CHAPTER 32
JONATHAN
The notice sat on my desk like a corpse.
I’d read it three times already. Then a fourth. Then once more, slower, like if I took my time the words might rearrange themselves into something reasonable. Plausible.
They didn’t.
TEMPORARY CESSATION OF OPERATIONS.
Pending review. Expired permits. Updated safety codes. Structural compliance issues.
All of it dated this morning.
The words were printed cleanly. Neutrally.
As if this had been routine. As if the inspector hadn’t spent the morning crawling over the B&B like a hound, sniffing for anything he could twist into a violation.
As if I hadn’t spent the last six months making damn sure every permit was current—every inspection passed, every update filed.
Harold had never been like that before. The county inspector I’d known for years.
He’d always been easygoing. Chatty. More interested in the coffee May offered than nitpicking stair-rail heights.
This morning, he’d barely met my eyes. He’d been tight-lipped.
Clinically efficient. In and out like he couldn’t wait to be done.
Permits that had recently been cleared suddenly had unexpected “issues.” Minor codes that had never once been a serious concern were now urgent hazards.
It had been less of an inspection and more like a judgment day. It was a clear message.
May had handled the first half of it. Because inspections had always been, at least up until this point, routine. Annoying sometimes, sure…but pretty straightforward.
For the first time, this one hadn’t been.
I could still see the way her shoulders had stiffened when the inspector’s tone changed.
The way she’d gone quiet when he’d asked for documents that he’d already known we didn’t have or need.
She hadn’t said This is wrong—she hadn’t needed to.
We’d both known. The expression on her features when she’d stepped aside had said everything.
I leaned back in the chair and rubbed a slow circle at my temple. Outside the reception cabin window, the light was thinning…gold bleeding into gray, the forest settling into its evening hush. The B&B looked the same as it had yesterday. Peaceful. Intact.
Pressure. That was what this was. Plain and simple.
I don’t want to be another one, I thought grimly. Another family gone. Land owned for generations…suddenly sold. Just like that. First the Harrowins. Then the Elmridge lot. Now the Grayers. This was no coincidence. Skoll was behind everything and I hadn’t seen it.
Erik’s voice slid uninvited into my thoughts, smooth and confident: We could use someone like you here at Skoll.
My jaw tightened.
I should have been angry just about the B&B. About the shutdown. About the guests we’d had to refund after the best booking week we’d had to date. But that wasn’t what had me wound tight.
It was Blanche. The way she’d looked at me in Graymore. Hurt. Disbelieving. Like I’d handed her a blade and then acted shocked when she cut herself on it.
I’d believed Erik. Even knowing what kind of individual he was.
That realization sat like a stone in my chest.
I stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor, and began pacing the cabin.
The front living room was small. Just a desk, shelves lined with books I pretended I still read.
My father’s old desk sat against the far wall, scarred and solid, a piece of him I’d never quite known what to do with.
“Dammit,” I grumbled.
The pressure had been building all day. Since the inspection. Since Erik. I’d watched Blanche’s face break in front of that fountain…and still turned my back on her like she meant nothing.
I stopped pacing.
The desk loomed in front of me.
I didn’t think. I just acted.
My foot connected with the lower panel hard enough to jar the entire piece of furniture. Pain shot up my leg, sharp and immediate. The impact was dull, heavier than expected.
The desk shifted, and I heard the unmistakable sound of something rattle inside.
I froze.
Then I kicked again, more deliberately this time. The desk shuddered, and I saw an outer panel give way, like it was…hinged? I crouched, fingers brushing along the it. There was a narrow seam, or more like a hidden compartment…one I’d never noticed before.
I pressed, and the panel fully gave way.
Inside, tucked into the narrow space, was an envelope…my name written across the front in a familiar, uneven hand.
My brow furrowed, and I peered at the panel. A letter from my father…to me. But how long had it been in here? And how would I have ever known where to find it?
I sat heavily on the floor and stared at it for a long moment, my thumb tracing the edge once before finally opening it.
I read slowly.
Jon,
If you’re reading this, then in the end I didn’t find the courage to say the things I should have while I was alive.
I’m sorry for that. I was never good at being the man you needed.
I was raised with the belief that courage meant standing your ground, baring your fangs and never yielding.
I learned too late that there’s another form of courage—the kind where you admit you were wrong.
My throat burned.
I may not have been the best father. I tried the best I could. It may not seem that way to you…and there’s nothing I can say to make you believe that. That part I have to own, because you deserved better.
I stared at that line. You deserved better. It shouldn’t have made me angry…but it did. It made me furious, because it was true, and because he was saying it now, when it wouldn’t change anything.
I swallowed hard and kept reading.
After your mother left, I became someone I didn’t recognize.
I clung harder. To the land. To the life and family I’d made.
To the memory of what we were before everything cracked.
And most of all…to you. I didn’t know how to grieve, so I numbed myself and, in the process, alienated you.
It wasn’t what I wanted, but it’s what I did.
I loved your mother very much and I loved you even more, but somehow I lost you both.
My fingers curled around the page. I remembered him after she’d left—how the house had sharpened. How silence had become law. How his grief had turned into rules I could never follow perfectly enough.
The more I clawed to keep you, to protect you, the more I scratched you. I mistook fear for discipline. I told myself I was making you strong, but all I really did was teach you how to run.
Like I had done from Juniper Woods and later Graymore…and recently, from Blanchette.
I looked around the room. His room, like I expected him to be standing behind me, watching me read this confession—still stern.
But he wasn’t. The cabin was quiet. It was just me and my memory of his ghost.
I made home feel like a cage.
A harsh breath left me—half laugh, half pain. He’d said it. He’d finally said it.
I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to become something else just to breathe. You were never the problem. My pride was. I should’ve been your shelter. Instead, I became a storm you had to weather.
I don’t leave you riches. I leave you something more difficult and more valuable.
Of course. Here it came. The part he could always say plainly.
My grip on the paper tightened.
Long before borders and laws, our people were born from these mountains.
There are people who will never understand what that means.
They see opportunity, so they’ll say and do anything to take it.
We belong to this place, not the other way around.
Some things are worth more than gold. Some things are worth protecting.
So, these woods, our home…is your legacy.
Now it’s your turn to protect it, for all of those that don’t have the strength or courage to fight for it.
My gaze lifted toward the window, toward the trees beyond.
I remembered running between them as a boy, my mother’s laughter drifting from the porch.
Later, it was games of Hunters and the Wolf with the other kids, Everwick’s version of hide-and-seek.
Juniper Woods had always felt like a sentinel, waiting and watching.
The land never let go of me. It’s called you back for the same reason. I’m gone, and it needs a protector. That isn’t a curse, son. It’s a calling. Juniper Woods needs a protector…it needs the Black Wolf.
The words settled into me slowly, like something ancient recognizing its own.
I hope one day you understand this and why I couldn’t sell our heritage.
I closed my eyes.
I thought of all the times I’d called him stubborn. Old. A relic. A man who cared more about dirt than his own son.
Blanche’s face surfaced unbidden—hurt, furious, disbelieving.
Running. I’d always been running.
When I finished the letter, I sat there for a long time without moving. The frustration was still there. The pressure. The fear. But underneath it felt steadier now.
For the first time, I found understanding.
My father hadn’t stayed because he’d been stubborn. Or foolish. Or trapped.
He’d stayed because this place meant something. Because it wasn’t just land. It was legacy. His own responsibility. The place where he’d belonged.
And I’d been standing in it my whole life, pretending it was just dirt and trees so I wouldn’t have to face what that meant about myself.
I folded the letter with care. My father’s death had been sudden. I thought it likely he hadn’t gotten the chance to retrieve the letter from its hiding place in time. It was by pure chance I’d found it…or perhaps I’d always been meant to find it now.
Blanche’s face surfaced in my mind. Her kindness shone bright, and the way she’d stood her ground even when it cost her. She hadn’t run.
I had.
“I’m done,” I whispered to the empty room, and the absence of her felt suddenly, sharply present. Done running. Done doubting. Done letting fear dictate my choices.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and stared at it, thumb hovering over her name when I navigated to my contacts.
I tapped the Call button. It rang once, twice…and then went to voicemail.
Frowning, I tried again.
Voicemail.
I stared at the screen, unease creeping in where resolve had been.
“Hey,” I said when the tone beeped, voice low, controlled. “I—I owe you an apology. I don’t know if you’ll want to hear this right now, but I need you to know…I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
I paused, swallowing.
“I miss you.”
Silence pressed against me.
“Call me back,” I finished.
I lowered the phone slowly. Relief came first…then something colder. A wrongness I couldn’t explain. I pushed the thought away and looked outside instead.
The forest shifted as night crept in—branches creaking softly, shadows deepening between the trees of the Hollow.