“You knew they were out there, that they were watching us, and you didn’t say a thing!”
He whirled away from me with a groan, swiping at a nearby tree branch. “I couldn’t! If you knew about them, what they are, you’d know to fear them, and that’s what they want. That’s what they’re drawn to. Fear and chaos.” He turned, eyes full of remorse. “I couldn’t bear that for you. Not you, so full of light and cheer. I wanted to keep that…to keep you…safe.”
I wanted to hold on to my anger, but he slipped his hands over mine, ran his thumbs along the ridges of my knuckles. Like a bolt of cloth, I felt my indignation unspool under the weight of his beseeching stare.
It wasn’t how I would have handled this situation, but I could see his side of it.
I could understand his reason.
I could forgive.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry about lying and misleading you. I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark. I’m sorry…for so many things. And I will spend the rest of my life apologizing if you want, but right now, we need to be searching for Sadie. If they went after her…”
“Do you think they would do that?” I asked, giving voice to my darkest fear.
“I don’t…I don’t know.” He swallowed. “But if they did, we don’t have much time.”
I nodded.
“Now think,” he began, and bent over to pick up the scattered pieces of luck. “Is there any spot she might have wandered off to? Somewhere she likes to play at? A creek bed or an old hollow tree?”
“Sadie has never gone into the woods. Not that I know of. And she’d certainly never have gone past the Bells.” I glanced uneasily at the dark trees before us.
He gripped my fingers tightly. “We’re together, Ellerie Downing. I won’t let anything happen to you. You have my word.”
But still my hands trembled as we took the first step over the boundary.
We followed a small game trail, hollering Sadie’s name again and again. We pushed through knotted copses of saplings, young birches that would never gather enough sunlight to grow any larger. If they’d been within the protection of the Bells, they might have become kindling for the Our Ladies, but here, out in this vast and untamed wilderness, they’d waste and wane, eventually toppling over to rot and ruin.
The farther in we traveled, the more doubts crept into my mind. Little tendrils of unease grew grasping roots, sinking their grip into my ribs until it felt like my chest would crack in two.
“Sadie? Sadie, where are you?” I called out, shaky and desperate, hoping, praying, believing she would somehow hear me, but only my own voice ricocheted back.
A flicker of irritation kindled in the pit of my stomach, then licked higher and higher, burning at my throat.
Where was she?
The farther we wandered, the more my anger grew.
How could she have done something so thoughtless?
She knew the Rules. She knew that the pines were dangerous.
What had she been thinking?
A snarl ripped from my throat, leaving me breathless and seething. I’d never felt so enraged, teetering on the verge of a fury so encompassing, it threatened to consume my very being.
She hadn’t been thinking.
I wanted to pull out my own hair. I wanted to scream and strike. Hurt and howl my indignities, set the world on fire so that I wasn’t the only one feeling this…
Darkness.
Just like Ephraim warned me of.
It was as palpable as a shadow across the sun on a hot day. I felt its wrath like a tangible presence inside me, a separate entity forced to share too close a space. It squirmed and flexed, furiously seeking to take control. With every step I took deeper into these woods, its glowering blanket covered me, heavy and twisting and impossible to escape.
Escape.
I had to escape.
“Whitaker, I think we should—”
I stopped short.
Somehow, suddenly, I was by myself, alone in the woods.
I whirled around, trying to spot him.
His hand had been firmly within mine. I could still feel the phantom brush of it against my skin.
“Whitaker?” I tried, feeling foolish. Where could he have gone?
Turning in a broad circle, I tried discerning which direction would take me back toward Amity Falls. But the path was gone. The forest surrounded me, unwavering and deep. It would not give me up so easily. Clouds passed over the sun, creating a false night and making it impossible to straighten my bearings.
I picked a direction and continued on, determined to break free of the oppressing trees. Though I knew it wasn’t possible, they seemed to be creeping in closer, squeezing me in a claustrophobic embrace. At the far edge of my vision, something moved through the trees. Squinting, I could almost make out a darker shape lingering there.
“Just an animal. Just a deer,” I whispered.
But it didn’t move like an animal. It was too wispy, too insubstantial. It slid about with a fluid grace, even seeming to swoop into the air. It darted out in front of me, then shot into the canopy. I glanced up, trying to keep track of its assent, and screamed.
Large eyes peered down at me, black and unblinking.
I could just make out the pale face of a barn owl. It was the largest one I’d ever seen. Twelve talons wrapped around its perch, far longer and more deadly than any owl had a right to possess.
Even creatures of the air weren’t immune to the Dark Watchers’ contamination.
A bit of lacerated meat dangled from its forked and bloody beak, the last remnants of a vole or rabbit supper, no doubt. His head turned suddenly, his large eyes peering into the darkness, and his meal landed at my feet. When I looked up again, the owl was gone.
A strange warble sounded, snapping my attention back to the pines. “Is…is anyone out there?” I raised my voice far more than I was comfortable with. “Sadie? Whitaker?”
A noise drew my attention farther toward the direction I was heading. It was soft and could have easily been a pinecone falling to the forest floor. Or it might have been…
I heard it again.
And again.
And again in a familiar regularity.
Footsteps.
“Whitaker? Is that you?”
Though I could see absolutely nothing but trees before me, I knew without question that something was headed this way.
Before it could catch me, I turned and raced deeper into the pines.