CHAPTER 1
Hannah
Sometimes I thought someone up above had a sick sense of humor.
I was in the one spot I’d avoided my entire life. My skin was crawling, and my head was screaming,Hannah, run away! But my body wouldn’t let me leave. Some sort of…whisperkept repeating in my ear:Open the box.
It had been rolling through my head nonstop since the moment my great-aunt Maureen had passed away. Every dream I’d had since then was of my memory of the night my mother had died, and Aunt Maureen had buried this big iron box in the ground close to this freaky-ass rowan tree that had spread its roots over this spot during the past twenty years.
I hated this tree as much as Aunt Maureen had loved it. Rowans typically grew only in Ireland, but my great-grandmother had managed to find one to plant here and had kept it alive against all odds. The damn thing hadn’t just survived—it had thrived, and now it towered over me, full of red berries with branches and leaves that sounded like hissing murmurs were coming from their depths in the wind. No matter how hard I listened, true words never formed, but I always sensed that the tree wantedsomething.
Even when I was a child, this place hadn’t felt right and had kept me unsettled. I’d seen shadows and heard sounds that I could never explain even to this day. Now I was drenched in sweat, digging up soil and hacking at the roots of the very tree I’d tried to stay the hell away from, in a pink shirt that saidI’m with Stupid. It hadn’t been intentional, but it was damn fitting.
I attacked one of the big branching roots, my arm muscles burning. Blowing out a breath, I set the axe next to the crowbar and once again jammed the shovel into the earth with a sharpcrackthat jolted up my arms. I froze, breath catching as if someone had just caught me doing something terrible.
Part of me expected to see Aunt Maureen looming over me, hands on her hips, deciding what item she should steal from me to teach me a lesson about disobeying. The metallic taste of nerves coated my tongue as I remembered the last time. I'd been running late to my tanning session before my shift at the tanning salon started, and I’d run outside only to find that my car was missing. I could only imagine what she’d steal from me for doing this, if she were still alive.
Knock it off.I huffed a strand of honey blonde hair out of my face, then stomped my foot on the step of the shovel to drive it deeper. A warm earthy scent engulfed me, contrasting sharply with the usual crisp scents of autumn in eastern Tennessee.
The late afternoon light stretched the shadows of the tree long and painted everything in gold. I needed to finish this up, because there was no way in hell I was going to be out here at night. With the way the whispers and bad signs had amplified since my aunt passed, I wouldn’t be surprised if Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger came chasing after me. I didn't need that.
Determination fueled me even more. Iknewwhat I’d seen that night. “Bullshit I saw nothing, Aunt Maureen. What were you hiding?” She’d insisted I'd dreamed it, and she’d even said I could check. But when I’d marched outside to find my proof, thegrass had grown over this spot like nothing had happened. I’d believed her—believed I’d imagined it, or dreamed it—for a time. But one night, when the whispers entered my head, I’d headed out here, hoping to dig up the box while she slept. She’d caught me red-handed and had insisted she just didn't want the tree hurt.
I hadn't believed her, even though I gave up searching for the box. But ever since she’d passed, the memory of her burying it had continually showed up, to the point that I couldn’t think about anything else… not even when I was tanning. The memory of the iron box gnawed at my mind, urging me to settle this once and for all.
The metal of the shovel hit something solid with aclang. Definitely not a rock, because the sound was more hollow and metallic.
My heart leaped into my throat, and cold tendrils of fear clawed my chest.
"See, I knew I wasn't crazy, Aunt Maureen! Finally!" I dropped to my knees and scraped away soil with my hands. My fingernails filled with dirt as I uncovered a dark metal edge.
I worked faster, ignoring the sweat trickling down my spine and the trembling of my fingers. The rowan tree seemed to lean closer, its branches casting strange patterns over me. The red berries resembled drops of blood in the fading light.
Great. Maybe that was a sign of what was to come if I didn’t get my ass out of here.
I cleared off the top and found parts of the sides, fighting the roots that had pushed into the weak spots in the metal. The box was just as I remembered it: black iron with brown copper reinforcements and a heavy padlock with metal handles on the sides.
As if that higher power wanted to remind me I was their bitch, a raven cawed from somewhere overhead, making mejump. The fast-sinking sun and the golden light giving way to purple shadows confirmed I needed to get the box to the car and get my happy ass to my cheap apartment and away from the horror. I grabbed the box and tried to lift it, but it was heavier than it looked.
Of course it was.
"Dammit, come on." I grunted, bracing myself to heave it up and out of the hole. Still, the damn thing didn’t budge. Then I noticed the problem. I hadn't cleared away enough of the roots. Some still held the sides, embedded securely in the metal. They'd probably even worked their way into the bottom as well. The box might as well have been sewn into the ground. Well, I’d be a monkey’s uncle… someonedidhate me.
The temperature dropped at least ten degrees as the wind picked up, making me shiver. The branches rustled, and a few berries dropped around me, bouncing on the ground. And the whispering clawed at the back of my mind, indistinct words that made me want to jump out of my skin.
With a quick glance at the sky, I sucked in a breath. How the hell was the sun already disappearing? The last rays of light bled across the horizon, clawing at the clouds like dying embers.
Well, there was no chance I'd be able to dig the box out before night came, so I'd just have to open the damn thing here and now.
I picked up the crowbar and wedged it into the space between the lock and the shackle. This was the moment of truth. I’d finally see what was so important that Aunt Maureen had lied to me about it for all these years. I picked up the axe, turned it so the axe head faced the trunk, and struck it against the crowbar. After three strikes, the metal shackle gave way.
The rowan tree shuddered above me, and a chill ran through me. I looked upward, scowling, and the hissing murmursintensified. They were no longer just in my head but seemed to come from the box itself.
"Shut up,” I gritted out. My mind had to be playing tricks on me.
My hands shook as I pulled the shackle free. "Let's get this over with."
With a deep breath, I tried lifting the lid, but it wouldn't budge, as if something was holding it down.
