CHAPTER 5 #2
I didn’t look back. Didn’t need to. I could feel her still standing there. Silent, unmoving, like she wasn’t sure whether to follow or disappear.
The walk back to my cabin wound through the trees, quiet except for the occasional crackle and snaps of twigs and leaves snapping beneath my boots.
Juniper Hollow sat tucked into a cradle of land at the base of a mountain, like it had always been waiting there—half-forgotten, half-remembered.
The main cabins curved around a lake so still it looked painted most mornings, touched by mist and ringed with reeds.
Some of the cabins leaned slightly, their porches sagging like tired shoulders, while others stood tall, freshly repaired. Work in progress. Always.
Farther up—beyond the tree line—were the two upper cabins I’d just come from.
Few visitors made it up that far, and fewer still knew what lay beyond: a mine sealed off for over a hundred years, and the ridge just past it, where you could stand and watch the lights of Everwick blink in the dark like a field of fireflies.
Most folks came for the quiet, the seclusion. But this land held more than silence.
Juniper Woods stretched out in every direction.
It was deep, vast, and older than anyone alive could remember.
The trees here weren’t just tall and imposing, like guardians.
They were watchful too. They grew in strange patterns, knotted together like they were protecting something sacred.
Things lived in this forest—some common, some rare, and a few whispered about in town as if saying their names out loud might call them back.
There were stories that this place used to belong to another kind of people. That the woods remembered them. That they’d left something behind. Something ancient and watchful that was meant to be respected, not disturbed.
Now it was mine. The land, the legacy, the silence. Passed down without asking, without choice. I hadn’t asked for this. I just happened to be the last one left standing.
My cabin came into view, the last one ringing the lake. Well…my dad’s cabin, technically. But he wasn’t here anymore.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside, letting it close behind me on its own. The sound echoed, dull and heavy.
Cool air met me, thick with the smell of old wood, dust, and something faint and familiar. Cedar. Leather. Smoke. A scent that stayed long after a person was gone, seeped deep into the walls.
My father had lived here all of his life. I could still smell him here. Now it was mine.
Sweat clung to me in patches, soaking through my shirt. My arms were still shaking, the ache settling deep in the joints. The crash, the dust, the girl…they all lingered behind my eyes like the afterimage of a flame.
I didn’t bother with lights. I could see just fine. The shadows suited me better anyway.
I moved through the room like I’d never left, stepping around the loose board near the hearth, leaning past the low-hanging beam by the kitchen.
This place wasn’t home anymore, but it was where I’d come back to.
The city had taken everything I’d given it. My time. My sleep. My name in the papers, a few courtroom victories that had meant nothing in the long run. I had the reputation, the tailored suits, the win record no one could touch. And still, none of it filled the part of me that kept coming undone.
The part that had teeth.
And when I lost control, people got hurt.
I made it to the kitchen sink, bracing both hands on the edge. The metal was cool against my skin. The silence in the space was clear as glass, absolute. I let my head hang, breath coming slow and tight, like I was still holding something down.
Water ran. I drank without thinking, lapping it up like a stray used to going without.
But my thoughts weren’t on the water. They were back outside with her.
Blanchette.
She shouldn’t have been there. And yet…I’d seen her eyes. Not the color. Not the way they caught the light. The weight in them.
She wore it like armor. Battered, heavy. The kind you couldn’t penetrate, no matter how frail it might’ve appeared.
I knew it because I’d carried the same damn thing.
Still did.
That little incident back there would have killed a normal human. But I wasn’t normal…or human. I was a glutton for punishment. A hardheaded son of a bitch that took a lickin’ and kept on tickin’. Lucky me.
My thoughts spun in a slow loop: the girl, the mess, the blood, the fact that I was still standing when I probably shouldn’t have been. It awakened something in me I didn’t want to examine too closely.
I didn’t realize how much time had passed until the voice broke through the quiet.
“Jon-boy?”
May.
Her tone was soft but pointed, like she knew not to startle me but also instinctively knew I needed to be interrupted.
I straightened, wiping a hand across my face. “Yeah.”
Her footsteps were measured, careful. The steady tapping of her cane—a sound that spoke for her more often than she did, especially when words felt unnecessary.
“You all right?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Good…” She paused carefully before continuing. “’Cause I got a young lady that’s a little shook up.”
Funny how blame and sympathy don’t always land on the same person, I thought.
“She’ll live,” I replied, no care in my tone.
“Aha…well, I just wanna remind ya that if ya want this thing to work, we need to be a bit more gracious and forgivin’ to our guests.”
“Got it,” I acknowledged.
“Do ya?”
I kept tending to my wounds, then finally murmured, “Yeah.”
“I know ya were good at scaring folks in a courtroom, but that don’t mean ya can’t learn a new trick, pup. Different deal here…if ya want folks to come and stay.”
I acknowledged her words silently. I mean, she had a point.
“Ya need me to sew ya up?” It was uncanny how she did that.
“Nah, I’m good. A few gashes. Nothing I can’t fix. I’ve still got some of that magic rub you made left over,” I replied.
“All right, then I’d best get to it. Stew ain’t gonna stir itself for long. Catch ya at supper.”
And with that, she disappeared, leaving me alone in the dark to lick my wounds.