Melinda was carrying well water to the trough in the barn and nudging back Cherry, one of the pudgier pigs, when she felt a cold, telltale prickle along the back of her neck.
Everything else seemed normal as pie: the last of the afternoon sun streaking into the barn, the floating motes of dust, the occasional moo from the field where Lance was supposedly getting the cattle penned, the distant clanks of the new town hall being repaired.
Despite the run-of-the-mill happenings, something was most definitely not right. Even though she was nearly a year retired from the monster hunting business, the senses she had honed in her 30 years kicked in as she refilled the trough.
Someone—something—was watching her.
She made sure not to change the speed of her pouring, using her other hand to push long strand of her dark hair back under her wide-brimmed hat. She had been through too much not to be within a few feet of a gun, even on their ranch.
She started whistling a tune that she and Lance used to discreetly communicate a problem, and gave Cherry a pat.
“Well girl, settle in now,” Melinda murmured and picked up the six-shooter resting a few feet away on their worktable.
She stepped outside, keeping her pace steady as she curled around the barn until the modest-sized field came into view. The pair of heifers were in the corner, and instead of tending to the animals, she spotted Lance’s sandy hair and boots peeking out from a hammock under a cluster of oak trees in another corner. That wasn’t unusual; what was unusual was that he seemed to be absorbed in a leatherbound book, rubbing the scruff on his chin thoughtfully. He’d never been much for reading, but lately he’d been poring through old texts and histories that he’d never taken an interest in before. Ever since they lost their mentor, Abel, a year ago, he was intent on studying Abel’s textbooks, maybe, Melinda figured, as a way to grieve for his friend.
Normally, she’d roll her eyes and list all the things that had to get done before he convinced her to take a break and enjoy the long summer nights.
Instead, she kept whistling the tune and walked casually to the well as her skin tingled, a foreboding feeling looming like a summer thunderstorm. Lance glanced up, blinking out of his concentration to smile at her. She whistled more insistently, and his smile dropped away. His lanky form went upright, boots immediately on the grass.
Too late—a shadow half the size of a human barreled forward, like someone tossed a cup of ink at her. She threw herself out of the way as a rush of air colder than a mountain wind in January swept by.
The shadowy figure scurried like a fleeing child one second, then moved smoothly like a herding dog the next, a disjointed mass of movement that made her eyes hurt. Now it perched on the top of the fence, its blurred gray face cocked but staring straight at her.
An Edgling.
If it was solid, it’d look like it was made of a bundle of sticks come to life and dyed slate
and obsidian, but its limbs flowed too freely. This was a big one. But no matter, she’d take care of this shadow creature like she took care of others when she had to venture into the monsters’ territory where few humans returned—the Edge, an opening between the human world and monster world nestled in the Northern Ridge Mountain Range.
“Thought I had exterminated you suckers,” Melinda muttered. From the corner of her eye, she could see Lance scrambling to get a weapon. The Edglings fed off insecurities and evoked in her mind a vision of her late mother’s face, lifeless after a monster infection, along with a memory of Abel’s pale expression after a demon had stolen his soul.
Melinda blinked both away and pointed her six-shooter at the Edgling. “Well, say howdy to your siblings.”
She went to shoot, but the field and sky darkened as though a shroud had been thrown over her head. Just one of the many tricks the shadow creatures had. Melinda gritted her teeth, hearing the shadow creature’s whispers start up:
“Killer. Murderer.”
“Melinda!” Lance’s voice called to her through the veil.
“I got a clean shot!” She called back, feeling for her revolver’s trigger in the gray mist. The Edgling turned, mimicking Melinda’s own maneuver a second earlier, even mock adjusting an invisible hat.
“Your fault, your fault,” the Edgling whispered. A sudden surge of guilt hit her with everything she had ever felt bad about—the friends they had lost along the way while monster hunting, the missions they failed, her momma’s demise. But that was an Edgling’s specialty: regret. She bade back the feelings of shame and whirled after the creature as it jumped. A cold rustle rushed past her ears and she shifted her pistol.
She aimed at the Edgling’s torso with the familiar satisfaction of eliminating a monster. It was like stomping out a stubborn cockroach nest—one less evil pest in this world.
And she never missed.
“Melinda, stop!” Lance’s panicked shout gave her pause.
Instead of the Edgling, Lance’s face materialized through the gray mist, alarmed.
And two inches from her revolver.
“Stop,” he said again, and she felt his hands push the six-shooter down.
The shroud blocking her vision dropped away just as quickly, the world snapping back into place—the sky streaked with pink and orange, the far-off moos.
“The Edgling was right there...” she trailed off. Lance gripped her shoulders, the warmth of his hands bringing her back to herself, and she realized what she had actually seen.
A hallucination.
Another one.
“It was...so real,” she muttered. “Worst one yet.”
“It’s all right,” he said simply but that didn’t stop the flush of confusion and worse—shame—heating her cheeks.
“It’s not,” she said. “I almost shot you.”
The shadow flitted again at the corner of her vision. Lance gripped her free hand. She focused on the pressure of his fingers and the shadow faded.
“But you didn’t.” Even though he was easygoing as she was taciturn, he had grown quicker to worry, his eyes a little more guarded after their time monster hunting. “You peachy? It’s been a while since you’ve had a spell like that.”
“Dandy.” She slumped, tension still in her shoulders and neck, the memories from all the creatures they had fought knotted into her muscles. She willed herself to relax. “Every time I think I’m over it, something happens again.”
“We’ve only been retired for a year. Reckon it’ll take longer for us to recover from what we’ve been through. What you’ve been through.” His face was more laced with worry lines than when she first met him a few years ago in their little town of Five Peaks. In those years they had been through a lifetime together as they roamed the east and north lands, exterminating Edge monsters for substantial fees. Both of them had plenty of scars to show for it. But his real scars, like hers,
were deeper than surface level. Ever since part of his soul was sucked out last year along with Abel’s, he hadn’t been the same. His soul had been restored. Abel’s hadn’t.
Even so, Lance seemed to get wearier easily, his eyes more haunted. Maybe it was grief or age catching up with them. Hard to say.
He studied her for a second before frowning. “You’ve been seeing more visions lately. You need to tell me when it happens,” Lance chided.
“Sometimes, just at night,” Melinda said. “That’s exactly why I don’t tell you. Dreams, that’s all. Not anything to fret about.”
“It is something to fret about,” Lance said, getting that rare stubborn tilt to his chin. He pulled out some strands of tobacco and placed them into a rolling paper, frowning. “You have to let go of those nightmares, and your obsession with monster killing. We did our part,” he said more gently.
“I feel OK now, really I do,” Melinda said. “It must’ve been from insomnia. Do me a favor and don’t rat me out to Aunt B. She won’t be pleased.”
“She’s got something else she’ll be madder about.” Lance said, quickly lighting his cigarette.
“What’s that?”
“We’re gonna be late for dinner.”
Melinda hastily changed, swapping her work pants for cotton trousers and a button-up. Lance traded one plaid shirt for another and his nicer calfskin boots. They donned their hats—Melinda’s a newer crisp brown wide-brimmed one and Lance’s with a braided leather band—and filled a satchel of lemons from the tree. They rode their horses, Pepper and Mud, at a brisk trot down Second Street in the town they had made home. Those who weren’t always welcome elsewhere seemed to find some respite at Five Peaks. The first families who settled there decades ago years ago had claimed it a place where any decent folk would be welcome, no matter what they looked like or where they came from.
It was where she and Lance had found each other. Both fresh off their hurts from losing family members, they had found their way to Five Peaks—her coming
to live with Aunt B after losing her momma to the monster infection and Lance, recently orphaned, gone to work for a sympathetic Abel.
They waved at John and Jack—Jack’s albino skin nearly glowing in the sunlight—who were working on fixing their front porch. Next door was Miss Patti, who came to Five Peaks years ago so she could live alone in peace. They tipped their hats at the Miller kid, not really a kid anymore, as he worked on one of his metal-and-wood sculptures on the porch.
A hot wind came down to their valley from the rolling mountains to the north, which had grown brown from the long, dry summer. The branches of the oaks overhead swayed as two children darted by them in close pursuit of an energetic chicken. Melinda tried to let the sound of the town and the wind through the branches soothe her, but she couldn’t shake the uneasiness in her gut.
Maybe I can’t trust my gut anymore.
Her thoughts soured at that. Maybe the monster hunting had been too much, and she’d never recover, maybe she’d always be on the brink of losing her sense of what was what, maybe she’d always be seeing things that weren’t there—
Don’t think that way. Everything’s aces, she reminded herself, channeling a little of Lance. She breathed in the smell of sawdust, livestock, and dried grass and tried to shake off her jitters.
Aunt B’s place sat amidst a dozen or so log homes on the other side of Five Peaks, a stone’s throw from the birch windmill that marked the town’s entrance. They approached the wooden structure, where overgrown flowers and bursting vegetables led from the house to a modest stream. Outside, an unfamiliar horse stood in a sheen of sweat and Melinda’s uneasiness intensified. She rubbed her cheeks, trying to snap out of it so she wouldn’t worry her aunt.
They paused, as they always did, at the memorial in the corner of the yard. Though there had been no body, a wooden sign carefully calligraphed with “Abel Yao, beloved friend” was always adorned with fresh flowers. He, along with Aunt B, had taught Lance and Melinda practically everything they knew about monster hunting.
Wish I could’ve saved you, Melinda thought, as she always did, when they spotted his name.
“You raised me like my pa couldn’t,” Lance said quietly to the sign as they neared. “Miss you every day, Abel.” He gave a shuddery sigh and Melinda touched his shoulder.
“I just thought I would feel something when he passed,” Lance said. “A sign from him. Something.”
“I didn’t feel anything for a long time when Momma passed,” Melinda said. “But once in a while, something catches me unexpected, and I get the feeling she’s right there. But the grief keeps on gnawing.”
They turned as Aunt B threw open the door.
“Thank goodness you’re here!” Roughly twice Melinda’s age, Aunt B’s bun glinted black and silver against her perpetually sunburnt freckled face.
“Hi Aunt B.” Melinda breathed in the scent of beans and beef escaping through the door and handed her the sack of fresh lemons. “Peace offering for being late.” Melinda braced for the usual barrage of questions about what they had eaten that day, what they were reading, when they were going to get married.
“Chili’s better the longer it sits, isn’t that right?” Lance said hopefully.
“I’m glad you’re here, and not just for dinner.” Aunt B’s sage green cotton skirt swept against the steps while she talked in her rapid-fire way. They moved into the sitting room, where doilies hung crooked from furniture piled high with books and bundles of notes tied with twine. Her place, it seemed, had gotten messier since Abel passed. They had been close friends, and Abel had been as neat as Aunt B was messy. That influence wore off quickly, it seemed. But Aunt B’s usual chattiness had a more frenzied air than usual.
“You’re jumpier than a long-tailed cat under a rocking chair,” Melinda said. “What’s going on?”
“Town of Fallows,” Aunt B said. “They sent word for help. For you.”
“For us?
We’re retired,” Melinda said, ignoring the sensation of her heart sinking into her boots.
Aunt B shook her head. “This sounds bad. Several dead from a mysterious attack.”
“We’ve done enough,” Melinda protested. “If we keep going anytime someone calls with some monster situation, we’ll never be finished. Is that what you want? Us out there, taking care of other towns’ problems forever?”
“This is different,” Aunt B said as she poured hot water from a kettle into a large teacup.
“It’s always different.” Melinda shooed away the feeling of sinking in quicksand. Why was Aunt B bringing this up with them? They were done monster hunting, for good. “After everything we went through last year. We lost Abel, nearly lost Lance—” Melinda stopped, her words curdling on her tongue like sour milk.
Lance chewed his lip, looking pained and Aunt B’s eyes were bright at the mention of Abel’s name. Guilt immediately shot through Melinda. Well, what did Aunt B expect? That they’d drop everything every time someone needed help?
“Maybe someone else can do it, ...
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
