My gut was spot on.
Dear Simon,
I keep having dreams about you. Nightmares, actually. You are trapped and alone in that place we used to visit. You keep calling out to me, begging for my help, and now here I am, sitting in the library we so often sat in together.
I don’t know what to make of these dreams. I only know it shouldn’t have taken nightmares to bring me back to Foggy Hollow, not when my daughter is here. Isn’t that wild? That Selah would find her way to this town, of all towns?
Fate is a powerful thing. A mysterious thing.
I hate what happened, Simon. I hate that I abandoned you, knowing the truth. I could have found a way back. I could have tried to save you, or at least seen if you were alive to be saved. Instead, I left and I’ve been leaving ever since. Abandoning the people I love. I can’t seem to stop doing it. What happened all those years ago haunts me. And yet, as I sit here I can’t help but wonder, would Selah exist if you hadn’t disappeared? I don’t want to live in a world where she doesn’t. And I don’t want to be a coward anymore, either.
I want to be brave.
I want to stay.
I want to be a mother to my daughter. As much as I wish I could, I can’t make things rightwith you. You are gone. I must come to terms with that. But I can make things right with her.
I pray you and Lily and your parents are resting in peace.
Please forgive me for not trying harder.
Love forever,
Clara
My eyes burn.
My chest, too.
Here is the proof.
More than a vision. More than a gut feeling.
My mother came back and she wanted to stay. She knew I was here. She didn’t want to run. She wanted to make things right.
But then she did run.
Through the woods.
From a monster.
For her life.
46
AN UNCANNY ENCOUNTER
My boots crunch over snow as I walk away from the parked Bronco toward the footpath, Lily’s sketchpad tucked under my arm. Up ahead, water babbles over stone, too fast to freeze, and somewhere in the trees, a crow caws just once.
Behind me, tires pop over frozen gravel.
I turn around and spot Rafe—not in his ostentatious blood red Gullwing, but in a slightly less ostentatious midnight blue Porsche. I really shouldn’t be surprised. Still, my muscles pull tight as he pulls off the road, his elbow draped over the ledge of his open window.
The car idles in a low, steady purr.
“Good morning,” he says, tipping hissunglasses down, his breath clouding in the cold. “Did you have a nice Christmas?”
I glare at him.
