminded me of tongues, the same windows that looked like mouths, and moving around them, the figures in suits, hats, and briefcases. They moved not like people normally would. Instead, they scaled the buildings using all four limbs. And then in that same moment, it was like they noticed me. They turned, and I could see that they weren't completely faceless. Their faces were just

incomplete, like some just had gray eyes or just noses or mouths. And then as I stepped backwards into the nail, it all disappeared. But the image lingered. They were half people, broken, and searching. I stood there clutching my chest. I was heaving and panning hard. Sweat soaked through my shirt. You okay, that, Dennis? I heard Rick's familiar voice.

I turned and made eye contact. After what I'd just seen, it seemed odd to me that he had all his features. But then he smiled, and I laughed. I patted my stomach. This coffee goes right through you, huh? He nodded slowly, as if he knew that all too well. And you know what? Knowing what I know about Rick Castello?

I bet he did. I bet he knew it better than I did. Now, itchmuth Library is a depressing place at the best of times. It was a small white building that's a three-minute walk outside of the center of town. It's bleached by the sun and run down. The signs faded, and something must be rotting under or near it. Because as you get closer, there's the strong smell of decay. The parking lot is entirely empty except for one Hummer.

It belongs to none other than Charlene Atkins. Oh, Charlene. She went to an Ivy League school about 30 years ago. her class, too. She was writing for the New Yorker, and then something happened to her. No one knows what, only that she came back to town and mute, got a job at the library, and well, the rest is history. At first, people took pity on her. You know, the mind goes where it's going to go when you hear a story like that. But the longer she was back, the more folks started to avoid her, People saw lights on in the library at strange times.

On its own, that doesn't amount to much, but people began talking about finding dead animals not too far from the library. And then, a family came through and bought the only room at the nail for a night. They were fancy types, their kids read thick paperback books with long, flowery titles. They had manners and class. They mentioned they were professors somewhere up north. One morning, just after sunrise,

they were sitting down and eating breakfast when Charlene comes in. They look up and go pale. The man, the father, started shaking, honest to God. They stood up, grabbed their kids so hard by the wrist that they burst into tears. They left in such a rush that they didn't even take their seat. stuff from their rooms just drove right off. So Charlene sits down and drinks all their coffee, and then she eats their eggs, bacon, toast and hash browns one by one. She stood up to sit in the next seed after she was done with each meal, ate enough for a whole family. She was waiting for me

as I entered Itchmouth Library. She sat behind a pale, white desk. A single metal fan tried to fight the heat coming through the windows. The floor was dusty, and the desk covered in papers and books. In the corner of it was an ashtray with a mound of hardened gum sitting in it. Charlene chewed, and it looked at me. Her eyes were blue and vacant. Um, uh, historical records. I said, I'm here to look for historical records, maps, uh, genealogies, that sort of thing. Charlene watched me for a while, chewing. It was a sticky sound that almost echoed in the silence.

The fan barely moved as it creaked. My shirt stuck to my chest, and I could feel sweat trickled down my back. I realized I hadn't brushed my teeth. My tongue felt a little swollen. Charlene typed something into the computer, and there was yet another warring. She didn't look away from the monitor, just held up one hand and pointed down some shelves. That was as good as I was going to get, I suppose. Now, the only thing more boring than searching through historical records in a public library

is hearing about it, so I will save you that agony. You can just imagine me searching through endless sheets of photocopies and leather-bound files, sweat pouring down my brow and fingers enough to blot out the ink. It took a few hours before I found anything interesting. And through it all, I started to understand how much influence Alfred Dumont really had. Look through every interesting fact about the town. or ownership deed or controversial decision. If you dug deep enough, you'd find the initials A.J.D., Alfred J. Dumont.

His name, sometimes signed in his cursive writing, was hidden everywhere, like something trapped under the floorboards. He had a hand in everything. Hell, if a tree fell in itchmouth woods, you can bet Alfred J. Dumont. The client was there to hear it. The closest thing to a clue, or anything like it, was a planning record for a strip mall. It had almost gone through, according to the council records, but it had been stopped by something. The word was smudged, so I moved on. I tried to find some real hard evidence like a good cop.

At first, I thought the fact our town had no maps was no big deal, like it wasn't. enough for Google or whoever to care about. And it wasn't important enough to correct the error. Nobody minded. It was so small it was impossible to get lost. And hey, who needed those big city tech companies poking their eye here in the first place? But the more I searched for a map, the more I realized how strange it was. You see, it seemed there actually had been attempts to map it Which, several in fact. A few attempts were blocked by Alfred Dumont. If you read between the lines, Dumont used bribes or threats or cash donations to charities.

The few times it was done, it seemed the attempt went completely mad. By comparing notes and the records with some Google searches, I was able to figure out the bulk of the stories. All attempts at mapping Itchmouth resulted in the cartographers going insane. They drew spirals on the walls of their homes, carved them into their skin. And in one case, there was a double suicide. There was a promising young geologist who'd taken it upon herself to map the area. She apparently found a really interesting vein of some special rock.

Her husband, who was also a geologist, came with her. They were found in a car parked by the edge of Lake Bain in the 60s. It looked as if there had been no struggle. From the time of death written in their records, it seemed as if the husband shot himself first. Then the young woman had held the gun in her lap for half an hour or so, with her husband's body next to her. The cold stink of death filled the car, before pulling the trigger on herself.

The map in the backseat had been so covered with ink, it was completely black. The bloodstains didn't even show up on the map, apparently. Even though they should have coated it. Every piece of paper in the car was covered in ink. The only thing that could be considered a map was the shapes they'd drawn. into the mud at the shore of Lake Bain. No photos of these shapes remain. It was, of course, the Dumont family who managed to get this double suicide taken out of

itchmeth's jurisdiction. They made sure that no one here ever heard of it. Or at least, that no one remembered. Reading through all this, it gave me the strangest feeling. It was like I wasn't really where I was. I know that doesn't make sense, but that's the only way I can describe it. Like where my mind thought I was located was wrong. My body felt like it was in two places at once.

I felt like I was flickering between one place and another, like the candle and the wind. I could hear the fan buzz in the distance. was a growing sense that someone was looking at me. I half expected to see a face looking at me through the shelves whenever I took a book down. My mind went back to those incomplete faces. I imagined the horror of trying to speak, but not being able to. All of this drifted through my head on that unbearably hot morning. But still I found nothing. Not one map of of Itchmouth. I found a couple of leads that seemed worth investigating, though. The plans for the lighthouse had passed through various levels of government bureaucracy. I thought that

might include at least a small map of the surrounding area. I was never much of a scientist, but I figured that Bell's Creek had to be close to the lake. A shallow stream or something ran into it. I stood up and took a deep breath, and then I made my way over to the light library desk. For some reason, that walk had me feeling the loneliest I'd ever felt in my life. It hits you like that sometimes. Grief takes different shapes. I felt hollow, scooped out, but also more than ever before in my life, so deeply alone. Insignificant, I guess you could call it. I thought of June turning her back to me, the curl of her lip, how I bet Rick couldn't wait to have me leave.

I felt all this rising in me as I turned the corner to see the desk chair empty. Now I can't explain why I thought this or why I still do, so you're going to have to bear with me. But I felt those two things were connected. This deep rising loneliness and the fact that it felt like Charlene had been on that chair just a moment ago. Hell, the chair was even moving slightly, as if she just stood up a second ago. It took me longer than I'd like to admit, but eventually I called her name.

Nothing. I put my hands on the desk and leaned over. Empty. The light coming through the large, dirty windows took on a gray, heavy slant. It almost looked like smoke. I became aware of every noise in the building, and for a moment, I thought I heard something behind me. Then silence again. There was a flicker in the window. I guess it could just be a cloud passing over the sun. I slowly walked to the other side of the library. Commercial fiction, history, the classics, you know, standard stuff. Rows and rows of paperbacks, hard backs, each row between shelves empty.

My heart was going hard, like really hard. I could feel it beat against my ribs. The room seemed darker. The lights above worn on. Everything sat under a dull shadow. The white ceiling tiles were strained with mold at the corners, dust coated each shelf, and the old posters on the wall. And then I heard a click, followed by a low, rhythmic groaning. As I turned to see if it was Charlene behind the desk, there was a fluttering behind me.

I almost tripped, and then I moved towards, towards the fluttering. I ran down the aisles, and then I came to a sudden stop because I couldn't see the wall on the other side of the library. Instead, there were endless rows of books, continuing almost forever. There were aisles and aisles and aisles like some demented maze. And it was then that I realized that it wasn't the fan that was making that noise. The low rhythmic groaning was coming from a throat, a dry, rasping throat. Every now and again, the groaning was broken by a brief, sticky sound, like someone chewing gum. And behind me, where the library once was, were more aisles.

I was trapped. The rasping grew closer. I could hear its saliva as it coated and chewed through gum. But the mouth seemed so large and so close. I wish I could say that I was brave then, that I made a rational, informed decision. But the truth is, I did nothing of the sort. I ran and I went around random corners, and I kept hearing that groaning behind me. I heard books being knocked off shelves, and I saw between the empty spaces where the books

were faces that had no eyes or no mouths watching me or trying to watch. And I knew if I looked up, I would see a city with spires and towers, and I knew then that I was inside one of the towers. Suddenly, I slammed into the wall at the back of the library. And then everything was as it should be. I was in a normal, quiet library room. Every book was in its place behind me. I was on my ass gulping for air and panning. As I laughed, I tried to convince myself that I'd just fallen asleep, that the rasping had been my own breath in that stuffy heat, dehydrated by three coffees. But I knew that deep down, that wasn't the case. When I passed Charlene's desk, I could see a single wad of used

chewing gum stuck to a sign that read, out for lunch. I watched a single thin strand of saliva drop from the desk to the floor. And like that, I was out of there. I don't want you to think that my trip to the library was completely useless, though. I did find one thing of interest. I found a contact by the name of Jay Colmer, or rather, Jay Colmer Jr. His father tried to write a biography about Alfred Dumont, but he had disappeared since then. His son, though, had a LinkedIn page and a Facebook. Seemed like a nice guy. There were pictures from a barbecue with his family, a Cleveland Brown's jersey, a post about a lost dog, with pictures of his kids seeming real torn about it, you know, that type of thing.

When I got home, I showered, and then I sent a couple messages. I was vague to start. I said I was a PI, and then I was looking into a couple of unsolved homicides that it could be a occurred when Jay Colmer Sr. was still kicking about itch. I asked that if he had five minutes, it would be great to chat, and then it would be quick and to the point. He responded quickly. Itch? His message said.

I paused. I stood and got myself a glass of water from the tap, and then sat back down. I responded back. Yeah. Or itchmuth. Jay spent a while typing. I don't know what you're talking about, his message finally said. Itchmouth, Ohio, I typed.

Nothing on Google. I'd rather you stop trying to make contact, he replied. Ah, damn, of course. I chewed my loop for a while. If I left it like this, he'd go cold. He'd chalked me up with some madman or something of the sort. He was at this point my only lead, the only thing I had that connected me to Alfred Dumont. I thought about giving up then.

I really did. It would be so easy. Close my laptop, take a walk, get drunk. But something in the eyes of those Salado girls came back to me. Something about them. I sent one last message. Do you know an Alford, J. Dumont? My phone buzzed almost instantly.

The number I'd left in my message, I guessed. Jay Colmer's voice was frantic. You don't call me again, okay? You don't ever reach out to me or my family anywhere ever again. You don't email me, you don't message, okay? It's enough for Dad to be like this, you know? Those drawings in the dirt and fingerprints on his skin and even at the end, sitting bolt upright in the hospital saying he can see some great light through the window, that he can hear something

like waves. I'm done with it. I have a family to look after, and I can't. do it again, you know, faces in the shallows and bells. He took a deep breath. I could hear another voice in the distance, which he reassured that everything was all okay. I'm black in this number. He ended.

And with that, he hung up. Now if I'm honest, that call shook me more than anything. It was confirmation that this was really. in a way, that I hadn't just been collucinating. It was the first sign that something was going on, something that went way beyond what I knew about itch. And I wanted to know more. I made myself another coffee.

As it brewed, I let my mind wonder. I thought about why I was here in the first place. We moved itch just a week after Lucy was born. And we were trying to build a family. We came across it one day. Word of mouth, I think, at a party. We were talking about how stressed we were at the idea of becoming new parents, how the edge of every surface seemed like a death trap.

And the couple we were talking to recommended this place. They said, why don't you move to Itchmouth? Lovely little town. I remember their clothes more than anything. Their faces were a blur. They wore loose gray suits, real nice ones. They were good people, or so we thought. They gave us a few phone numbers, people to talk to.

And even though she was eight months pregnant at the time, Lucy's mother took charge. Before we knew it, we were moving to itch after just one visit. We were happy here for a while. We moved maybe 20 years ago. Lucy died after only 13 years here. She was just a kid. We watched her body break down when she should have been out there running and jumping and climbing. Her life became just a collection of diagrams and x-rays.

Suddenly it no longer belonged to her, you know. It was taken from her. Her body became a thing to talk about over appointments. It turned into a bunch of pixels in graphs. I get lost in these kind of thoughts from time to time. I'd zone out, then come back ten minutes later. And it was as if I was coming out of it when I realized I'd almost brushed past the solution. There was one map of itch.

I don't know how it hadn't been destroyed like the others, but it was there. And it was close, too, though getting a look at it would be hard. That would take a little more courage. It had been staring me in the face, almost literally, the entire time. The tattoo on June's back, strange, almost spiral-like, made of dots and lines. It wasn't an abstract piece of art at all. It was a map. Now can you believe that June wasn't happy to see me?

As I walked up to her shack, the sound of the woods was all around me. There were cicadas, creatures crying out from the bushes, and birds calling to one another. A large insect bumped into my shoulder, then flew off. I could smell wood smoke. incense, and the rot coming from the stagnant water. And in a rocking chair was June as she drew in a leather-bound sketchbook. She looked up at me and frowned. Dennis?

June. She gave a fake smile that exposed her uneven teeth. And for a moment, I saw her tongue flicker. It was forked. Some places do that in big cities I'd heard. I'd seen it on a documentary once. I need to talk to you, I said. She put the book on the window sill and stood up.

Slowly, she walked over to the edge of the porch and leaned against a wooden pillar. She scratched at her exposed stomach and adjusted her cut-off t-shirt. Yeah. I replied, it's important. So talk, she said, taking a half-finished smoke from an ashtray and lighting it. Uh, maybe inside, I said. For some reason I felt exposed out here, as if the world could see me, as if there were things watching us. For a second, I could hear the sound of a city. Out here works just fine.

June said. She rubbed at her jaw with blue fingers and chewed on a nail. I put my hands on my hips. We couldn't be more different, me and June. There it was. Shirt tucked in, hair crew cut, sensible as can be. And there she was, a long beige skirt that looked handmade, a short cut-off t-shirt covered with holes, and every square inch of skin marked in some way. And I think it was that, you know, that feeling of complete and utter distance between us that prompted me to say it, June. I'm scared.

She looked at me for a while, pulled on the sig, and put it out by pinching it between two fingers. Inside, she said. But as she did so, she reached into the eaves of her. her porch and pulled down a bundle of sage. She lit the herbs and waved it above the doorframe. I stood a while, hypnotized, watching until she was done. And maybe this is my memory playing tricks on me. But I could have sworn that there was already a coffee on the table waiting for me, Black and steaming hot, as if she'd expected this.

The inside of her shack was just like the outside, really. Just as mad and impossible to understand. It was filled with taxidermy animals, candles, and incense burning in ceramic mugs. There were skeletons of rodents, trinkets, three ceramic pots filled with ashes, and all kinds of gems and rocks, sheets of paper, covered in strange ruins, were stuck to every surface. A dagger hung above the fireplace. Large leather books covered the floor and propped up dozens of flickering lamps. June raised an eyebrow.

You know, she said, you look any longer and I'll have to charge. I shook my head and took a deep sip of coffee. It burnt my mouth, but concentrating on that sensation made it easier to speak what was on my mind. How long have you lived here? I asked. She laughed and looked at the backs of her hands. You're scared of what, Dennis? Now I'll admit, I might have thought she was the strangest, rudest person on earth yesterday.

But now, it felt like a relief. I felt like if anyone was to believe me, it'd be her. I felt safe here, even for just a moment. And so I told her everything. I left out the bits about Lucy and about my drinking habits, but most of the story. And she listened quietly. Occasionally, she refilled her tea from the kettle over the fire, or to fiddle with the trinket. When she did turn her back, she'd nod, and I'd watch the muscles on her neck flex,

as if to tell me she was still listening. There was a pause after the story, and she smiled. I smiled back, and she began to laugh. This deep, hollering laughter, nothing feminine about it. Rich and crackling and alive. She smacked the table with her right hand, making her tea spill. Go on then, she said. Ask. So I found no maps. Right, she said.

And I think, I mean, actually, I could have a tiny idea. you know where one might be. She stood up and lit a stick of incense. Turning around, she raised an eyebrow again. The gesture was beginning to become familiar. And where would that be, Dennis? she said. Maybe four coffees in a day is too much, you know. The caffeine goes to your head. Makes you all jittery. Which would probably explain why at that time, My heart was hammering in my chest. Your back, I said, looking at the table.

That tattoo on your back. Ah, there we are, she said. So, would you mind if I... Yeah, she said flatly. I paused. Uh, sorry, June. Yeah, as in... Yeah, you do.

mind or yeah as in yeah i can yes she said as in i do mind as in i'd like you to leave i told you dennis i told you to stay away and you didn't listen so here it is again stand up and leave and don't come back here okay things were fine yeah things were good Good. There was a pause. I looked at her, and she seemed entirely serious. The light inside seemed to dim. Shadows fluttered at the corners of the room. A breeze made the old wood creek. I sighed. Perhaps I'd come to the wrong place. I trusted old June in her shack in the woods. Better men than me had tried, I supposed. Half in shock. I stumbled out the door and into the daylight. I found the trail and began to walk. I didn't argue.

I bothered that woman enough. As I began to think about where else I might turn, or if I should call Jay Colmer again, she shouted something after me. Why did you pull the lever? She said. I turned back around. She was leaning against the point. porch. I blinked. She lit another smoke and spoke with one eye closed. If it wasn't June's

smoking, I'd have thought she'd have passed out by now. At the top of the lighthouse, why did you pull the lever? Haven't you heard what the kids say about it? Not heard about the rumors? Those old wives' tales didn't scare you, Dennis. Her tone was. Her tone was. was mocking now. Big, strong man like you. Perhaps you ignored them, wanted to prove how much of a man you are. I just shrugged. Yeah, I said. I've heard the stories. And I have my reasons. I started walking again. She shouted this time. Your little girl, is it? And at that I started, I started, The world seemed to shrink to a point. I marched right up to her, and I spoke louder than I'd care to admit.

I was almost shouting. I said that she'd do well to keep my girl out of her mouth, that the last thing I needed was some half-drunk, cheap Instagram witch with an inflated sense of ego to talk about something that really meant something. She cocked her head and I stopped. She was smiling. There was a wooden chair on the porch next to the rocking chair. She sat down the wrong way, so her chest was pressed against the back.

Her back was now exposed to me. She reached up and peeled off her t-shirt, showing off the whole tattoo. Smoke wafted over her head. Ashes from her sig fell on the floor by the top. her feet. She didn't look around when she spoke. Hey, she said. One rule. No pictures. Understand. It was only after searching her tattoo for five minutes that I realized the obvious. Why don't you just know where Bell's Creek is? I asked. She shrugged. The movement made the roads on her back.

stretch, hills grew and shrank. It wasn't my idea, she said, or my design. You take what's given to you, for the family. And that was all she said on that topic. I spent so long examining the map. It was dense, almost symbolic. What looked like swirls and strange blots were actually roads, shorelines, and hills, and they were moving. Not so much you would notice straight off,

but after staring for a while, they began to shift, like ink spilled on the surface of a puddle. Outside it was hot. In the distance, insects fluttered, chirped. I was aware of the sweat on June's back, the gentle ripple of her muscles. slight swell of her shoulders. A strand of hair came loose and stuck itself to her neck. You take what's given to you? I said, trying to act casual. She ignored me. There was something beyond what she'd said, I was sure of it, a sense that I was just uncovering the very tip of a world that went very, very deep indeed. You found it, Dennis? And I had, as I had suspected, it led right to Lake Bain.

Bell's Creek, a thin, winding creek that came from the hills up north. It was hard to find, though. The map seemed to show two landscapes at once superimposed over one another. There was itch as I knew it, and then a second map. A second place which shared so many features with itch, the lakes, the hills, the woods, but it was also different in other ways. I couldn't explain it then, and I can't explain it now. The closest I've come to it is that it was like those red and blue 3D glasses.

You know the ones? Lucy used to love those movies, but the red and blue showed different images sometimes. an optical illusion. And this was a bit like that. But instead of moving your eyes from the red plastic to the blue, it was just by thinking that things moved on June's back. No pictures? I asked. No, and don't ask again.

I was very clear on that. I sighed. I don't know how I'll find it. Not without this. without you. You want me to come with you, she asked. I paused. I didn't know if I did, truthfully.

She'd already pissed me off twice today, and she had a habit of really run in a mouth. The idea of spending longer with her sounded a little like torture, but also, she seemed to believe, didn't think any of this was strange, didn't question that I'd help the Salado girls. I don't know if she'd picked up on that,

but part of me was beginning to think that this was somehow connected to Lucy. Not in that, it resulted in her passing or anything, but just that what I found might help me. You know, you can just ask, Dennis. I lit a cigarette. Took a puff or two. Damn.

Okay. She laughed. That horse-thrody sound again. Doesn't sound much like asking, she said. Will you come with me to Bell's Creek? Please. I said. I couldn't resist throwing in a little sarcasm.

She slipped on her t-shirt. Okay, give me five. And like that, we were a team, or at least as much of a team as you can be when your partner is June, when your partner is a half-drunk mud witch with a mean streak. But hey, beggars can't be choosers. And for some reason, I didn't like going to Bell's Creek alone. She spent 15 minutes or so packing a bag. Herbs, bundles of dried twigs, an unlit candle, two aluminum bottles of water, a couple of glass lanterns, bordered in black iron, the skull of a mouse, three sticks of white chalk in a leather pouch.

All the while I waited outside, occasionally looking through the doorframe. And finally we were ready, except her plan didn't resemble mine. in the slightest. We can walk it, I said. Take the slow route round the shore, or, you know, I was thinking, grab a boat and head directly across. She shook her head and started walking. Her bag clinked as she moved.

She spoke with a hair clip between her teeth as she reached to tie up her hair. We're going to the lighthouse, she mumbled. The lighthouse. Yeah, that's what I said, isn't it? I was silent, until we got to the little wooden dock. And from there, we do what? I asked. Bell's Creek, she said, is only accessible from the lighthouse. Look, if you want my help, and trust me, you do.

You have to trust me on this. Do what I say, when I say it. And this should go fine. There was a conviction in her words I hadn't heard before. An authority she previously lacked. This place was hers, I guess. We didn't talk much in the boat. I took the oars, and she spent a little while cross-referencing between two leather-bound books.

Occasionally, she'd take a pen and mark one before checking the marking on the other. She hummed to herself. It was a sad, broken tune that seemed to keep rhythm with my rowing. Odd and kind of beautiful. Soon we were at the lighthouse. On entering, she kicked aside some trash and pulled open a small hidden hatch in the floor. She hadn't unlocked it exactly. Instead, I saw her hand pass through it, and I heard.

heard a tiny click. Maybe I imagined it. She sat there, her legs dangling into the hatch. She took out two unlit candles from her bag. They were pale white with black markings covered by the wax. And then she took a cardboard pack of matches from her bag as she muttered something under her breath. She lit one, and the flame burned white for a moment, before turning into the familiar, orange, red, and yellow. It flickered. She held her thumb above it until there was a brief singing sound. She hissed, sucking air through her teeth in pain, and put her thumb in her mouth. And then she lit each candle, and I watched as the wax near the tip blistered as if burnt. Keep a hold of that, she said, placing each candle.

candle into a small lantern. She handed me one. Whatever happens, she said. Do not let it gutter. Do not let it die. Why can't we just go across the lake? I asked. Wait here, she replied. Once I'm back, I'll head down first. You wait until I've reached the bottom before going down the hatch. Where are you going? I asked. But she was already gone, making her way up to the top of the lighthouse. I could follow the sound of her footsteps on the stairs, circling around above me. The echoes moved like the hand of a clock, growing fainter and fainter, getting further and further away, until they stopped altogether.

I was alone. And as if to confirm that fact, A slight breeze pressed against me and a lantern in my hand, as if something somewhere was trying to blow it out. There was a mechanical shutter above me, and then I heard the hoarse wailing sound of the lighthouse turning on. I saw the unbroken beam of light sweeping across the shore of Lake Bain. The sound was choked and desperate. I could almost see whatever great throat was making it. Suddenly, the lighthouse didn't look like a lighthouse anymore.

It was something endless, continuing forever into the sky and the earth. It was connecting them as the water of Lake Bain crashed against it. There were steps going down and steps going up. I could hear footsteps on both moving towards the center, towards me. I came to at the sound of my voice being shouted, and June holding her hands out. Slow, she said. Very slow, Dennis. I looked around me. One of my arms was outstretched, and I was holding the lantern above the hole in the floor. The little door at the front of the lantern, was hanging open, and behind me were footsteps slowly fading away.

They left shallow impressions in the grime on the floor. I pulled the lantern back to me and closed its door. June frowned. We don't have long, she said. Move aside. It took a good couple of minutes before I heard her shout up from the bottom of the ladder. The climb down was longer than I expected. At the bottom was a narrow passageway.

The walls were coated in thick clumps of algae, which dripped a milky fluid. I fastened the lantern to my belt, and I could see the algae glittering in the light. It was cold, too. And beyond that, what sounded like the rattling of a distant train. Once we were at the bottom, I saw that we were at a crossroads. Four tunnels led away in four directions. North, south, east-west. She marked the crossroads with a symbol and chalk, and then made her way down one of the tunnels.

I followed a few steps behind. There was a shallow stream of water beneath our feet, rising just an inch. It trickled but made no sound. The only source of light was the flickering candles we carried with us. The walls were mostly bare, except for the strange way the algae grew down here. It seemed to grow in a single line. They formed a spiral going around the circular tunnels. The algae grew as if we were walking through a lighthouse laid on its side,

and the algae was following where the stairs would be. Every so often June would stop and mark the walls with chalk, or if there was a noise like a shuffling in the distance, she would stop and reach into her bag. She would hold on to something in there without taking it out. We'd stand like that, frozen and silent, until she'd exhale and shake her head. Then we'd continue to move, and she'd release her grip on whatever it was that she held so tight in her bag. The further we went, the more those noises disturbed me.

They echoed in the space and began to fill it entirely. It mostly sounded as if a brick had fallen under the stone floor, but I started to believe that there was something else. For some reason, the image of a bat came to mind, not precisely the bat itself, but how it hunted. a form of echo location. And I could see myself then as a blurry figure. I thought of myself as a fly absorbing the sound

each time it was made. And the more we moved, the more we were letting whatever made it get closer to finding us. June seemed to pick up on this and began to talk in a low voice. I expect you want to know a little something about Alfred doing.

Mont and the shallows. I could barely hear her. The words echoed and bounced around the tunnels like bugs. Sure, I said. It was growing colder. The spiral the algae made was growing tighter. The coils grew closer together. And occasionally, if I stopped to look at it, I could see the tiny spores moving, as if

tasting the air and the warmth of our bodies. Alfred never talked about what he saw in the war. That's the first thing you should know, she began. He left Uniontown, Pennsylvania as one man, and came back as another. Clara, his twin sister, thought that all that time so close to death had loosened the barrier for him somewhat. The veil had come loose. What people won't tell you, though, is that Clara mentioned all that before Alfred had even

returned. She just said she felt it one summer evening. She just knew something happened to him. Much like Alfred knew that Clara was sick, he realized it while he was still overseas. He knew before he even entered her room the same day he returned, before he even smelt the the pale, milky sweat that came from her brow and the low, shallow breaths that smelled like death. He was still in his uniform, you know.

He could have had a hero's welcome, but instead he marched straight up those stairs and into her rum. At that time, she'd stopped responding to anything. Whatever it was she caught had reached her brain, probably. Her eyes were wide open, and she was drew. grueling from her mouth. Something like mold was growing from the floor. It was made of tiny black stems. He sat with her seven days and seven nights until she passed. On the last night, a few folk in Uniontown report hearing a conversation from her open window, saw the flickering light

of a candle. And two voices, a man and a woman. laughing, talking with such fondness, it seemed they'd known each other their whole lives. And in that light, a few people saw other figures in that rump. So the story goes. Men and women in suits, dancing, telling stories. There were yellow clouds and the sounds of a river, the grinding sound of rusty hinges. A little boy even claims that he saw a gorgeous young woman lean over the window cell. She called to him in a language he didn't know until he turned and ran, her voice following him all the way home. Whatever the case, Clara Dumont was dead by morning, and Alfred was gone. The only sign he'd

ever been there was a single candle burning by her bedside. The next five years of his life, aren't on any record. We have a couple of sightings of a man that fits his description, robbing libraries on the East Coast, but for the most part, he's off the record. Off the map. When Alfred does turn up again, it's with tens of thousands of dollars. He showed up at a housing development on the Lower East Side. With a bit of foresight and a lot of luck, he managed to grow a full a fortune. Still, his business partners report he's a strange man. Charismatic but quiet, smart, efficient, but not cutthroat, kind even. He works at food kitchens on Christmas. He feeds stray dogs. And no matter where he sleeps, he makes sure to light a candle by his bed. He'd stare into the light

to the light until he falls asleep. June stopped in her tracks. She turned around with a scowl on her face. The changing light of her lantern cast strange shadows. They made her eyes dark pools. That wasn't funny, she said. I shrugged and I looked at my feet. I know what that's like, I said.

And I did know. If anything, the idea of Alford's spending days at Clara's bedside, it brought me back. Let's just say I'd spend some time doing much the same with Lucy. But you laughed, she said. I heard you. That dumb, slow laugh. All weasy. I shook my head.

It wasn't me. Huh, June said, reaching into her bag. She immediately marked the wall with chalk, then checked her lantern. Then we need to move faster. As if it could hear us, whatever had been following us began to speed up. There were two sets of noises now. Two sets of controlled, distinct knocking. They sounded like large, boning.

knuckles pounding against the tunnel wall. The sound would echo, bouncing off the slick stone before fading away. And somewhere along that line it would find us. You could almost feel the sound pass through you. And then there would be a few moments of silence. That's when me and June would try and move as quietly as possible before the next knocking sound. But then the sound would come from a different direction, as if two creatures were trying to find each other. We were moving as fast as we could without making noise, and as we did so, the knocking grew more frequent. The spaces between the sounds shrank. All around us, the stone glistened in dim orange light. The sound of our breath echoed. Our feet splashed softly in the water that ran through the tunnels.

And then, slowly coming into earshot was a familiar sound. It was a quiet human voice saying, Oh, the kind of sound you might hear an elderly person say when they found their glasses. But it was hollow somehow. Like whatever it was that was making the noise was using it just as a disguise, a hiding place. And then the little O's started to grow more frequent with the knocking. There were more than two things making the knocking sound now.

Soon, there were dozens of them. Small noises scattered all over the tunnels. The knocking grew louder and closer until it was a constant stream of noise. The spaces between were almost non-exam. existent. Two separate creatures were knocking against the walls all the time now. They were communicating in some strange, frantic morse code. I could tell June was scared, even when I was looking down and saying nothing. Oh. And then a ladder came into view. June almost ran to it. She grabbed one of the rungs covered in rust as soon as she was within reach.

She heaved herself up, turning back only to say to me, Just look up, Dennis, follow the souls of my shoes. With that, she was off. I followed, but the knocking was almost unbearably loud now. It reminded me less of a mindless creature now, and more like some giant, insolves, sect toddler, throwing some kind of tantrum. I didn't look back for long, but I saw enough when I did. Out of the darkness, I saw one long, pale limb reaching across the mouth of the tunnel not far from me. It was impossibly long, an arm that went on for meters and meters,

dragging itself down the tunnel. I didn't see the end, whether it ended with a face or a body or what, but I got the sense that it was pulling something along the floor, something old and bored and hungry. The muscles in my shoulder burnt. My mouth was dry. But just like that, I was tasting air again and rolling onto my back. We were out of the tunnels. Above us was a sky I didn't recognize.

Covered in strange yellow clouds. We sat for a long time to gather our breath. Our backs rested against a black tree that had fallen over a long time ago. Well, okay. Maybe gathering our breath isn't quite accurate. I sucked down a couple of smokes and chewed my nails. There might have been a brief period when I just left. laid on my back, coughing and gasping for air. I mean, look, if you'd seen what I'd seen,

then you'd understand I'm sure you'd cut me some slack at the very least. All around me, the world was distorted in a way I've never seen. The earth was set at some impossible angle to the sky. The clouds were a deep, rotten, yellow. And where the woods used to be, were these towering black skyscrapers. They were all in various states of disrepair. Some were almost leaning to one side, and looking like they might collapse at any moment. There were missing windows and girders hanging loose. Between them were muddy paths. Rotting planks of wood went over shiny petals with surfaces that looked thick and rubbery. We sat on the shore and saw that the lighthouse was still there, surrounded by the same lake. Except the water here

was metallic, or at least it looked that way. It looked as if it was covered in a layer of oil. Fluorescent chemical rainbows shone on the surface, and between the dead branches were dying birds and rusting sheets of metal. Between those were little channels between rotting islands, where rowboats filled with short figures and yellow robes and masks used long sticks to search through the debris. These figures ignored us. They chatted amongst themselves, which sounded a little like dying birds or huge cicadas. June turned to May. I assume you want to know what this is. Where we are. It wasn't a question. I looked around again. I tried to speak, opened my mouth, and nothing came out. No question

it could completely contain everything I felt at that moment. No question could wrap itself around the fear inside me. June spoke again. Well, no rest for the wicked. I paused and looked at her, studied her face. That large, broken nose, the flat, observant eyes. I spoke quietly, as if what I said could somehow make it real, realer than it was at least. Is this hell? I asked. She laughed at that, the way you might laugh at a child mispronouncing a complicated word. No, she said. Not hell, almost like it maybe. It's the collection of the worst of us. We all spend time here, I think, during and afterlife. It's just a matter of whether

we get out. And do we get out? I asked. As I said that, June pulled me low under the black mud. A group of figures and suits moved past, chattering and clicking away. A few of them only had mouths, and one only had a nose. They moved as a pack. Thankfully, none of them had eyes, just skin where they should be. Flat and puckered and greasy skin. It was almost as if they were hunting as they fanned out in a strange V formation. But as I continued to watch, I realized it was less that they were predators and more like they were sticking together because they were scared.

I didn't know what to think exactly. I didn't want to think about it. June spoke as soon as they were gone from sight. Although, June continued, we're not really here, if that makes sense. Our bodies are at the bottom of the ladder in the lighthouse. Our mouths probably open and drooling, barely breathing. Okay, wait, what do you mean? I asked.

The longer we spend not moving, the thinner that link between us and our bodies. And so we began to move through the city. It was itchmeth, or a collection of the worst of itch, the fears, regrets, pains and nightmares of our town, all coming together and breeding, like an infection growing out of sight. Some bacteria, living in the wet, dark spaces of a wound. We moved from one alley to the next, sticking to the outskirts of the city. We were barely making a noise as our lanterns cast a dim halo of light. We went until we were clear of the buildings and started picking our way through the dead

black trees. Their bark was wrinkled, like skin left too long in a bath, I thought. and they leaked some pale milky fluid. They didn't move, exactly, but they seemed to occasionally tremble, like, I don't know, they were wriggling in their own skin. With fear, maybe, or with pleasure, I don't know. The trees grew thicker as we moved through them. They grew closer together.

Occasionally, we'd come across some strange piece of debris in the mud, an old-fashioned filing cabinet, for example. It will be stuck in the mud at some strange angle, with its drawers open, and filled with rotting pieces of paper. There were empty glass jars, some human teeth scattered around like seeds, with their roots exposed. Every now and again, I thought I'd see the faces of people I knew on those pieces of paper. In the distance, a fire burned on the rock. Rocky Mountains. It seemed to feed on stone and spat out thick, dark smoke that didn't rise to the sky. Instead, the smoke clung to the earth and descended down towards the ground

like tentacles. June saw me watching it. Everything is different here, she said. They call that pale fire. Fire that burns on stone. The smoke stinks and mood. like it has a mind of its own. I mean, you've heard of Willow Whisp, right? Shouldn't be too much of a surprise. If I'm honest, June, I said. I think I've lost my mind. I don't know. Maybe between the library and the city and the tunnels, I think I've lost it completely. I've gone crazy. I've actually, finally snapped. She threw her head back at that and laughed. The sound startled something wet and brown in the undergrowth. As she paused, I read the map on her back, and we carried on like this for a while.

She would stop every so often while I tried to see if I can find where we were. It took a while, but before long we got into a rhythm, like any other. It'll take us a while, June said. Distance doesn't work here in quite the same way. And so to fill the time, June continued the story of Alfred Dumont. So Alfred is a little easier to track once he has his fortune. When you have money like that, your name begins to appear on documents and financial records. And what we can tell is that he begins to show up at auction houses, not only in

the U.S., but all over the world, he starts buying artifacts from long-dead civilizations. Sometimes legally, and sometimes, well, let's just say he's familiar with several known fences and at least three of the most famous art thieves in history. Well, whatever, the point is clear. He's building a collection. It's not what kind, though, but he takes all the artifacts back home. No one but him ever sees them. The staff back home are told to avoid certain rooms.

They leave his meals at the door, and they use a complicated system of pulleys to make sure his clothes and sheets are washed without ever entering his room. He gets through his staff quickly, though. They often leave after only a few months. usually because of health problems. They'd develop early-unset cataracts. Burns appeared across their palms at night, and often they'd report seeing a bright, winking light

in the center of their vision that effectively blinds them. Some of them had gone mad from it. One of his maids Maude Elman takes out her own eyes with a serving spoon on Christmas morning, It said she threw them into the snow, where they steamed until she picked them up again, drop them in her pocket, and sat at the table waiting patiently for Christmas morning. Personally, I think it was around this time that Alfred discovered the first of the glass. Aztec, maybe, maybe Mayan.

It showed him the possibilities. And after that, while he was hooked, he started searching for that particular kind of ancient glass. It was thin, tough, cold to the touch. But he's not alone. Not much is known about the others who also search for it. They only find each other through mutual interests, all of them searching for the same glass. It eventually became known as Dumont's glass. Because it seems as if shining a light through

the glass illuminates an entirely new world. Somehow, light through this glass has the power to move from one world to another. Of course, these worlds are drastically different from ours. Space and time, they all move differently. But water, water's always the same. Bodies of water do not differ in size or location between the worlds. Now, Dennis, I'm not one to quote scripture, but... June turned around then, and we locked eyes. And the earth was without form and void.

And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved. upon the face of the waters. I raised an eyebrow. She spoke again. King James Bible. Genesis. I blinked.

Taking it you weren't one for church as a kid, Dennis. The fact is this. The water was there before the world was made, before heaven and earth, before light. The water has always been there. She continued walking. The trees were now growing thicker, dense even. They were bristling like hairs, and the sounds grew louder, more intense. Sounds of distant trains, strained creaking, and something hissing.

And so, Dennis? That's why they're called the shallows. The group they formed with Alfred as their leader. Because you can always find yourself, no matter how lost, no matter what world, in the shallow water. But Alfred, well, he had big plans. He's ambitious, brilliant, insane. He doesn't care who he hurts. His experiments cost lives.

He offered young men ridiculous sums of money to spend days staring through the glass. or to live in rooms surrounded by it. He made glasses for a Catholic priest who was found a day later at the bottom of a well with his pockets filled with stones. Eventually, Alfred comes up with the lighthouse, and where better to put it than a tiny nothing podunk town, Itchmouth, Ohio, using the light at the top shining through the the glass, he's able to see the world just next to ours, able to look for Clara all he wants, and the longer that light shines, the more transparent the barrier becomes, the easier

to go through. But the shallows, well, they have other ideas, eventually grew tired of Alfred and his obsession with Clara. The longer he finds nothing, the more he surged, and the more he surged. Well, what he didn't understand is that you have to be careful with these things, because it's not only you who's looking into this world, you see. This world is looking back. And with that, we came out to a clearing,

and there, sitting on a rusting file, cabinet with a rickety fishing rod was an old man. The rod was broken and stuck together with peeling duct tape. The man himself was in an old-fashioned threadbare suit. His hair white as a ghost, face gaunt, and hands bony and gnarled. He didn't look up. The line from his rod bobbed up and down in a stream that was flanked on both sides by filing cabinets. Papers spilled out from the cabinets and lined the shores. Behind them, the sky trembled. This was it.

Bell's Creek. Alfred? June said. There was no response. She took a step closer and spoke again. Hey, Grandpa. And then he looked up. Did you see Sophia around here?

Or Elena? June asked. Alfred frowned, and then scowled. His mouth twisted in a childish way, and then his face fell still. No maps, he said. Keep them away. Too much for them.

too much for us in the light in the light he pulled up an eel on the end of his rod it was glowing wriggling with a hinged mouth gulping at nothing and then taking it in one bony hand he put it into a jar filled with a thick fluid the eel tapped its nose against the glass and then With a practiced movement, Alfred kicked the filing cabinet, so a drawer opened, and he dropped the jar in. No maps, he said. Keep them away. All the world the map, and beneath it and the spaces between echo and listen, and echo and listen, and echo and listen. He slammed the drawer shut and threw his line back into the stream. "'Alfred,' June continued. "'We need to know where Sophia is.

If you've seen her here. If you've seen your granddaughter, Alfred.' I interrupted her. "'Ah, isn't that you?' I asked. She gave half a smile. It's a complicated family tree. Half sisters, though the Salado girls don't know, and I'd like to keep it that way. Shouldn't even be telling you, if I'm honest.

It was just like June to slip in an insult, even at a time like this. They wanted to sell it all, Elford said. The shallows wanted to sell it. charge the weak and weary and wanting to come and to see. To see those they'd lost and the dead and gone. The dead are supposed to stay gone and they wanted to sell it and sell it. And echo and listen, and echo and listen. And in the space between something grows and grows and drags itself forwards, end." He fell silent, blinked.

A sharp pink tongue wet his lips. He blinked again, and something like intelligence appeared behind his eyes. Something piercing. I could almost see the man he'd once been. You shouldn't be here, he said. In the shallows at Bell's Creek, can't last, can't last. What the light sees, the light splits and has split, and what the light shall make clean, the light shall bring together, end. He took a deep breath.

And, end. He shook his head as if he was coming out of a trance. Oh, right, right. Sophia, in the woods. She knows her name. They always know their name. Sophia in the woods, she knows, she knows, she knows, she knows, I know it knows, she knows, I know it knows, she knows, it knows, it knows, it knows. His hands were shaking even more now. His large, wet eyes looked sad. There was something about the frantic way he spoke, like he was spitting the words out, as if every word would burn his tongue if it stayed there too long.

I almost felt like I trusted him. And then, almost as if to prove me wrong, he reached up with his right hand. He grabbed a small rope attached to a bell on a black iron rod stuck in the ground. He began to pull it, ringing it so loud, June flinched. Alfred looked at us, and with the last of his sanity fading, he spoke again. Go! We moved quickly. There was a sense that the bell had been connected to something more.

The sky seemed closer. There was a sound like thunder, and a dim shadow passed over the earth. But we shouted Sophia's name. At this point, we had no choice. It felt like every minute here did something to us. To me, it made my skin paler, and my mind a little heavier, a little more warped. We shouted Sophia's name again. and again as we moved farther into this strange forest, and then as the trees grew closer together,

and the shadows started to move with a will of their own. I saw her. Standing amongst the trees, just for a moment, I saw her, frailer than I'd last seen her, thinner, eyes a little more sunken, But it was her. I was sure of it. It was Lucy. My Lucy. Without saying anything, I moved off into the forest. I heard June's voice calling behind me, but I ignored it.

The unreality of the situation. The yellow sky, the wet black trees, all seemed to collapse inwards. But I understood that there was only one. one truth to it all, one fundamental fact that lurked under the skin of things. And that was that my daughter was here. And if I could find her, hold her, then I could bring her back to the surface. She could be in my life again. I started to jog, and as if in response the figure I was following started to jog too.

She stayed at the very same distance, slipping between the trees like smoke. She would emerge every now and again to look back at me with hollow eyes, as if to check that I was still following. The trees grew thicker and taller. Soon, the sky was only visible as pockets of yellow. Fleshy, gray leaves cover the ground. My lantern made them glisten. I called her name over and over again until my voice was hoarse, kept calling it, until I was

raw and ragged. Eventually I stopped, put my hands on my knees, sucked in a few deep breaths. I looked around and I realized I'd lost June entirely. I was completely alone. And the trees, they were different, less straight, coiled. It was darker too, and then as if to keep me company, there was a sound. I thought it was my own voice at first, a quiet, confused. Oh.

I thought maybe I'd spoken into the cold air without meaning to, but my mouth was shut, and then it came again. Oh. And following it, a knocking sound in the distance. Like knuckles knocking against stone. Lucy turned and her head tilted slightly. The movement reminded me of the way a dog might cock their head at a strange new sound. Or, now that I think about it, the way Sophia had moved her head in the car that first night.

I realized then we weren't alone, and that all this time something had been following me. Something ancient and hungry and patient. Another noise, more knocking. But the knocking was growing a little faster, a little more frenzied. As I continued to push on, I could almost hear something moving behind me. a wet, slick sound brushing against the bark of the trees, and the oh sounds were coming from more than one mouth. Distorted slightly each time, sometimes higher or lower. They sounded pleading, confused, upset, but never loud. The voices never shouted or screamed. It was

instead at this quiet, intimate volume. Like someone whispering in your ear, like from a stranger on a crowded train, a secret. The knocks were coming more frequently now, and that sound, the sweeping, brittle sound. Each time it went through me, I felt like it was telling whatever it was that followed me, that it was getting closer. I moved faster as my lungs started to egg. My mouth was dry, my eyes blurring, almost there, getting closer, I thought. I was almost delirious now, filled with fear and hope. But I was moving beyond that.

I could see her. Lucy was just up ahead, looking at me. I wanted so badly to protect her. from whatever it was that was following us, I felt it almost burn within me. But behind me were more knocking sounds, like whatever it was had grown arms, more hands, I thought, and more mouths that it could say that sound over and over again. I'd never known what it was like to be hunted until that moment, and I realized then that every part of me was some clue that this thing was...

used to find me. I ran. I ran between the trees, and as I did, I saw scenes from our lives together, mine and Lucy's, brief images between the trees like projections, almost like they were drawn from my head and placed into the world around me. They were thin, almost like mist. They disappeared when I looked at them for too long, only visible as something in the corner of my eye. But there were moments I knew so well. When Lucy was born, with a cowlick stuck to her forehead, her first words said in a beam of sunlight at the end of our bed, the birthday party where she ate her cousin's slice

a cake, and they both started crying, blaming each other. skinning her knee and bleeding on the carpet on Thanksgiving, the dress she made from garbage bags, the pale yellow of the doctor's office when we found out about her illness. The diagram the doctor gave us that showed the dense black mass growing inside her. And the first word I said at her bedside, when the nurse took my hand and told me that she was gone. The word I said more to myself than anyone else, as if my body had become someone else's. A grief so complete, so numbing, that all I could manage was one word. Oh.

Lucy had stopped in a clearing. I caught up with her, and I picked her up saying her name over and over again. But she didn't respond. She was cold, almost weightless. Her eyes were dead and vacant. And there was this sense when I was holding her that every time I closed my eyes, she changed a little. I don't know how else to describe it.

I ran onward still holding her. My throat was raw, my legs were shaking, head pounding, and I ran until I heard June shouting my name. I followed her voice and came out into a clearing. June was holding the Salado girl in her arms. I was holding Lucy and mine. Mere images. Except Sophia, she looked a little more real somehow.

More alive. There was a weight to her that Lucy just didn't have the difference between a reflection and the image itself. Behind us, whatever it was that was following had slowed down, but it was still moving through the trees, knocking and repeating that one word. Oh. It was almost as if it was toying with us, like it was enjoying the final bit of the hunt, wearing us down as we grew tired.

And the whole time it kept growing and shifting and wanting. Noon was shaking her head. She spat on the floor and looked me in the eye. You can't bring her back across, Dennis. I didn't speak, although I think my face said at all. She doesn't have anything to return to, Dennis. Not like us. Not like Sophia.

She'd be like smoke. She'd be clinging to places she knew until she forgot. herself. She'll wander around nameless, unknown, June said. Leaving her just isn't an option, June. This isn't a question of making a decision. The decision's been made. I am bringing Lucy my daughter back across, and I'm going to have her back in my life. I am going to have my little girl back." The voice in the distance was growing louder, closer. It was moving from the whispered tone it had previously been to something more.

My voice was shaking. It seemed almost silent in comparison. June looked very sad. She was watching me with lidded eyes. She shook her head. She can't come back, Dennis. You know that. Where do you think we are?

Her body is gone, Dennis, like all things will one day. It's gone. The knocking on the trees grew louder and more rhythmic, less erratic. If anything, it sounded like a heartbeat, and the voice that came with it was beginning to sound more and more like my voice. You can say goodbye here, but the rest of us, whatever comes next for her, she has to do on her own. Part of her has already gone, okay? But whatever part of her is here now, Dennis, you can't help her.

I know you want to, but you can't help her once she's crossed that divide. she stepped through the veil. It drove Alfred mad, Dennis. It made him do such awful things. Once you're gone, once you're through, there's no coming back. I turned to June, angry. I was taking deep gulps of air. I could feel my hands shake, my arm shake, even though it wasn't the familiar warm weight of her. There was something like Lucy in my arms. And that was enough. Sophia is there in your arms. And you, you, what? You're trying to tell me that you can bring back your, your, your, half sister, your cousin, whatever. And I have to leave my daughter, my flesh and blood and... June cut me off then. Dennis.

Maria isn't dead. That's the difference. Lucy is. Lucy died. There was a pause and I said nothing. But still my voice echoed in the distance, moving through the trees. Coming from this thing loud and clear. Oh, the first words I had said after hearing Lucy had passed, after hearing that she died. The heartbeat hammering of the knocking was growing closer to. Whatever it was so close to us, so hungry and desperate, and it all made sense then. I think maybe it was how simply June put it.

The actual word died, maybe. People had spent so long jumping around it, had spent so long using euphemisms. and to hear it like that, I realized then what I had to do. I put Lucy back on her feet. I held her shoulders, though they weren't quite hers. Almost like smoke. I... I have to go, I said. The thing was almost on us now.

I so badly wanted to stay, so badly. I didn't know what to say. How could I sum up a whole life live together? How could I ever tell her everything I wanted to? But you'd be brave, okay? She was silent. Her face didn't even move. I know you can do that, Loose.

Like the lighthouse, the lever. And that's all you have to do. Be brave. And one day I'll be brave. here too, okay? One day, I'll be here too. Lucy's eyes widened at something over my shoulder. I heard a tree crack and a shadow covered the earth. And then I was off, running with June and not looking behind at whatever was coming from the trees. Tears filled my eyes. I felt like a coward, like a bad father, a bad dad.

And I knew somehow I'd failed. I'd broken something. And I could see in the corner of my eye, Lucy, or whatever part of her was here, running too. Off into the distance, into the trees, into the city under the city, running to whatever came next.

We were quiet as we made our preparations for the lighthouse. June hadn't just taken the Salado kid back. June had taken some pale fire, too, the pale fire we'd seen burning on the mountains. She'd found it while I was searching for Lucy. Only thing was, it couldn't last long here, not really. But it would burn for a few hours at least. And instead of wood, it fed on stone. It turned stone to nothing, to ash.

We set everything up inside the lighthouse. A pile of rubble and dust as kindling. Instead of sticks and twigs and sawdust, we used bricks and broken stones and shards from the worn steps. We threw in everything. And then standing outside the lighthouse. we threw in the pale fire and watched as it burned, watched as the fire spread from the kinling to the steps. It fed on the stone, eating the entire lighthouse. Bit by bit, the smoke

streamed downwards. There were tendrils of it, thick and black crawling across the surface of the water, like Alfred Dumont's snakes, had come alive. And then the lighthouse was burning brightly against the night sky. It was encased in flames that glittered in the air. It was loud and sucking in the world around it, orange and red and yellow, reaching upwards, like a tongue or a hand towards the sky. Taking the lighthouse apart piece by piece until it collapsed in warrants, like the city under itch we had left behind, it was gone. There was, of course, one thing that survived the fire. A single palm-sized piece of Dumont's glass.

It's too much, really, for any one person to handle. We've seen what having it can do, what having a wind to that other place does to you. That being said, for a few years after, on the anniversary of our trip to that city, me and June would take the boat out. We'd row to where the lighthouse used to stand. In the dead of night, we'd sit around a small campfire and drink and smoke and tell the stories of the people we loved. who were long gone. And when the night was at its darkest, and the fire had died, we'd slide the glass

over the end of the flashlight, and turn it on. We'd do one long sweep along the shores of Lake Bain. That city, those towering spires, those strange, featureless people. It felt so close, just touching our world, like a stranger brushing past you on the bus. And when it came to a stop at Bell's Creek, I would see her waiting there. Lucy, sitting on a rock, staring back at me. And I try to say it with my eyes, you know, I'm coming, kid. I'm almost there. Once or twice, she even waved. The other times she was motionless, preoccupied with something. But I'd like to think she saw me, even if it was just for a flash, just for a moment. But the reason I'm telling you all this really is because last month, me and June headed

out there, you know, as we do. And when the light came to a stop at Bell's Creek, Lucy wasn't there. She was gone. She'd moved on. And I don't know where or how or what it might look like. But I think that's okay. I could only help her get to the edge of that place. And as much as I might have wanted to, I couldn't cross over into it with her. She had to do that on her own. And that's how it is, and always has been and always will be. We cross that border on our own, and we can only hope our lives are full enough that once we're through, we can find our way. I see June every day. We take walks along the shore. She's helping me quit smoking, though she's not doing a great job.

We both find that kind of funny. She's teaching me how to build boats, too. People are drawn to itch if they're broken. It tries to fix them. Sometimes that works. Sometimes that doesn't. I don't know if itch always has good intentions, if the city under the city is a good or bad thing. I just know it's there,

that there are people who would do anything for it and people who would do anything to keep it a secret. But I'm done with it now. I've moved on. It's a problem for someone else. No part of me wants to return. Well, maybe one small part does, but I ignore it. I push it down.

It's all I can do. June's taking the Salado girls under her wing. Hasn't told them she's their half-sister, but I think they know. They look up to her. June says they'll look up to me, too, but I don't know. I don't know, I'll believe that when I see it. She helps them with schoolwork when they do it. She talks to them, teaches them things.

She's good with them, I think, kind even. I hope that part of Lucy has found peace. But I don't know. I guess that's the point, isn't it? It's the same as asking why they were towering spires in the city, or figures in masks on boats, or why pale fire burned so bright. We can't know what happens next, what comes after, and we just have to make our peace with that.

That's all we can do. I've thrown Dumont's glass in the lake. I don't need it anymore. Me and June talked about it for a long time. It drove Alford mad. It's not something we're meant to have, let alone understand. So we got so drunk we could barely stand, and we swam for an hour in the dim starlight, round and round the ruins of the lighthouse.

Once our limbs began to ache, and the chill set in, and we couldn't tell up from down. I threw the glass as far as I could into the dark waters of Lake Bain. We pulled ourselves to shore and lay for a while. We lay still and breathing softly in the shallows. In the mud. I don't remember where I was when I threw the glass. And neither does June, and that's good. That's how June wants it.

Gone forever. When the Salado girls go to college, me and June, we're thinking about leaving itch for a while, maybe getting a boat, spending some time on the coast. somewhere quiet, out of the way, you know. But what I haven't told June, haven't told anyone, is that I can see where Dumont's glass is, if I ever really needed. The glass, it's not gone forever.

I can see exactly where it is, in fact, if I want to, that is. It's in June's tattoo, though she doesn't know about that. In the light of the early morning, as my fingers move across the vast swirling map on her back, I can see it. I know I can return. If I want, it's there, visible as a tiny glint of light in an inky sea of black.