“Sorry, Ma’am,” Haas straightened. Dragons, he recalled, kept princesses captive in old stories. If she was in a tower, the giant serpent would be there for everyone else’s safety.

Sheila turned off the car, but Haas had to help pull open the door. Ice had already begun to thicken. She slammed the door, as he promised to come back for the car. Without looking at his hand to help her out, she stomped pasted him. He moved fast to open the passenger side of his tow truck. Around to the driver side he moved, and prayed the sweet Lord above would give him patience.

Haas started the engine, “So, where do you live?”

“It is at the back of Color’s End road,” she looked at the icy window. Hopefully, she prayed, the storm will keep the Van Lear people away. Sheila gripped the box tighter.

He frowned, scratched his short beard. Eyes widened, blue a light hue, turned on her. “You live at the Black Priory?!” Haas blinked, blushed, but the color drained from his face.

Sheila turned to him. Backward, she thought with a smirk. They spoke of crossroads, witches, and devils in hushed tones. Never did they speak to her directly of such, for she was from up north. “It looks like an old monastery, I guess,” she covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. I can’t tell if there is something in the water that makes them stupid, she mused, or they’re all just catastrophically inbreed. Sheila laughed, and he shook his head.

“It has always been called that,” he said, and started up the road. “It was here before anything else.”

She crossed her arms, “I thought the Van Lear family was the first to settle here.”

“They were the first family to settle here and built the town,” he nodded, but shifted away from her. “The monks built it before the Van Lear family arrived. No one knows when it was made.” He glanced at her, “It is bad luck to speak of the Black Priory.”

Sheila shook her head. Country folk had long memories and many superstitions. “The rent is cheap,” she shrugged. The price made it easier to put money back for her retirement, and no one ever came to bother her. At last I know why now, she thought and pushed down the urge to giggle. “I guess someone saw a black dog after a storm,” she shook her head, “or whatever you people believe.”

Haas blushed, shifted, “A whole community goes missing; that is no superstition.” He huffed out a breath, “People go missing around that place and the Greene Community.”

“Greene Community,” she repeated.

“Oh,” he shook his head, recalled Sheila was an outsider, “that was before you were even born, I’d wager.”

She looked down at her lap, chewed her lip. “Do you mean those abandoned houses? I moved into the house in the summer, and I didn’t even see them, until winter.”

He nodded though drew away from her, “It is a bad place.” The houses stare at you, Haas thought, face and neck burned.

Sheila pressed a finger across her lips to hold in a smirk, “Aren’t you the one, who killed a panther with your bare hands?”

“Well,” he shifted, blue eyes searched both sides of the road, “yes, I did, but I didn’t want to.” Haas glanced over at her smirk, jaw flexed, “Rutger, the Sheriff, his father was the Sheriff before him. He came up here to this god forsaken place, pardon my language. A town girl, Millicent, married Troy Greene,” he glanced at her. “She loved the boy, but the community had a reputation, even then: something with the Priory, paganism and such. She got pregnant and wanted to leave, told her kin.” Haas looked at the road; blues eyes searched the icy forest.

Sheila shivered, and frowned at the hairs that rose on her neck. She shook her head, “And, then what happened?”

“Clint, Rutger’s father, came up to the Greene Community,” he swallowed. “He managed to get a few men, but they found no one.”

“They found nothing,” she said, brow drew down.

“Well,” he glanced at her, shoulders rose then dropped, “Clint said he had been there before, and it seemed bigger.”

“Bigger,” repeated Sheila with a smirk, but felt cold creep up her neck.

“Yeah,” he shook his head. “But, that wasn’t the last time something strange happened about the Black Priory.”

“Really,” she said, licked her lips, “what else happened?” Sheila managed a laugh, but it was jagged.

“There was the Preacher, Robert Delaney,” he said slowly, for eyes searched the abandoned houses. “He went mad, and jumped off a cliff behind the Priory.”

Sheila blinked, “Is that why it is called Preacher’s Jump?” Rural folk can be so literal, she mused.

“Yes,” he stared at one of the houses, which crept close to the road. “Rutger found him at the bottom.”

“I thought no one was ever found,” she looked back at him, but her smile was weak.

“The body disappeared,” he shook his boulder-like head.

Sheila jerked, thought of Chris, “You people have a hard time keeping track of dead bodies.”

“Ever since Color’s Folly,” he breathed, face now a shade of soured milk, “it has been a bad luck place with sick soil.”

Sheila trembled, and crossed her arms. “This is all just stories,” she whined, but held her chin up.

“What would you know?” he snapped. “You’re just an outsider, a tourist. People like you come to our community, because we smile and wave. But, you demean us and mock us to our backs.”

Sheila’s smirk turned to a sneer, “Alright, fair enough, so you’re right.” She shrugged.

They drove to the end of the road, and she stared at the forest. Where I’m going, she thought, there isn’t even snow. No more cat piss stinks of Meth labs. No more listening to the idiotic problems of a bunch of bumpkins. No more living in a backwater, where body odor and brain damage rule. Sheila smirked.