Page 1 of The Hellkeeper

Chapter One

Amelia

My meeting with the Hellkeeper is near, tomorrow at midnight, to be exact. Tomorrow at midnight, my blood will be spilled to please him. I will be sacrificed for the greater good, so my little village will be spared from fire, flames, and ash.

I’m not special. Not really. I haven’t been chosen for my fair skin, my green eyes, or my dirty blonde hair. Just like the girls before me, whose fates remain a mystery after the sacrifice, I’ve been selected because I am of no use to this village.

I turned twenty-two a week ago, and the village now officially calls me a spinster. I haven’t secured a husband. I’ve always been too quiet, preferring to wander the woods, lost in my daydreams about a world far beyond this place instead of speaking with boys. With our tiny population, the competition for a partner is fierce, and I haven’t helped my cause.

I have no husband to care for, no one who would miss me if I disappeared. I’m mediocre at best. I can’t even fish properly; Bambi catches fish with her bare hands. Every time I was on cattle duty, a sheep or two would escape, courtesy of my constant daydreaming. But Neva and Meredith? The sheep practically obeyed them with just a glance. Seeds I planted in the dirt weren’t necessarily blessed; most of the time, they didn’t even grow.

I’ve never fit in here. Most of the girls got married at eighteen, trying to carry on the village’s dying bloodline. But no one has had a baby that lived in over a decade—not since the last one, a girl, now fourteen. Miscarriages come like clockwork. The elders say it’s because we aren’t praying hard enough.

The girls my age think they’re better than me because they can at least try. The younger ones still have a couple of years left before the village starts eyeing their wombs too. I can’t offer anything. The boys say I’m not wife material. Too quiet. Too ordinary.

This place? It’s cold. And dark. Always dark. Everyone walks around with that sense that something’s about to go up in flames. You can feel it, like a hand around your throat.

No one cares if I’m gone. I’m invisible. The most forgettable, replaceable, and easily buried. The choice was easy.

My mother tucked me in for the last time, whispered goodbye in my ear, and steeled herself to leave me behind to face my fate. Even a mother’s love cannot override the fear of him… the Hellkeeper. The one the scriptures have spoken of for a hundred years in Hell, Washington—population one hundred and fifty.

Our village is cursed, marked by misfortune and terror, and it’s all because of the Hellkeeper. The stories warn that one day, if we displease him, he will set fire to everything. Nothing will survive. No crops. No life. Hell, Washington, will truly become a scorching red hell.

So, we sacrifice. We offer up one virgin girl every five years, just to stay in his good graces. The elders have sworn to uphold this tradition, anything to keep the village alive. Here, we pray ten times a day. We kneel until our knees are raw and our lips cracked from endless recitations. But if the village stays like this, they'll run out of girls to sacrifice in around thirty years, which is why the elders have taken to playing matchmaker as well as religious leaders.

No one really knows what the Hellkeeper is. The scripture never explains, just drops his name like we’re supposed to understand. Is he a creature of light? Of darkness? Neither? Both? I’ve asked before, but no one has an answer. Some say he was once an angel, but something went wrong. Others think he was never anything close to human, never meant to be understood. He doesn’t belong to heaven or hell. He just watches, waits. And when he comes, he never leaves empty-handed.

My heart always bled for the girls. They weren’t much different from me. They were the black sheep, the forgotten ones. Most of them were orphans, with no one to mourn their absence. I watched them try so hard to fit in, to prove they were worth something. But they weren’t fooling anyone, least of all me. The emptiness and deviance lurked within them; the same qualities I notice in myself when I stand in front of the mirror.

My mother sits outside my room, praying and praying and praying. But even she knows that no prayer will save me now.

I bury my face in the pillow, muffling my sobs. I’m trying to stay strong, but doubt creeps in through the cracks in my soul. Sleep comes, but it’s anything but peaceful. I dream of fire engulfing the village, engulfing me. I dream of restraints closing in on me, paralyzing me. I dream of fear, pain, and smoke. I dream of a shadowy figure lingering under my bed, in my closet, in the walls…

I wake with a start. My beautiful mother is sound asleep beside me. Her gray hair doesn’t diminish her beauty, but the wrinkles around her eyes have deepened in the last few days. The news of me being the chosen one has aged her prematurely. My father died when I was young, and when I’m ultimately sacrificed, she will have no one.

It’s tomorrow now. The sky outside is pitch black, far past midnight. A sharp pang of desperation hits me when I realize I will never see the world beyond this place. I’ve spent my life dreaming about it, reading about it, wondering about it. The elders say there is nothing worth seeing, that everything beyond our borders is corruption waiting to seep into our bones. I used to believe them. But now? I wonder if they were just afraid.

If I don’t do something for myself now, when will I? My life has been nothing but a series of meaningless tasks. I’ve lived in a loop of dreams that will never come true. Maybe I can achieve just one before this nightmare begins.

I’ve decided, selfishly, to run.

I untangle myself from my mother’s arms as quietly as I can, my heart pounding in my chest. I slip into the kitchen, reach into the jar on the high shelf, and grab a few bills. It will hurt my mother’s savings, but it’s my dying wish.

My hair’s a mess, my eyes are red from crying, and my lips are bleeding from the endless prayers. I’m wearing a loose white gown that covers my ankles, hiding all signs of womanhood. I’m too scared to make myself presentable. If I wake my mother, she’ll stop me.

I slip on my sandals, tie back my tangled hair, and leave just as I am.

I crouch low, tiptoeing past the cottages. A drop of sweat falls from my forehead to my lips, the salty taste flooding my mouth.

Growing up here, you learn things no one ever says out loud. Like the fact that beyond the tree line, there’s a set of tracks, and if you follow them long enough, they’ll lead you to a station the village pretends doesn’t exist. I just have to walk a little farther. And a little farther after that. Walk until I reach the train station miles away from the village.

When I finally reach a point where no more cottages are in sight, I run. The ground is muddy beneath my feet, sucking at my shoes with every step. The scent of wet leaves and damp earth clings to my skin as I push through the trees. The cold air stings my lungs, but all I feel is freedom. Real, raw freedom.

The only sound in the total darkness is the crunch of dead leaves under my shoes and my labored breaths. For the first time, I don’t feel the weight of the village on my shoulders.

I feel alive.

Chapter Two

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