Nora clicked on the Still Waters Gallery website. It was a virtual gallery featuring every imaginable artform. There were pages of paintings, sculpture, jewelry, stained glass, ceramics, textiles, mosaics, calligraphy, drawings, printmaking, furniture, photography, and more. Everything was for sale. Every item included a description, a brief bio of the artist, and a price. Purchases could be completed through PayPal. The contact link was an email form.
Since there was no record of Cecily or Bren on the site, Nora moved on to the articles that mentioned Still Waters.
The first was little more than a blurb describing the collision between a motorist and a six-hundred-pound black bear. The driver’s survival was credited to a resident of Still Waters, a metalsmith named Jacob Dietz, who appeared at the scene to help.
Another resident, a woman named Molly Peterson, found a young girl who’d become separated from her family during a camping trip. After the girl had been missing for two days, Ms. Peterson spotted her on a bed of moss under the protective ledge of a rock pile. She was fast asleep and unharmed. Afterward, Ms. Peterson and the girl became pen pals.
The last piece was less flattering. A Mr. and Mrs. Minnick claimed that their daughter ran away to join the “cult” of Still Waters. As the girl was seventeen, law enforcement was called in to investigate. The investigation resulted in no charges, and the girl returned home without incident. On her eighteenth birthday, she packed her things and moved back to Still Waters. The Minnicks now tell everyone that their daughter lives in the forest like a savage.
“Which forest?” Nora mumbled.
Still Waters Community appeared to have no mailing address. Nor was it on any maps. Only after some deep digging on the county’s property database did Nora finally locate a PO box and a parcel number. The parcel number matched an enormous tract of land two miles outside of Pine Hollow’s town limits.
Nora tried to view the area using the map’s satellite view, but it showed only a sea of pines and a smudge of blue peeking out from the middle of all the green.
She suddenly remembered the photo on the postcard mailed to Cecily Leopold. The lake on that card was the same shade of blue as the one on Nora’s computer screen.
“Prussian blue.”
If Cecily Leopold and Celeste Leopold were the same woman, then Cecily had an enemy in Pine Hollow. Lazarus Harper blamed her for the loss of his livelihood. He blamed her and the place she and Bren used to call home.
Nora thought of the man with the tattooed arm. She thought of the old book page, of its unfamiliar language and the robed figures assembling ingredients for an unknown concoction.
The Minnicks had called Still Waters a cult.
Had Cecily left Pine Hollow because something had gone wrong inside Still Waters? Had Lazarus Harper’s accusations about the CBD oil caused problems for Cecily and Bren? Maybe they’d been told to leave. Maybe they’d been shunned.
Cecily hadn’t packed up and moved on a whim. She’d made plans. She’d leased a building on the other side of the state. She’d rented a house for Bren. She’d picked out a new name: Celeste.
But she hadn’t gone far enough. Her new name hadn’t been different enough.
She’d been found.
By Lazarus Harper? Or someone else?
Who sent the postcard?
Who put the book page under Nora’s mat?
What had happened to Bren?
Nora stared at the lake on her screen. The oval of blue water was surrounded by dense trees. It looked like the eye of a storybook giant imprisoned in the earth. This wasn’t the placid, peaceful lake from the postcard. This lake had hidden depths. Its waters kept secrets.
Nora didn’t want to look at it anymore. She slammed her laptop lid closed, plunging the room into shadow. Suddenly, she realized how late it was. How quiet and dark. The only light in her entire house came from the dim bulb over the stove.
It wasn’t enough. Not if there was a monster in Miracle Springs.
Had a monster come for Bren? Was it stalking Celeste? Was it out there, in the dark?
Watching. Waiting. Wanting.
Chapter 10
Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?
—Henry Ward Beecher
Nora got up early, dressed in comfy clothes, and walked through the golden autumnal woods until her footpath merged with a marked trail. As she climbed the hills rising above Miracle Springs, her mind flitted from one thought to the next. She worried about Celeste. And Jed. She wondered what Connie and her she-wolves were up to. She made to-do lists.
This mental maelstrom only quieted when she paused at a breathtaking view. As soon as her body resumed motion, so did her mind. She reviewed what she’d learned about Pine Hollow and Still Waters, replaying details from the article on Lazarus Harper, the nuances of CBD oil, the online art gallery, and the accusation that the community was a cult.