Gus takes the papers, offering them to Rhett, when he doesn’t take them himself from me. He finally takes them, and Gus scoots closer. I watch their eyes flick back and forth over the paper.
No doubt reading about the trigger word stipulations and the secrecy clause—which I barely took a word from. This all feels very icky. I can’t believe it’s real, but beyond that… I can’t believe Grannie did this.
Rhett flips to the next page.
“There,” Gus says, pointing at it.
Rhett reads aloud. “The first part of the curse will be lifted when the cursed considers staying on the property.” He pauses, taking a shaky breath before continuing. “Thesecond and final part of the curse will be lifted when the cursed has a reason not to leave the property.”
“So, we were right,” Gus says, looking at me. He then looks at Rhett. “I was right.”
Rhett shakes his head. “Then why can’t I leave?”
“Maybe because you want to,” Gus says.
Rhett frowns, looks at me, then toward the door. He drops the paper on the bed and hurries for it.
“Wait!” I call, going after him.
He speeds down the stairs and out the front door, jogging for the main road. By the time I catch up to him, he’s standing in the middle of it, staring towards Main Square.
I stop at the property line, and Gus is there a moment later.
He takes my hand, holding it tightly, as we watch Rhett make his decision.
Is he going to go, or is he going to stay? Will he run for it or will he turn back?
Part of him must want to stay, or he wouldn’t have been able to leave at all.
But that doesn’t mean he will. It doesn’t mean he will choose me… or this farm.
“He wanted to stay,” Gus says softly. “Enough that it broke the curse.”
I can’t say anything. There’s a lump in my throat that I can’t speak past.
Rhett takes a step forward, just one, then he stops and bows his head. I go to him, sliding my arms around his waist and hugging him tightly.
“It’s okay,” I say. “If you’re scared. It’s a lot. We can go together.”
He nods, hugging me back.
“We have to tell Wade,” he whispers.
“We can’t tell Wade,” Gus says as he stops beside us. “It won’t work if we do. We know that for sure now.”
“Then how do we get him to do this?” Rhett asks. “How do we make him choose to stay?”
“Maybe… we put the idea in his head,” Gus says.
“How do we do that?” I ask.
“We tell him we aren’t going anywhere,” Gus suggests. “He cares about us enough that he may consider staying.”
I look up at Gus, who smiles down at me.
“I don’t know…” Rhett says, running a hand through his hair. “He—”
Honk! Honk!
