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After spending the better half of an hour listing the disappearances in chronological order, Rachel comes to the conclusion that her detective skills aren’t nearly as good as she’d hoped, and her natural talent for research only goes as far as the available information. Nevertheless, she’s certain there’s more to the story. Call it instinct or wishful thinking, but an inexplicable gut feeling tells her those children were taken for a reason.
The reason is important.
“But why?” she asks herself, frustration threatening to overpower her determination. Any answer would do at this point. She’s been putting off a trip into the attic since the previous evening, not completely in the mood to rummage through generations of accumulated junk.
Her attention moves toward her bedroom window and the gleaming forest beyond, where emerald leaves glitter in the mid-morning sunlight. The world outside is as quiet as the house itself—motionless, devoid of life. The forest always reminds her of a graveyard, unsettling in its solemnity. These days, it also feels different, like something is watching ... waiting.
Waiting for what?
Rachel shudders, uneasy at the thought. She pushes herself out of the chair and crosses the room. With a last, quick assessment of the area outside, she shuts the curtains and stands there, fabric clutched in her hands.
What if something is watching me? What if it’s the same something that took the children? What if I’m next?
Rachel talks herself out of peeking through the crack between the drops of thick fabric.
Be reasonable. The kids who’ve been taken were between four and twelve years old. You’re seventeen, Rachel. You’re too old.
The creepy feeling is replaced with a frisson of intense fear.
Still, what if I’m wrong?
“Nope. Nope. Nope.”
Rachel turns on her heels and heads for the door, repeating the word under her breath until it becomes an irritating mantra she can’t stop uttering. She makes her way through the hallway, toward the staircase, and descends two steps at a time to put as much distance between herself and the window. By the time she reaches the first floor, she’s ready to sprint across Griswold Road, toward the safety of Mrs. Crenshaw’s house.
She uses too much strength to pull the front door open and the momentum drags her off balance. Before she can begin to understand what’s happening outside her own mind, a shriek tears out of her as she locks eyes with an unexpected, auburn-haired stranger, his fist still raised to knock against the now-open door. Rachel clamps a hand over her mouth to stifle her cry of surprise. The guy lowers his fist.
He’s tall, towering over Rachel’s five-six, and brawny enough to make her not want to mess with him. He doesn’t appear to be much older than her. She’d wager he’s nineteen or twenty, maybe. His icy blue eyes have a familiarity she can’t seem to pinpoint. It’s as if her fear has rendered her deduction abilities moot, leaving her completely defenseless.
“Ye look like ye have the devil chasin’ after ye,” he says, peering around Rachel to study the area behind her. He turns his attention back to her. “Nan asked if ye wanted to come plant some eggs with us. I’m not sure what the old witch meant.”
“What?” Rachel’s confusion is muffled behind her hand.
“My Nan—” He gestures across the street to Mrs. Crenshaw’s house with a thumb over his shoulder.
Rachel slips her hand away from her mouth as her mind connects the dots. Those ice-blue eyes belong to Mrs. Crenshaw, and that particular shade of auburn-colored hair is similar to her own. There’s no doubt in who he is, weird accent or no. “Oh. You’re Mrs. Crenshaw’s grandson?”
“Aye,” he says, sighing. “Are ye comin’ then?”
She steps outside the house and pulls the door shut behind her. Whatever it is Mrs. Crenshaw wants them to do is infinitely better than being alone, especially being alone in a house that’s being watched by ... well, by whatever is inside the forest.
They walk down the porch steps, Rachel leading the way. Silence hangs over them, one full of unasked questions like: ‘What’s your name?’ and ‘Sorry for the freak-out, but did you perchance see someone peeping through my bedroom window on your way over?’ Before she can ask him anything, Rachel spots Mrs. Crenshaw in the distance, near the forest entrance. The old woman sits in a lawn chair, beneath the shade of a faded pink umbrella, her sunhat on her head and the bottle of sunblock within her reach. She looks so tiny these days, so much tinier and more delicate than she was a year ago.
“I’m Rachel,” she says to the herculean guy when they reach the lawn. “Rachel Cleary.”
“Nan said as much.” He pushes one hand through his thick, wavy hair. “Dougal Charles Mackay.” He pronounces his name Doogle Charls Meckeye, melodic vowels and throaty consonants rolling off his tongue.
“Nice name.” Rachel crosses her arms just to do something with her hands. He tilts his head in her direction. The warmth of a blush comes without warning, heating her cheeks. She clears her throat and says, “So, what exactly are we going to do at Mrs. Crenshaw’s?”
He shakes his head, hair falling over his forehead. “I dunno. Somethin’ about plantin’ eggs.”
Rachel frowns, struggling to decipher his words. “Planting eggs?”
“Aye.”
“As in, she wants us to dig a hole and put a chicken egg into the ground?”
Dougal purses his lips as his brow furrows before he slowly nods. They reach the sun-bleached asphalt. He looks toward the forest entrance, to where his grandmother sits, before his gaze slips to study the road.
“Weird,” Rachel says. “Mind you, your grandmother always occupied my time with odd activities.”
“What’s taking you so long, Dougal?” Mrs. Crenshaw shouts. She stretches her neck to look over her shoulder. “Stop dawdling and fetch the basket of eggs on the kitchen counter and the shovel at the back door. We have a lot of work to do today.”
“Lord, help me,” Dougal says, speeding up.
Rachel snickers as she watches him go.
“Are you sassing me, boy?” Mrs. Crenshaw asks in a stern voice, the same voice Rachel used to fear as a kid. “Don’t think you’re old enough not to get a paddle to the butt!”
“I wasn’t sassing ye, Nan,” he says loud enough for her to hear.
“You’d better not be. Also, you can tone down on the Scots already. I’ve heard you mocking your mother’s accent enough to know you can speak passable English,” Mrs. Crenshaw calls as Rachel hurries to the old woman’s side, glad not to be on the other end of this particular conversation. “When he sulks, I can barely understand him.”
“I was having some trouble in that department myself,” Rachel concurs.
“You’ll get used to the accent after a while, but I can’t say the same thing about the bagpipes at five o’clock in the morning. I swear, whenever I go up to Scotland, his father plays those damned bagpipes on purpose just to get on my nerves.”
“Please tell me Dougal doesn’t play bagpipes.”
“That miscreant? Ha. He doesn’t have a musical bone in his body, thank the heavens.”
Rachel sighs in relief.
“Listen,” Mrs. Crenshaw changes her tone to match the seriousness gleaming in her eyes. “I’m sure you’ve noticed or have already suspected, but it deserves mentioning anyway. You and Dougal are not to get romantic in any way.”
“The hair kinda gave it away,” Rachel says.
“Good,” Mrs. Crenshaw says. “I’m yet to broach the subject with him about you two being related. Hopefully, Sophie got around to it before she put him on the plane.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Crenshaw,” Rachel says, unable to keep herself from grimacing at the mere thought of her and Dougal being anything more than friends. “He’s not my type anyway.”
“Keep it that way.” Mrs. Crenshaw glances over her shoulder again. “Dougal, what’s taking you so long?”
Dougal appears on the porch, holding a basket filled with eggs in one hand and a shovel clutched in his other hand. He crosses the distance, sets the basket beside the chair, and plants the shovel’s blade into the earth. He leans on the handle, waiting for direction.
“Now we can plant some eggs.” Mrs. Crenshaw rubs her hands together.
Dougal opens his mouth to protest—or ask a question—and Rachel gestures for him to stop by waving her hands around behind his grandmother’s back. If there’s one thing she’s learned about Mrs. Crenshaw, it’s that when she’s in one of these moods, it’s best to keep quiet and go along with her whims. Dougal shuts his mouth but raises an inquisitive eyebrow at Rachel instead.
“Dougal, you’re going to dig some holes. They need to be about one foot deep and a yard apart. Begin at the edge of the MacCleary property and work your way to the end of mine, past the ACCESS PROHIBITED sign. Rachel, you’re going to carefully put the egg into the hole and cover it with soil. Don’t plant a cracked egg. Be gentle with them.” She claps her hands, signaling the beginning of the workday, one in which she won’t be participating.
Rachel stands, grabs the egg basket, and falls into step beside Mrs. Crenshaw’s sullen grandson.
“Is Nan always like this?” Dougal asks when they’re out of earshot. “Ye know her better.”
“Not always. She tends to get peculiar around this time of year, but it’s not harmful or malicious—just strange.”
For the most part, the MacCleary land is relatively big but remains unused. The border of the property follows one curve of the mountainous range holding the forest, the rocky terrain steadily becoming a steep cliff looming over the farthest edge of the property. Across Griswold Road, the Fraser land is a mirror image, laid out in an identical way against the other curve. The only difference is the houses’ façades and the additions built in the past to accommodate the growing families. Both families had been large once.
When Rachel and Dougal arrive at the border of the MacCleary property, he tests the ground with the shovel. The blade penetrates the soft soil with ease but stops when it slams against a rock hidden within the earth. He wiggles the shovel around to loosen the rock from its hold, before moving the first bit of ground to the side.
“About eight years ago, around the time my dad died, your grandmother came over with a boxful of saucers and a crate of milk,” Rachel says.
“Whit wey?”
“Huh?”
“Why?” Dougal clarifies.
“Oh. Well, Mrs. Crenshaw doesn’t tell me why we do half the things we do. It’s easier not to ask questions when it comes to her eccentricities. That day, the two of us filled the saucers with milk and lined them up in this exact way. I told her all of Shadow Grove’s stray cats would come over and we’ll never get rid of them again, but she shushed me and told me to get back to work.”
Dougal stops his shoveling, his expression turning concerned rather than curious. “Did the cats come?”
“No, but each and every one of those saucers was empty the next morning.” Rachel picks the first egg out of the basket. “That hole looks deep enough.”
Dougal grunts in affirmation and moves a yard over, giving Rachel enough space to start her part of the assigned work. She scrapes the loose soil over the egg, covering it as instructed, and picks out the next egg. The process is repeated a couple of times, the silence between them growing again.
“Mah maw—” Dougal begins but stops himself. He clears his throat, cheeks reddening. “My ma used this place as a threat when we were weans, tellin’ us if we were naughty, she’d send us to Nan.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a threat,” Rachel says. “Granted, you flew across the ocean to plant eggs, so it seems like your mom doesn’t make empty promises.”
His lips curl up into a sheepish smile. “Aye. First time she’s followed through, too. She isn’t like Nan.”
“Nobody’s like Mrs. Crenshaw, I assure you. She runs this town.”
“I believe ye. Nan’s the only person my da’s scared of; says the fair folk don’t come near the house when she visits.”
Rachel can’t contain her smile as she imagines Mrs. Crenshaw ordering large Scottish men around and having them obey her. If anyone can do it, it’s that tiny, old lady, after all.
Their conversation continues, the topics leaning toward the mundane. The almost rhythmic dig-plant-cover-repeat soothes Rachel’s worries from earlier, back when she’d been alone in her bedroom, and slowly Dougal becomes chattier. Sweat trickles between her shoulder blades as the sun reaches its apex, her muscles ache from the unnatural exercise of having to plant eggs along the invisible border.
When they reach the ACCESS PROHIBITED sign, around one o’clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Crenshaw is nowhere to be seen. In her place sits a tray, though—a jug of lemonade and two tall glasses, along with a plate stacked with sandwiches.
“Time for a wee break.” Dougal’s relief is evident. He stabs the shovel’s blade into the ground and holds a hand out for Rachel. She contemplates his offer, studying his calloused palm, before accepting the help. He pulls her to her feet, looking deep into her eyes, and says, “I understand why Nan’s fond o’ ye.”
Rachel swallows hard. “It’s probably because she helped raise me.”
Dougal releases her hand, and she moves toward the lawn chair. “Yer not what I expected, Rachel Cleary. I thought ye might be one of them spoilt American lasses that talk too much and do little else.”
“That’s mildly racist,” Rachel says.
“Only mildly? Och! I’m already losin’ my touch.”
She laughs as she pulls the insect net off the tray, picks up the lemonade, and pours them both a drink. He accepts a glass and takes a seat on the grassy lawn, stretching out beneath the umbrella’s shade.
“So, how long are you staying?”
“Nan didn’t tell ye?”
“I didn’t even know Mrs. Crenshaw had kids or grandkids until yesterday.”
Dougal exhales loudly through his nose. “I got lifted for stealin’ a car.”
“I only understood about seventy percent of that sentence. Try again.”
He rolls his eyes. “I went out to the pub, got really wasted, stole a car, and wrapped it ‘round a tree,” he explains slowly, his brogue still there but his enunciation better suited to the untrained ear. “Ma decided then and there I wasn’t gonna end up like my cousin, who’s servin’ time in a Texas prison for somethin’ or other. So, she bought me a one-way ticket to Shadow Grove and said I was gonna finish high school here, under Nan’s keen eye.”
“Wait, you’re still in high school?”
“Aye, I’m seventeen,” he answers. “Ye thought I was older?”
“Yeah.”
Dougal shrugs and reaches for a sandwich.
“Was it bad? The accident, I mean.”
“Aye,” is all he says.
She takes a sip of her lemonade, enjoying the sweet coolness running down her dry throat, hoping it’ll keep her from being rude and blurting out the questions she’s dying to ask.
Their respite is interrupted by a rustle—no more than a dry whisper of foliage moving around, but it’s enough to catch them both off guard. A sudden gust of wind rushes from the forest’s entrance, chilling the sweat clinging to Rachel’s body. With the wind comes the sound of laughing children. Ethereal echoes blow onto Griswold Road. Rachel snaps her attention toward the fleeting shadow, moving from one tree to the next, hiding. She searches for whatever lurks just beyond her sight, scans the edge of the wood for a trace of any kids who might’ve snuck inside the infernal place to play.
Rachel stands from her perch on the lawn chair’s armrest, ignoring the way her bones click from misuse. Her muscles scream for mercy as she takes a step forward, examining the trees ahead and the spaces between them.
Dougal is by her side a moment later, staring into the dense woodlands where the sun barely penetrates through the thick canopy of leaves.
“Did you hear that?” she asks.
“Sounded like weans playin’,” Dougal says. “Did ye feel it?”
First the faint scream yesterday, and now this? She doesn’t want to admit the truth, not to a person she’s only met, but she can’t deny her unease anymore either. The way her hair stands on end, how her adrenaline spikes.
Her fear increases.
“Yes.”
Without looking her way, his tone too casual under the circumstances, he asks, “If ye don’t mind me askin’, why did ye look so scared earlier?”
“There’s something wrong with the forest,” she whispers. “It’s waking up.”
