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Back Gallows Hill Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
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Even if it meant descending into the dark pits, knowing she might never come out again.

Margot reached the post. It stood alone, rotting from age, listing at an angle as the earth beneath it sank. She shone her light at the grass and found an area that grew thin and sickly. When she scraped her shoe over it, she uncovered decaying wooden boards beneath.

Her skin felt alive with electric shivers. She placed the shovel, bottle, and her phone on the ground, nestled into a clump of crabgrass, then knelt. The wood’s outer layer flaked away under her fingernails as she felt around for its edge.

The wood groaned as she lifted it and sent showers of dirt flowing into the dark pit below. Margot put her shoulder under it to tip it fully open, then sat back, panting, as she stared into the hole.

You have to do this.

Her fingers were turning numb. She picked up her phone and angled its light into the hole. She could only see down a few feet. A wooden ladder, decayed, was set into the wall, but very little else was visible. Margot slipped the phone into her pocket, along with the corked bottle of water. Then she pushed the shovel over and flinched as she heard it hit the base.

Do it. Now. Or you never will.

Already she could feel the fear locking up her limbs, making her chest tighter. Her mind and her heart begged in tandem for her to just stay where she was. But that wasn’t the promise she’d made.

She lowered her legs into the dark pit, then shuffled forward, easing herself over the edge in increments, until she was supported only by her arms.

She didn’t know how deep the drop might be. Her light hadn’t been able to reach the bottom. Margot squeezed her eyes closed, each breath coming as a narrow gasp as her arms lowered her as far as they were able.

And then she let go.

43

Her stomach lurched into her throat as she dropped into free fall. Her legs kicked at air. Her outstretched hands grasped at nothing.

Then she hit the ground. The breath rushed out of her as she rolled to her side. Margot lay for a second, shivering as the hundreds of tiny aches across her body flared and faded, then cautiously sat up.

A square of moonlight hovered above her, like a window to the real world. It was the only thing that was visible. Margot couldn’t even see her own hands when she lifted them, and it was possible to imagine the drop had blotted her out of existence, erased her from the earth.