Jake stepped closer, concern on his face.“We need to get her out of here.”
Jenna’s heart pounded with fear.“Piper, we're going back to the car now.Can you walk?”
Piper blinked slowly, some awareness returning to her eyes.“Jenna?”she whispered, her voice small and confused.
“I'm right here,” Jenna assured her, wrapping an arm around her sister's waist.“Let's go home.”
With Jake supporting Piper's other side and Frank leading the way, they began the trek back through the woods.Piper's shivers gradually continued as they emerged from the forest into the yard, and her expression remained distant, haunted.
As they approached the car, Jenna couldn't shake the unease.Piper's vision wasn't about Little Red Riding Hood at all—it was something else entirely.Snow, blood, ebony.The elements of another story altogether, one just as dark and full of peril.It seemed vaguely familiar but she couldn’t remember the story.
Snow White, maybe?she wondered.
All she could be sure of was that somewhere in Trentville, a killer was planning their next fairy tale murder.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
As Jenna drove, she could see from quick glances in the rearview mirror that Piper was still trembling in the back seat of the car—chilly despite Frank’s jacket pulled tightly around her.She knew that her sister wasn't experiencing a normal cold—this came from somewhere beyond their world, from the winter landscape of a vision.
Frank also sat in back, one weathered hand holding Piper's, while Jake kept turning in the passenger seat to keep check on her.
“Still with us, Piper?”Jenna asked.
Piper’s teeth were chattering.“S-snow everywhere,” she whispered.“Can't you s-see it?”
Jake shot Jenna a concerned look.“Just a few more minutes to your mom’s.She’ll probably do better at home.”
Jenna pressed down harder on the accelerator.This wasn't the first time Piper had slipped into a vision state, but the intensity—the way it had physically affected her—was new and terrifying.
“Red against white,” Piper murmured, her gaze fixed on something beyond the car window.“So beautiful...”
Jenna turned onto her mother's street, driving faster than she normally would on a residential road.After they arrived and helped Piper get out of the car, Mom greeted them at her front door.
“Thank God.What happened?”
“Let's get her inside first,” Jenna said, supporting her sister as they stepped through the door.They steered Piper to the living room sofa, where she plopped down, still looking confused.
“Why is she shaking like that?”Mom demanded.
“She had a vision of snow,” Jenna replied.“It’s still real to her.”
At that, Mom disappeared into another room, returning moments later with a thick quilt that she tucked around Piper's still-trembling form.
“Now,” Mom demanded, “someone tell me exactly what happened out there.”
Jenna perched on the sofa beside her sister.“Piper had a vision at the crime scene, but not about the murder we're investigating.She saw snow and blood, and talked about pricking her finger.”
“Three drops of blood in the snow,” Piper whispered, her gaze still unfocused.“White as snow, red as blood, black as ebony.”
Mom's face paled.“That sounds like—”
When she didn’t finish the sentence, Jake said, “Not Little Red Riding Hood.”
“Snow White,” Frank said, lowering himself into an armchair, his knees cracking with the movement.“I’ve read those stories to children, grandkids.The newer versions, of course.”
That’s what it had sounded like to Jenna as well.“Something about wishing for a daughter, wasn’t it?”she asked.
“Wait a minute,” Mom spoke a little sharply.“We need to get Piper settled down before we start on any stories.”She turned to Piper and asked, “Sweetheart, where did you put that brooch Jenna gave you?The one with the opal?”
