Holden

HOLDE N

The sky grew hazier, its orange glow an unavoidable omen, and was dead sick of spending his time only cooking and cleaning instead of doing something meaningful to help. Frank was understandably busy orchestrating fire efforts, and it took him three days to get permission for to visit the closed exhibit in the visitor center.

drove himself and Angel down the mountain range to the center, located down a cracked paved road somewhere between the ranger's station and the nearest town. He parked at the front in a lot that needed as much repaving as the road, before them a hodgepodge of '70s architecture and wilderness lodge aesthetics. A lonely Dodge Stratus sat a few spaces to their right, the only other car in the lot.

turned off his car as his phone buzzed repeatedly in his pocket.

"Oh god, we have service," Angel groaned. "I'm afraid to look."

"I think we're obligated to look. I need to see if I still have a job."

" We need to see if we still have jobs."

slid his phone from his pocket and checked his texts. None from Chelsea, the woman he'd been sleeping with for months. They'd never broken up because they weren't officially together, but still... weird that she hadn't even bothered to check if he was alive.

He opened his work email and tapped on a message from his boss with Angel cc'd.

Chase relayed to me you all took the initiative to cut hours during the summer. While I'm sure you were well intentioned, please confirm with me first before taking extended leave. Make sure you're back by the 24th.

The 24th was the day after tomorrow.

"It looks like we won't be meeting that deadline," Angel muttered as she read the message from her own phone. "I called out for the both of us. You want me to quit for the both of us, too?"

exhaled and stared out the grimy windshield, burnt light beaming through the tall pines behind the visitor center. Twenty thousand acres already, Frank had told them before they left the station this afternoon. The fire wasn't even a week old.

He'd tried helping the rescue team once, when the stakes were a hell of a lot lower, and failed. Now he was about to give up his job so he and Angel could keep playing Sherlock and Watson. And he wasn't even Sherlock.

Angel snapped her fingers. "Earth to ."

"No, don't quit for me. I'll do it myself."

"So you are quitting?" she asked.

They exchanged glances. Angel's face was blank, like she was looking to him for guidance on what to do. He didn't want to be responsible for her decision, especially if it ended up being the wrong one.

"You need to do what's right for you," he said.

Angel rolled her eyes. "No shit. I'm quitting regardless of what you do. "

smiled pathetically. "Maybe when all this is over, I'll move to Portland or something. Better jobs." The self-confirmation loosened the knot in his chest. Whether or not they found the research team, his time in Deadswitch would end. He had options beyond his old life. Infinite options, as long as he could get over the thought of being alone for a bit.

"That's the spirit." Angel unbuckled her seat belt and pushed her door open. "But really, if you want to copy my resignation letter, I'll forward it to you."

"Better do that now while we're back in the 21st century." He got out of the car and followed her to the visitor center's double doors.

The air inside smelled like mildew and a Febreze plug-in. Dead critters stuffed before was born peered at him from behind glass walls, the shellac on the exhibits' wood frames sticky looking, like it never fully dried. Rumpled and faded forest backgrounds hanging behind all the taxidermy showcased dense groves and lakeshores, too idyllic to feel real.

Other than the whir of the AC unit, the lobby was dead silent. Even the woman manning the desk said nothing as she watched and Angel over a pair of delicate spectacles. She had the appearance of a burnt-out kindergarten teacher who should have retired a decade ago. Her brass-plated name tag read Marilyn.

Angel cleared her throat. "Ummm, hi. Frank called about us."

Marilyn released a melodramatic sigh and thumbed through the keys on the lanyard around her neck. "You're lucky Frank is a good friend. I'm not supposed to do this." She swept around the desk toward a dim hallway.

"Are we supposed to follow?" whispered. Angel shoved him with her elbow.

"So... you never give tours of the old archives?" Angel asked as they followed Marilyn at an awkwardly long distance.

"No," Marilyn said. "Bureaucratic nonsense. The state won't employ another staff member, and we'd need at least two with a building this large." The reason conflicted with what Diego had said about the exhibit being too disturbing. Then again, Marilyn didn't seem fun enough to tell them the juicy truth, if there even was a juicy truth.

Marilyn approached a door at the end of the hall. "Opening the exhibit for the two of you is technically illegal, but Frank was adamant. Said you two were helping with something important as he's tied up with that horrid fire. Sure hope they put it out quickly."

Something important . Frank could have been bluffing to get Marilyn off his back, but it was nice to think that someone liked thought he was doing something important, even if Frank only knew had a lead involving the cult. Frank hadn't even asked questions.

Marilyn unlocked the door with her jangly set of keys and propped it open. A mostly empty hexagonal room awaited them. A scattering of paintings on the farthest wall were the only ones uncovered, but with one window, the room was too dark for to make out what they were. Empty display counters atop cabinets lined the perimeter, as if guests were supposed to start and end at the room's entrance.

"Any remaining artifacts are in the cabinets to keep them clean," Marilyn said. "The rest have been redistributed to descendants and native organizations. You can open the cabinets, but touch nothing. It's twenty-five cents for each photocopied page of the documents. You can ask me for copies at the end of your visit. Until then, I will be busy. Please shut the door when you leave." And with that, she was gone.

"She wasn't loved as a child," Angel said.

"Be thankful she let us back here and don't talk shit." glanced around.

Angel flipped the light switch near the door, but nothing happened. "Looks like we're doing this in the dark. I'll start on the far side." She beelined to the far cabinets, and began searching through the ones to the left of the door.

There wasn't much. Most of the "artifacts" were shoddily glued together dioramas depicting pioneer life. Possibly made by fourth graders. Diego was right—this exhibit was disturbing, but not for the reasons had imagined.

The actual artifacts comprised a couple of tools found on an excavation and broken arrowheads. None of it seemed relevant to the pioneer cult.

Angel distracted him as she piled stuff from her cabinet on top of the display counter.

stood. "I thought the lady said?—"

"Oh, come on. She's clearly the kind of person who gets more pleasure from scolding people than actually protecting precious artifacts." Angel huffed as she stood, then picked through the pile on the display case.

joined her, studying the collection. A couple of books with laminated, unmarked covers, a plaque that had once been on a wall or display case...

"Is that a flute?"

"Four of them." Angel laid the flutes next to each other. Other than the natural grain of the wood, they looked identical, their bodies as smooth as driftwood, though the design was crude.

Something didn't look right. "Aren't flutes supposed to have more holes in them?"

"I'm not a flute historian." Angel pointed to the plaque resting above the flutes.

Local pioneers renounced their Methodist faith to create one of their own. This cult worshipped a goddess they called The Mother, handcrafting instruments from cedar to play a hymn known as The Mother's Prayer.

A terrible screech scraped across the room, and jumped as Angel lowered a flute from her lips.

"You'll get us in trouble. Or worse," he said.

"What do you mean, worse?" Angel asked. "You scared I'm gonna summon her?"

"The Mother?"

She shrugged. "Why would someone craft an instrument specifically to make that screech other than to summon some eldritch god from a distant realm?"

Fair point.

Angel tapped the top of a book. "I think this is a copy of the pioneer leader's journal. Why don't you snap pics of the pages?" Angel snorted. " Photocopies. I'll do a sweep of the other cabinets."

did as Angel asked. The glossy pages were scans from an old book, the dates erratic. Pages were missing. Maybe they were inappropriate for the public, though he doubted Marilyn would let him in on the location of the actual journal.

He checked the back of the book for the publisher.

"The High Sierra Conservationists... Is that the group Dr. Dupont's mother belonged to?" asked. "They published this book."

He handed the book to Angel, and she frowned, studying the stamp on the back. "Why would a conservationist group publish documents from a historic cult?"

And how is Siena's mother connected?

He heard Maidei's voice: correlation doesn't equal causation . How many coincidences did he need to run into for the connections to no longer be just correlation?

He thought about Angel's question. Why? "Any chance the cult influenced the environment in Deadswitch?"

Angel flipped through the book. "I don't think we have enough information to figure that out."

pulled out his phone and typed "High Sierra Conservationists" in the search bar on his browser. "What's the name of this cult?"

"This looks like the journal of some priest or leader, and he keeps mentioning ‘The Church of Bounty.' Try that."

typed it in. As the results slowly loaded, he glanced around the dark room, then made his way to the paintings hanging over the far cabinets as his browser loaded. A quick scan of the links showed nothing related, all results about the High Sierra Conservationists displaying a crossed out " church of bounty " beneath the listing.

squinted at the uncovered paintings on the wall, stepping closer. Even with little light, he could tell the paint texture wasn't typical. It looked like mud, which explained why the paintings were all so dark. Abstract, too. Seemed unlike the popular art at the time, though he knew nothing of art history.

He shone his phone's flashlight at the largest painting. The image shimmered with bronze and flecks of minerals, the paint caked on thick and creating a dimensional texture, like the painting was meant to be touched. He relaxed his eyes, the once-abstract shapes sliding into focus.

Antlers.

Sweat prickled the back of his neck, and the tang of iron flooded his mouth—not real blood, but he could still taste it, like a memory.

" . "

blinked and turned back toward Angel, who crossed her arms.

"I said your name three times, and you were totally spaced out. What's going on? Low blood sugar? You need a snack?"

Correlation, not causation. "I've seen this before."

Angel approached him, staring up at the wall. "What, the painting?"

"What's in the painting."

It took Angel as long as him to make sense of the image. "A deer? You've seen a deer? I hate to break it to you, but?—"

"Not a deer. This deer. This buck..." He hadn't told her yet, because the first time he'd seen the buck, he'd been ashamed and thought it had been the product of a nervous breakdown. And then he'd told Maidei, but both their shared experience and the surrounding mystery felt like it was supposed to be kept secret, until now.

Because this painting was evidence that what he'd witnessed twice wasn't a figment of his own imagination.

and Angel sat with Maidei and Zaid around the table in the Hub, Francis snoozing in fiery sunlight trickling in through the window.

An unfamiliar game lay unfinished on the table, black and white pieces on a board with a cross through the center. looked upon it with a strange remorse, like he'd missed someone's birthday. He wanted to be around for the fun, even if the only fun to be had at the Fort was a board game, and not just the tension that now filled the room.

Angel sipped her coffee, lost in thought. had just recounted both experiences seeing the shadow buck to the group. He'd expected Angel to crack some joke about his mental health, but she'd grown quiet and contemplative, which meant she believed him.

"So is this the same thing you saw all those years ago, Maidei?" For once, Zaid had shut his laptop, enraptured by 's story and the painting they'd found at the visitor center.

Maidei sat with her arms crossed, scowling at the edge of the table. "Similar. Not the same. I never got a good look at the shadow that followed me. It hovered just out of sight, which is why I spent so long trying to convince myself that trauma had rewritten my memory of what had actually happened." She said it so matter of fact, as though it was the only way she could talk about those few days lost in the woods.

"Three times," Angel said. "You said you saw it twice, . But I saw it once, too. With you... the day we drove up here. We almost ran into it. "

He'd forgotten about that day—the black blur flying across the road. His car skidding across gravel as he stopped short. And Francis, in the back seat, releasing a string of vicious growls.

He asked the obvious. "So, what is it?"

No one spoke. Maidei wrapped a few of her braids around a finger and tugged, still glaring at the table's corner.

"Sounds like magic," Zaid said.

Maidei refocused her glare at him.

"Oh, come on, Mai. Don't look at me like that. You know I was talking this way from the beginning with those lodgepole pines growing fast enough to break laws of biology, chemistry, physics. Magic was the closest thing possible to a rational explanation. Still is, especially now that there's a cult involved."

"Speaking of..." Angel held out her hand toward . "Can I see your phone? I want to look over those journal pages."

passed his phone to her, and she got busy flipping through the images.

"There was someone at the visitor center, right?" Zaid asked. "Met her once. Lovely lady."

"Lovely isn't the word I'd use to describe her," Angel muttered.

Zaid ignored her. "She have anything to say?"

shook his head. "She refused to answer questions when we were done looking around. Said she wasn't a historian." Marilyn had acted like the fact and Angel had tried questioning her at all about the cult was a personal affront. She clearly wanted no affiliation with them. "I don't know where else we can get more info at this point. Maybe Diego, but I don't want to bother him again. He was annoyed enough with me the first time."

"Hoolyyy shit, listen to this." Angel pinched the screen of 's phone to zoom in. "These are journal pages from one of the cult leaders. Date reads 1882.

" Blessed newcomers. Everyone has been fraught with worry. All the children have drawn their cards and The Mother has yet to choose her prize. But three families arrived today from the southern hills. Eleven children in all. Their cards shall be drawn tonight. The Mother is still good to us, and through her love, we will not starve. "

"I'm not following," Maidei said. wasn't following either, and Angel staring at him with wide eyes, waiting for him to get it , wasn't helping.

" Cards , . Didn't you also draw cards?"

The night of the party in the woods flooded back: annoyance, inadequacy, but more importantly the fortune teller between the trees. The oil lamp, the cigarette marks on the wooden table.

" What is going on?" Maidei's eyes were sharp as she watched 's expression, suspicious of his reaction to Angel's prompting.

"It's . . ." sighed. "A long story."

"Try me." The muscles in Maidei's crossed arms clenched.

"A couple of things happened when Angel and I were looking into Dr. Dupont's recordings back in Corvallis. The first was that Angel bought and read the book Without a Trace ."

"That's the book about the Deadswitch Five, right?" Zaid leaned toward him. "I think I have a copy."

"Did you read it?" asked.

Zaid waved a hand in front of his face. "I don't read."

Angel rolled her eyes. "Really, scientist ?"

"Not for pleasure, anyway. Got it because those girls went missing around Wolf Ridge. Thought it was odd, given what happened to Maidei. But I never got around to reading it." A light turned on behind his eyes, like he was finally putting together the Deadswitch Five, the research team, and Maidei's story. "You don't think?—"

Maidei cut him off. "Let finish."

"The book was mostly about Avery Mathis, the famous content creator. Anyway, I looked into the game she was playing right before she disappeared. It was about this cult—a village in the woods, and a girl cast into the forest as a sacrifice to The Mother."

Maidei's expression dropped in surprise. "You can't be serious."

"Trust me, it gets better," Angel said, perking up.

"A few weeks later, I went to this party in the woods between Corvallis and Newport. This woman... she knew I'd be there. Sent this guy to look around the bonfire and find me." shook away the chill running up his back. "She was out in the woods, all set up with a lamp and a table. I sat down, and she pulled my cards like a tarot reading, but it wasn't tarot. She drew two cards, the first a faceless man in a cloak. She gave some hokey interpretation, like I wasn't supposed to be a hero. Then she pulled another card: The Mother. A woman with antlers. She told me the card meant we were on the same side of the apocalypse."

Maidei pressed her lips into her knuckles, now glaring at the table like she was trying to melt it.

Zaid lifted the lid on his laptop and started typing furiously. "We need to cross-check everything with what we learned fifteen years ago. We may find more connections."

"I don't know if I want to get too deep into this, Zaid," Maidei said.

"I know, Mai. But I can." He tore his eyes from the screen to look at Maidei. "Hey."

Maidei glanced up.

"You can go home," Zaid said in an unusually gentle tone. "I got this."

Maidei blinked and straightened in her seat. "I can handle it. I just don't want to."

wished he understood why Maidei was so allergic to searching for the truth. Was it only trauma? The fact she was a scientist and so much of what was happening in Deadswitch was inexplicable? He wanted to ask, but she closed up before his eyes.

She would tell him if she ever became ready. And if that didn't happen, he'd have to be content with saying goodbye, for now .

Static shot from the radio on the table. "This is Frank, anyone there?"

Maidei seized the opportunity and picked up the handheld. "We're here, Frank. Any news?"

"One of the choppers made another successful rescue. The woman is recovering at the station. She's asking for you, Maidei."

"Me?" Maidei stared at the radio like she couldn't trust it.

"Yes, you. and Angel back from the center? Tiffany is driving her to the Fort. You'll want to listen to what she has to say."