He dug his hands into his pockets. “My mom kept a room in the house where she sewed and knit and read poetry. She never got to go to high school, but she read a lot, like you do. She was smart and curious like you. My dad won’t step foot in her room since she died. Which made it my refuge growing up.”
I’d seen the room in Ever’s house: the pressed flowers on the walls, the sewing machine, the illustration of the Virgin Mary.
“I spent a lot of time there as a kid, memorizing the poems she’d collected, teaching myself to use her sewing machine. Anything she liked, Iwanted to learn. Trace her steps, I guess, to be close to her. I was pretty young when I found this wedged in her armchair.” He pulled a small brown notebook out of his pocket, bound with a leather strap. “It’s her diary. Well, half diary, half scribblings. Some grocery lists. My dad said she started carrying it when she got pregnant because she’d forget things. It’s how I discovered her religion.”
“Religion?” Everyone always said the Duncans never stepped foot in church.
“My dad called it ‘swamp spiritualism.’” Ever cleared his throat. “It was a practice passed down from her parents, who were…self-imposed outcasts, I guess you’d call them. People who liked to live off the land, didn’t really trust others.”
That, I knew. Célestine’s sheltered upbringing was what had made her dismiss the town gossip about how dangerous Killian Duncan was. I swallowed the sharp knowledge and said, “Living off the land. Like you do, with your hunting.”
“Practical reasons aside, I figure it’s my heritage. You know…” His voice grew quieter. “My mom wrote about being lonely. It’s hard to picture her moving to Bottom Springs and falling in love with my dad, of all people. No one much talked to her after that. If I’d had the chance, I would’ve tried to be good company to her.”
His eyes radiated a desire for me to believe him. “You would’ve been great company,” I agreed, and he swallowed.
“I told my dad I’d found strange prayers and sketches in her diary and begged him to tell me about them. He offered to teach me what he knew.”
“That doesn’t sound like him.”
A knowing smile curved Ever’s lips, an echo of the one he’d carved for his mother. “No, it doesn’t. But over time he became obsessed with doing her rituals. Nowadays it’s the only time he acts like a real human being. I think she was the only person he ever truly loved.”
There was a seed of grudging respect in his voice—maybe even a seed of love. How it had managed to take root in such inhospitable soil, after everything his father had done to him, I didn’t know. Perhaps it was because Ever didn’t know the worst of it. I needed to finish what I’d started last night and tell him the truth.
Ever stepped carefully over the stones and crouched low, picking up a wilted lily. He rolled a petal between his fingers. “It’s a form of atonement, the rituals. As much as he’s always blamed me for her death, I think part of him blames himself, too.”
That was too much. “Ever…” I started, but he shook his head.
“Wait—what you saw last night. It’s something my dad and I do every year on her birthday. I know it’s strange and you probably think it’s sacrilegious, but…it’s one of her ceremonies.” He dropped the lily and reached for the stones, brushing his fingers over the spirals. “The purpose is to show you’re worthy of divine intervention. To do that, you give something in sacrifice. And if you’re deemed worthy, the bridge between the living and the dead will open. It was in her notebook. She’d do it to commune with her parents, ask for advice.” He held up the stone. “Five spirals. Five signs of worthiness. They all require giving something.”
“There was so much blood,” I whispered. “The two of you, bathed in it. It looked like…”
“I know.” He smiled grimly. “There’s a reason I never told you. Some of the rituals are a little…rough. You might be thinking everyone’s right, and we’re some kind of Devil-worshippers. But Ruth.” He lowered himself all the way to his knees, eyes shining as he looked up at me. “It’s harmless, I swear. Blood is natural, fire is natural. No one gets hurt.”
“What about the deer?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you’d become a principled vegetarian.”
“Did you eat it?”
“Not exactly.”
“This is one of those details I’m going to need you to be exact about.”
“I didn’t eat it. I kind of…washed myself in its blood. To honor the sacrifice.”
“It scared me,” I admitted. “Seeing you the way other people make you out to be.”
There was something fragile in his expression—in that moment he looked so much like a child. Except the Everett I remembered from elementary school had already been closed and guarded. This Everett was looking at me with precarious hope.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “It’s not that I actually believe I’m opening a bridge to the dead. But when I do her rituals, or come here to this shrine, I feel connected to her. They’re the biggest pieces I have left. It’s something she believed in, and I think she would’ve been happy to know we carried it forward. It feels like carrying her forward.”
What I’d seen last night wasn’t a demon, then. It was a boy, aching for his mother, going to any lengths to be close. What wouldn’t I do for a person I loved?
The fear I’d felt—the whispers about Ever I’d allowed into my head—dissolved. I knelt so we were eye level and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I understand.”
He brushed his cheek against my knuckles, his stubble lightly scratching. “You do?”
“Yes. But there’s something I have to tell you.”
