Page 33 of Soulmates

“No, hang on. Maddy? Sit up a little and let me get this seat belt on you.” Maddox did as told, which relieved Jake, and if Santiago’s expression was anything to go by, she felt the same. They had both envisioned a Maddox they couldn’t rouse today, so any movement felt like a win.

“We’ve got six hours to Everglades City, maybe six and a half with a stop or two. From there, the directions get sketchier. Maggie uses the word roads in quotation marks. We should get to the city in the early afternoon and have plenty of time to find this place in daylight. We can always use the glow of your creepy firefly friends if it gets dark.”

“Hilarious,” Jake said.

“I thought so,” Santiago deadpanned.

The rest of the drive was uneventful as they cruised past palms and pines and more bushes than Jake could hope to identify, with tall fences lining the highways to keep wildlife off the road and cicadas shrieking from their hiding spots. The entire state seemed to be green. Maddox would’ve loved the wild beauty of it all, but he’d slept most of the trip, only waking a few times when Jake and Santiago insisted he stretch and have a few sips of water.

They hit Everglades City by noon, the landscape getting wetter the closer they got and somehow flatter, which hardly seemed possible. And calling it a city was an exaggeration—it was a small town that looked nothing like what Jake had imagined, as though the very buildings maintained a bit of nature in them. How could they not? It was beautiful and so strange, like he’d landed on another planet.

When they’d asked Professor Hooper how someone could live in a national park, she’d only said, “Magic.” Which should’ve been obvious. And once they got there, magic let them bypass entrances and slip past tourists and animals and rangers. The Jeep got them through, and, they could only assume, it would get them out when the time came.

Santiago maneuvered them through tall grasses, mud, and barely there paths, swampland that no land vehicle should’ve been able to go through, and into an ancient-looking forest—grove? Jake didn’t even know what to call it. Cypress trees hunched over them, as if curious, as if they wanted to snatch them out and eat them for dinner. Florida, it seemed, had a way of taking over anything man-made. Maybe even mankind, if given the chance.

Maddox missed it all. Jake ran a finger over Maddox’s brow, pushed the thick curls off his forehead as he slept. Tension crept through Jake, his worry overriding everything else. He barely noticed the way the saplings and plants sprung back up around the Jeep, as if they hadn’t been driven over, as if nothing could touch them. Magic. Jake could only hope that same magic would bring his Maddox back to life so easily.

They got lost several times. Santiago got out of the car to pace in frustration and stare at the directions and map Professor Hooper had drawn for them. Jake got Maddox out of the car to stretch.

Maddox looked around at the cypress and live oak trees surrounding them, dripping with Spanish moss. Jake set Maddox on some knotted roots and stood next to him. He wouldn’t have let go even if they weren’t fused together. The air was alive with wildlife. Birds, small mammals, and insects calling out to each other with such intensity the sound blended together into one overwhelming note. Jake tamped down the urge to cover his ears.

The air—thick with the almost sweet scent of decaying vegetation—clung heavily to everything, dampening Jake’s shirt and slowing his breathing, like walking into a sauna. It seemed impossible anything could be this wet without actual rain falling.

Santiago paced in front of the jeep. “We went too far on this path—there’s supposed to be a turnoff to the southeast, but I didn’t see it. We need to turn around and try again. It’s getting dark,” she added, clearly agitated. “Is it supposed to be getting dark?”

“We’ve been at this for hours. And we’re surrounded by trees, so yeah, I’d say it’s getting appropriately dark,” Jake said.

“Let’s go.” Santiago’s stress scrawled itself across her forehead. She was used to excelling at everything she did. Getting lost in a swamp was low on her list of things she’d wanted to experience in her lifetime, Jake was sure.

They took the path slowly, scanning for the entrance to the property they’d missed on the first pass. Then the second pass. And the third. On the fourth attempt, Maddox suddenly sat up and said, “Stop.”

His eyes were alarmingly bright. Brighter than they’d been the night before. Santiago stopped quickly, and Maddox told her to reverse. “Here. It’s here,” he said.

Jake couldn’t see anything but the same trees he’d been looking at for over an hour.

“Let me out,” Maddox said.

Jake helped Maddox from the car and followed as Maddox dragged Jake to the trees lining the path on one side. He touched them with his free hand and squinted around. Then his hand glowed green, and he made a sweeping motion. A smooth, sandy dirt road appeared, wide enough for one car. Rustic, but better than the barely useable paths they’d been on for the last four hours.

“How…?” Santiago said.

“Couldn’t you feel it? It was pulling.”

“Pulling?” Jake said.

“Yeah. He’s down there,” Maddox said.

Santiago looked at Jake. Maddox stared down the road and tugged Jake toward the path as if he intended to walk.

“Hey, let’s get in the car and go,” Jake said, yanking Maddox back to him.

“Alright, let’s go down the not-at-all-creepy hidden path,” Santiago said.

Chapter 23

The magic covering the path had reached out to Maddox several times, but Maddox had to fight to find his voice—like being underwater, wanting to scream for help but unable to. Everything had been hazy, the light above him shining down in waves. When he’d finally snapped awake, he knew they’d arrived. Green earth magic tugged at him; he understood it, could manipulate it without thought. But there was another magic woven in with this. Magic he didn’t recognize.

Earth magic blanketed them as they drove. Familiar and, at the same time, oppressive. Maddox knew this magic. This magic lived inside him as much as it did the swamp. Which was probably why Santiago and Jake couldn’t sense the path. Neither one held an element flowing through their veins.

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