They said the town was cursed.

Nolan didn’t know who told his Dad that, but those words stuck with him, the same way he recalled the silhouette of Dad’s wide shoulders against the green sky. 

There were many other things his brain should have retained — the lazy smoke unfurling from his Dad’s cigarette, the shadow dipping across his squared face, the pink puff under his crow’s feet eyes. Yet, Nolan only circled back to those moments the two of them spent alone in the woods, enveloped by the chattering leaves overhead and the crackling forest floor. In his memories, his Dad was always walking two steps ahead, strong arms half-pulling, half-swinging Nolan. Their quiet laughter blended into the surrounding ancient, creaking tree trunks.

If somebody asked him why, Nolan couldn’t explain. Remembering his Dad made him neither sad nor happy. Maybe, like how his knees would start bouncing as he waited in line or the floral spiral he would doodle on the margins of a paper, thinking about his Dad had evolved into an idle habit when he needed to kill time or boredom bouts — despite it implying some personal complexes he didn’t want to peel open. 

Blinking down at the Bible he was sharing with his brother, Nolan shook his head. Murmurs and suppressed snuffles frisked underneath the morning’s plodding atmosphere. The droning monologues took a moment to filter back to his consciousness. His eyes flitted across the small pages and crammed text columns, trying to relocate the passage they were discussing. Only by the time he got to the correct verse, the reedy assistant pastor had already closed his book and motioned to commence the prayer session.

“Seriously? You’re zoning out?” Callan glared as they shuffled onto their feet. The crowd’ collective rising movement resembled a giant waking up. “It was your idea to come early for this stupid Bible study shit.” 

“Don’t be a scumbag,” Nolan replied breezily, shoving the spoiled rascal with his elbow. “It’s Ryan’s first day on the job. Give the fucker a break.”

“You didn’t even pay attention to him.”

“That’s his brothers’ job. We’re only here for emotional support.”

“I’m going with mom next week,” Callan said with much vehemence, both knowing Callan would tag along again once Sunday rolled around. Nolan smirked, biting back a snide remark.

On the stage, Ryan raised his arms and began reciting passages. The crowd swayed to the words — some closed their eyes, some counted the beads on their rosary, some held the next person’s hands, echoing Amen on cues.

It was a familiar sight — jarred only by Ryan’s voice. 

His steady, soporific recitals became a rusted nail slowly piercing one’s palm — the dull pain heightened over time, until all they could focus on was the ugly, messy spiderwebbed exit wound on the back of their hand. Nonetheless, once the praying concluded for a short intermission, people approached Ryan and his family, shaking his hands and clapping his back in congratulations. Nolan towed Callan along despite his brother’s plea, beelining for the golden boy. Their Mom laughed as she waved them on their way before she disappeared in the bumbling crowd, heading toward the long tables at the back to grab some hot coffee.

Ryan greeted them with an awkward grin. Callan gave the poor man a haughty once-over and declared. “You look like shit.”

“We’ve been telling him,” Ryan’s brothers yelled, rushing over. 

“Should see what he looks like during exam week,” Nolan said with a mock eye roll. The children weren’t wrong, to be fair. Ryan’s eyes were bloodshot, his tie sat a tad too tight on his collar, and the flush across his face painted him overly self-conscious and nervous-prone. Nolan didn’t point out any of that aloud, though. Instead, he raised an eyebrow at Ryan, Wanna get some air?

Ryan let out an audible sigh, spine sagging, Was waiting for you to ask.

/

The MacOlen’s kids were buddies with most youngsters at Hirsch. Their parents threw a big party at their farm every few months so it was everybody’s mutual interest to be supportive of them. Even if it meant coming in an hour earlier for service and listening to Ryan MacOlen’s excruciating flat inflection and reading tone. 

Not that the MacOlens would blacklist them if they didn’t show up. Ryan was too soft to hold a grudge, Michael was an airhead half the time, and Matthew was the sweetest angel God ever sent to earth. Regardless, it was heartwarming how similar selfish ulterior motives brought almost half the town together — all for the sake of padding the eldest MacOlen boy’s self-image.

“And here I thought I don’t need to stop you pulling another stupid all-nighter after we graduated,” Nolan said as he and Ryan loped across the empty parking lot. Their brothers had whined, begging to weasel out of the sermon too. Ryan had shushed them by promising milkshakes after service. 

“It was stupid, yeah.”

Nolan ruffled Ryan’s slicked-back hair and made a horror face at the disgusting amount of gel condensing on his hand afterward. Wiping his palm on Ryan’s shirt while ignoring the fucker’s yelp, Nolan smiled, unlocking his truck.

He had parked his car under a fir’s shade. The creeping summer warmth warmed the beer he tucked under the backseat. Ryan pretended to decline the offer once. Another push got him loosening his tie, popping the first button of his dress shirt and flicking the cap off a bottle. For a few minutes, they didn’t speak. Ryan lowered the tailgate and sprawled onto the truck’s bed, squinting at the dense, overhanging branches above the head. Nolan keyed his bottle cap off — succeeding on his third attempt. He climbed onto the bed and flopped next to Ryan. The blazing sun peeked at them, winking through the web of green and brown. 

“First day as God’s faithful servant,” Nolan tipped his head and clinked their bottles. “How are you feeling?”

Ryan gave a guttural hum. He didn’t twitch, and his lips didn’t quirk up. Slowly, Nolan’s smirk slid off his face. Ryan’s limbs were limped. The sunspots danced across his pale face, scattering down his black suit. Ryan owned two suits, and today, he wore the same one he’d wear at funerals. “Think Old Man Mason would be proud of me?”

Nolan didn’t wince at the name, but his body tensed. “‘Course.” Nolan heard himself say, his attention drifting to the spot where Ryan’s white shirt stretched across his collarbone. 

Mason’s death punched a tangible void that throbbed and ached like a living wound. 

The Old Man died in his sleep late last year. Aneurysm. Growing up, Mason was a father to them. Even if his frugal way couldn’t save every person in town, for those who remained, the salvaged scraps he snuck to them were enough to keep them optimistic for another day, another month, another year. The whole town showed up at Mason’s funeral. They wrapped his body in white gauze and put the corpse into a coffin, then buried him at the Church’s backyard, in the lot the Old Man had purchased after he started having strokes. 

The Pastor had led the ceremony. It was the first time Nolan had seen a man shed tears. 

Nolan tilted his head. Around them, the trees surrushed, muttering secrets amongst themselves. Ryan shifted, their legs bumping against each other. Somewhere in the distance, Nolan could hear the sharp rustle of paper pages flipping in the wind. Quietly, he exhaled through his mouth.

These days, following every funeral service, the town took weeks to heal. Hirsch kept dwindling away — saddled by the emptiness’s weight. Twenty years ago, their town was a booming lumber hotspot. The evergreen forest that stretched on for miles and miles used to bustle with movements, energy and activities. Now, their population was barely a thousand. The remnants of their fabled wealth and prosperity was four heavy-duty machines left abandoned at the Cropping, one McDonald’s store and the barest outlines of the dirt trails tourists once trampled. 

Hirsch became the place people drove by on the way to the next state. People left, and they never came back. Those who could get out already did. Those who couldn’t already accept their fate to die and be forgotten on this insignificant piece of land. When they fell asleep, the forest edged a little closer toward the abandoned parking lots and unmaintained asphalt, inching up the metal signs and wooden posts. Their existence reduced down to their imminent death, like the dog-eared, rusting green sign posted at the freeway’s exit, a few miles away from the town’s entrance — forever stuck on the number 10,000. Maybe the feds were waiting for the town’s population to hit zero and remove the signage altogether.

“People feel bad, you know,” Ryan drawled. His fingers fiddled with the bottle cap, turning it round and round. There was a pause in his reply, and when he continued speaking, it was slow and careful. “They feel bad for me, and they feel bad for what’s to come.”

Nolan looked away, ribcages tightened, and took a long swig. “We aren’t going to fall apart because the Old Man is dead.”

He didn’t deny the truth, though. 

Pastor Marzyciel and Old Man Mason had been the pillars for the community while the town was at its best and at its worst. If the Pastor was the mouthpiece, then the Old Man was the heart. After the sudden depression, Mason rallied the tattered remains of Hirsch under Christianity, cobbling together resources and manpower to keep the community alive. 

Ryan wouldn’t — couldn’t — measure up to such feats. Not when he didn’t even hit thirty yet, not when his most inspiring accomplishment thus far was organizing bake sales for kindergarteners.

Ryan downed his beer, propping himself onto his elbows. A breeze skittered past them, ruffling their clothes. A faint mist glazed his blue pupils. “I can’t fill the power vacuum.”

"You can.” Even to Nolan’s own ears, the sentences came out wrong, harsh — too little sincerity, too much conviction. He needed those words to be spoken aloud — for both his and Ryan’s sake — knowing he fucked up the moment the syllables tumbled past his teeth. “The Pastor trusts you.” 

“The Pastor picked me ‘cause my parents’ farm’s finances are stable.” Ryan said with a slight, dry laugh. He tossed the beer bottle cap up and down, eyes tracking the vertical movement with a shaky nonchalant. “This town doesn’t need a Ryan MacOlen. It needs another Steve Mason to stay afloat.”

Nolan reached out, but Ryan shied away. His back was bowed, his shoulders drooping inward. Nolan’s arm hung in the air where Ryan was for a second too long before he let it fall. “Steve Mason’s dead. Ryan MacOlen is all we’ve left.”

Something flickered in Ryan’s gaze, like the translucent trembling of a dragonfly’s wings as it took off. “I’d trade my life for his.”

Nolan clenched his jaws. 

Old Man Mason was charismatic, strong-headed, sure-footed, while Ryan was the exact opposite. Of course, though, nobody understood that better than Ryan himself. No matter how kind and friendly he was, he couldn’t offer wisdom, or interesting stories, or passion to fill the footsteps the giant had left behind. Nonetheless, he had reluctantly accepted the position at the pastor’s request. Because he was that type of guy — foolish, naive, hopeful, earnest — yet so fickle and vacillating it killed Nolan sometimes.

Sure. It shamed him to admit Ryan would always be inferior, but he still wanted to believe.

“So?” Nolan said. He cuffed Ryan’s nape. At the periphery of his hearing, he could pick out the Pastor’s raspy voice boomed lowly through the sound system. Brewing, anger, reminder, summer, forgive, forget, move on. The bits and pieces floated by, dissipating into the cloudless, unchanging azure sky. “Want me to perform witchcraft and resurrect the Old Man with you?” 

Ryan grunted and swatted Nolan’s hand. A small, cautious smile tugged at his lips. “Invite Pastor Marzyciel, too.”

Nolan smacked Ryan upside the head, sneering, although there was no heat behind it. Hopping off the truck’s bed, he finished his beer and made grabby hands at Ryan for Ryan’s empty bottle. “Semon’s starting. Let’s get our good little assistant pastor by the Pastor’s side lest his image be marred.”

Ryan rolled his eyes while obediently forked his bottle over. He looked like he was about to make a smart comment when he straightened and peered over Nolan’s shoulder, brows furrowed. Nolan twisted his torso, following Ryan’s sight line.

A hunter-green sedan they had never seen before cruised into the Church’s parking lot. The car rolled past the open slots and parked at the spot directly opposite to the front entrance. Like idiotic peeping fools, Ryan and Nolan stood rooted in place, gawking at the owner emerging from afar. They weren’t close enough to see the person’s face, however Nolan could tell he was lean. Not in the gangly, awkward stature of a teenager yet comfortable in their own skin. But in a way that hinted concealed muscles under his clothes. Against these overgrown, dilapidated structures and beige, weathered buildings, the man should look bizarrely out-of-place. Nonetheless, somehow, the surroundings seemed to right itself around him. 

The stranger slammed his car door shut and trudged up the front steps. His hand came curiously to the railing and his head cocked to one side. Before Nolan knew what he was doing, his body had already leaned forward. The words he had only ever seen on fading tourist posters bursted out of him. “Welcome to Hirsch.” 

The stranger raised his chin, and Nolan sensed — rather than saw — the exact moment the gaze zeroed in on him. 

“Beautiful town.”

The firs around the Church’s perimeter shuddered, bony branches extending out like crooked fingers beckoning. 

Nolan expected that was it. Now, they would wave at each other and go on their way.

Instead, the stranger backtracked and stalked toward their direction. 

In a dazed panic, Nolan stepped forward, ignoring the sudden dryness in his throat. He hid the empty beer bottles behind his back and wiped his hands down his jeans. Pumped with a false bravado he didn’t know he had in him, Nolan let a stupid smirk stretched across his face. “Passing by?”

“No.” The boy was not much older than they were. The bright Sunday sunlight dyed his combed-back brown hair into a lighter shade. “Looking for someone.”

Nolan and Ryan glanced at each other — wide-eyed, jaws hanging open in a baffled, excited look. “We can help,” Ryan said. “The whole town’s here today.”

“Lucky me.” The boy smiled, syllables butchered by a foreign, diluted accent. 

He raised his arm and shook their hands. His grip was firm, strong, but his palm was ice-cold and gentle, bumpy near the sides of his thumb and middle finger. Writer’s callus. It wasn't the same kind of roughness found on Nolan or people around here, the kind of toughness formed from hours spent working the soil or chopping wood, pockmarked with scars and frostbite from sorting through fallen logs or skinning hides or setting traps in the woods. 

“Jacob Marzyciel.” The boy nodded, neat teeth gleaming like pearls. “My Mom said I’d find my grandfather here.”