Chapter Five #2
“I don’t see Charleston Island Country Club, do you?” I demand, my voice sharper now, the edge of my fear hardening into something I can actually hold. “None of this looks familiar, and I know for a fact Mackenzie didn’t have her wedding reception in grass that’s damn near up to my tits!”
I gesture wildly at the empty stretch of land.
“And that man—who was pretty much in medieval cosplay—kicked us off the dock at the lake. Except, no, now it’s suddenly a river?! And he said the words car service like we were speaking German. So, you tell me, Alder, where are we supposed to go back to?”
He doesn’t flinch under my outburst. He stands there, still and sure, his piercing blue eyes scanning the horizon once more.
The weight of his silence is infuriating.
“Are you seriously just going to stand there?” My voice cracks, and I press a trembling hand to my forehead. “You haven’t changed a bit. Always so sure you’re right. I should have listened to Amanda. I should never have—”
I stop, choking on the words.
“I swore to myself I wouldn’t let you—”
“Gemma.” The single word is a command. “Listen to me.”
I do, because there’s no ignoring him when he speaks like that. No fighting the pull.
“I know this doesn’t look right.” His voice is even, measured, like he’s already figured it out and there’s nothing here that can’t be fixed. Like I’m the only variable he can’t predict. “I get it. But spiraling won’t solve anything.”
“I’m not spiraling.” My voice trembles, my mouth goes dry. My chest rises and falls too quickly, and I hate that he sees it. Sees everything.
His frown deepens, but then his jaw sets, and his eyes harden. “If everything really did vanish, if we’re somehow…somewhere else, then standing here falling apart won’t get us back.”
His voice is so damn steady, it almost grounds me. Almost.
“We need to stay clearheaded.”
“And do what?” I shrug. “Wish really hard? Thoughts and prayers our way back to reality?”
“We act.” His voice is final. Certain. “We move forward. We don’t waste time standing here pointing out everything that doesn’t make sense.”
A shadow streaks across the ground, and my gaze flicks up. A hawk wheels overhead, its wings cutting through the pale morning light. My racing thoughts cling to the idea that it’s a sign. A cosmic reassurance that if I just let Alder lead, we’ll find a way through this mess.
His last name is Hawke, after all.
The thought is absurd, and the rational part of my brain rejects it immediately. I’ve never believed in omens or signs, never put my faith in charms or superstition. But, right now, I’d gladly sacrifice a whole herd of farm animals if it would undo whatever disaster I unleashed last night.
I drag my gaze back to him, but he’s staring past me.
“What is it?” I ask as I turn to follow his line of sight.
At first, I don’t see it. Just the endless stretch of the river, the way it glimmers under the sun’s first rays. But then my breath whooshes from my lungs, and my heart stutters. The clouds shift, and something dark and massive cuts through the rising light.
I blink, my throat tightening as I take in the impossible silhouette stamped against the dawn.
The details sharpen as the sun creeps higher, each ray carving the shape into something undeniable.
My mind stutters and struggles to process what I’m seeing even as the truth of it turns to stone before me.
A castle.
It’s in the distance, massive and towering, its walls stretching impossibly high.
Turrets twist upward and gleaming spires pierce the sky like silver lances.
It’s impossible—a fantastical mirage from a fantasy novel.
The kind of place that belongs in the pages of the books I read before planning a marketing campaign.
To the right of it, a copse of trees looms—taller than the castle itself, their thick, jagged outlines stabbing at the sky. They rise like sentries and cast long shadows over the surrounding land.
My stomach churns as I realize both the castle and the trees sit on their own islands, surrounded by water that stretches endlessly into the horizon, shimmering like molten silver under the rising sun.
Untouchable. Inexplicable. And yet…undeniably there.
The tarot card hums in my pocket, a low vibration that seeps through the fabric of my dress.
A steady pulse of heat radiates from it, matching the rhythm of my galloping heartbeat and intensifying the wrongness of this place.
I press my palm to my pocket, and the edges of the card tickle my skin with a strange energy.
The card is reacting.
Reacting to the castle. To the islands. To whatever it is that brought us here.
“Alder…” My voice is a broken whisper. “There’s nothing like that in South Carolina.”
Cool air whips around my still-damp dress, and I hug my arms to my body. I am cold and wet and surrounded by more unblemished nature than I’ve ever seen.
He exhales slowly, his gaze unflinching as he takes it all in. “Sweetheart, I don’t think we’re in South Carolina anymore.”