Page 48 of What Lies in the Woods

I’d found Persephone, just as Liv had, and this must be how Liv had felt, too, like she had searched the underworld for her ghost and sighted her at last. Jessi wasn’t Persephone but Eurydice, and Liv was Orpheus, guiding her back toward the surface only to—foolishly, inevitably—look back as she had been forbidden to do, and now both of them were lost below.

Or had Orpheus been lost with his bride? I couldn’t remember anymore. We’d known all the stories by heart back then, small-town girls who could recite the names of all nine Muses and the lineage of ancient heroes, but that was a long time ago.

I rubbed my hands over my arms, suddenly cold. Her name was Jessi. She wasn’t Persephone at all. Inexplicable grief passed over me like a shadow—mourning for the thing we’d imagined her to be. She hadn’t been our talisman, our goddess, our protector. She had been a girl, so much younger than I was now, who died in the forest and was lost. Who was missed. Who was mourned.

My first instinct was to call Liv. My second was to call Cass. But Liv was gone, and Cass—I’d told her I wouldn’t go looking. I’d broken my promise.

My fingernails dug at the scar on my wrist.Persephone, Persephone,I thought, and the voice in my mind was the voice of my childhood self—and Cass’s and Liv’s, too, echoing together in that tiny space with our hands clasped in a ring.

Speak to us, Goddesses. Tell us what to do. How to please you. Hecate, Artemis, Athena, Persephone.The air thrumming with the power of our belief, our wanting to believe.You go first,Cass had told Liv, handing her the knife. We would each cut ourselves, just enough for a few dropsof blood. The fifth ritual. But Liv’s hand shook, and I took it from her.I’ll do it.

I’d cut too deep, the knife skating up the side of my wrist with startling speed. It was just supposed to be a few drops. Liv had screamed. I’d started panicking.

Cass, though, stayed calm. She wrapped her jacket around it tight and we ran to my house, where we could be sure no one would be paying attention. Cass cleaned it with hydrogen peroxide, then sewed it up with a needle and fishing line while I bit down on a dishrag. Liv hovered on the other side of the room, hands pressed over her ears, trying not to retch. She hated blood.

Cass bandaged it up, and I’d hidden it under my sleeve while it healed. At first Cass had said she and Liv would do their cuts later, but eventually she declared that my sacrifice was enough to complete the ritual.

Part of me had wondered, later, if that was where things had gone wrong. We owed the Goddesses our blood, and if we didn’t give it willingly, they would claim it.

But there had been no Goddesses. No Persephone. Only a girl, long lost.

I shut the computer and its image of Jessi Walker. I jolted out of my chair. My fingers skimmed over my skin, bumping over scar tissue, a half-conscious inventory of old wounds. I combed my hand through my hair, pulling hard enough to hurt, and there was relief in the pain. It was simple. Stimulus and response, a clarity of causation that was better than the mire of my mind.

I gulped down a breath. This was the point at which I should call someone, but I had no one to call. My therapist, I supposed, but I hadn’t talked to her since Stahl died, and the idea of explaining everything made me feel ill. I wanted Liv.

I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. I couldn’t breathe.

I dropped my hands and strode to the door, my thoughts half-formedand wild. I walked the few steps to room 4 and knocked before I could think better of it.

Ethan answered the door, looking concerned. “Naomi. Are you okay? What’s up?” He’d lost the cozy sweater he usually wore and was down to an undershirt and jeans. The sweater had hidden a surprisingly muscular build and a tattoo on his left shoulder—a solid black ring about four inches across. He rubbed a thumb across it absently as he spoke.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

He glanced behind him. “Uh. Sure,” he said. He opened the door farther and stepped backward, letting me enter without putting my back to him. I shut the door behind me and stood there, fingers resting against the cold door.

His dirty clothes were heaped in an open suitcase at the end of the bed. Recording equipment was stored more neatly by the desk, and his laptop was open, with sound-editing software up and running. I wondered if he was editing my “interview.” I walked over, trying to decode the tangle of sound waves and icons.

“Naomi?” His fingers brushed my elbow. I dragged my eyes back to his face. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to be alone,” I said. His fingertips were still on my elbow, barely touching me, like he was afraid of what would happen if he made real contact. Or if he let go.

“Do you want to talk?” he asked.

Did I? I needed to tell someone. I needed to speak the words to ease the aching pressure in my chest, but I had no one to tell.

“Tell me what’s happening,” he said. His voice was so painfully gentle, so kind. His touch as tender as he’d been when he lifted Liv from the water.

“I can’t,” I said. I stepped toward him.

Some people reach for a bottle. I have never been able to silence my thoughts with alcohol. It only ever blunts my defenses, lets loose all the creeping things in the corners of my mind. I’ve found other ways tocope. I stepped into him and he let out a startled breath, eyes widening. I rested a hand on his chest. His heart beat rapidly under my palm, and I thought of the rush of blood, of how easily it escapes the skin.

“Naomi,” he said.

“Ethan,” I replied. I leaned into him, almost touching, not quite. A gap that was easy to close, if he wanted to.

He wanted to. But he didn’t. His hand skimmed up my arm, over my shoulder, until his fingers rested at the back of my neck. “What are you doing?” he asked me.

“I told you. I don’t want to be alone.” I didn’t want to be alone, and he was beautiful, and he was alive, and he had been kind to me, and that was more reason than I’d ever needed.

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