Just lay here, I’ll be right back,” I assured her.I rushed over to a wooden spiral staircase. I heard something from upstairs. The sound was muffl...d, but it sounded like a woman screaming. I ran up the stairs to find a closed door where the noise was coming from. I grasped the door knob and readied myself for what awaited me on the other side. Would I have to stop an attack or murder on top of everything else that’s happened today? I squeezed the knob tighter, turned it, and swung the door. Wracked bysorrow and hopelessness, he cast a wild spell, gathering all of thepower in the valley to a single purpose: that no one who entered thevalley with hope of love would leave it bereft and alone. His spell wasa costly one, and he paid with his life, somehow drawing the spirits ofthose lost (but not the straggling survivors) into its web and bindingthem and the natural power of the valley to his purpose.Fifty-one years later, a small-time grifter name Felicity Merriamentered with her. She'd had a daughter with this absolute jerk before he pulled his shit, and I suppose the handwriting was already on the wall but Tara had chosen to overlook the indiscretions until it affected Deanna. Dee was 6 or 7 at the time, and it would be a little over a year before I met her as it took me that long to get Tara comfortable with seeing a man and actually introducing a man to her daughter.But all of that comes a bit later in the explanation and I suppose when it is timely, I can rehash all. In anything! You have my word on that. Please, forgive Billy. She wasn't the one to blame. I am. Blame me."I watched this man who I had known for the past ten years, some good and some bad. We had been together for some great events and I would have trusted him with my life. Now, all I wanted was to smash his face in. I hated this man and vowed to myself that his life from now on would not be pleasant.However, he was only partly to blame. It took two and Billy was a willing participant. I had.