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Chapter 26
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2024-10-29 19:42:56The dappled afternoon sunlight is warm against my back as I cycle through Forest Park.
Everything is threaded with green, and the slow buzz of summer. Every now and again I stop riding to look at the sword ferns and bracken lining the dirt trail, and the thick canopy of firs and lushly leaved maples overhead.
It feels so good to be back in the forest. We've lived on the edge of the park my whole life, and I used to know it like the back of my hand.
Since the accident, I haven't visited even once.
After I've been riding for almost half an hour, I hop off my rusty old BMX and pull Felix's note out of my pocket.
Unfolding it, I study it for the hundredth time.
I still can't believe he drew me a map.
Two lines intersect at a 45-degree angle. One is labeled 'Wildwood', the other, 'Chestnut'. There's a big X where they meet.
And at the
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A kiss lands on my cheek as the hand is pulled away from in front of my eyes.Alastair unwraps himself from around my shoulders and flops onto a kitchen stool next to me. He's dressed even more scantily than Lyall, in a thin white robe like people wear at health spas.I wonder if he's wearing anything underneath.OMG don't think about that! It's as if I'm a dirty old man perving on schoolgirls. Breathe. He just kissed me on my cheek. Ignore that. Didn't happen. Breathe.I sneak a glance at his beautifully defined chest peeking out from the robe and my face reacts by turning a fierce, burning red.Everything about him just looks amazing. Especially his hair. Messy dark blonde, slightly damp – probably from the shower.My cheek is warm and tingling where he kissed the skin.Get a grip Ashling. Don't freak out over
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Thump. Thump. Thump.My heart is beating so hard against my ribs I feel like it's about to jump out of my chest on to the kitchen counter.I've managed to keep fairly calm up to this point, but the thought of Lyall making pancakes for me... I want to do a crazy fangirl dance.Lyall hums quietly to himself while he stirs the batter, and Felix is sitting next to me with his head down on the counter. He hasn't even touched his tea yet.Alastaire flicks through something on his phone.There's no reception out here, so I'm tempted to ask what he's doing, but I don't want him to think I'm being nosy.The guys don't seem to notice how nervous I am, and realizing this helps me to calm down. I clutch my mug a little less tightly.Everyone's lost in their own thoughts.Apart from Lyall's softly murmured tune and the clinking of the spoon ag
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“Your guess is as good as mine,” says Alastaire as he pokes at a pancake with his fork.“He went out for a bit,” Lyall says in between mouthfuls. “I’m sure he’ll be back soon. Don’t stress ‘bout it Kit.”“He went out?” says Kitty, her eyebrows knitting together in worry.“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” Alastaire says. “He’s just out doing loner junk in the forest. Typical.”Kitty shakes her head, looking gloomily at the counter.“You worry too much,” says Ben as he pats her on the back. “It’s not like he’s gonna get run down by a rabid pack of bloodthirsty fangirls this deep in the woods. Unless you told your buddies about us, Ashling.”He winks at me, and I almost choke on the bite of pancake I was busy swallowing.
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"I'm not buying it," Kitty says as she drags me between moss-drenched oak trees and ferns, over the faint path snaking through the forest. "Why are you really here?"She's holding my hand so hard that I can feel her nails biting into the flesh of my palm. Even though she doesn't turn around as she asks the question, I can imagine her expression. There's a growl in her voice, something almost feral.She pulls me along behind her at a steady march, further and further away from the cabin, deeper and deeper into the forest.My skin prickles with goose bumps as the space between the trees lessens, and the woods get subtly darker. The overgrowth is thicker, the path more difficult to see than I remember it.Is this the way I came earlier?Then I see it. Just a few feet away, an impossibly dark shape streaks through the trees to my left, skittering away into the gloom. To
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She sits high up in the branches of an ancient blackthorn tree, draped in a darkness blacker than midnight.They’re still searching for her.She can hear the faraway shouting, the breaking of twigs underfoot, even the beating of their hearts.Now she watches those five blazing hearts dancing through the dark far below, glowing like red embers in the dying fire.Her eyes travel further afield, to the heart of the forest, where a nimbus of brilliant silver blooms in the shadows.She smiles as the cold wind tugs on her hair, and she sends a tune out along the breeze, towards the silvery light.The oldest song she can remember.A lullaby.Soon, she’ll be free.She’ll destroy it. Music made magic, the chain unbroken for a thousand years.
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This can't be happening.The massive ball of silver light hanging in the air unfurls, opening up like the petals of an incandescent metallic rose.In the circle of luminosity, a wavy ribbon of radiance seems to move in a slow pattern, weaving in and out of itself like a twisting knot of smoke.As my eyes adjust, I make out its real shape.Impossible.A long, coiling body covered in glinting scales like a thousand tiny mirrors, reflecting the light of the full moon. A coffin-shaped head bobbing slowly on an invisible current. Two wide, glittering green eyes shining like emeralds.Even though it must be at least twenty feet above us, I can clearly see a series of markings on the underbelly of the serpent, darker scales or scarring, running down its length like Hieroglyphics or some ancient script.A figure-eight on its side. A cross looped o
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The forest is bathed in bright silvery moonlight as we make our way along the trail from the car park.Despite Felix and Alastaire's spat, the evening served its purpose.Satisfied now that they'd met – or rather, interrogated – the band, my parents were totally happy to send me off with them at the end of the night with my overnight bag, a flashlight and the remaining strawberry cupcakes in a tupperware.We agreed I'll stay with the guys as long as it takes to get the album recorded – maybe up to a week or longer – and I'll phone my mom to check in every day.It'll be so much better not having to do this long walk twice a day. And staying over at the cabin's gonna be fun. Like a summer camp. Even if I'm feeling sort of nervous about being around Felix after the… thing… that happened in my bedroom.Now, as I pick my way along th
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I wake up crying.The image of Mia with a bloody rose blooming from her lips makes my stomach turn, and I realize I'm about to hurl.I make it to the bathroom in the nick of time, and I throw-up up until I taste bile.Afterwards, I take a hot shower, scrubbing away the night's memories and terrors.If only I could forget it all.Forget the nightmare. Forget the accident. Forget Evan and Mia.Once I'm done in the shower, I change into skinny jeans, a white cami, and my red hoodie.The same hoodie that the Alastaire's Angels tore to shreds the night of the concert. I never did ask Felix how he mended it so quickly. Although it's not like he would have mended it personally. Maybe someone at the hotel did it.I run my fingers over the seams, looking for some stitch out of place, a clue, but it's as perfect a
FABLE Chapter 44
I'm standing beneath a starry sky on the edge of a jagged cliff.Ocean waves crash against a rocky shore far below, churning up swirling sea foam bathed in silvery moonlight.My hair whips around me; the wind stings my eyes.I stand for a long time, looking down at the raging seas.Somewhere in that dark ocean, the bus is sinking, a metal coffin falling forever.I can feel the cold interior slick with blood; I can hear my classmates calling me.There's a tug in my chest, like an invisible string pulling me forward.Somehow I know that if I look too long, I'll float out to sea, and I'll never be able to swim back.So I focus my attention on the pale white ribbon of sand that stretches like a snake out along the base of the cliffs far below, glowing faintly with trapped moonlight.A procession of figures in silver
