Chapter 12 - The Family Reunion
Arthur clutched Maya tighter against his chest, feeling the frantic, rapid thrum of his daughter's heart against his ribs. He backed away from Clara until his spine pressed hard against the rough bark of a towering Douglas fir.
"Clara, listen to yourself," Arthur pleaded, keeping his voice low and steady despite the panic threatening to tear him apart. "Miller is working with Samuel. They’re insane. They’ve been keeping bodies buried under the house for twenty years. We need to run."
Clara stopped ten feet away. She didn't raise the shovel to attack, but her grip on the wooden handle was white-knuckled and unyielding. The rain plastered her short blonde hair against her skull, accentuating the sharp, hollow angles of her cheeks.
"There are no bodies, Arthur," Clara said quietly. Her eyes flicked down to Maya, who was burying her face in Arthur’s shoulder, refusing to look at her mother. "There are only transitions."
"What are you talking about?" Arthur’s voice cracked. "I saw the canvas bag. I saw the driver’s license."
"Thomas Vance didn't disappear," Clara continued, stepping closer with a slow, hypnotic deliberation. "He realized that the soil here doesn't let go of what’s planted in it. When my grandfather bought this land in the seventies, he made a pact with the valley. A life for a boundary line. When we bought it, the pact transferred to us."
Arthur stared at his wife, realizing with a sickening jolt of horror that Clara hadn't been having a mental breakdown in the kitchen earlier—she had been trying to complete the ritual before he came home from work.
"You knew," Arthur whispered, the betrayal tasting like ash in his mouth. "You knew all along."
"I was trying to protect her," Clara cried out, her restraint finally cracking as a single sob broke through her voice. She pointed the tip of the shovel toward Maya. "If the sacrifice isn't completed by midnight, the valley takes everyone in the bloodline. Not just us—*everyone*."
Before Arthur could process the madness of her words, heavy footsteps crunched through the underbrush behind Clara. Miller stepped into the clearing, his pistol still drawn, flanked by Samuel Vance who was now holding a heavy iron lantern.
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"Time’s up, Arthur," Miller said, raising his weapon toward them. "The well is open. The circle is ready."
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