Page 12 of Soul to Possess

“Yes,” I said. “Genevieve, but—yeah. Gennie’s fine.”

He gave a short nod, like he already knew that. “Name’s Harry, I drive that bus over there. You’re the one headed to Marvin’s?”

“That’s right.”

Another nod. Like it wasn’t strange at all for a girl to hop a plane and a bus and land in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a coat and a ‘maybe’ waiting for her. Not to mention the weirdness about him knowing exactly who she was. Marvin had mentioned that everyone knew everyone down in Middlecross, and the bus driver had been the same for the past twenty odd years, but it still seemed odd.

“You’re cutting it close,” he said, glancing out the narrow depot window. “They’re calling for snow tonight. Early season blizzard, if you can believe it.”

I blinked. “Snow? Already?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Harry muttered. “Happened back in ’92. Killed hundreds of head of cattle. Power out for days. You wouldn’t think the land could turn on you that fast, but out here, the land’s got moods.”

I tried to smile, but it felt like my skin didn’t remember how. “Good thing I brought the big coat, then.”

He didn’t smile back. Instead, he turned and gestured toward the far end of the depot, where a single bus waited. It was older than the others, with flaking paint and a slightly off-kilter license plate. The windows were so fogged over I couldn’t see inside.

“Go ahead and get settled,” Harry said. “Not a full ride today. Just you and a few others headed north. We’ll be stopping through South Haven before Middlecross. Should be there before nightfall—weather willing.” South Haven. The name pinged something strange in my chest. An unexpected flash of nerves. Like someone brushing their hand too close to a burn you’d forgotten was there. I tried to shrug it off, but the feeling lingered.

“Thanks,” I said, gripping the handle of my suitcase tighter.

I hauled it toward the bus, boots crunching on the grit-covered pavement, every step feeling heavier than the one before. There was something about this moment—this small, transitional silence—that made my heart beat too loud in my ears. I could feel the change coming, the shift. Like the air itself was waiting for something to begin. Harry held the door of the bus open, watching me with a look I couldn’t quite place.

Not interested. Not disinterested either. Just…aware. It gave me goosebumps, and I wished I had thought to bring some bear spray. Not for the bears, for the men in these parts looking at me with a sense of awareness that I didn’t like.

“Middle seat’s warmer,” he said as I climbed the steps. “Engine heat doesn’t reach the back.”

“Good to know,” I replied, taking a careful step past him making sure not to get anywhere near him.Heebie-jeebies activate.

The interior smelled like old coffee and older secrets. A woman sat near the front, bundled in scarves and muttering to herself. A teenage boy was slumped in the back row with headphones in, barely more than a shadow. I chose the third row, middle seat, just like he suggested. Close to the front. Close to the door. If the heater didn’t reach the back, I didn’t care to be frozen to death.

The suitcase sat beside me like a second body, heavy and full of every version of myself I could take with me. I pressed my forehead to the cool window and watched as Harry climbed back into the driver’s seat, adjusting the mirrors with surgical precision. The door hissed closed. The engine growled. And the bus began to move—slowly, surely—toward the first of many towns I’d never meant to know.

Chapter Seven

The bones had finished drying sometime around midnight. They were curled like white fingers, arranged in rows on the stainless-steel table in my shop out back, waiting to be repurposed. They always waited so patiently. That was the beautiful thing about the dead—they never rushed you. They didn't whine or question or demand. They simplyoffered. Again and again and again.

I washed my hands in the deep sink, the water ice-cold from the well pump. No heater out here. Just metal and silence and the thrum of my own skin. There was something reverent in the chill—it kept me alert, awake, aware. The way the cold bit into me reminded me that I was still human, at least on the surface. Still wearing the shape of one, anyway.

I turned the bones gently, brushing flecks of dried flesh from the delicate curve of a rib. She’d been small, that one. Fragile. So easy to lift. So light when she stopped struggling. I didn’t remember her name. That’s the trick of it. You can’t remember names. Names give people too much weight. Names belong to women with futures, with plans, with someone waiting to hear from them. But bones… bones don’t need names. Bones are mine.

My thumb dragged across the grain of her clavicle. Smooth. Not quite perfect. A hairline fracture from where I’d gripped her too hard. I made a mental note not to use that piece for the centerpiece sculpture. Imperfections matter.

The wind outside kicked up dust against the siding. A hollow moan. A warning. A welcome. Snow was coming. I could feel it in my teeth. And she was coming too.The surprise girl.

The thought landed in my brain like warm blood on a frozen floor—an expanding heat, sudden and wrong. I breathedthrough my nose, slow and even. I’d been careful. Precise. Harry would make sure the bus took the right turn. The detour would look like an accident. A brief delay. A helpful suggestion. He was so good at making thingsfeelnormal.

And she would step off that bus with her big-city shoes and her soft, haunted eyes and not know that every inch of this had been sculpted for her. That every flake of snow, every frozen tree branch, every hollow mile of South Haven had beenchosen. For her. For me. Forus.

My hand curled into a fist before I realized what it was doing. Bone crunched under my palm, and I forced myself to let go. I couldn’t break anything else. Not today. Today was forpatience.

Soon. She’d learn the shape of this place. The weight of it. How it curled in on itself in the winter and became somethingelse. She’d learn what it meant to beseenby someone like me. And if she ran? That was fine. The chase was part of it. I was good at chasing. Better at catching. And once the catching was done, I could make another fine piece of art.

I pulled off my gloves and wiped a smear of something dark from the side of the table. The scent of bleach burned the back of my throat, mixing with the faint, sweet rot that never quite left the air out here. It calmed me. Anchored me. This wasn’t about lust. Or love. This was aboutpossession.

This was aboutknowing herin a way no one else ever had. Not her friends. Not her mother. Not her husband. Not the version of her that walked the world with small smiles and guarded steps. I would see the rest of her. Theinside parts. The parts she hid even from herself. And when she finally broke? It wouldn’t be the sound that mattered. It would be the silence after. That soft, reverent stillness where all the pretending stops. Where I could finallymake her my masterpiece.

Chapter Eight

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