Chapter 1

Have your parents ever told you not to look at something because you might not like what you find?

You should listen to them.

I didn't.

I was 10 years old going into my fifth-grade year when my father disappeared. He was out doing what he loved, exploring, searching for something new, something different from everyday life. He was the kind of guy to, well, disappear in the forest for ten minutes and walk out holding something cool. A rusted horseshoe, old deer sheds. He even found an old note or piece of paper in a small vase while metal detecting around his property when he first moved out here.

We live in eastern Kentucky, a podunk town named Black Oak, tucked away in the middle of a vast mountain valley. Surrounded by dense forests but not completely cut off from the rest of the world.

I remember like it was yesterday when he set out for his last venture. He had gotten up oddly early. Me being the sneaky kid I was, hiding awake in the corner of my bed, clutching my DS. The bright lights of Mario Kart faintly glowing through my blanket. My heart almost burst out of my chest hearing the loud steps of his boots walking down the hallway, towards the stairs.

Quickly but quietly, I shut the DS and held my breath, lying completely still. Doing this most nights, I had gotten good at sneaking around without being noticed, but this time was different. Something felt off right from the start.

My stomach dropped when I heard a soft mutter from the other side of the door. The words were barely louder than a whisper. At first, I thought I imagined them. Then came a shaky breath. The kind someone takes when they're trying not to cry,

“I love you, Rowan.”

A sharp breath followed closely after. My rhythm broke, and my focus gone, I was confused, thinking, “What was that? Is he okay?”

The thoughts quickly left my head as I heard his slow steps down and out the door. The time on my DS was three o'clock in the morning.

As the sun came up, my dad's truck was gone. The tire marks in our driveway spread deep and wide. It looked like he punched the gas all the way down the hundred or so yards of gravel. There was no note, no warning or goodbye. He simply vanished, left with nothing besides his gear, boots, and a journal he kept tucked tight on him at all times.

The missing persons report was filed by noon. It was extremely unlikely for him to just up and leave out of nowhere. He always had a schedule for everything. Even his trips into the woods were always planned; he would tell us two to three days before he went out.

The missing posters hung on businesses and power poles, aging through the weather, lying dormant for years.

I had no choice but to grow up and move on; if I could, I would spend the rest of my life sitting at his grave. Reminiscing on old times and memories we had together. I got older and made a few good friends, who became the closest thing I had to family.

Mom had a rough couple of years. Elias was all she knew. They got married young. Fleeing from two toxic and unsupportive families. All they wanted was land to live on and each other.

They were polar opposites, but they really loved each other. My mom would rather die than go out into the woods alone just to wander.

Since Dad's disappearance, she's never been the same. What used to be a bright shining woman filled with happiness and love turned into a small, fragile, weary soul, wandering around in the dust kicked up from her life breaking apart and crashing to the ground.

We made it through the hard times together. We didn't have anyone else in the world to turn to.

October 13th, 2014, is the day it happened. The day my father disappeared. The day my world stopped and shattered. Today is the tenth anniversary.

Every year on this day, I go to his grave. But this time was different. As I walked through the dirt path of the cemetery, surrounded by wilderness. I felt a strange feeling of eyes digging into my back. This wasn't totally new; there were always animals about and wandering. The occasional hunter passing through the woods. But today the forest was painfully quiet. The silence was deafening.

As I finally made it to his plot in the back corner, I took my usual spot propped up against the cold stone; it still felt comforting, almost warm.

After recalling memories, some words of grief and a few tears, I got up to leave. I stood in front of the stone with one hand down.

The faint sound of machinery grinding echoed from the distance. I had never heard this before, but it didn't scare me. That was the part that bothered me. It felt oddly beautiful. Almost calling to me. My watch read 4:45.

“Shit, dinner starts at 5.” Turning around to walk away, the pressure of that watching feeling returned tenfold. Looking back, I find nothing. Still confused, I stand for a minute.

“Ding,” a text notification from Mom. “Come home, sweetie; dinner's almost done.”

As I walked back into the house, Mom called me into her room. I walked in, seeing her in the closet reaching up. “What's that, Momma?” reaching to help her.

Pulling it down, the box was old, the kind of old that comes from being forgotten rather than used. A layer of dust covered the top, except for a small clean spot where my mother's hand had rested.

“Are you okay, Mom?” I said, pulling her in for a hug. Choking back a sob, she said, “Your fath-. Your father told me to give this to you as he saw fit”.

“What does that mean?” I replied with a somewhat confused but intrigued face.

“This is what he was looking for; all those times he went out, he called it his life's work”.

“He said if anything were to happen to him, I was to burn this and destroy it forever. But I couldn't; it was too important to him; he poured his life and soul into figuring this out”.

“That piece of paper, that's it? Why was he so obsessed over just that”?

"I don't know," she whispered. "He found it not long after we moved here. After that… he started keeping that journal. Every trip into the woods, every strange thing he saw, every rumor he heard—he wrote it all down."

She ran a thumb across the edge of the paper.

"He called this his lucky charm. Said it was the most important thing he'd ever found."

"I never understood why.”

She looked up to me with tears about to fall. “I want you to do this. I want you to finish what your father couldn't. He believed in you; he knew you were special”.

Tears now streaming from her eyes. “Please, do it for me too. Make your father proud”.

Tears of my own now streaked my face; I took the paper she handed me.

The paper was older than I expected; the edges were worn, and the ink faded. The writing was unmistakable; it was my father's.

But his words were merely side-notes compared to the larger, even more faded broken English my father had written around.

I didn't know it then, but looking at that paper and making that promise would eventually cost me everything.

End of part 1