What Grows in the Dark
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Synopsis
"At once suspenseful and tender…a queer horror masterpiece."
—Marisa Crane, author of I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself
In this chilling contemporary horror novel, a phony spiritualist returns to her hometown to assist in an investigation that eerily mirrors her sister’s death, forcing her to confront the secrets she’s been running from.
Sixteen years ago, Brigit Weylan’s older sister, Emma, walked into the woods in their small hometown of Ellis Creek. She never walked out. People said she was troubled—in the months leading up to her death, she was convinced there was a monster in those trees. Marked by the tragedy, Brigit left town and never looked back.
Now Brigit travels around the country investigating paranormal activity (and faking the results) with her cameraman, Ian. But when she receives a call from Ellis Creek, she’s thrust into the middle of a search for two missing teenagers. As Brigit and Ian are drawn further into the case, the parallels to Emma’s death become undeniable. And worse, Brigit can’t explain what’s happening to her: trees appearing in her bedroom in the middle of the night, something with a very familiar laugh watching her out in the darkness, and Emma’s voice on her phone, reminding Brigit to finish what they started.
More and more, it looks like Emma was right: there is a monster in Ellis Creek, and it’s waited a long time for Brigit to come home.
Release date: March 5, 2024
Publisher: MIRA Books
Print pages: 400
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What Grows in the Dark
Jaq Evans
1: BRIGITConnecticut
October 2019
An Attic
Brigit Weylan slid her fingers across the vintage tape recorder in her lap, the plastic warm as living skin.
“Are you picking anything up?” Ian asked, snaking a hand beneath the camera on his shoulder to massage his trapezius. He caught her watching and she cut her eyes away, thumbed off her mic.
“Nothing but your breathing.”
“It’s ambience. And we’re stalling because...”
She shifted on the pine floor. Pinkish clouds of insulation erupted from the walls on either side, and the ceiling sloped aggressively. It was a delicate maneuver to uncross and stretch out her legs in this tight space, but her foot was at risk of falling asleep. Brigit switched her mic back on.
“Sorry for the technical difficulties. We’re getting a little interference, which is actually a good sign—”
At the far end of the attic, a cardboard box fell off its stack. Papers spilled across the plywood in a plume of dust that brought the moldering scent of dried mouse droppings. Ian coughed but kept the camera level. In the living room downstairs, the baby goth who’d hired them would have a perfect view.
“Hello?” Brigit asked calmly, holding in her own cough as her throat burned. “Logan, is that you?”
Logan Messer, struck down by a heart attack in 1998. Craggy of face and black of eye, he’d glared up from the obituary they’d found in the Woodbridge library like a nineteenth-century oil magnate. Definitely the most likely of several spirits that could be haunting Haletown House. At least, that’s what Brigit and Ian had told its newest occupant.
A gust of wind ruffled the scattered papers in the corner, although the attic had no windows and the rest of the air sat thick and claustrophobic. Dust motes swirled through the wedges of light cast by the single hanging bulb. Brigit pushed her short hair back from her forehead and presented Ian’s camera with an unobstructed slice of profile.
“Logan, my name is Brigit Weylan. My sister and I are here to help you find peace.” She took a moment to steady her voice. “Is Emma with you now?”
From the corner came a sharp rap like knuckles on wood. At the same time Ian strangled another cough in the crook of his arm, nearly drowning out the knock. Brigit kept the tension from her face by digging her fingertips into her thighs. A small black hole had opened in her chest where her sister’s name had passed.
“I know you don’t want to leave, but I promise you’ll be happier once you do. All you need to do is take Emma’s hand and you’ll be free.”
The knocking came again, louder. Brigit had expected an echo, but the air seemed to catch the sound. The rest of the house was so chilly, all its warmth trapped up here like breath. Whatever mice had left those droppings probably suffocated. Little mummies in the walls.
“Brigit,” Ian murmured. “Can you see them?”
“I can’t see anything.” She licked her lips. Her tongue felt dry, chalky with dust. “But Logan is here. I can feel him in the room with us. I may need to move—don’t lose me.” Brigit raised her voice. “Emma, I’m with you. Let me help. Let me give you strength.”
She stretched her hand toward the corner. The knocking was a drumbeat now, even faster than her pulse. Slowly, Brigit shifted to her knees and readied herself to crawl toward that wedge of darkness—and the drumming stopped. Ian let out his breath in a quiet whoosh. Brigit exhaled too, long and slow. Then she turned to face the camera and smiled.
“It’s done,” she told Haletown House’s youngest resident. “This house is clean.”
The boy who’d paid for their services was waiting on the couch when Brigit and Ian climbed down from the attic. Brigit went first, Ian following with the camera bag now stuffed with their equipment: the laptop and its associated Bluetooth speaker, the miniature fan she’d hidden
underneath the boxes, the fishing line trap in the corner. There were a few other props around the outside of the house—such as the rotten eggs in the upstairs gutter, which had been carefully planted in an early-morning excursion that had nearly put Ian in the hospital—but those were all biodegradable and couldn’t be traced back to them.
In and out, that was the modus. They were surgeons like that, implanting a psychic placebo effect. Honestly, most of these people? They just wanted to feel believed. The rest wanted to see themselves on YouTube.
Brigit hadn’t needed that moral reassurance when she finally agreed to Ian’s pitch for the series a year ago, but there was something about this kid today. A familiar sloppiness to the liner drawn below his pale blue eyes. He asked, “You think the old man’s really gone?”
“I hope so,” she said. Ian watched her from the doorway to the living room. Brigit could feel it on her neck as she dropped into a plush armchair. “You’ve got our contact info if he isn’t.”
The boy shrugged. “Guess I’ll be on the show either way.”
“Technically we need the waiver signed by someone over eighteen,” Ian put in. The kid looked at him while Brigit looked at the kid. Dyed black hair, chapped lips. His sneakers weren’t actually black, just Sharpied to a purplish gray. She sat forward.
“You’ll be on the show. Your birthday’s what, next year? This wouldn’t go online for a few months anyway. We can hold the episode.”
Why had she said that? It didn’t matter how old he was. Their first season hadn’t gotten picked up despite all attempts to woo a real television network, and neither would the second. Ian was fooling himself if he thought this thing was going to happen for real.
The kid smiled, and his eyeliner cracked. Discomfort fisted in Brigit’s chest. “Cool,” he said. “Thanks.”
“I do need something in exchange. If things keep happening around here, stuff only you can hear, smell, whatever? Tell your parents. Call us too, but you have to tell your folks.”
“Why? They’d lose their minds if they knew about this.”
“Because you’re a minor, and this isn’t exactly a hard science. If it turns out I screwed up in there and it comes back on you, I need to know you’ve got someone in this house who can get you out.”
Or if he was in real trouble, the kind that could hit kids at around his age, that he would confide in someone other than a fake psychic out to pocket his summer cash. It was a moment of weakness, wanting this promise she’d never be able to confirm, but Brigit couldn’t stop herself.
The kid chewed at the inside of his lip. Something turned behind his eyes, a decision being weighed as Brigit held her ground. Then he grimaced. “What if I lied to you just now?”
“About what?”
“They wouldn’t lose their minds. They wouldn’t care at all,” he said. “My dad doesn’t even live here. The house was a bribe to keep my mom from making his life more difficult, and she hates that she took it, so she just works all the time. I tried telling her before, about the old man, and she said I needed more friends. That was before the wine.”
The spike of decade-old commiseration at this was so sharp and startling that Brigit almost laughed. Behind the kid, Ian looked faintly stricken.
“Got it,” she said briskly, and relief eased the kid’s shoulders. “How about a neighbor? Someone at school?”
“Ms. Brower, maybe. My English teacher?”
“Classic choice.” Brigit calibrated a wry smile and won half of one in return. “Okay. More weird stuff goes down, you tell Ms. Brower and then you call me. Deal?” She stretched her hand across the coffee table.
The kid hesitated. Behind her, Ian’s breathing was louder than anything else. Then a slim, chilly hand smacked into hers, and for a moment, Brigit wasn’t in this stranger’s living room at all. She was in the woods, the Dell, in the cold dark night, her sister’s icy fingers clamped around her own.
You want to be the wild child, Wild Child?
“Deal,” said the kid. Brigit didn’t blink. The room came back to her, his grub-white face, cold palm against her own. Vanilla candles on the mantel. Nothing of Emma or their game but the bitter tinge of earth beneath her tongue.
“Cheers,” Ian said thirty minutes later. They clinked pints of beer over a table featuring a menu permanently sealed beneath a layer of gluey resin. “To a job well done.”
“I’m so proud.”
“I don’t love lying to a teenager, but I do love taking money from his douchebag parents behind their backs.”
“Mmm,” Brigit agreed, though what she wanted to say was, You don’t have to sell it to me. If Ian needed to sell it to himself, the least she could do was let him.
“We should be good on gas and board for another week or so. Want to drop down to Florida and see the gators? It could make for some cool B-roll.”
Brigit picked at a scab of ketchup that had hardened near her coaster. She wondered if he could smell it on her, the pit in her chest, but no, of course not. That wasn’t the world in which Ian lived. She took a drink. “Florida’s never been at the top of my list.”
“Really? I figured you’d be all over the Everglades. They have airboat tours and stuff.”
“Please. Like you would risk that fancy camera in a swamp.”
She’d meant to say it flippantly, but her tone fell flat. Ian’s smile faltered, and guilt squeezed her ribs. He’d only been trying to change the subject. Get her to engage. Brigit swiped a fry from his plate and forced lightness
into her voice. “What about the Northeast? They’ve got islands, evergreens, ambience for days. Imagine the savings on mood lighting alone.”
She managed to keep the conversation rolling for the rest of the meal and the drive back to their motel, but by the time they pulled into the parking lot Brigit was ready to drop face-first into bed. That cold, clammy hand on hers—the kid’s, not the kid’s, the kid’s—wouldn’t quite leave her mind.
Just as Brigit was about to close herself into the room across from Ian’s, he clapped one palm on his door and swiveled back toward her. His black hair curled across his forehead, sprinkled with attic fiber she hadn’t noticed in the bar.
“I’m going to grab some water,” he said. “Want anything?”
“I’m good.” She needed a shower. They both did.
“They’ve got almond Snickers. My treat?”
Brigit waved him off and ducked inside her room before her smile grew too forced. She brushed her teeth in the shower, then gargled mouthwash for good measure. It tasted like rubbing alcohol garnished with spearmint, and was almost strong enough to sear away the taste of dirt.
No dreams that night, or none she could remember. Just darkness and the wind outside, thin glass letting in the cold. Brigit woke after dawn in a tangle of blankets, one pale thigh rashed with gooseflesh, but her mood had improved and she wanted waffles. There was a strong chance Ian had already eaten; maybe she could win him over with the promise of some scenic roadside diner. Brigit went for her phone, hopping one-legged into her jeans, and her appetite bled out.
A single missed call stared up from the otherwise empty notifications screen. No message. Brigit didn’t recognize the number, but she didn’t need to. The area code was enough.
Brigit waited to return the call from her hometown until after she had dressed, brushed her teeth, and flossed for the first time in several weeks. She considered not calling back at all, but whoever it was might try her again while she was trapped in the car with Ian.
The obvious solution was to block the number and pretend she’d never seen it. Except when she flumped onto her mattress and held her thumb above the red Block Caller button, she couldn’t bring herself to touch the screen. Nobody important still lived in Ellis Creek. Who would have her number? Maybe this was for some kind of retrospective, an article for the local paper. Interest did seem to rise and fall like a reliable crop. Brigit’s mother might have sold her remaining child’s contact information for a little sympathy.
Brigit groaned aloud. The only thing worse than knowing was not knowing, and if she didn’t do something soon, Ian would come looking for her. Probably armed with coffee and a disgusting amount of cheer. She pressed the phone against her ear.
It rang once, twice. Above her, cracks spiderwebbed across the pocked white ceiling where the paint had gone a sickly yellow. One of the cracks looked like something alive, a creature from Emma’s stories, and Bridget
was tracing its misshapen spine when a low female voice picked up the line.
“Brigit? Brigit Weylan?”
Startled to hear her first name on a stranger’s tongue, Brigit didn’t answer right away. The caller inhaled one audible breath before continuing.
“This is Alicia Nguyen. I was a friend of your sister’s.” Good voice. Unfamiliar but striking, both smoky and reserved. The name rang no bells either, although that wasn’t saying much. Most of the people Emma had brought around the house had faded into blurry amalgamations of features, laughter, snippets of overheard conversation.
“Ah,” Brigit said, racking her brain for a distinct memory of someone named Alicia.
“Sorry to call so early. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Wake you. The words jarred something loose, a distant piece of information that slipped and slid until suddenly Brigit had it: Emma sneaking back to the house after midnight, not alone, a confusing rush of feet and hushed giggles. Creaking up the stairs, past Brigit’s room, pausing at the opened door to peer inside and whisper, “Sorry, B! Alicia’s the loudest human in the world.” Behind her another girl, dark and slender, one hand on Emma’s waist. This girl murmured in a low, hoarse voice, “I hope we didn’t wake you.” Both of them smiling but not really at Brigit, only at each other, like Brigit could have been anyone or no one at all.
That had been...the summer before Emma’s death. Must have been, because Emma had only gotten her license that final July, and her newfound freedom of movement had made her bold. Brigit thought she’d seen Alicia a few times after that night, but she and Emma must not have lasted beyond puppy love. Now that Brigit could picture the girl she’d been, she was pretty sure Alicia hadn’t even come to the funeral.
“I hear you’re a spiritualist now,” adult Alicia said. “If that’s the right term.”
“Who told you that?”
“I’m still in Ellis Creek. Word gets around.”
“I didn’t know anybody back home was keeping tabs on me.”
“We have a lot of time for gossip. If it’s true, I have a job for you. It’s local.”
Brigit rolled onto her stomach. She was curious, sure, but the rest of her was already starting to withdraw. There was a sweet spot for the jobs she and Ian would take, and anything that necessitated a 5:00 a.m. phone call to someone you think is psychic did not slot in.
Sorry, B.
“What’s going on?” Brigit asked, tracing the argyle ridges of her duvet.
I hope we didn’t—
“It’s sensitive. I don’t think I can get into it on the phone. But I can pay you for your time if you’ll come to Ellis Creek and hear me out in person.”
Rejection climbed up Brigit’s throat, and she sank her teeth into her tongue to hold it back. Her heart was fucked up. She could feel it knocking at her ribs, trying to get out. Sensitive. Few situations were sensitive enough to drive someone to make this kind of call but refuse to discuss any details over the phone.
“I don’t get involved with wrongful death,” Brigit said. “That’s not negotiable. I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time.”
“There is no death. Not yet.”
“Not yet?”
“Come to Ellis Creek. Let me tell you what’s going on. If you don’t want to take the job once you’ve got the full story, I’ll drop it and delete your number.”
This persistence. Brigit wasn’t sure what to make of it. On the one hand, she didn’t want to know why anyone would make that offer to the kid sibling of a dead girlfriend. On the other hand...
“A hundred dollars for the consultation.” Her senses sharpened, nostrils flaring with the smell of rug cleaner. “After that it’s sixty an hour each for my partner and I.”
“You work with a partner?”
“Is that a problem?”
A brief hesitation. Interesting. “No. A hundred dollars each for the meeting, and one twenty an hour after that. We’ll call it a thousand dollars base fee, even if it takes less time for you to resolve. How soon can you be here?”
It was Brigit’s turn to pause. Two hundred dollars just to talk? A thousand dollars no matter how long it took them to pull off the scene? The curiosity clamped down on her nape and gave her a little shake. “This job. It’s not dangerous, is it? I won’t put myself or my partner at risk, friend of the family or not.”
“The only dangers are ones I’d imagine you’re familiar with in your line of work.” Brigit couldn’t tell if she’d heard a sneer hiding somewhere underneath those words, or if she’d only wanted to hear it. “And remember,” Alicia continued, “all I’m asking for is a conversation in person. Then you’ll understand why it had to be this way.”
A conversation in person. In the town where she’d spent the first eighteen years of her life and not a minute more. But five hundred dollars equaled two months of student loan payments for the film studies degree she’d never finished, and while Brigit had picked up a couple under-the-table barista shifts between their last few gigs—bless Starbucks’ total commitment to efficiency—she wouldn’t mind skipping that hustle while Ian sourced their next job. And he would get a major kick out of seeing her home turf. Southern temperatures could be nice, too, with winter clawing at the door.
Liar, a quiet voice scoffed. You don’t care about any of that.
Pain stung her hand. Brigit unstuck the corner of her forefinger nail from her thumb. She hadn’t even realized she was digging.
“Brigit? Are you there?”
She inspected the nail. No blood. Her heart pounded, dread and something wilder rising in her chest. No death. Not yet. Just a woman who’d loved Emma once. Or at the very least, one who could say her name and picture a living person, a girl she had touched. How long had it been since Brigit had seen that wound on someone else?
And that kid yesterday with his pathetic shoes and cracked eyeliner, his insistence that a ghost was keeping him awake. That he could pay them, that he wanted to pay them because he’d seen the show and he
loved the hook, the drama of the living sibling and the dead one. Talking to him had been like a vise closing around her heart, and god, she hated that. Her insides were her own. Nobody else should be able to touch them with their fish-belly fingers and needy eyes, or their expectant voices on the phone. She couldn’t be manipulated so easily, or if she could, it would be her own goddamn doing.
Besides, Ellis Creek was just a town. Sad things happened everywhere. Far worse things than one dead teenager. If anything, going back now would prove to Brigit that was true, and maybe she needed a little proof. A little proof with a fat check.
Closer. Still bullshit. But closer.
Once she’d said her farewells and hung up the phone, Brigit placed her forefinger nail into the shallow groove above the joint of her thumb. Pressed down until her breath caught. ...
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