Chapter 886 - 888
Behind him, Emma and Scarlett were carrying woven baskets filled with root vegetables, their laughter light and unbothered. It was the kind of normalcy that once would have settled his heart. Now, it unsettled him. There was something forced about the brightness in their eyes, the way they clung to their tasks like lifelines. He caught Emma glancing at him once, a second too long, her gaze unreadable, and when he turned to meet her eyes, she quickly looked away and started humming a tune under her breath, one he hadn’t heard since last year, something her grandmother used to sing in dreams. The hairs on the back of his neck rose.
They returned to camp before noon, arms full of fresh water, fish, and soaked clothes from the riverbanks. The others were already at work, Grace and Zoey building new bindings for a hammock that had torn during the storm, Stella and Serena inspecting the net traps near the lower forest clearing, while Nefertari sat with Sophie boiling herbs and pressing them into clay pots to store for future fevers. On the surface, everything was fine. Smiles. Movement. Routine. But Jude had learned to see deeper.
Susan had left the fire circle during the night. Jude had heard her steps, light and fast, moving away from the treehouses and into the darker part of the jungle. When he followed, he found her sitting cross-legged near the root of an ancient tree, eyes glassy, lips moving in silence. She didn’t respond to him for minutes. And when she finally did, she claimed she had no memory of walking there.
Now she was helping Natalie braid new ropes, humming under her breath, as though nothing had happened. Like the rest, she had no memory of the lost time.
Jude gathered the group after lunch. Not for a warning. Not yet. Just to watch. To listen. To see if any new cracks had formed in the illusion of safety they all wore. They met under the shade of the central fig tree, leaves forming a ceiling overhead like cupped hands protecting them from the sun. He leaned back against the thick trunk, arms crossed, eyes moving from one face to the next as the conversation drifted between topics, the approaching dry season, plans for building a new smokehouse, a discussion about whether the animals near the border had grown bolder.
Then Lucy leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and said, "Do any of you feel... like you’re being watched? Not just by each other. I mean... really watched?"
A hush fell. Eyes darted around the circle.
Sophie blinked. "Sometimes. Mostly near the water. Or when I’m alone. But it always passes."
"It’s stronger at night," said Amelia, brushing her hair from her face. "It’s like a weight. You feel it before you hear anything."