“Kids here are lost in the woods,” he replied.
“I was just explaining to your husband that my sister and I walked further than usual and didn’t think about the time. Before we knew it, the sun had set, and we couldn’t find our way back. We need somewhere to sleep until sunlight when we can see our way home.”
“Of course, of course, dear things,” she said, shoving her husband to the side and taking Scarlett’s hand. “Come on in, let’s get you warm and fed. Through there, dear, that’s right.”
She showed Scarlett into the living room and her husband and I followed.
“Thank you for this, we really appreciate it. We’ll be out of your hair at first light.”
“Nonsense,” he said. “You’re no trouble. We don’t get too many folk knocking on our door anymore.”
That I believed. I just hoped we’d be the only ones knocking on the door tonight.
Scarlett
BRIDGET HAD ME and Noah sitting on the sofa wedged under a thick tartan blanket. She’d made us hot chocolate with mini marshmallows on top. It was so unbelievably nice to have freshened up a little and be somewhere warm and dry.
I felt human again, but my nerves were still raging. They were still out there looking for me and any minute and could knock on the door any minute. Noah didn’t seem to think they would because questions would be asked, but they didn’t have anything to lose anymore. If I disappeared, they wouldn’t get their chance at eternal life.
“So, you two live in town? You don’t sound from around here,” Seamus said.
“We moved here from England two years ago. I imagine the accent will catch eventually,” I replied.
I hated lying to them. They were so sweet and so kind, but we couldn’t exactly tell them the truth. It was too unbelievable anyway. Eternal Light was well hidden, and although they had electricity and running water, I doubted many locals knew they were even there.
“Ah, I thought as much.”
Noah smiled. “We camp through most of the summer, though. We’ve always loved the great outdoors and wish our parents had bought one of the houses in the forest.”
“They don’t come along too often.”
“No, I don’t expect they would.”
“We’ve been here forty years now,” Bridget said.
I was waiting for her to say something about a cult or weird group of people living in self-made shacks in the woods, but she didn’t. She didn’t know about them, which wasn’t surprising.
“Wow, I bet you know everything about this forest then,” I said. “We’ve only been exploring for a couple of years.”
Noah looked at me out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t care about his warning to stop. I wanted to know if they at least suspected something odd was happening around here.
“We like to think so,” Seamus said. “We were young explorers like yourselves back in our youth. We’ve always loved it out here, the peace and tranquillity it has to offer, so when this house came on the market shortly after we married we snapped it up. There are seven houses in total. Ours is about the deepest into the woods.”
Noah watched him with curiosity. I could tell he was thinking there’s a lot more in the woods than seven houses.
“Any horror stories?” I asked.
“Amelia!” Noah said, and it took me a minute to realise he was talking to me. “I’m sorry, she’s really into ghost stories.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Bridget said. “I was, too, at your age.”
“You still are, dear,” Seamus added. “Not much happens here. Most exciting thing that’s happened is a little girl being seen running in the woods. There was talk of a young girl haunting the forest. Best thing that story ever did was stopping so many teenagers partying until all hours by that clearing a half a mile west.”
A rush of adrenaline sat me forwards. Evelyn? Was it my little sister they saw, running scared and alone? Did no one stop to help because they’d assumed she was a ghost?
I felt such empathy for her. I’d experienced the same but I was fifteen, not three, and I wasn’t alone. She must’ve been petrified. They should’ve gone after her. I didn’t understand why she ran. Was she afraid because of what was happening to me? Fiona and Donald were too caught up in sacrificing me they didn’t stop to think what it would do to her.
“Wow,” Noah said. “That is crazy. We’ll be sure to look out for child ghosts.”
Making a joke out of it made me feel sick, even if I did understand why he was doing it. I suddenly felt exhausted, and I couldn’t take another sip of the hot chocolate.