Some secrets are buried so deep in the mountain soil that they become part of the earth itself. The October rain hammered the tin roof of the Caldwell cabin like angry fists, each drop echoing through the one room dwelling where 17-year-old Mercy lay writhing in labor. Sarahth McKenzie clutched her worn leather midwife bag tighter, her weathered hands trembling, not from the cold mountain air seeping through the cabin’s gaps, but from what she’d glimpsed in Jeremiah Caldwell’s eyes when he’d fetched her. 20 years of

delivering babies had taught her to read the signs, but nothing had prepared her for this. Mercy’s screams cut through the storm as contractions racked her frail body. And when Sarah Beth pulled back the blood soaked quilt, she gasped. The girl was birthing twins, but their skin bore marks that made Sarah Beth’s blood run cold.

 Crescent-shaped birth marks identical to the one carved behind their grandfather’s ear, the same mark Sarah Beth had seen on her own stillborn child 30 years ago. As Jeremiah paced like a caged animal in the corner, muttering about keeping the mountains bargain, Sarah Beth began to understand that some family curses run deeper than blood.

 What happened in that cabin during the storm of 1872 would haunt Greenbryer County for generations? But was it human evil or something far older that claimed these hills as its own? Before we jump back in, tell us where you’re tuning in from. And if this story touches you, make sure you’re subscribed because tomorrow I’ve saved something extra special for you.

 Sarah Beth forced her trembling hands steady as she positioned herself between Mercy’s legs. The girl’s pale skin glistened with sweat despite the October chill. Her dark hair plastered to her skull like wet moss on stone. In two decades of midwiffery, Sarah Beth had never lost a mother, a record that made her the most sought after birth attendant in three counties.

 Tonight, that streak felt as fragile as spider silk. “Push now, child,” she murmured, her voice carrying the practiced calm that had guided countless women through their darkest hours. But beneath her steady exterior, Sarah Beth’s mind reeled. Those crescent birth marks on the emerging twins weren’t natural variations. They were precise, deliberate, as if branded by an invisible iron.

 Mercy’s scream shattered the air as the first twin shoulders cleared. Sarah Beth caught the slippery infant, noting with growing unease how the child’s skin seemed to pulse with an otherworldly vitality. Most newborns entered the world blue and gasping. But this one’s flesh bloomed pink immediately, his lungs filling with air as if he’d been breathing for years.

“First one’s a boy,” Sarah Beth announced, though her voice cracked on the words. She’d delivered hundreds of babies, but none had ever opened their eyes so quickly, fixing her with a stare that seemed far too knowing for something minutes old. Jeremiah’s pacing intensified, his boots wearing a groove in the rough plank floor.

 The bargain holds, he whispered, more to himself than to the women. Mountain keeps its promise. Hush your nonsense, Sarah Beth snapped, though ice crystallized in her veins. She’d heard whispers about the Coldwells for years, stories dismissed as mountain superstition by sensible folk, but sensible folk didn’t birth children marked like these.

 The second twin came easier, sliding into Sarah Beth’s waiting hands with an urgency that felt wrong. Another boy, bearing the same impossible crescent behind his left ear. As she cleared his airway, he didn’t cry. He watched her with those same ancient eyes, as if measuring her soul’s weight. “Two boys, healthy as spring colts,” Sarah Beth said, forcing the lie past her lips.

 “Healthy, yes, but natural.” Every instinct screamed otherwise. Mercy’s breathing had grown shallow, her skin taking on a waxy palar that Sarah Beth recognized with dread. Blood loss too much too fast. She’d seen it before, though rarely with twins this small. The girl was bleeding out despite Sarah Beth’s best efforts to stem the flow.

 “She’s fading,” Sarah Beth said, grabbing clean rags from her bag. “Jeremiah, I need Let her go.” His words fell like stones into still water. Mountains taken its dew from the women. Boys are what matter now. Sarah Beth’s hands stilled. In 20 years she’d never heard a father speak so callously about his laboring daughter. The pieces clicked together with sickening clarity.

Mercy’s isolation. Her fear when Sarah Beth had first examined her. The way she’d whispered about Daddy’s special love when she thought no one could hear. You monster, Sarah Beth breathed, the full horror washing over her. Your own child, your own. Blood calls to blood, Jeremiah said, his eyes reflecting the lamp flame like an animals.

 Been that way since the first Caldwell settled these hills. Mountain showed us the truth. Power runs in bloodlines. Gets stronger when it ain’t diluted by outsiders. The twins lay unnaturallyquiet in Sarah Beth’s arms. Their breathing synchronized in a way that raised every hair on her neck. She’d felt this wrongness once before, 30 years ago when she’d birthed her own stillborn son, the same crescent mark, the same sense of something vast and hungry stirring in the shadows.

 She tried to forget, told herself it was grief playing tricks on her mind. Now she understood she’d been a fool. Mercy’s eyelids fluttered open, fixing on Sarah Beth with desperate intensity. The voices, she whispered, each word a struggle in the mountain. They promised Daddy promised the boys would be special. But they lied, Miss Sarah.

 They always lie. Save your strength, child, Sarah Beth murmured. Though she could feel Mercy slipping away like water through cupped hands. “They’re coming,” Mercy continued, her voice growing fainter. “When the boys grow, they’ll want more. Always want more. Don’t let them. Don’t let the mountain. Her words dissolved into silence as her chest stilled.

 Sarah Beth closed Mercy’s eyes with gentle fingers, fury and grief waring in her heart. Another casualty of mountain justice where men’s appetites were hidden behind talk of tradition and God’s will. But the twins, Lord help her, the twins were still watching, still breathing in that eerie unison. And somewhere in the storm’s howling, Sarah Beth could swear she heard something else, a sound like laughter echoing from the deep places of the earth, where secrets rotted into something far worse than mere human evil. She had to get these children away

from here, away from Jeremiah, and whatever bargain he’d struck with the darkness that claimed these hills. The question was whether she’d already waited too long. The twins synchronized breathing filled the cabin like a bellows working in the depths of hell. Sarah Beth’s hands shook as she wrapped the infants in whatever clean cloth she could find.

 Their two knowing eyes tracking her movements with predatory focus. Every fiber of her being screamed to flee, to leave these cursed children with their father and never look back. But 30 years of midwifery had carved duty into her bones deeper than fear. I’ll be taking them to town, she said, her voice steady despite the terror clawing at her throat.

 They need proper care. And mercy. Mercy needs burying. Jeremiah’s laugh was like gravel grinding in a millhe. You’ll do no such thing, Sarah Beth McKenzie. Those boys belong to the mountain. Same as their daddy, same as their granddaddy before that. She’d known the Coldwells her entire life. watched Jeremiah grow from a strange silent boy into something that barely passed for human.

 His father Ezekiel had been cut from the same rotten cloth and his father before him. The whole bloodline was twisted, but she’d never imagined it ran this deep. The law, she began, “Ain’t no law reaches these hollers.” Jeremiah cut her off. “You know that better than most.” He was right, and the knowledge sat bitter on her tongue.

 Sheriff Hawkins rarely ventured beyond the main settlements, and when he did, it was never to investigate mountain folk. Too many deputies had gone missing in these hills over the years, their bodies never found. The unwritten rule was simple. What happened in the deep hollows stayed there? But these children, Sarah Beth, looked down at their perfect, horrible faces.

 If she left them here, what would they become? Another generation of Caldwell men feeding whatever ancient hunger claimed these mountains. “You got your own life to worry about,” Jeremiah said, moving closer. “That little cabin of yours down in Pine Hollow. Pretty thing, all alone since your Samuel passed. Be a shame if something happened to it while you were indisposed.

” The threat hit her like a physical blow. Her cabin, Samuel’s cabin, was all she had left of their 23 years together. He’d built it with his own hands before their wedding, carved their initials in the mantle beam, planned to fill every room with children who never came. All except the one 30 years ago marked with that same damned crescent.

 “Don’t you dare,” she whispered. “Then we understand each other.” Jeremiah’s smile revealed teeth like yellowed bone. “You delivered two healthy boys to the Coldwell family. Mercy died of complications like mountain women sometimes do. You go home, tend to your herbs and your loneliness, and we’ll all pretend tonight never happened.

” One of the twins made a soft sound, not quite a cry, more like a purr. The other answered in perfect harmony. Sarah Beth’s skin crawled at the wrongness of it, but she forced herself to think beyond her revulsion. If she left now, she could ride to Lewisburg by morning, bring back the sheriff and a dozen deputies, force them to investigate.

 But that would take 2 days minimum, and Jeremiah would have plenty of time to disappear into the mountains depths with his unholy offspring. She’d seen how the Coldwell men could vanish when they chose to, melting into the forests likesmoke, following paths known only to their kind.

 I need to wash up, she said finally. Prepare mercy proper, Jeremiah nodded, his attention already shifting to the twins. Springs out back. Don’t take too long. Sarah Beth gathered her blood soaked supplies and stepped into the storm’s fury. Rain lashed her face, but she welcomed its cleansing sting after the suffocating evil of the cabin.

She knelt by the spring and plunged her hands into the icy water, scrubbing away the stain of what she’d witnessed. But some stains ran deeper than skin. As she worked, her mind raced through possibilities. The mountain folk had their own networks, their own ways of passing information. If she could reach Hannah Whitmore at Droop Mountain, or old Ezra Cross down in Frankfurt, there were others who remembered the old stories, who might know what curse had taken root in the Coldwell bloodline.

 A sound made her freeze. That same ethereal laughter she’d heard earlier, drifting from the dark throat of the mountain. It seemed to emanate from the very stones, as if the hills themselves were amused by her helpless rage. Sarah Beth had been delivering babies in these hollers for two decades, building a reputation that stretched from Lewisburg to White Sulfur Springs.

Families trusted her not just with their children’s lives, but with their secrets. The ones whispered in Labour’s darkest hours, when pain stripped away all pretense. She’d kept every confidence, helped cover every shame. That trust was her life’s work, her only legacy in a world that had taken everything else from her.

 Now she faced a choice that could destroy it all. But as she knelt by that mountain spring, listening to inhuman laughter echo through the storm, Sarah Beth McKenzie began to understand that some secrets were too poisonous to keep, even if speaking them cost her everything she’d built in the valley she called home. The laughter faded into the storm’s howl, leaving Sarah Beth alone with her racing thoughts and the sound of her own ragged breathing.

 She remained crouched by the spring for another moment, letting the icy water numb her fingers while her mind crystallized around a terrible certainty. She could not, would not let those children remain in Jeremiah’s keeping. Behind her, the cabin door creaked open. Sarahth. Jeremiah’s voice cut through the rain like a blade. Time’s wasting.

 Mercy ain’t getting any deader. She forced herself to stand, to walk back toward that cursed threshold with steady steps. But as she approached, movement in her peripheral vision made her pause. A figure emerged from the treeine, tall, broadshouldered, leading a horse through the storm with practiced ease. Jeremiah Caldwell. The voice boomed across the clearing, rich with authority Sarah Beth hadn’t heard in these hills for years.

 Sheriff Hawkins, Greenbryer County, got reports of trouble up this way. Sarah Beth’s heart lurched. The sheriff here now when she’d thought no law would venture into these hollers. But as the man drew closer, she realized her mistake. This wasn’t Sheriff Hawkins, whose belly had grown soft from too many years behind a desk.

 This man was younger, leaner, with steel gray eyes that missed nothing. Deputy Marcus Cole, he announced, stepping into the lamplight that spilled from the cabin door. New to these parts, but not new to mountain folk and their ways. Jeremiah’s face had gone pale beneath his beard. Ain’t no trouble here, deputy. Just a birthing that went poorly. Happens sometimes. That so.

Cole’s gaze swept over the scene. Jeremiah’s nervous fidgeting. Sarah Beth’s bloodstained dress. the two quiet cabin behind them. Funny thing is, I’ve been tracking some disturbing rumors about the Caldwell family. Stories that had make decent folks sick to their stomachs. The deputy’s eyes found Sarah Beth’s, and she saw something there that made her breath catch.

 Recognition, not of her face, but of her situation. The trapped look of someone who’d witnessed unspeakable things and had nowhere to turn. Ma’am, he said, touching the brim of his hat, I’m guessing you’d be Sarah Beth Mack Kenzie, the midwife folk speak so highly of heard tell you never lost a mother in 20 years of birthing.

 That’s right, she managed. Her voice from the storm and strain. Must be hard then when you finally do lose one, especially under unusual circumstances. The words hung between them like a lifeline thrown across treacherous water. Sarah Beth felt the weight of choice settling on her shoulders heavier than any burden she’d ever carried.

 She could support Jeremiah’s lie protect her reputation, keep her comfortable life in Pine Hollow intact, or she could trust this stranger with a truth that would shatter everything she’d built. From inside the cabin came that soft, harmonized sound again, the twins responding to each other in their unholy communion.

 Deputy Cole’s head snapped toward the noise. his hand instinctively moving to the gun at his hip. What wasthat? Just the babies, Jeremiah said quickly. Healthy boys, both of them. But their mama complications, you understand? Mountain women ain’t built like town ladies. Complications. Cole’s voice was flat, disbelieving, and the father of these children would be.

 The question hung in the air like a curse waiting to be spoken. Sarah Beth watched Jeremiah’s face cycle through emotions, fear, rage, calculation. She could almost see him weighing the cost of truth against the price of lies. “Boy who ran off last spring,” Jeremiah said finally. “Mercy was always too trusting of sweet words.

 It was the lie Sarah Beth had expected, the story that would satisfy a lazy lawman and protect Jeremiah’s secret. But as she looked at Deputy Cole, she saw something that made her pulse quicken. He wasn’t satisfied. His gray eyes held the cold light of a man who’d heard every lie the mountains could tell. “Interesting,” Cole said.

“Because I’ve been talking to folks in the valley, and not one of them remembers any boy courting Mercy Caldwell. In fact, most haven’t seen her at all in over a year. Mighty strange for a girl her age to become such a hermit. Mountain girls keep to themselves, Jeremiah growled. Some do. Cole’s gaze never wavered.

 Others get kept. The words cracked the night like lightning, illuminating the truth that had hidden in shadow for too long. Sarah Beth felt the moment crystallize around her, the deputy’s arrival, Jeremiah’s growing desperation, those damned children breathing their synchronized breaths in the darkness. This was her chance, perhaps her only chance, to speak what needed speaking.

But it would cost her everything. Her reputation, her safety, her simple life among people who’ trusted her with their deepest secrets. Once she broke that trust, once she proved she could speak what others kept hidden, who would ever call for Sarah Beth McKenzie again? The mountains laughter echoed again, fainter now, but still audible beneath the storm’s fury, as if something ancient and hungry was watching this moment unfold, waiting to see which choice would feed its endless appetite for human suffering. Sarah Beth’s mouth

opened, then closed again like a fish drowning in air. The words she needed to speak lodged in her throat like stones, each one sharp enough to cut her life apart. Deputy Cole’s eyes remained fixed on her face, reading the truth written there in the lamplight’s flicker, while Jeremiah’s breathing grew shallow and dangerous behind her.

 “Ma’am,” Cole prompted gently, “Something you want to tell me?” The kindness in his voice nearly broke her resolve. “When was the last time anyone had spoken to her with such consideration? Not since Samuel died, certainly. These mountain folk respected her skills, but held themselves apart from a childless widow who dealt too closely with life and death.

 She’d built her reputation one birth at a time, earning trust through competence and silence. That silence had been her salvation and her prison both. The babies, she began, then faltered. Once she started down this path, there would be no turning back. Deputy Cole seemed decent enough, but he was still a stranger.

 Men had their own ways of protecting each other, especially when it came to matters that challenged the natural order. Who was to say he wouldn’t decide the truth was too ugly to pursue? Healthy boys, Jeremiah interjected quickly. Like I told you, Sarah Beth can vouch for that. She could feel his desperation radiating like heat from a forge. Good. Let him sweat.

 Let him taste the fear that had been mercy’s daily bread for over a year. But even as righteous anger flared in her chest, practical concerns crowded close behind it. If she spoke against Jeremiah now tonight, what then? Cole seemed competent, but he was one man against mountains that had swallowed countless others.

 The Coldwells had roots in these hills going back generations, connections that ran deeper than law or justice. Even if Cole arrested Jeremiah, who would testify? Who would risk their own safety to corroborate her story? Mountain folk had a way of forgetting things when it suited them. Those boys, she said carefully, testing the waters. There, unusual, Cole’s eyebrows lifted slightly.

 How so? From inside the cabin came another of those synchronized sounds. Not quite crying, not quite purring. something that raised the hair on Sarah Beth’s arms and made Deputy Cole’s hand drift toward his weapon again. “Birth marks,” she continued, her voice gaining strength. “Both of them behind the left ear, shaped like crescents.

” “Birtharks run in families,” Jeremiah said, but his voice cracked on the words. “Ain’t nothing strange about that.” “No,” Sarah Beth agreed, her eyes never leaving Cole’s face. “Nothing strange about family resemblances.” She saw understanding dawn in the deputy’s expression, the careful way she had chosen her words, the implication hanging between them like smoke.

 This was how mountain women spoke theirtruths sideways in shadows, letting listeners draw their own conclusions. But would it be enough? The wind picked up, driving rain against the cabin walls with renewed fury. Sarah Beth shivered in her damp clothes and thought of her own warm hearth 3 hours ride away. Her books, herb garden, her memories of Samuel reading aloud while she mended his shirts, the quiet life she’d built from the ashes of her grief.

 All of it balanced on the edge of what she said next. “Ma’am,” Cole said softly, if there’s something wrong here, something that needs investigating, I give you my word it’ll be handled proper. But I need the truth. All of it. The truth. As if such a simple thing could exist in these twisted hollers.

 The truth was that she’d helped birth children touched by something far worse than human evil. The truth was that Mercy Caldwell had died bearing her father’s offspring, while something in the mountains laughed at their suffering. The truth was that Sarah Beth had spent 30 years trying to forget her own stillborn son’s crescent Mark.

 And now that Mark had returned to mock her failure, who would believe such truths? Who could? The twins need proper care, she said finally, choosing the safest ground. Medical attention. There are complications. What kind of complications? Before she could answer, Jeremiah moved not toward Cole, but toward the cabin door and the children inside.

 Sarah Beth’s heart clenched as she realized what he was considering. If he couldn’t silence her, he could still eliminate the evidence. “They’re just babies,” she said quickly, stepping between Jeremiah and the doorway. “Whatever their parentage, they’re innocent.” “Innocent?” Jeremiah’s laugh was bitter as wormwood.

 “You don’t understand what they are, Sarah. What they’re meant to become. The mountain has plans. The mountain has nothing to do with your crimes, Cole interrupted, his voice sharp with authority. But Sarah Beth knew better. The mountain had everything to do with this. The ancient hunger that had claimed the Caldwell bloodline. The voic’s mercy had whispered about in her dying moments.

 Evil that ran deeper than human depravity. Roots that stretched back to the first families who’d settled these cursed hills. Standing there in the storm’s fury, with an honest lawman offering protection and a monster threatening everything she held dear, Sarah Beth McKenzie felt the weight of generations pressing down upon her shoulders. And still she hesitated.

 The moment stretched taught as a bowring, rain hammering the cabin roof, like skeletal fingers drumming an ancient rhythm. Sarah Beth felt the crossroads beneath her feet, not the muddy ground of Jeremiah’s clearing, but something deeper, the kind of choice that carved new channels in a life, washing away everything that came before.

 She thought of Samuel, dead these seven years, and how he’d always said she had the strongest hands in Greenbryer County. Steady as stone, he’d whisper when she doubted herself, and twice as enduring. But Samuel had never imagined hands like hers would one day hold children marked by such darkness, or that his widow would stand between the devil and the law with nothing but her failing courage.

 “Duty Cole,” she said, her voice cutting through the storm’s howl like a blade through silk. “I need you to arrest Jeremiah Caldwell.” The words hung in the air, sharp and irreversible. Jeremiah’s face went white as bone, then flushed red with rage. “You witch,” he snarled, lunging toward her. “You meddling.

” Cole’s pistol cleared leather faster than thought. The barrel aimed steady at Jeremiah’s chest. “That’s far enough.” But Sarah Beth barely noticed the confrontation unfolding before her. Something had shifted inside her chest, like a dam finally bursting after years of pressure. The careful life she’d constructed in Pine Hollow, built on discretion and silence and keeping other people’s secrets, felt suddenly as insubstantial as mourning mist.

 Those children, she continued, her voice growing stronger with each word, are his own daughter’s babies. Mercy Caldwell, 17 years old, who he’s kept locked away for over a year. She died not an hour ago, calling his name and begging forgiveness for sins that were never hers to bear. The truth poured out of her like blood from a wound dark and necessary.

 20 years of swallowed words, of looking away when wives appeared with bruises they claimed came from kitchen accidents, of delivering babies whose fathers bore too strong a resemblance to their grandfathers. All the willful blindness that let mountain folk survive in their isolated hollers came spilling into the lamplight.

 And the birth marks Cole asked, his gun never wavering from Jeremiah’s heaving chest. Crescents behind the left ears, same as their father bears, same as their grandfather. Sarah Beth’s voice dropped to a whisper, same as my own stillborn child carried. 30 years passed. The admission hit her like a physical blow.

 She’d never spokenthose words aloud, not even to Samuel in their most intimate moments. The baby boy, who’d lived just long enough for her to see that damned mark before his breath failed, taking with it her only chance at motherhood. She’d buried that secret so deep she’d almost convinced herself it was just a midwife’s delusion, born from exhaustion and grief.

 But seeing those twins tonight, hearing their synchronized breathing, and witnessing the wrongness that clung to them like shadow, she knew the truth her heart had always carried. The mountains demanded blood payment, and the Caldwell line had been paying it for generations. “You’re mad,” Jeremiah gasped, but his denial sounded hollow even to his own ears.

 “Mountain fevers addled your brain, woman.” Maybe so,” Sarah Beth acknowledged, stepping closer to Cole and the protection his badge represented. “But madness don’t explain what I delivered tonight. Two babies breathing in perfect time, moving like they share one mind. Children that ain’t quite human, born from a union that ain’t natural.

” Cole’s gray eyes flicked between her and Jeremiah, reading the truth written in their faces. “Ma’am, are you willing to swear to these accusations before a judge?” The question hit harder than Jeremiah’s threats ever could. A judge meant leaving these mountains, traveling to Lewisburg or Charleston, where her testimony would be recorded in official documents.

 It meant becoming the mountain woman who broke the code of silence, who chose law over loyalty to the unspoken rules that governed holler life. It meant exile from the only world she’d ever known. I am, she said, the words scraping her throat roar. Those babies need protection from what their grandfather plans, and justice needs serving for what happened to their mama.

Thunder cracked overhead like the sound of heaven splitting open. In that brilliant flash of lightning, Sarah Beth saw her future laid out clear as creek water. She would never again be trusted with mountain secrets, never again welcomed into cabins where desperate women needed gentle hands to guide new life into the world.

 Her reputation would transform from blessing to curse overnight. But perhaps that was fitting. Perhaps 20 years of silence had been long enough. “Then we’re leaving,” Cole announced, his guns still trained on Jeremiah. “All of us. Those babies need proper care. And you need to make an official statement.

” Sarah Beth nodded, already moving toward the cabin door and the children who waited inside. Whatever ancient evil had twisted the Caldwell bloodline, whatever voices whispered from the mountains depths, she was done pretending she couldn’t hear them. The cabin door swung open under Sarah Beth’s trembling hand, releasing a wave of humid air that carried the metallic scent of birth and something else, something that made her throat constrict with instinctive fear.

 The twins lay where she’d left them, wrapped in Mercy’s torn petticoat, but they were no longer sleeping. Four dark eyes tracked her movement with an awareness no newborn should possess. As she stepped inside, both children turned their heads in perfect synchronization, following her approach like flowers seeking sunlight.

 The sight sent ice through her veins. Deputy, she called over her shoulder. You need to see this. Cole appeared in the doorway, Jeremiah stumbling ahead of him at gunpoint. The old man’s face had gone ashen, his earlier bluster replaced by something approaching terror. Don’t touch them, he whispered. Not until the moon sets. It ain’t safe.

 Safe? Sarah Beth’s laugh carried a bitter edge. Nothing about this night has been safe. But even as she spoke, she noticed her hands shaking as she reached for the nearest child. The baby’s skin felt fever hot against her palms as if something burned beneath the surface. Jesus, Cole breathed, stepping closer. They’re watching us. It was true.

 Both infants maintained that unnatural alertness, their gazes shifting between the adults with calculating intelligence. When Sarah Beth lifted the first child, the second began to cry. Not the typical whale of a hungry newborn, but a low, melodic sound that seemed to echo from the cabin walls themselves.

 “Put him down,” Jeremiah pleaded, his voice cracking. “You don’t understand what you’re interfering with. The mountain chose the Caldwell line for a reason. These children have a purpose. The only purpose they have,” Sarah said firmly, “is to grow up safe and free from whatever madness runs in your blood.

” But her conviction wavered as the baby in her arms began to emit that same harmonized cry, its tiny voice weaving together with its brothers in a pattern that hurt to hear. Cole moved closer, his professional composure slipping. “What are they doing calling?” Jeremiah whispered, letting the mountain know they’ve arrived.

 As if summoned by his words, the storm outside intensified. Rain lashed the cabin with renewed fury, and somewhere in the distance, SarahBeth heard an answering sound, low and rumbling, like rock grinding against rock in the earth’s deep places. “We need to leave,” she said, gathering both children, despite their otherworldly cries.

 “Whatever connection exists between these babies and this place, distance might weaken it.” But even as she spoke, she wondered if such things could be escaped. The crescent mark behind her own stillborn son’s ear had followed her for 30 years, a reminder that some stains ran deeper than bloodlines. If the mountain truly claimed the Caldwell family, would taking these children away be salvation or simply spreading the corruption? My horse won’t carry four, Cole said.

practical concerns cutting through the supernatural dread. And those babies need shelter from this weather. Pine hollow, Sarah Beth said without hesitation. My cabin’s 3 hours ride, but I have supplies for infant care, medicine if they need it. She paused, looking down at the twins, who had fallen silent in her arms.

 Their breathing remained synchronized, their dark eyes alert and watchful. though I’m not sure human medicine will help what ails them. Jeremiah laughed, a sound like breaking glass. You think distance matters? You think you can outrun what flows in their veins? His voice dropped to a whisper. I was born with that mark too.

 Sarah Beth fought against it for 40 years before I understood the truth. The mountain doesn’t let go of what belongs to it. Then we’ll see about that. Cole said grimly, binding Jeremiah’s hands with rope from his saddle bags. I’ve seen plenty of men blame evil spirits for their own choices. Amazing how often those spirits demand exactly what the man wanted to do anyway.

 But Sarah Beth caught the tremor in the deputy’s voice, the way his eyes kept returning to the children in her arms. He was trying to convince himself as much as them, clinging to rational explanations in the face of something that defied reason. “The storm’s getting worse,” she observed, noting how the wind now howled like something alive and hungry.

 “If we’re leaving, it needs to be now.” Cole nodded, already moving toward the door. “Can you ride holding both of them? I’ll manage.” Sarah Beth wrapped the babies more securely, feeling their small bodies pulse with that unnatural warmth. Whatever these children are, whatever they’re meant to become, they deserve a chance at something better than this.

Behind them, Jeremiah began to laugh again. A sound that followed them into the storm torn night like a cursegiven voice. As they stepped into the howling darkness, Sarahth couldn’t shake the feeling that they weren’t truly escaping. They were simply carrying the darkness with them. The storm struck them like a living thing the moment they cleared the cabin’s threshold.

 Rain drove horizontal across the clearing, each drop sharp as buckshot against Sarah Beth’s face. She hunched over the twins, trying to shield them with her body while Cole wrestled Jeremiah toward where the horses waited. Two dark shapes barely visible through the curtain of water.

 “The mares spooked!” Cole shouted over the wind’s howl, fighting to control his mount as it danced sideways, whites showing around its eyes. Something’s got her rattled worse than the weather. Sarah Beth knew what that something was. The twins in her arms had begun that synchronized breathing again, their small chests rising and falling in perfect rhythm, and with each breath, the storm seemed to answer.

 Lightning split the sky in patterns too regular to be natural, illuminating the surrounding forest in stark, flickering frames that revealed trees bent at impossible angles, their branches reaching toward the cabin like grasping fingers. “Hold them still,” she told herself through gritted teeth.

 But the babies seemed to pulse with energy that had nothing to do with normal infant vitality. Their skin burned against her arms, even through the wet fabric. And when lightning flashed, she could swear she saw shadows moving beneath their translucent flesh, dark veins that branched and twisted like the root systems of ancient trees.

Cole managed to boost Jeremiah onto his horse, the bound man slumping forward with resigned defeat. But even defeated, Jeremiah’s presence seemed to agitate the storm further. Wind shrieked through the clearing with voices that sounded almost human. And somewhere in the darkness beyond the trees, something large crashed through the underbrush.

Too heavy to be a deer, too deliberate to be a falling tree. Sarah Beth. Cole’s voice cut sharp through the chaos. We need to move now. She stumbled toward her own mare, feeling the ground turn treacherous beneath her feet. Mud sucked at her boots with each step, and twice she nearly fell as hidden roots caught her ankles.

 The babies remained unnaturally calm through it all, their dark eyes reflecting the lightning like pools of black water, watching the storm with what looked disturbingly like satisfaction. Mounting while holding two infants in ahurricane proved nearly impossible. Sarah Beth’s mayor shied and stamped, nostrils flaring as she caught the scent of whatever wrongness clung to the children.

 Only Cole’s steadying hand on the bridal kept the horse from bolting entirely. “Easy, girl,” Sarah Beth whispered, though she wasn’t sure if she spoke to the mayor or to herself. “Just a little farther. Just get us home.” The word felt foreign on her tongue now. Could Pine Hollow still be home once she brought these children there? Once she contaminated her sanctuary with whatever ancient evil flowed in Caldwell blood, she thought of her neat cabin with its herb garden and well tended hearth, her books arranged carefully on their shelves. Samuel’s pipe still resting on

the mantle after 7 years. Would any of it survive what she was about to unleash? The roads washed out ahead, Cole called, his voice strained as he fought to control both horses. We’ll have to take the ridge path. the ridge path. Sarah Beth’s heart sank. The narrow trail that wound along the mountain spine was treacherous in good weather.

 In a storm like this, with two newborns to protect, it bordered on suicide. But the alternative was staying here in this cursed clearing where Mercy’s blood still soaked the cabin floor and something in the surrounding darkness kept pace with their movements. As if reading her thoughts, one of the twins turned its head toward the forest, its tiny face contorted into an expression no infant should be capable of, something between longing and command.

 The other baby mirrored the gesture exactly, both children staring into the storm lashed trees with identical hunger. “They’re calling to something,” Jeremiah said, his voice barely audible over the wind, but somehow reaching her ears with perfect clarity. “Can’t you hear it answering?” Sarah Beth could. Beneath the storm’s rage, beneath the crash of thunder and the howling wind, something else moved through the night.

 Footsteps that matched no earthly gate, voices that spoke in tongues older than human memory. The mountain itself seemed to be stirring, roused by the birth of these impossible children. “Whatever’s out there,” she said, adjusting her grip on the twins and gathering her res. “It’s not getting these babies. Not tonight.” Cole nodded grimly, water streaming from his hatbrim. 3 hours to Pine Hollow.

 In good weather tonight. She looked up at the roing sky, where lightning now flickered in constant sheets, turning the world into a series of stark tableau. Tonight we’ll be lucky to see dawn. But even as doubt clawed at her resolve, Sarah Beth felt something harden in her chest. She’d spent 30 years running from the memory of her own marked child.

 30 years pretending the darkness in these mountains didn’t exist. No more. Whatever evil had claimed the Caldwell line. Whatever ancient hunger demanded blood sacrifice, it would have to go through her first. The twins stirred in her arms as she spurred her mare forward, their synchronized breathing shifting into something that sounded almost like laughter.

 The laughter died as they reached the ridge path, replaced by something far worse. Absolute silence from the children that felt like the calm before lightning strikes. Sarah Beth’s mayor picked her way along the narrow trail, each step sending loose stones rattling into the abyss below. The storm had turned the path treacherous, transforming familiar footing into a slick gamble with death.

Behind her, she could hear Cole cursing under his breath as his horse stumbled. Jeremiah’s bound form swaying dangerously in the saddle. But it was the silence from the twins that made her blood run cold. In her 30 years of midwiffery, she’d learned to read the language of infant breathing, the quick pants of fever, the shallow gasps of illness, the deep sigh of contentment.

This was none of those. This was the silence of something waiting. Sarah Beth Cole’s voice cut through the wind, sharp with warning. Look ahead. She raised her eyes from the treacherous path to see what had stopped her world cold. The trail ahead was blocked, not by fallen trees or washed out sections, but by figures standing motionless in the rain.

At first glance, they might have been travelers seeking shelter, but as lightning illuminated their forms. The truth struck her like a physical blow. They were all women. All bore the same slackjawed expression of death, and all carried infants in their arms. “Sweet Jesus,” she whispered, recognizing faces from her own past.

 Mothers, she’d attended, women who’d died in childbirth despite her best efforts. Their babies following them into whatever darkness lay beyond the veil. Martha Hendris, who’ bled out three winters past. Elizabeth Crane, taken by fever the summer before. A dozen others, all standing silent in the storm, their dead eyes fixed on the living children in Sarah Beth’s arms.

 The twins began to stir, their small bodies heating like coals against her chest. One made a softcouping sound, not the innocent babble of a newborn, but something that resonated with recognition, as if greeting old friends. They’re not real, Cole said, but his voice shook. Hallucinations, the storm, the stress. His words died as Martha Hendris took a step forward, her feet making no sound on the rocky path.

 Water ran through her form rather than over it. And when she opened her mouth to speak, Sarah Beth heard the voice of every woman who’d ever died under her care. Give them back. The words came from all the figures at once, a chorus of loss and longing that made the storm’s howling seem gentle by comparison. They belong with us in the darkness below, where all the marked children go. No.

 Sarah’s voice cracked like a whip through the night. I lost one child to this mountain’s hunger. I won’t lose these. The admission tore from her throat like a physical thing. 30 years of buried grief erupting in the face of supernatural accusation. Her own stillborn son, the baby she’d never named, never properly mourned, never allowed herself to grieve because acknowledging the loss, meant acknowledging what that crescent mark had truly meant.

 You cannot fight what has always been. Martha’s voice carried the weight of centuries, speaking not just for herself, but for generations of mountain women who’d paid this price. The land demands its due. Blood calls to blood. The marked children serve a purpose you cannot understand. Then help me understand, Sarah Beth shouted back, rain streaming down her face like tears.

Tell me why innocent babies must die for some ancient evil’s appetite. Tell me why women like Mercy must suffer for sins they never chose. The figures wavered, their forms becoming translucent in the lightning’s glare. But Martha stepped closer, close enough that Sarah Beth could see the terrible knowledge in her dead eyes.

 Because the mountain remembers what came before, she whispered. Before the white settlements, before the Cherokee, before any human tongue named these peaks, something old sleeps in the deep places, something that feeds on pain and perpetuates itself through blood. The marked children are not its victim, Sarah Beth. They are its children.

 The twins in Sarah Beth’s arms began to laugh again, that harmonized sound that seemed to come from their bones rather than their throats. As they laughed, the dead women began to fade, their forms dissolving back into storm and shadow. “You cannot outrun blood.” Martha’s voice lingered even as her figure vanished.

 “You can only choose what you do with it.” The path ahead cleared, leaving only wind and rain, and the terrible weight of understanding. Sarah Beth looked down at the children in her arms, truly looked at them for the first time since leaving the cabin. In the lightning’s stark illumination, she could see what she’d been denying.

The two sharp intelligence in their dark eyes, the way their tiny fingers curved like claws, the shadows that moved beneath their skin like living things. These weren’t human children corrupted by evil. They were evil wearing the shape of children, and she was carrying them straight toward Pine Hollow, toward her home, toward every innocent soul who lived there.

 The twins looked up at her with perfect understanding, their synchronized breathing forming words too soft for Cole to hear, but clear as thunder to her ears. Mother. The word hit Sarah Beth like a physical blow, stealing her breath and nearly sending her tumbling from the saddle. Mother, not spoken aloud, but whispered directly into her mind by two creatures who had never drawn breath in this world until tonight.

 The twins dark eyes held hers with ancient knowledge, and she saw herself reflected there, not as the woman she’d been an hour ago, but as something else entirely, something chosen. “No,” she gasped, jerking the rain so hard her mare stumbled on the slick stone. “No, I’m not your mother. I’m just trying to save you.” But even as the words left her lips, she felt the lie in them.

 The moment she’d lifted these children from Mercy’s dying body, something had shifted. Some invisible thread had been woven, binding her to them as surely as if she’d carried them in her own womb. The crescent mark on her own stillborn child suddenly made terrible sense, not a random curse, but a preparation, a marking of her bloodline for this very purpose.

 Sarah Beth. Cole’s voice seemed to come from very far away, though he rode just behind her. What’s wrong? You’ve gone white as bone. She couldn’t answer. The twins were doing something to her mind. Their synchronized breathing drawing her deeper into a shared consciousness that felt like drowning in black honey. Images flooded her vision.

 Not memories, but prophecies. She saw Pine Hollow burning, its peaceful cabins consumed by flames that cast no light. She saw her neighbors fleeing into the night, their screams harmonizing with the twins laughter. She saw herself standing at the center of it all, no longer SarahBeth McKenzie the midwife, but something else wearing her face.

 “Fight it,” she whispered to herself, digging her nails into her palms until blood welled. The pain helped created a small anchor of selfhood in the rising tide of alien thoughts. They’re just babies. Just babies who need help. But they weren’t. And she knew it now with crystal in certainty. These creatures had been born knowing things no human child should know.

 Speaking without words, laughing at mysteries that had driven men to madness. They were the mountains children, as Martha had said, and they were claiming her as their vessel. The worst part was how natural it felt, how right. 30 years of empty arms and broken dreams had left a hollow place in her chest, and these impossible children filled it perfectly.

 They called to every maternal instinct she’d buried, every protective urge she’d denied herself, the part of her that had always wondered what it would be like to hold her own child, to see her own features reflected in tiny faces, to matter to someone in the most fundamental way possible. “Please,” she heard herself whisper, and wasn’t sure if she was begging them to stop or to never let go.

Cole’s hand landed on her shoulder, solid and warm and human. Sarah Beth, talked to me. What’s happening? The touch broke the spell enough for her to see where they were. Still on the ridge path, but much farther along than she remembered traveling. Her mare walked with the steady gate of an animal following a familiar route, though Sarah Beth had no memory of guiding her.

 How much time had passed while she’d been lost in the twins shared consciousness. They’re not. She started, then stopped. How could she explain what she’d learned? That these children weren’t victims, but architects of their own dark purpose. That every step toward Pine Hollow brought her community closer to some ancient reckoning.

 They’re not what, cold pressed. They’re not going to let me go. The admission tore from her throat like a confession. I thought I was saving them, but they’re the ones doing the saving. saving me from 30 years of emptiness. She looked down at the twins, who watched her with those impossibly knowing eyes. Their tiny hands had somehow worked free of their swaddling, and now their fingers traced patterns on her coat, symbols that seemed to burn through the fabric and into her skin.

 Each touch sent waves of warmth through her body, banishing the mountain cold, making her feel more alive than she had in decades. We can still turn back, Cole said urgently. Leave them on Jeremiah’s doorstep and ride away. Whatever hold they have on you, distance might No. Sarah Beth’s voice carried new authority, though she wasn’t sure where it came from.

 I won’t abandon children. Not again. But even as she spoke, she felt her old life slipping away like water through her fingers. The woman who had hidden from supernatural truth, who had pretended the darkness in these mountains was merely human evil, that woman was dying. In her place, something else was being born, something that understood the twins true nature and loved them anyway.

The twins smiled up at her in perfect synchronization, their innocent faces radiant with malevolent joy. And despite everything, despite the horror of what they were, despite the certainty that carrying them home would doom everyone she’d ever cared about, Sarah Beth McKenzie found herself smiling back.

 The moment her lips curved upward to mirror their smiles, Sarah Beth felt the final barrier in her mind collapse like a dam bursting. The revelation crashed through her consciousness with the force of 30 years worth of denied truth, and suddenly she understood everything with terrible clarity.

 She had been chosen long before tonight, long before Mercy Caldwell’s labor, long before she’d ever heard the name Caldwell spoken in hushed mountain whispers. The mark on her own stillborn child hadn’t been random. It had been a signature, a claiming, a preparation for this very moment. Every woman she’d failed to save, every mother who’d died despite her best efforts had been part of this design.

 The mountain had been culling her humanity piece by piece, hollowing her out like a gourd, making space for something else to take root. “Sweet Jesus,” she whispered, but the words felt foreign on her tongue. “When had prayer stopped feeling natural? When had the cross around her neck started burning against her skin?” The twins fingers continued tracing their symbols on her coat, and with each completed pattern, memories flooded back.

 Not her own, but ancestral knowledge flowing through bloodlines she’d never understood. She saw the first European settlers arriving in these hollers, saw them stumbling upon something far older than Cherokee hunting grounds, caves that breathed with their own rhythm, springs that ran red under certain moons, places where the earth itself was hungry.

 The early settlers had tried to fight it, just asshe was fighting now. They’d built churches and held prayer meetings and burned what they called devil worship. But the mountain was patient. It worked through generations, through bloodlines, through the simple human need to belong to something greater than oneself.

 It marked children, claimed women, turned communities against themselves until resistance crumbled into acceptance. The Coldwells weren’t the first family to serve as vessels. They were simply the most recent, the most successful at hiding what they’d become. Jeremiah’s crimes weren’t aberrations. They were sacraments, offerings to something that demanded blood continuity.

 Each generation produced marked children, and each generation of women like herself was prepared to receive them. “I know what you are,” she said aloud, looking down at the twins. “I know what you’re meant to become.” Their smiles widened, revealing gums that were too dark, too knowing.

 One of them, she still couldn’t tell them apart, reached up and touched her cheek with a finger no bigger than a twig. Where it touched, warmth spread like infection, carrying with it visions of what Pine Hollow could become under their influence. Not destruction, she realized with growing horror. Transformation. The twins didn’t want to burn her community. They wanted to perfect it.

 to create a place where the old hunger could feed openly, where marked children could grow to adulthood without shame or secrecy, where women like herself could fulfill their true purpose as vessels for ancient will. She saw her neighbors faces changing, their eyes taking on the same dark knowledge she felt growing in herself.

 She saw children born with marks becoming the norm rather than the exception. She saw Pine Hollow becoming a beacon for others like the Coldwells, a sanctuary where old ways could flourish without interference from the outside world. It would be peaceful in its way. No more hiding, no more shame, no more fighting against nature too powerful to resist, just acceptance, just belonging.

 Just the end of 30 years of emptiness. Sarah Beth. Cole’s voice cut through her visions like a blade. Your eyes, they’re changing. She blinked, focusing on his face with effort. He was staring at her with open fear now, his hand moving instinctively toward the rifle on his saddle. Behind him, Jeremiah had raised his head, and she could see satisfaction in his weathered features.

 “She’s beginning to understand,” Jeremiah said. “The calling doesn’t fight against you, Sarah. It completes you. Makes you what you were always meant to be. what I was always meant to be, she repeated slowly, testing the words. They felt true in a way that made her chest ache with recognition. Every childless year, every failed birth, every night she’d lain awake wondering why God had made her a midwife but never a mother, it had all been leading to this moment.

 The twins couped softly, their sounds no longer random infant noises, but purposeful communication. They were telling her something important, something that made perfect sense, even though she couldn’t translate it into human language. They were explaining how loved she would be, how needed, how central to their growing purpose.

 Cole was saying something urgent, his voice sharp with panic, but his words seemed to come from underwater. The only thing that mattered now were these children in her arms, these impossible creatures who had chosen her out of all the women in these mountains, who had waited for her, who had always known she would come. “I understand now,” she said, her voice carrying new certainty.

 “I understand everything.” The twins synchronized laughter rang out across the storm lashed ridge, no longer evil to her ears, but pure and joyful and welcoming. Cole’s rifle shot cracked through the storm like thunder, the bullet whistling inches past Sarah Beth’s ear before embedding itself in a pine trunk. The sharp report shattered whatever spell had been weaving around her consciousness, and suddenly she could think clearly for the first time since leaving the Caldwell cabin.

 The twins in her arms shrieked, not infant cries, but sounds like metal grinding against stone, their small bodies convulsing with rage at the interruption. The warmth that had been spreading through her chest turned to ice, and Sarah Beth gasped as her own thoughts came flooding back like water rushing into a broken dam.

 “What have I done?” she whispered, staring down at the creatures that moments before had felt like salvation. Their dark eyes now burned with ancient fury, and she could see shadows moving beneath their skin like living smoke. “What was I about to do?” “You were coming home,” Cole said grimly, working the rifle’s bolt to chamber another round.

 “To them, to whatever’s been waiting in these mountains.” His eyes never left the twins as he spoke. Sarah Beth, you need to put those things down now. Behind them, Jeremiah laughed despite his bonds. Too late for that,McKenzie. The bonds been made. She’s carried them this far. She’s already marked as their vessel. No. Sarah Beth’s voice cracked with desperate determination.

 I won’t be anyone’s vessel. these children. She looked down at the twins who had gone unnaturally still, watching her with predatory patience. They’re not children at all, are they? The admission should have devastated her, but instead it brought clarity. She thought of Mercy Caldwell’s final words about voices in the mountain, about the generations of women who had vanished into these hollers, about her own stillborn child marked with that damned crescent.

 This cycle of corruption had been spinning for decades. maybe centuries, and she was just the latest woman caught in its web. But understanding the trap didn’t mean she had to remain caught. “Cole,” she said, her voice gaining strength. “How many shells do you have?” “Enough,” he replied, though she could hear uncertainty in his tone.

 “But Sarah Beth, they’re still infants. Whatever they are, they’re still they’re not.” She cut him off, surprised by her own conviction. Look at their eyes. Really look. Those aren’t babies looking back at us. Cole studied the twins more carefully, and she watched his face change as he saw what she’d finally acknowledged.

 The intelligence there was vast and cold and utterly inhuman, wearing infant faces like masks. They had never been children. They had been born as something else entirely, ancient consciousness wrapped in vulnerable flesh. Sweet God in heaven, he breathed. What do we do? The storm was weakening around them. Rain gentling to a steady patter that revealed how far they’d traveled.

 Pine hollows lights were visible in the valley below. Warm windows promising safety that Sarah Beth now knew was an illusion. If she carried these creatures into her community, everyone she’d ever cared about would be consumed or transformed into servants of whatever power had created the twins. We don’t go home, she said, the words tearing at her heart. We can’t.

 Not like this. Then where? Cole asked. Sarah Beth looked back at Jeremiah, who was watching their conversation with obvious amusement. You know these mountains better than anyone, she said to him. You’ve been serving this thing longer than I want to imagine. Where does it come from? Where is its source? Why would I tell you that? Jeremiah sneered.

You’re already chosen. Fighting won’t change anything because Sarahth said, her voice taking on the authority she’d learned from 30 years of delivering difficult truths. If you don’t help us end this, I’ll make sure these children never fulfill whatever purpose they were born for.

 I may be marked, but I’m still the one carrying them, and I’d rather see them destroyed than see my neighbors suffer.” The twins hissed in unison, their small bodies heating against her chest like brands. She gritted her teeth against the pain and held them tighter, refusing to let go despite the burning sensation spreading through her arms.

“You can’t destroy them,” Jeremiah said. But she heard uncertainty creeping into his voice. “They’re part of the mountain now. Part of you, maybe,” Sarah Beth admitted. “But I can try. And even if it kills me, at least Pine Hollow stays safe. Cole moved his horse closer, rain dripping from his hatbrim.

 Sarah Beth, you don’t have to sacrifice yourself. We can find another way. Can we? She met his eyes, seeing her own determination reflected there. Or do we just keep running until these things are strong enough to hunt us down? The twins had gone completely silent, watching this exchange with calculating patience. But Sarah Beth could feel their influence weakening as her resolve strengthened.

The maternal instincts they’d been manipulating were still there. But now they wared with something stronger. The protective fury of a woman who refused to let evil wear the face of innocence. “Tell me where it comes from, Jeremiah,” she demanded. “Help me end this cycle.” Jeremiah’s laughter died in his throat as he studied Sarah Beth’s face.

Whatever he saw there, the steel that had carried her through 30 years of mountain births, the fury of a woman who had finally stopped running from truth, made him shift uncomfortably in his bonds. “You think you can fight the mountain itself?” he said, but his voice had lost its mocking edge. You think because you delivered a few babies, you understand forces that were old when these hills were young? I think, Sarah Beth said, adjusting her grip on the twins as they began to squirm with increasing agitation. That I understand

enough. These things need vessels to survive in our world. Without willing carriers, without women like me to nurture them, they’re just parasites clinging to stone and shadow. The twins heat was becoming unbearable now, their tiny bodies radiating fever that made her arms ache. But she held on, recognizing their distress as a sign that her resistance was having an effect.

 They had counted on her maternalinstincts on 30 years of empty arms creating a void they could fill. They hadn’t expected her to choose duty over desire. “There’s a cave,” Jeremiah said suddenly, the words tumbling out as if pulled from him against his will. Up past Devil’s Backbone, where the old Cherokee wouldn’t hunt. My grandfather showed it to me when I was marked, same as his grandfather showed him.

 It’s where the hunger sleeps between feedings. “How do we reach it?” Cole asked, though Sarah Beth could see in his eyes that he already suspected the answer. “You don’t?” Jeremiah said with bitter satisfaction. “Not carrying them. The closer you get to the source, the stronger they become. By the time you reach the cave mouth, they’ll be controlling you completely.

 You’ll walk right in and offer yourself willingly. Sarah Beth felt the truth of his words in the increasing burn of the twin’s touch. Already, despite her resistance, she could feel threads of alien thought weaving through her consciousness. whispered promises of belonging, of purpose, of an end to the loneliness that had defined her adult life.

 The maternal bond they’d forced on her was like a hook in her chest, growing more painful the more she fought against it. But pain was something she understood. 30 years of difficult births had taught her that sometimes the only way through agony was straight ahead, one breath at a time.

 Then we don’t go together, she said, meeting Cole’s eyes. You take Jeremiah back to Pine Hollow. Tell Sheriff Morrison what happened here. All of it. Make sure people know to watch for the signs. To resist the calling if it starts again. Sarah Beth. No. Cole’s voice was sharp with panic. I’m not leaving you alone with those things. You have to.

 She could feel tears starting, but her voice remained steady. Someone has to warn the others. Someone has to carry the truth back so this cycle doesn’t repeat in another generation. The twins had begun making soft coupooing sounds again, recognizing her emotional vulnerability and pressing against it. She saw flashes of what they offered herself as a mother figure to dozens of marked children, respected and beloved in a community that understood her true nature.

 A place where she would never be alone again, never wonder if her life had meaning. It was everything she’d ever wanted, wrapped in darkness so complete it made her soul recoil. The cave, she said to Jeremiah, forcing her attention back to practical matters. Is there anything there that can destroy them? Any way to break the source of their power? Jeremiah was quiet for a long moment, studying her face.

 When he finally spoke, his voice carried a strange respect. “Fire,” he said. the old kind blessed fire carried by believing hands. My greatg grandmother used to tell stories about a preacher who tried to cleanse the cave in 1823. He failed, but the light burned deep. Hurt it badly enough that it didn’t call for children again for 20 years.

 “Where would I find blessed fire?” Sarah Beth asked, though she was already thinking of the small tinder box in her medical bag, the matches she carried wrapped in oil cloth. You wouldn’t, Cole said firmly, because you’re not going alone. He dismounted, water streaming from his coat as he approached her horse.

 If this needs doing, we do it together. The whole community is at stake. Sarah Beth looked down at Pine Hollow’s distant lights, thinking of all the people sleeping peacefully below, trusting that the darkness in these mountains was merely human evil. They deserve to keep that innocence. They deserved to live without knowing what hungers moved beneath their feet.

 The twins sensed her wavering resolve and pressed their advantage, their alien consciousness flooding her mind with images of maternal bliss so intense they made her gasp. For a moment she almost surrendered to the vision. Then she thought of Mercy Caldwell dying in terror while giving birth to monsters. She thought of all the other women who had vanished into these hollers over the years, their bones probably decorating that ancient cave.

 “All right,” she said, her voice carrying the finality of a death sentence. “We finish this tonight.” The twins response to Sarah Beth’s declaration was immediate and violent, their small bodies convulsed in her arms, tiny fingers clawing at her coat with strength no infant should possess. The crescent birtharks behind their ears began to glow with sickly luminescence, and Sarahth felt their alien consciousness slam against her mind like a physical blow.

 “You cannot destroy us,” came their unified voice inside her head. No longer disguised as maternal comfort, but revealing its true nature, ancient, hungry, and utterly without mercy. We are part of you now, part of this land. We have fed here for generations beyond your comprehension. Then you’ve grown fat and complacent, Sarah said through gritted teeth, fighting to keep her grip on the writhing creatures.

 Time someone put you on a diet. Cole secured Jeremiah’s bondsto his own saddle horn, then moved to help Sarah Beth dismount. The moment his hands touched her arms, the twins shrieked in harmony, a sound that made both horses shy and sent shivers down the mountain slope like an avalanche of razor blades.

 They don’t like us working together, Cole observed, his face grim. Good. That tells us we’re doing something right. As Sarah’s feet touched the muddy ground, the twins influence crashed over her with renewed intensity. Every maternal instinct she’d suppressed for 30 years rose up in rebellion against what she was planning. “These were babies,” her mind insisted.

Helpless infants who needed her protection. The marks, the heat, the alien intelligence, all of it was just her imagination. Trauminduced hallucinations from too much death and too little sleep. She almost believed it, almost dropped to her knees and cradled them closer, promising never to harm them again.

 Then one of the twins turned its head at an impossible angle and smiled at her with far too many teeth. “Devil’s backbone,” Cole said, pointing toward a jagged ridge that cut against the storm clouds like a broken spine. “I know the way. Used to hunt these slopes with my father before he trailed off, studying the landscape with new understanding before the hunting got poor.

 Before the game started avoiding certain areas.” Sarah Beth nodded, checking the contents of her medical bag with one hand, while supporting the twins with the other. Tinder box, matches, lordum, surgical instruments, tools of healing that might serve darker purposes before the night ended. Everything she’d learned about bringing life into the world, she would have to reverse.

 Everything she knew about nurturing, she would have to weaponize. The twins seemed to sense her inventory and began radiating cold instead of heat. their tiny bodies growing rigid in her arms. Frost spread across her coat where they touched, and her breath misted despite the autumn warmth. “They’re afraid,” she realized aloud, and the revelation filled her with grim satisfaction.

 “Whatever they are, they can still feel fear.” “Fear means they can be hurt,” Cole said, leading both horses as they began the treacherous climb toward Devil’s backbone. “Fear means they can die.” behind them. Jeremiah called out warnings about hidden ravines and unstable slopes, but his voice carried a note of panic. Now Sarah Beth wondered if he was trying to help them avoid danger or lead them into it, then decided it didn’t matter.

 They were already walking into the greatest danger these mountains had ever known. A few cliff faces seemed almost mundane by comparison. The twins whispers in her mind grew more desperate as they climbed. They offered her everything. Power over life and death. Knowledge of secrets buried in mountain stone. The ability to birth a new world where women like her would rule instead of serve.

They painted visions of coal at her side, marked with crescents and devoted to her will. They showed her Pine Hollow transformed into a place where the old hungers could feed openly, where ancient wisdom could flourish without shame. “You’re lying,” she told them, her voice steady.

 despite the tears streaming down her cheeks. You don’t create, you only consume. I’ve seen what you leave behind. The images shifted, becoming threats instead of promises. They showed her Cole’s broken body at the cave mouth, showed her neighbors burning alive in their beds, showed every child in Pine Hollow, born twisted, and marked if she continued this foolish resistance.

 They were patient, they reminded her. They could wait another generation, another century. But her friends and family would pay the price of her defiance. Maybe they will, Sarah said, adjusting her grip as the twins grew heavier with each step toward their source. But at least they’ll have a chance to fight. At least they’ll know what’s coming.

 Cole paused at a particularly steep section of the trail, offering his hand to help her navigate the slick rocks. The twins hissed at his approach, their small forms beginning to smoke where he touched her arm. “How much farther?” Sarah Beth asked, though she could already feel the answer in the increasing violence of the creature’s struggles.

 “The cave was close, close enough that their alien strength was growing, close enough that her own will was beginning to fray under their assault.” “Too far,” Cole said honestly, meeting her eyes. “And not far enough. The cave mouth yawned before them like a wound in the mountains flesh, carved from black stone that seemed to drink in what little moonlight penetrated the storm clouds.

 Sarah Beth felt the twins go completely still in her arms as they approached. Their alien intelligence focused entirely on the darkness ahead. The crescent marks behind their ears pulsed with synchronized light, matching a rhythm that seemed to come from deep within the earth itself. Sweet Jesus,” Cole whispered, raising his rifle towardthe entrance.

 “You can feel it watching.” Sarahth nodded, her skin crawling with the sensation of vast attention turning toward them. Whatever presence dwelt in the cave’s depths was ancient beyond measure, patient as stone, and utterly malevolent. She could taste its hunger on the air, metallic and sharp, like blood mixed with copper pennies.

 The twins had been merely its fingers reaching into the world above. This was the thing itself. The whispers in her mind changed, taking on harmonics that made her teeth ache. “Come home, daughter. Come home and rest. Your burden has been heavy, but you need carry it no longer. It’s trying to sound like my mother,” she said, fighting against the warm familiarity of the voice, using her words, her tone.

 “How does it know? It’s been watching Pine Hollow for generations, Cole said grimly, learning, feeding on our memories, our losses. Every woman it’s taken, every child it’s claimed. It absorbs their knowledge. The twins began to glow brighter as they approached the threshold, their tiny bodies radiating heat that made Sarah Beth’s arms burn.

She could feel their consciousness expanding, drawing power from proximity to their source. Soon they would be strong enough to force her compliance to march her willingly into the darkness where she would birth a new generation of horrors. But not yet, not quite yet. “Stop here,” she told Cole, her voice barely audible over the wind.

 “This is as close as we get together.” From the cave mouth came a sound like grinding stone, and Sarah Beth realized something was emerging, not walking, flowing like thick liquid given malevolent purpose. In the dim light, she caught glimpses of impossible geometry. Flesh that folded through dimensions her eyes couldn’t process.

 Appendages that might have been tentacles or might have been something far worse. The twins stretched toward it, their infant faces transforming into expressions of desperate hunger. They wanted to return to that writhing mass, to merge with it and become part of something vast and terrible. Sarah Beth felt their desire like hooks in her soul, pulling her forward against her will.

 The fire, she gasped, fumbling for her medical bag with one hand while clutching the twins with the other. Coal, the matches. The ground beneath their feet began to pulse, and Sarah realized the entire mountain was alive, its heartbeat synchronized with the pulsing lights behind the twins ears. Every step closer had brought them deeper into the creature’s body until they stood now in its throat, waiting to be swallowed.

 Cole struck a match, the small flame impossibly bright in the consuming darkness. The twins shrieked in unison, a sound that shattered stone and made blood run from Sarahth’s ears. The flowing mass in the cave recoiled, its alien flesh smoking where the light touched it. “It works,” Cole said. Wonder and terror mixing in his voice.

The fire actually hurts it. But the match was burning down, consuming itself too quickly in the mountain wind. They needed something more substantial, something that would burn long enough to reach the creature’s heart. Sarah Beth looked at her medical bag, at the instruments and medicines that had defined her adult life, and made the hardest choice she’d ever faced.

 My bag, she said, pulling out vials of alcohol and lordum. Everything burns. Help me soak it. They worked frantically, dousing her supplies with every flammable liquid they could find. The creature in the cave pressed closer, its presence making reality bend and warp around them. Sarah Beth felt her grip on the twins weakening as their alien strength doubled, tripled, became something no human could resist.

 now,” she whispered, holding the twins out toward the soaked bag. “Light it now, while I can still choose.” Cole touched his second match to the alcohol- soaked leather, and the bag erupted in blessed flame. The light was fierce and clean, driving back the darkness that pressed against them. The twins convulsed in Sarah Beth’s arms, their glowing marks flickering like dying stars.

 The creature in the cave let out a sound that was part scream, part earthquake. Sarah Beth felt its attention turn fully on her. Vast intelligence focusing with the weight of mountains. In that moment she understood exactly what she was. Not a midwife or a woman or even a human being, but simply an obstacle between it and its children.

Take them, it said in her mother’s voice, her sister’s voice, the voices of every woman she’d failed to save. Take them home to me. Sarah Beth looked at the burning bag, at Cole’s determined face, at the twins who stared at her with ancient hunger. Then she stepped forward, carrying fire and monsters toward the heart of the mountains darkness, ready to finish what generations of women before her had died trying to start.

 The flames from her burning medical bag cast dancing shadows against the cave walls as Sarah Beth stepped across the threshold. The twinswrithing desperately in her arms. Each step deeper into the mountain’s belly felt like walking through thick honey, the very air resisting her progress. Behind her, she could hear Cole calling her name, but his voice seemed to come from miles away, muffled by the creature’s presence.

 The twin’s heat had become unbearable. their small bodies radiating temperature that blistered her arms even through her coat. Their consciousness pressed against her mind with increasing violence, showing her visions of coal torn apart by unseen claws, of pine hollow burning while she watched helplessly from the cave’s depths.

 They had abandoned all pretense now, revealing themselves as parasites that fed on maternal love, twisting the most sacred human bond into something obscene. You cannot destroy what gave you purpose. Their unified voice hissed in her thoughts. Without us, you are nothing. A barren woman who failed at the one thing females exist to do.

 The words hit their mark, awakening every doubt she’d carried for 30 years. But Sarah Beth had learned to function despite pain, to work through agony until the job was done. She clutched the burning bag tighter, letting the flames lick at her fingers. You’re right, she said aloud, her voice echoing strangely in the cavern.

 I failed to be a mother. But I succeeded at something else. The flowing mass ahead of her paused alien intelligence focusing with sudden attention. I learned to let go, Sarah Beth continued, stepping deeper into the creature’s domain. Every birth I attended, every life I helped bring into the world, I had to give them up, hand them to their real mothers, and walk away.

 You don’t understand that, do you? You only know how to consume, to possess, to control. You’ve never learned the hardest part of love. The twins convulsed in her arms, their alien strength finally overwhelming her human grip. But instead of fleeing toward their monstrous parent, they fell to the cavern floor, and Sarah dropped the burning bag directly on top of them.

 The light that erupted was beyond flame, beyond fire, beyond anything that belonged in the natural world. It was the illumination of every candle she’d lit during difficult labors, every lamp she’d carried through dark hollers to reach women in need, every dawn she’d witnessed after successfully delivering a child.

 30 years of service of choosing duty over desire, of sacrificing her own happiness for the welfare of others. All of it concentrated into a single devastating moment of release. The twins screams harmonized with their parents’ roar of anguish, and Sarah Beth felt the mountain itself convulse around her. Cracks appeared in the cavern walls, bleeding light that hurt to look at directly.

 The flowing mass recoiled, its impossible flesh beginning to smoke and charred fire touched it. But the flame was consuming everything. Her medical supplies, her tools, her life’s work. And now it was reaching for her, drawn by the same maternal love the twins had exploited. Sarah Beth understood with terrible clarity that the fire would not distinguish between the creature’s corruption and her own infected heart.

To cleanse this place completely, she would have to burn as well. She thought of Cole waiting at the cave mouth, of the people in Pine Hollow sleeping peacefully below, of all the children who might grow up free from the mountains hunger if she succeeded here. The choice was simple, even if it wasn’t easy.

 Tell them I remembered how to be useful, she whispered, hoping somehow her words would reach Cole’s ears. The fire spread up her arms like liquid light, but there was no pain, only a sense of completion she had never experienced before. She was finally giving everything she had, holding nothing back for herself. The twins alien consciousness shattered against her willing sacrifice, their borrowed strength, turning to ash in the face of freely given love.

 The creature’s death scream shook the entire mountain, bringing down sections of the cave roof in thunderous crashes. But through the noise, Sarah Beth heard something else. The sound of chains breaking, of bonds snapping, of hungers that had fed for centuries suddenly starving in the light of authentic sacrifice.

 Her vision was fading now, the fire having consumed everything it needed to cleanse this place. But in her final moments, she saw the mountains darkness retreating, pulling back into whatever deeper hell had spawned it. The crescent marks were burning away, the alien influence dissolving like morning mist. She had spent 30 years helping others bring life into the world.

 Now, as the sacred flame claimed her, Sarah Beth McKenzie discovered that sometimes the greatest act of creation required the ultimate destruction, the willingness to burn away everything corrupt, even if it meant burning yourself as well. In the distance, she heard Cole shouting her name, heard rocks falling as he fought to reach her, but it was too late, andthat was exactly as it should be.

 Some gifts could only be given once. The light faded slowly, like embers dying in a hearth. Cole’s boots crunched on shattered stone as he picked his way through the collapsed sections of the cave, his lantern casting weak yellow circles in the settling dust. The air still held traces of that impossible fire.

 Not smoke, but something cleaner, like the smell after lightning strikes. Sarah Beth. His voice cracked on her name, though he already knew what he would find. She lay where the twins had been, her body curled as if protecting something precious, but there was no pain etched on her face, no signs of the agony he’d heard in her final screams.

Instead, she looked peaceful in a way he’d never seen during life. The deep lines around her eyes smoothed away, her mouth curved in the faintest suggestion of a smile. Her medical bag lay in ashes beside her, reduced to blackened leather and twisted metal that still radiated warmth. The twins were simply gone.

 No bodies, no bones, not even stains on the stone floor. Only two small depressions in the rock where they had lain, smooth as if worn by centuries of water. Cole knelt beside them, running his fingers over the perfect circles. The stone was warm to the touch, but clean, cleaner than anything in these mountains had been for generations.

 Behind him, footsteps echoed through the tunnel. Jeremiah emerged from the darkness, his face a mask of grief and something that might have been relief. The old man had aged a decade in the past hour, his shoulders bowed under the weight of what he’d witnessed. “Is it over?” Jeremiah’s voice was barely a whisper.

 Cole looked around the cavern. Where the flowing mass had writhed and pulsed, only natural stone remained. The walls showed scorch marks from the sacred fire, but underneath the rock was ordinary limestone and shale. Whatever alien presence had inhabited this place was gone, leaving behind a simple cave that smelled of earth and mineral water.

 “I think so,” Cole said, though he wasn’t entirely certain. The oppressive weight that had pressed down on them during the climb was lifting, but slowly, like fog burning off in morning sun. The corruption’s gone. I can feel the difference. Jeremiah collapsed beside his daughter’s body, his weathered hands hovering over her face as if afraid to touch her.

 “She saved us all,” he said, tears cutting tracks through the grime on his cheeks. “After everything I’d done, everything I brought down on this family, she saved us all.” Cole wanted to offer comfort, but the old man’s grief was too vast and complex for simple words. Instead, he focused on practical matters the way Sarah Beth would have done.

 We need to get her out of here. Give her a proper burial. The mountain won’t let us, Jeremiah said, surprising him. Not yet. Look. Cole followed his gaze toward the cave mouth and saw what he meant. The entrance was completely blocked by fallen stone. Tons of rock that had come down during the creature’s death throws. They were trapped in a tomb that Sarah Beth had consecrated with her sacrifice.

 But even as he processed this, Cole noticed something else. Fresh air was moving through the cavern, carrying the scent of pine and rain. Somewhere in the darkness behind them, the fire had opened new passages, new ways out of the mountains belly. The explosion that had destroyed the ancient evil had also created paths that hadn’t existed before.

 There, Cole said, pointing toward a narrow opening that glowed faintly with reflected moonlight. We can get through that way. They worked together to lift Sarah Beth’s body, wrapping her in Cole’s coat before beginning the careful journey through passages that still radiated warmth from the cleansing fire. The mountain felt different around them.

 Not hostile, not watchful, just stone and earth, doing what stone and earth had always done. For the first time in his life, Cole walked through these hills without feeling observed by malevolent eyes. They emerged from a crevice halfway down the mountains northern slope, blinking in dawn light that painted the ridges gold and pink.

 Below them, pine hollow nestled in its valley like a child sleeping peacefully after a nightmare. Smoke rose from morning fires and Cole could see tiny figures moving between the buildings. People beginning their daily routines, unaware that their world had been saved in the night. “They’ll never know what she did,” Jeremiah said, his voice heavy with sorrow.

 “Maybe that’s how she wanted it,” Cole replied, thinking of all the babies Sarah Beth had delivered in anonymous midnight hours, all the lives she’d saved without expectation of recognition. She never did it for the glory. As they made their way down the mountain, carrying their burden with careful reverence, Cole felt something shift in his chest.

 The guilt and rage that had driven him for so long were still there, but tempered now by something larger, and understanding thatsome sacrifices transformed everything they touched. Sarah Beth had spent 30 years learning how to give life. In her final moments, she had discovered how to give hope.

 Behind them, devil’s backbone stood silent against the morning sky, just another ridge in an ancient mountain chain, keeping its secrets buried in consecrated stone. The weight of Sarah Beth’s body seemed to lessen as they descended, though Cole knew that was impossible. Perhaps it was the growing warmth of full daylight, or the way the mountains oppressive presence continued to fade with each step away from Devil’s backbone.

 By the time they reached Pine Hollow’s outskirts, Cole felt lighter than he had in years. Word spread quickly through the settlement, the way news always traveled in small communities. People emerged from their cabins and shops, forming a silent procession that followed them toward the church.

 Cole recognized faces he’d known his entire life, Martha Hendris, who Sarah Beth had delivered safely through three difficult births. old Tom Garrett, whose grandson owed his life to the midwife’s skill, the widow Morrison, who been present at half the deliveries in the county over the past decade. But as they gathered, Cole noticed something remarkable.

 For the first time in memory, people were meeting each other’s eyes. The shame and secrecy that had poisoned Pine Hollow for generations seemed to have lifted with the mountains malevolent influence. Children who’d always played in whispered groups now ran openly between the adults. Women who’d avoided speaking of their pregnancies and labors were sharing quiet words of comfort.

 Reverend Walsh emerged from the church, his usually stern face softened by genuine grief. “Bring her inside,” he said simply. “We<unk>ll tend to her proper.” They laid Sarah Beth on the altar, her peaceful expression serene in the colored light that streamed through the church’s simple stained glass windows. Cole stood back as the women of Pine Hollow took over, their movements choreographed by decades of similar rituals.

 But there was something different in their ministrations now, a reverence that went beyond mere custom. She delivered my first born, Martha Hendris said softly, smoothing Sarah Beth’s graying hair. saved both our lives when the cord wrapped around little Mary’s neck, mine, too, added another voice. And my sisters, and her daughter after that, the stories began flowing then, memories that had been held close for years suddenly finding voice.

 Three decades of quiet heroism, of midnight rides through dangerous weather, of lives saved through skill and determination. Cole listened, learning things about Sarah Beth he’d never known, understanding for the first time the true scope of her influence on their community. Jeremiah sat in the front pew, his weathered hands clasped before him.

 People approached him cautiously at first. After all, his role in recent events couldn’t be ignored. But when he spoke, his words carried the weight of absolute truth. She forgave me, he said to each visitor. At the end, when she could have let hatred consume her, she chose to forgive. That’s what gave her the strength to do what needed doing.

Cole found himself nodding, remembering Sarah Beth’s final words about learning to let go. She applied that lesson even to the man who brought such darkness into her life, choosing healing over vengeance when it mattered most. As the day wore on, delegations arrived from surrounding settlements.

 Word of Sarah Beth’s death had spread beyond Pine Hollow, carried by the same mysterious networks that had always connected mountain communities. But mixed with the news of her passing came stranger reports. Stories of oppressive feelings suddenly lifting, of nightmares that had plagued families for generations, ending abruptly in the early morning hours. Dr.

Harrison arrived near sunset, having ridden hard from Lewisburg. He stood over Sarah Beth’s body for a long moment, his medical eye taking in details others might miss. But when he spoke, it was not as a physician. I never understood how she did it, he admitted to Cole. The difficult cases, the impossible situations, she succeeded where I would have failed.

 I thought it was just experience, superior knowledge of childbirth. Now I see it was something more. What do you mean? She cared more about the outcome than her own safety. Every time. Harrison shook his head slowly. I’ve spent my career trying to balance risk against benefit, protecting myself from liability as much as treating patients.

 She never calculated those odds. She simply did whatever the situation required. That evening, as preparations continued for Sarah Beth’s funeral, Cole found himself walking through Pine Hollow with new eyes. The change was subtle but unmistakable. Conversations flowed more naturally. Laughter came easier. Children played later into the evening.

Without their parents calling them fearfully inside, the spiritualinfection that had poisoned this place was truly gone. He encountered faces he’d avoided for years, people whose judgment he’d feared after his wife’s death. But the crushing weight of guilt that had driven him from Pine Hollow no longer pressed down on his shoulders.

Sarah Beth’s sacrifice had somehow cleansed more than just the mountains supernatural corruption. It had burned away the accumulated shame and secrets that had kept the community isolated from genuine connection. When he finally returned to his childhood home, Cole found his father waiting on the porch. They sat together in comfortable silence, watching stars emerge in a sky that seemed clearer than he remembered.

The mountain loomed behind them, but it was just geography now, no longer a malevolent presence watching their every move. “She changed everything,” Cole said finally. His father nodded. “That’s what real sacrifice does. It transforms not just the one who gives but everyone touched by the giving.

 Tomorrow would bring new challenges, new responsibilities. But tonight, Pine Hollow rested peacefully, protected by the memory of a woman who learned that sometimes the greatest act of love was knowing when to let go. The morning of Sarah Beth’s funeral dawned crisp and clear with autumn sunlight painting the mountains in shades of gold and amber.

 Cole woke before dawn, but instead of the restless anxiety that had plagued his sleep for years, he felt a quiet sense of purpose. The nightmares that had driven him from his childhood bed were gone, replaced by dreams of his wife smiling as she held their stillborn son. Peaceful images that brought sadness, but no longer torment.

 He dressed carefully in his best suit, the one he’d worn to his wedding, and walked to the church where Sarah Beth lay in state. The building overflowed with mourners, not just from Pine Hollow, but from settlements throughout Greenbryer County. Families had traveled for hours through mountain passes to pay their respects to the woman who delivered their children, saved their wives, guided them through their most vulnerable moments.

 Reverend Walsh’s eulogy was simple but profound, focusing not on the supernatural events of that terrible night, but on three decades of quiet service. He spoke of midnight rides through blizzards, of impossible labors successfully navigated, of a woman who’d chosen duty over comfort at every turn. Cole noticed that many listeners were hearing these stories for the first time.

 Sarah Beth had never spoken of her own accomplishments, deflecting praise as naturally as breathing. As they carried her coffin to the hillside cemetery, Cole found himself walking beside Dr. Harrison. The physician had stayed for the funeral, claiming professional obligations, but Cole suspected deeper motives.

 The man seemed genuinely shaken by Sarah Beth’s death, perhaps recognizing qualities in her that he’d wished to possess himself. “I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Harrison murmured as they climbed the gentle slope, about her caring more for outcomes than her own safety. There’s a lesson there for all of us in the healing arts.

 Cole nodded, watching as dozens of women formed an honor guard around the coffin. These were Sarah Beth’s true monument. Mothers and daughters whose lives bore witness to her skill and dedication. Some carried babies she delivered just weeks ago. Others supported elderly grandmothers whose children had been born into Sarah Beth’s capable hands decades past.

 They laid her to rest beneath a massive oak tree that overlooked the valley, its branches still thick with autumn leaves despite the recent storms. As dirt began covering the simple pine coffin, Cole felt no urge to flee as he had at his wife’s burial. Instead, he remained until the last shovel of earth was placed, until the final prayer was spoken, until only family and closest friends remained.

 Jeremiah stood longest at the graveside, his shoulders no longer bowed with the crushing weight they’d carried for so many years. The old man had confessed his crimes to Reverend Walsh that morning, accepting whatever earthly justice awaited him, but somehow the community’s response had been more complex than simple condemnation.

 Sarah Beth’s forgiveness had opened a door to healing that extended even to her father’s tormentor. In the weeks that followed, Pine Hollow began to transform in ways both subtle and profound. The widow Morrison stepped forward to assist with difficult births. Her natural instincts sharpened by years of observation, Dr.

 Harrison established a regular schedule of visits. No longer content to serve only the wealthy families in Lewisburg, young mothers began gathering weekly to share knowledge and support, creating the kind of community network Sarah Beth had always fostered, but never formalized. Cole found himself drawn into these changes despite his initial reluctance.

His carpentry skills were needed for expanding the church, creating space forthe growing congregation that now met without fear or shame. His knowledge of mountain trails proved valuable for organizing supply runs to isolated families. Gradually, he discovered that helping others eased the lingering grief in ways that solitary brooding never could.

 One evening in late November, as the first snows dusted devil’s backbone, Cole climbed to Sarah’s grave with an armful of pine boughs. The practice had become a weekly ritual, his way of maintaining connection with the woman who’d saved them all. As he arranged the fragrant branches, he noticed fresh flowers already placed beside the headstone, wild flowers that somehow still bloomed despite the approaching winter.

 Other visitors had been here recently, he realized, many others, judging by the worn paths converging on the oak tree from multiple directions. Sarah Beth’s grave was becoming a pilgrimage site, not for supernatural reasons, but for entirely human ones. People came seeking the peace she’d fought to preserve, drawing strength from the memory of her sacrifice.

Standing in the fading light, watching smoke rise from the chimneys of Pine Hollow below, Cole understood that Sarah Beth’s true victory lay not in the destruction of ancient evil, but in the community she’d helped create through her final act. The mountain would always loom over their valley, but it would never again hold dominion over their hearts.

 She had taught them in the end that love freely given could overcome any darkness, even the kind that had festered for centuries in the very bones of the earth. The wind stirred through the oaks branches, carrying the sound of children’s laughter from the settlement below. Sarah Beth Mckenzie rested peacefully, her life’s work finally complete.