Page 67 of Counting Quarters

Chapter Twenty Nine

Blaire

“Doyoufeelanything?”

I looked around at the forestry surrounding us, completely void of emotion. Hailey stood to my left, her ghostly eyes searching for something—anything. But I knew this wasn’t it before she had the chance to shake her head.

We were wrong again.

She looked down at the sticks and leaves beneath her feet, unaffected by her misty existence.

“We’ll try again,” I assured her. I’m not sure why I felt the need to say anything.

I knew this was hard for her. That putting her through this, only to find out we still hadn’t gotten it right, was breaking down her will to exist. And neither of us wanted to find out what happened to a spirit that no longer wanted to exist.

“I was sure this was it,” Kyle mumbled. He turned around and missed Hailey’s sneer at his back.

“We’re getting close. I can feel it. There’re more spirits nearby.”

It was like the buzzing of a beehive. A low vibration deep inside the earth. I wanted to follow it, but each time I tried, I ended up empty-handed and walking in circles.

Hailey didn’t bother answering. She fizzled out and disappeared before I could ask her to stop. To help.

I blew out a breath, and Kyle scratched his head.

“I wish you'd stop calling them spirits,” he grumbled as he walked over to one of the elder oak trees and looked around its base.

“It doesn't make sense for me to be seeing them if they're alive,” I argued for the hundredth time.

He had it in his head that after seeing the girls still alive in Shane's memory, they were out here, in some sort of world in-between worlds.

“I think they're stuck in a fold,” he said again, giving up on looking around the trees.

“Or they're buried underground.”

He shot me an irritated look. “This is right where they were. I confirmed it in Shane’s mind. This is where they were waiting.”

His brows scrunched together. “There’s got to be something wrong.”

“Maybe they took them somewhere else since then,” I offered.

“They didn’t. I saw them all, Blaire…” He cleared his throat, finding it difficult to speak his next words. “I watched them huddle together in terror right here, like sheep awaiting slaughter.”

I instantly felt guilty for giving him such a hard time. Even if it didn't seem plausible to me, it was worth exploring. That was why I admired him so much.

He was willing to go insane trying to find the truth.

“We’ll find a different way. This is too hard for all of us. If there’s a blockage or a shield, we won’t get through it—not alone.”

We walked beside each other distractedly, when Kyle nudged my arm, silently communicating for me to take a left. I obliged, and we walked another fifty feet before we reached an oddly shaped weeping willow. Its trunk curved this way and that, refusing to conform and grow into a straight line like the trees surrounding it.

A break in the woods revealed a meadow of tall grass surrounding a spring. The water was a deep blue with small, white wisps of steam dancing off the surface.

Such a small piece of heaven buried in the thickest part of the woods.

“How did you know this was here?”

Storie and I had obsessively studied maps of Beacon Grove when she was looking for answers about her family and we never came across anything like this. I would have remembered.

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