Despite my brain telling me not to take it personally, my ego smarts. Why does he have to be so mysterious? Maybe I wouldn’t be this intrigued by him if he would just tell me his name instead of warning me away from the forest. What is so bad about the woods?
Even as the fleeting thought enters my mind, I can’t stop a full-body shiver from taking hold. I glance back at the house. The trash bag is barely visible from here, and the wind whistles through the leaves like a haunted melody while the grass at my ankles tickles my sensitive skin.
I cross my arms around my midriff and scan the area again. My gaze skips over the tractor, the stack of old tires, the chickencoop, and even the trees behind the house. But there’s no sign of him.
My attention snags on one of the windows upstairs, where the curtain twitches. I swear someone is watching me through the thin gap, someone who wants to stay hidden.
Swallowing past a lump in my throat, I stare at the gap until my eyes burn, the unease twisting my insides. My feet move back, one small step at a time, until my internal warning bells become too loud to ignore, and I spin around, refusing to look back.
This place, thistown, is all wrong. There’s something dormant here that can’t be ignored, something that can only be felt.
Rain comes down heavily on the windshield as we drive down the dark road. Keith, my stepdad, glances at his phone on the dashboard when it rings, but he makes no move to answer Dominic’s phone call. Instead, he ignores it with a swipe of his finger and eases back in his seat.
“How did it go?”
“How did what go? The ballet exam?”
He nods, and I’m impressed he remembers it was today.
“I passed,” I reply with a small shrug.
Dominic’s twin brother, Lewis, ignores us in the backseat while typing on his phone.
“You don’t sound happy about it.”
Keith has always been perceptive about things. He knows I want to quit.
“It’s complicated,” I reply, hoping he’ll drop it.
“You know…” he starts, staring out the windshield while the wipers struggle to keep up with the heavy rain. “We’ve had this conversation. It’s okay if you don’t want to do ballet. Your mom will understand.”
I study the straight line of his nose and the day-old stubble on his sharp jaw. Keith looks at me and smiles softly.
“I’m not sure.” I drop my gaze to my lap. “Mom was the best ballet performer in the state at my age. She would have made it into a career if she hadn’t injured her ankle.”
“You’re not your mom. You don’t have to follow in her footsteps.”
“I know, but I don’t want to disappoint—” My eyes widen as I look out the window.
There’s a man in the middle of the road, soaked from head to toe, with an axe in his hand. A man in a flannel shirt and jeans. A man who’s staring at the approaching headlights with dark-rimmed, dead eyes.
I grab hold of Keith’s arm and shout, “Look out!”
He slams the brakes, but it’s too late. Screeching tires follow, and I jerk forward, held in place by the seatbelt. Just as we’re about to hit the man, he disperses like fine mist into thin air. Keith loses control of the car, and I scream as we careen into a murky river?—
Startling awake with a cry, my heart hammers wildly. I gulp down breaths as I try to gain my bearings. It’s been a long time since I had a nightmare about that night. I thought they were over, but I was wrong.
“It was just a dream,” a deep, gravelly voice interrupts my racing thoughts. I stiffen, only now noticing the large shadow that sits on the floor by my bed.
Dominic scratches Bruno behind the ears, his eyes locked on the closed door. “Go back to sleep.”
Surprised, I blink, but he’s still there, draped in shadows. “Dominic?” I ask, sitting up in bed and staring at the back of his head. “Why are you in my room?”
The seconds tick by while I wait for his response. Seconds that stretch into minutes before his deep tenor disturbs the silence. “You said someone comes into your room at night.”
My heart stalls. I’m sure of it. “Not someone,” I whisper. “Something.”
He hums, petting Bruno, and then he drawls, “Go back to sleep.”
