Page 10 of What Lies in the Woods

“No,” Cass said immediately, and I was glad. Because neither did I. I wanted her to stay Persephone. Stay a myth, a story. Stay our secret. The instant she had a name, we’d have to admit that she was a person.

That she was more than the bones we’d found in the forest, and the magic we’d made from them.

We talked about inconsequential things after that. Cass’s daughter, Amanda; the lodge; my work. Cass and I kept up the conversation while Liv sat silently, picking at the skin at the base of her thumb. Finally I put my hand on her arm.

“I should probably get going,” I said. “Liv, can I give you a lift home?”

“Already?” Cass asked, more out of obligation than anything. We were all eager to call the strained gathering to a close.

“I’m wiped from that drive, and I should really drop by and see my dad,” I said.

“We’ll talk soon,” Cass promised, and enveloped us each in a hug before letting us go. She kept her hand on my arm a moment longer than she needed to, giving me a look that I knew well. TheMake sure Liv’s okaylook. She squeezed my arm one last time before letting me go.

Liv trailed along after me and got into the passenger seat without comment. She sat there, picking at that patch of dried skin. Liv didn’t drive. It wasn’t that she couldn’t; she just hated it. She was a common sight on the side of the road around Chester, walking on the shoulder with her head down and her thoughts a million miles away.

I started up the engine. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what?” she asked.

I shrugged. “For all of it.”

“I know you don’t want to lose business, but—”

“That’s not what this is about,” I said. It hadn’t even entered in. I supposed I should have been worried about the impact it might have onmy work, my sole source of income, but my reputation had always been made by things beyond my control. The idea that I had a say in any of it seemed faintly absurd.

“Then why?” Liv asked.

I took a left up the gravel road toward Liv’s place and didn’t answer at first. “That day, in the woods. The day I…”

“I know what day,” Olivia said gently, saving me from having to finish the sentence.

“You saw Stahl.” I said it like it wasn’t a question. Like I didn’t need the answer.

“So did you,” she said, a small line appearing between her brows.

“Right,” I replied, more sigh than sound. “Right. Of course.”

The fingers of her right hand dug into the biceps of her opposite arm. She stared out at the trees, grown wilder in my absence. The town of our youth was being swallowed up by the forest it had tried to tame. “We need to do this,” she whispered.

I pulled up in front of the metal gate that blocked the end of Marcus and Kimiko’s drive. Discreet solar panels perched on top of the posts, and there was a pad to enter the combination. Back when we were kids it had been a chain and a padlock holding the gate shut, and Marcus would sit up most nights in the front room with his gun on his lap. Things had calmed down since then, but the habit of paranoia remained.

Once that fear was in your body, that knowledge that someone wanted you dead, it never entirely left.

The car idled. I knew I should tell Liv that she was right. We’d kept this secret long enough. But I was exhausted—from the drive, from the argument, and from years of knowing that every time Liv’s name appeared on my phone there was a fifty-fifty chance of a crisis. She was stuck in this place where she needed me, but she wouldn’t let me be there for her.

There was nothing left in me to give. Not today.

I touched her wrist lightly. It was the only way I ever touched Liv—carefully, afraid that she would run. Afraid that we would break.

There was something dark and strange in her eyes, more like anger than sorrow but not properly either. “I’ll be here tomorrow,” I said, ritual words I’d spoken many times before.

“So will I,” she answered. We’d ended a thousand calls like that—with a promise. It wasn’tNever again,but it wasNot today, and we could string those days along one after another, a procession of sunrises we’d held on long enough to see.

I withdrew my hand. She gave a little shiver, and we sat for a moment, silent. “You want me to drive you all the way up?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I could use the walk.” She opened the door and stepped out, unfolding her long limbs one by one, taking care with each movement like she didn’t quite know how to live in her own skin. She paused, her hand on the door. “I love you, Naomi,” she said, with the same deliberation.

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