Page 41 of Return to Garoureve

Until she understood the line, and her place within the town, there could be no leaving. They had to stay together.

“Alright. Let’s head into town then. Where should we go first?”

Something inside of her said that whatever she did, she shouldnothead to her mother’s house, or the clinic.

“I mean, I would think we should go to the Reeves first, right? Check in, since... Are you still part of this pack?”

Henrik stared at her for a moment, then took another whiff of the wind. A smile curled over his lips, and he reached up to pull himself into the truck. “I can smell Mardoc’s ass from here, and some girl he has with him. Move over, or else we might not be goin’ anywhere if he gets to us before we get to him.”

Oh, fuck. Of course Mardoc Baxter would already be on Henrik’s scent.

Violet settled in for the long drive to town itself, through the forest and fields that surrounded Garoureve, when she noticed the trees starting to clear up ahead. It had been less than five minutes, maybe not even three, but already the trees were clearing? Sure, space and distance around the town could be weird, but the town itself shouldn’t have been for another ten or fifteen minutes. A pack the size of Garoureve needed land and property, with the magic expanding out as needed.

What had happened to all of the land, the space, the territory? Where was the pack roaming, if so much of it had gone? What about the flowers and the trees and the magic? Why was it shrinking?

“This ain’t right,” Henrik said, more to himself than to her, but she had to agree. This wasn’t right.

“It would take you less than ten minutes to get from the edge of the line to the town itself,” Violet clarified. She hadn’t spent too much time studying pack lines and the leylines themselves and how boundaries were marked, but she knew enough to know that— “How many people left?”

Not that Henrik had the answer... Not that all of them had simplyleft.

“I don’t understand,” Violet whispered as they approached town center. “For the boundary to be so close, this would be like the size of... for a few small families. Not for a pack as old as Garoureve. How did Mister Reeve let it get so bad? So small? Where do they hunt? Where do they run? Where do they—“

Whatever question she was about to ask, whatever other thoughts she had, all of them were answered as soon as the trees cleared and the town proper was revealed. The rows of houses, the streets that had once been filled with children, the beaming main street, all of it was...

What wasn’t gone was run down, much of it looking old and empty. The town she had once loved, had spent most of her youth in...

Fifteen years could do a lot to a place, but this wasn’t... this wasn’t normal.

Garoureve looked more abandoned than a living and breathing space with a pack protecting it.

“What happened?” Violet finally breathed out. She looked at Henrik, confused, and saw his hands gripping the steering wheel in front of him.

“We never really talked about what happened that night,” Henrik finally answered her as he slowed down, and glanced back and forth. She didn’t look away from him to see what. “How much did you see? Do you even know what happened?”

“There was a fire,” Violet answered, choking a little on the words. “I... I know it was big and bad. My mom, she said the town would blame me, blame us. She... she told me to grab what I couldn’t leave behind, and that we would seek refuge with the coven until it was figured out.”

“But what did you see?” He pulled into a place, and she looked up to see it was Nan’s bakery, a place she had spent years of her life while following around Henrik, who was always with Mardoc.

“A fire,” she answered, her voice cracking. “Starting on the edge of town. I... I had been out there, earlier that day, trying to break our spell, like always. I figured it was me, but... I had been in bed by the time it started, because being away from you on a full moon always hurt more. I didn’t—“

“The whole fuckin’ town, Violet,” he said, and looked from the dashboard down to her. “I should’ve made you talk about this. Most of the town caught fire, and it weren’t you or an accident. Hunters, or somethin’ like that. Little Witch... most of the town might be dead.”

She hadn’t prepared herself for that.

Yes, she knew people had died in the fire, and she knew that it wasn’t her fault. The coven had cleared that up, and her mother had told her, after a while, that those responsible were punished for their actions. It was a short while after that, that she had left the coven and ventured out into the world on her own, but she hadn’t... she’d never...

Had she chosen to not ask because she truly had no idea, or had she been lying to herself all these years, that there was a real possibility that everyone was just...

It was easier to pretend that Garoureve was alive and well, without her in it, than to accept the possibility that so many she had once known, and loved, were dead.

But now, there was no more avoiding it. She had to face the facts, and her worst fears.

“Come on,” Henrik said as he turned the truck off. “He should be here soon. Maybe we can convince Nan to make some of them peanut butter chocolate cookies.”

The thought of cookies, her favorite cookies, brought a smile to Violet’s face, and she climbed out of the truck, careful to check her sleeves were still rolled down. She wasn’t normally the sort of person to cover from neck to wrist to ankle, preferring more revealing clothing, particularly to show off her tattoos, but given how she was currently prone to accidentally starting fires, it would be best to make sure she didn’t actually touch anyone when giving hugs...

If there was anyonetohug.

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