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“One more thing. Just one more thing to show you.” She hurried back toward the cabin to the place where River had left her the messages. She didn’t think Skyler would see the words, but she would show him them anyway.
Sadie waved him closer, pointing at the messages. “Do you see them?”
Skyler’s eyebrows knitted together, and he dropped to the balls of his feet. “If you come to me tonight, you will only learn of more wicked things? Yes, my sweet nightmare. We both are?”
“You see them!” Sadie covered her mouth, relief washing over her that he could see something. “In shadow form, River wrote these earlier. There’s another message out in the woods that told me to leave here.”
Skyler rubbed the back of his neck, staring at her hard, as if he was trying to read something inside her.
“It’s his handwriting,” she said, her voice shaking.
He sighed. “Handwriting can be mimicked if someone tries hard enough.”
Sadie felt the color drain from her face. The thought crossing her mind briefly—what if she had? “I didn’t write it!”
“I’m not saying you did.” Skyler paused. “I saw the rod move in your hand, remember? But if something supernatural is warning you to leave, maybe you should listen. It’s not healthy for you to do this to yourself. I’m telling you as a friend, not as a police officer.”
Tears pricked her eyes, and she decided to confess the rest to him about what had happened at night the past few times, leaving out the part where River was struggling with urges to hold back from hurting her. That wouldn’t go over well at all.
“Fiends with animal skull faces? River trapped below ground? A veil? And now you’re seeing bloody animals and trees in new positions when you’re not asleep? I honestly think this is something fucked, Sadie. And dark.”
“And what if the dark things want to hurt River after marking him, marking me?” Sadie shouted. “If you lost Charlie in the same way I lost River, and this was happening to you, would you leave it alone? Let her spirit be trapped in these woods?”
Skyler’s face softened, and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. “I would rip every tree out of the ground here to set Charlie’s spirit free. But this isn’t me—it’s you, and I don’t want you hurt.”
“As a friend, I need you to support that I’m going to stay here,” Sadie bit back, stepping away from him.
“And as a friend, I’m telling you that each day you’ve been here, the things that are slowly unfolding are becoming more sinister. What’s going to come out of Pandora’s box after tonight? After tomorrow? Once you unravel everything? I’ve seen enough horror in my life, both real and not, to know when it’s time to get the hell out of a situation. I’m telling you, the time is now.”
“If it’s only affecting me, then why does it matter?” she whispered.
“What happens to you affects me, and it also affects your sister.” He exhaled in exasperation. “I can tell you’re stubborn as hell and aren’t going to leave. You’re an adult, and I can’t force you to, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep checking on you. Charlie too.”
“You’re right. I won’t leave.” Sadie folded her arms and bit the inside of her cheek. “Thank you, Skyler.” She gave him another hug before walking him back to his car, asking him not to tell any of this to Charlie. If Sadie chose to, she wanted to be the one to tell her.
After Skyler left, she drank down the hot chocolate he’d brought, even though it had grown cold, the way the blood pulsing in her veins was starting to feel. Now that she was alone, she could only focus on Kalina’s words once more. She was marked.
Sadie sat on the porch, catching glimpses of the shadows peeking out from the woods every so often.
She went inside, finally taking a hot shower, then filling up the bath to relax and not think for a little bit. Tears fell down her cheeks, and she drew her knees to her chest while her body racked with sobs, not knowing why she was even crying. But she felt something in her chest expand, as if it soon would crack open.
A shadow crept beneath the door, and Sadie’s eyes widened when she inhaled River’s scent. His silhouette slid up the wall to the mirror, his shadowy finger writing into the fog of the glass. Follow me.
Sadie frowned as his silhouette slipped back beneath the door. An anxious feeling pulsed in her, and she hurried to towel off before throwing on a T-shirt and black pants. She found River gliding across the floor in the living room as if he was pacing. He then passed through the wall leading outside.
Collecting the flashlight and her phone, she threw open the door and followed him into the woods, where only a little daylight remained. River stopped in front of the brown rabbit with its torn-out chest.
“What do you want me to see?” Sadie asked.
His finger slid across the dirt. Wait.
Sadie didn’t know what she was waiting for, but she listened, standing there for about ten minutes when the sky started to darken, the wind blowing across her skin. And then the sounds of the forest filled the gathering night. The beating of the rabbit’s heart as she knew it would make. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. The thumps grew to a roar as the sounds of hearts beating thundered around her, from every fallen creature throughout the woods.
She gasped as the bloody heart sank into the ground and the rabbit’s broken chest sealed itself shut. The animal roused, yet it didn’t dart back into the trees like the ones had the previous nights. The rabbit’s body quivered, as did the other animals around her that she could see. Their bodies shrunk in on themselves, withering, becoming smaller, their coloring turning to onyx. The fur on the rabbit changed to something else entirely.
Sadie’s eyes widened—what rested in front of her was no longer a rabbit but a shadowy butterfly … no, a moth. The other animals had turned the same, flying up into the trees, their fragile wings fluttering. She had an inkling that once midnight arrived they would become ivory.
Sadie pointed her flashlight at the dirt until she found River’s shadow. “By showing me this, you had to know it would only make me more curious.”
