“That is not helpful.” Eva shoved the key into the lock, gritting her teeth. When it clicked, she let out a laugh. “Here, help me lift the door.”
Together, we shouldered open the escape hatch. It took effort at first. The door hadn’t been opened in years, and weeds hadgrown over the edges. As we forced it open, the popping sound of roots filled my ears, and loose sediment spilled into the cellar. I held my breath as I peered outside, anxious that I could see neither the road nor whatever backup the deputy had brought to the cottage.
Eva rolled the heavy tent bag out onto the grass and looked at me. “Get your keys ready. We’ll run to the van.”
“They’ll catch us.”
Eva’s mouth pinned down in a fine line of determination. “No. They won’t.”
And maybe it was just an echo of all that stood between us, unhealed, but it felt, in some way, as it had years before when she’d asked me if I trusted her. I took a breath, fishing my keys from my pocket. “On my mark. One, two—”
“Fly.”
“Run!”
We bolted toward the front of the house.
“FLY!”the monster sang again. It breezed through me, giddy at the wind rushing through our fingers.
Someone called out to us, but I didn’t look back as I yanked the driver’s door wide and tossed first the sleeping bag, then the heavier tent bag inside.
Eva leapt into her seat and slammed her door. “Go! GO!”
I jammed my keys into the ignition and turned. As the van coughed to life, the man Dane had called Grayson burst out the front door, flanked by two other deputies. Eva swiveled in her seat, and in my rearview mirror, I watched the earth buckle under one of the patrol car’s tires. Weeds slithered up and around the wheels as Grayson yanked the car’s door handle, surprising him so much that he cried out and jumped back.
I laughed in disbelief. “Was that you?”
“I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be sorry! That was… wow.” I’d never seen her use her magic with such precision. The sight of her power, of the forest bending to her will, stole my breath.
Eva flushed a violent pink. “I guess it comes in handy sometimes.”
I turned my attention back to the road, feeling suddenly lighter. “I guess it does.”
Chapter 15
Eva
Eva spread the atlas she’d taken onto the dashboard and squinted at her father’s minuscule scrawl in the margins. The tentative hunch she’d had when she found this map stashed away with his letters from Charlotte solidified a little more as she traced a heavily circled mile marker, and the note beside it.Aspens.
“Take the north road,” Eva said.
It was the quickest way to the trailhead, and rarely used by visitors. After Arthur dropped her off, he could follow the back roads all the way down to the valley.
She expected Arthur to push back and demand more information. Instead, he only nodded, gripping the wheel. They’d gained an advantage by disabling the patrol car back at the house, but Eva knew the sheriff’s men would call for backup soon. The oncoming storm might delay them, but she couldn’t rely on the incompetence of the county’s paltry sheriff’s department, not with so much on the line. They needed to hurry.
After another mile, Eva turned to him. “Do you remember my father’s stories?”
Maybe it was a mistake to crack open the door like this, butshe needed someone to reassure her she wasn’t crazy for thinking there was something more to those old tales than simply a child’s entertainment.
“Remember?” Arthur snorted. “They gave me nightmares.”
“Do you remember the honeyman who found a field of magic flowers?”
“Sure,” Arthur said. “He stole their magic or something?”
“Right.” Eva took a breath, tapping the mile marker on the atlas. “Well, I thinkthismight be that meadow.”
