Page 117 of Serpent In White
And maybe it did the same to my parents.
I already don’t feel right about this.
I agreed with Rhiannon’s plan to make a detour on our way down, and we trekked back to that clearing just to see.
See what, I’m not entirely sure, because last time I almost walked up to that rock, baby birds warned me not to do it. I mean, if that isn’t a sign from Mother, then I don’t know what is.
Yet I still chose to come back, because in the corners of my mind, I know these forces had something to do with my parents’ deaths. And even though she won’t say it outright, Rhiannon does, too.
As we come up to the clearing—it’s about twenty feet off in the distance—my heart rate increases to an almost unhealthy level. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, and my vision blurs.
I stop and close my eyes for a moment, swallowing over and over because I feel sick.
“Are you okay?” Rhiannon squeezes my arm in her small hand, her voice echoed.
“I feel like I’m going to pass out,” I breathe, swaying on my feet.
“Here, come rest.” She tries pulling me over to a tree, but I shake my head.
“No. I can keep going. I have to.”
It’s not lost on either of us that there’s no black rock in the middle of the clearing right now. But that doesn’t stop it from feeling like something is very wrong up here.
“Do you see it?” I ask her hesitantly, in case it’s something that only shows itself to one person at a time.
“Not yet,” she whispers, her voice shaking.
It’s then that I notice she’s still holding onto my arm; gripping it tightly, nails digging into me while her hand trembles.
“We’ve got this.” I move it into mine, entwining our fingers.
I feel her nod at my side, though she doesn’t respond, and I hear her thoughts swimming…
I can’t tell if what she’s thinking is based around what I told her about my parents’ deaths, or something she saw herself.
She’s remembering the gully… But it can’t be just from what I mentioned, because it’s the exact gully where my parents were found. And I didn’t describe it to her in really any detail. So how would she know what it looks like?
Unless she was down there, maybe before she came up here?
But even that explanation doesn’t settle my mind. In her thoughts, she’s remembering the ravine as it looked the exact day my parents were found, in late summer, almost fall.
While I’m mulling this over in my head, and we’re taking the tiniest, most hesitant steps ever, the wind ripples around us, and Rhiannon gasps.
The black rock. It’s there now.
It just appeared… popped out of thin air.
What the hell, man? This is weird shit.
“Please tell me you see that…” Rhiannon murmurs, and this time I nod, wordlessly.
When we get up to the edge of the clearing, ready to pass through the first trees and approach the rock, Rhiannon’s grip on my hand tightens. I feel her emotions, and I’m taken aback by the hurt radiating through her brain. I can’t hear what the source is, and I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to make her any more uncomfortable than we both currently are.
Still, something painful is ravaging her head. A monster she rarely lets out of its box.
“Don’t let go,” she whimpers as we move into the clearing, the rock only a few feet from us.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I tell her in the most confident tone I can muster.
