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“I’m totally okay.”
“And you’d tell me if that had changed?”
It’s so hard to meet her eyes, but this time it’s more because of the guilt that threatens to swallow me than how uncomfortable I find it. I bite my lip, teeth sinking into it, then say without faltering, “Yeah, Mom. If something has changed or does change, I promise you’ll be the first to know.” At the very least, it’ll placate her. She won’t worry so much if she thinks I’m being honest with her. Even though it hurts to lie by omission to my biggest supporter and the woman who got me through the worst times in my life.
But I just need to think for a while.
“I won’t be gone long,” I assure her, knowing from Nic that there’s another curfew. “I’ll be back before mid-afternoon, probably. I just want to go for a walk so I can clear my head. You know how things are sometimes, right?” I wiggle my fingers at my head. “Things are loud up here.”
“And you need to quiet them.” My mom nods in understanding. “You’re so much like your dad sometimes. He’s done that ever since I’ve met him. I think it’s genetic.” Her tone is teasing, but her ease is forced. I know she’s worried about more than just my mental state, but she’s at least nice enough not to push it right now.
For that, I flash her a quick grin, hoping it’s good enough to help reassure her. Quickly I grab a pair of sneakers, toeing them on while she turns to scratch Stranger’s ears when he meows for her attention.
“If you’re home early enough, we’ll grab Indian food for dinner,” she tells me, wiggling her brows theatrically. “I’ll even go pick it up.”
“You bless me with your graciousness. With yourkindness,” I bow to her, making large, sweeping movements with my arms as I do. It brings a smile to her face. Arealone, and something in me lightens. I don’t feel so bad anymore, and it’s easier to unglue my feet from the floor, hoodie yanked over me as I open my door and wait for her.
“I know,” my mom sighs, patting my shoulder. “I’m just so good like that. Be home before dark? I don’t want to have to send out the cavalry.”
“On my honor,” I assure her, heading for the stairs. “Or however the Girl Scout oath goes.”
“I don’t think that works for you,” Mom points out, striding by as I unlock the front door. “You were never a Girl Scout, remember?”
“Oh, right.” With the door halfway open, I turn to grin again. “Clearly I missed out.”
Chapter21
Idon’t exactly stop to think about where I’m going. I justwalk, letting the rhythm of my steps help my brain as I think through the night before, and the news that Evan is still alive.
There should be some amount of ‘good person’ in me, right? Something, somewhere, that’s so happy that hope is real, prayers were answered, and Evan didn’t die in the barn.
Where he should have bled to death.
Is it my fault for showing up and making Rory chase me away from the body? If I hadn’t been there, if Rory hadn’t left, would Evan be dead right now? By this logic, Evan definitely owes me his life, and I’d more than happily collect.
My exhales of breath are visible in the cool morning air, and I curl my hands tighter in the pockets of my hoodie. I’m sure I look like a mess. Before leaving the house, I hadn’t even brushed my hair, and for some stupid reason, I extricate my hands from the warmth of my pockets to correct that as best I can. I don’t want someone seeing me and thinking I’ve lost it. God forbid that’s the call my parents get from our neighbors in the middle of the day.
Thankfully, it doesn’t take me long to get my hair in some semblance of being acceptable for the public eye. Though I wish I had a hair tie with me to take care of the problem until I want to deal with detangling it. Either way, I’m out of our subdivision before long, my steps taking me along the outskirts of town instead of really going into it. But that’s fine. I don’t want to go somewhere I’m more likely to actuallyseepeople.
On that front, I scuff my shoes on the sidewalk and look up, not exactly surprised to see myself outside of the park yet again. Lately, this seems like my happy place. It’s too cold for kids to be here for long, especially this week. And as long as I swerve the errant jogger, biker, or dog walker, I’m good to go.
And staying off of the main trails is exactly how I do that. I don’t stick to any of them, but I tread through as much grass as possible as I walk deeper into the one hundred and fifty-acre piece of public land. It’s easy for people who are just visiting to get lost here. Especially if they don’t follow the trails, sidewalks, or roads. But I’ve never had that issue.
The woods that dot the edges and stream through the middle of the park have always felt like home to me. Even when I didn’t know them as well as I do now. As I walk, my steps crunch through leaves coating the ground, and I try to step over the bigger piles so I don’t disturb them even more.
It isn’t until I see the tree that I realize where my thoughts and my feet have brought me. But I can’t muster up any kind of shock as I stare up at the tree where Agnes was hanged so long ago.
“I should know better than to play with dead things,” I murmur thoughtfully, gazing up at the long, winding branches bereft of most of their leaves already. This tree is always the first to lose its leaves, and the last to get them back in the spring for some reason. I don’t stop until I’m right up against the white oak tree, and the sweet scent of leaf mold tickles my nose when I reach out to spread my fingers along the smooth bark.
For all its pretty colors, isn’t that all that autumn is? The season of dead and dying things, showing off their prettiest colors as rot eats them from the bottom up. Even the gorgeous leaves will turn brown and curl on their branches or atop the dead grass. By spring there won’t be any trace of them at all, and new leaves will bloom to herald in a new year.
But not yet. In my mind, autumn is the perfect season. It’s balanced between living things and dead ones, and I wonder how many people see the irony of their love of autumn colors, when all of those colors are the shades in which thingsdie.
My fingers curl against the smoothness of the bark, and I close my eyes seconds before I press my forehead to it. Wondering, not for the first time, how much truth is in the story of the witch Agnes. Every kid in Hollow Bridge hears the story from their parents, from teachers, from anyone who likes the season enough to celebrate it.
But I’ve never stopped to wonder if any parts of the fable could be based on reality. After all, isn’t that where folklore comes from originally? Surely there has to be some kernel, someatomof Agnes’s story that’s real. Even if she wasn’t a witch that had successfully cursed the town and nearly brought it to its knees before she was killed once and for all.
My hand comes off of the bark, though I don’t move, when a crunch in the leaves behind me proves I’m no longer alone. My eyes open a second later, and there’s a moment of regret that I’m going to lose my peaceful solitude, but I push it away as I turn, pivoting in the colorful, dying leaves that are nearly ankle deep on the ground at my feet.
