Epilogue #2
Boone’s whole body loosens. Ivy sees it and touches his forearm once, quick and quiet, Serena balanced on her hip now and playing with one of her braids.
Elias goes still in a different way, the hard coiled look in him easing as he pulls Fern closer against his side.
Tandy kisses the top of their daughter’s head and rests there for a beat.
Even Malachi and Rowan pause. Rowan’s hand brushes Malachi’s wrist under the edge of the table, the touch so small most people would miss it.
But I don’t miss things like that anymore.
My mom looks around the clearing, confusion and relief mixing across her face. Bethany stares at Gabe like she isn’t sure whether he’s a man or one more dangerous thing the mountain shaped and sent walking.
“What does that mean?” she asks softly.
Gabe looks at her, not unkind. “Means they’re gone. The men who hurt your sister. And many before her.”
It’s more truth than drama.
Silas nods once, as if that settles it because coming from Gabe, it does. Aurora rubs Lucas’s back while he fights sleep, and her shoulders lower by inches. Not fear gone all at once. Just that old habit of listening for threats before they find this clan.
Mama Rue pushes herself up from her chair with her cane and looks out toward the black line of trees beyond the fire.
“Good,” she says. “Let the mountain keep the dead and feed the living.”
No one argues with that.
Boone stands first, because of course he does, and lifts his cup. “To the mountain, then.”
“To the mountain,” Finn says.
“To the dead staying dead,” Mercy adds.
That gets a startled laugh out of Bethany, who slaps a hand over her mouth like she wasn’t expecting herself to fit into the sound of this place so easily.
Rafe catches my eye across the fire.
He does not say anything. He doesn’t need to.
The look on his face says enough.
It’s over.
Not the way scars are over. Not the way memory is over. Those things live where they live.
But the hunting is over.
No dogs. No men. No eyes in the dark waiting for me to stumble.
The mountain is quiet tonight in a way I have never heard before.
Not listening.
Resting.
And somewhere deep inside me, in the place that used to brace for the next terrible thing, something finally unclenches.
The clearing loosens after that.
Not all at once. Nothing on this mountain ever changes all at once. But the hard edge goes out of the air.
Mercy tries to stand and both Knox and Finn move at once to stop her. She gives them a look sharp enough to skin bark off a tree, but Finn has already scooped the bowl out of her hands and Knox is dragging a chair closer with his boot.
“I can still walk,” she says.
“Didn’t say you couldn’t,” Finn says.
“We’re just saying you don’t need to.”
Mercy opens her mouth to argue. Knox, with all the solemn dignity of a man about to lose his life, holds out a biscuit.
Bethany makes a strangled noise and then she is laughing for real. Mom claps a hand over her mouth, shaking her head, and even she’s smiling now.
It catches me off guard.
Not their laughter. Mine.
It rises out of nowhere, out of the middle of my chest, warm and sharp and impossible to stop. One second I’m watching Knox bribe his own wife into sitting down. The next the sound spills out of me, bright and breathless and bigger than the little startled laughs I’ve let slip before.
Everyone looks at me.
I try to stop. I can’t.
The laugh comes again, fuller this time, and then again, and the whole clearing seems to light up around me. Bethany grabs my arm, laughing too. Mom’s face crumples and she turns away for a second, wiping at her cheeks with the heel of her hand.
Rafe is there before I can even look for him.
His hand finds my waist. His other hand cups the back of my head as he stares down at me.
I laugh one more time, softer now, undone from the force of it, and nestle my face into his chest because suddenly I don’t know what to do with all this feeling if I don’t put it somewhere safe.
His arms close around me.
“Sweetheart,” he says, voice rough and full. “There she is.”
I hold on tighter.
Around us, the mountain keeps moving.
My old life. My new one.
No tearing. No choosing one over the other.
Just this.
I look up at Rafe. Firelight moves across his face. His eyes are damp and he doesn’t look away from that.
“Home,” I tell him.
The word comes easy now. Not perfect. Still rough at the edges. Mine anyway.
Rafe bends and kisses my forehead. His hand stays spread over my back, warm and steady.
“Yeah,” he says. “Home.”
And for the first time in my life, the word means every place I am loved.
And every place I choose.
Thank you for stepping into the forest with me.
I hope you felt it—the quiet, the warmth, the way this world holds you without asking you to be anything other than what you are.