Page 18 of Wild Thorns

When I looked again, they were gone. But the paper Eli had been holding was still there, pinned beneath a rock at the base of the magnolia tree.

I didn't go down to look at it.

But I wanted to. God help me, I wanted to.

Chapter six

Voices in the Night

Week three in Magnolia Creek, and I was learning the patterns.

The town had its rhythms, predictable as a heartbeat once you knew how to listen. The morning rush at The Daily Grind, when the line snaked past the pastry case and Mel's hands never stopped moving, pulling shots and steaming milk with the efficiency of someone who'd done it ten thousand times. The afternoon quiet at the design studio, when Lila put on jazz and we worked in companionable silence, the only sounds the click of mice, the hum of the ancient air conditioner, and the occasional death rattle of the coffee maker that she refused to replace. Evening walks through the historic district, when the light turned golden and the shadows stretched long across cobblestones worn smooth by a century of footsteps.

I was learning which streets had the best magnolia trees, their blooms heavy and sweet-smelling in the humid air. Which shortcuts avoided the tourist crowds that gathered near the antique shops and the ice cream parlor with its hand-painted sign. Which storefronts had been here for generations, their facades unchanged since the 1800s, and which were new arrivals, trying to fit into a town that didn't change easily or quickly.

And I was learning which details marked this place as something older and stranger than it first appeared.

The iron fences around certain properties were engraved with symbols I didn't recognize. Not quite Celtic, not quite runic, not quite anything I could find in my late-night searches, scrolling through occult websites and historical archives until my eyes burned. They curved and interlocked in patterns that seemed almost organic, like vines frozen in metal, like something living that had been caught mid-growth. Some of them matched the Thornwood crest I'd seen on the courthouse ironwork, a wolf's head surrounded by magnolia blossoms. Others were different, belonging to other families, other histories I didn't know yet.

The historic cemetery had a section that was always locked, separated from the rest by a fence topped with those same strange symbols. The stones there were unmarked, smooth granite slabs with no names, no dates, no inscriptions. Just gray stone and silence. But someone maintained them. Fresh flowers appeared regularly, wildflowers mostly, the kind that grew in the preserve. And the grass was always trimmed, even when the rest of the cemetery went a few days between mowings.

The preserve that bordered the Thornwood estate was fenced with wrought iron, the posts inscribed with sigils that caught the light. They curved and interlocked in patterns that seemed almost alive, and no matter the angle of the sun, they gleamed with an intensity that seemed more than natural. It seemed impractical and expensive for what should have been simple land management. No one walked into the preserve after dark. No one even seemed to look at it after sunset, their eyes sliding past as if the treeline wasn't there, like their brains refused to acknowledge its existence.

I asked Lila about it once, while we worked on a branding project for a local winery.

"The preserve? It's protected land." She didn't look up from her screen, her voice carefully neutral in that way I was learning to recognize. "Has been for generations. The Voss family maintains it."

"But the sigil-marked fencing—"

"Keeps the deer out, I think." She said it too quickly, the words rehearsed. "I've heard deer have an aversion to certain metals. It's a thing."

It was not a thing. I'd looked it up that night, scrolling through wildlife management sites and agricultural forums until two in the morning. Deer had no particular aversion to iron or any metals. If anything, they were more likely to rub their antlers against metal posts than avoid them.

But Lila's tone made it clear the subject was closed, so I filed it away with everything else I was collecting. The oddities. The inconsistencies. The questions no one wanted to answer.

I noticed the way certain people moved.

There was a subset of Magnolia Creek's population that seemed to know each other without speaking, who communicated in glances and slight nods across crowded rooms. They shared something, some quality I couldn't quite name. A way of holding themselves. A particular awareness of their surroundings that went beyond normal attention.

Dex Fontaine ran the auto shop on Main Street, a weathered building with a hand-painted sign that said "Fontaine & Sons" even though I'd never seen any sons. He had shoulders like a linebacker and moved with the same predatory grace I'd noticed in Callum, that economical efficiency that suggested every muscle knew its purpose. When he came into The Daily Grind, the other customers made space without seeming to realize they were doing it, shifting aside like water parting around a stone.

I watched him one morning, really watched him, the way I used to watch subjects before designing their brand identity. Cataloguing details. Looking for the truth beneath the surface.

He scanned the room before choosing a seat, his eyes moving in a systematic sweep that covered every corner, every exit, every occupied table. He positioned himself with his back to the wall and a clear sightline to both doors. When someone new entered, his head turned slightly toward the sound, even though his back was to the entrance. His nostrils flared, just slightly, the same way Callum's did.

It was the same thing I did. The same hypervigilance. The same constant calculation of threat and escape.

Except his didn't look like trauma. It looked like training.

"Local family?" I asked Mel after he'd left with his coffee, a to-go cup that seemed small in his massive hand.

She smiled, showing those too-sharp canines that I'd stopped trying to explain away. "You could say that."

"That's not really an answer."

"It's the answer you get." But she said it kindly, her dark eyes warm, like she was protecting me from something rather than shutting me out. "Some questions are better left unasked around here, sugar. At least until you've been here long enough to understand the answers."

"How long is that?"