Morgan sat with her cheek resting in her hand as she gazed out the library window. I knew she missed her father. The events of the night before had been traumatic for the girl. She had already been through so much.

First-grade level books sat sprawled across the table. They were the books she had studied with her mother, before she died. Mrs. Ellis’ unexplained death weighed on my mind. It gave me an eerie unsettled feeling that accentuated my already strange experience of the ranch. Morgan didn’t move from her spot. I watched her back as her little chest expanded and contracted as she breathed. The blue dress dotted with white flowers made her pale skin looked chalk-white.

It was difficult to be strict with Morgan. I wanted to take her to Disneyland and buy her cotton candy. I wanted to see her smile and see her haunted dark eyes light up with excitement. I wanted to take her somewhere sunny and warm where she could play on the beach all day, and smile, laugh like an ordinary child.

Patty walked through the double doors that led to the library from the hallway. She carried a tray with mugs and a plate of cookies. I smiled up at her. Morgan and I needed a break, and we hadn’t even started yet.

“I brought you a late morning snack. Coffee for Miss Jane. Hot chocolate for Miss Morgan, and a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies fresh out of the oven,” she said as she sat everything down on the table.

Morgan turned around in her chair and accepted the hot chocolate. Her pink mouth puckered and blew at the steaming liquid in the thick white mug. I took the coffee and thanked Patty. Her kindness and cooking made the ranch almost tolerable.

I took a cookie and bit into it. Oatmeal raisin perfection melted on my tongue. There was a perfect combination of spices under the buttery rich flavor of the cookie. I grinned and took another sip of my coffee. Morgan picked at a cookie, her dark eyes cast down at the table. Patty sighed and shuffled out of the library.

“I think we should work on reading today, Morgan. Maybe without Mommy.”

Morgan didn’t respond. I scooted into a chair closer to her and opened a picture book. The brightly-colored illustrations depicted the words at the bottom of the page. I slid the book in front of Morgan and put my finger under the first word.”

“Go ahead and begin here.”

“A is for Apple,” she read perfectly.

“Are you sure Mommy is gone right now?”

“Yes. I told her I would read all by myself today.”

I turned the page.

“B is for Ball.”

We continued through the picture book until we got to the last page. She read well and only stumbled a few times. It was still far below grade level. I opened a more challenging picture book and slid it in front of her, pointing at the words as she read them. This book proved to be more difficult for her. I gave her encouragement and small corrections as we went along.

It was mind boggling that the same child could flawlessly read Kant, but stumble over Green Eggs and Ham, depending on if “Mommy” helped her. I was way out of my depth. I needed help. My professors would be disappointed that I hadn’t referred the child to a psychologist already. It couldn’t be helped. Mr. Ellis wanted me to deal with it, or I would lose my job. And perhaps Morgan would not get any help at all.

Torn between professional duty and my loyalty to Morgan, I tried my best to usher her through the maze of her mind. Later, I allowed Mommy to come help again. I had her recite Hamlet. Her grasp of Shakespearian dialect was superb. I wondered if I could even read it with such flare.

Morgan stood on the table in front of me reciting:

 

              “To be, or not to be, that is the question:

              Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

              The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

              Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

              And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,

              No more; and by a sleep to say we end

              The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

              That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation

              Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

              To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:

              For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.”

 

I sat in front of her entirely in awe. My eyes wide and my mouth parted in a huge, goofy smile. I had yet to see Morgan so animated. Even when she was out in the settler’s cabin, she had not been so full of joy. Her face had an inner glow I had not seen, and her eyes finally showed me their natural emerald hue.

The double doors swung open and Penny stomped into the room, her face scowling and hard. Morgan gasped and clamored down from the table, all the light disappeared from her face.

“What do you think you are doing young lady!” the woman shouted.

Morgan ran to me and hid under my arm. Penny glared down at me as if I had committed a federal crime.

“What?” I said, flabbergasted. Anger rose in my chest, and my face turned red. She had interrupted Morgan in one of the few moments I’d seen even a hint of happiness in the girl.

“Why in God’s name would you let that child stand on a table? She’s tracking her dirty shoes all over the place. She could fall off and break her neck. Then what would you do? The nearest hospital is two hours away!”

“Morgan was reciting a play to me. I beg your pardon Penny, but the child is my responsibility. If she dirties a table, I will take care of it. I will use this room and this house as I see fit to educate this child. I have it on Mr. Ellis’ authority that I should have total autonomy in this matter. Do I make myself clear?”

“Well, aren’t you the smart one,” she sneered at me, throwing a towel over her shoulder.

“From now on I expect you to respect my authority when it comes to Morgan. Now please, you interrupted an important lesson, kindly leave us. I don’t want to have to inform Mr. Ellis that you are keeping Morgan from her education.”

Penny huffed and stalked out the doors, her clogs clicking on the wooden floor. Morgan clung to me and tilted her face up to look at mine. She beamed. I knew I had just won another level of trust with the girl. I hugged her back. The sweet little thing deserved a happy life. If there was anything I could do to give her just a little happiness, I would do it. Penny deserved to be told off, but I suspected I had just earned myself an enemy.

“Let’s get out of here for a while,” I said, taking her hand. We walked out the front door and down the gravel path toward the barns. She stopped at the entrance of the vegetable garden and pushed open the wooden gate. It was surrounded by a tall wire fence to deter deer. I followed her into the early fall abundance of the garden.

We walked along rows of fully ripe tomatoes, zucchinis and squashes, cantaloupe, garlic, potatoes, and tall stands of corn. Along the far fence, a row of pumpkins grew round and orange along their vine-covered mounds. I followed Morgan to a trellis of raspberries where she picked the sweet pink berries from the vines and popped them in her mouth. I followed suit, plucking a berry and placing it in my mouth. The warm, sweet juice slid over my tongue. I smiled and picked several more. The explosion of sweet berry juice had an addictive quality.

For several moments, the child and I stood, giggling in the berry vines, picking berries and eating them as quickly as we could. Morgan had a pink smear down the side of her face, her eyes bright.

“This is better than Shakespeare,” I said, plucking another berry off the vine.

“I love it here.”

“Who looks after the garden?”

“Daddy, and Patty, and me.

“Your dad gardens?” I said. My tone was more surprised than I meant it to be. Morgan looked at me skeptically, as if I just found out that water was wet.

“Daddy does a lot of things. He planted all those roses in the front yard. You should see the greenhouse,” she said, plucking another berry.

“I had no idea. Where is the greenhouse?”

“On the other side of the hunters lodge. That’s where we grow food in winter. And where Daddy has his special flowers. Orchids or something.”

“Really?” I couldn’t exactly say why I was so surprised. Mr. Ellis had grown up on Bear Creek Ranch, but everything about him said “Investment Banker” or “Corporate Lawyer.” “Vegetable Gardener” just didn’t line up with the impression I had of Nathanial Ellis. The knowledge changed my perception of him, a bit.

Morgan walked away from the berries, having had her fill. She knelt down by a large pumpkin and brushed the dust from its thick orange skin.

“It will be Halloween soon,” she said at almost a whisper. “It ends of harvest. It is the time that marks preparation for winter.”

“What do you do on Halloween?” I asked. Sometimes Morgan’s words were beyond her age. It made me shiver in the warm afternoon air.

“We have a celebration. We harvest most of the garden and can the veggies. I help. It won’t be the same without Mommy. She used to lead the ceremony?”

“Ceremony?”

“My mommy greeted the seasons and the holidays. I thought all mommies did that.”

“No. I can’t say that they do. I know mine doesn’t.”

I knelt down beside her and examined the pumpkin.

“This sure will be nice for a jack’o lantern.”

“Now that Mommy is gone, we can’t have our ceremony together.”

“Who did these ceremonies with you and your Mommy?”

“Just us.”

“Not even your dad?”

“Daddy sometimes, but not always.”

“I see.”

I stood and looked around, brushing the dust from my knees. The wind blew the scent of the lake over the garden. Morgan stood next to me and looked up at my face. I felt a strange sense of foreboding, as I smelled the scent of the water. Darkness ran through my mind. Images of struggle washed over me, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was.

Morgan took my hand and led me out of the garden. I latched the gate behind us. Part of me felt haunted and cold as we approached the barns. Daisy was back from the hunt and rode a horse in fast circles in a corral, and she waved to me from the back of a white mare. She said something, but I couldn’t hear it through the fuzziness in my mind. Her words sounded as if they were coming from underwater.

She dropped down off the mare and flipped the horse’s reins over the fence, and trotted toward me. I could see her lips moving, hear the garbled tones of her voice, but nothing made sense. I was caught in some kind of in between state, between waking and dreaming. My limbs felt as heavy as massive stones falling to the bottom of the lake.

“Jane!” Daisy’s voice boomed into my ears. I blinked and found her leaning over the fence speaking directly into my face.

“What?”

“What’s going on? Did you get into Joshua’s stash?” she said with a giggle, hopping over the fence.

Morgan looked up at me and put her hand in my hand. Her eyes looked dark and troubled. Daisy grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me slightly.

“Let’s go for a ride!” she said, pulling me through the barn door. There was a line of stalls. Inside the stalls, well-groomed horses munched on hay and swished their long tails.

“I don’t think this is a good time for this.”

Morgan was already stepping into a stall with a roan gelding. She petted the horse’s muzzle. Then she pulled a handful of grain from her pocket and pressed it under the horse’s eager lips. She spread her fingers wide and let the horse slurp up the grain from her palm. Morgan giggled at the horse’s wet, tickling mouth. She wiped her hand on her dress and ran her hand over the horse’s neck.

“Should you be in there, Morgan?”

“Yes,” she said in a matter of fact tone.

“Morgan prefers Stannis,” Daisy said behind me. She pulled a red mare from a stall and tied its lead to a bar near the tack room.

“This is Tannin. She’s a quarter horse, like the rest. But,” Daisy said brushing the animal’s back, “she’s old and slow. Perfect for a newbie”

Daisy flung a blanket and saddle over the horse’s. Her hands flew over the horse, latching all kinds of buckles. It was impossible to interpret what she was doing. It all seemed very complicated.

“I’m not really sure I should do this,” I said, remembering the strange dream I’d just had while walking out of the garden. I still felt heavy and confused.

“Don’t chicken out now,” said Daisy.

“Bock, bock, bock,” said Morgan from behind me as she pulled the gelding from its stall. She led it to stand next to the horse Daisy prepared for me. The girl tied the horse up to the same bar. I felt slightly idiotic watching a seven-year-old prepare a horse while I stood near a stall door with my arms crossed.

Daisy cut behind the horses while carrying an armload of gear, carefully avoiding their rear legs. She slipped a blanket over Morgan’s horse’s back and then threw the saddle up. She let Morgan try to buckle the saddle, but the girl was too short to finish. Daisy smiled at Morgan and patted her back.

Daisy crossed back to the tack room and brought out two bundles of leather and steel that looked like strange S&M devices. Soon I saw her slip the thing over the horse’s head and press the steel into its mouth. She did the same with Morgan’s horse.

When the horses were prepared, Daisy followed Morgan out into the corral. Daisy tied Tannin’s reins over the fence and helped Morgan up into the saddle on the back of her horse, Stannis. The girl slowly rode Stannis around the barrels Daisy had set up in the corral.

Daisy led Tannin toward me and raised an eyebrow, handing me the horse’s reins. I shook my head. Daisy rolled her eyes. I saw Morgan’s horse accelerate into a trot. Daisy pulled the reins over the horse’s back and held a stirrup in my direction. I sighed and stomped over.

She held the reins while she helped me hop up onto the saddle. Raising my leg to the stirrup and hoisting my other leg over the horse, was not exactly the most natural movement for me. My butt slid into the smooth leather saddle, and Daisy pressed the reins into my hands. She smiled and patted my leg.

Daisy jogged over to the corral gate and swung it open. She ran back to the white mare she’d been riding and jumped on its back. Morgan already led her gelding through the fence and walked down the trail headed toward the mountain. I let my horse follow hers. I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice.

Daisy was right behind me, giving me instructions. Her words ran through my ears into my brain, but felt jumbled together. I only caught about every other sentence: Nudge the horse’s sides with my heel to go faster. Steer with the reins. To stop, pull the reins back hard. Raise myself up with the stirrups when the horse trots.

I held tight to the reins and let Morgan’s horse lead me up the trail. We came to the creek and walked through the cold mountain water. I had to nudge my horse to get it to go through. On the other side was a trail that preceded into the woods. I could see Morgan’s head in front of me, gently bobbing up and down to the rhythm of the horse’s steps.

 

* * *

Nathanial shivered in the heat of the sweat lodge. His body toppled over, and he fell to the dirt floor. Blood seeped from his veins soaking into the black soil. Mona came into the lodge and spoke over him. She wrapped up his wrists and poured water into his mouth.

Blackness washed over his eyes and mind, as Joseph lifted and dragged him toward the house. Nathanial gained possession of his legs and struggled to stand. With Joseph’s help, he made his way to an empty guest cabin. Mona followed behind them, holding a large bottle of yellow liquid.

Joseph deposited Nathanial into a cot that was pushed up to the wall in the small room. Pale light from the window streamed down on the woolen blankets. Nathanial collapsed on the cot and let Mona cover him with the brightly-colored covers. The wool scratched his bare skin, but he was too tired to care.

She spoke to Joseph, and he helped her lift Nathanial’s head up to take the yellow liquid in his mouth. Nathanial spit the bitter brew all over the place. Mona shushed him and Joseph made a gagging noise.

“What is that?” Nathanial managed to say. His tongue felt swollen, and his mouth felt painfully dry.

“Wolfsbane tea. You must drink, Nathanial Ellis. Remember you are a man, not a beast.”

She forced more of the horrible drink down his throat. This time Joseph held his mouth closed. Nathanial swallowed it, pressing weakly against Joseph’s arms. Joseph let him go, and he fell back down on the bed, gagging and panting. He felt his stomach clench and wanted to throw-up from the acidic bitterness. Mona whispered soft words in his ears, and he relaxed.

Mona pressed a damp cloth to his head. Sweat continued to pour from his skin, and he shivered. Joseph covered him with several more blankets and closed the window. Joseph left the room while Mona sat on a chair near Nathanial, speaking over him in a low native chant.

Nathanial felt his mind slipping again into blackness. Memories of his late wife loomed in his mind. Her stark white face fell upon him, her dark vacant eyes staring into his soul. He gasped wanting to scream, but his body felt too weak to utter the cry. All he could muster was a feeble “No…”

Mona shushed him and continued to murmur her chant. In his mind, the teeth of the beast descended on him. Long canine fangs snapped at him, biting into his forearm as he protected his face. The feeling of confusion and betrayal sank into his core. Loneliness gripped him.

The vision shifted. His wife’s body lay lifeless in the bathtub, her blood soaking into the cold water. A thin white gown clung to her body, showing her naked flesh underneath. He fell to her, holding her in his arms, the wounds on her wrists still fresh.

Nathanial shot up from the bed, tears falling down his face; his chest soaked in sweat.

“She’s gone,” he wailed, clenching his fists as the blankets fell away.

Mona’s voice rose in volume, the rhythm of her chanting accelerated. She clapped her hands together to the beat of the chant. Each clap felt as if it pounded on his chest. Nathanial wept.

“It’s my fault,” he moaned. “I should have been stronger. I should have helped her.”

“You could do nothing Nathanial. Your wife took the coward’s way out. Now she is trapped between worlds. Your ranch is haunted. Many souls hang in the ether there. You must let them go. Let them move on.”

An image of Jane flashed through his mind. He saw her soft smile and red hair flowing down her back. He saw her curvaceous figure moving through the pasture toward the settler’s cabin. Something about her made him feel the undercurrent of change coming. It gripped his stomach. He was unsure if it would be for better or for worse.

“The girl must help you,” said Mona, “She has a purpose there.”

“I can feel it,” said Nathanial, settling back into the bed. He pulled a blanket over his shoulder and slept.

 

When he woke, it was dark, and he was alone in the cabin. His entire body ached. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. He felt weak, and his stomach felt empty and twisted. His head pounded at his temples. From the corners of his eyes, he saw blackness and stars. He bent over his knees and took several deep breaths, trying to alleviate the dizziness that swam through his head.

The dizziness subsided, and he lifted his head to look around the room. It was cold. He pulled a red wool blanket over his shoulders and stood on bare feet. The chill of the wood floor crept up through his skin. He stepped to the window, looking out on the compound.

He saw the flicker of warm light through the windows of the other buildings. The sound of an infant crying echoed over the compound, and Nathanial felt a sting of loneliness. He had been so wrapped up in his problems since the death of his wife, that he had left Morgan to her own devices. She was as haunted as he was, perhaps more, but he could barely look at her.

Everything about Morgan reminded him of his wife. It reminded him of his failure to her. It reminded him of his own weakness and the curse that hung over their lives now. He told himself that if Mona’s cures worked, he would make every effort to be a better father. He would take Morgan on a long vacation, perhaps they would go to Europe. Perhaps he would move them somewhere warmer, maybe New Mexico or Florida.

The girl deserved to go to school, to play with other children, to have a normal life. On his trips back east, he witnessed the experiences of the upper-class children of his business associates. They had active lives full of lessons and friends and shopping. Morgan had none of these things. He hung his head in shame and wrapped the blanket tighter around his chest.

He pulled away from the window and noticed his boots sitting by the bed. He slipped his feet inside, not bothering to tie them, and trudged over to the small kitchen. The room was lit by a single naked bulb that hung from the ceiling in the tiny kitchen. He found a teakettle and a handful of tea bags sitting on the counter.

He filled the kettle with water from the sink and put it on the countertop electric range. The sputter of burning water rose from the kettle. Nathanial walked back to the single bed and sat down. It was the only furniture in the room besides a small square table shoved in the corner under the window with a rickety chair. He had been in this cabin before.

Mona’s ritual had been more intense this time than in the past. Perhaps she sensed his desperation. Perhaps she felt it was time to up the ante. The events of the last twenty-four hours were a haze, but he vaguely remembered Mona mentioning Jane. The thought of the girl made his body react. He coughed, and the kettle sang out.

He rose to pull the kettle off the hot eye and poured boiling water over a tea bag inside a deep mug. The scent of chamomile wafted to his nostrils as he dipped the bag into the hot water.

Who was this girl Jane anyway? Why did he feel so drawn to her, yet so repulsed? He wanted to grab her and kiss her, but he also wanted to push her away and never see her again.

He took the hot cup of tea and sat on his bed, pulling the blanket tight around his shoulders. He looked around the room for his overnight bag but didn’t see it. The bandages around his wrists looked like they already needed to be changed, and the bandage over the burn mark on his chest chafed the sensitive skin underneath.

He grimaced and took a careful sip of tea. If this cure worked, he could have his normal life back. A normal life without his wife. The thought of it just seemed wrong. Part of him felt he deserved to be cursed, as long as he lived without her. But that was ridiculous. She had made her choice. She had left him and their child. Why should he feel guilty to live out the remainder of his life without her, without the shadow of her parting hanging over his shoulders?

The tea slid down his throat, and he sighed. He could hear the sound of someone trudging to the house through the gravel outside. He looked up as the door opened to reveal Joseph. He looked irritated. He held bandages in his hands.

“Granny said to come check you.”

“Thanks.”

“How do you feel?”

“Like Hell. But I’ll live.”

“She bled you a lot. It will take a few days to get your full strength back,” said Joseph as he pulled the chair toward Nathanial. He sat and put the bandages in his lap. He took a pair of scissors from his pocket and placed Nathanial’s arm on his knee. Joseph cut into the bandages to show the long razor lines that cut down to Nathanial’s veins. Nathanial winced when he saw them.

“Granny cut pretty deep,” Joseph said with a humorous tone in his voice.

Nathanial said nothing. He thought about what he would tell his daughter if she happened to see these wounds. It was the first time Mona had bled him. In the past, her rituals included a long sweat and a great deal of chanting. The bleeding, branding, and near poisoning with the wolfsbane were all new additions to her cure.

Joseph swabbed the cuts with hydrogen peroxide and wrapped fresh bandages over the wounds. The cuts had stopped bleeding, but the deep purple gash looked like it might begin bleeding again at any moment. Joseph taped off the bandages on Nathanial’s wrists and reached out to inspect the one on Nathanial’s chest. When he peeled back the bandage, he looked at it with surprise. Joseph’s eyes grew wide.

“Granny needs to see this,” he said standing.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Nathanial looked down to see a series of concentric rings radiating out from the brand that looked like a red full moon. He pressed his finger into his chest to stretch the skin and get a better look.

“What is this?”

“Looks like an infection. Wait. I’ll get Granny.”

Joseph left and came back moments later with Mona. She approached Nathanial squinting, then stood, placing her hand on her chin.

“What? Do I need antibiotics?”

“This isn’t that kind of infection. It’s the beast inside you. It’s fighting my cures. These rings are the curse showing up on the surface. That means we’ve stirred it up. We’re pushing it out, but it’s fighting back.”

“What should we do?” asked Nathanial.

“Nothing we can do until next month.”

Nathanial sank back in the bed and set the teacup down on the table. He felt defeated. Mona sat down in the chair while Joseph stood behind her.

“You can go Joseph,” she said. The young man walked through the door, and shut it behind him.

“I can see there is a dark cloud over you. No matter how hard I fight the curse, something anchors it to you. Do you know where it originated?”

“How it came into my house? No.”

“There has to have been an originator.”

“I told you. My wife turned for the first time and bit me. The next day, I found her bled out in the bathtub dead. The next month I turned. I’ve been turning ever since. I have no idea where she got the curse. She hadn’t left the ranch. Nothing out of the ordinary happened to her. It remains a mystery.”

“I can see the curse is anchored to the ranch. There is much sadness there. The dead walk unburied. You must put them to rest. Until then, the source of your curse will remain unclear. The beast wants the young girl. She has a gift. She can see into the dream world. She can find a way to fulfill the beast and let it pass through. She can cure you where my cures cannot. Look to the girl. Bring her into you. Love her.”

“Love her? I don’t even know her. She just arrived two days ago.”

“Nevertheless, the girl is the key to your freedom. She is the key to the freedom of the lost spirits who hang around you and your ranch.”

Mona’s eyes fluttered and she stared back at Nathanial. He gave her a weak, half-smile and shrugged his shoulders. How was he supposed to get close to the girl when he had been so gruff with her?

He could tell the beast inside him wanted her. It wanted to mate with her, perhaps. Mona seemed to think giving it what it wanted would somehow help.

Mona stood shakily and turned to go. Nathanial picked up his tea and sipped it. It had become lukewarm, and he thought wistfully of his servants back home. Mona eyed him as she stood in the open door.

“Follow my advice Nathanial Ellis, or this curse will destroy everything you love.” With that, she left, letting the door slam behind her.