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

CHAPTER THREE

R UBY

Is it actually kind of crazy to trust your own memory more than the world around you?

Being back in a concrete jungle is even more draining than I remembered - especially one as enormous and crowded as New York City. Exhausting. I’m definitely having fun at the book conference, but it’s so people-y. I can’t wait to be back in our quiet store in the middle of the Adirondacks.

Central Park is pretty, but so not the same vibe. I’m in love with the dense, dark woods around our shop, and I can’t believe it took me all these years to make that magical place mine again.

Speaking of...

“That is a freaking gorgeous cover,” I blurt to the author sitting behind her conference table, startling her into a smile. The cover in question is filled with the dark mystery of a fairy-tale forest, and as she launches into her pitch about the trigger-filled romantasy series, I practically swoon on the spot. Perfection.

“I want it. You can’t talk me out of it now - the whole series. Four copies of each if you have them.” My book blogger nose is absolutely twitching at the sound of this plot and the yummy characters that will be put through hell for my wicked enjoyment.

By the Goddess, I love books, the darker the better.

The author is glowing with the excitement of the sale, and we become instant besties as I describe Under the Covers , the revamped shop Rose and I are opening in Clearwater. I want as many indie authors as I can find on my shelves - and I can’t wait to have author signings and readings and book clubs and poetry nights and...

I reel in my hyperactive brain long enough to pay the author, nestling the glossy stack of books carefully into the lawn wagon thing I bought for my haul. We exchange business contacts, and I move to the next table, grinning like a kid.

Having enough money to buy all the books I can read is still a new, heady experience for me, and I’m soaking it deep into my bones. I never want to be poor again.

Rose is the more careful, frugal one, but that’s only because she thinks of the inheritance as my money.

Sure, it may have come from my bio dad’s life insurance, but the whole seven years I was waiting to age into it, I’ve always thought of it as mine and Rose’s future. My mother’s death from cancer three years ago left me with only Rose to claim as family, and I’m never letting her go.

Just three things in my life have ever held proof of the magic I crave - dark fantasy romance books, deep woods, and my forever friendship with Rose. Part of me worries that getting them all at once is too good to be true, but I keep telling myself it’s more proof that fairy godmothers are real.

I text Rose constantly throughout the day, sharing juicy bits of books and gossip, selfies with authors and their books, and even a picture with a male model someone brought to help advertise. He’s dressed up in some kind of Viking outfit and towers over me, which admittedly, is not hard to do.

I’m posting everything to the bookstore’s socials, of course, building interest for our grand opening. I’ve had a good following and steady growth on my book recommendations account as Ruby Reads , for a couple of years now, but it’s never made much money. This bookstore is changing all of that - my book babes are living vicariously through me, and I know I need to deliver the goods.

All the people-pleasing and masking my tendency to over-share is wearing me out, though, so when the authors start to pack up their tables for the end of the day, I gladly lug the overflowing cart to my hotel room. Thank the Goddess for elevators. There were plenty of invites for dinner and drinks out there, but all I want to do is curl up alone in the fluffy hotel bed and dive into a brand-new filthy story.

Room service ordered, I snuggle into a robe soft enough that I’m considering stealing it, then run a deep bubble bath for some well-deserved self-care. What a gorgeous day.

I’ve never traveled like this before. Hell, I’ve barely traveled at all before. The only thing that could make it better is if Rose had come, but she’d won our debate easily enough. Divide and conquer is our strategy for running the store.

I’ll provide the advertising, and Rose can have her fun with all her numbers and spreadsheets. Both of us will work with customers, of course, and everything is going to be so freaking perfect.

As I flop down onto the soft hotel bed, though, the memory of my mother’s advice cautions me that this is a beginning, not an ending. Clearwater has always felt like a magical place to me, where all my dreams can come true, but I need to be patient and let things unfold.

One day, our bookstore will be thriving and full, and one day, I’ll find an epic, swoony, obsessive romance of my own. One day, I’ll find the true magic I know is out there. But for now, I work to remember my mother’s words.

Enjoy what you have, Ruby, before you go look for more. A girl can’t be too greedy, or she might lose it all.

Unfortunately, losing everything has been the theme of every dark dream and nightmare I’ve had since moving to Clearwater. I haven’t had the heart to tell Rose, but the best nights’ sleep I’ve gotten recently have been here in the hotel. In the apartment above the bookshop, all I seem to dream about is my life falling apart, like the surface of a frozen lake collapsing and pulling me down with it into the icy, dark depths.

My mind is terrified of getting everything I want because I know how it feels to lose it all. I know how hard it is to claw your way out of that valley. Just because you did it once, doesn’t mean you’ll be strong enough to do it again.

THE WOODS

The man is no longer gentle, his steps pounding against our roots. One lifts to trip him - to slow his punishing pace.

It doesn’t work. His movements are too fast for us.

Deeper and deeper he strides, into the darkest, coldest center of our trees. Ice still edges the streams here, sparkling between new moss and dead leaves as the starlight filters around our branches.

The cold sharpens, and our tender buds shrink away from it as the dirt begins to shift and pile, as though shaped by invisible hands. Men do not move dirt like this.

Women don’t, either. Yet here, now, is a woman, appearing like a sudden storm. We have seen her many times, and our tender young branches know to curve inward now, away from her icy darkness. She brings the frozen air with her, wriggling up from the caves of roots and rocks deep beneath our forest floor. Her midnight hair and milky dress repel the dirt like water beading on a leaf, and her skin has the blue-white sheen of ice that has never once melted.

A warning, locked deep in the rings of our memory, tells us that she will soon bring things more dangerous than frozen air.

“What news? The sisters in the bookstore?” she asks the man, her hand flashing, quick on his shoulder, checking him for something. She moves much faster than humans do, her form glitching like a shifting reality, the movements collapsed as if time behaves differently for her. Ice-bound magic propels her as she turns her face to the exposed roots, then back to the man as he answers.

“Not what you want. One of them is a little different, but their scents are too intertwined.”

“Have you tasted them both? Human?” Her face blurs as she bends to inhale his scent, pressing his fingers to her lips as though an echo of the sisters might still be there. Her tongue darts to taste where the blood had been.

The man glares and snatches back his hand. “Soon. And yes.” He doesn’t sound like he believes his own voice. Then, “Yes, definitely human. Not what you’re searching for.”

“Unless either girl has some magic we can use, they are useless to us. Local now. Forget them.”

“And if I don’t?” he challenges, and our leaves curl in interest. Something we’ve nearly forgotten tells us that we want this man to stand against this woman, to stop whatever destruction she plans.

The air around us grows icy with her magic and rage, water crystallizing on the tips of our new leaves.

“Stay true to your assignment, or I’ll make sure you lose it. Time is short. Come,” the woman commands, a swirl of dark hair and too-fast movement hiding how she pulls him down into the loose earth. In seconds, they have sunk beneath the crumbs of dirt, and we feel their frozen hands slide along our roots as they squirm down into the darkness like burrowing snakes.

Tonight our roots follow them, hurrying to grow and stretch deeper than they’ve ever gone before. We grow tired of merely watching. Curious instead to taste more of their magic, which is bright and dark all at the same time.

The ice-filled soil left behind their tunneling path smells like both destruction and afterbirth, demise and origin. Our end, and a new beginning that we will have to fight to make ours.