CHAPTER 3
BLANCHETTE
Iwas going to kill Megan.
“Perfect,” I grumbled when the directions on my phone cut out for the third time, a swirling circle graying out the screen as it tried and failed to find a signal.
It wouldn’t, I knew from experience. The service along the coast was spotty at best. But a few moments later, I spied a blip of a bar appear on my phone and I immediately swung over on the pitch black highway, hearing the crunch of gravel beneath my tires as I parked in a shallow turnout.
Holding my breath, I hoped that bar held as I texted Megan: You’re in big trouble when I get back to the city.
A moment after the text finally sent, in reply I only received:
Maddening elf, I thought, gritting my teeth at the spike of irritation I felt the longer I stared at the emojis.
This isn’t what I agreed to, I typed out, beyond annoyed with my meddling friend.
Meg: Actually, it is. You swore on cupcakes and sisterhood. Don’t even think about a jailbreak. I’ll unleash my enchanted glitter bombs which you’ll never get out of your hair.
Then she texted: Are you there yet or are you still driving?
I’m pulled over. I’m going to turn around, I sent back.
Don’t you dare!!!
Meg’s quick follow-up text was If you do, I’ll never forgive you. I mean it, Bee. I’ll be mad forever.
My palms were beginning to sweat. I hadn’t been back to Everwick-by-the-Sea since my grandma had passed away last year.
It was too soon. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to come home.
I wasn’t ready to face every ugly emotion I’d been shoving down so deeply, fearing the day they would resurface like a pus-filled infected wound.
This was payback for canceling that therapy appointment she’d set up for me, I realized.
Silently debating my options, I looked out my windshield at the empty, winding road, my headlights spearing through the darkness. There were no cars coming or going at this hour. In my rearview mirror, all I saw were the towering, shadowed trees of what I knew was Juniper Woods.
I knew this highway like I knew the smells of my grandmother’s cottage when she’d been alive—like lavender-scented candles, moonshade-berry cakes baking in the oven, and old parchment from her books.
I knew this highway like I knew the briny crispness of the air here or the ever-steady glow of the lighthouse perched on Moonbeam Point or the winding cobbled streets of the town square that branched off into little courtyards and hidden alcoves.
Like veins in a body, they made Everwick pulse with life.
While I’d never stepped foot inside Juniper Woods—very few ever dared—I’d driven this highway more times than I could count. I’d had a nagging suspicion where Meg had sent me ever since I turned on the highway heading north, shortly after I escaped the bumper-to-bumper traffic around Graymore.
She was rapid-firing texts now.
Booked you into the cutest little B&B. TOTALLY your vibe.
In the woods! NOT in Everwick. You don’t even have to go into town. Plus, someone in the reviews said the owner is hot so…you’re welcome, you ungrateful human!
I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. Your commitment to my sex life is truly inspiring, I typed, hoping the sarcasm landed.
Someone has to. Otherwise, you’ll end up crocheting matching sweaters for you and your twenty-seven cats while insisting you’re just “focusing on yourself.” Not that there’s anything wrong with cats. I’m just trying to save you from that fate, Bee.
Torn between a laugh and mortification, I simply sent back:
Don’t even think about it. I’m serious. Because if you do, I’ll drive out there, enchant your tires with a binding charm, and toss your car keys in the lake. And you know I would. One way or another, you’re staying at that B&B tonight.
I wouldn’t put it past her. Meg always got her way, and she was determined enough to get me out of Graymore this week. She’d latched onto the idea of me using my time off to “find myself” again. Which, to her, meant quitting my job. She’d settle for nothing less.
Another text chimed.
Hole up in the woods. Breathe. Let yourself just exist for a while, Bee. You don't owe anyone anything right now. Not Skoll. Not the city. Just you. Stay until you remember what that feels like again.
A few seconds passed.
…And if the hot lumberjack B&B owner ends up making you forget your own name for a few hours, well, that’s just a bonus.
I groaned. Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, I’d put off packing, tempted to just permanently camp on my couch for a week at the risk of Meg’s scorn. In the end, I’d decided to go, but I’d gotten a late start. I’d driven nearly three hours to get here and it was pitch black already.
Now that I had a bar on my phone, I checked the map again. I was only a couple miles from the turnoff, the coordinates of which Meg had texted to me this morning.
What I really wanted was a hot bath and a bed, both of which I’d find just a couple miles down the road. In the morning, I decided, I’d reevaluate.
To Meg, I typed out, You’re annoying.
And you love me. Text me tomorrow so I know my work here wasn’t in vain.
She’d won, and she knew it.
I studied the map one more time in case the service cut out again. Then I started to drive.
The highway was full of sharp curves and blind spots, so the two miles to the turnoff felt much longer in reality. Even with my high beams on, the headlights barely cut through the thickening darkness, which seemed to seep over this land like spilled ink.
With very little light pollution this far out from Graymore, the stars overhead would’ve been luminous…only the trees of Juniper Woods hungrily swallowed up every last glimmer of light. The sky seemed black, like the endless dark sea that lapped at the coastline beyond the forest.
When the turnoff came, I nearly missed it, slamming on my brakes.
For a moment, I wondered if I’d gotten the wrong road, but this was the only turnoff I’d seen for miles.
Then my headlights alighted on a little wooden sign, the paint a faded red, hanging askew from a small post, which read Juniper Hollow B&B.
A small arrow was tucked beneath the name, and I shook my head, wondering how in the hell Meg had found a place like this, given her proclivities toward five-star resorts complete with daily spa visits and plenty of poolside time with a glittering cocktail in each hand.
Despite my trepidation, I turned off the main highway and started down the road—the bumpy, gravel-lined road, accompanied with massive potholes that made my old car bounce and jolt.
My heart spiked, suddenly nervous I’d get stranded in the middle of Juniper Woods at night with a flat tire and zero cell reception.
“Meg…you’re so dead,” I breathed, blowing out a shaky exhale. My knuckles turned white on the wheel. A crescent moon came into view, helping to light my way. “Okay. This is okay, this is fine. I’ll get there. Positive thoughts.”
Another pothole made me smack the top of my head on the roof of my car’s interior. I slowed down to a snail’s pace, which somehow only made it worse.
Luckily, the road began to smooth out about a quarter mile in.
My relief, however, was short lived. Another spike of warning and ominous dread filled me when I had the strange realization that the forest only seemed to grow and thicken, like it was swallowing me up. There couldn’t possibly be anything out here, but there was no room to turn around.
The trees were growing more dense the farther in I ventured.
Their wide trunks seemed to create an impenetrable wall, like sentinels guarding something ancient, something dangerous.
Twisted and gnarled, their branches rose up to the sky, like they were clawing for the moon, trying to rip it from the obsidian blackness to feast on its silver light.
I shuddered, swallowing the lump in my throat as I crawled forward. The trees were starting to stoop lower, leaning over the road, resembling more of a tunnel, an entrance. The gravel gave way to dirt, and the hair on my arms stood on end, goose bumps breaking over my flesh.
Ahead, the road crossed a narrow creek by way of an old wooden tunnel bridge. My headlights swept across the wood as I rolled slowly onto it, the tires thudding softly over the boards while dark water glimmered below through the slats before the road met dirt again on the other side.
The moment my tires touched down past the bridge, something shifted.
A strange pressure brushed over my skin, like passing through something unseen, raising the hairs along my arms as if I’d crossed an invisible line.
For a split second, the world around me seemed to ripple, like heat shimmering off pavement—then it was gone.
Growing up in Everwick, I’d always heard stories of Juniper Woods.
I’d scoffed at many of them, turning my nose up at the wilder tales in favor of logic.
Yet…there had been a reason I’d never explored the vast forest, despite its grand beauty and sprawling, mountainous land.
Maybe a part of me believed those stories—the animal part of me, the same part that screamed to turn back to Graymore right then, despite Meg’s threats.
There was something about Juniper Woods that felt…
off. Or perhaps otherworldly, like a realm I’d unwittingly stumbled upon where I didn’t belong.
And the moment I was swallowed up by the trees, when they blotted out even the light of the moon and my headlights illuminated nothing else but wildly contorted trunks and a sliver of a road, I felt something shift in me.
Nearly imperceptible but eerie nevertheless.
Like a line had been crossed, one I couldn’t come back from.
Your trip is booked and your fate is sealed, Meg had told me with a beam of a delighted smile last night.
I shivered again, turning the heat up in my car, despite it being the middle of summer.