Chapter 1069
The wind whispered over the tops of the trees, cool and dry, carrying the scent of moss, earth, and something else, something sweet and strange, faint like decaying flowers hidden deep in the forest. Jude sat by the river, feet dipped in the water, eyes vacant. The morning sun rose slow and golden, casting long shadows between the trees, painting the world in soft warmth that didn’t quite reach his chest. He hadn’t slept. Neither had Sophie. She hadn’t said much when she returned last night, only met his eyes and gave the smallest, almost imperceptible shake of her head. Not a no, something else. A warning. A fear she hadn’t found words for yet. Her silence spoke louder than anything.
He remembered the way Rose knelt in the clearing, hands joined with Layla and Zoey, and the way Sophie’s face looked afterward, pale, tight, like someone who had stared too long at a thing they weren’t supposed to see. Something was inside them. Something foreign and yet...intimately familiar. As though the island had reached out and pressed itself into their veins, into their breath, their blood.
Jude pulled his feet from the river, water trailing in delicate threads from his skin, and stood. He couldn’t stay still anymore. He needed to do something. Watch more closely. Talk to others. Search the area near the clearing Sophie had followed them to. But above all, he needed to know if it had spread further.
Back at the treehouse, the morning had begun in the usual lazy rhythm of waking bodies and soft greetings. Grace was pouring water into clay cups, Susan folding a blanket over her shoulder. Emma yawned and stretched like a cat in the corner, and Natalie was combing her fingers through tangled hair. The fire crackled faintly in the hearth, flickering light across their bare ankles.
Rose was sitting on the porch swing, laughing. Her voice was musical, almost too sweet, and Layla sat beside her, cheek resting against Rose’s shoulder. Zoey sat at their feet, one hand lazily stroking Rose’s thigh, the other tossing bits of dried leaf into the wind. It looked so normal, so relaxed, that Jude felt a pang of guilt in his gut for even suspecting anything. But then Rose turned her head, caught his eyes, and smiled. That smile again. Too wide. Too sure. The kind of smile a predator wears in the moment before it pounces.
He looked away quickly, moving past them, nodding once to Grace as he grabbed a strip of dried meat from the table and bit into it without tasting. Sophie emerged from the back, looking tired but steady, and sat beside Susan without a word.
For a while, nothing strange happened. The morning moved forward like any other. The women washed, tended to the herb garden, sorted tools and fixed a split basket handle. Jude helped Natalie patch the side of the treehouse where some vines had come loose during last week’s windstorm. For just a moment, he let himself believe things could be normal. That maybe what Sophie and he saw was something else, ritual, bonding, a new game they didn’t understand.
Then Zoey kissed Susan.
It wasn’t unusual for the girls to exchange kisses, friendship, affection, even teasing, but this kiss was slow. Deliberate. Deep. Susan blinked in surprise but didn’t pull away. When they parted, Rose clapped softly from the swing, and Layla laughed in a high, delighted tone.