Chapter 7: Communion

Chapter 7: Communion

The rumble of Sheriff Miller’s patrol car faded into the twilight, leaving Leo alone in a silence that felt heavier than any sound. The sheriff’s words hung in the cold air, a verdict delivered without a trial. She needs to be tended to. The whole town is counting on you, son.

He was no longer just a groom in a horrifying sham wedding; he was a designated keeper, a tender to a grave. He was the Anchor, and his purpose, as the journal and the sheriff had made brutally clear, was to feed the pact.

A sick, cold dread coiled in his gut. Every instinct screamed at him to get in his truck and drive until Wren’s Hollow was nothing but a bad memory. But he couldn’t. The sheriff’s threat was one chain, but the invisible one was stronger. The vow. The psychic tether that pulsed faintly in the back of his mind, a constant, cold reminder of his bond to Elowen. It was pulling him, gently but inexorably, toward the one place on earth he never wanted to see again.

He walked. He didn't drive. He let the unnatural twilight of the orchard swallow him whole.

The path was familiar now, a well-worn track in his personal map of hell. He passed the moss-covered trees, their arcane symbols seeming to watch him, glowing faintly in the dying light. The air grew still and frigid, the scent of rot and phantom apple blossoms so thick it was almost a taste at the back of his throat. He felt like a sacrifice walking to his own altar.

And there it was.

The heart of the orchard. The monstrous, ancient apple tree stood like a black claw against the bruised purple sky. At its base, the ground was unnaturally bare, the soil dark and packed, as if nothing dared to grow there. This was where they had stood. This was where he had lifted the veil. This was her grave. It wasn't just a burial site; it was a throne room, and the silent, gnarled trees were its congregation.

He stood at the edge of the clearing, his breath misting in the cold. What did "tending" even mean? Was he supposed to bring flowers? To say a prayer? The absurdity of it was a bitter laugh in his chest. No, this was something more primal.

The pull in his mind intensified, a silent command. Closer.

He forced his legs to move, stepping onto the cold, bare earth. The drop in temperature was immediate and shocking, like stepping from a room into a walk-in freezer. He knelt, his jeans soaking up the profound chill from the ground. He hesitated, his hand hovering over the dark soil. He could feel it, a low, thrumming vibration coming from deep within the earth. It was a hungry, waiting thing.

Taking a ragged breath that felt like inhaling ice, he pressed his palm flat against the ground.

The world dissolved.

It began with the cold. Not a normal cold, but a deep, absolute cold that felt like the absence of all life. It surged from the earth into his hand, a current of pure death. It didn't just chill his skin; it sank into his bones, extinguishing his own warmth as it traveled. He felt it snake up his arm, into his chest, a creeping glacier claiming his inner landscape. His heart hammered once, twice, then began to slow, each beat a sluggish, laborious thud.

Then came the drain.

He felt his own vitality, the simple, vibrant energy of being alive, being siphoned away from him. It flowed out of his hand and into the greedy earth, a river of life feeding a desert of death. The colors of the orchard bled away into a monochrome gray. A profound weakness washed over him, his muscles turning to lead, his head swimming in a dizzying fog. He was a battery being drained, and he could feel the thing on the other side of the connection charging up.

And then the whispers started.

At first, they were familiar, fragmented echoes of Elowen's memories. The sun-dappled light through apple leaves. The sound of a child's bright, carefree laughter. The feeling of small hands clapping in a game. It was the ghost of the girl he knew, the bait on the hook.

But then, the laughter began to warp. It deepened, stretching into a sound that was ancient, guttural, and filled with a chilling, mocking amusement. The sun-dappled memories shattered like glass, and behind them was an abyss.

The whispers were no longer words. They were raw, undiluted consciousness, an alien torrent of thought pouring into his mind.

Huuuunger. A chasm of want, stretching back millennia. A starvation so profound it had become the creature's entire identity.

Anchor. Mine. A wave of suffocating possessiveness washed over him, the feeling of being not just bound, but owned. He was a tool, a possession, a thing.

Warmth. Give. More.

This wasn't Elowen. This was a parasite. A monstrous, ancient intelligence wearing his childhood friend’s spirit like a mask. It was feasting on her memory just as it was feasting on his life force. He could feel its satisfaction as it drank from him, a smug contentment that was utterly vile. It was the entity from his great-grandfather's journal, awake and feeding.

He tried to pull his hand back, to break the connection, but he was paralyzed. The entity’s will was a physical weight pressing him down, holding him in place. It was savoring him, enjoying the terror that was now flooding his system, the horror a spice on the meal of his vitality. He was going to die here, drained into a husk on this unholy altar.

As his consciousness began to fray at the edges, as the gray world started to dim to black, he saw it.

Deep within the storm of alien hunger, behind the ancient, mocking intelligence, was a flicker. A tiny, terrified light. It was her. The real Elowen. The little girl from the photograph, her face streaked with tears, her spirit curled into a ball, weeping in the heart of the monster that wore her form. She was a prisoner in her own soul, and she was watching him be devoured.

That single image was a lightning strike to his soul.

Fear turned to fire. The passive dread he had been living with for days erupted into a white-hot, singular rage. Rage at his mother for doing this. Rage at the town for profiting from it. And a pure, boiling rage at this thing for defiling the memory of a murdered child.

Get out of her!

He didn't scream the words aloud; he screamed them in his mind, focusing all of his remaining will, all of his fury, into a single psychic blade aimed at the entity. He poured the memory of Elowen's real laugh, the image of her bright, innocent smile, into the connection, a counter-current to the entity's filth.

For the first time, the entity recoiled. The immense, ancient pressure faltered, surprised by the ferocity of the resistance from its meal. The whispers stuttered. The psychic hold on him fractured.

It was all the opening he needed.

With a guttural roar, Leo ripped his hand from the ground, scrambling backward and falling into a heap. He lay on the damp leaves, gasping, sucking in air that felt blessedly, normally cold. The warmth seeped back into him, a painful, tingling flood, but the deep, marrow-deep chill remained, a permanent stain.

He pushed himself up, his body shaking uncontrollably. He looked at the monstrous tree, at the patch of cursed ground. The whispers were gone, but the presence was still there—a vast, sullen intelligence, pulsing with malevolence just beneath the soil. Waiting.

But something inside Leo had shifted. The terror was still there, a cold stone in his gut, but it was no longer in charge. He was not just a victim anymore. He was not just an Anchor. The vow that had been a chain, a curse, was also a connection. It was the only line that reached the real Elowen, trapped in the dark.

He wouldn't run. He couldn't. Running meant leaving her to that thing forever.

He had to fight back. Not for himself. Not anymore. He had to fight for the little girl he used to play with under these very trees. He had to free her.

His gaze hardened, his purpose solidifying amidst the terror. He had to go back to the cellar. Back to the journal. His great-grandfather had detailed the pact. There had to be more. There had to be a way to break it. He wouldn't just be its Anchor. He would be its end.