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I
Somewhere in the Colorado mountains, 1964
Summers at Alpine Camp were a bittersweet feeling that Hope Adler couldn't quite put her finger on. When she first arrived, she loved the sense of peace that being in the mountains, by the lake, and around the people gave her, but after the tragic disappearance of that boy, the atmosphere was becoming increasingly strange—oppressive would be the right word.
That's why, days before leaving for summer vacation, the girl thought long and hard about whether to re-enroll as a camp counselor. Armando, Lidia, Sandra, and Loren were people she enjoyed being around and were great friends, but then there were people like Will Bill who made her reconsider the offer.
Bill had never treated her badly; on the contrary, he treated her with a kind of courtesy that seemed to rest on a hard layer of ice, which made it impossible for them to become closer.
And then there was Terrence Blake from her regular class, who asked her out.
Terrence wasn't the most popular kid in school, nor was he the rabble she despised. He was the son of Forest Blake, the famous survivor of the Okinawa campaign, the “county's sourpuss,” some whispered. The truth was that Terrence was neither one extreme nor the other; he was somewhere in between, which the girl described as “I can't find the words.”
But he tried, Terrence always tried.
It was not for nothing that the first time he tried, she rejected him because she did not understand the message in his words. The second time, he found her at the back of the local church pews, during the mass where she was singing, and the third time, he intercepted her on her way home to give her a rose and his message—would you like to go to the drive-in?
Unlike her debate about participating in camp, accepting her date with the younger Blake was a matter that was decided immediately. She had decided to skip camp training to see My Fair Lady. The date was a mixture of tranquility and a bit of awkwardness; from the beginning, when they came to pick her up, the man didn't know how to ring her doorbell other than to honk his car horn and be scolded by Father Hope, who gave him a lecture on chivalry.
The trip to the drive-in was filled with silence and the occasional question about tribal issues.
Watching the movie was another experience.
During the interrogation they subjected each other to, they discovered many things about each other. Terrence didn't play any sports, but he loved betting with his friends on the local and national results of the Broncos. He didn't have a mother and lived only with his father, so he was thinking about getting a job. Finally, the man almost choked when he said out loud how beautiful she looked that night.
Hope thought that comment was false. Dressed in pink cotton and wearing a braided headband, she didn't consider herself beautiful, she considered herself normal, so she replied, “I don't think I'm pretty.”
But the boy replied, “That's because you don't see yourself the way I see you.”
“And how do you see me?”
“Like a goddess.” The embarrassment on her red face became contagious, which meant that neither of them spoke again for the rest of the evening.
The girl thought this date would be the last, not realizing that it was the beginning of another series of curious outings. Each one became unforgettable in its own embarrassing way, like the time they went out for ice cream and tried to kiss. Things didn't work out as they had hoped, and they both ended up sick from eating spoiled milk.
Amidst so many continuous dates, Hope completely forgot about camp.
Armando called her, concerned that he hadn't heard back from her in the last few days. The message was taken by her mother, who asked her why she was now uninterested in the camp. Her mother's concern made the girl agree to go back to camp for a few days. She prayed several times that nothing would happen; she didn't want to deal with another loss.
Given this scenario, she was surprised when Terrence offered to take her and stay one night so she could see the mountains of Colorado.
The trip was peaceful, with both of them listening to the Beatles on the radio and smoking the occasional cigarette. “You should visit Oregon. My mother was from there,” said the young man. “My aunt has a cabin on the lake where you can see the sky reflected on the most starry nights.”
Terrence was stubborn in his thoughts, bad at executing them, the girl agreed, thanking him with a kiss on the cheek for the ride.
Even Armando pointed this out when he offered him lodging and food for the night. It wasn't unusual to see a non-Christian at a Christian camp. Will Bill was one example, Bradley was another, but both had that position because of the money and charity they always professed.
That night, despite having separate rooms, Hope invited him to walk by the lake to admire the scenery.
“I couldn't sleep,” the girl admitted, playing with the ends of her braids. She had never in her life told anyone outside her family circle about her dreams, so why did she think Terrence would be any different? His reaction would always be one of skepticism.
“My father can't sleep either,” he said, picking up a stone to throw into the water. Seeing how the stone skipped a considerable distance made the girl acknowledge him. “Your arm is incredible.”
The compliment embarrassed the young man.
“My father taught me,” he said. “Like I was saying…” —he scratched the back of his neck— “My dad still has this thing, still living in his own warped war fantasy, like he’s still in Okinawa killing Japanese soldiers. Sometimes I can hear him,” he said, looking straight into her eyes.
“Once… I found him sitting on his bed, holding his rifle. I didn’t know if he was going to take his own life or point it at me. He just sat there for ten long minutes, until he started mumbling something about the pie my mother used to make.”
Perhaps it was that vulnerability he showed, or that connection they had, that led the girl to tell him about her dreams.
As Terrence expected, he didn't believe her completely, but he tried hard to understand her.
That was more than the support she received from her family. Her great-aunt Helen, according to legend, also suffered from the same curse, as did her great-uncle Richard, Helen's brother, who was said to be able to talk to the dead since he was buried alive when they thought he had died at birth.
Being the only recent member of her family led to a tacit agreement about her condition. Was it the truth or madness she had inherited? No one labeled her as such, they just asked her to keep her dreams to herself so as not to disturb what the neighborhood thought of them.
“Thank you, Terrence,” she said that night before returning to their respective cabins.
“You're welcome, Hope.”
After that, the relationship just flowed like water in a stream. Between dates, moments, and gifts, the relationship grew stronger until early December, when the young man invited her to the winter dance. He danced with her to the rhythm of Elvis and dedicated that week's bet to her. “Cleveland will win, I'm sure,” she said, not understanding anything about games and betting.
And indeed, Cleveland won that season.
The winter of that season was also significant for the girl, as she left the Alpine camp.
The disappearance of another boy led Hope to dream. She saw feathers, snow, and blood, but nothing gave her the answer about his killer other than a fright when the boy appeared to her to claim his death—“I'm so sorry.”
The ghost didn't want an apology, he wanted revenge for what he had done to her, marking her body with his hands as if it were a snow burn.
Distraught and overwhelmed, she didn't wait for dawn to call Terrence and ask him to take her away from there.
She felt guilty about those disappearances.
She spent the rest of the season with Terrence, helping his aunt in Oregon. It was the same environment, but with a different feeling; there was no anguish, just a calm wasteland that helped her control the nerves they lived with. The dreams would never disappear; that was her curse, and she hoped that with her, that hellish lineage would disappear.
“A lineage isn't so cursed if it stays within the family,” her grandmother once assured her. “What poisons it is public scrutiny.”
She knew reluctantly that many in Denver believed she was crazy for muttering nonsense about her dreams. The nervousness of her gait and the weakness of being the target of the boys who harassed her between classes only stopped bothering her when Terrence beat them up, which led to his friends grabbing him and beating him back.
“You shouldn't mention your dreams to anyone unless you trust them enough,” Terrence said as the girl tended to him. “Or defend yourself. My father almost stabbed someone who made fun of him.”
“I won't kill anyone, Ten,” Hope replied, swabbing the wound on his eyebrow with alcohol.
“Kill no one, Hope. Scare them.”
“Aren't you scared to be with me? Even though they might call you crazy?”
The man snorted. “Why would they call me crazy? Do they want me to hit them? Because I can do it. I've done it before. I can do it a thousand times, and every time it would be to defend you.”
Hope pulled him into her arms. No one had ever said such words to her before. It was a vow, she realized, holding back her tears, one where they would be together through thick and thin.
She could only let her tears flow when the boy returned her embrace. She didn't know to what extent her dreams could be treated, because at the rate they were going, Hope thought the situation was becoming untenable.
Until eight months later.
II
Having just turned sixteen in August, the girl began to feel ill at the end of September. Frightened that she might have some disease, she was surprised when her mother gave her the imminent news—you're pregnant. The news paralyzed her, but what broke her was that her father found out.
The screams in her house surprised the whole neighborhood. Amid whispers, the neighbors made her family's disgrace a weekly topic of conversation.
Arthur Adler proclaimed several edicts that night: the first was that Terrence would take responsibility for the mother and child; the second was that Hope would continue working because the family's income would be reduced "You are a woman now, Hope, you will have to learn to earn your own money and manage it for your family.”
When Terrence found out, he was surprised and happy, given how bleak the situation was.
He swore he would take care of the baby, that they would have the life they had always dreamed of, and that they would want for nothing, until that thought was shattered when he spoke to his father.
Mr. Arthur brought her dreams down to earth. He still didn't have the job he wanted for financial stability, he didn't own a house, and he was still taking care of his father, so a child at that moment was not a blessing, it was a divine test.
The dream wedding had to be postponed.
When her pregnancy became more visible, Hope moved into the Blake house. She took her few belongings and settled into the same room as her now partner. It was a different environment. She had expected chaos, but what she found was a clean, tidy house, with only Terrence's room being the imperfect blemish in all the artificial harmony that was this home.
Her father-in-law was a different story.
Forest Blake was not a man of many words. The news of her pregnancy only led to a putrid silence in which it seemed that the older man was killing her with his glances. So, when he saw Hope tidying and cleaning his son's room, he managed to say a few simple words to her. “I see something good in you,” he said before slamming the door in her face.
The pregnancy forced her to look for new jobs while Terrence applied for his new position. She tried to be a cashier, failed; a cleaner, failed; she worked in a shelter as a cook and failed again.
Being just a housewife was not an option, but an obligation. The house had to be clean every day of the week, the model ships in bottles always had to be dust-free, and the collection of rifles had to be lined up, and Hope was forbidden to clean poorly “if you clean in this house, you must do it well,” her father-in-law assured her when he dictated the rules for making her bed.
Terrence may be a failure, but my grandson will not be. I have been told that mothers educate their children from the placenta, so perhaps my grandson will understand the importance of order and discipline.
Faced with this scenario, Hope returned to her old job as a counselor. She needed to escape the suffocating atmosphere of that house.
Mando welcomed her with open arms.
She was the youngest of the counselors—the oldest was Bill—so seeing her again with that swollen stomach and lack of confidence led the others to pamper her. Sandra and Lidia helped her with her pregnancy; Loren got her new clothes while Mando and Bradley helped her with the heavier tasks.
The thread of misfortune was invisible in the first months of employment.
“Let me help you with that.” Will's help was like a shooting star; he was always the one who did the heaviest work—that's why he was the maintenance man. Hope didn't know whether to feel grateful or afraid that this man was helping her. Will's kindness was strange, like an unsettling calm from which she couldn't decipher his next move.
“Thanks, Will,” said the girl, letting him move the boxes of food to the kitchen.
“How are you doing with your pregnancy?” The man continued on his way to the kitchens. “Many women say it's difficult. My mother was one of them.”
“I've been fine,” she said cautiously, “no need to complicate my life.”
“Oh, poor Hope,” she said, placing the box on the counter. “You're sixteen, you barely understand how your body works.”
“I know enough,” she assured her, unpacking the cans of tomatoes. “Maybe... that's what your mother always meant.”
That comment surprised them both. Hope didn't think she was capable of responding that way; it was probably Terrence's influence that led her to answer recklessly. She was about to apologize when Will interrupted her again. “Yes, maybe that's what she always meant.” If he was ever indignant, the girl didn't notice. He just seemed calm, behind that mask of concern. “You know, Adler, Sandra, and Lidia are sure it's a girl. Even Mandó, the skeptic, says so. What do you think it will be?”
“Whatever my lord commands, I will be happy with the result.”
“I think it will be a boy,” he said, balancing on the box. “Boys are always the most interesting, don't you think?”
Many assumed the missing children were dead two weeks after their last appearance. The police did not condemn the camp for murder but for lack of action. That was in the first few weeks, because after the second disappearance, Bradley and Will accused these young people of being lazy drug addicts who got lost in the mountains.
Hope didn't believe the young people were drug addicts; many came from respectable families. She lived with them, and they all followed the same pattern: violence, abandonment, and forgettability. The boys were forgettable to everyone, from their parents to the police.
When the dagger of discomfort in the camp dug deeper into his side. John Forest Blake's presence became increasingly tense with every moment they spent together.
On one such occasion, her father-in-law brought down a bassinet from the attic. It was old and a little dusty, but in excellent condition—for the child—he assured her, wiping it down with a cloth. “It needs to be replaced on its back legs, but I know the carpenter, I'll ask him to do his best work.”
The bassinet belonged to both Forest and Terrence, a family heirloom that only caused the girl dread when it was set up in her room. Would the baby be part of that tradition?
Sometimes she wished her son wouldn't have to live through that torture. That he would take his own path, live his own way, far from dreams, far from absurd orders. The idea sounded crazy, even when the priest assured in his sermon that the son was the product of the father and the father the consequence of the son. Who shaped whom? She assumed that she and her baby would stumble along that path of education. Hope didn't know how to be a mother, and the baby didn't know the world of rules that awaited him.
The baby wouldn't know the cursed legacy that surrounded him.
Terrence always said that if it was a boy, he would take him to the park to train, so he could become the player everyone would bet on because of the confidence he radiated, the MVP of the game.
“What if he doesn't want that?” the woman interrupted his fantasy.
“Why wouldn't he want that?”
“Your father wants me to serve in Vietnam and in the wars to come.”
The baby wasn't even born yet, and already it was carrying the weight of a future better than that of its parents.
In those moments of loneliness, Hope would talk to the baby; she would ask for forgiveness if it inherited her gift, she would tell it interesting stories from the verses of the Bible. She sang him songs and even confessed her fears to him. In those moments of absolute vulnerability, she cried to her baby, who responded with a kick that the girl believed was a call to resilience. “His true inheritance,” she thought, “should be resilience.”
One of those nights, Forest frightened the woman with one of his attacks. His mind was lost back in Okinawa, so bringing him back was a task that fell to Hope late at night and alone because her husband decided to work overtime.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Forest, we're not in Okinawa,” she said cautiously as she watched him go after the rifles hanging on the shelf. “Okinawa is over. We're home.”
“Then,” the man replied, looking at her with anger, “if we're home, why doesn't it feel like home?”
“I don't know, sir.”
"Where's Miriam? Why isn't Miriam here?
She must be your wife.“ ”Miriam isn't here, sir. She's baking a pie to welcome you home. It's a surprise. I'm sorry, I ruined the surprise." Lie upon lie led to two paths: to drive him crazy or to bring him back to reality.
“Who are you?” He approached the rifles, and Hope began to pray that they weren't loaded.
“Hope Adler, sir, your son's girlfriend.”
The man looked her up and down. Her brown hair was braided, the color had drained from her face after she grabbed the gun; her brown eyes were teary, her lips trembled, her chest rose and fell, but her fingers fidgeted to keep from succumbing to despair. Her feet were planted firmly on the floor, she wasn't leaning her weight on either side, and that caught the old man's attention.
Despite being scared to death, Hope stood her ground in the face of adversity. Whether it was to face it or to deal with it.
That made him see reason.
He sighed dejectedly before murmuring, "Okinawa is over. Many won, many lost, and many suffered, whether alive or dead. Everyone always suffers.
Hope understood at that moment. The natural cycle of human beings was to suffer. Even that disastrous night led her to dream of Okinawa, of the hundreds of men suffering, the distraught voices that became a symphony of children's cries for help. “You have abandoned us!” they pointed at her.
“No!” she said, curling up and protecting her baby still in her womb. “I can't help you! I'm so sorry!”
“Lies!”
“No!”
It drove her crazy to be complicit in deaths that were never hers. Just because of a cursed inheritance, the girl was scrutinized by the victims as the one who protected their killer.
“Poor Hope Adler. With the power to see everything and understand nothing,” the words of her unconscious mind made her prone to despair.
She was innocent.
When the cacophony of terror stopped before a false sense of security, Hope relaxed, looked both ways in search of those vengeful souls, and when she found nothing, she tried to cry, only to be stopped again by the mournful whisper of the victims saying, “She will take your son as her own.”
That morning she woke up vomiting.
III
In March 1965, while making the final preparations for Easter at the Alpine camp, she felt it.
The pain was so sharp that she dropped the decorations and clutched her stomach. Sandra saw her and, concerned, asked how she was feeling. When she didn't get a response, she went over to her and, hearing her mumble incoherently, noticed drops of blood sliding down her legs onto the floor.
This was not a good sign.
“Mando! Will! Bradley!” she called for help as she helped Hope sit down so she wouldn't faint on the floor. “Help! The baby is coming!”
Even sitting down, Hope's senses were moving in opposite directions; she couldn't understand what was happening, the pain was blinding her, the smell of blood was making her dizzy, she couldn't tell if she was sitting on a wooden chair or an armchair, and when she tried to get up, a new spasm of pain bent her over and threw her to the floor.
The loud thud frightened her companion even more.
Will Bill was the first to arrive, striding quickly, and when he saw the scene, he immediately lifted her up carelessly, ignoring Sandra's cries for him to be more gentle. “It's not another box! She's having a baby!”
Mando led them to the truck while the other girls pointed to the man Hope assumed was Terrence.
She didn't know how much she missed Ten.
Then she saw them.
Through her blurred vision, she noticed those ghosts watching from afar, waiting expectantly for her next move. The memory of their words struck her with a reality that made her writhe in search of safety. Seeing Will's face so close, with those eyes hidden behind the tempered red glass of his glasses and that false concern, further stirred up the terror that was forming inside her. Her only thought was to get away, but when she turned in another direction, the ghosts were still there, murmuring their tragic prophecy: “He will take your son as his own.”
Increasingly, the only thing she could hear amid the screams of her classmates and the cursed words of the ghosts made her sink into that abyss from which many found it difficult to escape.
...
..
.
He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own. He will take your child as his own.
.
..
...
Only one of the ghosts approached her and whispered coldly, “He will take your son as his own. That is our revenge.”
Hope screamed in distress, hitting Will to get him to put her down, to make the ghosts go away and all this chaos disappear. Her heart seemed to be pounding out of her chest, her breathing was erratic, she murmured pleas that were useless, not even Mando's comfort could calm the hell she was going through. “Mando,” she managed to say, “don't let... don't let... don't let them take him away.”
Armando swore he would, even though he didn't understand what was happening.
Hope was rushed to the hospital. When the doctor was preparing everything for the delivery, he realized what was happening.
She didn't even know how to push, which caused the girl to let out a string of curses. Then, when the moment arrived, she began to pray. She prayed for the health of her baby, for her own health, for Terrence, and for the ghosts to stop fucking up her life. Just as her boyfriend had told her, "They're dead, poor souls, but they're not coming back to life.”
The dead who were haunting her didn't want to come back to life, they wanted revenge.
“The dead won't hurt you,” Terrence's voice echoed in her head like a mantra that gave her confidence. "Ghosts can't be real. My father saw his comrades when he came back from Okinawa, and every time he kills a deer in the woods, he says it's a Japanese soldier.”
“I wasn't in Okinawa!” he shouted, and the context of his words alarmed the nurses, who murmured something about delirium.
When the doctor came out to give the news, Mando collapsed. “We managed to stabilize the mother. The delivery took longer than we thought, but the baby... the infant was strangling itself with the umbilical cord.”
“Did the baby die?” he asked cautiously.
“No,” the doctor adjusted his glasses, “it's a miracle he survived, although he is still in danger of respiratory arrest.”
All the counselors remained expectant.
Hope remained sedated after the birth, unable to have any dreams that would torture her. She saw the county where she was born shrouded in a gloomy fog, she saw broken telephones, her boyfriend, herself, she dreamed that she was in a car accident, she saw the beach and finally, the snow-capped mountains of Colorado eclipsed by a basement.
“Ma-ma?”
“Hope!” Terrence's voice made her walk toward the light. She was back, not understanding what had happened, but her partner's anguished look was enough to know that something was wrong.
“Where's the baby?” she asked, confused.
“It's a boy, Hope...” the man choked back his tears, “the doctor said that... he was born with the cord wrapped around his neck and he was suffocating.”
The news wiped away the traces of the sedative, giving way to her concern.
“He's still alive,” she kissed his hands. “The doctor says it's a miracle. You said it, didn't you? That boy was born to be a fighter.”
Right? That child was born to be a fighter.
Forest Blake was the one who said those words.
And he repeated them when he met his grandson.
He even named him before the couple could protest “John Finney Blake” he said when he saw him through the glass ”you have a great future ahead of you, don't disappoint me like your father did.”
The first time Hope held him in her arms, her joy turned to immense sadness. “My little Finney,” the baby had a weak grip, was still pale, and was breathing with difficulty from his violet lips. “You've been with me for so long that it would be painful to lose you. Please... stay with me...”
“He will take your son as his own.”
The words made her falter, and she pulled him closer to her chest in fear, so Terrence hugged her to keep them together, as if to protect them from evil.
At that moment, Hope finally understood her father's words. This child was not a blessing; he was divine proof that her sanity was at stake.
She gently kissed him on the nose, causing the newborn to react with a whimper—the woman didn't know if it was out of excitement at recognizing her or because of who he was—but it was enough of a response for Hope to find the strength to fight.
And to start crying again. “I'll protect you, Finney, I swear.”
To the surprise of the doctors, the child survived the week.
It was a true miracle, as the doctor described it when he discharged them. Hope could not have been more grateful to God and life after leaving the hospital with her son. Finney was a true survivor, and it seemed that the world knew it, because he caused a stir in both families.
On the one hand, in the Adler family, the child was passed around among all his relatives, siblings, parents, and uncles until he reached his grandmother, who carried him enthusiastically.
“He has your Aunt Helen's face,” she commented while the child still had his eyes closed. “Very few survive death at such a young age. This child is proof of that.”
Arthur Adler also made a few comments as he held his first grandchild in his arms. Among her second list of postpartum requests was that she continue working, that her husband find a place for their new family to settle, and finally, that she take good care of that child. “My Aunt Helen and Uncle Richard were twins, so what my mother said was true; they really do look alike.”
On the other side of the family were the Blakes. They weren't any calmer than the Adlers, but they seemed normal when I introduced them to the new member of the family. Terrence's aunts played with him and showed him around Oregon while they prepared food for the welcome party. Even Forest attended, forced by his son, cursing a little about leaving his comfort zone, but enjoying in his own way going hunting with his nephews in the local woods.
Just a few weeks after Finney was born, he understood the rules he had to live by while coexisting with his grandfather.
There were few times when Finney burst into heart-wrenching tears. It could be any number of things: from hunger to the unimaginable. That's why one night, days after returning from the trip to Oregon, Finney woke the family up crying for no apparent reason. Hope didn't understand why he was crying. He had been fed, cleaned, and rocked to sleep, so why was he crying?
The conclusion she always came to was the unwanted presence. Even if she didn't dream about them, Hope could feel them, those malicious presences that sought out the purest and most innocent thing in that room to possess him.
Hope's fear only escalated when Forest yelled once for the child to be quiet.
Apparently, a baby crying was a symbol of disorder, and Forest couldn't stand that.
Even if it wasn't crying, any disturbance to the comfort was a rejection of the order he had established in that house.
This led to Finney being silenced countless times in his first months of life. The man also began to instruct him in the art of violence when they took him hunting at only five months old. The sound of the gunshot frightened the infant so much that he did not sleep for two days straight, which led to intense bouts of crying at the top of his lungs, irritating his grandfather, who carried him only to silence him.
Hope tried to dissuade him from scolding his son, arguing that he was a baby and babies did not understand or know how to regulate their emotions.
“He'll have to understand someday,” said the old man.
But not today. That was the implicit warning.
IV
The violence only escalated when Finney started walking at one year old.
By that time, Terrence had landed his dream job at a local company and had started saving to buy the house they had seen. Together with Hope's savings, they believed they would have the house by the end of the year or early the following year.
Terrence began to be more flexible with his schedule. He helped out where he could, whether it was taking care of Finney, cooking, or even cleaning so that his father wouldn't get upset about the mess.
As for his attitude when the baby cried, he would either justify his son's crying to his father or complain loudly that Finney was not behaving like a normal baby. “They're turning him into a mess. The only thing left is for him to think he's superior, which he's not,” Forest justified himself in the face of the rebellious attitudes of those he considered to be freeloaders.
Hope didn't like the idea of taking Finney to Alpine Camp; the memory of her delivery soured her interactions. This time, she had no choice but to bring her son with her, hoping that her father-in-law would stop scolding her. The recent blow still hurt, and her mind kept turning over and over the dreams that surrounded her.
She dreamed of Okinawa.
Of the missing children.
Of her son's future being the target of her curse.
Finney had become shy in the face of the curiosity of the world around him. He liked to always be hugged by his mother and see the world from that place of security, which was perhaps why he showed more enthusiasm when carried by his parents; the confidence they conveyed was what the child would like to have.
“Let's see how this handsome boy is doing,” Armando said, bringing the first aid kit with him when he saw the child's refusal to go to the infirmary to be treated.
Even hugging Hope, Finney hesitated to accept his help. His mother intervened, separating him from her arms so he could sit on the table and the older man could clearly see his injuries.
Armando did not judge right away; he simply focused on tending to the throbbing scratch that ran from the corner of his lip to his left cheek. There was another one near his ear and several more on his arms. “How did this happen, Hope?” the cook finally asked. He wasn’t angry—just confused and deeply unsettled by the state they were both in.
“Finney accidentally destroyed one of my father-in-law's boats,” she replied, somewhat embarrassed. "My father-in-law didn't like Finney covering his face from the blows, so he ordered him to uncover his face so he could deliver a blow that, according to him, would make him understand his mistakes.
“Hope...” Armando reflected, “how much longer until you finish your house?”
“Mando... no,” she knew the message behind his words.
“Hope, this environment isn't good for either of you. Look at yourself, you have the same wounds. What will happen the day you can't defend him? What does the child's father say about this?”
“I haven't told him,” she confessed.
She didn't want to tell Mando the truth. She couldn't tell him that on that day she wasn't lost in a dream about Okinawa and those ghost children who tormented her. Part of her believed she was awake at that moment, but just hearing the sound of wood caused her to wake up. Standing in the bathroom, she staggered between drowsiness, hallucinations, and the anemia she had contracted. If it weren't for the ghosts, she wouldn't have gotten up and found that scene. Did she defend her son? Yes, but the slap her father-in-law gave her knocked her down, completely destroyed her confidence, and she only refrained from hugging Finn to protect him from the blows until Forest asked them both to show their faces—this will build character.
Finney didn't want to show his face, nor did Hope, so the man insisted until they both stumbled forward, and then he gave them another string of blows with the wooden rod.
“You have immense anger inside you, John. Just accept the kind of world you were born into.”
Sometimes Hope was frightened by the idea that her son might inherit something from her. He was most like his great-great-aunt Helen, and just imagining that he might have inherited something from her—beyond her physical appearance—terrified her. Finney was calmed by the strict world of rules in which he lived, but when curiosity got the better of him, he couldn't help but look at what caught his interest.
Even if it wasn't visible to the public eye.
Even John Forest Blake understood this when Finney once told him about Okinawa.
The boy knew nothing about his grandfather's past, nor could he point to the island on a map. He didn't know it was war, so Forest didn't understand why his grandson once asked him what Okinawa meant to him.
Misunderstanding led people down two paths: fear or anger. For the patriarch Forest, it meant fear that turned into anger, which he vented by hitting him with a wooden rod.
And when he turned back around, the older man grabbed him by the chin so he would look him in the eye.
"We were born to suffer, John. It's up to us whether we look the other way or accept the cruel reality.”
And he hit him again.
That day, Forest took him to see his mother at the Alpine camp. It was strange to live only with his grandson, beyond the beatings. In that thin layer of fear, the elder took advantage of the opportunity to dictate his lifestyle, and on that occasion, he told him about the horror of Okinawa. The boy did not understand the story, but just hearing his grandfather's tone about the
That day, Forest took him to see his mother at the Alpine camp. It was strange to live only with his grandson, beyond the beatings. In that thin layer of fear, the older man took advantage of the opportunity to dictate his lifestyle to him, and on that occasion he told him about the horror of Okinawa. The boy did not understand the story, but just hearing his grandfather's tone about the horror of war made him understand the danger he had lived through.
When they arrived at the camp, Forest left him in the care of one of the counselors to take him straight to his mother, and from there he returned home.
“It must have hurt a lot,” said the man they left him with. Even with his sunglasses on, he was scary to the boy. “Your bump,” he pointed to his nose, which had a new scratch. “You know, you remind me a little of myself. My father also told me that crying was the worst thing I could do...”
V
When Terrence stopped looking the other way, he took out a loan to buy the house the couple had been dreaming of.
Or maybe it was the new problems that were arising. Hope slept less and less each day, sometimes losing herself in moments of confusion and returning only to burst into tears.
The new pregnancy was the second divine test.
And seeing Finney lose weight every day and become more withdrawn made the father visualize the possibility of his father living alone again.
The new money made them leave their home immediately, three years after the birth of their firstborn. In their new home, a feeling of familiarity quickly set in, leading both mother and son to feel more peace than they had experienced in the Blake house. Even though they didn't have a bed frame for their mattress, both mother and son enjoyed sleeping in all day.
Perhaps Finney was too young to understand his dreams, but Hope would make sure that her son never went through that spiral of madness, because if her eldest son had no clear symptoms of his gift, she hoped that her second son would not inherit anything either.
With this new outlook, the family started over, hoping that their newfound happiness would not be destroyed.
VI
In June 1968, Hope's long-awaited wedding took place.
Even with her stomach swollen from pregnancy, she wore the white dress she had wanted to wear ever since Terrence proposed. She had it made under the influence of Priscilla Presley's wedding photos, but her condition forced her to make some adjustments.
Still, she felt beautiful.
The reception was small, with each spouse's family and acquaintances who had crashed the party as the guests.
Mando made the star-decorated cake, just as Finney had requested when they spoke after he treated her new wounds. The Alpine camp had been closed after the fame it gained following the disappearance of those three boys in the mountains, but that hadn't stopped the same group of counselors from gathering once again to celebrate their friend.
Forget and move on had been the new mantra.
During the reception, Hope's grandmother spent her time looking after little Finney, telling him stories about his sister Helen and Richard. And that calmed young Hope's fears that her son would feel abandoned that day.
But in the couple's dance, to the rhythm of Elvis Presley and with a small obstacle like a pregnancy, they both danced amid laughter and joy. Terrence was a terrible singer, Hope a terrible dancer, which was an inside joke for the two of them. Finney shyly approached them—encouraged by his grandmother—looking to join the dance. His father took him in his arms and carefully began to move him to the beat of the song.
He took some steps with his father, others with his mother. All with a confidence that made the boy happy to be alive in those moments.
And when the wedding was about to end, the now-husband and wife spoke privately. They were now united for life with God's blessing and witnesses, but the thread of uncertainty always hung over them. One day it could be their family, another day their debts, and another...
Hope's own sanity.
Although the bride had not had any attacks or dreams that made it difficult for her to interact in her daily life, she always talked about the uncertainty that the new birth would send her back into that self-destructive spiral.
Therefore, faced with that possible scenario, she said “Promise me you'll always take care of Ten, even when I'm gone,” she asked, knowing that such happiness could not come for free.
“I'll try, Hope, I'll try,” he assured her with faltering strength.
VII
Somewhere in Denver, June 1975
It rained throughout the entire funeral.
Armando didn't know how to feel since Sandra had given him the news.
Hope...
Just imagining her death was unimaginable. Hope couldn't have had such a fate at such a young age. God, she hadn't even reached 30.
Twenty-seven years old, and she had left two children without a mother and with a father who seemed unwilling to try anymore.
At least the children wouldn't have to live with their grandfather, who had been dead for so many years that his threat was nothing more than a distant memory. Would any of the children remember him? He wondered, putting out the cigarette he had lit to cope with the news. Perhaps the older one would, as he was the one who had spent the most time with the old man.
The Adler family—or what was left of it—got together to pay for the funeral. It was no lie that Hope and Terrence had spent the last few years accumulating debt after debt, and the fact that the maternal family had come to cover the expenses made her husband so angry that he tried to drown his sorrows in alcohol.
“He hasn't wanted to leave the coffin,” she heard some of Hope's cousins whisper. “I've been told that his son had to drag him back to his room because he had wet his pants.”
“I think that's why I don't like funerals,” Will Bill interrupted, adjusting his sunglasses. “They remind me of the helplessness you feel when someone leaves you.”
“She was a child, Bill. She didn't deserve such a fate.”
"Maybe he didn't think enough about the damage he would cause by putting a noose around his neck.
“Don't you think it's the curse of the camp?” Mando blurted it out and then thought about it. Since the boys disappeared, misfortunes kept happening. Who would be the next victim? Them? More innocent people?
The new disappearances in Denver were a sign of something bigger.
“Adler believed in assumptions, Mando,” Will said, briefly removing his glasses to look closely at the coffin, “and that led her straight to her death.” He sighed.
The Blake siblings were the ones who didn't receive the comfort they so desperately needed, and that broke his heart. The younger sister clung to her brother as if he were a lifeboat, shifting her feet nervously, and just being around strangers filled her with a strangeness that the cook couldn't describe as anything other than bitterness.
Only an elderly woman—who Armando believed to be their great-grandmother—approached them to hold their hands and speak softly to them about their family.
"The Adlers come from a terrible family legacy. My sister Helen and my brother Richard lived with that curse, and although it skipped a generation, their mother had it, and I see in this young lady's eyes” she squeezed the girl's hand “that she also has that gift.”
“But I don't want to live with this. I don't want to be like Mom,” the girl implored, crying again.
“Unfortunately, it is the gift that afflicts this family, and you, young man,” he said, turning to the boy, “have a responsibility to your sister, to care for her and protect her. It is not only the dead that you must fear, but also the living. Both are special, and together they are unstoppable. You must understand this.”
The older boy stood still, listening attentively to the words being spoken to him. He kept his feet planted firmly on the ground, holding them steady like an anchor that his sister so desperately needed, and probably him too. Everyone wanted to run away from adversity; only idiots or the wounded stayed behind.
No, Armando would not allow these two children to be influenced by crazy ideas that had disturbed their mother so much that she had taken her own life. But before he could even approach Will—no, his real name, far from his characteristic nickname, was Albert—he stopped him. "What are you planning? To make the children question whether they are as crazy as their mother?”
"Those children need to know another circle of support, far from the strange ideas that come from their family.”
“Their grandfather believed he was still in Okinawa, this lady talks about curses... What do you hope to contribute to two children who have no other world than the one their parents created for them?”
Armando wondered what would become of those children.
Just a few hours later, the group of counselors left before nightfall. More visitors had arrived, but none of them provided the comfort that Hope's children needed. Armando wanted to approach them again, but he was stopped when he saw a boy the same age as the oldest child coming over to give them a hug. The comfort of that scene made him turn around and go back to the truck.
The children could have other support circles far away from these men cursed by fate.
When he wanted to say something to Albert, he noticed that he was also watching the scene with a certain fascination and curiosity. The cook thought it was because he saw genuine friendship, but how wrong he was.
This was only the beginning.