Chapter 8 : Shadows Beneath the Pines
496 Words
The next morning, Clara found herself wandering the town with a notebook tucked under her arm and a restless curiosity gnawing at her ribs.
She hadn’t planned to become an investigator. She came to Pine Hollow to breathe, to heal. But the town was pulsing with secrets, and Liam’s warning echoed in her mind like a bell in fog.
There are things that wake in these woods.
At the local café, she sat by the window, sipping bitter coffee as she flipped through the notes she’d begun collecting. Strange animal behavior. Disappearances. Inconsistent stories. And then… the whispers. She’d heard them in line at the grocery store, from clients at the clinic—low-voiced rumors of “things in the forest”, of “the curse”, of a “feral presence” returning after years of silence.
She closed her notebook and stood, her eyes settling on the old bookshop across the street. North Hollow Books. It had caught her eye the day she arrived, but she hadn’t yet stepped inside.
The bell over the door chimed as she entered. Dust and old paper greeted her like incense, the scent of forgotten knowledge. A small woman with silver hair and sharp eyes glanced up from the counter.
“You’re new,” the woman said, voice like crumpled parchment.
“Clara Hart,” she replied, offering a smile. “I’m looking for local history. Legends, maybe.”
The woman didn’t smile back. Instead, she nodded once and gestured to the back corner. “Folklore shelf. If you’re asking about the wolves, don’t bother pretending you’re not.”
Clara blinked. “Wolves?”
“Everyone asks eventually.” The woman turned a page in her book. “You’ll find what you’re looking for. Just be careful what answers you think you want.”
Clara crossed the shop to the back and knelt by the shelf. Faded tomes and leather-bound journals filled the space, many without titles. She pulled a thin, weathered book from the shelf titled The Moonbound: Curses of the Northwest. The pages were brittle, but what she read made her blood run cold.
> “In the forests beyond Pine Hollow, it is said that certain bloodlines were touched by the moon—neither fully beast nor man. They walk among us, some seeking to protect, others to consume. The balance is fragile. And when the rogue ones rise, only their own kind can stop them.”
She traced the words with trembling fingers. The balance is fragile.
A sudden, sharp bark of laughter startled her. She turned—no one. Just the creak of the building settling. Or something else.
Clara closed the book and checked it out, the woman at the counter watching her with a knowing look.
Outside, the fog was beginning to lift. The mountains loomed overhead, sharp and ancient. And Clara realized, with a clarity that chilled her: Liam hadn’t been warning her away.
He’d been preparing her.
- Writer
