Page 351 of Once Upon a Fable

My heart leaped.

“Kas?” Inching forward, I narrowed my eyes, trying to see into the pitch black. The flutter of bats sounded overhead as I traded valley for stone.

The noise came again, drawing me deeper.

I looked over my shoulder, back to the river, back to the moonlight.

I should really go back to the house. I needed shoes and illumination.

I needed to be smart about this. If Kas had gone this way, I couldn’t hope to follow him in my current state.

But if I left now, would I ever find him again?

Perhaps, he’d chosen not to evict me but to evict himself? To just bolt into the National Park that’d swallowed him whole for so many years and let it finally have him.

Tears pricked my eyes as I spun back to face the cave’s darkness.

I didn’t have a choice.

I had to—

A boot thudded against stone.

Another footstep, heavy and slow.

I opened my mouth to shout. My legs bunched to run. It was him. It had to be.

But...

Kas wasn’t wearing boots.

I froze, my breath coming in short pants as the footsteps drew closer.

I backed up.

No.

Who?

Friend or foe?

Licking my lips, I kept moving back into the moonlight, never taking my eyes off the darkness of the yawning cave.

The boots crunched on gravel, sending panic flooding my system.

Instincts prickled with fear. Whispers commanded I run.

But what if this was someone to rescue me? What if my PLB had finally chosen to work? But if it had...why had only one person arrived? Why did they slink through the cave at witching hours, suspiciously quiet and cloaked in surprise?

Why does my entire body hum with dread?

My feet touched grass.

My legs itched to turn and run.

But there...in the entrance of a stone church, earth-made and time-carved, appeared a shape. A nameless figure who stopped short, a sharp inhale revealing he’d seen me.

Everything inside me locked down.