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“We always will.” Coral folded her hand over Sadie’s, squeezing gently. “How about we do lunch again soon?”
“I’d like that.” Maybe not all the time, but again would be nice.
Coral then showed her some of the gowns she’d been sketching in her drawing pad—they were darker than her other designs, gorgeous blacks and flowing skirts. Sadie finished her sandwich and they chatted a long while before she knew she needed to get home.
After she left Coral’s, the anxious feeling grew stronger, pulling at her to get back to the cabin, to see if the shadow that had smelled of River would be in the woods, so she sped on the empty road. When she was almost there, her phone rang, startling her. Charlie.
“So,” Sadie drawled, disguising the restlessness inside her, “you talked awfully late with Skyler last night.”
“It was ridiculous how you bolted inside like that.”
Sadie’s brow rose. “We both know you didn’t mind or you would’ve banged on the door.”
“God, you’re so frustrating.”
“You’re going to hang out with him, aren’t you? Or did you two go somewhere after you left my place,” Sadie purred.
“Seriously, shut up.” Charlie laughed.
“You so did!”
“Anyway,” Charlie said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come out there?”
“Look, if things got really brutal out here, I would crawl back to you in a bloody little heartbeat.”
“No, you wouldn’t! You would still stay there and say it isn’t so bad.”
“I mean, it would create a miraculous story. And if I’m not worried, then you don’t need to be worried, big sister.” This was the lightness she needed, but as she pulled in front of the cabin, the desperate desire filled her to get off the phone and go into the woods.
“You’re doing great, Sadie. But if anything changes, and I mean anything, I’ll be there in a nanosecond,” Charlie said, her words sincere as always.
“Will do. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Stepping out of the truck, Sadie trekked through the woods, not finding a single moving shadow. She came to the oak tree where she’d released River’s ashes and had seen the silhouette. She breathed deeply, hoping to catch River’s scent, but it was only pine. With a sigh, she knelt in front of its trunk and pressed her back against the bark.
“I’m sorry I locked your ashes away before freeing them, but I selfishly didn’t want to let you go,” she whispered. “And then I knew I had to, yet now, it’s as though you’re here sometimes. I want you to hear me because then that would mean you haven’t left, that maybe you were in the bathroom with me, that you did touch me last night. Not my imagination. But that could just be wishful thinking, right? Since you’ve been gone, I’ve loved you, hated you, missed you like crazy. I don’t know why you hung yourself, why you left me. I don’t know if it was something I did. If I could’ve done more… I just wish you were here so I could slap you, then hug you, dammit.” Hot tears spilled from her eyes, and she curled against the leaves and dirt, sobbing for what felt like hours. Until there weren’t any tears left, and her throat was dry from crying.
Sadie stared up at the sky, listening to the silence accompanied by her heavy breathing. Movement caught her attention along the ground near the tree across from her. Shadows. But no other scent besides the woods. She started to crawl toward them and froze as her gaze fell on a pile of dead beetles littering the dirt. It wasn’t only beetles that surrounded the area, though. Butterflies, spiders, ants…
What is this?
The shadows crept toward her, more drifting across the ground from behind trees. They seemed to dance and entwine with one another as they formed a circle around her, inching closer. She held her arm out where the shadows should have reflected on her skin, blocking it from the dirt. But they didn’t. Her breath caught. It was like the shadows were trapped along the ground. Or inside it? She thought about the shadow in the bathroom disappearing into the floor, then the one outside during the night. Digging her fingers into the dirt, she peeled away layer after layer. Yet the silhouettes remained, swirling between one another. There was still no scent coming from them.
“Who are you?” she asked. But no words escaped them.
Sadie needed to dig farther, and she needed something more than her bare hands to get answers. That desperation clawed at her once more.
Leaving her position, she snatched a shovel from the shed, returned to the oak tree, and slammed it into the dirt. Digging. And digging. And digging. Creating a gaping hole.
Wiping the perspiration from her forehead, Sadie watched the shadows swim within the dirt, following her downward.
So she continued to dig.
Chapter Nine
“I would follow you anywhere.”
