Garden of Darkness by Anne Frasier Page A

light fell on . . .
    My God. Is that what I think it is?
    Evan stared up at him without recognition.
    Say something. “W-what are you doing?”
    The rain channeled into the hole, collecting, creating a soup of mud.
    A burial pit. Evan was sitting in the middle of a burial pit surrounded by the mummified remains of the dead.
    The smell Graham associated with his mother wafted to him.
    He was glad he hadn’t brought Kristin. That’s what he kept thinking, kept focusing on, his mind trying to distract himself from the immediate horror of the moment.
    His fault. He should have gotten help. Instead, he’d been hiding Evan’s problem, hoping he would get better on his own. Because if they took him away, if they locked him up in some nuthouse, what would happen to Graham? Would he be put in foster care? Because his grandfather sure as hell wasn’t playing with a full deck either.
    “Come on.” He extended his hand toward his father. “You have to get out of there.”
    Evan stared up in baffled confusion.
    Graham heard a sound behind him. He swung around, the flashlight beam swinging with him. Kristin stood there, mouth hanging open.
    “Get away!” He shooed with his hand. “Get the hell out of here!”
    She turned and ran.
    Had she been holding a camera? Had she been filming? This freak show?
    He looked back at Evan.
    The man was oblivious.
    Graham had to call somebody for help. But who? Did he even know a single sane person in Tuonela?

 
    Chapter Fifteen
     
     
    This was so normal. So nicely normal.
    Rachel smiled at the man across the table.
    David Spence.
    She’d known him since high school. He was divorced, his marriage another casualty of Tuonela. He’d married an outsider, and his wife had never adjusted to the town. Few did. But there were some, like the mayor, who settled right in without even seeming to notice anything odd about the place.
    David was still funny and charming. They’d even come up with some high school stories to relive. But he had a sadness around the edges that people from Tuonela had. The sadness that came once you finally acknowledged that this was something you couldn’t fight. You couldn’t change the past, and you couldn’t pretend Tuonela didn’t call to you. He got it. Which meant he already got her, to some extent. There was something comforting about that.
    “I was glad to hear you’d moved back,” David told her. Embarrassment washed over him as he obviously recalled why she’d moved back.
    “I’m sorry about your parents. That had to be tough, losing both of them so close together.”
    If she agreed, he would just feel worse. “I miss them.”
    “It hasn’t been very long. It takes a while.”
    He wasn’t just mouthing an empty, conditioned response. She could feel his concern, and sense the sorrow he felt. She found herself warming to him, to the idea of him. To the idea of having a guy in her life.
    Maybe it wasn’t so impossible. The promise of something normal within the confines of Tuonela. An intriguing concept.
    But she was getting ahead of herself, ahead of the situation.
    They ordered pizza.
    She hadn’t wanted to go anyplace fancy. She hadn’t wanted to put that kind of real-date pressure on the evening. Just two friends out for pizza, reconnecting.
    They talked some more, and for a short while she forgot they were sitting in a pizza joint in Tuonela. They could have been anywhere. They could have been in Iowa, or California.
    Her cell phone rang.
    She reached into her pocket and looked up at David with apology. “Sorry. I have to get this.”
    “No problem.” He understood the responsibilities of her job.
    She flipped open the phone and checked the display.
    Evan Stroud.
    Her heart raced.
    No. Not here. Not now.
    One more ring. Deep breath. Answer.
    It took her a moment to recognize Graham’s voice.
    “Can you come out here?”
    His words came fast and breathless.
    “Here? Where’s here?”
    “To our place. Evan’s.”
    To Old Tuonela.
    The