New Winslow S8E47
They weren’t alone at the town line. The white box truck Iris had seen outside Town Hall was stopped on the road just before the sign, the same driver leaning out the window to watch them as they approached. The back door was open and Iris could see Dr. Degas in the back with Charles Baxter, who was lying very still on the stretcher as her assistant worked silently over him. As she saw Iris, Dr. Degas motioned for her assistant to keep going as she got out.
“It’s bad,” Dr. Degas said as they approached. “Whatever did it, it wanted him to hurt. And now he’s the one trapped.”
“It was Roland,” Iris said. “Samuel, I mean. Baxter was strangling me and Samuel saved me.”
Dr. Degas gently brushed Iris’s hair away from her neck, taking in the bruises and bleeding there. “Jesus, Iris,” she whispered.
Before Iris could try to say anything through the tears building in her sore throat, an old truck was pulling up on the other side of the road. Noah was driving, and she saw Olivia, Cleo, and Olivia’s little daughter squeezed into the cabin with him. Beyond the town line, she noticed Celine and Roman standing beside their own car. Everyone was here for this.
The truck driver and Olivia saw each other and Iris was hit with a bolt of shock and knowledge she should not ever have. But even if she had to ignore it and focus on everything happening here, the connection and longing in there hit her with breathtaking force.
“I’m going to call Rosalind,” Iris said as everyone but Dr. Degas and the truck driver gathered by the town line, Roman carefully standing on one side, Andrew with no choice but to stay on the other. “She started the curse with her fury. And now she’s back. I think together we can fix it and get her back with her son.”
“But what about the planes?” Andrew asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you told me that spirits are often on different planes of existence from each other,” he said, as though this was an ordinary night in her shop. “So even if you call them both, they might not be able to speak to each other. And do you really think she’ll work with you if you don’t show her Samuel first?”
Fuck, he was right. But first things first. “Then we ask her to fix the curse, then bring her to Samuel,” Iris said, even as she knew that wasn’t likely to happen.
“Hang on,” Noah said. “The door isn’t closed, not completely. I’m still seeing things, so I can invite Samuel in. I think.”
He stood beside Iris and closed his eyes, face set in concentration. It only took a second for the blood to begin to drip from his nose as that plan failed. Olivia looked at him and Iris could see the fear in her eyes. But then she looked at Iris. “I’ve got Samuel,” she said, her fingers grazing the amulet around her neck. “You take Rosalind.”
“Thank you,” Iris said.
The sharp look that Olivia sent her way wasn’t a surprise, but she didn’t say anything. “Alright,” Iris said, “I’m going to call Rosalind and Samuel.”
She quickly spread a salt circle as Olivia took off her amulet and handed it to Noah. Then she came over to Iris, who felt ridiculous as she set up three fake tealight candles, the glow of the weak bulbs nearly disappearing in the headlights of the various vehicles.
“Are you ready?” she asked Olivia.
Olivia nodded, terror radiating off of her as her gaze flicked to the truck and back. Iris resisted the urge to reach for her hand, then took a deep breath and called out for Rosalind.
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“Rosalind, I can feel you here,” Iris said, as Andrew stepped back just slightly from the salt circle. “Please, lift the curse. What happened to you and Samuel was wrong and horrible, and I don’t blame you for being angry. You deserve to be angry. But Samuel is here in New Winslow. He needs you and you need him. And now we need you too.”
The wind stirred around her, and Andrew was afraid. “They were wrong,” Iris said. “What they did to you was monstrous. And I know that Charles Baxter is wrong. He knew what happened all along and didn’t tell anybody. But he’s not his grandfather, and this town was hurt by your curse. Innocent people were hurt. Please come back and help Samuel find you. He needs you. Then lift the curse and be at peace with him.”
Across the street, a window in Noah’s truck shattered. Andrew turned to see Noah glaring at it, shaking his head. “Fucking asshole,” Noah muttered.
Iris looked at something in the middle of the circle with a relieved smile. “Rosalind, thank you,” she said. “Please, we can work together. You’re invited in.”
That’s when Andrew saw her transform, her posture changing as Liv looked at her, her fear obvious even as she kept going. Noah stayed beside Andrew and Cleo was behind his truck, distracting Mia from everything that was happening. Even as she held the toddler, singing softly with a voice that barely carried on the wind, she kept glancing over worriedly. From the box truck he’d begged Isabel to borrow, he could see her in the driver’s seat, door open, watching everything in horror.
Iris looked at him and he saw Rosalind in her eyes. And she was right, they were the eyes he’d been feeling ever since that night alone on the road almost a year ago. “It was you,” he whispered.
She didn’t say anything, her eyes roving over the group. Finally, they landed on Roman. “You,” she said, her voice ragged.
Roman looked at her from where he stood beyond the town line, stepping forward slightly while remaining deliberately behind it. “Twenty-two years,” he said, his voice nearly as hoarse as hers. “And then I got out. Why? Why then?”
Her eyes locked on his, and Roman didn’t look away. Then Rosalind smiled. “You showed my son mercy.”
Roman continued to look at her. Andrew had no clue what was going on, but then Roman went pale in the glow of the headlights. “It was a cold night, and you showed him mercy,” Rosalind continued in Iris’s voice. “I saw it. And then I could give that same mercy to your children when they needed it, so I did.”
Roman looked like he was about to cry as Celine gripped his arm. “What did I do wrong?” Andrew asked, before the words made it to his brain. Noah looked at him in alarm as Rosalind turned to him in Iris’s body. “Or my mum? Or Minnie Jensen? Or Roman? What did any of us do wrong?”
Rosalind’s eyes bore into his now and he couldn’t look away. He was trapped here and if she decided she wanted him to die, then Andrew would have to die. “I don’t know who you are,” she said finally.
Now it was his turn to feel the world shift under him. They had all been right, it was random. Just a horrible, random curse created entirely from fear, pain, and hate. Another window shattered in the pickup truck as Cleo moved Mia deliberately away from it. “God DAMMIT!” Noah snapped.
“Rosalind,” Andrew said, his heart pounding as the spirit turned to him through Iris’s body. “Samuel needs you. God help me, Charles Baxter needs you. And we need you. Please, lift the curse and then go be at peace with Samuel.”
The truck’s windshield cracked down the center and Noah turned toward what had to be the ghost. “Keep playing,” he snapped. “I can see you, jackass.”
“Noah!” Andrew hissed.
“Samuel!” Olivia called, her voice shaking. “Work with me again. Your mother’s here, do you want to talk to her?”
Her back arched and her cry of surprise was cut off so suddenly that Andrew sprang toward her. But then she looked at Iris. “Ma?”
Iris was crying as she reached out for Olivia, tenderly cupping a hand under her chin. “Samuel. My baby. You’re really here.”
Andrew expected more. Embraces? More tears? Anything from Samuel beyond the shock on Olivia’s face? But then Iris’s body twisted, her limbs moving unnaturally. Light crackled around her in the same way it had crackled around Celine last year. She screamed and there was something otherworldly echoing in the sound as the warm air carried it through the silent forest surrounding the road. But as quickly as it happened, it was over, the silence ringing around them with the faint scent of smoke.
“Go,” she hissed at Dr. Degas, where she now stood just outside the box truck. “Get him to safety and make him rethink it all. He carried on his family’s sins and he knows he needs to atone. I don’t know how, that’s up to him. But give him that chance to do so if he lives.”
Dr. Degas nodded, hurrying back toward the truck. She climbed in the open back, looked at them all one more time, then reached up and closed the door. Then it drove over the line and disappeared into the night. Andrew watched it go, scarcely able to breathe. He turned to Iris, who still had Rosalind looking through her. She looked burned, exhausted, and about to fall over. But she smiled warmly at him. “My baby,” she whispered. “He’s here. It’s done. I’m sorry, darling.”
Iris collapsed in a heap as Rosalind left her. Beside her, Olivia screamed and fell, sending Mia into a fresh wail. He thought Olivia had fainted, but even as she landed, she stood on wobbly legs, then hurried to her daughter.
Iris was motionless on the ground, her body visible in the beam of Celine’s headlights. As much as Andrew wanted to run over that town line and see if this was real, see if his hopes were about to get dashed yet again, he went to her first, kneeling beside her. Her hand was cold as he took it and for a second, he feared the worst.
Then she opened her eyes. “They’re gone,” she said. “Where’s the truck?”
“It left,” Andrew said. “Iris, are you alright?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, waving him off even as her eyes went out of focus. “Go.”
He looked at the town line, then back at her as she waved him off impatiently. Andrew looked back at Noah, who nodded as he moved from Liv to check on Iris. She fell against Noah as Andrew stood up, then started walking. Like in a dream, time stretched around him and his legs nearly refused to work. He waited to wake up in the non-burnt Limerick, on Liv’s couch two years ago, in his flat in Boston with New Winslow a distant memory. But none of these things happened as he approached the town line. Then Andrew took a shaky breath and stepped over it.
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