The dawn was a jagged line of grey-blue light cutting through the heavy mist when they reached the edge of the woodland. The engine of the car ticked as it cooled, a lonely, mechanical sound in the vast, predawn silence. The air here was different from the park in the city; it was ancient, smelling of wet earth, rotting cedar, and the sharp, metallic tang of frost.
As they stepped out of the car, their boots crunched on the frozen grass, a sound like breaking glass in the stillness. The tree where the rope had been found was miles away, a ghost in the deeper heart of the timber.
They began their journey on foot, walking slowly along a narrow, winding trail. At first, the conversation was casual, a desperate attempt to keep the reality of their mission at bay. Liam spoke of the coastal walks in Ireland, comparing the smell of the pines to the scent of the gorse bushes back home. He made a joke about his boots being too clean for a proper hike, his voice a warm, rhythmic lilt that tried to anchor her to the present.
Clara tried to participate, her lips moving in small, distracted smiles, but as the trees began to close in around them, the canopy knitting together to blot out the rising sun, the familiarity of the scene began to claw at her.
The forest wasn't just a collection of trees to her anymore; it was a memory of a tomb.
Every shadow looked like the one she had slept in. Every rustle of a squirrel in the dry leaves sounded like the footsteps of a predator. As they moved deeper, the light became dappled and deceptive. Clara's breath began to come in shorter, shallower bursts.
"Liam," she whispered, her eyes darting toward a particularly dark thicket. "It's the same. The way the light dies when you get past the first mile... It's the same."
She began to freak out, her mind spiraling back to that night of "baptism" and terror. She remembered the old wood cabin, that rotting, abandoned shell next to the river where she had huddled in the dark. She remembered the night she thought everything was lost, the feeling of the cold seeping into her marrow, and the terrifying realization that her father's red marks were the only thing standing between her and a nameless grave.
She started to watch for the red marks on the trees, her head whipping from side to side. Her mind was frantically searching for that specific shade of crimson paint, the signal that she was safe.
Liam found her funny in the first place, a small, lopsided grin on his face. "Clara, love, we're miles from that forest. There are no marks here."
But when he saw the way her hands were shaking, the way her pupils were blown wide with a primal, animal terror, the smile vanished. He understood that she was starting to panic, that she wasn't just walking through the woods, she was re-living her own disappearance.
He didn't wait for her to ask for help. He stepped into her space, placing a hand on her shoulder to stop her frantic movement. When she didn't settle, he stepped around and hugged her from behind, his arms a heavy, protective wrap around her chest, his chin resting against her temple.
"Breathe, Clarabell," he murmured into her hair, his heart beating a steady, calm rhythm against her back. "I am here to protect you. I am here to find our way out. You aren't alone this time."
Clara leaned back into him, her body trembling so violently that her teeth chattered. The inner battle was fierce; the lawyer wanted to be clinical and brave, but the survivor wanted to scream and run back to the car.
"You don't understand," she sobbed, her voice a jagged rasp. "The last time I was in a forest like this... I saw the opening with the baby deer and their mother. It was so beautiful, Liam. For a second, I thought the world was kind. But then the sun went down, and I lost my mind. I thought life was meaningless. I thought the forest was just waiting for me to die so it could turn me into more dirt. I felt... I felt like I had already vanished."
Liam held her tighter, the details of her feelings sinking into him like lead. He hadn't fully grasped the psychological toll of her night in the woods until this moment, the way the beauty of the deer had been a cruel prelude to the nihilism of the dark.
Only after all this did Liam really understand her. He didn't just see a case anymore; he saw the scars on her soul. He turned her around in his arms, his eyes burning with a new, fierce intensity.
"Clara, look at me," he commanded. "I swear to protect you. I swear that the only thing you'll find in these woods today is the truth. The forest doesn't get to have you. Not ever again."
She took a long, shuddering breath, the scent of his wool coat calming the frantic chemical spike in her brain. She nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
They began to walk again, but the pace was different now. They were halfway to the spot where the rope was found, and the air seemed to grow even colder. The pines were thicker here, their branches heavy with a moss that looked like grey hair.
Clara stayed close to his side, her hand tucked firmly into the crook of his arm. The panic was still there, a low-level hum in her blood, but it was being held at bay by the man beside her. She wasn't just a victim looking for a ghost; she was a partner looking for a lead.
But as the path narrowed and the ground became choked with tangled roots, the silence of the forest grew louder. It was the silence of a witness who refused to speak. And somewhere ahead, the tree with the severed thread was waiting for them.
When they finally reached the spot, the air felt heavy, as if the forest was holding its breath. There was no other fragment of the rope left on the branch; the primary evidence had been stripped long ago. All that remained were a few fluttering ribbons of yellow and black plastic tape that had once guarded the crime scene. The colors had become erased and faded from the long months of exposure to the elements, looking more like the shed skin of a snake than a police barrier.
Liam stood beneath the towering pine, his head tilted back. The tree looked hard to climb, its lowest branches high above the ground, and its bark smooth and slick with morning dew. He frowned, a legal skepticism sharpening his gaze.
"I wonder," he murmured, "if Lili really climbed up there herself. It's a struggle for a grown man, let alone a woman in her state of mind."
He looked at the base of the tree. It was a mess, the ground had been trampled by investigators, and months of rain had turned the soil into a blank slate. No marks were left intact; everything that could have led the way was gone.
Undeterred, Liam began to widen his search to the surrounding area. He moved with a hunter's patience, eyes raking over the roots and the undergrowth. After what felt like an hour of meticulous searching, he stopped.
"Clara! Over here."
Deep in a thicket, far away from the main tree, he found a different trunk. It had blood smeared on the bark, a dark, oxidized stain that the rain hadn't quite managed to wash away. At the foot of that tree sat a pair of big boots. They were degraded, worn, and full of mud, heavy with the dampness of the recent rains.
Clara stared at them, her breath catching. "Liam... those are huge."
"They aren't Jack's," Liam said, his voice hard. "Too big for him. Way too big."
A sudden wave of hope washed over Clara, displacing the panic. If those weren't Jack's boots, it meant he hadn't touched Lili again. It meant someone else had been here, someone massive.
Liam pointed to the ground near the boots. A faint path emerged, marked by a series of footprints that looked like someone had been walking barefoot. The impressions were deep and rhythmic, leading further into the wild.
He took Clara's hand, lacing his fingers with hers, and together they began to follow the trail. They wandered through the forest for hours, the barefoot prints acting as a silent guide. As they walked, Clara felt the last vestiges of her panic transform into a strange sense of home. The forest was no longer a tomb; it was a map, and they were following the legend.
The path eventually broke when a narrow, disused road split the forest. They scanned the far side of the asphalt, and after a tense search, found the prints again, picking up where the grass met the timber. They followed them for another hour, moving deeper and deeper into the emerald heart of the woods, until the sound of rushing water began to drown out the wind.
Finally, they found it: a hidden waterfall cascading over a shelf of black rock, feeding into a small, beautiful, crystal-clear natural basin of water at its base. The place looked entirely undisturbed, a pristine pocket of the world that gave no sign of any recent struggle. The water was cold and still, the waterfall a gentle, rhythmic song.
Exhausted and hungry, they stopped at the edge of the water. They sat down on a patch of soft grass, the mist from the falls cooling their skin.
"It's beautiful," Clara whispered, looking at the way the light refracted through the clear water. "I didn't think places like this existed so close to the grey."
"The forest hides its best secrets for those willing to walk the barefoot path," Liam said, pulling some lunch from his pack and handing her a sandwich. He looked at the basin, then back at her, a playful glint returning to his eyes. "You know, looking at that pool... I was just thinking. In the future, when we aren't chasing ghosts, I'd love to have a bit of sweet lovemaking with you right there under the falls. Very cinematic, don't you think?"
Clara let out a short, genuine laugh, her first of the day. She took a bite of her sandwich and looked at the icy, churning water of the basin.
"You have quite the imagination, Liam," she teased, tilting her head. "But I'm not so sure about the logistics. I'm not sure if you could perform under that cold water. You might find your Irish constitution isn't quite up to the temperature."
Liam barked a laugh, the sound echoing off the rocks. "Is that a challenge, Ms. Davies? Because I've swum in the North Sea in January. I think I could manage to keep my focus."
"We'll see," she said, her smile widening as she leaned her head on his shoulder. "For now, let's just eat. The waterfall isn't going anywhere, and neither am I."
The sandwiches were half-eaten, forgotten on the wax paper as the air between them shifted from the exhaustion of the hike to the electric hum of a shared challenge. The mist from the waterfall settled on Clara's eyelashes like tiny diamonds, and Liam found himself unable to look away from the way the cold air made her cheeks flush a deep, vibrant pink.
"So," Liam said, leaning back on his elbows, his eyes raking over the crystal-clear pool with a grin that was nothing but trouble. "You're questioning the Irish constitution, are you? After I've walked you through miles of brush without breaking a sweat?"
Clara popped a grape into her mouth, her eyes dancing. "I'm just a woman of facts, Liam. And the fact is that the water is likely forty degrees. Most things... retract... in that kind of climate. It's simple physics."
Liam let out a dramatic gasp, clutching his chest. "Physics! She's attacking my honor with physics! Clarabell, I'll have you know that back in County Clare, we consider this 'mild.' "
"Is that a dare?" Clara challenged, sitting up straighter. "Because you talk a very big game for a man currently wearing three layers of wool."
"It's a dare if you want it to be," he countered, his voice dropping into that low, husky register that usually made her knees weak. "I dare you to step in. Just your feet. If you can stand the cold for sixty seconds without squealing like a city girl, I'll admit you're the tougher lawyer."
"Oh, you're on."
Clara stood up with a determined look, kicking off her boots and peeling off her socks. She stepped toward the edge of the basin, the grass beneath her feet feeling like velvet. As her toes touched the surface of the water, the cold hit her like an electric shock. She bit her lip hard to keep from making a sound, her body tensing as she stepped in up to her ankles.
"One..." she hissed through gritted teeth. "Two... Three..."
Liam watched her, his gaze intense and appreciative. "You're turning blue, Clara. Just admit the Irish win this round."
"Never," she gasped, her eyes snapping to his. "Forty-five... forty-six... I'm fine. It's practically a spa."
"You're a terrible liar," he laughed, standing up and moving toward her. He stopped at the water's edge, looking down at her submerged feet. "But you're a brave one. Alright, step out before your toes fall off, and I have to carry you back, which, for the record, I wouldn't mind doing."
She stepped out, shivering, and Liam immediately grabbed her, pulling her against his chest to share his heat. He wrapped his arms around her, his hands rubbing her shoulders vigorously.
"Now," Clara said, her breath hitching as she looked up at him, her face inches from his. "I did my part. Your turn. I dare you to... to kiss me. Right here. But it has to be a 'North Sea' kiss. The kind you say is so powerful it doesn't matter if the water is freezing."
Liam's expression softened, the playfulness melting into something much more potent. "A North Sea kiss, is it? Those are dangerous, Clara. They tend to make people forget where they are."
"I'm willing to take the risk," she whispered.
He didn't hesitate. He took her face in both of his hands, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones before he leaned in. The kiss was slow, deep, and tasted of the wild air and the cold mist. It was a "North Sea" kiss indeed, one that made the blood in her veins run hot enough to ignore the shivering of her skin.
When he finally pulled back, he was breathless, his forehead resting against hers. "So? Any notes for the legal record?"
Clara smiled, her heart hammering against her ribs. "I think... I think I may have been wrong about the physics. Your constitution seems to be... functioning perfectly."
Liam laughed, a rich, joyful sound that echoed over the rush of the falls. "I told you. We're a sturdy lot. But don't think you're getting off that easy. Next summer, when we come back here for that wedding trip? No clothes. No boots. Just us and the waterfall. I dare you to agree to that."
"I agree," Clara said, her voice full of a sudden, fierce hope. "On one condition."
"What's that?"
"That you find us a way to make sure Jack Blackwood is in a cold, grey cell by then. So we can have the forest all to ourselves."
Liam's face hardened into that of the protector again, but the love remained. He kissed her nose and pulled her back toward the patch of grass. "It's a deal. Now finish your sandwich, counselor. We still have footprints to follow, and something tells me the person who made them isn't as cold-blooded as the water."
The sun had finally climbed high enough to pierce through the dense canopy, turning the misty forest into a cathedral of light. Beams of gold sliced through the spruce needles, illuminating millions of dancing dust motes and turning the damp moss into glowing, neon velvet. It should have been beautiful, but the clarity only made the trail of footprints more haunting.
"Look at the way the light hits the floor," Clara remarked, stepping over a fallen log. She sounded breathless, though not from the hike. "In the dark, it felt like we were in a tunnel. Now... it feels like we're being watched by a thousand golden eyes. I've never seen green look so aggressive."
Liam nodded, his hand never straying far from the holster at his hip. "It's a trick of the light, Clarabell. The sun is just showing us the scale of where we are. Back home, they'd say the forest is trying to swallow the path back up."
They followed the impressions in the mud for another two miles, the tracks growing deeper as the ground became softer. Suddenly, the trail broke into a small, unnaturally quiet clearing.
Clara stopped so abruptly that Liam nearly collided with her. She felt a cold prickle at the base of her neck that had nothing to do with the waterfall.
"Liam," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Tell me that's just a hill. Tell me that's not a house."
In the center of the clearing sat a structure that defied the logic of the woods. It was a small wooden cabin, but it had been so completely overtaken by the forest that it looked like a living lung. Thick, shaggy coats of moss draped over the roof like heavy blankets; vines of ivy twisted around the porch railings like constricting snakes. Even the windows were filmed over with a green, translucent grime. It didn't look built; it looked like it had grown out of the earth, or been buried alive by it.
"Jesus," Liam breathed, his eyes narrowing. "It's camouflaged. You could walk ten feet past this in the brush and never know it was here."
Clara took a step back, her breath coming in shallow hitches. "It's wrong. Liam, it's wrong. Look at the door, there's no handle. And the moss... It's growing over the seams. Whoever is in there hasn't come out the front way in a long time."
"Easy," Liam said, reaching out to steady her. He could feel her shivering again. "We're just going to circle it. We don't do anything until we see the perimeter."
They spent what felt like tens of minutes moving in a wide, silent arc around the cabin. Every snap of a twig sounded like a gunshot in the oppressive silence of the clearing. There were no birds here. No squirrels. Just the low hum of insects and the heavy scent of damp earth and rot.
When they finally returned to the front, the sun was beginning to dip again, casting long, distorted shadows across the mossy roof.
"We can't stay out here," Liam said quietly, looking at the darkening woods. "If we're caught in the open when the sun goes down, we're sitting ducks."
Clara stared at the door. The green shroud seemed to pulse in the fading light. "I have a very bad feeling about this, Liam. This isn't a hunter's lodge. It feels like... a trap. Or a tomb."
"Only one way to find out which it is," Liam replied. His face settled into a mask of grim determination. "Stay behind me. If I tell you to run, you don't look back. You go straight for the basin. Understood?"
Clara swallowed hard, her hand gripping the back of his jacket. "I'm not leaving you."
Liam didn't argue. He reached out, his gloved hand hovering over the moss-slicked wood of the door. With a sharp, heavy kick, he forced the seal of the overgrown entrance. The door didn't creak; it groaned, the sound of tearing vegetation filling the air as it swung inward into the darkness.
Clara held her breath, her eyes widening as the first stale draft of air hit them from the interior.
Liam stepped over the threshold first, his large frame silhouetted against the blinding golden rectangle of the doorway. He stood perfectly still for a long moment, his head tilting as he listened to the deep, hollow silence of the interior. The air inside didn't move; it was a heavy, stagnant soup of dust motes, dried cedar, and a faint, sweet scent of pressed flowers that had long since lost their life.
After a beat, he reached back and gave a small, steadying wave. He signaled for Clara to come inside, his hand lingering near hers to guide her through the narrow opening where the moss had tried to seal the door shut.
The cabin was a single, cramped room, but it felt vast because of the weight of the history trapped within its walls. A thick, grey velvet of dust lay behind everything, the small pot-bellied stove, the hand-carved stools, the rough-hewn table. It was a time capsule of a life interrupted, a place where the clocks had stopped while the world outside kept spinning.
Clara moved toward the walls, her eyes widening. Colorful drawings were glued directly onto the dark wooden planks, their pigments faded but still vibrant enough to cut through the gloom. She traced the lines of one with a trembling finger. It depicted a young girl, her hand tucked firmly into the crook of her mother's arm, both of them smiling with a simplicity that made Clara's heart ache.
Further down, another drawing showed the same girl playing under the waterfall they had just left, splashing in the crystal basin while a tall, shadowy man watched over her like a silent guardian.
"Liam," Clara whispered, her voice thick. "Someone lived here. Someone who loved her."
She turned toward a small shelf near the bed, a simple cot covered in a moth-eaten quilt. Resting there was a notebook, its leather cover cracked and grey with age. Clara picked it up, the dust puffing into the air like a ghost's breath. She flipped to the first page, her eyes scanning the neat, rhythmic handwriting.
"It's her," Clara breathed, her eyes welling up. "Liam, look. It's a notebook with poetry."
She stepped toward the light of the open door and began to read the first one aloud, her voice trembling as she channeled the voice of the girl who had vanished.
The shadow of the pine falls long across the stone,
And I wait for the sound of a name I've always known.
Nathaniel, your ghost is the air within my chest,
A heartbeat of longing that will not let me rest.
I remember the taste of the rain upon your skin,
The place where the woods end and where we both begin.
I ask the silent stars for a grace they cannot give,
For one more stolen kiss, for a reason left to live.
But the water in the basin runs cold and very deep,
And the secrets of the forest are the only ones I keep.
I reach into the dark where your hand used to be,
Waiting for the kiss that never comes for me.
Clara closed the book, clutching it to her chest as if it were a living thing. She showed it to Liam, her face illuminated by a sudden, fierce certainty.
"Nathaniel," she whispered. "She loved someone named Nathaniel. Liam, this isn't the writing of a girl who wanted to die. This is the writing of a girl who was waiting. I am sure this notebook was made by Lili. She was here. She survived, and she sat in this cabin, and she wrote this."
She looked at him, her eyes burning with a desperate, beautiful fire. "She must be alive, Liam. If she could write this, if she could remember the waterfall and... then she's still out there. Somewhere deeper than we've gone."
Liam looked at the drawings, then back at the notebook. The "lawyer" in him saw evidence, but the man in him saw a soul. He reached out and placed his hand over hers on the leather cover, sealing the discovery.
"Then we don't stop," he promised. "We follow the poetry until we find the girl."
The cabin felt like it was shrinking. As the golden hour outside bled into a bruised, violet twilight, the cramped space seemed to inhale, drawing the walls closer to Clara and Liam. Clara sat on the edge of the dust-laden cot, the notebook spread across her knees like a holy relic. Her thumb traced the edges of the pages, feeling the grit of decades-old paper against her skin.
Liam stood by the door, a sentinel between the safety of the room and the rising darkness of the woods. He watched Clara, his jaw tight. He wanted to leave. Every instinct honed by years of legal precision and survival told him that the forest at night was a different beast entirely, but he couldn't pull her away just yet. Not while she was finally hearing the voice of the girl they had been chasing through a labyrinth of cold leads and empty whispers.
"Listen to this," Clara whispered, her voice barely audible over the rising wind that whistled through the gaps in the cedar planks.
She turned a page, her eyes darting across the cramped, frantic script. "She writes about that man. She calls him 'The Keeper of the Quiet.' At first, it sounds... peaceful. She talks about how he taught her the names of the mosses, how he showed her that she wasn't a monster for what happened back in the city. She wrote, 'He looks at me and does not see a sin. He sees a bird with a broken wing, and for the first time, I feel beautiful. Not the beauty of a polished mirror, but the beauty of a stone smoothed by the river.'"
Clara looked up, her eyes wet. "She felt seen, Liam. Truly seen."
But as she flipped further, the handwriting changed. It became jagged, the ink pressing so hard into the paper that it nearly tore through to the other side. The tone shifted from gratitude to a flickering, low-level terror.
"It changed," Clara said, her breath hitching. "She says he has 'dark days.' Days when the forest talks back to him, and he can't distinguish her voice from the wind. She wrote, 'The Keeper snapped today. I dropped a jar of preserved berries, and for a moment, his eyes weren't the eyes of the man who saved me. They were the eyes of the mountain, cold, crushing, and ancient. He screamed at the empty air for an hour, and I had to hide under the floorboards until the shaking stopped.'"
Liam stepped closer, the floorboards groaning under his weight. The relief of finding proof that Lili was alive was rapidly being eclipsed by the realization of the environment she had been trapped in. She hadn't just survived the forest; she had survived a man who was unraveling in the isolation.
"He's unstable," Liam said, his voice a low rumble of protective anger. "A savior who becomes a jailer. That's a dangerous dynamic, Clara. Especially if she felt she owed him her life."
Clara flipped to the last few entries. They were sparse, mostly fragments of poems and desperate prayers. The desire to find her surged through Clara like an electric current, a physical ache in her chest that made her want to scream Lili's name into the trees. But as she looked toward the window, she saw the last sliver of the sun vanish behind the peaks.
The panic began as a small, cold knot in her stomach. The woods were no longer a setting; they were an entity. The shadows of the trees stretched across the cabin floor like long, skeletal fingers reaching for the notebook.
"We have to go," Liam said, his voice sharp now, cutting through her trance. "Clara, look at the light. If we stay here, we're blind. We can't help her if we're lost or hypothermic."
"Just one more page"
"No." Liam reached down and firmly but gently closed the notebook. He tucked it into the inner pocket of his heavy jacket, keeping it close to his chest. "We have the evidence. We have her voice. But we are not equipped for a night search in the deep timber. Look at your hands, Clara. You're shaking."
She looked down. Her fingers were trembling violently, a mixture of adrenaline, exhaustion, and the sheer emotional weight of the poetry. The relief of knowing Lili was alive was fighting a losing battle against the sheer terror of the "Keeper," who might still be out there, watching them from the periphery of the pines.
They stepped out of the cabin, and the temperature had already plummeted. The air was sharp, smelling of damp earth and impending frost. Liam locked the cabin door as best he could, a futile gesture, but one that felt necessary to protect the sanctuary they had just disturbed.
The descent was a blur of heavy breathing and the rhythmic thwack of branches against their jackets. Every snap of a twig sounded like a gunshot in the stillness. Clara kept seeing the drawings in her mind, the girl at the waterfall, the man watching. Every time she looked into the dense underbrush, she imagined a pair of eyes reflecting the pale moonlight.
Panic nipped at their heels. The trail they had walked so confidently in the afternoon was now a treacherous ribbon of roots and loose shale. Liam led the way, his flashlight cutting a desperate, wobbling path through the dark. He kept checking behind him, making sure Clara was there, his hand reaching back to catch her every time she stumbled.
The desire to find Lili was a beacon, but the need for survival was the fuel. They weren't just running from the dark; they were running toward the chance to come back better prepared.
When the silhouette of the car finally appeared in the distance, a ghostly white shape parked at the edge of the forest road, the relief was so physical it felt like a blow. Clara's knees nearly gave out.
They scrambled inside, the sound of the car doors slamming shut echoing like a final punctuation mark on the day's horrors. Liam started the engine, the heater roaring to life, but the chill stayed in their bones.
"We're going back," Liam said, his hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. He looked at Clara, seeing the exhaustion etched into the lines of her face. "We go home. We eat. We sleep. And tomorrow, we bring everything we have. We don't just follow a trail, Clara. We bring her home."
Clara leaned her head against the window, watching the dark wall of the forest recede as they drove away. In her pocket, she could feel the edges of a single drawing she had tucked away, the one of the girl holding her mother's arm.
"She's waiting, Liam," Clara whispered, her eyes closing as the warmth of the car finally began to seep in. "I can still hear the poem. She's still waiting for that kiss."
The drive back was a descent into a different kind of darkness. The road ahead was a winding, asphalt ribbon that seemed to shrink under the aggressive glare of the car's high beams. Dense walls of pine and spruce pressed in from either side, their branches arching overhead like the ribcage of a giant beast. Liam drove with a focused, white-knuckled intensity, his eyes darting between the road and the rearview mirror, as if expecting the "Keeper" to emerge from the shadows on a vengeful gallop.
Clara sat in the passenger seat, the notebook clutched to her chest. She didn't speak. The hum of the tires against the pavement and the rhythmic clicking of the heater were the only sounds against the oppressive silence of the forest night. Every time they passed a gap in the trees, the moonlight flickered across her face, pale and ghost-like.
When they finally reached the safety of their home, the transition felt jarring. The bright lights of the kitchen and the familiar scent of lavender and old wood should have been a comfort, but they felt clinical and cold compared to the raw, visceral reality of the cabin.
Liam immediately went to the stove to boil water, his movements mechanical, driven by a need to do something, anything, to ground himself. "You need to eat, Clara," he said, his voice raspy.
"I can't," she replied, already heading for the living room sofa. She clicked on a small, warm reading lamp and opened the book. "I have to know what happened next."
She turned the page, and a sharp gasp escaped her lips.
"What is it?" Liam asked, bringing over two mugs of tea.
"He cut her hair," Clara whispered, her eyes scanning the jagged lines. "Lili wrote that he took a knife to her while she begged him not to cut her hair. He told her it was to save her. He said, 'If your golden crown is gone, the man named Jack will never find the ghost of the girl he lost.' He wanted to erase her identity so completely that even the boy who loved her wouldn't recognize her in a crowd."
Clara flipped the page. The notebook had changed. The structured stanzas of poetry had dissolved into a frantic, daily log. It was no longer a book of art; it was a diary of a prisoner trying to find the light in her cell.
"The Keeper... she calls him that now, consistently," Clara noted, her voice trembling. "She says he didn't hurt her physically, not in the way we feared. He never laid a hand on her in anger, but he would scream. He would scream at the walls, at the shadows, at the memory of a world that had rejected him. She wrote about staying by his bed for weeks when a fever took him. She could have run then, Liam. She could have fled while he was weak, but she stayed. She fed him broth made from bone and lichen. She watched him recover, and in his recovery, he became even more possessive."
Liam sat on the edge of the coffee table, leaning in. "Stockholm Syndrome? Or just pure, isolated empathy?"
"Both, maybe," Clara said. She turned to a page dated months later. "Her hair started to grow back. She begged him, literally promised him her soul, not to shave her head again. She wrote, 'I told him I would never speak Jack's name again. I told him Jack was a dream I had before I woke up in the trees. If I gave him my silence, he gave me back my hair.'"
As Clara read further, the tone shifted again. The anger and fear seemed to mellow into a heartbreaking, delusional sweetness. Lili began to write about Clara.
"She mentions me," Clara said, tears finally spilling over. "She says that in the coldest nights, she imagines I'm sitting on the edge of her cot, brushing the tangles out of her hair. She says I was the only mother she ever truly felt. And look..."
Clara turned the page to show Liam. Glued to the paper were small, crude drawings, sketches of two women holding hands under a sun that looked like a sunflower. They were joyful and colorful, a stark contrast to the dark, cramped writing surrounding them. "She kept me with her. She kept us both with her."
The diary entries became more grounded in the harsh reality of survival as the seasons turned. Lili described the biting breath of the cabin during the winter, how the frost would grow inside the glass of the single window. She wrote about the Keeper bringing her heavy woolens, strange, mismatched clothes he must have scavenged or stolen, to keep her from freezing.
Then, near the very end of the notebook, the entries took a sharp, anxious turn.
"There's a friend," Clara said, her heart hammering. "The Keeper told her he has a 'friend' who lives further down the valley. This man offered to take them both in, to give them a real roof and a hearth. The Keeper saw it as a new chance to 'protect' her better. But Lili was terrified. She wrote, 'I am moving from one cage to another, but this one has a master I do not know. The Keeper is anxious. He says we must move under the cover of the moon so no one sees the girl who died.'"
Clara reached the final page. The handwriting was so small it was almost illegible, written in a rush.
"We leave tonight. The woods are screaming at me to stay, but the Keeper's hand is firm on my shoulder. I am leaving my poems here, under the floor. I am scared of the dark house. I am scared of that friend. But I am most scared that I am becoming the shadow they want me to be."
The notebook ended there. The rest of the pages were blank, a haunting silence that echoed through the room.
Clara closed the book slowly, the weight of it heavy in her lap. "They moved her, Liam. They moved her in the night to a place where 'no one would recognize her.' She's not in the woods anymore. She's in a house, with two men, and she's disappearing."
Liam looked at the darkened window, his expression grim. "Then we don't just search the woods tomorrow. We look for the 'friend.' We look for the house where ghosts are kept."
The move had happened in a blur of moonlight and cold wind, a silent trek through the veins of the forest until the trees broke open to reveal a structure made of stone and heavy timber. Now, the world was different. It was quieter, yet somehow more terrifying in its normalcy.
Lili sat by the window of the upstairs room, watching the morning mist cling to the rolling hills. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, she lived in a house with proper floors and a hearth that didn't smoke.
The Keeper had changed. Without the constant pressure of the forest pressing against the cabin walls, the wildness had begun to drain out of him. He had shaved the ragged thicket of his beard, revealing a face that was deeply lined but surprisingly gentle. He wore clean wool sweaters and leather boots. In the mornings, when he sat at the heavy oak table, he looked like any other aged man, his eyes no longer darting toward the corners of the room for imaginary threats.
He had become tender. He would place a hand on her shoulder as he passed, a gesture that no longer made her flinch. "Eat, little bird," he would say softly, pushing a bowl of warm porridge toward her. "You need your strength for the spring."
Then there was the friend. His name was Elias, a man of salt and earth. He was a shipman by trade, spending his days tending to the small fleet in the nearby cove, but up here on the hills, he kept goats. He was a man of few words, but his silence was different from the Keeper's; it was a steady, grounding presence. Lili found she could trust him. He never looked at her with the obsessive hunger of a captor, but with the weary pity of a man who had seen too many storms.
Every morning after breakfast, the house would empty. Elias would descend toward the hills, and the Keeper would lead the small herd of cows out into the high pastures.
Lili was left alone.
The hours were vast and hollow. She spent them moving through the house like a ghost, cleaning, watching the light shift across the floorboards, and feeling the soft weight of her hair, now growing back in a dark, uneven bob, against her neck. She was safe, she was warm, and for the first time, she was not afraid of the man she was with.
But the peace was a fragile glass ornament.
A few nights ago, while she sat in the shadows of the hallway, she had overheard them speaking by the fire. The Keeper's voice had been thick with a longing that chilled her blood.
"The sap will be rising soon, Elias," the Keeper had said, his voice rhythmic, like a prayer. "When the first buds break on the silver birches, I'll be taking her back. This house... it is a kindness, but it is a cage for a man like me. I cannot be a burden to you forever. We belong to the green, not the stone."
Lili leaned her head against the cool glass of the windowpane. The spring was coming. She looked at her hands, no longer cracked and bleeding from the cold, and felt a wave of nausea. The Keeper was anchored to his old life, a man who couldn't breathe unless he was surrounded by the suffocating embrace of the pines.
He didn't want to be a burden to his friend, but in his pride, he was preparing to drag her back into the grave of the forest just as the world was starting to wake up. She looked out at the hills, wondering if Clara was out there, or if she was just another dream Lili had left behind in the cabin under the floorboards.
The desk was a luxury she hadn't expected. It was a scarred piece of mahogany in the corner of her room, smelling of beeswax and old salt. Elias had left a stack of parchment and a pot of ink there, perhaps a silent acknowledgement of the soul he saw flickering behind her eyes.
Lili sat, the quill heavy in her hand. The silence of the house was different now; it wasn't the silence of the woods, which felt like a predator holding its breath. This was the silence of a clock ticking toward an inevitable strike.
She thought of Nathaniel. She tried to remember the exact shade of his eyes when he laughed, terrified that the gray mists of the hills were washing the color from her memories. She began to write, her handwriting shaky but regaining its former grace.
To Nathaniel,
The world is wide and often cold,
With stories harsh and winters old,
But in the garden of my mind,
It's only you I seek to find.
Your name is like a whispered prayer,
A tether in the restless air.
I loved you when the sun was high,
Beneath the vast and open sky,
And I shall love you just the same,
When shadows try to hide your name.
For though the path is hard to see,
You are the only home for me.
No stone can stop the love I hold,
No winter turns its fire cold;
In every breath and every beat,
It is your soul I long to meet.
My heart is yours, and yours alone,
A truth the stars have always known.
She blew gently on the ink, watching it matte against the page. She didn't hide the poem under the floorboards this time. She folded it small and tucked it into the lining of her bodice, right against her heartbeat.
Outside, a single bird chirped, a scout for the coming season. Lili looked at the hills, the poem a heavy secret against her skin, and wondered if this would be the last time she ever touched a piece of paper. The anchor of the Keeper's past was dragging them both back toward the trees, and the spring was no longer a promise of life, but a countdown to her disappearance.