Chapter 937
Jude followed the gesture, glancing toward the mountaintop. A column of blue smoke was rising again, thinner than before, spiraling tightly into the air like a snake uncoiling. He looked back, and the figures were gone.
He stayed in the clearing until the first hints of dawn touched the horizon. Then he returned to the house, slipping inside to find Grace awake and waiting for him at the window.
"I heard you leave," she said. "What did you see?"
He shook his head. "The watchers were near. Or something like them. But the pillars, " He broke off, running a hand through his hair. "They’ve been emptied. And the ribbons were cut. Deliberately."
Grace stood and joined him. "Was it them?"
"I don’t know. They didn’t feel the same. They didn’t pulse. They didn’t glow."
She frowned. "You think something else is mimicking them?"
"I think something darker is watching us now."
The wives gathered by sunrise, concerned and alert. Jude explained what he had seen, and tension rippled through the circle. Scarlet crossed her arms, face grim. "Maybe they’re testing us. Or maybe the watchers were just the first layer of this island’s mind."
Susan spoke next, quieter. "The blue smoke is rising again."
"We should investigate the mountain," Stella said firmly. "We’ve been avoiding it for too long. That’s where everything leads."