Page 87 of Into the Dark, We Go

Mathilda was satisfied with his confusion. "Wouldn’t you like to know, handsome?" she teased, then disappeared out the door.

The engine roared to life, followed by the crunch of tires over gravel.

"We gotta spill blood? What the hell?" June said, half-laughing, half-intrigued. "Is this like a ritual or something?"

Nick shrugged.

"Should we write it down?" I asked, though I already knew Mathilda was either crazy or messing with us.

"I remembered it," Mitchell said grimly.

"Are we gonna go there?" June asked, looking as if she was ready to perform a blood rite imminently.

I couldn’t blame her for being excited. After days of hitting dead ends, suddenly we had something. Even if it was a little unhinged.

"We definitely should," Nick said and then turned to me, as if seeking validation. "It is worth checking out, right?"

I shrugged. It wasn’t just up to me.

"Right," Mitchell said. "But something doesn’t feel right about her just showing up and giving us the… instructions."

June hurried us along. "Well, she’s nuts, so whatever. Let’s just go!"

Mitchell didn’t respond. Instead, he crossed the room, grabbed his gun from the counter, and holstered it.

"All this time, you had a gun?" I burst out, finally remembering to confront him. I’d been too scared before, then too distracted by Mathilda’s sudden appearance, until now.

Mitchell didn’t even flinch. "I’m licensed to carry."

"You could’ve warned me there was a firearm in my car!"

"Sorry ‘bout that," he said, barely looking up.

"Not only did you lie to me, but you didn’t tell the Sheriff when he stopped us. What if he’d decided to search us?"

"Hardly ever happens," he muttered, already gathering his stuff like the conversation was over.

I looked at June for support, but she raised her hands in a ‘leave-me-out-of-it’ motion.

I seethed inwardly, resenting the fact that after everything, he hadn’t been upfront with me. That whole "ask forgiveness, not permission" mindset—my dad had it, so did Lucas, and now Mitchell.

But then again, who was I to judge? My own history with honesty wasn’t spotless. And neither was Nick’s.

So I made a conscious decision to let it go.

Not because I was okay with it, but because, right now, having a gun felt less like a problem and more like a necessity.

After a long trudge,we turned at the three peaks, just as we had several times before. I wondered if Nick, lost in his usual quiet focus, was picturing the sigil carved into the tree—the one only we had seen on that first hike—or if he had dismissed the witch’s instructions entirely.

I hadn’t. I couldn’t. The image squirmed and stretched inside my mind, not as a memory but as something alive, something pushing against my thoughts, warping them. The more I tried to focus on anything else, the more it took over, so vivid I sometimes thought I saw it etched into the trees around me. Then it would vanish, only to keep haunting my thoughts.

That’s when it appeared.

The tree stood exactly where it had before, its bark split open by those same impossible carvings. Only there were no dead deer at its roots, no scraps of fur, no bones left behind. Either scavengers had stripped it clean, or there’d never been a carcass.

Nick exhaled audibly behind me. No one moved closer.

"This the place?" Mitch broke the silence, and I realized how quiet it had been—no birds, no wind, nothing.