I couldn’t argue with that logic because I believed in what she’d done. I understood.
She was quiet for a moment, studying my face the way she studied targets before throwing. “Be careful,” she said quietly, and all the humor had drained from her voice. “Don’t let the wrong people get close.” She reached out, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear, a gesture so maternal it made my chest ache. “No place is safe. No one is without secrets.”
For the first time since we moved here, I wondered if it wasn’t a coincidence we ended up in Elmwood. Did my mother already know about the missing girls? Was she here to make sure it stopped, that the people responsible never got the chance to take someone else?
I wouldn’t have put it past her.
Mom was good at maneuvering, at deception, at pulling strings no one else could see.
“I can handle myself,” I said, and I meant it.
She smiled again, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes this time. The worry there was real, tangible, humming between us. “I know you can. That’s what I’m afraid of. Maybe I taught you too much. I don’t want you to be like me. I’ve always wanted a better life for you.”
“You did your best, Mom. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. What you did was important. It mattered. I know that.”
“I have many regrets, but having you was never one of them.”
She might not regret me, but she did regret meeting my father. He was a topic I learned young was off-limits. Talking about him hurt her, and for someone as strong as my mom was, it was painful to see her hurt. So I stopped asking. I avoided talking about the man I knew next to nothing about. Not even his name.
“Your turn,” she said, stepping back to give me space. “Show me what you remember.”
This was her way of dodging a deeper conversation. We were both good at ignoring our feelings. I glanced at the dummy; at the scarred wood she’d hit a dozen times tonight alone. Then I threw. The knife spun through the air, and I held my breath, waiting.
Thunk.
Not dead center, but I still hit the target, about three inches off from my mark.
“Not bad,” she said. “You’re getting better.”
I wasn’t sure if she was talking about the knife. Or about everything else I was learning without meaning to. About survival. About secrets. About the way darkness recognized its own.
Sometimes I scared myself.
9
MALLORY
The woods behind the cottage were different than any I’d been to. Quieter. Older. Peaceful. I felt an inner calm as I trotted in and around the trees, the overgrown brush tickling my bare legs.
I hadn’t planned to go far when I’d left the house, just a quick walk to clear my head, maybe a little exploring, but the deeper I went, following what might have been a trail that wound between moss-covered trunks, the more the noise in my head softened. The constant buzz of thoughts faded into something manageable.
The air smelled earthy and of recent rain and pine, holding a similar cleanliness to the ocean-salt air at the beach.
Eventually, the trees opened into a small clearing, branches parting like a curtain to reveal a perfect circle of grass. Sunlight spilled through the canopy in fractured gold, the light diffused by leaves and shifting with the breeze. Wildflowers I couldn’t name dotted the grass, tiny purple blooms, others white and delicate.
It was perfect.
An ideal place to curl up with a book and lose yourself for hours in the words written and the song of nature. A place that felt like a secret the woods had decided to share.
I dropped my bag on the grass, kicking off my old sneakers and socks, and my bare feet sank into the cool grass, the blades tickling between my toes. My body remembered what my mind had neglected lately.
It had been weeks since I’d been able to practice yoga. With the move, unpacking, and settling in, there hadn’t been enough hours in the day, but the ground, the trees, the wind, and the sun called to me. I had nothing to do today, and a Sunday yoga practice in the woods was what my soul wanted. Just a few minutes before I headed home.
I started simple. Mountain pose, grounding through my feet. Then forward fold, letting my spine decompress vertebra by vertebra. Halfway lift. Plank. The familiar sequence unwinding in my body like a language I’d spoken fluently once and was remembering now.
I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed this.
How much I’d needed it.
