Page 9 of Magical Mayhem (Stonewick Magical Midlife Witch Academy #7)

I crossed the unseen line of the Wilds' boundary. At once, the air grew heavy and cool, carrying the scent of pine and rich loam. The Wilds opened ahead of me, wide and hushed, as if they had been waiting all along.

I kept my gaze low and chose each step with care. The mushrooms had already taught me that mistake once. Red caps gleamed along the path’s edge, their rims catching the dim light in a silvery glow.

I skirted them quickly, unwilling to give anyone, especially Nova, the chance to say I’d been caught by spores again.

Because I knew better.

That voice had been real.

Not some conjured echo from a mushroom’s poison. Not some hallucination stitched from fear.

Real.

And threaded through it, I heard something that sounded perilously like a cry for help.

I drew a steadying breath and let the forest wrap around me.

The Wilds in summer were different from the Wilds I’d walked before in the spring.

Here, the trees rose higher, their branches moving together overhead in canopies so thick that the gloom of the skies barely reached the ground.

Shafts of pale green light filtered down through the leaves, scattering across mossy trunks and pools of shadow.

Vines draped from branches, heavy with blossoms that released sweet perfume when the wind shifted.

Bird’s chirping trilled faintly in the distance. Something felt more welcoming this time, as if the Wilds liked my decision to return.

Dragonflies skimmed the air above a stream that cut through the undergrowth, their wings flashing like shards of emerald glass.

The ground was alive with growth since the previous day. Ferns uncurled like slow, sleepy dancers, tiny white flowers bloomed in clusters so thick they looked like fallen stars, and here and there, those tricky red mushrooms glowed softly, pulsing in a rhythm that seemed almost deliberate.

I gave those a wide berth.

No tricks today.

My hand brushed against the bark of a birch tree, its white surface smooth beneath my fingertips. The forest felt alive under my touch, aware of me, perhaps even expectant…possibly proud?

I let my breath slow, eyes closing as I opened myself to the hush.

And then…

Maeve.

The voice curled through the trees, low and unmistakable, wrapping around me like silk and smoke.

My eyes snapped wide, and my heart slammed into my ribs.

It hadn’t been an illusion. I felt it in my bones. This wasn’t some spore-born magic.

It was him.

I turned in a slow circle, scanning the trees, the moss, the shadows between trunks. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred. But the sound lingered, vibrating through me.

Maeve.

Softer this time.

My knees nearly buckled. I clutched the birch to steady myself.

My fingers dug into the smooth bark. The voice wasn’t just a sound. It was a sensation, a cry for help, or a tether.

The forest blurred at the edges of my vision as my pulse thundered. I forced myself to focus on what was real.

I stared at the beauty that surrounded me, and the details that tethered me here.

The Wilds glimmered with color and life. Moss stretched like velvet carpets, thick and lush.

No tricks.

Leaves overhead swayed with the faintest breath of wind, casting shifting patterns of green and shadow across the ground.

It was beautiful. And it was dangerous.

But nothing in that beauty explained the voice.

I swallowed hard, pressing my free hand to my chest.

“I hear you,” I whispered into the hush.

No answer. Only silence.

Yet the certainty bloomed in me all the same, undeniable. This wasn’t spores. This wasn’t madness.

This was him.

The knowledge rang so true it hurt.

I closed my eyes again, letting the voice echo in my memory, low and raw, threaded with something I couldn’t name. Pleading? Warning? Calling me closer?

My throat tightened.

For the first time since Moonbeam, I knew without a doubt that I hadn’t been mistaken. I wasn’t chasing shadows. The Wilds weren’t merely toying with me.

He was here.

And he was calling me.

It was no coincidence that the bramble mule arrived.

I knew exactly who it was.

But the trees held their silence, and the forest gave me nothing more.

The hush pressed heavier the deeper I went, until the Wilds felt less like a forest and more like a cathedral.

The trees rose like pillars, their branches arched overhead, filtering the thin morning light into dusky green patterns.

The mushrooms still pulsed faintly at the edges of my vision, but I refused to look at them.

Because I understood now.

It wasn’t the voice I had to follow. It was the silence.

The voice wanted me lost, circling, searching shadows. But the silence, that aching hollow between sounds, pulled with more gravity than any word could. That was where truth lay. That was where he was.

I deliberately avoided the mushrooms, traveling between patches of scarlet and silver as though each cluster might spring to life beneath my feet.

My fear simmered in my belly, sharp and insistent, but determination rose higher, burning steadier. Fear would keep me cautious. Determination would keep me moving.

I thought of Keegan, of the weight he carried in silence, of the shadows pressing deeper into him every day. I thought of Stella’s bustling tea shop, Bella’s fox-tail swishing when she teased, Nova’s steady wisdom, Twobble’s crumbs trailing behind him like a lifeline.

I dreamed of Stonewick of everything I’d fought for, everything I wanted to keep.

If I faltered now, all of it would unravel.

I needed Keegan, Gideon, my dad, and me to be ready and willing to unite and end the chaos that Malore was trying to build.

The silence sharpened the deeper I went, pressing against my skin like glass. My breath came shallow, but I didn’t stop. I moved swiftly, almost recklessly, as though the forest might close behind me if I dared to pause.

And then I saw it.

The log lay ahead, massive and ancient, toppled long ago.

Moss draped over it like a shroud, vivid and almost luminous in the dimness, spilling in thick sheets down its sides to the ground.

Ferns and wildflowers crowded its base, vibrant yellows and blues startling against the shadowed wood.

It looked like a canopy, a green blanket hiding whatever lay beneath.

I slowed because there, just behind it, slumped into the moss and shadow, was a shape.

A mound of a person, who was broad, heavy, and unmoving, lay there motionless.

My chest seized, and the world narrowed to a single point of recognition.

Gideon.

Even hunched and broken, there was no mistaking him. His frame was too broad, his presence too heavy. The air bent strangely around him, as though it still remembered his power even if he had none left to wield.

My breath caught, sharp as a knife, and my knees weakened.

Gideon.

The name roared through me, not just in fear but in certainty.

He needed me.

And I needed him.

Stonewick needed him.

I stepped closer as my pulse thundered in my ears, and I circled the fallen log.

The shape resolved clearer with every step. His shoulders hunched forward, his head bowed, his hair a dark tangle across his face. His chest rose and fell shallowly, unevenly. Alive, but barely.

For a heartbeat, I almost wished it had been the mushrooms after all, that this was some fevered illusion conjured by spores.

But no. The moss, the ferns, the scent of damp earth, it was all too real.

And so was he.

My stomach twisted as I looked at the man who had tormented Stonewick, who had cursed Keegan and my dad, who had driven fear into every corner of our lives. The man who had mocked me, haunted me, hunted me.

And invaded my dreams…

Yet here he was, slumped against the moss. He wasn’t a villain. He wasn’t a monster. He was broken, weak, and desperate.

My heart ached with the terrible certainty of it.

If I couldn’t save Gideon, I couldn’t save Keegan.

And if I couldn’t save Keegan, I couldn’t save Stonewick. Or the Academy. Or any of it.

It was all tangled together, each thread knotted in ways I didn’t understand. But I knew one truth. If I left him here, abandoned in the Wilds, the curse would win.

My hands shook as I pressed them against the mossy log, steadying myself and leaning into its weight.

“Gideon,” I whispered.

The silence swallowed his name, but in the faintest flutter of his chest, the shallow rasp of his breath, I felt the truth confirm itself.

He was alive. He was waiting.

He needed me.

And if I failed him here, I would fail them all.

My heart thudded harder, my breath catching as I stared at him, a thousand questions burning on my tongue.

What had happened to him? Why here? Why now? And why, after everything, did I feel as though I had been led to him?

The hush of the Wilds deepened, pressing around us both like a held breath. The moss glowed faintly, as though feeding on the last scraps of his strength.

My fingers curled into the log, and I couldn’t turn back.

Not now.

For Keegan.

For Stonewick.

For everything.

I had to try.