Page 14 of The Spider & the Storm

My nerves settled as I nodded to myself, feeling instantly stupid and silly for thinking it could be something else.

Or someone.

***

The cemetery was large, one of the biggest in the state, just outside of the Salem city limits. It was one of the reasons I had jumped at the chance to put in my résumé the moment I saw the job listing online years ago. Forty acres of land and burial plots, all for me to maintain and keep watch over. And it had given back in the form of shelter and a beautiful, glorious distraction. This place provided to me as much as I gave to it, and I'd grown more fond of it than most things I had in my life.

But today, I missed the people I couldn’t get out of my head.

Mom and Dad.

Melanie.

Luke.

Dammit, I fucking missed Luke.

I stepped on the ride-on mower's brake and heaved out a sob that surprised both me and some birds in a nearby bush. They scattered, flying toward the sky, and I watched them leave, just as everyone else had.

Well, everyone besides Luke.

He never would've left if they hadn't made him, and I never would’ve left him if—

No, stop. Don’t think about it. Not now.

My eyes dropped to the steering wheel. My hands ran over the rubberized plastic as a single rogue tear dripped from my eye and slid through my beard. A searing ache ripped through mychest, splitting my heart and pouring a lifetime's worth of agony all over my lap.

How long could someone carry this much grief and heartache before they buckled beneath such a tremendous weight?

Almost five years, apparently.

That was how long it'd been since I'd seen the last person who meant a fucking thing to me. Five whole fucking years since I'd left my life in Connecticut behind.

It had taken nearly half a goddamn decade for it to all catch up to me, and there, sitting in the middle of the cemetery I now called home, I sobbed for all of the people I missed and would likely never see again.

CHAPTER FIVE

CONNECTICUT, AGE FIFTEEN

It was weird how cold it was, even for a late September day in Connecticut. It felt more like October or even November, and I tucked my hands deeper into my armpits as I curled up tighter in the wicker couch on the deck.

I’d woken up with a sick feeling in my stomach. Mom had asked if I thought I was going to puke, but it wasn’t that type of sick. It was more like anI have a feeling something bad is about to happensort of thing. A kind of nagging in the pit of my gut that made my mind feel unsettled and my nerves feel on edge. It was a feeling I hadn’t felt in a while, not this strong and powerful, and I didn’t like it. Not at all. I kept looking for a distraction, something to make it disappear, but nothing worked.

When I’d told Mom about it, the way I’d mentioned the hurricane almost eight years ago, she had studied me for a moment. I could tell she was unsure if she should believe me or not, and I couldn’t blame her. I’d been right about that hurricane, but I had been wrong about stuff too.

Like when Luke had gotten his driver’s license and I suffered a string of panic attacks, so sure he’d die in a car accident … but he hadn’t. Well, not yet anyway.

No. Stop. No. Not ever.

“It’s probably just your anxiety, hon,” she’d said, smoothing the hair off my forehead. “Why don’t you go outside and read or draw or something? Get your mind off of it.”

So, that was why I was out here now, freezing my butt off and staring out toward the backyard with my untouched book in my lap. The dread of something bad happening had worked itself through my nerves, making my legs bounce and my fingers tap with every unsettled passing of a moment.

God, what the hell is it?

When I’d first heard about the hurricane, I had just known without a doubt that it was bad news for us. I couldn’t tell my parents why or how—I’d justknown. And it was that sincerity and fear that convinced Mom to talk Dad into leaving—and look at what had happened! Our old house had been crushed by two downed trees and flooded by the creek down the street. I thought Mom had assumed I was psychic or something, and for a while, she asked me regularly if I had any feelings regarding certain things. Like I could pick the winning lottery numbers or some crazy stuff like that. But that wasn’t what it was. I wasn’t psychic, and I wasn’t told things by a foreign entity, like ghosts or something. I’d just get a feeling that something bad would happen … and it did.

And, yeah, I’d felt similarly since. I’d had a bad feeling about that party I went to with Luke years ago, but it was sometimes hard to tell what a genuinely bad feeling was and what was just my nerves and anxiety disorder getting the best of me.

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