“Well, Edith, it’s so good to see you, and your grandchildren,” said Reverend Wilhelm as he greeted them warmly with a handshake and handed each a bulletin.
Knox blurted out, loud enough for more than a few to hear, “I think this is the first time I’ve ever actually gone to church. I mean, I’ve been inside church buildings for different things, but never for church.”
Avery nodded. “Me too.”
Lily, meanwhile, was wide-eyed, looking around at the stained-glass windows that colored the light with deep reds and blues. They slid into a pew near the back, second from the end. Lily immediately picked up one of the tiny pencils and started scribbling on the corner of an envelope.
“Avery!” Knox whispered sharply. “Tell her to stop that.”
“What?” Lily whispered back.
“Don’t embarrass Grandma,” Knox growled.
Grandma glanced over at them and smiled gently. “It’s all right.”
One by one, old men in suspenders and their wives with bluish-gray hair shuffled in. Several stopped to greet Grandma, shaking her hand, telling her how sorry they were about Grandpa, and how they wished they could’ve made the service, but each offered some sort of excuse. Grandma nodded graciously, taking it all in stride.
The pipe organ swelled, filling the sanctuary as everyone stood. Reverend Wilhelm stepped behind the pulpit, greeted the congregation, and asked them to turn to A Mighty Fortress Is Our God in their hymnals.
The kids tried their best to sing, stumbling over the tune, but by the final verse they had managed to catch on. Much of the service felt strange—standing up, sitting down, repeating words in unison, singing hymns that sounded ancient. But then the Reverend began preaching from Psalm 18.
A lot of it went over their heads, but Knox was struck by a line that lodged itself in his heart: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe.”
The idea landed in a way nothing else had. Knox thought of the tower-defense game he played on his iPhone—building defenses, launching attacks from the safety of a fortress. He had always imagined God as something soft and distant, like a frail old grandfather—gentle, but not much help. But this was different. Even God’s name, just His name, was described as a strong tower—safe, solid, and bristling with strength. Not weak, not sentimental. Strong.
After the service, the kids’ cheeks were promptly pinched by more than a few of Grandma’s old friends, and they filed back to the farmhouse. For most of them, the afternoon promised little more than lazing about.
But Avery’s mind was already buzzing. She had different plans.
⸻
Just as Knox had flopped down on his bed, still in his Sunday clothes, Avery burst into the room.
“All right,” she declared, hands on her hips, “let’s start the investigation.”
Knox let out a long, loud sigh. “Avery… can I just take a nap?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Knox, pinky swear.”
He groaned, then sat up. “All right, all right. What do you want to do?”
Avery’s eyes lit up. “I noticed some old bikes in the barn. Grandma helped me get air in the tires, and she said we could ride them into town.”
“Into town? For what?”
“I want to get to the old quarry,” she said in a rush. “And I want to talk to Uncle Bert’s girlfriend.”
Knox blinked at her, his eyes nearly crossing. “Are you crazy?”
“Come on! She knew our uncle—the uncle we never even met. She showed up at Grandpa’s funeral. And she was on the computer. She knows things.”
A sudden sound in the doorway made them both turn. Lily was standing there, her eyes shining.
“So,” she said with a grin, “we’re going on an adventure.”
⸻
Lily moaned. “How much further? We’ve been pedaling forever.”
All three of them were climbing up and down hills, winding through dense woods. Trees leaned over the narrow road, their branches stretching like arms ready to grab them. Sunlight pierced through the leaves, scattering green light across the path. Looking deeper into the forest, the green shifted… bright, then dark, then almost moss-black.
Knox gritted his teeth. “Pedal faster, Lily.”
“I’m trying!” she panted.
Avery squinted at the map. “How much farther?”
“I don’t know… you’re the one who printed the map,” Lily shot back.
“You’re the one with the iPhone. What does Google Maps say?”
Avery checked quickly. “Just over the hill, I think.”
Several hundred eyes were watching them.
⸻
They coasted down a hill into an old square with a courthouse in the middle. Lily squinted from her bike. “Is that a little tree on top of the courthouse?”
They coasted down a hill into an old square with a courthouse in the middle. Lily squinted from her bike. “Is that a little tree on top of the courthouse?”
“Yes, it is,” said Knox. “That’s… kind of weird.”
All the shops were closed, just like on any Sunday, except for the old drugstore. They went inside to grab a drink. By the register was a stack of old books marked 75% off.
The clerk said, “We’ve been trying to sell those forever. One of the owners actually wrote that book.”
Avery picked one up. The title read Red Mysteries of Southern Indiana.
“Have you read it?” Avery asked.
“I haven’t read the whole thing,” the clerk said, “but when things get slow, I pick it up and thumb through it. There are a lot of interesting stories, some right here in Clearwater, especially about that old quarry.”
“Really?” Avery leaned closer. “What’s the mystery around the quarry?”
The clerk lowered his voice. “There’s a lot. But years ago, there was this crazy old man… He said a big monster was coming out of it. It wrecked the whole quarry. Stopped everything. A lot of people lost their jobs.”
Lily looked at Knox, wide-eyed. “Grandpa?”
“Be quiet,” Knox whispered. He grabbed a copy of the book and their drinks.
As they flipped up their kickstands, Avery was about to ask another question, but Knox cut her off.
“Avery… I heard what they said. Let it sit for a moment.”
“Where’s the quarry at?” she pressed.
“Go straight down Main and turn on Empire Boulevard,” Knox replied.
⸻
Riding their bikes through the community, the kids noticed the streets were alive. Children ran around playing, squirrels gathered nuts and darted up trees, dogs barked in the distance, and a train rumbled far off. The lawns were green, and the houses, made of old brick, were beautiful—still, you could tell the town wasn’t what it once had been. It must have been really something, Knox thought.
The neighborhoods eventually gave way to a commercial district full of Taco Bells, McDonald’s, Dollar General stores, and a cool-looking comic book store that was closed. Not long after, things got more industrial. A few small factories lined the streets. One made caskets.
“Wow… that’s creepy,” Avery said.
Another factory sharpened scissors. Soon, they came to an old parking lot, reduced to gravel in spots with grass growing up between the cracks. It was huge—maybe a thousand cars could park there—but only one old Bronco sat by a massive wall with a rusted sign: Empire Stone Works.
“Here it is,” Avery said.
They parked their bikes in front of the Bronco and pushed the big red button on the intercom. A hiss of static responded.
“We’re here to see—” Avery started. More static.
They waited. Knox tried again. “Is anyone there?”
Just more static. The kids looked at each other. “Maybe she isn’t here,” Knox said.
“No, that’s her truck right there,” Avery said. “She’s here.”
They pressed the button again. A voice crackled through.
“I can see you on the cameras. You really need to get on your bikes and go back home to your grandmas.”
Avery pushed the button. “We know! We’re here to talk to you about our Uncle Bert, and about our grandpa, and about what happened at the quarry!”
Silence. Then static. The voice returned.
“Children… I don’t want to talk about any of that. Maybe some other time. Now is not the time. Go away.”
They pressed the button once more. Complete silence.
“Now what?” Knox asked.
Avery pointed a little ways off. “Look down there, what about that break in the chain-link fence?”
“I have an idea,” Knox said.
Soon, the children were on the other side, crawling through dark, mossy woods. Every so often, huge stone cubes appeared… stacked, thrown atop one another. Some were as big as five feet by five feet. They were enormous.
Off in the distance, an RV was parked next to a massive building with a crane. Somewhere behind them, off in the distance, they heard something like a muffled scream, almost like a goat.
“Did you guys hear that?” Avery whispered.
“Yes,” Knox replied. “Let’s get to the RV.”
They approached and knocked on the door. It swung open, revealing Tilly. She looked furious.
“Children! You should not have come here!” she snapped. “But… you need to get inside. Now!”
She pulled them in and slammed the door. The sound of ten different locks snapping into place echoed around them.
⸻
Frustrated but almost inspired, Tilly said, “Well… you’re a lot like your uncle. Y’all just won’t quit. I’m gonna be calling your grandma, and I don’t think she’s gonna be too happy about this.”
“Wait,” Avery said. “We never met our uncle. We barely knew our grandfather. We just want to understand why our dad is so mad at his dad, even though it was his funeral. And it seems like a lot of other people are mad at him too, and no one will tell us where Uncle Bert is. We can’t tell if he’s dead or alive. And then there are all these mysteries, like the one in this book we just bought.”
Tilly looked at the book and groaned. “Oh no… not that book. You can’t read nonsense like this.”
“Can you just answer a couple questions for us?” Knox asked. “Give us ten minutes of your time, and we’ll be out of your hair. We want to be able to ride back before dark.”
“We’ll definitely want it back before dark,” Tilly added.
Avery prodded, “What do you mean by that?”
“Listen,” she said, nodding at the book. “Some of it gets things right. This part of the state… it’s not normal. Weird things happen here, and most of them happen under moonlight. Daytime keeps the worst things away. They have to stay in the darkness of the forest… in the shade. But at night, especially when the moon’s out, those mysteries become… dangerous. So here’s what I’ll do: get in my Bronco, I’ll drive you back to the farm, you can throw your bikes in the back, and I’ll tell you a little bit on the way. But you really need to get going, it’s getting late.”
“Uh… okay,” Knox said. “That sounds fair.”
Lily asked to use the restroom, and Tilly nodded. “Sure, but hurry up.”
While Lily was inside, Tilly gathered some things. Avery and Knox looked around the RV at the pictures on the walls. One caught Avery’s eye: a group of students at an archaeological dig in Cahokia. The caption read Bert Forrester, along with a list of other names.
“Uncle Bert is definitely adopted,” Knox whispered. Dad was tall and slender, Bert short and wide.
Pictures of Bert were everywhere. Tilly didn’t seem like a former girlfriend; she seemed current.
Avery asked cautiously, “Tilly… are you and Uncle Bert still together?”
“Very much so,” Tilly replied. “All right, let’s go.”
The kids shuffled out of the RV. Avery let out a scream just as Tilly turned around. Standing before them were hundreds of deer. In the center was a towering, slender man who almost looked like a cowboy—head down, boots dusty, old jeans, leather everywhere—but you couldn’t see his face. His eyes glowed faintly beneath a wide, old cowboy hat, pierced by huge antlers.
With a voice like a deep bass whisper, he said, “Tilly… I’ll be needing those children.”
Ready for another chapter! 😳cliff hanger