So it’s with a small sigh of relief that I jump down from the rock and head off after the two of them into the gathering twilight.
28
We push aside overgrown bushes and step over fallen branches as we make our way toward the wall that separates the Montgomery and Bier properties. I take a moment to text Dad and Davy that I’m on a long run, will be home later, eat dinner without me. We reach the wall and scramble up. Seth leaps down first. I follow a moment later, the impact of the jump reverberating through my legs and knees. Seth holds a hand up to Kendall, and then the three of us are heading off through the darkening undergrowth.
We don’t speak. Just push our way through the bushes, wilder here than on the other side of the wall, the green reaching out to twine against our arms, branches tripping us up, scratching our ankles. I don’t remember it taking long that night, but we were running then, and it was much darker. Seth and I have to stop occasionally to wait for Kendall, who is slower. The terrain starts to slope uphill the closer we get, boulders appearing through the brush.
We make our way toward the hill with the circle. It’s quieter all of a sudden, just the call of a few stray birds. We’re in shadow now, the last trickles of sunlight gone.
I touch Fiona’s necklace. We spent so much time searching for the Bier treasure around here because it’s the kind of place that looks like it’s hiding something. It’s a clearing with seven stones, placed at even intervals. They’re covered in lichen and ivy, so you might not even see them at first. And they aren’t like the boulders that come up naturally out of the landscape here; these stones are smooth, lighter in color than the others. It was Thatcher who first put out the idea that they’d been brought here, Seth the one who had us dig at the base of one of them to determine that, yes, they were loose stones, brought here by who knows who, who knows when. I remember one summer when Seth spent all his free time researching it. He never found anything definitive, though. I wonder sometimes how much of his interest in archaeology started right here in this circle.
Seth is walking around, his eyes on the ground. I do the same, not totally sure what I’m searching for.
After a few minutes, he says, “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here. No disturbed branches or footprints. No sign of digging, either.”
Something moves through the trees to our left, making me jump. Seth’s head whips around, and then his shoulders relax. “Just a deer.”
Not just any deer: a stag. It’s ten feet from us, big and dark in the shadows, its antlers as still as its head. It pauses just a moment, then takes off through the trees.
There’s another behind it, then another. A whole herd of deer racing away from the ravine. “Something spooked them,” I say, a pit of unease rising in my stomach.
Kendall frowns after them. “Let’s go see what.” She nods in the direction of the ravine.
I don’t want to follow, but I’m not about to chicken out. It’s not the middle of the night, I tell myself, and there are three of us. I follow them through the brush headed west. I hear nothing apart from the crickets and birds; the deer have gone, have fled as fast as they could from whatever scared them.
We emerge from a thicket of evergreen trees. There it is: the ravine. Seth’s hand moves to hold me and Kendall back, but there’s no need; neither of us moves any closer. The bottom of the ravine is impossibly far down, its sides gray and sharp, the slope steeper than I remember. All I hear now is the running water; even the birdsong has paused, the birds holding their breaths in deference to this death-filled place.
“There’s someone over there,” Seth says suddenly.
I peer through the trees, but it’s all shifting shades of green. “Where?”
“Right—”
A loud noise, like a firecracker, startles me.
It takes me a minute to recognize it for what it is.
A gunshot.
I stare at the nearby tree where the bullet left a hole. My brain feels slow, dreamlike.
And then there’s another shot. Crackling past my ear.
I unfreeze, look at Seth for a split second, then grab his arm.
“Run.”
29
Seth, Kendall, and I run as fast as we can. Something flies past my face, a bullet, a branch, I don’t know. Blood pounds in my ears. I look back once and trip, come down hard on my knee. A hand grabs mine; Seth, hauling me to my feet.
“Kendall—”
“She’s just ahead. Now move.”
He practically pulls me along next to him as I struggle to keep up, ignoring the stinging from my knee. I run through branches and undergrowth, no idea which direction we’re headed except that it’s away from the ravine.
Seth and I round a tangled copse of trees and vines. And there’s the wall in front of us. There’s no sign of Kendall. We stop, breathing hard, listening, but I don’t hear anything else. No gunshots, no sounds of pursuit, no deer. Just the rising insect song. And I can hear the birds again.
“Where’s Kendall?” I breathe.
Seth’s face is a mask of worry. “I don’t know.”
He pulls out his phone, holds it to his ear. After a moment I hear, “Seth?” and we both let out a sigh of relief.
“Where are you?”
I can’t hear everything she says, she’s talking fast on the other end, but some of the tension drains out of Seth’s body.
A moment later, he says, “See you there,” and hangs up. “She ran toward the house.” He nods in the direction of the mansion. “She’s fine.”
“Good.” I nod. “Good.”
We scramble over the wall. On the other side, Seth looks down at me, reaches out as if to touch my face. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine.” My voice sounds mechanical.
“Even so. We should take a look at that. Pool house?”