"Oh yeah...I can hear it. Them. I can definitely hear them. I feel this one," Mae said, stamping her foot on the ground over the grave of one of the more recently buried cultists.
"So we doing this then?" Jacob Warton asked.
Trent looked back. It was a strange sight, to see them all there in a loose knot, leaning on or holding their shovels. Gregg balanced his on his head and Germ had his propped on his shoulder a little like a rifle.
"Are you sure you're okay with this? Both of you?" Trent asked, looking at Molly and Pastor Kate. Given it was happening at her church, Trent and Candy and a few others only felt it was right for her to know about it, and they'd finally called that favor in with Molly, who was there to assure anyone who might happen by (it was just past sunset on a particularly mild winter day, about as good as it was going to get for gravedigging) that this was legit.
Even if it completely wasn't.
She had a story ready to go, some legal reason for this to be happening. And given the way the newspapers had been parading her around as a hero recently, Trent imagined most people would be inclined to believe whatever she said.
"I wouldn't call myself comfortable with this, but I'm ready to get it done," Molly replied.
"All of this is...it's a great deal to take in, and I still don't fully understand why you need to do this, but I trust enough of you to believe that it needs to be done, and I appreciate you asking my permission, so...I suppose so," Kate replied, hugging herself and looking over them all with a look of confusion and discomfort.
They had spared her the more specific details of the Black Goat.
"All right. Germ, Mister Warton, why don't you get us started right here," Mae said, stamping twice more on the grave.
"All right," Jacob said, "let's, uh, get this over with."
While they got started, Mae began moving deeper into the graveyard, following a map that they had put together.
"Let's get to work people, we've got almost two dozen graves to dig up," Mae said.
The procession followed after her. Each time she found a grave, she stopped and assigned two more people. Germ's two uncles were next, (Luke, the eldest, had taken on babysitting responsibility alongside Germ's mom and aunts). Then Angus and Gregg. Then Bea and Ann. And finally Mae and her mom. Her dad was willing to show up, but he drew the line at actual gravedigging for a reason he wasn't quite able to articulate.
"Mom," Mae said as they came to the grave they were to dig up, "can I just say that this is probably the absolute coolest mother-daughter thing we have ever done?"
Candy laughed. "Well...I'd be lying if I didn't agree with you," she admitted after a moment.
"I wish I could join you," Trent said as he stood nearby, watching.
"I'm frustrated enough that you didn't listen and stay home," Mae replied as she started digging. "There's no way you're digging a damn grave up with your leg like that. Is it hurting?"
"No," Trent said.
"You're lying," she replied. He stared at her. "No, I didn't read your mind. I can just tell."
He sighed. "Yeah, it's bugging me," he admitted.
"Which is why you aren't doing it. You get your stitches out soon, you don't want to mess it up," Mae said.
"She's right," Candy agreed.
"I know, it's just...I've been locked up in the house all week, and in the hospital the week before that!"
"I know, babe. I just...you gotta heal," Mae said.
"Yeah. I just want this whole thing to be over," he replied.
"It's almost over," Candy said.
"Well...I wouldn't say almost," Mae replied reluctantly. "Still gotta deal with the mine."
"I don't like that part of the plan," Candy murmured.
"I know, mom. I really don't either, but...we gotta do it. We just have to. And they've already been gathering up the dynamite so…"
Candy just sighed in response. Trent knew how she felt, he hated the final part of the plan. But Mae insisted on it, and he couldn't really argue with her.
Once they'd destroyed all the totems, they were initiating what they were hoping was the absolute last part of the plan: bomb the mine. Basically just cave it in. Jacob and Luke both had experience, as in real, professional experience, with blasting, and with Molly's help, they'd managed to get a map of the mine. They had been planning on the best way to permanently, or as permanently as they could, bring that place down.
Nobody liked the thought of going in there.
According to Molly, the FBI had visited the mine in an attempt to recover the bodies but so far had been unsuccessful.
They couldn't get a depth reading, either.
"Are you sure it will work?" Candy asked.
"I...don't want to talk about it right now," Mae replied. "Too many...ears," she muttered, looking around at the graves surrounding them.
"Okay," Candy replied, sounding a bit disturbed.
Trent knew how she felt.
They kept digging for a good long while. Trent had to admit that this was probably the most surreal experience of his life. Hanging out in a graveyard in winter at night, with his girlfriend, (girlfriends), his girlfriend's mom, several other people, a cop, and a pastor, digging up a bunch of graves. It was too weird for words, like something he'd write about maybe.
Mae's shovel hit something hard suddenly.
"Aw yeah, paydirt," she said, and she and Candy started clearing it out.
"Crowbar," Mae said. Trent passed her the crowbar. "Ah hell yes," she whispered as she started wedging it in there and getting the coffin open. "So cool!"
"Just be careful," Candy said as Trent helped her up out of the hole so Mae could do the work. They both stood and watched, Trent holding a powerful flashlight that Germ's family had provided. With a crack, Mae got the lid to the coffin away from the rest of it and pulled it up.
"Ew," she grumbled, "he smells. Gross."
"Can you see the totem?" Trent asked.
"Yeah. Wow, holy shit, they put it in his hand. What a fucking loser." She snapped on a glove and reached in.
"Mae…" Candy said.
"What?! He is a fucking loser! They murdered Casey! They tried to murder me, and Germ! Fuck them!" she snapped.
"I just wish you wouldn't speak ill of the dead, in a graveyard, that we are presently defiling," she murmured, looking around.
Mae sighed. "Fine, whatever. Got it. Trent?"
"Yep," he said, holding open a heavy-duty ziplock they'd bought for the occasion. They'd run out of spare socks and ziplocks were easier to find. She dropped it in and he sealed it up. She put the lid back into place and then he helped her out of the hole and she and Candy began filling it back in.
"Man, you're so hardcore, Mae," Trent said.
She laughed. "What? Why?"
"You just straight dug up a grave and robbed it like it was nothing. I'd be so stupidly scared that like the skeleton would come alive and grab me or something," Trent replied.
"Oh wow thanks for putting that image in my head, love of my life," Mae said.
"Mmm," Candy murmured as they finished replacing the dirt and packing it down.
"...what? What was that sound?" Mae asked cautiously.
"Oh, just...admiring young love. It's so sweet. I'm just imagining the two of you getting married and having a baby and living happily ever after."
"Ew, gross, mom," Mae said. "No babies. None. Ever. No children. Like that song. No Children."
"But marriage?" Candy asked hopefully.
"I will die if I ever put another dress on in my life," Mae replied firmly.
"We'll see, dear."
"Oh we sure will. We will see me not wearing a dress ever again...come on, let's go get the next totem, I already want to go home," Mae said.
"Gonna be a long night, I'm afraid, dear," Candy replied.
Mae sighed heavily. "I know."
That strange, uncomfortable feeling of waiting, of not being able to really do anything else, persisted.
Given how wiped everyone was from digging up graves, they spent the next two days recovering. Especially knowing what was coming next.
And then, all too quickly, what was coming next was happening.
"Where did they actually get the blueprints?" Trent asked as he drove them up the bumpy forest road, heading away from Possum Springs.
"Aunt Molly," Mae replied. He was interested to note that she hadn't once called her Aunt Mall Cop since they'd actually brought her into the loop. "I guess everyone's tripping over their own two feet to do whatever she asks. I guess the whole cult thing was sort of an open secret for a lot of people, and now everyone is trying to distance themselves. Ugh." She grimaced and looked down at her hands, clenching into fists, in her lap. "I'm so fucking angry. Half of me wants this town to burn because what, like, forty arrests have been made? I thought it was just those eight people on the list, but no! Several of the cops were corrupt, the Mayor's aide, the food inspector, two judges, and just random people looking to make good cash, like goddamnit! No one thought to stand up to this shit?!"
"That's how these things work. You stand up, you get killed," Trent muttered.
She sighed. "Yeah, or worse, your family. But the other half of me...doesn't want anything bad to happen to the town. Because more people didn't know than did. And most people here are just a lot of innocents. This sucks. I don't even know if this is going to work…"
"You haven't been having anymore nightmares, right?" Trent asked.
She nodded. "Yeah. After we burned all those totems, nothing. Which, thank fucking shit, because they were getting bad...I haven't been able to read anyone's mind for over a week now, either. I think we were right, and the totems were sources of power for it. And now that they've been reduced to ash and scattered, I think the Goat has lost its grip."
Germ's dad and his uncles had helped out again, each of them taking a can of ashes gathered from Trent's fireplace and dumping them in different spots, mostly in lakes. Just in case. And now they were all gathering for the end.
Well, not all. Actually, relatively few of them were. Germ's father and his three uncles were already up at the mine, doing the work. Mae had insisted on being there, and consequently so had Trent.
"Here we are," he muttered as they came at last out of the woods and into a very old gravel parking lot that butted up against a hillside with a big opening carved into it. There were four trucks there, only one of which was still occupied. As Trent pulled up and he and Mae got out, Jacob got out of his own vehicle as well.
"Everything go okay?" he asked.
"Yeah," Mae replied. "How about on your end?"
"We're planting the dynamite now. Far as we can tell, there's just three other ways into these mines left, after we caved in our well, but it isn't perfect. Hell, I didn't even know that damn well led to this place. There could be others. And that's not to mention sinkholes. This'll help plug up the place, and the cavern for sure, but it's not a permanent fix."
"Nothing is," Mae muttered. "This is just the best we can do. Everything ends, even that Black Goat in there ends."
Jacob was silent for a few seconds. "Yeah, I suppose that's true. Creepy, though."
"This whole thing is creepy," Trent said.
"Yep. So can we go in? Get this over with?" Mae asked.
"Yeah, although I have to ask, why do you want to go back in there?"
"I'm not sure...I feel like I have to. I need to face it, one last time. But...Trent, you need to watch out for me. It's weakened, but it's still strong. I don't know what it might try to do."
"What do you mean, exactly?" he asked.
"It might try to get ahold of me somehow, take control of me maybe...I don't really know. Just watch me, okay? And be fucking careful of that hole," she said.
"We will," Trent said, and Jacob nodded. He passed them each a powerful flashlight.
With that, the three of them walked into the hole in the hillside.
It was dark and ominous and claustrophobic inside the mine tunnel.
"Did you come in this way?" Jacob asked quietly, shining his light slowly across the floor and then the walls around them.
"No, we went in a different way, the way that leads to the elevator," Mae replied. "Man, I really hate this place. Already getting bad vibes."
"Yeah, so am I," Jacob muttered. "Can't believe there's been a...an old goat god thing in my backyard all this time...does this mean the legends are true? About the Forest God and the witch? Or is that still just a legend?"
"I honestly have no idea," Mae replied. "I'm a really, really bad person to put all this together. Like, I get it...I think, but I'm also half-crazy, and still kind of messed up over the whole thing. Plus I'm beginning to wonder just how much damage the fucking Goat did to me over the years because it 'chose' me, I think."
"Wait, so is that why you attacked Andy Cullen all those years ago?" Jacob asked, then winced. "I'm sorry, that has to be a sensitive topic."
"No, it's fine, just...it's complicated. It's not like the Goat made me attack Andy, but I also didn't choose to attack him. The problem is, I don't even know all of this. I know that I've got some kind of mental disorder, but I don't know if I had it because of the Goat, or if I already had it and it was because the Goat chose me. Either it's: only people with unique brains and/or mental disorders are capable of hearing the Goat, or being chosen by the Goat means you get a messed up brain/mental disorder. I genuinely don't know. But my disorder is why I went berserk that day. I don't really want to get into it anymore, because it's super hard to explain, and also scares the shit out of me and I hate talking about it," Mae replied. "But I thought you deserve at least that much of an answer because you've done, like, so much for us. Basically on faith."
"I appreciate it," Jacob said. "As for my faith…" he sighed after a moment. "I don't really know how to explain it beyond: my mom said we should do this. And it just-it feels right. There's a lotta people in Possum Springs, in towns like this, I think they just know when something feels right, or feels wrong. They trust their gut more than most folk. Sometimes that's bad, sometimes that's good. It takes a lot of learning to learn which is which…" He stopped suddenly. "Okay, this is a load-bearing point. We should plant the first batch here."
"We sure the FBI and the police are finished in here?" he asked.
"Yeah, got the confirmation from Molly this morning," Jacob replied as he carefully took off the satchel he was carrying over his shoulder and knelt down. They watched with interest as he planted a little bundle of dynamite against the wall.
"So how's it work? Like, is there gonna be a plunger, like in the old cartoons?" Mae asked.
Jacob laughed as he finished up. "No, we're a bit more high-tech nowadays. Got it all rigged up to a remote detonator. Well, several remote detonators. We're gonna sync up and blow this place to hell," he explained.
"Cool."
"Yep."
He finished up and they kept walking. The tunnel was pretty bare, just a track for old mine carts had been laid, and it seemed pretty simple, but there was evidence of a lot of people coming and going. They followed for a ways until finally coming to a simple small cavern where all there really was was some trash, including the remains of some DO NOT CROSS police tape.
"Shit...I can feel it," Mae whispered.
"I can hear talking," Trent muttered.
"That'll be Luke and Paul," Jacob replied.
Trent could feel something building on the air, which felt heavy and laden with foreboding. It was almost like he was underwater, like some unseen pressure was pressing in on him from all directions. He forced himself onward, following the others through the smaller room and into a larger cavern beyond.
"Holy shit," he whispered, looking around. It was large and elongated, with a hole in the ground that divided it not quite in half. The portion he was on was smaller than the other side. Someone had established a simple wooden bridge across it, and there were a lot of chalk outlines on the ground, as well as several red stains, and more evidence that the police and FBI had been through this place. Paul and Luke stood on the other side of the gap.
"Hey," Luke called, "we good?"
"Yeah, got it planted," Jacob replied. "You heard from Reed?"
"Yeah, he's planted his dynamite already and is waiting outside," Luke replied.
"Good. Let's, uh, do this."
"Yeah, this place is really giving me the creeps bad," Luke said.
"Is it? Do you, uh, 'feel' anything, Jacob? I don't really feel anything," Paul asked.
"Oh yeah, I feel something," Jacob replied. "Hurry up. Do it fast but do it right and then get the fuck out of here. Consider this place dangerous as hell."
"On it," Paul replied, looking around, then at the hole briefly, then got to work. They all did, each moving around the cavern and laying dynamite at several locations.
Trent kept close to Mae, who hadn't said anything as they'd come into the room. She was staring at the hole in the ground.
"You all right?" he asked quietly.
"No," she replied, her voice sounding faraway, "this place is evil. It's bad. We were just over there, on the other side. They were here, where we're standing now."
"I'm sorry you had to face this, Mae."
"So am I, but...I don't know, maybe it was for the best…"
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I just-I'm thinking, like, I mean I won, right? We won. Maybe if it was someone else, they'd have lost and died. Or even taken over and kept it going?...whoa, wait...something's-" She cut off abruptly, then raised one hand in front of her face. "Oh, oh my God."
"What's wrong?" Trent asked.
"What's happening over there?" Luke called.
"Hurry up, I think something's wrong with Mae!" Trent replied as he stepped in front of her and ducked down, looking into her eyes. "Mae, focus. What's wrong?"
She looked at him, but it was like she wasn't quite seeming him. "It's happening again," she whispered. "Oh no...shapes. Dead shapes…"
Her eyes lost focus and she stopped talking. Trent felt real terror being to seize him as she pushed him out of the way with a sudden strength. "Shit!" he snapped as she started walking towards the hole in the ground. "Mae!"
He grabbed her ankle and tripped her. She didn't even grunt as she hit the ground. Instead, she began trying to crawl towards it. "Mae!"
Trent got a good hold of her ankles and yanked her back, then managed to get his arms wrapped around her as she struggled against him. His leg was throbbing in pain by now but he ignored it, having a rough idea of what was happening.
She was having an episode of whatever her big problem was, and he was willing to bet the Black Goat was making its play. That sense of foreboding, the heaviness of the air, it was worse than ever now and his head was starting to hurt, as if from pressure squeezing his skull. Mae was strong for her small frame, something he'd learned while wrestling with her a few times before bed. It was a problem now, but he held onto her fiercely.
"I gotta get her outta here!" Trent called.
"What the hell's happening!?" Jacob replied. "I'm almost done!"
"She's losing it!" was all he could say.
He kept holding onto her as she struggled against him. The creepiest thing was that she wasn't even saying anything, not making any noise at all. He wanted to pick her up and carry her back but his leg was too wounded to support both their weights safely.
Suddenly, Jacob appeared. "I gotcha," he said, helping grasp her and get her up. "Come on, Mae. Come on, snap out of it."
Trent struggled to his feet. "We gotta get out of this place."
"I'm done, let's go...dammit, Mae," he muttered. "What's she doing?"
"She's trying to go down the hole," Trent replied as he got hold of her and they started wrestling her towards the exit.
"For God's sake why?"
"It's got control of her or something, I'm not sure. It's making its damn play since she's so close."
"Jesus."
As they got her out of the main cavern and back into the tunnel that led outside, her struggles grew weaker, and eventually she stopped struggling entirely and simply passed out. Jacob ended up carrying her back outside and set her down in Trent's Jeep. He got her buckled in, then locked the door and shut it firmly.
"That was pretty frightening," Jacob said.
"Yeah. That was-shit. Yeah." Trent looked in at her. She looked roughly like she did when she was deep asleep. "Maybe I should get her to a doctor or something…"
"I think she's okay," Jacob said, "maybe see what her parents think."
"Yeah. We almost done?" he asked.
"Hold on." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a radio. "Luke, how we looking?"
"I'm done setting the dynamite, almost in position to blast."
"Good. Paul?"
"Same."
"All right. Let me get into position." He looked at Trent. "How about you get in your vehicle and pull back to the dirt road?"
"Gladly," Trent replied.
He got into his Jeep and started it up. "Mae?" he asked, pausing before he backed up. She said nothing. She was out cold. He sighed softly and backed carefully up out of the gravel lot, then a little ways down the road. Then he waited. He watched Jacob do the same thing, moving his own vehicle back onto the road, then getting back out and crouching down by the edge of the forest, where the trees and the gravel lot met.
He spoke into his radio a few more times, and then suddenly it happened. The explosion came all at once and shocked Trent as he felt it move through his body. It rattled his bones and shook his brain. He thought for sure Mae would come awake but she remained passed out. He saw a huge cloud of gray dust burst out of the tunnel they had just been in. As he continued watching, he saw it start to cave in on itself, and by the time it was over, there was a big collection of rock and dirt forming a pretty solid wall a few feet in.
Jacob walked over to him after talking into his radio for a few moments and Trent rolled down his window.
"Is it done?" Trent asked.
Jacob nodded. "It's done. All my brothers reported in safe and that the dynamite went off as it should. Can't know for sure about that main chamber, but the tunnels are sure as hell blocked off. So, as much as it can be, I think it's over."
"Thank God," Trent whispered. "Uh...thank you for this. I don't really know how we can repay you."
Jacob shook his head. "Son, something I've learned is that...some things aren't about repayment. Some things go beyond debt. Some things you do because it's right."
"I'm glad you feel that way...and I know what you mean. But, what about the town? I mean, if it's true, and Possum Springs will die?" he asked.
Jacob shrugged. "Everybody dies. Everything dies. I'm sure I won't be so pragmatic about it when I'm staring down the barrel of death myself and I sure as hell ain't pragmatic about it when it came to my firstborn son…" He paused, swallowed, blinked a few times, then shook his head and continued. "But that's the truth of the matter. Mae was right, about sacrifice. We sacrifice of ourselves, our time, our sweat, sometimes our blood, for others. For people we care about and people as a whole. We all sacrifice a little and sometimes a lot so that it'll be better for us all. Or that's how it's supposed to work. It ain't right, sacrificing other people for some unnatural monster to feed us what amounts to table scraps to it. Don't care if it's convicts or drifters or bums. Doesn't make a difference. If that's what was keeping this town going, then we don't deserve to keep going. And hey, we'll find a way. We always do. Worst comes to worse...I got a cousin who moved out to Oregon, got a construction company going out there...always kinda wanted to live out in Oregon."
"Not a bad place to live," Trent agreed. He offered his hand. Jacob shook it, firmly and warmly.
"You're a good man in my book, Trent Sinclair. You and Mae, you're good people. You ever need help with anything else, don't hesitate. I'll pick up the phone for you."
"I really appreciate that. A lot. I know Mae does. She's had...a lot of trouble, with people, with this town, with herself. With everything. Knowing there's good people willing to watch out for her and help her and just...that they care about her, it helps. A lot."
Jacob nodded. "She's a good kid. Just got dealt a shit hand. But I think things are going to be better for her now."
"I hope so." Trent yawned suddenly. "God, what a...month it's been. I need to take a nap."
Jacob laughed. "Me too. Lordy. Enjoy that youth while you got it, because it goes, Trent. Trust me. I can't really pull an all-nighter anymore and I ain't even fifty yet...all right, I'll see you later. I've gotta get home to my family."
"See you later, Mister Warton."
"Jacob's fine."
"All right, then. See you later, Jacob."
He nodded and Trent backed up, got turned around, and started driving back home.
"I'm not sure I understand...what's special about this place?" Trent asked as he and Mae walked through a desolate, vast, empty parking lot. They were headed towards the forest, and a set of cracked, concrete stairs that led up to a small, fenced-in lot. Behind them was the long-abandoned Food Donkey, covered in a dusting of snow.
It was just him and Mae.
It was the last day of January 2018. They'd spent several days just recovering after blowing up the mines. Trent had the idea that there were several more days of recovery coming, especially for himself and Mae.
The whole thing had been, just, a lot.
"This is where it happened," Mae replied as they walked up the steps. "That night on Harfest that I told you about, where that asshole stole that kid. There was no one else around to see it, just me. And I chased after him. Ran all the way here. And it was right here," she said as they came to a halt right up against the edge of the lot, at the chainlink fence, "that I was stopped. I saw him. Right up there." She pointed through it, up a hill beyond it, to a single, lonely, skeletal tree that swayed gently in the frigid winter winds. "He stared at me. That guy named Eide. I saw him with the kid over his shoulder, and he just looked at me. I thought he was a ghost or something. Turns out he was just an asshole with special powers. I came back to the fence probably twenty times after that night and just looked, trying to figure out how he did it, how he got over it so fast, or if I was crazy, or if I was just missing something completely."
They stood there at that fence for a long, cold moment.
Finally, she sighed and turned to face Trent. She took his hands and looked up at him. "Bea and Gregg and Angus joined me down in the mine and stood with me against the cult, even though I didn't want them to. And I will always love them for that. What you did, Trent...we didn't even know each other before less than two months ago. All of this insanity...you didn't have to do this. You risked your life for me, you took a bullet for me, you saved me from the Black Goat when it tried to take me over. You did...a lot. I don't even know what to say. Thank you doesn't even come close." She hugged him suddenly.
Trent hugged her back. "I said something similar to Germ's dad. He told me...some things you just do because it's right. And that's why I did it, but there was more to it. I did it because I love you. I've never been in love before. And you...are so worth all of this."
She pulled back a little and looked up at him. "I'm worth getting shot?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"You're worth getting shot," he replied.
She laughed. "I'm pretty sure you're wrong but whatever. After being rejected and ignored and my only actual boyfriend ever before you going...the way it did-" she sighed and shook her head. "It-this feels good, and I'll take it. Come on." She took his hand again and they started walking back towards his Jeep. "When it's less cold, we should come break into the Food Donkey and visit my rat babies. They're so super adorable."
"I'd like that," Trent replied. They got into the car and for a moment just sat there. "So, um, now what?" he asked.
"Now, we go home and do not leave for...a long time. Now we actually rest and recover and throw a goddamned party because we overcame a god and a cult and lived to tell about it. And then, after that, I finally start figuring out what the hell I want to do with my life."
Trent started the car. "Sounds good to me."
They began driving back into Possum Springs.
Wow, that was a long chapter.
Okay, so, that was the second sort of crescendo for the story, with the first being the Longest Night party. Honestly, I'm glad we're past it. When I first started writing this story, I didn't have a lot planned out, as I've mentioned before. But up until I actually reached a certain point, I didn't know whether or not I'd need to deal with the cult stuff again. In the beginning, I felt it could go either way. Either they'd see a resurgence, or enough damage had been done that Mae's involvement with their story was finished. But when I reached that point, I just knew: it's not over.
But now it is. And everyone can go back to doing fun stuff, and we get to visit some more characters who I haven't gotten around to yet. (A certain horror-loving mouse for example.)
I've still got a LONG way to go. The story is probably about half over. It's really hard to say.
Anyway, if you're still reading, I hope you are enjoying it, and I'd like to reiterate that comments/reviews REALLY help with motivation. I was actually in a depressive rut a few months ago, not really wanting to continue with the story for awhile, and then I got a review and basically snapped out of it and started writing more. Which surprised the shit out of me. So...yeah, that. I'm not saying I'll ever hold the story hostage for reviews, because I would never do that, but I'm saying your comments so far have all made me really happy.
Regardless, thanks for reading!