Where the Fire Bleeds

The Things We Bury

Chapter 4

The embrace didn't last long enough.

It never could.

Six years was too much time for any hug to repair.

Tomas held his father as though he feared Rowan might disappear again if he loosened his grip. Rowan held his son with equal desperation, one hand pressed against the back of the boy's head, his eyes shut tight.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

The fire crackled softly in the hearth.

Rain drummed against the roof.

The world outside continued moving, but inside the cottage time seemed suspended.

Elara watched from beside the door.

Part of her wanted to join them.

Part of her remained rooted to the floor.

She couldn't explain why.

Perhaps because she wasn't sure what she felt anymore.

Relief.

Anger.

Love.

Suspicion.

All of them lived inside her now.

Her father had returned from the dead.

That should have simplified things.

Instead, it had complicated everything.

Mara finally wiped her eyes.

"Sit."

The single word carried the authority of someone who had spent six years surviving without help.

Nobody argued.

Rowan released Tomas reluctantly.

The family gathered around the old wooden table.

For years the table had felt too large.

Now it felt too small.

The room suddenly seemed crowded with memories.

Rowan sat opposite Mara.

Elara took the seat beside her mother.

Tomas refused to sit farther than arm's reach from his father.

As if proximity alone could guarantee reality.

For several moments, nobody spoke.

The silence wasn't comfortable.

It wasn't hostile either.

It was fragile.

The silence of people standing on the edge of truths they may not want to hear.

Finally Mara broke it.

"Start talking."

Rowan lowered his gaze.

"I don't know where to begin."

"Try six years ago."

The answer came instantly.

Sharp enough to cut.

Rowan nodded.

Fair.

More than fair.

Outside, thunder rumbled somewhere across the valley.

The sound felt distant.

Rowan stared into the fire.

When he finally spoke, his voice seemed older than before.

"I never intended to leave."

Mara laughed bitterly.

"No one intends to vanish for six years."

"I know."

"Then explain it."

The room grew still.

Even the fire seemed quieter.

Rowan drew a slow breath.

"The cave collapsed."

Elara immediately remembered.

The old mining tunnels beneath Blackwood.

The search parties.

The broken stone entrance.

The weeks spent hoping.

The months spent grieving.

Everyone believed he had died underground.

"I should have died," Rowan continued quietly.

"I nearly did."

Nobody interrupted.

"The collapse buried me beneath hundreds of tons of rock. My leg was broken. Three ribs were shattered. I couldn't move."

His eyes remained fixed on the flames.

"I remember thinking about home."

Elara felt her throat tighten.

"I remember wondering whether Tomas would finish carving that wooden horse we'd started together."

Tomas blinked rapidly.

"I remember worrying that Mara would be angry I missed supper."

For the first time, a faint smile touched Mara's face.

It vanished almost immediately.

Then Rowan's expression darkened.

"But something found me."

The room froze.

The words seemed to lower the temperature.

Outside, the storm intensified.

Rain hammered against the windows.

"What do you mean?" Elara asked.

Rowan looked at her.

The answer took several seconds.

Finally he said, "I mean exactly what I said."

Nobody laughed.

Nobody dismissed it.

Because after seeing the glowing river, none of them were certain what was impossible anymore.

"The tunnels go deeper than people realize," Rowan continued. "Much deeper."

His voice grew quieter.

"There are places beneath Blackwood that aren't on any map."

A shiver ran through Elara.

"The old stories."

Tomas spoke the words softly.

Rowan nodded.

"The stories came from somewhere."

The room fell silent again.

Every child in Grey Hollow grew up hearing tales about things sleeping beneath the mountains.

Ancient kings.

Forgotten gods.

Fire spirits.

Monsters.

Most people stopped believing them after childhood.

Apparently that had been a mistake.

"What found you?" Mara asked.

Rowan hesitated.

For the first time, genuine fear appeared in his eyes.

Not fear for himself.

Fear of memory.

"I don't know."

Nobody expected that answer.

"You don't know?" Elara repeated.

"It wasn't human."

The fire suddenly seemed much brighter.

"It wasn't an animal either."

His hand unconsciously moved toward his chest.

Toward the place where Elara had seen faint orange cracks beneath his skin.

"It spoke."

The room became utterly silent.

"Spoke?" Tomas whispered.

Rowan nodded.

"Inside my head."

A chill crawled across Elara's arms.

The storm outside seemed farther away now.

As though the cottage existed inside its own isolated world.

"What did it say?"

Rowan's expression hardened.

"'The gate is broken.'"

Nobody moved.

Nobody breathed.

"'The fire is leaking.'"

The words hung in the air.

Heavy.

Wrong.

Like pieces of a puzzle nobody wanted to complete.

"'And you will carry what remains.'"

The room remained silent.

Then Rowan rolled up his sleeve.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Orange light appeared beneath his skin.

Mara gasped.

Tomas pushed back from the table.

Elara stared.

The glowing cracks stretched along Rowan's forearm like veins of molten metal trapped beneath flesh.

They pulsed faintly.

The same rhythm she'd seen beneath the river.

The same rhythm she'd felt in the ground.

Heartbeat.

Heartbeat.

Heartbeat.

"Oh gods," Mara whispered.

Rowan lowered his arm.

"I woke up three days later."

Nobody spoke.

"I wasn't injured anymore."

That statement somehow sounded more disturbing than the glowing skin.

"My broken leg had healed."

Silence.

"My ribs had healed."

More silence.

"The collapsed tunnel was gone."

Elara stared.

Gone?

"What do you mean gone?"

Rowan rubbed his face.

"Exactly that. The rock wasn't there anymore."

The room felt smaller by the second.

"The mountain had changed."

Thunder shook the windows.

Nobody flinched.

They were too focused on Rowan.

"What happened after that?" Elara asked.

His expression became distant.

For the first time since arriving home, he looked truly exhausted.

"I spent six years trying to understand what happened to me."

The answer surprised everyone.

"What?"

Rowan nodded.

"I wasn't hiding."

The words weren't defensive.

They sounded ashamed.

"I was searching."

"Searching for what?"

His gaze lifted.

"The thing beneath Blackwood."

No one spoke.

Because deep down they already knew.

The glowing river.

The soldiers.

The strange fire inside Rowan.

Everything pointed toward the same answer.

Something was waking.

And Rowan had spent six years trying to stop it.

A sudden knock exploded against the front door.

Everyone jumped.

The sound came again.

Harder.

Urgent.

Three rapid strikes.

Then silence.

The family exchanged glances.

Nobody moved.

The knock returned.

This time accompanied by a voice.

"Rowan!"

Darius.

The soldier sounded tense.

More tense than before.

Rowan immediately stood.

Something in his expression changed.

The vulnerability vanished.

The father disappeared.

The survivor returned.

"What happened?" Elara asked.

"I don't know."

But Rowan was already moving.

The entire family followed him.

When the door opened, rain swept into the cottage.

Darius stood on the porch drenched from head to toe.

His normally controlled expression looked dangerously close to panic.

That frightened Elara more than anything else.

Men like Darius didn't panic.

"What is it?" Rowan asked.

The soldier looked toward the eastern edge of the village.

Toward the river.

"The glow has spread."

Silence.

"The water isn't the only thing burning anymore."

Every muscle in Rowan's body tightened.

"What?"

Darius swallowed.

"The trees."

Nobody spoke.

"The roots are glowing beneath the ground."

The room went still.

Even the storm seemed to pause.

Elara suddenly remembered the trembling earth.

The pulse beneath the river.

The sensation of something moving underground.

Something vast.

Something alive.

Rowan grabbed his coat.

"We need to leave."

Mara stepped forward immediately.

"No."

The word surprised everyone.

Including Rowan.

Mara's eyes flashed.

"You vanished for six years."

Silence.

"You walk back into this house less than an hour ago."

Another silence.

"And now you're leaving again?"

Rowan opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Because there was no answer.

None that would make sense.

None that would ease six years of pain.

Mara's voice softened.

Only slightly.

"Tell me one thing."

The room watched.

Rowan waited.

The storm raged.

Outside, orange light flickered faintly through the darkness beyond the village.

Like distant fire beneath the earth.

"Is this thing coming here?"

The question felt simple.

Terrifyingly simple.

Rowan looked toward the glowing horizon.

Toward the river.

Toward whatever waited beneath Blackwood.

His answer came quietly.

Too quietly.

Yet every person in the room heard it.

"Yes."

The word landed like a stone.

Nobody moved.

Nobody spoke.

Then Rowan looked at his family.

Really looked at them.

His wife.

His daughter.

His son.

The people he had spent six years trying to protect from something they could never understand.

And for the first time since coming home, fear entered his eyes.

Not for himself.

For them.

Because whatever was awakening beneath Blackwood was no longer sleeping.

And Grey Hollow stood directly in its path.