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Back Gallows Hill Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
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The sudden give made her stagger, but she regained her balance, the axe’s handle clutched in both hands, its blade lying on the leaf litter. She tried raising it. It was heavier than expected, the rusty head trying to tip over even when she braced herself. She let it swing down to trail at her side.

She thought she could see the house through the trees. She set out toward it, her other arm outstretched to push the dead, clinging branches out of her way. Her fingertips touched something fibrous and soft, and she recoiled.

The axe dropped from her hand, landing heavily, as she stared up, her heart skipping a beat.

A noose was suspended above her head.

21

The noose turned languidly, revealing strands of fiber or roots or possibly hair trapped in its coils.

It was a sibling of the ropes she’d seen on the front porch—fraying from age, clogged with dirt, the color faded, the fibers losing their stiffness.

And just like the ropes on her porch, it had been tied into a noose, with one end attached to a high tree branch.

Margot reached up. Her fingers closed around the open loop and pulled. The branch, long dead, gave way under the pressure and sent the rope snaking down in a cloud of debris.

She stepped back, letting the rope drop to the ground, and stared up at the canopy.

It hadn’t been the only noose. There was another to her left, higher, almost invisible between the leaves. Two more to her right, hanging just about at head height. One straight ahead.

They’re probably from the first night, she told herself, picking up the axe and holding it close to her chest. They left them here at the same time they tied them around the house.

She pushed through the trees, her pace quickening, eager to get out from under the slowly turning, softly creaking ropes.

Ahead stretched the clearing leading up to the house. Her red car stood out like a marker drawing her to the front door. She could see the kitchen window and frowned slightly as she carried the axe up the gentle slope.

This was the clump of trees I saw through the kitchen window, wasn’t it? The trees with something inside?

To her right, she found the post marking the hole she’d fallen through. She gave it a wide berth. The edges of a crumbling trapdoor were visible, surrounding a pit of pure darkness.

Margot hadn’t expected seeing the house to feel like so much of a relief. She exhaled heavily as she stepped through the front door and let it swing closed behind her. The space was quiet, faintly chilled.