Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
It took less than a minute to convince Cedar to come with us. As soon as she heard the words old books and precious dagger, she was collecting her bag off the floor and running through the library to follow us.
“Okay,” Cedar starts as we walk along the edge of the forest where it breaks way to the town square.
My parents' house sits on the other side of the square, tucked away in a quiet corner of Sylvan, in an area that people don’t frequent any longer.
“So this Rylan didn’t say anything about this dagger?
Just that he thought you would like it?” I can feel her and Hazel sharing a look behind my back as I walk ahead of them.
My eyebrows pull when I recall his exact words. “He said his mother had it. That he found it among her old belongings.”
“Okay, then let’s go and talk to her,” Hazel says, her steps so determined I can hear it every time her feet hit the soil beneath us.
“We can’t,” I shake my head. “She’s dead.”
It’s quiet for a moment, but then Cedar asks, “That boy gave you something that belonged to his dead mother?”
Hazel cuts in before I can consider that point for a moment longer. “Well, from what Thorley said, it sounds like it belonged to Esther.”
I turn around, and both of them come to a halt in front of me. “She spoke of things being well hidden,” I say. Those words have been trapped in my mind ever since Thorley said them. “My mother, she wasn’t secretive. At least I didn’t think she was.”
The sudden thought hits me—maybe I truly knew nothing about her. I was just a child after all, only ten and seven when she died. But it makes my mind spin with all the possibilities. Why would she have a dagger? I never saw her use a weapon in my entire life. Never saw her so much as touch a blade.
Cedar grasps my hands in hers. “Let’s not jump to conclusions, okay? This could all be a fragment in Thorley’s mind. She very well could be mixing memories that do not belong together.”
“Let’s just get to your parents’ house,” Hazel adds. “Hopefully, we will find some answers there, and if not, we might just have to pay this Rylan a little visit.” I roll my eyes at the way her tone perks up with the mere syllables of his name rolling on her tongue.
“Evie!” My name splits through the quiet air, birds flying from their nests in the trees above us.
The three of us turn to see Silas walking towards us, leading a freshly groomed Merlin along with him.
“Hi,” I say mindlessly, suddenly jarred by the sight of him. My mother was family to Silas too. I should tell him of all of this, right? I should ask him to come with us because whatever we might find could affect him too.
But my lips stay knitted together as he greets Cedar and Hazel, both of them sending pleasantries his way before his eyes are back on me.
“Where are you ladies headed?” he asks, giving me the opportunity to say it, to let him in on the storm raging in my mind with all of this information—or rather the lack thereof.
Cedar and Hazel stay utterly silent as I say, “We are going for a picnic out by the caves.”
I feel the girl's eyes on me as the lie slips from my lips. I’m not sure why I do it, but something inside of me says I should keep this to myself, at least until we find out if it means anything or not. I can carry this for both of us for now.
“A picnic by the caves?” Silas asks, his brows raised to his forehead and his chin tipped. “You hate those caves.”
He’s right. There is a cave system not far from where we used to live. Finnick and Silas used to sneak in there at night to explore, and my mother used to scold them for it. She would get so worried about them getting lost in there and never being able to find their way out. But they always did.
I personally never stepped foot in those caves. I was too afraid of the overwhelming darkness that looked as though it swallowed those who stepped across the threshold—I've never been too fond of the dark.
“We are trying to get her to face her fears,” Hazel says, capturing his attention.
“We are all doing it,” Cedar adds without delay. They both follow me blindly as we all stand here lying straight to his face. Guilt curdles in my stomach, but I can’t turn back now.
Silas’s eyes narrow. “Are you going diving in the Hollowood River, Cedar?”
Cedar’s face blanches, searching mine and Hazel’s faces for help, but we have all walked right into this situation with no brakes within reach.
“Maybe,” she says with a small shrug of her shoulders. Cedar is notoriously afraid of bodies of water. She never learned to swim as a child, so the idea of not being able to touch the ground in the water terrifies her.
“Right,” he drawls. “And you?” He faces Hazel.
“Leeches,” she spits out. “I hate leeches.”
Silas’s face pulls into one of confusion and disbelief. “So what? Is Evie going to put some on you then, let them suck your blood?”
“Ew, Silas!” She bats him on the chest. “No, I um…I’m just going to look at them.”
“Look at them?”
She nods confidently.
“Right, and how is that going to help exactly?”
“Well,” she crosses her arms, her chin high as she looks up at him. “Usually, I can’t stand merely looking at them without feeling ill. So I'm simply going to look at them, and…not be ill.”
I bring my hand up to scratch my nose inconspicuously, trying to mask the laugh that is bubbling in my throat as I watch my friends cover for me in the most ridiculous of ways.
“Right, okay,” he says, shaking his head and bringing his attention back to me. “Well, I was heading your way, so I am glad I caught you.”
“Yeah?” is all I can say, my mind barely able to focus on more than one thing at once today.
He just nods his head towards Merlin. “He’s yours.”
My foggy mind clears, focusing only on the words he just spoke. “What do you mean, he is mine?”
“I want you to have him. He likes you far more than me, admittedly, but aside from that, I want you to have a way to get somewhere quickly that isn’t tripping over tree roots in your skirts.” He holds the lead out to me.
That guilt is now a blade to my stomach, gutting me as I stand before Silas. Here he is giving me the gift of the horse I fell in love with, wanting me to be safe, and I am repaying him with nothing but deception.
“Please,” he says. “I’d like to know he’s got someone that adores him to keep him company. His ego needs that.” Merlin snorts, as if in agreement, but the small smile Silas wears nearly cracks my heart in two
“I…” I can’t bring myself to tell him. Something is holding the words at bay. “Thank you,” I finally say, trying to shake my guilt away and speak to him in a somewhat normal manner. “Are you sure? You know I can’t pay for him.”
He shakes his head, a sweet smile rounding his cheeks. “I don’t want you to.” I just nod, giving Merlin a little pet on his nose, avoiding his dark eyes for fear that his gaze will be judgmental.
“You know, for a picnic, you three don’t have any food.”
“It’s in my basket,” I say, the lie slipping off my tongue. I’ll scold myself later for it.
He reaches for the basket. “What do you have? I haven’t had breakfast.”
I swing it out of his reach. “Cinnamon rolls from Thorley. But there’s only one each, so you’ll need to find your breakfast elsewhere.”
He scrunches up his nose. “Fine. Well, have fun facing your fears, I suppose.”
“Oh, we will,” Hazel responds, giving him an overly cheerful wave as he walks back to the stables with a confused frown.
The three of us collectively sigh when he is far enough away, as if with that one breath the tension we all held in our shoulders fell away.
“Let’s go,” I say, swinging myself up and onto Merlin’s back. I settle in front of the saddle in the most uncomfortable position, one I know I will regret later. Hazel sits in the saddle next before Cedar sits behind her.
“So,” Cedar starts, “are we going to talk about why we just lied to his face about caves and leeches?”
“I really do hate leeches,” Hazel says with a shiver.
I just snort from where I sit in front of her and dig my feet into Merlin’s side to get him moving. “I just want to keep this all between us for now, if that is okay? Until we figure out what is really going on.”
“Of course,” they both say from behind, slightly settling the turmoil in my tummy before Cedar asks, “Are there really cinnamon rolls?”
A thatched roof the shade of charred coal comes into view as Merlin winds his way through the pine trees that line the clearing my childhood home sits upon. But it looks different from how it once did five years ago.
Tree branches reach out into the clearing, covering the old house in a constant shadow, as if they’re trying to shield it from any threats from above.
The daisies that used to bloom outside the windows are dead, the plants nothing more than limp weeds against the grey boards of the house. And when a small breeze whistles through the clearing, I realise it feels even emptier than it looks.
I feel a hand land on my shoulder. “Are you okay?” Hazel asks, her voice a comfort in my ear. “Because we can turn around at any point, you just say the word.”
I pull Merlin to a stop before we get too close to the house, allowing my gaze to roam over it one more time, trying to compare this image to the one of the house I grew up in. “I’m okay.”
The three of us slide off the horse’s back, and I tie his lead around the base of a tree trunk, giving him enough rope that he can reach the next tree over.
Cedar’s delicate hand finds mine as my foot hits the fragile boards that make up the three small steps to the front door—the door that is slightly ajar. I push it open, the creak echoing throughout the house.
I feel ill as we take careful steps into the kitchen, a cold breeze rushing in through the broken window over the sink that has a weed growing from the plughole.
The entire kitchen has become a home for the nature trying to escape the clearing.
Vines climb through the windows, and flowers bloom on the wooden sills.