Page 9 of Wilde's End
“Head in that direction and see what we find? We’ve been talking about exploring anyway.”
“Yeah, toward the river. There’s nothing else to explore.”
“Where’s your adventurous spirit?” he asks.
“Hiding behind my self-preservation.”
“I’m telling you, this will be fine.”
I don’t bother to point out that’s what everyone tells themselves before they end up in a situation that’s very much not fine. “If I am right and you’re wrong, can you at least promise me you’ll die first so I have a chance to get away?”
“Deal.” The fact that he can agree so confidently helps settle that off feeling. “Anything else?”
I think for a second and come up empty. “I’m doing this under duress.”
“Noted.”
We leave the small town behind. There’s plenty of room to walk between the trees, and it’s easy to keep track of which way we’re going. This close to the town, the forest looks more complicated than it is, and even though I have a rough direction for us, we don’t find anyone. I keep my ears strained as we search, but it’s only trees and more trees, even the birds that were calling earlier have disappeared.
“Weird,” Kennedy mutters on our way back.
“What is?”
He stares at the wide path we’re walking along. “Those sort of look like tire tracks.”
I follow his gaze to the leaf-covered ground, trying to see what he sees. The way the dirt and grass have been compacted could be tires for sure.
“Someonewasout here.”
Kennedy doesn’t answer. Which is probably a good thing because a tire means a car, and a car means a person, and if they didn’t drive through town … where the hell did they come from?
“Right,” Kennedy says suddenly. “Well, at least we know to listen out. If someone is driving around, we’ll hear them first.”
I don’t point out that we didn’t hear them this time, but I’m still not surethis timeeven happened. These tracks could be from a while ago.
We leave the forest behind, and it’s a relief to be back on familiar ground, even if my back won’t stop prickling with awareness.
Nothing we can do about it now.
Except maybe send Hart out to buy some hunting guns tomorrow.
Hart’s only reaction was a disinterested “cool” when we told him what I saw, but as the days pass with nothing else weird, I have to grudgingly accept that Hart has the right idea.
With no available electricity, we have to rely on the small generator we brought with us, so we make dinner on a gas hot plate outside most nights. Which would be fun. If I could shake the feeling of someone watching me.
Instead of creeping me out further, it’s only making me more pissed off. I want to shake the paranoia and enjoy this time with my brothers, but my senses won’t quit thrumming. I don’t believe in ghost stories, but Wilde’s End almost makes me think that I do. Between that man and my keys, I can’t shake the feeling something is up. The town itself is a yawning bridge between the past and now, and that kind of history isn’t easy to ignore.
For me.
The twins seem to have no issue with it.
“I’d sort of like to keep one for myself,” Kennedy says from his camping chair.
Hart wrinkles his nose. “Why? What will you do with it?”
“Live in it? What else do you do with a house?”
There’s a beat while Hart processes that. “Wait. You’dmovehere? Like, permanently?”
