When the Woods Go Silent (Haret Chronicles: Dark Fae #1)

CHAPTER ONE

R OSE

Is it really a lie, when I’m trying so hard to make it come true?

“I’m so excited, Ru. Our store is going to be amazing. Now, take the time you deserve and enjoy the damn book conference. Meet all the people, buy all the books, and no more worrying about me! I’m getting so much done here. Totally loving the quiet,” I assure my nervous best friend before ending our call. That last part isn’t a lie, either. Not really.

I do enjoy quiet, and books are better than most people any day.

But this cavernous, old Victorian home we suddenly share now and the dense, dark woods around it are not the sort of quiet I’m used to. And no matter how much I love Ruby’s plan to restore this bookstore together, I still feel like I’m trying to fit myself into someone else’s dream. It’s beautiful here, and I want it to be amazing for both of us, but it just doesn’t feel like my life yet.

The shop on the main floor is a dreamy maze of quiet, dusty shelves and worn hardwood floors that creak in a way my boxy city apartment never did. Branches scrape the leaded-glass windows like skeleton bones, and the gusts of wind rattling the panes demand my attention much more than anything in the sterile downtown area I lived in for the past few years.

And the darkness.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be completely at ease with the velvety black that surrounds our new home at night. Streetlamps are sparse here at the end of this street, and the moonlight barely reaches our back balcony through the old-growth forest of pines and red maple trees.

For now, at least, there aren’t any late-night car horns or soft echoes of conversations from passersby. No slamming of distant doors or bounce of basketballs on a nearby empty lot, so common in the city.

Now, still a few weeks from tourist season, it’s just the great expanse of shadowy woods and a misty sky speckled with stars.

Clearwater is enchanting, but it’s made for daylight and summer crowds. In mid-April near midnight, our street of stores feels abandoned, as though I’m the only person alive out here.

I tuck my phone back in my sweatpants pocket, check the new alarm system, and touch the sturdy new locks on the bookstore’s front doors. Again. But I don’t turn off the lights or go upstairs to our living area yet - Ruby comes back from the New York City book conference soon, and I’m determined to make real progress here, too.

Reviving this neglected old bookstore and turning it into a travel-worthy viral sensation is everything Ruby’s always wanted. I’m along for the ride because it means I get a permanent seat next to my favorite person - my best friend is the only one who’s ever been a constant in my life.

So I’m happy to throw myself deep into her dream. I don’t care much about what I’m doing in life, as long as I’m doing it with people I love.

I push my glasses up my nose and get back to work, cleaning up the mess the workers left earlier after installing new double doors and replacing the worst of the cracked, drafty windows.

We’ve only had the keys to this black and forest green Gothic beauty for two weeks, and our to-do list is a mile long, but we’ve been focusing on the high-ceilinged front room, with its turreted curve of windows and long wall of built-in shelves.

Before Ruby left for the conference, we emptied all those shelves along the walls, scrubbing decades of dust from everything. But she hasn’t seen my paint job - deep green walls stenciled with lacy ferns - or the rose pink and ruby paint I’ve carefully mixed and added to each shelf in a smooth ombre. The pretty colors gleam in the soft light of the stained-glass tulip lights I thrifted locally. An area rug patterned with roses and vines will be delivered this week, and I’m on the hunt for a perfect pair of wingback chairs for either side of the fireplace.

My vision was enchanted garden, and I’m amazed at how well I pulled it off.

The sight of all those empty, waiting bookshelves, coupled with Ruby wielding our new company bank card at a book conference, feels like the night before Christmas. Everything is full of promise and excitement, and that’s a new feeling for me.

I’ve spent the afternoon rolling up and dragging away all the faded, worn area rugs and ragged-edged remnants, but the job isn’t quite done.

“You can take a hot bath as soon as this is done,” I mutter. “With wine, and the good snacks.” My arms aching, I redo my messy bundle of long red hair and push myself to keep moving.

Humming a catchy pop song and shaking my ass to the beat, I vacuum my way across the dusty hardwood to the back rooms of the main floor. Following the twisted, winding layout of the rest of the old shop feels like being lost in a labyrinth of stories, all waiting to be discovered and swept off their shelves.

This part is easy to love, no lies needed.

Already imagining slipping neck-deep into steamy water, I turn off the vacuum and crack my neck - just in time to hear glass shattering at the front of the store. My lips pop open, air lodging in my throat.

What the hell was that?

Fear surges through me at the thought of an intruder. Anger follows right behind, eclipsing any instinct to run. Ruby and I have worked damn hard for this, and whoever has come to ruin it will meet the business end of my... vacuum.

Glaring down at the only tool I have in reach, I detach the main pole and stalk silently toward the front room, holding the metal tube like a baseball bat. An owl screams outside, and the eerie sound is closer than it should be, now that double-paned glass isn’t protecting me from the shadowy woods.

As I reach the final corner, I slow my pace even more and creep around the door frame, scanning the front room for the criminal I’m about to fuck up.

The forest might spook me, but I’m not afraid of people. As I wait and watch, though, I realize the store is silent.

The woods and the owl beyond? Silent, but in a watchful, guarded way, like a mouse crouched low and still to hide from a hawk.

Only the sound of my heartbeat reaches my ears. As adrenaline filters deeper into my veins, I step boldly forward into the empty room, tightening my grip on the makeshift bat as I superstitiously avoid looking at my own reflection in the black windows.

“You better get the fuck out of my store,” I call into the quiet, wearing my tough city-girl persona like a security blanket. “I’ve already called the police.” A bold lie, and a stupid realization that I should have done that before arming myself with nothing better than a vacuum cleaner tube.

But there’s no answer. No sound at all. Several minutes pass, and I eventually have to admit that the silence doesn’t feel thick or full anymore, like it might if somebody else were here, motionless and hidden. It just feels empty again. As I finally run my eyes across the expanse of sparkling new windows, I frown at my reflection.

None of the glass is broken.

Everything is completely as I left it, and then I realize that the alarm isn’t going off, either. A broken window would definitely have triggered it. All clear, taunts the silence.

I’m suddenly not sure whether I should be relieved or even more concerned. The sound of glass breaking still echoes in my mind. I know I heard it. I’m not the kind of person to see and imagine things that aren’t there - Ruby does enough of that for both of us. I’m the practical one, always grounded in mundane reality while she indulges the what ifs of life.

“These stupid woods have me spooked,” I mutter out loud, as if I owe the universe an explanation. Then a leaning stack of books topples with a thud, and I give a yelp, my hand flying to my throat.

There’s still nothing there.

Sighing, I wiggle my hips and shake out my hands to help clear the adrenaline from my bloodstream. I have got to get it together. Forcing my breathing to steady, I slowly walk the interior of the old home, peering out of each window into the shadows beyond the deep front porch.

I do love the forest that surrounds Clearwater, but not the way Ruby does. I enjoy it more like a mural, a still-life backdrop that stays safely on the other side of our windows.

Our shop is part of a quaint street of old buildings in a gentrifying tourist town, deep in upstate New York. There are plenty of sleek new hotels and fancy restaurants a few streets away, but the shops on this street are each tucked into beautifully restored older homes.

We do have neighbors on either side - an expensive local art shop and a realty office for million-dollar vacation homes, and more stores beyond that. But I haven’t met most of the owners yet, and I don’t think any of them live above their shops like we do. There are no cars parked in the slanted parking spaces across the street, and no buildings to buffer the deep woods that border the sidewalk.

I’m very much alone out here.

I circle to the rooms in the back, replacing my vacuum tube and peeking out of the heavy velvet curtains that really need to be taken down and washed. Twenty feet out the back door is the woods again. Quiet and still, except for a light breeze rocking the branches.

I appreciate nature, but I never grew up around its wildness. My dad kept our tiny trailer park lot bare and mowed to within an inch of its life. Not a shrub or tree in sight. Then there were concrete lots and college dorms, and my job in the city, on the fourth floor of a ten-story building, with windows that were sealed shut.

Shadows and strange noises have always just been people to me, not red-eyed animals or unexplainable shapes in the twilight.

My mind insists that I’ve missed something, though, so I make another round up to the front of the store. The alarm light is still green. The rooms are as empty as before. But then, as I near the large bay window that will make a perfect reading nook, my sneakers crunch on something.

I freeze, looking down. A claw of dread trails up my spine, lifting every baby hair on my neck.

I’ve stepped on broken glass. Not a window’s worth, but a few fragments.

Scanning the windows quickly, I press my lips together, working to hold back a scream. The glass is completely whole, and I vacuumed this very spot only an hour ago. Am I losing my fucking mind?

My fingers trail up, trembling as they press against the cool glass. Solid. Real. I’m going insane. I breathe out, the warmth of my air fogging the glass. I move to wipe it away, and a pinch of pain has me snatching my fingers away from the glass.

A breath and a scream tangle together in my throat as I stare down at the lines of blood welling from two of my fingertips. My vision tilts, and I steady myself against a bookshelf.

It’s impossible. I look blankly at the window, still intact. Still whole. But smeared now with my blood.

I feel my feet backing away slowly, creating the movement my thinking brain still can’t manage. I suck my fingers into my mouth, tasting the reality of iron and salt. There are bandages in the upstairs apartment rooms. I should go get one, but I can’t stop staring at the darkened woods through the blood-stained window.

Is there an extra shadow there?

Something moving between the trees?

Another crash breaks apart the silence - this time from the back of the shop, where I just was - and this time I give in to the scream. The rooms echo with a soft papery distress, as I hear more books tumbling from their stacks and shelves, landing with broken spines. What are the chances that they’re all giving in to gravity at the same time?

Gripping the nearby shelf, I debate hard. I still haven’t called the police.

And there’s no way a woman alone needs to be trapped in a back room of an empty store on a dark, deserted street near the woods. I was certainly raised with more caution than this.

“Cameras,” I breathe out suddenly. Fumbling for my phone, I pull up the app for our brand new security system. We installed cameras in each of the shop rooms since the store’s layout is so difficult to watch, and I chew my bottom lip as I scroll hurriedly through the feeds.

Not a single camera has picked up anything except the books falling and my own ass bouncing around to the beat in my head.

Nobody is inside the damn bookstore except me, but I know what I heard.

A sudden, consuming, irrational fear grips me, and I sprint to the front doors, rushing to type in the security code and unlock the deadbolt.

No matter what else might be waiting in the woods, I have to get out of this creepy old house. Fucking now.