Author Notes: This is chapter 2 of “Adoration: a Ghost Story.” If you haven’t read chapter 1 then you can start reading this serial story from the beginning here.
The audiobook version of this chapter has been removed, but an updated version will be available soon.
Content Warnings for this chapter:
- Blood/Gore
- Physical Violence
- Ritual Sacrifice
- Suicidal Ideation
- Hurt/Comfort
- Death
If you believe J.M. Elam has missed an important Content Warning, please contact her so any necessary warnings can be added.
You can Listen to this playlist on Spotify while you read.
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Listen to a playlist on YouTube while you read.
The songs that fit the vibe for this chapter (in order) are:
- “Northern Light” by Penelope Trappes
- “Seven Devils ” by Florence + the Machine
- “Hurricane” by Fleurie
Adoration: A Ghost Story | Chapter 2
The first time I saw the mountains in the distance, they looked like something from a postcard. The cabin I’d rented was nestled in the forest at its base but not far from the nearest town by car. It was like driving toward a fairy tale.
I can’t reconcile what happened in the forest, and maybe I never will. I wish it hadn’t happened. It shouldn’t have happened.
I need you to understand that there weren’t any glaring red flags. I crossed paths with the men on a walking trail. All three were about my age, open, and friendly. We ran into each other on multiple occasions. I’d known them for a while when they invited me to go fishing for the first time.
Although the nearest town wasn’t far, homes were spaced farther apart than they were in the city. I’d met other people, but none that I saw as often as the three men. I stopped by their cabin sometimes. We built bonfires and drank while they told me stories about local folklore. They were my friends.
When they invited me to explore a new trail they’d found, there wasn’t anything strange about it. Something told me to stay home, but I thought I was being paranoid. There was no reason not to go. I wish I’d stayed home.
I also wish I’d turned around when my instincts told me to leave, but I didn’t. I couldn’t think of a good reason, and I used to think I needed one. I didn’t turn around, but now I wonder if it would have mattered.
Time is a funny thing. The past and future are never experienced, only imagined. Most of the time, I try not to think about that night, a blank space formed by the “before and after.” But it’s there waiting for me, a hole to fall into.
The three men don’t deserve to have their names spoken, and they can’t hurt anyone anymore — it was their idea to step off the path. It felt like a bad idea. The sun was setting soon, but they swore they’d found a shortcut on the way back.
It wasn’t long after that I felt a peculiar pressure behind my sternum. The air got too thick, making me sluggish, and I paused several times to catch my breath. When they were impatient, I blamed myself.
Eventually, we reached an empty clearing surrounded by a ring of stones. There was a fresh stack of wood in the center, but I didn’t see any tents. It was wrong somehow.
“Maybe we should go back?” I finally suggested, as I paused in front of the campsite.
“We’re nearly there.” One of them called over his shoulder.
“Come on, Cassie.” Another laughed and tugged my arm. I stepped over a line of sticks and stones.
The sun hadn’t set yet, but the sky darkened suddenly. I don’t know if clouds blocked the sun, but it was almost as dark as night. “I wanna go back to the trail,” I said more forcefully, stepping backward.
I bumped into the third one, his chest broad and hard as stone. When I turned and met his eyes, all the kindness bled away, leaving only a sinister gaze promising violence. Fear ran through my body, both hot and cold at once. I tried to run then, but he grabbed me, and my world went black.
I woke to true night, tied up in the middle of the circle. My head was pounding, and I felt the warmth of the fire before I could make sense of the shifting shadows playing across the ground. My adrenaline surged when my brain finally caught up with the present.
I cried, struggling with my bindings. I couldn’t understand what had happened, what had changed. As if I could have possibly done anything to deserve this.
One crouched down and met my gaze. It could have been the light, but I couldn’t see the whites of the man’s eyes anymore, black pupils seemingly stretched from lid to lid. Distantly, I was aware of someone pacing and noted the direction. I didn’t know where the third man was until he handed the crouching one a large knife.
“No. No, no, no, please don’t do this.” I pleaded. I didn’t know everything that would come next, but I knew it wouldn’t be good.
What happened next, I can only remember in flashes. I think I fought, and I think they kicked me some. Cuts in my skin. Blood — theirs and mine. They held me down. Sometimes, I have nightmares about what might have happened next. Other times, I have nightmares about what did happen.
I was intimately aware of the arms holding me down by my shoulders and legs because, somehow, the ropes had come loose. Of course, I couldn’t fight them off forever. The knife slid home suddenly and swiftly. I remember a flash of heat and indescribable pain. The metal ripped through me and tore a scream from my body.
The excruciating pain knocked the air from my lungs. I desperately sucked in a breath of air, my chest constricting, as something inside me stretched taut like a cord, anchoring me to the spot.
I was drowning in my blood, struggling to breathe as I grew steadily colder despite the warm night. The invisible cord shuddered, and then, seemingly out of nothing but wind, firelight, and flickering shadows, a figure rippled into existence beside the bonfire.
The creature was something out of a nightmare, a being of twisting, swirling darkness. It was a living shadow of a person, faceless except for eyes like burning embers.
The one that stabbed me, twisted a pale, bloody fist, and the creature turned toward me, stepping disjointedly. It jerked unwillingly and tried to anchor itself in place. However different we were, the entity and I were both trapped, held hostage by violence and death.
I should have been more scared, but I was dying and so tired. I hoped the entity would make it quick. I was ready to be dead, to escape whatever the men would do if I lived. As the creature neared, the men released me, moving to the edge of the circle. This was clearly the next step of the ritual, and the men knew that there was no escape for us.
Maybe I should have wanted to live, but I was drowning in regret as well as blood. As the entity crouched down beside me, its eyes focused on mine, glowing so brightly.
Instantly, the invisible cord inside me tugged and reverberated throughout my body. Reality seemed to ripple, the shadowy being shuddering with it and echoing the vibrations back to me. The creature’s golden eyes grew wider, and it stumbled backward. It smoothly twisted its head toward the men, and my eyes followed.
The men stood still as statues, while the fire and smoke only shifted infinitesimally, sluggishly forming and reforming in the air. When the creature turned back to me, it held up its palms as you would for a scared animal.
“Make it stop,” I sobbed.
It’s—no, their hand wrapped around the knife. The handle smoked and sizzled through their fingers. I don’t know how deep it was, but another scream was pulled from my body along with the knife. They tossed the blade beyond the barrier and leaned farther over me, their face coming closer as their large palm spread over my chest.
I gasped at the unexpected sensation, their shadows solid, heavy, and warm. Both darkness and glowing light spread through me, pushing away the intense pain and soothing me from the inside out.
All along, their eyes, only inches away, never strayed from mine. When the shadowy being finally pulled away, the fear returned. I didn’t want to die alone.
“Don’t go,” I pleaded. They leaned back toward me, their forehead pressing against mine. I sucked in first one breath and then another, my eyes locked with theirs. My body grew warmer, and for an instant, I imagined we were melting and melding together. I shuddered as the invisible cord vibrated through me again. The Shadow’s hands contracted around me as though they felt it, too.
The sudden sound of a gunshot sliced through the night. The Shadow flinched over me before they whipped around, revealing a large hole through their skull, the shadows quickly reforming around the gap.
They stood smoothly, holding an inferno in their eyes. The men shot again, bullets flying through their smoke-like form. When the men lunged, The Shadow attacked swiftly and viciously. The same fingers that had been soft and solid and comforting became knives and claws, ripping each of the men to shreds.
When it was over, all that remained of the men were chunks of flesh, splintered bones, and pools of blood. The Shadow looked back at me one last time, their firelight eyes locked with mine, before disappearing with the wind, blowing the bonfire out like a candle.
I rose to my knees, gripping my chest, but the stab wound was gone. All I found was one of many rips in my bloody clothes. I didn’t have the energy to take stock of the other cuts and bruises that littered my body, but I finally noticed I was barefoot. I couldn’t remember when that happened.
Alone, betrayed, damaged, but not dead, everything hit me at once. Collapsing back to the ground in gasps and tears and blood, I swam in and out of consciousness. At one point, I looked up and could have sworn that my shoes were tied, strung along a tree branch. Then I dreamed it was one of dozens covering the branches, rubber and fabric swinging in the air.
When I woke next, I felt fingers lightly caress the wounds on my face. At first, I flinched, a spike of fear running through me, but then a soothing sensation spread across my skin. It was solid and warm. You know what happened next.
I brought a ghost home from the forest— well, maybe they brought me home. The truth is too knotted to pull apart now. Maybe they aren’t a ghost, maybe they’re a shadow. All I know is I can’t see them, but I can feel them.
I pulled out of the memories and broke down over a sink of dishes. It was too much. I rubbed my chest, trying to dissolve the phantom pain of a knife stuck inside it. I was so tired.
“Make it stop,” I cried to the empty kitchen. No sooner had the words left my mouth than invisible fingertips brushed against my back, eliciting a memory of warm shadows.
“Hello, sweetheart,” I responded, my words the confirmation they needed before they soaked into me, spreading through my chest and my veins.
Something like joy filled my body, something like peace, like parts of me were dissolving. The intense emotional shift left me delirious as I spun across the wood floor, feeling like I was drowning in them and how I wanted to drown.
I wanted them to crawl deep inside me and never leave again. Adoration is worship. It felt like I was being worshiped, like we were worshiping each other. It felt like being in love.
You probably think I’m too trusting of the ghost, the way I was too trusting of the men. But the ghost led me home and stitched me back together in soft touches, a peace that spreads like water in the soil, and deliberate consent.
Healing is a strange thing. It moves in a circle, spirals, and layers, a bit like tunneling to the center of the earth, a bit like peeling away infected skin, a bit like a spider spinning a web.
When I collapsed against the wall, I laughed for the first time in days. Eventually, it faded, but not the memory. The memory of love was imprinted on my chest.
“Don’t go,” I whispered, trying to hold onto things I couldn’t touch. In answer, invisible arms wrapped around me, a forehead pressing gently against mine.
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