Page 44 of Marked

My chest tightened and I cursed my body for betraying what my mind already knew—Ace and I would be a disaster together. Another heartbreak and heartache and Ace didn’t deserve the opportunity to do that to me again.

“But you guys used to be friends, right?” Maria asked. “I heard Ace lived here before and you all grew up together with Graham and Gavin.”

I nodded, not liking where this conversation was going. Graham and Gavin had obviously shared a lot more than beer with Maria last night. “Did Graham and Gavin also share that they used to call me, Paul and Ace the orphans? Or that they tormented me relentlessly?”

“Um...” Maria looked away.

“I thought not.”

“Those two are harmless,” she assured me.

“Sure,” I lied. “I’ve moved on from that and I’d like to think we’ve all changed. If I’d known I’d count on Graham’s arrowheads or Gavin’s woodworking, maybe I would’ve been a little nicer back then, too.”

Maybe they could’ve been a lot nicer.

“I would argue old man O’Reilly hasn’t changed at all,” Maria quipped.

I felt a chill run down my spine and checked over my shoulder instinctively in case he stood behind me. He wasn’t. “That’s the most truthful thing I’ve heard all morning.”

“You know he’s been asking about you lately.”

“Who has?”

“O’Reilly.”

A shiver ran through me again, and I scoffed, trying to hide my unease. Nothing good could come from that cantankerous old man asking about me. “I don’t want to know, but at the same time, I need to ask. What did he want?”

Maria sighed and looked around as if she too worried the old man would leap out from the shadows. “He thinks you’re hiding something about the forest and says it’s unnatural for someone so young to bond with a familiar.”

“Well, some things really don’t change. He’s been saying that for years. I’m well aware of O’Reilly’s opinions of me.” The old man had always been a little too nosy about the forbidden forest and overly suspicious of my reluctance to respond to his questions about it. Most of the time, I remained silent because I simply didn’t know the answer. And other times, he sought information that wasn’t mine to share. He’d accused me of lying, of spying, and of casting Perga under a spell at town council meetings. Multiple times. Though I’d grown used to O’Reilly’s constant antagonism, I hadn’t grown out of my unease around that man.

“Well, just be careful,” she cautioned, her tone serious. “There have been whispers about strange things going on in the forest lately. Unsettling things.”

My heart quickened at her words. “What kind of unsettling things?”

She hesitated and reached down to give Nala a pat instead of responding right away. “People have reported hearing strange voices in the forest, of whispers in the dark.”

That could be the thieves. "Anything else?”

“There have been sightings of shadowy figures darting between the trees near the forbidden forest, disappearing before anyone can get a clear look.”

A sense of foreboding settled over me like a heavy fog. The forest had always held its secrets close, but the unsettling things Maria mentioned could be descriptions of more rogue hunters and thieves. If others had started to notice them, though, that meant their numbers had to be growing.

“And O’Reilly thinks it’s connected to me?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. My mind had already connected the dots. Why else would Maria bring up the old man and tell me to be careful?

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Do you?”

Maria’s gaze softened with concern. “I don’t know, Emi. Maybe you’re not responsible for any of it, but something tells me you’re involved somehow. You’ve always had a connection to the forest—a connection none of the rest of us fully understand.”

The weight of her words hung heavily in the air. Gossip spread easily in a town this size, so did misinformation. If the citizens of Perga thought I was responsible for all the shenanigans going on, they could end up on my doorstep demanding my head. “Thanks for the heads up, Maria.”

She nodded and ducked back into her bakery while I continued onward through town, lost in thought. Nala walked beside me, occasionally bumping her body into my legs.

“Emi!” Sley called out, running around the central fire pit to reach me. She wore leather pants and a loose cotton shirt, and her breath condensed with each breath.

“Hey.”

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