Page 5 of Kat Bethel

Small town. Teenagers.

They were always meddling in things they shouldn’t.

The lights flickered again, and something thumped directly above me, sending dust floating through the air.

Oh yeah. They screwed up, and it leaked into the town.

“Does it tell us not to hunt here?”

“Yes,”she mused.

What mess did my ancestors leave for me to clean up this time?

The head of my shadow tilted back and let out a soft sigh I almost couldn’t hear.

I hadn’t moved.

Chapter 3:

Thesettlementwastwentyminutes outside of town, but the greenery looked like it belonged to another time.

Once the gravel underneath my truck tires turned to dirt, it wasn’t long before the overgrowth ahead cut off the road completely. I considered plowing through, knowing my truck could handle it. But that also meant local authorities would find evidence when they did their nightly rounds. So I pulled off to the side of the road, clasped my tool belt and backpack on, then trekked forward on foot.

The rising sun filled the eastern sky. It was a beautiful backdrop as I drank a cup of coffee that tasted like regret and bad decisions. Birds singing their songs and the chittering of bugs was soothing in a way morning chatter never would be. The scent of wildflowers filled the air and made me hold out my hand to let it graze the tall grass.

I estimated it was about eight o’clock when I finally came across a thicket of trees, curving in an oval shape around the remnants of the long abandoned road.

The shape of the entrance to the forest formed too deliberately to be a coincidence.Never walk through natural portals,my aunt’s cautious voice echoed in my memory.

It didn’t help that glimmers sparkled randomly flashed, as if to beckon outsiders in. Or that despite the sun’s position the pathway showed how dark it was inside.

The shadows were overgrown too.

It reminded me of the hotel during the night before. Around three thirty all the disturbances in my room stopped, but this was where the problem lived. There wouldn’t be reprieve here.

The Dark Entry Forest was a fitting name.

I took a deep breath to center my energy as I approached the opening. Every nerve rejected walking through the perfect entryway, but this would be how those kids entered the forest. So that’s how I had to enter, too.

I slowed my steps as I got closer. Shadows moved in the corner of my eyes, but when I turned to catch them they vanished.

The more you see, the more they see you.

My feet stopped in front of the invisible border between the trees. Everything in my body screamed to turn back, that death was uncomfortably close. A prey’s instinct to survive.

My body resisted the motion of taking a simple step to cross the invisible border of the forest. I grunted with forceful effort.

Come on, bitch. You’ve been in worse places than this.

It was like a hundred-pound weights latched around my ankles, but once I got a foot in the rest slid forward like butter.

Each inch of my body grew colder as I stepped in. The chill in the air made me shiver and curled into a place I could only call my soul. It reminded me of the aftermath of an argument at two in the morning, where sleeping on the couch is the only comfort. The kind of cold the sun can’t warm. Something I was all too familiar with now.

I twisted, looking back without thinking. A real part of me wanted to leave, despite my best attempts to ignore it.

Only to find my shadow was still on the other side of the entrance. Farther back than it should be. Its head tilted to the side as if it was as confused as I was on the matter.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. I’d seen a lot in my time as a hunter. I’d never seen that before.If your shadow can’t enter, what does that mean?