Page 137 of When the Woods Go Silent

CHAPTER FIFTY

ROSE

Fuming, I check my phone again. Nothing new.

What am I supposed to make of Ruby’s message claiming something wasn’t right? The typing bubbles hovered open for a while, but no more messages have come through.

She isn’t responding to anything I’m sending now.

As the minutes tick by and the customers trickle away, I begin to admit she really isn’t just late.

Something has happened to Ruby.

I can feel it in my gut.

The clock passes eleven, and I snap into action. This has gone on long enough. Being as polite as I can manage, I speedwalk through the rooms, herding the last handful of lingering customers out the door with a tight smile and locking it behind them. The store is so quiet now. So empty.

Ruby has been gone over an hour, and it feels so, so wrong.

Mind racing, I pull up her location. Still in the woods. I pace the front room, going over my options. I could wait, or I could go in after her. I could call someone, but other than the cops, I don’t have any real connections in Clearwater. I doubt they’d be interested in helping me try to find someone who’s only been gone an hour after sneaking off to meet her boyfriend.

I’d sound like a lunatic.

But the last time I didn’t trust my gut, I almost lost Ruby’s friendship. I refuse to risk that again, or something even worse.

I rush upstairs to the apartment, shedding my party dress and wedges as I go. I pull on the first pair of sweatpants I see, shoving my feet into sneakers and yanking a t-shirt over my head as I nearly topple back downstairs.

“I’m coming, Ruby. Hold on,” I whisper to myself as I head out the back door, using her phone’s location to point me where to go. It won’t be perfect, but it will get me close enough for her to hear me, if she can.

The woods seem to close behind me, spreading a dark wall of trees between the reality of the bookshop and the dark foggy dreaminess of the night forest. I hear the scuttling of small creatures in the undergrowth, and an owl hoots somewhere above me, reminding me of the night this all started. When magic first found me, breaking into the shop, even though I had no idea what was to come, then.

My stomach sinks as I follow my phone’s flashlight deeper into the trees. It’s cold here, and I wish I had brought a sweater. The night sky above is black and empty, with almost no stars peeking through the cloud cover. An icy fog swirls around me, as high as my waist in some places. I move even slower, afraid of stepping in a hole and twisting my ankle.

Cursing Kier under my breath - because why couldn’t he be herenow- I call Ruby’s name. My voice is small and timid in the night, and it doesn’t carry far. But I can’t bring myself to yell louder. I’m almost on top of the dot in the tracking app, and the woods have gone silent.

No more owl. No more scurrying mice. No wind or rustling leaves trying to speak to me.

Heavy, suffocating silence.

My hand shakes as I pan the phone’s light across the ground, terrified of what I might find. The earth is raw here, asthough some giant hand reached down and twisted a tree from the ground, leaving behind blackened chasms where roots once were.

But no Ruby.

“Ruby?” I call again, bringing up her contact. When I dial her number, it rings, and I jump when it echoes in the silent woods. It’s close. She would have heard me by now if... I shut the thought down as I stumble over roots and fallen branches, slipping on patches of ice, before I find it. Just the phone.

No Ruby.

The screen is a constellation of cracks, and tears spill down my cheeks as I struggle to type in her password, my ice-cold fingers getting it wrong twice.

Her text message app opens.

I’m so sorry, Ros

A sob of panic lodges in my throat as I come to the worst possible conclusion, not knowing a way out of my fear. Ruby is in danger. Hurt. Kidnapped, or worse. Ruby is gone, and the last thing she did was try to send me a message.

I should have never let her come to the woods tonight, friendship rules be damned.

I should have answered her first text, when she said something was wrong. I should have taken off after her then, forgetting about being the perfect host. But I was too stubborn and angry. And now Ruby’s gone.

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