“You’re her niece.”
“Great-niece, technically. Krista Johnson.” I clear my throat. “This is Mari.”
“I know who you are.”
I blink. “You do?”
“The Hollow doesn’t get visitors by accident.”
Of course it doesn’t.
He steps back and walks to the front of the car. I follow him out, boots crunching against gravel and frost-tipped leaves. The air bites at my cheeks, crisp and cold, but clean in a way city air never managed.
“I’ll tow it past the gate,” he says. “It can sit at the edge until you figure out what’s wrong with it.”
“You’re not worried I’m here to... I don’t know, ruin the neighborhood?”
He gives me a look that suggests the idea is too ridiculous to answer. Then he crouches and, with an alarming lack of effort, grips the front bumper and starts pulling.
I can’t help but gape. It’s not a small car. The engine block alone should weigh enough to anchor him. But he moves like it’s nothing—like dragging it up a mild slope is no more difficult than tugging a sled.
“Mama, he’s really strong,” Mari whispers through the open door.
“Yes, baby. He really is.”
By the time he’s cleared the gate, the fog has thickened again, coiling around the wrought iron like it’s being drawn there. I fish the old skeleton key from my coat pocket—because yes, Johanna left a literal iron key in the envelope—and slip it into the lock.
It turns with a sound like a sigh. The gate swings inward.
“You’ll want to follow the path. Don’t stray left,” the orc says, wiping his hands on a rag he pulls from his belt. “There’s bog down there. Hungry one.”
“Hungry bog,” I repeat. “Right. Avoid the swamp monster. Got it.”
He gives me another of those unreadable stares. “It doesn’t like jokes.”
“Of course it doesn’t.”
I hoist Mari onto my hip—she’s getting too big for this, but her legs wrap around me without complaint—and lift our overnight bag from the backseat. We’ll come back for the rest in the morning.
“You’re Hardin, right?” I ask as he starts to walk away.
He pauses. Nods once.
“Thank you,” I say, softer now. “For helping. I didn’t expect... anyone.”
His shoulders shift, like the words land somewhere they’re not used to. He doesn’t turn.
“Don’t expect it again,” he says, and then vanishes into the trees.
CHAPTER 2
HARDIN
There’s a weight in the trees tonight, and it isn't just the fog.
I stand at the treeline, arms crossed over my chest, watching the dim light through the cottage window flicker like it's still deciding whether to settle in or flee back into the dark. The woman—Krista—is moving around inside, slow and deliberate, as if she thinks the house might bite if she makes the wrong kind of noise. She's not wrong. The old place has teeth, though none it bares easily.
She’s unpacking a single bag, one I watched her carry up the porch steps earlier like it held the last bits of a life she hadn't wanted to leave behind. She carries herself like someone who’s been keeping their shoulders up too long, like the moment she sets them down the whole thing might come apart. I know that kind of weight. It has a sound, even in silence.
