At that, she turned back to face me. Her eyes met mine, and for a second, something shifted in them. Something I wasn’t familiar with. Almost like annoyance, but not entirely.
“Did you find the book?” she asked, and my brows creased.
A question to a question. That wasn’t like her.
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
She took a step closer. “You need to hurry, bug.” She raised her hand, almost caressing my face, and I could barely hold myself from trying to lean into her touch. “Time isn’t limitless.”
Questions bloomed inside me, stirring warm before burning with urgency.
“What does that mean?”
Her hand dropped, brushing the table’s edge. “You’re on the right path.” Her voice was faint, distant, layered like it was echoing from inside a cave. “It hides in the woods.”
The woods.A shiver crept down my spine at the memory of the river, and I glanced down at my arms.
“But why do I need to find it?” I asked after a moment.
She looked at me, her gaze pouring into my own, and fear grabbed my throat when I realised she was slipping away, like water through cracks.
“Mum,” I whispered desperately. “Don’t go yet.”
But she faded like fog curling back into the sky before I even formed the words.
I dashed through the forest,weaving between the bony trees. The sky was a dismal grey overhead, the air thick with the imminent promise of rain.
There was no sound of birds, no sign of life, despite the slumbering trees, and even those curved oddly, unlike anything I had seen before. The leaves crunched under my boots on the muddy path as I continued along on the same route I took a few weeks ago. I could hear the river streaming close by, but this time, I avoided it by all means. Holding my knife firmly in my hand I followed a different melody. One from my dreams.
I pushed through a curtain of low-hanging branches, and a familiar clearing unfolded in front of me. Gravestones encircled the space like silent sentinels, some half-buried, others cloaked in moss.
My blood surged, my heartbeat an erratic drumbeat against my ribs as I crossed the clearing, avoiding the wild privets. The Virginia Creepers that hid the gate of the mausoleum were there, flowing like a low hanging emerald curtain instead of the river of crimson I saw in my dreams.
I flipped the penknife between my fingers, tracing the leaves and butterflies edged into its handle, as I rested my feet between the wet foliage, trying my best not to slip on them.
Then, I slashed. The blade whispered through them, one stem at a time, their ivory sap streaking across my fingers. It smelled faintly metallic, like rust and rot. Just as I caught a glimpse of grey limestone behind the last cluster of leaves, something jerked my ankle.
The knife slipped from my grip.
I staggered, and instinctively caught hold of a nearby vine to stop my fall. Pain lanced through me. Thorns, long and hooked like fishbones, buried themselves into the skin of my palm as if the plant had been waiting for me.
I clenched my teeth and tried to stay upright, even as the vine dug deeper. My hand burned, blood trickling in thin lines between my fingers. I looked down and froze.
A thick, dark green creeper twisted up my calf, thorns glinting wetly as it coiled tighter and tighter. It moved like it had purpose. Like it was hunting. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. Panic clawed its way up my throat. I tried to shake it off, but every tug sent another thorn slicing into my trousers.
“Bloody—”
The curse died in my throat as another tendril broke free from the wall, slithering toward me like a bloodied vein.
It wrapped around my wrist with a whip-like snap.
I hissed through clenched teeth as small drops of blood broke free beneath my skin, welling up where the thorns pierced through. The crimson was quickly swallowed by the dark fabric of my coat sleeve, disappearing like it had never existed, which I would have easily believed, had the dull, gnawing pain that throbbed in time with my heartbeat not been left behind.
What kind of ill-fated plants were these?
I looked down, searching frantically for my knife. Where could it have fallen? Then, half-hidden beneath the sting of a nettle, its silver blade caught a flicker of light. I stretched my fingers, but the vines held my wrists in place.
A low, measured voice broke the silence of the forest around me.
