Page 106 of A Yulean Sister’s Guide to Getting Kidnapped

“That’s such a common answer.”

He scoffed. “Then what’s yours?”

“Carnation pink,” I said with certainty.

“Isn’t pink a common answer too?”

I shook my head. “It’s a very specific color. It’s like… a light pink, with a bit of depth. It’s the best.”

“Specific, but feels basic,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Well, what shade of blue is your favorite?”

He thought for a moment. “Something that mirrors the ocean. But not the lighter color you see on the shore. More of a… deep blue, the one you can see when you’re hundreds of miles into the middle of the ocean.”

“That was definitely more specific.”

We fell back to silence. But in that silence, it felt like I could hear everything, even things that weren’t there. The cracking of a stick in the distance, or the rustling of leaves to my side.

“You ask me a question now,” I insisted.

He looked confused, but did as I asked.

We went back and forth, asking about favorite childhood games and foods we liked. It was all mundane, but enough to distract from the sounds that did nothing but worry me.

Eventually we met a fork in the road. There was a sign that looked like it’d been there for a very, very long time. It was wooden and had two planks carved into arrows. It looked like once upon a time there were words written on them, but it was impossible to make out. Adrian hardly glanced at it, before leading us right.

“Are you sure it’s the right way?”

“Very,” he said.

I shrugged and followed him along. He seemed to know where everything was, and I trusted him. My necklace played absently between my fingers. Though I was excited to remove this curse that’d stayed with me for so long, it was bittersweet. I’d had it for so long and it shaped so much of my life. It even brought me here… to Adrian. I guess I had that to thank it for.

Maybe once she took it off, I could keep it. As a keepsake. Obviously, it was given to me to be kept safe, for whatever reason, so being able to still have it close and do that job felt important. Maybe deep down, it had always felt important, holding onto this necklace, but I was too clouded by my fear to realize that.

We walked for a while and it felt like we didn’t come upon anything. If anything, everything started to feel like it was melding together. Rocks started looking similar and I swore that tree with the large trunk and twisted roots had been back there a little while ago.

It quickly dawned on me why. As we turned the next bend, we came back upon the sign, the exact beat-up sign with worn down words.

I looked at Adrian, who looked at the sign, seeming to think.

“We went in a circle,” I pointed out the obvious.

He evaluated for a few moments. Evaluating what, I wasn’t sure, it was obvious either path just led back to the other.

“So, we go right again,” he said.

All I could do was blink at him. Had he lost his mind somewhere in this loop?

“Just trust me,” he said. “We’re supposed to go right.”

I huffed. “Fine.” It wasn’t like there was any harm, we’d just end up back here.

And back here we were after our second loop. This one feeling almost a bit longer than the last.

“This is the wrong way,” I insisted.

“It’s not.”