No Way Home

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

Eilidh placed her hand firmly against the peeling bark of the Alder tree beside her, feeling her breath quicken in pace, becoming ever-the-more-shallow by the minute. "It could be kids... They're always out here, up to something...", she reasoned. But everyone knew. Everyone was aware of what happened here, particularly on this night, thirty years prior.

She'd awakened that morning, same as always, except the day was a special one. She and Kay were going to do Show-and-Tell together. This meant that every single Barbie had to be present. Hair had to be brushed, outfits perfectly synchronized, and a plan had to be enacted. This was no time for toy ponies with scratch-and-sniff stickers on the bum- this was serious business. Mrs. Raw only allowed ten minutes for sharing, and when computing the ratio of a mere ten minutes to a combined total of a zillion Barbies between them... Well. There was no time for error, here. Elidh and Kay had to bring it. And they were sure to chat on the phone the afternoon before, listing off those who made the cut, and those who didn't. A plan had been made.

And as Eilidh placed the second-to-last doll within her fuchsia backpack, a voice called gently behind her. "Eilidh, Honey...?" She had no time to break focus and cut her mother off at the pass. "Mama, I'll get dressed right now, I just need to put..." Her mother interjected with a ragged sigh, placing her hand on the pale oak door frame to Eilidh's bedroom... "Honey, I need you to come into the living room with me. Put the dolls down, and come with me..."

It wasn't often that her mother's countenance was gentle. It wasn't often that her mother offered her hand. And it sure wasn't often that Eilidh was referred to by anything but her name. What was going on? Eilidh peered up at her mother in confusion. "Mama, what's wrong?" Her mother led her slowly through the hallway leading to the family room but said not a word. "Mama, what is it??"

"Sit down, Eilidh..." Her mother drew another jagged, heavy breath. Her worn hands began to tremble, and her voice began to heighten in pitch, reaching a crescendo that awakened panic and confusion in Eilidh's little heart. "Eilidh Elizabeth, Honey... it is a very special thing when get to share our life with those we love. It is a gift that we're given. But sometimes what we are given, cannot stay. Sometimes who we love cannot stay..." Eilidh wrinkled her nose and stared at her mother with a mixture of irritation and confusion. She could be zipping up her backpack right now. She could have her daisy sundress on, and she could be eating her oatmeal... Her mother continued. "Sometimes in life we lose those we love. They pass away, and they go to a better place..."

Eilidh interjected. "Mama, did Grandpa die? Is that what happened?" Tears began to quickly well in her mother's eyes, streaming down her ruddy cheeks and onto her jeans. "No... Grandpa didn't die..." Choking back a series of gasps as best as she could, Eilidh's mother broke the news to her daughter that morning that Kay would no longer be in her life. She would never see Kay, again.

Death and loss is a hard concept for a child to process. For months Eilidh looked for Kay. She searched for her nearly everywhere she went. Grandma Rita explained countless times that Kay was playing in Heaven, and that one day, they would see one another again. But that Eilidh would have to wait a very long time. And Eilidh heard all of the explanations. Yet it just wasn't sinking in. She'd spoken to her on the phone the afternoon before. Kay was fine, and happy! She was there! So... How could she just be gone? It didn't make sense. 'Are people just then whisked away? Just taken?', she asked. And at a certain juncture, the adults stopped responding.

It was her father, James that called the house that morning from a pay phone. He'd heard the news on the landing out in the woods. The scuttlebutt amongst the loggers was that Kay Remvick was found in Old Man Haller's cabin just a few miles up the road from the James' current job site. Some said that she'd been found intact, but unresponsive and passed on route to Colville Hospital. Others said that her stuffed rabbit, Telly, was found lying on the dirt floor of the cabin, but Kay was never found. Rumors were quickly put to rest when the coroner's office confirmed that Kay Remvick had indeed been found.

And it would be over twenty years later when Eilidh would discover the truth, digging through her mother's hope chest. She was preparing for her upcoming wedding to fiancé, Roger, and was hoping that her mother would allow her to wear Grandma Rita's sapphire brooch for her 'something blue'. Yet underneath the jewelry box in which the brooch was kept, was a manilla folder with her mother's familiar chicken scratch reading, 'Paper Clippings, Remvick 1992'. Eilidh took a breath in. 'What is this?? Remvick 1992?' She felt her body become tense. The hopeful mood she was in just seconds before gave way to that familiar feeling of grief that still surfaced from time-to-time. Now, as a thirty-seven-year-old woman, she'd long ago learned to stop looking for Kay... But this folder brought back feelings lurching up from the depths that Eilidh - after many years and many failed attempts - learned to bury.

As she thumbed through the yellowed newspaper clippings from the Colville Herald, what began as a resurgence of grief quickly turned to horror. And quickly behind it, intermittent sparks of rage. 'Local Girl Murdered', read the first headline. 'The Remvick Family Grieves the Unthinkable', read another.

Eilidh found her vision blurring, her stomach twisting into knots. The same knots that plagued her childhood after Kay died. It kept her from continuing ballet class. It kept her from staying the night at friends' houses. It kept her from doing many things as a child. Eilidh became scared of nearly everything, never sure of who or what she might lose next. Kay's loss impacted Eilidh to such a grave degree that the family moved from the area shortly after Kay's disappearance. They moved to a small farming community three hours away from Kay's childhood home. Her parents reasoned that they didn't appreciate the constant knocks at the door at 3am from the drunks who partied every weekend at the falls nearby. But Eilidh later realized that they were really moving to try to give her a 'fresh start'. What was attempted in trying to pull Eilidh away from the traumatic loss and the environment it happened in, only scarred her further. Not only did she lose her best friend; she lost all of her friends in having to start over in a new school, where no one understood what she'd just gone through.

But it would be the next newspaper clipping that would hit with unequivocal force to the other headlines. 'Colville Girl Found Walled Up Behind Fireplace in Local Cabin. Cops Frantically Search for Leads.' Behind it, a heartfelt note written in a card. It was from Kay's parents, thanking her for being such a good friend to Kay. A card she'd never been shown.

'Everyone knew this whole time!? Am I the only one who didn't know or is there some other idiot who couldn't handle the truth!?' Eilidh wanted answers. Thirty years of being told that Kay just passed away from a heart condition while playing inside the Haller Cabin was a complete and blatant lie. And how creative they were, peddling a story that covered up a far grimmer truth. Her friend had been murdered?? And her parents lied about it?

"You're telling me that everyone in the town knew about it BUT me!? Mom! So, you and Dad constructed this whole lie, and what... Was the whole effing town in on it!?" Eilidh's mother stood silent for a moment, leaning against the kitchen sink while wiping her hands on a dish towel. She stared at the floor before looking up to meet the gaze of her enraged daughter, now a grown woman demanding answers that her mother never intended to have to provide. "Eilidh, there's no manual for this... Your father and I were in a unique situation, and I know that you're upset, but we did the best we..." "No, Mother! I don't consider that being the best that you and Daddy could have done." Eilidh's mother's voice sharply rose, tension quickly dispersing amongst the room. "What would you have suggested, Daughter? What... To tell you that your best friend had been walled up behind a brick fireplace?? It wasn't appropriate to tell you. It would have made everything worse, and beyond that, I'd have had to try to explain that there are people in the world who are capable of such things, on top of having to explain death to you. You have to appreciate what your father and I were up against, here!"

By now, Eilidh was sobbing, gasping for enough breath to be able to retort, but in the end, exhausted from the cyclone of chaotic emotions swirling inside her, all that she could manage was a meek and wounded, "I can't believe you..."

Eilidh felt the cold nipping at her shoulders. She should have dressed more warmly. But in her hurry to leave the house, she grabbed only her cell phone and purse. The day began as unusually warm for the season, particularly for late October in the Pacific Northwest. Now, the temperature was swiftly dwindling as the sun began to willfully set below the horizon.

'I must be half-crazy... This wasn't such a good idea...' But Eilidh, now armed with the basic truth, sought answers of her own. If she could find them. She folded her arms across her chest, little hairs all standing up on end in response to the biting cold. She slowly stepped toward the cabin, feeling her stomach twist into ever-familiar knots, watching the flame of the candle flickering as if to taunt her behind the dusty, cobwebbed windowpane. There would be no handing out candy to the children of the neighborhood this evening. Roger hesitantly agreed to take over trick-of-treating duties. He'd protested the entire idea. "What are you hoping to get out of this, Babe? I just don't see how this is going to help you..." Eilidh, quick to snap, replied with a hasty, 'I don't expect you to get it.' Realizing that she'd reacted out-of-turn, and in seeing the hurt on Roger's face, she attempted to amend her misstep with an apologetic "I'm sorry, Honey. This is important. I don't know why I need to do this, to be honest. I just know that I need to. I'm not going to be able to put this to rest until I see the place...' Roger, in one last attempt to reason with Eilidh, offered a soft, "I just don't see how driving three hours from home to an abandoned cabin where your friend was murdered how many years before is going to help your heart... If anything, this could result in further trauma. And I'm not even going to start on the timing. Halloween? Are you...? Are you sure that this is a good idea? And you don't want to bring anyone with you? I don't like this. I just don't feel comfortable with this..."

Now, part of her was beginning to regret the decision. Yet even with trepidation seeping in, it was as if she couldn't control her steps.

The pull began just days after she'd found the article that revealed the truth. It began as a pang... This... Feeling that if she was going to put years of pain and grief - of feeling constantly alone - to rest, she needed to see for herself where it happened. But first, she needed to confirm that the cabin was still standing. Luckily for her, she found Old Man Haller's cabin was not only still standing; it had become a bit of an off-the-beaten path photographer's dream. A number of photos were littered across the internet and social media pages for abandoned dwellings, with Old Man Haller's cabin being touted as the creepiest. It had long been abandoned in the 1800's after Old Man Haller's death from Typhoid. And yet, here it still stood after all this time. So, it was at this moment, unable to quell the nagging pull inside, newspaper articles scattered around her, that she solidified her plan. She would return to the site of the cabin the next evening. She'd been carrying around this emotional burden nearly her entire life. She was ready to put it down. Seeing that cabin would help her piece it all together... Something... Something tangible... To see something tangible. And the sooner, the better.

The drive was long and arduous. It was as if she couldn't drive fast enough. Had she not promised Roger that she wouldn't drive like a psychopath on copious amounts of caffeine, she'd be taking the road a little faster. Yet at the speed she was traveling, should a cop be camping out on a side road, she'd surely be cited.

She drove the entire way absent of music to accompany her. She drove the three hours accompanied only by her thoughts, and memories of her challenging childhood. The manilla folder of newspaper clippings joining her in the passenger side, onward she drove into the early evening toward the familiar Colville bridge, where unbeknownst to Eilidh many aimless souls devoid of any hope for the future had long sought to end their Earthly existence.

Some were successful in their endeavor, some weren't. Some in the town claimed that the bridge itself was cursed, and that no one sought to jump until compelled by standing against the railing of the bridge. But that's how it goes in a small town, full of locals who have nothing better to do than to rouse up a good yarn. Macabe as it may be, it never failed to serve as entertainment. And this specific yarn about the bridge rested on the premise that a demon had been summoned by a scorned local woman, Ruth Ann Remvick, who found herself jilted at the altar. As the story goes, she exchanged her service in abiding by the demon's will as it deemed fit, if it would take the life of her fiancé's lover and return her rightful love to her. However, once she vowed her life in service to the insidious entity, it was her former fiancé whose life was taken. His lover left him and in his immense grief in losing what he thought was the love of his life, he leapt with anguished force from the bridge. At least that's how the story went amongst the circle of elderly town inhabitants who remembered hearing of the story from their parents.

Yet now as Eilidh neared her destination, turning off of Dryden Lane and heading up the abandoned logging road to the cabin, she began to feel that she wasn't alone. It was as if someone was with her, watching... Observing her every action, and at times, it even felt as if someone was privy to her every thought.

Daylight became scarcer and scarcer as she continued up the narrow path leading to Haller's road, where the cabin awaited her. The trees in their foreboding presence stretched their crooked arms across the roadway, as if somehow silently, yet ominously acknowledging her arrival.

Moments later, she would find herself standing questioning her sanity amongst the Alder trees, in which the procession toward what would hopefully be the truth, would commence.

It seemed as if time dragged on, or maybe... As if it somehow stopped as she neared the cabin door. The confusing haze only broken by her tripping over a large tree root hiding in plain sight in front of her feet. She'd been too transfixed by the flickering light in the window to pay attention to her steps. Darkness closed in behind her and a breeze began to pick up as the sun finally set, and Eilidh finally crossed the threshold of the cabin entrance.

Closing the large, partially unhinged door behind her so as to cut the wind from coming in the door, she was quickly met with an air of disappointment. There was nothing there. Only an empty building, a dirt floor undisturbed, and the one candle in the window, now flickering frenetically and rising in its presence. Eilidh watched the candle flame continue to increase in size until she began to fear that it would lead to the cabin possibly becoming engulfed. She enabled the flashlight feature on her cellphone, now noting the lack of cell reception, and blew out the candle.

'Well, I guess this was a stupid idea after all... I don't know what I was expecting...', she exclaimed in exasperation with herself and her obviously-now hairbrained idea under her breath. And in that moment, she didn't expect a response to meet her where she stood. However, it was a mere second later that she received a bone-chilling wave encapsulate her entire being, reaching through her bones, running deep in her veins, and piercing her very soul, as she heard a God-awful voice threaten, 'NO WAY HOME'.

It was nothing like she'd ever heard. It was a tone deeper and darker than her ears had encountered in her lifetime. The words themselves, seemed to grip her, and each time as the words - as if from some disembodied being in the room - repeated the threatening words... 'NO WAY HOME', the room - her body - became colder, still. She was paralyzed, suddenly unable to move. She couldn't control her extremities, no matter how hard she tried to command her feet to move, her hands to reach out for... Something... And her fear and concern instantly turned to horror as she realized that someone was now behind her. The candle flame reignited in a split moment, illuminating the room and revealing Kay's stuffed bunny, Telly, lying on the floor, covered in a swarm of buzzing flies, whose chaotic dance erupted in a cacophony of deafening sound that engulfed Eilidh's screams.

The flame suddenly extinguished itself. The light from Eilidh's phone would cut out, leaving her in complete and total black of night that quickly encroached in.

And just like it was all those years ago for the young Kay - tonight, for Eilidh - there would be no way home.

Crews began scouring the area within hours of Roger reporting her missing. The local Colville Herald once again found itself reporting on a missing person: 'Former Local, Eilidh Robertson, friend of Kay Remvick, who disappeared in the Fall of 1992 Missing'. Saddled with despair and gripping anxiety, Roger helped lead one of the search teams. Becoming increasingly frustrated with law enforcement, he repeatedly insisted on searching the cabin, but the Sheriff's Department saw no point, as the front door had long been boarded up, and none of the windows had access from the outside, unless they'd been broken. With all windows intact, there was no point in searching the cabin with no reasonable point-of-entry presented.

As the weeks passed, Roger was the only one to maintain hope of finding Eilidh. She had to be somewhere; people don't just disappear without a trace.

... And as the search was called off, Roger remained in the area, and continued to commit his time to searching for his fiancé. One night, he'd had enough of the waiting, and the wondering, and the sleepless nights... And the fear... Of nothing turning up... He had to break into the cabin. Something wasn't right. He needed to look. He had to make the effort to check. Maybe someone got her, and boarded the door back up... He had to know.

So, up he drove the narrow, winding road, under the trees that seemed to beckon him to hurry with each passing mile.

He parked the truck, grabbed his toolbox, and began setting to removing the aged, old-growth timber boards from the doorframe. It would be mere minutes as his determination drove him to gain entry as quickly as possible, yet his efforts seemed as if they spanned a lifetime.

Upon pushing the door open, he quickly found himself met with disappointment, yet also, a pseudo sense of relief as his flashlight scanned the room. She wasn't here. But this only meant that still, there were no answers. The cabin stood empty, with a bare dirt floor, and an old half-way melted black candle in the windowsill.

'Well, this was worth it', he thought. As he turned to take his leave of the barren cabin, he watched in bewilderment - and shortly thereafter fear - as Roger witnessed the door push itself shut. In being such a heavy door, this just wasn't possible... Right? No wind gust was entering from a window that would cause... The windows were shut... How...?

As complete darkness enveloped the cabin that night, the light from Roger's flashlight forever extinguished, the end came.

His flashlight lay shattered on the ground, as he rushed to pull the door open. Surprisingly opening the door without resistance, a strange realization entered his panicked mind: The cabin didn't want him. Whatever it was, wasn't after him.

Sprinting through the door and to the safety of the wilderness, he tripped and fell multiple times in a frantic race to his truck. He wasn't sure of what he experienced in that cabin, but it was a cold that felt as inhuman as anything that he'd ever encountered. What had he just witnessed?

Shaken to the core by his experience, he had nowhere else to go but the Sherrif's Department. He needed to tell his story to someone, he needed to not be alone. Something must have moved them in seeing his desperately unhinged account of what he'd encountered, because at his insistence, the Sherrif's deputies - out of the boredom with the lack of activity for the evening, anyway - agreed to search the cabin. They figured that it was someone playing a prank. They even questioned if Roger had been drinking with all the stress of his fiancé's disappearance.

Yet when the deputies entered the cabin, they found something that they didn't expect to see. A brick missing from the fireplace, lying next to Roger's shattered flashlight.

The lead deputy, leaning in for a peek into the wall behind the old mantle, made a gruesome discovery.

Eilidh Robertson was laid to rest on a Monday. The service was closed-casket, for decency-sake. Eilidh's corpse had been found seated, pushed up against the back of the fireplace, hands frozen in rigor mortis in front of her upper torso, as if trying to shield herself from someone in terror, her lower jaw hanging open, face contorted as if her last moments were spent screaming for help, rather than lying down and accepting her hopeless fate. Her body was strangely preserved for being found weeks after her projected time of death, only having entered the initial stages of decay upon discovery.

Headlines once again began to abound, this time about the connection between the Kay Remvick and Eilidh Robertson cases. Two friends parted in life, yet strangely connected in their deaths.

Nobody knows how Eilidh entered the cabin that night, or who she may have encountered in doing so. Some in-the-know say that it was the demon summoned by her Great Aunt, Ruth Ann Remvick, who 'came to collect'.

So many questions still exist surrounding both cases. How did Kay find herself away from her parents, and walled up in a cabin in the woods? Why did Eilidh travel to the cabin, and why did she insist upon doing so alone? Who did Eilidh encounter in that cabin, and how did she end up walled in just like Kay, exactly thirty years to the night that it happened to her?

... But many of the elder townsfolk know. A pact made with the Devil and its cohorts comes calling at peculiar times. And secrets thrive in the darkness of the mysteries that others hold within, allowing evil to take hold of mortal man all the more easily.

A small town has its secrets in abundance. It also leaves little room for diversity in the gene pool. As it turns out, another secret was withheld from Eilidh beyond the murder of her childhood friend, Kay... The fact that she was the adopted daughter of May and James Robertson, and the biological daughter of Jean and Graham Remvick.

The truth hidden in the shadows of Kay and Eilidh being biological sisters had been kept effectively under wraps by both the Remvicks and the Robertsons, in a time when the Robertsons struggled to conceive, and the Remvicks struggled to financially support their family.

... And in their deaths, the agreement made so long ago had been fulfilled. A debt had come due for a deal struck in a lone cabin in the woods... Earnest on one end, and in sinister, diabolical order on the other. The girls' great aunt, Ruth Ann, would need to barter two lives in exchange for one in petitioning for the death of her fiancé's lover. And she could - as part of the deal in fairness - dictate whom would be taken. Unwilling to lose anything or anyone beyond the loss she'd incurred of her fiancé's betrayal, it would be her estranged sister, Agnes Remvick - the lover with whom her fiancé engaged - who would pay the price, 'with her progeny' as Ruth Ann requested... A mother of two, her sister left her husband for what she thought would be a better life with her sister's soon-to-be husband. Upon losing him, a shamed woman, she moved with her two sons out of the area, unable to withstand the familiarity of a town stained with the loss of her love and what she thought was the promise of a better life.

Her sons would later return to their hometown to be near family. Their mother had long gone mad and was committed to an asylum. She had never remarried and retained her maiden name after leaving her abusive husband, insisting out of spite for her former husband, that her two boys do the same. Graham Remvick, the eldest of the two sons, would be the one to pay the ultimate price for his aunt's deal with the Dark.

Evil doesn't take its victims in linear procession. It strikes when it chooses, often claiming the most innocent and pure-of-heart. Time passed - as they say - equates to wounds healed, and all bygone transgressions forgotten. But evil boasts the memory of a woman scorned. The bill always comes due. And in this case, Ruth Ann Remvick chose which of the family would incur loss, but what Ruth Ann didn't know, was that the demon she summoned in that cabin all those decades prior, would determine when.

For the Remvicks, a family divided. A family, full of secrets, destroyed. Another small-town story passed on.

The folks in the town always suspected that the Remvick boys returned, longing for some sense of home after their mother's descent into insanity. But sometimes, after certain deeds have been done, there is no way home.