My eyes widened.Blackwell. I pulled out the thick folder.
Inside, multiple tabs dated back to the early 1900s. The most recent two files were from twelve years ago. Johnny and Javino Blackwell. Julian was only fourteen or fifteen when his father died.
Johnny and his dad, Javino, died within the same two-week span.
The elevation in the room changed, and the pressure pushed into me from all sides. I felt like my head was underwater, hearts in Atlantis. The proof was right here. Javino Blackwell killed his son.
An accident. My eyes scanned over the hardly legible handwriting.Johnny and Javino were playing in the woods. Javino picked up Johnny, and Johnny tore off his father’s mask. The curse took Johnny’s life. Cause of death: asphyxiation.
Johnny was only three-years-old. Johnny would have been fifteen today.
A black and white photo of Johnny’s lifeless little body on the morgue table assaulted my senses. My eyes watered, and I squeezed them shut and tried to find a stable breath. My legs gave out, and my bottom hit the concrete floor. My back fell to the cabinet, and the papers scattered around me. Words repeatedly screamed at me from the tile.
Asphyxiation. Tore off his mask. Three years old. Johnny Blackwell. Norse Woods.
A Hollow Heathen killed a three-year-old boy. Someone so helpless. The curse didn’t care. It didn’t care who it was or how strong the ties were. The curse could take anyone, even the people they loved the most.
My palms dug into my eyes, my tears hot and burning, my blood cold and churning.It didn’t matter because the curse didn’t care, my mind repeated. My breathing shook, the face of Johnny painting on the black canvas behind my lids. I tilted my head back and blew out a sharp breath.The curse didn’t care.
When I dropped my head back down, my gaze swept across the tile. At the corner of my eye, a letter with perfect and precise handwriting peeked from under the photo. My fingers quivered as I uncovered the rest of it. It was dated six days after the incident. The letter was from Julian Jai Blackwell.
To the people of Weeping Hollow,
If you are receiving this letter, then my father has taken the blame for what happened to Johnny. Here is my official statement. Let it be known, Javino Blackwell was only trying to protect me as a father should. I beg of you, do not condemn my father. Do not take him to the Wicker Man. Javino is a good, respectable man of the Order. I cannot watch my father burn for my carelessness.
I take full responsibility for what happened to Johnny. I killed him! Take me! There is no one else to blame but me! Please, rid me of this guilt and lie and set me free, set me aflame! I cannot live like this anymore—
“What are you doing?!” Jonah snatched the letter from my hands and ripped it in half. “You have no business coming into my office!”
I jumped to my feet, tears rolling down my face, papers at my feet.
Jonah slammed his fist over the shredder’sonbutton and sifted the two halves of the letter through the machine, his face angry, eyes in a red rage.
“You’re protecting him,” I whispered, understanding. “You protect the Heathens.”
“Pack all your things, Fallon,” Jonah stated, the paper shredded and gone forever. “You’re fired.”
“I would never tell anyone,” I cried. “Please, I lo—” I paused, tears frozen at the corners of my eyes. I dragged in a deep breath and straightened my spine. “I love him, Jonah. I would never say anything. You have to believe me.”
“Get out!” he screamed.
Chapter 27
Julian
Jonah had appearedat the cabin this morning, rapping at the door before sunrise.
“She knows,”he’d told me.
I didn’t know why, but relief had swum through my soul at that moment. Someone other than Beck and Jonah knew the truth. The lie had been slowly gnawing at me.
Fallon knew, and I could finally breathe. Fallon knew, and maybe it was for the best. I didn’t have to worry about the possibility of hurting her, killing her, breaking her heart. I didn’t have to be the one to do anything to her. She would be the one to do that to me. And I was okay with that.
I preferred it this way. I killed a three-year-old boy, who could look past that? I deserved nothing less than the pain she would, indeed and unknowingly, inflict.
Hate me, my moon. Hate me like I hate me.
Because if you don’t, you will die, and it will probably be my fault too.
