Page 25 of Curses and Cornstalks
After helping Aunt Bonnie clean up after dinner, I hurry upstairs to my room and flop back onto my bed. A deep sigh escapes me as I stare up at the ceiling, replaying my entire encounter with Atticus.
From his bone-crushing vines that nearly squeezed me to death, to me cutting him loose, to him leading me out of thecornstalks. The way he moved, the way he talked… I think about it over and over until I fall asleep.
Chapter Eleven
Cassie
Returningto reality and pretending like nothing extraordinary happened in the haunted cornfield is impossible.
How can I?
While everything in Cold Springs is still plain and boring—exactly as it was before I snuck into the stalks—I feel like a completely different person.
Maybe the shift came from the utter hopelessness of being lost.
Or maybe from the bone-chilling terror of facing death.
Or maybe it came from experiencing something impossibly paranormal with no other explanation thanmagic.
Regardless of the reason, my memories from the cornfield are more than I can forget or even ignore. They haunt my every waking moment, swirling together in a blur of reverence and fear that leaves me anxious. The feeling is like an itch beneath my skin I can’t scratch, an ache I can’t soothe.
As the days crawl by, I’m skeptically optimistic that the anxiousness will settle. That the memories will fade and I can move on with my life and forget about the Watcher.
They don’t.
If anything, the longer I spend away from the cornfield, the more desperation builds in my chest. Desperation for what? I don’t know, but I do my best to tamp it down.
I try to pretend like everything is fine.
Routine is everything on the farm, which I quickly come to understand and loathe. Getting up at the crack of dawn to feed the animals and shovel hay has to be one of the worst ways to start the day, but once the chores are finished, there isn't much to do.
There's a big screen TV in the living room, which keeps me occupied for a couple of hours. I don't want my aunt and uncle to think I'm a couch potato, even though I’d love to relax and rot in bed all day, so I try to find other things to occupy my time.
I go to town, visiting and learning the shops. I draw. I nap. I even try my hand at gardening, and I nearly give Aunt Bonnie a panic attack with how horrible I am at it.
But despite my best efforts, nothing is ever enough to take my mind off the cornfield for long.
To take my mind off Atticus.
Images from my time with him linger in my thoughts like a dream, fading in and out of my mind without warning. They tease my senses, taunt my curiosity.
Drawing me back to the one place I know I shouldn't venture… the cornfield.
Days pass, and I fall into somewhat of a rhythm. Get up early, do chores, waste time trying to distract myself. But no matter what, life feels like a blur as it passes me by. Nothing feels asrealas the vines wrapped tightly around me or walking through the cornstalks with Atticus.
And, as much as I should stay away, I find myself searching for that realness more and more.
“What’s up with you?” Madelyn asks one morning as we arrive back to the farmhouse after chores. “You’ve been so distant recently, and you’ve hardly said a word today. Are you thinking about leaving already?”
“Not yet.” I force an unconvincing smile. “I just have a lot on my mind.”
She cocks one of her pale eyebrows in my direction and pulls her blonde hair out of its messy bun, letting it tumble down her back. “I know that look, Cass. I bet this is about some guy, ain’t it?”
As the thought of Atticus crosses my mind for the tenth time this morning, my smile turns genuine, and Madelyn snorts a laugh.
“I knew it,” she says. “Is it a boy in town?”
I shake my head quickly, not eager to divulge my secrets. I can’t even make up a fictional guy; she knows everyone in Cold Springs. “Just a guy back home.”
