“A draugar?” Jesse asked.
“An undead thing. A person who has died, but their body has not. I walked in a trance, and then…” Liv shut her eyes against the memory, but there etched in the darkness was Veronica, in her bloodstained dress. “She screamed at me. ‘You’re a murderer.’ Her scream was so loud, it shook me to my core.” Liv wrapped her arms around herself. “She told me she would tell her father. That I would rot in prison for the rest of my life. I lost it.”
She paused and lifted a black feather from the rug, smoothing it across her closed eyes.
“George used to say emotion is a spirit — let it in, and it will possess you. You will do unimaginable things to appease it. That spirit took hold of me, and I flew at her with this rage and grief and fear. She ran away, but I was fast and I knew the woods. And then suddenly she was falling. I realized we’d come upon the Dead Stream. I called out for her, but she’d plunged right over a ledge on the bank of the river and into that icy water.”
Liv let the feather go, and it slowly spiraled back to the rug.
“I tried to climb down, but the water was high and it was so dark. I left her, Jesse. I didn’t go for help. I should have gotten help.” She choked on the words.
“You’re right,” he murmured. “You should have, but that’s then and this is now. You’re not a murderer, Liv. You made a mistake.”
Liv wiped away her tears.
“I ran home, snuck into my house and packed a bag. I never went back. I fled like a coward.”
Jesse moved from his seat and knelt on the floor near Liv’s chair.
“My wife and son died. They drowned in a lake. After they were in the ground, I gave up. I didn’t want to live. Something in us, something that protects us, I think, tells us to run away. If we stayed, the past would haunt us. We would live there forever, locked in our despair.”
* * *
“What happens now?” Mack asked.
They’d driven Jesse’s car to a hospital in Grayling.
“You go inside and ask them to put a fresh bandage on that wound, and get some painkillers,” Jesse told him.
“And we’re going to go see my sister,” Liv added.
“So, what? I’m chopped liver? What if George shows up at my bedside tonight because I left you on your own?” Mack demanded, trying to hide a smile.
“You didn’t leave me on my own,” Liv assured him, nodding her head at Jesse. “And we’ll see you soon. Call Diane.”
“Huh?” He gave her a questioning look.
“Diane,” Jesse repeated. “You were mumbling her name all night. When you weren’t snoring, that is.”
Mack laughed and hung his head.
“I think I’ll do that.”
* * *
When they parked in front of Arlene’s house, Liv saw her sister in an upstairs window. She was brushing her daughter’s long blonde hair. The girl tilted her head back, smiling.
“I can take a walk,” Jesse told her. “Give you a minute to gather yourself?”
She smiled at the man beside her and shook her head.
“I’ve had twenty years to gather myself.”
She stepped from the car and made it halfway up the driveway when Arlene’s face was suddenly pressed close to the second-floor window. Moments later, she burst through her front door.
“Livvy,” Arlene shouted, not bothering with formalities. She rushed into Liv’s arms as if she were still a scrawny seven-year-old greeting her big sister at the schoolhouse.
“Peanut,” Liv murmured, dissolving into her sister’s arms. They hugged until Arlene’s daughters walked onto the lawn, their curios eyes studying Liv.
Arlene pulled away, her cheeks red and wet.
“Girls, come here,” she called. “I want you to meet your aunt, Liv.”
* * *
After three hours, crying and talking with Arlene, Liv and Jesse drove to the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane.
They emerged from the long drive that wound through the trees. The asylum loomed over the sloping lawns.
“I’ve heard of this place, but…” Jesse released a low whistle.
“Yeah, it’s something,” Liv whispered under her breath.
“What if he sees you?” Jesse coasted the car to a halt and glanced at Liv.
“He won’t. I’m out of his reach now.” If Jesse had insisted she explain, she would have been unable. But he didn’t.
They watched people clad in white shuffling between the buildings.
Beneath a maple tree, the leaves beginning to spot gold, Liv watched a group of children play Ring Around the Rosie. They danced in a circle and then fell into a heap on the ground.
Jesse watched them as well, grief-stricken.
He glanced at her and their eyes met, and she understood. Not all of what had propelled Jesse Kaminski to walk away from his life, but enough.
When she turned back to the asylum, she saw Stephen.
He stood outside the largest building, the one topped with sharp points, staring up at it as if he couldn’t figure out how to get inside.
“That’s him,” Liv said, pointing.
Jesse leaned forward in his seat, squinting.
“He looks fine,” Jesse murmured.
“He’s not,” Liv told him.
She handed Jesse a hag stone from George’s little bag.
Jesse lifted it and recoiled, dropping the stones.
“He’s black! He looked dead, like a charred skeleton.”
Liv nodded.
“He may have years left to live, but the darkness has taken him.”
* * *
Two Weeks Later
Liv
“Norway? Are you two sure about this?” Mack asked.
Liv, Jesse and Mack stood on the deck at the train station in Traverse City. She’d bought a trunk, and she and Jesse had put their combined meager belongings inside.
Liv nodded, watching smoke puff from the stack as the long passenger train pulled into the station. A deafening whistle split the morning quiet.
“I’ve been waiting to take this trip my entire life,” she said. She touched the hag stone hanging around her neck.
“And you?” Mack shifted his gaze to Jesse.
Jesse studied Mack for a moment before reaching into his coat and extracting a photograph.
“This is Nell and Gabriel. My wife and son, who drowned last year. My life, our life,” he nodded at the photo, “ended with them. There’s a new life waiting for me across the Atlantic.”
Mack rocked back on his heels.
“Couple of beauties right there,” Mack said, looking at the photo.
Liv had already seen the photograph. Her heart ached for her new friend, but she knew his path had been brought to her for reasons that reason could not explain.
Jesse returned the picture to his pocket and reached into the leather briefcase he’d bought the day before.
He took out several sealed envelopes.
“This one is for the police,” Jesse told Mack, pressing the envelope into the man’s enormous hands. “It tells them where to find the body of Adele Kaiser, and also who killed her. They might not take our word for it, but hopefully they can manage to put the pieces together.” He took out a second envelope.
“Tony Medawar,” Mack read out loud.
“He’s the brother of Veronica, the girl who drowned in the Dead Stream. Liv wrote the story of the night she died — leaving out her name, of course. Hopefully it brings them some peace.”
Mack slapped the envelopes against his hand.
“I hope they nail that bastard,” he mumbled, taking a hand gingerly to the wound hidden beneath his shirt.
Liv didn’t respond. It had already ended for Stephen. A torment far worse than prison awaited him.
“All aboard,” the conductor yelled.
The wave of people shifted forward on the platform.
Liv hugged Mack goodbye. As he pulled away, she slid one of George’s hag stones i
nto his palm.
“Thank you, Mack,” she whispered.
Epilogue
Five Years Later
Norway
Liv
Liv looked up from the rocky mountainside. Far below, frothy waves crashed against the shore. A boat was moored there.
“Mack,” she murmured, walking down the rocks slowly.
Mack grinned, his bristly red beard revealing two rows of huge white teeth. He picked Liv up and spun her around. Liv laughed and clapped him on the back.
Behind Mack stood a petite woman with black hair tucked beneath a sky-blue knit cap.
“Diane,” Liv said, taking the woman’s gloved hands in her own.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” Diane said. “Your hands must be freezing.”
Liv glanced at her bare hands, red and chapped from foraging without gloves.
She shook her head.
“I don’t even notice it anymore. Apparently, I was made for this place. My body knows how to handle it.”
“And this is George,” Mack announced, grabbing a small boy who’d run up behind him, his cheeks rosy and his hair as red and wild as his father’s.
Liv’s eyes lit up at the sight of the boy. He would be big like his father, but he had his mother’s dark eyes.
“Daddy says you’re magic!” George breathed, stepping to Liv and reaching for the hag stone dangling around her neck. “Daddy has one of these too.”
Liv knelt and watched George lift the stone, pulling her close so he could peer through it, and then dropping it when he spotted a fuzzy white mountain goat on an outcropping of rocks. He took off up the hill.
“Slow down, George,” Diane called hurrying after him.
“Where’s Jesse?” Mack asked, gazing up the mountain at the scattering of cabins.
“He’s with Ingrid, our daughter.”
Mack’s mouth dropped open.
“A daughter. You and Jesse?”
Liv smiled.
“Yes, a gift from the Gods. Come meet her.”
They picked their way up the rocky hillside.
Liv pushed into a warm little cabin. The walls hung with woven rugs to block out the chill from the ocean. Jesse sat in a rocking chair, Ingrid in his lap. They read from a storybook, The Marsh King’s Daughter.
“Modir,” the little girl called, holding out her chubby pink arms.
Liv leaned down and kissed Jesse’s cheek before lifting the girl and holding her out to Mack.
“Mack,” Jesse smiled, standing and giving the man a one-armed hug. “You made it.”
“And quite the journey, too,” Mack grinned. “Diane, George, come here,” he called out the cabin door. He reached into his bag and drew out a paper. “I thought you might want to see this.” Mack handed Liv a copy of a newspaper from Gaylord, Michigan.
“Highly esteemed psychiatrist arrested for the murder of his mother and a local girl who vanished twenty years ago,” Liv read out loud.
“They arrested him?” Jesse asked.
“Last year. It took them a while to build their case, but they got him,” Mack explained.
“I don’t understand,” Liv said. “Why would they name Veronica as well?”
“They found her in the cellar, Liv, with a noose around her neck — or what was left of her, I guess,” Mack told her.
“But she drowned,” Liv muttered, the memory still a regular visitor on restless nights.
Mack shook his head.
“Doesn’t look that way.”
Liv shuddered, realizing Stephen must have followed her that night. Had he pulled Veronica from the river, only to take her back to his house and murder her?
She’d never know.
Liv studied the grainy photograph of Stephen, a constriction holding her heart hostage for a moment.
“After Stephen went nuts, getting a story out of him was difficult. He’s not going to trial,” Mack continued. “He’s already been institutionalized. He’s been deemed incompetent to stand trial, but he’s locked up. It’s over.”
Liv walked to the door and stepped out. The cold wind rushed in from the sea and swirled up around her, lifting her hair.
For a moment, she saw George standing on an outcropping of rock, a little smile on his lips. He tilted his head toward her, and then he was gone.
Do you want more of the Northern Michigan Asylum? Read Kerry Manor today!
Send Me the Story
Read More by J.R. Erickson
The Northern Michigan Asylum Series
Some Can See
Calling Back the Dead
Ashes Beneath Her
Dead Stream Curse
Rag Doll Bones
The Born of Shadows Series
Ula
Sorcière
Kanti
Sky Mothers
Snake Island
Acknowledgments
Endless gratitude to everyone who helped bring this book to life. Special thanks to my family and friends who support me on this journey. Thank you to my editor Sonya Bateman, to my cover designer Rena Hoberman, to my amazing beta and advanced readers. Thank you to the lovers of spooky fiction who keep this series going.
Dead Stream Curse: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel Page 25
