The sun is setting on Hemlock Grove, and Norman Godfrey is pacing again. Someone in the past few days has told him that pacing is bad for your concentration, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knows that it's true. But he can't remember who told it to him or where he learned it, and at the moment he really doesn't give a fuck. Not when Olivia is missing and Roman is off doing God only knows what, Shelley is quite possibly dead someplace in the woods, and Letha . . . Oh, God, Letha.
All of the pain and anguish of the last month comes rushing back to him. Losing Letha had been like a knife to the chest, and then to lose Olivia right after that? It twists the knife farther into a point of no return. There is nothing Norman can do about the hole he has fallen so far into. How is he supposed to counsel others on their problems when his own are more vast and encompassing than the sea?
There is a soft knock at his office door. The new hospital receptionist, a young college freshman at UPenn named Breanne, comes skittering into the room. He assumed the jitters were the side-affects of too much coffee consumption, but now he's beginning to think that's just how the girl is. "Dr. Godfrey," she says, her voice shaking. "I-I'm sorry to have b-bothered you, but t-they've found a body."
The blood in Norman's veins turns to ice. Not again. "Who found a body, Breanne?"
"The new police chief and that fancy detective from New York. In Hemlock Acre Forest, behind the White Tower, somewhere along Route 443." She is talking very fast and scared, almost like a child. Then she adds, quietly, "They were two hikers from Philly. My mother knew the girl's parents. We grew up down the street from one another . . ." She trails off into silence.
Norman exhales slowly. It is always best not to familiarize yourself with the dead, he reminds himself. Less pain. "Animal attacks?"
Breanne nods. "But not like the other ones. The only marks were found on the victim's throats. Bite marks. The coroner's report said that the bodies had no blood left, and their wrists had been slit."
He hides the shudder that passes over his skin. "What does this have to do with me?"
"Detective Laurentis wants you to talk with the boy who found them." She pauses, then takes a deep breath and drops the bomb: "He's one of your old patients. Tyler Holcombe."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tyler fucking hates psychiatrists.
Or psychologists, whatever the fuck they are. It makes no difference what fancy ass title they paste on their résumé, he hates them all the same—and he's been analyzed by many since his ex-girlfriend (sort of) got murdered and his sister got depressed (completely). The most recent doctor, the one he is seeing today, Dr. Godfrey, is probably the most bearable, but that doesn't mean Tyler likes coming to Hemlock Acres Hospital any more than he has to—which is, preferably, never. But he's the one who found the dead hikers on the walk home from Stoner's Hole, and that makes Tyler a signature away from a trip to the loony-bin, according to the conversation between Dr. Godfrey and that asshole detective who questioned him. A conversation that he was not supposed to overhear.
But Tyler knows what he saw. And it was enough to make a kid who stood still through bad acid trips nearly piss himself.
The Hole is his favorite place to hang out, sometimes with friends, but usually he likes to chill and smoke a joint on his own, just listening to the leaves rustling in the wind, watching clouds pass across the sky through slits in the trees. It's just so fucking peaceful. He hasn't felt peace like that at home in a long time. His parents are so obsessed with trying to make everything perfect that now nothing is, and Macy is still so depressed without even realizing she's depressed, it's practically suffocating him. Their presence is fucking toxic.
Even so, he probably should have just gone home right after school and silently brooded underneath Macy's watchful eye instead of going to the Hole and smoking his last gram. Because then someone else would have found the dead hikers. It isn't as if he'd had to do much finding or anything; even in his high-as-a-kite state he'd seen them lying there in the dirt and moss, limbs bent at all-wrong angles and red blooming against the green-and-brown patches beneath them. Their clothes were tattered, their necks torn open like a flower, like a beautiful red hibiscus. He'd hoped it was the marijuana talking when he'd thought that it was beautiful, but even afterwards when he was remembering it, he thought the color was fascinating. Does that make him a monster, finding the beauty in such horror? Or just an artist?
Now he sits in the office of Dr. Norman Godfrey, a man he hasn't seen since six months ago during his pathetic visits with him. Tyler had dated Letha, Godfrey's daughter, for a small time last year, but he hadn't even talked to her since Halloween. That was before she got pregnant, started dating that Gypsy hobo-looking dude and became the talk of the town, so to speak. Now she's dead, and still the talk of the town. It seems like everyone is dropping off in this shithole. When's it my turn? Tyler wonders, then feels like an asshole for thinking it. The man's only daughter died in childbirth, something Tyler thinks is, like, from the middle ages or some shit, back when they didn't have epidural and medicines to ease the pain. No easing the pain for a grieving father. Perhaps he should feel worse about Letha, considering their (brief) history, but where the pain should be is just an empty hole, dug too far in from all the grief he's felt since last fall. There's just not any room left for more hurt.
Dr. Godfrey shifts in his seat, crosses his legs the opposite way. It's been forty-five minutes and Tyler hasn't said a single word. "How have you been doing, Tyler?"
"You mean since I used to visit you after my girlfriend was murdered?" He tries to give a sarcastic smile, but it falls far flat. "I've been okay, Dr. Godfrey. I'll be a lot better once the whole school craziness dies down and my mom stops harassing me all the time."
Dr. Godfrey smiles back. It's weak at best. Tyler tries to imagine himself in the psychiatrist's shoes, losing his only daughter at an age even younger than his sister's, but he can't—there are too many years between him and Godfrey, lifetimes and seas and heartbreaks and deaths. It had been bad enough when Christina had died, and they'd only gone out on one very strange date—but then again, maybe death is just bad all around, no matter how you slice it or who you deal it out to.
"She tells me you haven't been going to school, anyway."
He snorts. "What's the point? So I can learn about crap I'll never use in real life and hear all those assholes talking shit about my sister? I'd rather just get high in the woods." Then he remembers who he's talking to and pauses. "You're not going to tell the cops about that, are you?"
Godfrey shakes his head. "Everything we speak about here is entirely confidential, unless I feel that what you tell me could potentially put you or another person in physical danger. I doubt you're going to be smoking yourself to death anytime soon, are you?" Tyler laughs, and this time a true smile rises to Godfrey's lips. Progress. "So tell me about your sister. How is she doing? I know she was good friends with the late Jennifer Fredericks."
The late Jennifer Fredericks. As if maybe Jenny is just a little tardy to where she's going but will be arriving eventually, instead of buried six feet in the ground somewhere, ice-cold and blue-lipped. Tyler thinks of last summer, when she would come around in nothing but a pair of teeny little shorts and a see-through tank-top, a neon bathing suit barely concealing what was underneath it. Now she's dead, too. His expression droops back into a scowl, what's left of the smile dissipating into the stale office air. "She's pretty fucked up. I mean, she says she's fine, but she always says that, you know? Even when our grandmother died, she was trying so hard to convince everyone that everything was okay. She's reorganized Anna's bookshelf and Dad's old CD collection at least six times in the last month. And she did a total cleanse of our house over spring break. Goodwill has, like, our entire attic now." He laughs.
Dr. Godfrey nods to himself as if this all makes perfect sense. Maybe to him it does, Tyler thinks. "So she cleans when she's grieving. What about you? Do you do anything particular to grieve?"
He groans inwardly. Of course, the man would find a way to turn it on me. "What? No. I mean, sometimes I get sad and stuff, but doesn't everyone? I don't go on crazy cleaning rampages or binge-eat Häagen-Dazs mint chocolate chip ice cream if that's what you mean."
"There are as many ways to grieve as there are people in this world," says Dr. Godfrey. "No one is the same. Some people cry, other people get angry. Others just separate themselves from reality."
Tyler narrows his eyes. He knows where this is going; he's had so much of this reverse psychology bullshit pulled on him and his sister, he can recite it in his sleep. "You think I was hallucinating. You think I'm crazy, too, don't you?"
"Crazy? No. There's no such thing as crazy. I just want to get a better understanding of what you think you saw this evening when you came upon the hikers."
"I don't 'think' I saw anything." Tyler juts out his chin in mock defiance. "I saw what I saw, and I definitely saw those faces in the trees, watching me. They were the most beautiful human beings I've ever seen, but their eyes were all black, like a demons. And they had sharp teeth."
"You called them vampires." Dr. Godfrey jots something down on his notepad. "Correct?"
"That's my only reference point, okay? It's what they looked like. And the hikers . . . they had . . . bites all over their necks. Like someone had been feeding off them." He shuts his eyes, willing the images away. "I saw what I saw. And yeah, I was high as fuck, but it was weed, not LSD or fucking shrooms. I didn't hallucinate those eyes." A shudder passes through his entire body. "They killed those hikers, I know it. Maybe they even killed those girls. Brooke Bluebell and Lisa Willoughby, Alyssa and Alexa—even Christina. And Jenny. Maybe they killed all of them."
"Shelley Godfrey has been officially named as the perpetrator in the murders of the six girls you just listed off, Tyler. You know that." Tyler can see how much it pains Dr. Godfrey to say it, but it needs to be said. What this town needs is to put all that pain in the past now, and if blaming his sweet, gentle niece for last year's murders gave the residents of Hemlock Grove some piece of mind, then he'll grit his teeth and bear through the rumors.
Tyler cocks his head to the side. "Do you really believe that, Doctor?"
Before Dr. Godfrey can respond, the door flies open suddenly and Macy Holcombe, wild-eyed and frantic, bursts into the room followed by a very annoyed-looking Breanne. "She insisted that she see her brother immediately," she tells Norman, shooting an irate look at Macy, who has wrapped herself around her brother and is patting his hair and face.
Norman can't help but smile at the sight. It's bittersweet, but more sweet than bitter. "That's perfectly all right," he says. "Our session is about done now anyways."
Breanne hustles them out of the room, though Macy won't let go of Tyler's arm. At the doorway, though, he stops and tells her to go on without him, and reluctantly she does. It's just him and Godfrey now. Tyler puts one hand on the doorknob, then turns back to the room, hesitating. He knows what his Grams would say if she were standing next to him now. Just spit it out, honey, and you'll feel so much better. It never fails to strike him as ironic that even in death, she always knows exactly what to say. "Dr. Godfrey?"
"Yes, Tyler?"
"I'm sorry about Letha." It feels strange, saying her name. Sometimes even just thinking about her feels wrong, too, and talking about her now feels inappropriate somehow. Like he isn't worthy enough to speak about someone so much better than the rest of the world. "What happened to her was . . . bullshit, and . . . I just want you to know that I'm sorry."
Dr. Godfrey makes a strange noise and turns away toward the big window. Tyler doesn't know what he's supposed to say now, so he supposes he just shouldn't say anything. He closes the door behind him quietly and leaves.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Their parents are waiting at the dinner table when they arrive home. Anna is nowhere to be found; it's probably for the best. Staying out of sight when their parents are about to throw down the gauntlet is always a good idea for those not involved. Usually it's Anna, with her penchant for skipping class and sneaking out to go night driving with boys their parents have never met before, who gets the most yelling at. Tyler comes in at a close second, constantly getting in trouble for his grades and skipping. But Macy, however, has never been sat here at this table, with her mother and father staring her down like two criminal investigators about to do an interrogation.
Her father is the one to start the ball rolling, of course. This is his forte, after all. "I just want to know," he begins, struggling to keep his voice level, "what you were doing on one of the busiest routes in Hemlock Grove, Tyler. At five in the afternoon. On a school night."
Macy leans forward and shields her brother a little bit. It's instinct for her to want to protect him from whatever threat poses itself against him—even if that threat is their own parents. "He was taking a walk. Route 443 isn't that far from our house, you know—"
Chief Holcombe holds up a hand, silencing her. "Macy, I'm not asking you. I'm asking your brother."
She shrinks back against the seat like a scolded puppy. Tyler clears his throat and flicks a lock of long shaggy brown hair out of his face. "I was walking home from a friend's house—"
"Tyler, honey, why didn't you ask for a ride? I was home all day," Mrs. Holcombe scolds.
Just let him talk for once, Macy thinks angrily. Her parents have always been like this, involved to the point of dictation, but they never truly listen to anything their children say. Couldn't they see it by now, how deep Tyler was falling? Macy had been there once, but she was better now.
"It was a nice day out and I felt like walking, okay?" He exhales irritably. "I stopped to look at this deer that was meandering around and saw this red stuff on the ground. It was stuck to my feet. Then I saw the two dead hikers all crumpled, their limbs bent at odd angles like broken dolls. And when I looked up, I saw something moving in the trees. It was . . . human, I guess, but the eyes were all black. And when it smiled, it had sharp teeth and a long mouth, like there was a ruler stuck inside of it."
"What did you do next?"
"After seeing that? I ran like Satan himself was after me. For all I knew, he was."
"Did you tell the detective all of this?"
"Yes."
Chief Holcombe looks like he's just swallowed glass. He turns his stern gaze onto his daughter and says, coldly, "Macy, you may go now. I'd like to speak with your brother privately."
Without a word Macy runs upstairs. She passes Anna leaning against the top railing of the stairs, obviously eavesdropping. She jumps back a few steps and smiles shakily. "Hey, kid. How's it going?"
"How do you think?" Macy doesn't stop walking, just jets right into her bedroom and slams the door behind herself. She is a jumble of emotions and finds herself naturally drifting toward her window. Light rain drizzles and covers her like a blanket as she pushes it open and climbs out onto the roof. She used to love coming up here when her thoughts become too heavy, or when she has a fight with one of her friends. Even now it feels like the right thing to do. The air smells of rain and wet pavement, the wind cold upon her cheeks. And, best of all, there's no one around to bother her.
Or so she thinks.
If she hadn't heard the cough, she never would have noticed the tall, blond-haired boy standing a few steps down the roof from her, blowing out a ring of smoke and staring out at the sky, oblivious to her emergence from the window. She's too stunned to move or make any noise. So she stares.
Just by looking at him, she knows he is quiet. Not just right now, with a cigarette dangling halfway out of his mouth and the angle of his jaw taut, but in a way that only a wallflower like herself can understand, a quiet that never seems to wane even in the most chaotic of moments. It's a calmness that you're just born with, and Macy can almost feel it emanating off him and being absorbed into herself. He's dressed nicely—too nicely for hanging out on a stranger's roof in the middle of a rainstorm.
Suddenly he turns around and looks at Macy as if noticing her for the first time. Maybe she should be surprised that it's him, after thinking about him more in the last week and a half than she has in the past year, but it doesn't really register in comparison to the immense strangeness of the day. They stare at each other for a long moment before he reaches into the front pocket of his jeans and digs around for a bit, producing a small red box of cigarettes. He extends it toward her, still without speaking.
If anyone had told Macy that she would wind up hanging out with Roman Godfrey, she would have laughed in their faces—but here he is, standing on her roof, of all places, offering her a freaking cigarette like it's the most normal thing in the world. She stares at his long fingers reaching outward in her direction, the skinny white stick tucked in between two of them. Before she can think or back away into her protective shell, she takes it from him without a word. It takes a moment for him to light it for her because of the wind and rain, but finally the flame catches and she brings the cigarette to her lips with certainty. Roman watches silently as she pulls a long drag, swallowing the cough that follows shortly afterward.
"This weather's pretty fucking weird, huh?" he asks.
"What are you doing here, Roman?"
He doesn't answer.
"I'm not going to call the police," she assures him, though he hadn't seemed worried in the slightest that she might do anything of the sort. "I just want to know why you're here, instead of, you know, on your own roof. You live, like, eighty yards away." Still no answer. She sighs, then starts back for the window, annoyed. "Whatever. Hang out on my freaking roof by yourself if you really want to, I guess."
From the corner of her eye she thinks she sees a flicker of amusement on his face, but it's gone so fast she has to wonder if she just imagined it. "I need to try something," he says suddenly, his voice a low, smooth baritone. It rumbles through her chest in just that one word. She wants to run as far away as possible from it; she wants to cover her entire mind with it and listen forever to the sound.
He takes three long-legged strides up the roof towards her. She forces herself to stay still, to not move or flinch away from him because that would be a sign of weakness and Macy Holcombe is not weak anymore. For a moment they just stand there, staring at each other, until Roman reaches down and, one hand cupping her chin, looks straight into her eyes. "Forget that I was ever here," he says in that same tone from last week on her road, when he tried to get her into the car with him. It's a creepy voice, almost harrowing, yet alluring all the same.
Macy blinks in confusion. "Why would I do that? How could I do that?"
Disappointment flashes across his face, the way someone might look who has woken up to find their entire life had been a lie. She closes her eyes for a long moment, though she doesn't know why if only for the reason that it seemed like it might feel good. When she opens them again, Roman is gone.