Page 11 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

The highway turns into a winding road, bumpy and half overgrown with dead blackberry vines, before, finally, to a gravel driveway, leading her through a narrow pathway of tall, overarching trees that disappear into the clouds, until she finally turns around a bend, to a cabin.

It’s a cute cabin, the sort you see in rustic postcards and advertisements for the Pacific Northwest. Rough-hewn logs, floral curtains, stained glass window on the door with light peeking out.

Light.

Her breath catches.

The lights are on, shining bright into the forest around them, and a plume of smoke curls from the chimney.

There’s another car in the driveway, a beat-up looking jeep with rust adorning the tire well and chains wrapped around the back.

Someone else is here.

4

Delina idles the car, a knot in her throat.

Throughout the day, she never even entertained the idea that the property might be inhabited. That she might be rolling up, well after 1 AM, with a key to the place and the deed in the will, and be kicking someone out.

She had driven by a ton of cutesy bed and breakfasts not ten minutes back, she could probably just stay the night at one of those.

A figure walks by the window, followed by another, silhouetted against the cutesy floral curtains.

So they’re also awake at this ungodly hour. Whoever they are.

Carefully, she turns off the headlights, the rain clattering on the roof of the car until the only light is beaming from the cabin.

The cabin that belonged to her mother. The cabin that her mother sent her to, with the express reason to help her, whatever that may look like.

Maison would have a fit laughing at her right now, chewing on her lip like she’s a person who gets shy. He would tease her about it, probably throw his arm around her shoulders, guideher to the door to knock. Say something pithy like, ‘you’re not one to let other people stop you,’ or, ‘if it’s yours it’s yours.’

For some reason, contemplating the actions of her maybe-fake boyfriend doesn’t help.

“Fuck this,” she mutters, palming the key with the red ribbon in her hand and kicking the door to the sedan open into the sheets of rain. The downfall immediately plasters her hair to her face and her ponytail unpleasantly to her neck, but she yanks out the rolling pink suitcase and stomps through the gravel to the front door.

On the concrete slab, instead of a welcome mat is a complex circle with symbols scrawled all over it, neatly spray painted in a shiny, chromatic gold.

The key in her hand grows warm as she approaches.

Not hot, not painful, but she presses her thumb against it for a small reassuring thrum, then strides across the circle and all but shoves the key into the door.

The lock clicks, and she throws her shoulder into the door to open it, before it creaks and relents, stumbling inside.

And all at once, three things are obvious.

One. Those stupid symbols are scrawled everywhere. One on the roof, a few embroidered onto pillows on the floral couch, some etched in the dark wood over the fireplace and on the granite counter tops, all the same glistening gold.

Two. Two people stare at her like they’ve been caught doing something they really, really shouldn’t.

Three. One of them has a gun.

Delina yanks in her pink suitcase from the rain, and pulls herself as tall as she can, fixing her best glare on the man with the gun. “Who are you and what are you doing in my cabin?”

The man opens his mouth, then closes it with a click. He’s blond with floppy hair, and holds the gun like he thinks it’ll bite him. He’s maybe the same age as her and looks like he’s neverdone a hard day’s work in his entire life. He’s even wearing a pressed suit.

The woman shoots him a look, then focuses back on Delina. Large, thick rimmed glasses dominate her small face, and short cut black hair gives her the overall impression of a mad scientist going through a rebellion.

Delina just pulls any self-confidence she can into herself, crossing her arms.

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