Chapter 5
Olivia
Acouple of days passed, and the estate felt a lot more familiar.
Not entirely. There were still locked doors, Jake’s condition still unclear, and a concerning number of times where people would go quiet when I entered a room.
But somewhere between learning which cabinet held the extra linens and discovering that Jake took his tea with an amount of sugar that bordered on criminal, I found ways to make things work.
Today helped.
The afternoon was warmer than the previous few, and you could actually see sunlight.
“I think the weather could be good for you,” I told him. “We’ll just be careful about how far we walk.”
“You do realize I have two working legs, right?” Jake joked.
“Yes, but I also know your bone pain springs up around the afternoon.”
“Alright, alright.”
The garden behind the estate was quieter than the rest of the property.
I spotted broken fountains, mist-worn wooden benches, and some stray broken stone paths.
The flowers stopped it from feeling too lonesome, however. Rhododendrons, bleeding hearts, lupines along the edges. In the sunlight and light breeze, they swayed gently.
I took it in.
“Tomas really knows what he’s doing,” I said.
“It’s a pity the fog’s always covering it,” Jake replied.
We sat by a couple of wicker chairs as Jake started talking more about the estate.
“The original estate map labels this as the ‘formal garden’,” he said, making the air quotes with clear personal amusement. “Donovan won’t fix most of it. He says it would disturb the structural integrity of the stonework.”
“And the actual reason?” I asked.
“He likes it the way it is.” Jake smiled. “He just doesn’t say it.”
I’d already figured that out — that Donovan had very deliberate feelings about things, and no patience for people who said it out loud.
After the previous exchange, I didn’t get into any more trouble with him.
We greeted each other in the hallway now and then, shared updates on Jake, and left it at that.
There was even a little more leeway about Jake’s condition.
It was a strange sort of mutual understanding: he gave me what I needed for Jake without ceremony, and I stopped expecting warmth.
Jake continued his little tangent.
“There are ghost stories about us, you know,” Jake said. “Err, the manor at least.”
“Oh, I know,” I said.
Even if it was a while back, Stella’s remarks about the place were still fresh in my mind.
“It’s probably because the family’s been here forever,” he said. “Older than the Mayflower.”
“So where do the ghosts come in?”
Jake found a smooth rock on the floor and played with it. He tossed it into the non-functional fountain across us.
“There’s a local belief,” he said. “That before people were here, there were mountain spirits in the forest. People who showed them reverence were granted protection. It’s why Greyhollow doesn’t allow too much woodcutting, for instance.”
“What do people say the mountain spirits are like?”
“Territorial. Protective of nature. Wolf-like, mostly.”
“Werewolves?” I suggested.
Jake stared at me. Not in confusion, but like he was running a quick calculation.
“Someone mentioned it at The Blackwater Tap,” I explained. “In passing.”
He relaxed by just a fraction. “Werewolves make sense,” he said. “Other towns have Bigfoot, right? Wolves are common in these woods, too. People probably took the old stories and turned them into something else. Still, it’s a little nice that people have something to believe in, right?”
After sitting for a while, we made our way to another section of the garden. This one was dedicated to some local crops. Jake spoke a little more about history — it was something he was rather passionate about — before the subject turned to the household.
“Maureen’s been with us forever,” Jake explained. “So has Tomas.”
“Donovan wasn’t kidding about not liking outsiders,” I said.
“You’re not an outsider,” Jake interjected. “You’re practically one of us now.”
I smiled, but I wasn’t convinced.
“So, what about your brothers?” I asked. “Are you guys close?”
“A little,” he said. “But they’re always busy with estate affairs. I’d help but…”
Jake gestured to his entire body.
“How about the whole ‘tight-lipped’ business?”
This time, Jake stopped walking. He lingered by a patch of vegetables. He poked at one of the beanpoles, pressing against the leaves of one that was straying too far from its garden cane.
“We’re just private,” he said.
“Right.”
Jake frowned. “I know it’s not for everyone…” he said. “But I don’t think it’s so bad. Isn’t it better sometimes not to know?”
“Depends.”
“Here’s another question, then,” he said. Jake gently let the plant’s leaves stretch back out of the wooden stick. “Would you rather get hurt or avoid it, even if it meant missing out?”
I knew the question a little too well.
“I would hate missing out on being your nurse,” I said.
Jake laughed. “No fair.”
Every evening, after Jake was settled and the household had quieted to its nighttime register, I went to the common room with the fireplace.
I worked at the chair across the coffee table — Jake’s charts, my nursing notes, the slow paperwork of trying to manage a condition I still only half understood. Caleb was always on the opposite chair.
He was always there first, too. I almost never saw him arrive.
The first few times, I convinced myself it was a coincidence. But I eventually ran out of reasons to believe we weren’t both there because we wanted to be.
As always, talking was sparse, but never awkward. Sometimes I’d look up and find him watching the fire. Once, I found him looking at me, but he looked away before I could call him out on it.
We covered the basics, at most. Jake’s progress. Whether the pain management was working. Whether I needed anything from the estate. Small, practical questions, asked and answered without ceremony.
And then we’d settle back into the quiet.
I thought about it later — how the simplest version of proximity became the part I noticed the most. Just two people in a room, fire going. I wondered if he felt the same way I did, or if it was just me.
I considered that things were always going to stay this way. But something changed tonight.
As I was going over my notes, Caleb lowered his book.
“You settling in?”
I liked to think he wasn’t talking about the estate.
“More than I expected to,” I said. “I’ll miss it when I leave.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Good.”
My cheeks burned once again. I didn’t know what it was, but just the way he said things did something to me.
I shifted in my seat. The fire’s crackle sounded the tiniest bit louder.
I considered leaving it at that, but I decided not to.
“What about you?” I asked. “Do you want me here?”
Caleb’s eyes lowered. I could see his fingers playing with the tassels of the blanket draped over his chair.
“Jake’s doing well,” he said.
I smiled and rolled my eyes. “That doesn’t answer the question and you know it.”
He met my gaze again. His pale green eyes turned a mixed hazel in the firelight.
“I think…” he said. “My opinion doesn’t really matter.”
Caleb looked away and picked up his book again.
My smile left as quickly as it came. I shifted again in my chair, but this time to turn away.
A part of me was angry with myself.
What was I thinking?
I was starting to realize, ever so slowly, what he was doing to me.
I needed to remind myself of what mattered the most.
This was temporary. Just like everything else.
I woke before dawn the next morning.
My muscles refused to cooperate with me as I tried to get out of bed. I hated that I was in a funk.
Was it because of last night?
I told myself not to even think about it.
Staring out the window, I noticed the fog was thinner than usual.
I needed to be outside. Anywhere but here. Doing anything but thinking.
I swapped into a tracksuit, grabbed my shoes, and let myself out through the east door.
Taking in the cold morning air, I jogged around the estate’s inner track.
I remembered Donovan’s warning. I’d been thinking about it, actually — not with the intention of obeying it, but in the way I thought about anything I’d been told not to do, which was to say: with skepticism.
And the quiet sense that I could judge risk for myself.
Donovan’s reason was wildlife. But the Ashwoods, I learned, had this thing about saying one answer to cover up for another.
I ran the inner trail first, the one that looped the property and stayed within the fence line, and when I’d done that and my lungs had opened and my thoughts had quieted, I took the fork that went toward the tree line.
The forest at dawn had a quality I didn’t expect. The fog was lower, and heavier. Light shone through the canopy in long pale shafts. The trees stayed dark, pointy silhouettes.
Like stakes, I thought. Or their own set of fences.
Running put me in a slightly better mood. Focusing on my breathing, the ache in my legs, and the outdoors were finally putting my mind at ease.
I almost missed the shadow at the edge of my vision.
I dialed my running back slightly.
I thought it was my shadow, at first, but as I moved right, it quickly split from mine. I could see it more clearly for what it was.
It was the shadow of a man.
The cold bit into my skin.
I picked up the pace.
I had no reason to believe anyone would be out here except for me.
Could it be Donovan? Caleb?
I doubted it. The shadow was human, but standing far enough into the tree line that the fog made it ambiguous. My heartbeat picked up in a way I didn’t enjoy.
I ran.
Not back — I didn’t even think to, which I’d reflect on later with some embarrassment — but forward, because the trail curved ahead.
I’d rather see what I was dealing with than wonder about it. I changed direction at the curve without looking behind me. The trail narrowed through a stand of firs and I pushed through, branches grazing my arms.
I collided with someone coming from the other direction.