Chapter 1119
Later, while they gathered fruit under a canopy of twisted vines, Sophie whispered that she had seen something, something she hadn’t told the others yet. During the night, after her smile had faded, she had woken to find Rose kneeling in the woods, her palms pressed to the dirt. The earth had glowed beneath her fingers. And when she rose, she whispered something into the air.
A name.
One Sophie couldn’t understand.
"She’s calling something," Sophie said. "Or someone."
Jude clenched his jaw. "We need to know what."
They returned to camp only to find Stella and Grace gone.
Zoey, now firmly in Rose’s orbit, claimed they had gone for water. Her tone was too sweet, her eyes too steady.
That afternoon, Jude and Sophie followed faint footprints northeast, toward the place they’d seen the pit.
They didn’t reach it.
They found Grace first, crouched in the middle of a ring of mushrooms, eyes closed, humming a low tune that echoed the hum in the forest. Her clothes were wet. Her hair was tangled with vines. And she smiled without seeing them.
"She’s halfway gone," Sophie whispered.