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Back The Ursulina Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
  1. I know you'll never forgive me...
  2. Part One - Your Father
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Part Two - Your Mother
  24. Chapter Twenty-One
  25. Chapter Twenty-Two
  26. Chapter Twenty-Three
  27. Chapter Twenty-Four
  28. Chapter Twenty-Five
  29. Chapter Twenty-Six
  30. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-One
  35. Chapter Thirty-Two
  36. Chapter Thirty-Three
  37. Chapter Thirty-Four
  38. Chapter Thirty-Five
  39. Chapter Thirty-Six
  40. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-One
  45. About the Author

I didn’t need to hear any more.

Ricky and I left the bar together.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“Where are we going?” I asked Ricky as we drove.

He stayed on the arrow-straight highway, leaving Random far behind us. We continued under the moon’s glow, and snow flurries fell from the cold night sky. After a while, I guessed what our destination was, and I said nothing more. Honestly, it felt right to go there, like the end and the beginning of my story coming together in the same place.

It took us an hour to reach Norm’s trailer. I could sense my stress rising as we got closer. My heart always felt it, like a shadow coming over my soul. We traveled first on the highway, then on the rutted dirt road through the national forest. Eventually, I saw the familiar glint of the silver frame through the headlights. Ricky pulled off the road onto a bed of fallen leaves and stopped. I could see in the tire tracks that he’d been coming and going for several weeks.

“You’ve been staying here?” I asked.

“Yeah. Ironic, huh?”

“Weren’t you afraid Norm would find out?”

“A buddy of mine rented it from Norm for a couple of months. Told him he was having trouble with the wife, and they needed time apart. So we have our privacy here, don’t worry. It’s just you and me.”

I got out of the car. Ricky headed straight for the trailer, but I lingered by the woods. Somewhere nearby, I heard the hoot of an owl, like a sign, like a warning. When I’d been ten years old, an owl had tried to alert me that the Ursulina was close by. That I was in danger. I inhaled, to see if I could smell the beast. I listened for the hufffffff. There was nothing. But I could feel its presence looming over me, the way I had that night near Sunflower Lake. If I plunged into the darkness, I was sure I would find it, or it would find me. We would be reunited, the monster and the girl. In my heart, we’d been inseparable ever since that moment. The two of us joined together by blood.

I followed Ricky inside the trailer. My chest convulsed with terror when I closed the trailer door, as if no time had passed. It was seven years ago again. I was right back where everything had started.

Ricky sat on the bed. He didn’t turn on the lights, so he was nothing but a dim shadow. He still wore the fur coat, the fur pants; he still looked like the beast, waiting for me. The trailer floor creaked under my feet as I walked toward him. He patted the bed, which was unmade, and I sat down beside him.

This was my moment of truth.