Page 66 of Samhain

“Miriam, where are you?” The sound of my mother’s voice raised the hairs on my arm, sending a jolt of terror down my spine and into my legs. I didn’t know how I knew it was her; I hadn’t heard her speak in over ten years. But it was her. Definitely.

“Miriam.” My father’s voice echoed next, seizing my lungs, forcing me to pay attention. I couldn’t pretend they weren’t there when I heard them so clearly. This wasn’t the trees. It couldn’t be. How could they know what my parents sounded like?

The trees know all.

“Mum?” I murmured. “Da?”

“What?” Lex scrunched his features together and grabbed my shoulder, trying to get my attention refocused on him. “Miri, what’s going on?”

“My parents,” I whispered, looking up into his intense hazel stare. “Do you hear them?”

“Parents?” Lex had barely uttered the word before I took off into the woods.

Objectively, it couldn’t have been my parents. They’d died when I was a teenager. I’d personally seen their bodies lowered into graves at St. Andrews Cathedral. But the veil between the realms was supposed to have been the thinnest on Samhain. If they were haunting me, tonight might be the only night they could make contact.

I had to try to reach them. I just had to.

“Mum,” I shouted, running through the woods, jumping over fallen trees. “Da!” I pumped my legs harder, cranking my arms at my sides. “Mum! Da!”

“Miriam!” The sound came from my left, and I took off in that direction.

“Miri!” someone shouted behind me, but I ignored them. My parents were here. Here! I had to see them. I had so much to ask them. I needed to know what they thought I should do. I needed advice from the only people who understood. I yearned for my mum to hold me in her arms and kiss my face and tell me I’d be okay, that I was smart and strong and loved. My inner child longed to hear my father call me his girl and bounce me on his knee. Sure, I knew I was twenty-four years old, but age didn’t matter when the warmth of my father’s affection had been withheld from me for so very long.

“Mum!” I shouted.

“Miri!” came the voice behind me again.

“Miriam! This way!” I turned right, but something big and hard collided with me, taking me down to the ground. I landed with a loud oof, the air pushing out of my lungs.

Lex.

“Stop it,” he said, grabbing my wrists to pin them above my head when I tried to wrestle out from under him. “You can’t run off by yourself.”

“Lex?” came a deeper, darker voice.

Lex’s features dropped. He froze, turned to ice on top of me, and lifted his head to look above us. “Marcus?”

“Miriam!” My father’s voice cut through the night air again, urging me forward.

“Lex, come find me! I need to talk to you! I need to tell you something!” Marcus called, his tone worried and panicked.

Lex hopped off me, and I pushed myself upright, listening through the gusts of wind and rattles of fallen leaves for my father again.

“Da!” I was desperate now, turning in place so I didn’t miss anything. My heart raced and tears streamed down my face as I searched. Where is he? Where is he? I spun around, sobs pouring out of my chest as I tried to get my bearings. In the tussle with Lex, I’d lost my way.

“Da!” I called again, my voice cracking as I gasped for air.

“Miriam!” I took off to the right, running harder this time to stay away from Lex, the sounds of crunching twigs and fallen pine needles echoing from under my feet. I leaped over a log, my lungs heaving the crisp autumn air, the taste of metal in the back of my throat.

Almost there. Almost there.

“Mum! Da!” I stopped to listen because I didn’t know where to go. I’d lost them. I heard nothing, just the humming call of the forest nightlife.

Bleeding Christ! How could I lose them? You’re so stupid, Miri! So damned ridiculous.

Hands grabbed me by the shoulders, and I jumped, settling when Lex wrapped his arms around me.

“It’s not real,” he said, his muscles trembling as he tried to hold me still. “The fairies disguise themselves as ghosts, remember? It’s not real.”

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