Page 6 of Soul of Shadow #1

Charlie tried to obey her mother. Really, she did.

She tried when she overheard Mason chatting excitedly about the tree to friends over the phone.

When her mom had the news on nonstop. Even when she watched “expert” after “expert” (local university teachers with degrees in God only knew what) try to parse out the Norse symbols.

She kept her mind off the mystery. Told herself that the tug in her chest was all in her imagination.

That she should’ve never gone out there to begin with.

So, yes. She tried. But all it took was one text. One measly message from Lou that said, Let’s investigate , and she was out the door.

She took the Ford. She knew that she would catch hell from Mason—he was always on about seniority and elder brother’s rights —but it was as much her car as his. Her mom had made that clear on her sixteenth birthday.

It was an old car. A dark-green Bronco, stick shift. The engine made a funny noise when you went over sixty miles per hour, but Charlie loved the car regardless. It held a special place in her heart, her ticket to freedom, even though she still didn’t know what she wanted freedom from. Or for .

“Where’s Abigail?” Charlie asked when Lou got in and slammed the door.

“Not interested in joining us.” Lou fastened her seat belt and slid her shoes off.

She lounged backward, putting her socked feet up onto the dashboard.

“You should’ve seen the text she sent me.

It was all You’re going where?! But that’s a crime scene, Lou!

Do you have any idea how illegal that is?

! So I said, Good. I can’t wait to add ‘arrested for obstruction of justice’ to that resume you keep talking about.

’ Lou cackled, slapping her knees excitedly.

Then she straightened up and shook out her long pale-auburn hair, suddenly serious. “Anyway. Can we get Starbucks?”

Charlie stared at her best friend. “You want to pick up a latte on the way to a crime scene?”

“Obviously.” Lou turned her attention to the road. “This detective needs some caffeine.”

The clearing was fenced in with caution tape. Police cruisers had driven off the road and into the forest, parking as close as they could get to the scene. News vans formed a perimeter at a safe distance away from the police, with reporters holding microphones and speaking into oversize cameras.

Charlie and Lou hid behind two pine trees with a partially obscured view of the scene.

“What exactly is our plan here?” Charlie asked. “We’re not going to push our way onto a crime scene, are we? They’ll never let us through.”

“No, no.” Lou waved the hand that clutched an iced vanilla latte—which Charlie paid for, naturally. “The police are only looking at that one area right now. We’re here to find other clues. The stuff they might miss. ”

“Such as?”

Lou shrugged. “Anything. I say we split up and do a sweep. I’ll go east, you go west.”

Charlie raised her eyebrows. “Do you really think splitting up is the most sensible idea? We are in the very forest where someone we know was kidnapped. Or murdered. Or both.”

“It’s probably not the best idea,” Lou agreed. “But for the sake of time, and because you know I don’t care much for things like ‘being sensible,’ we’re going to do it anyway.”

Laughing, Charlie shook her head. “Do you even know which way is east?”

“Duh.” Lou pointed through the trees at the hints of blue in the distance. “Lake Michigan is always west. I do sometimes pay attention in class, you know.”

Charlie held up her hands. “Fair enough.”

“Great. We regroup in twenty.” Lou saluted before spinning around. Over her shoulder, she said, “Try not to get murdered, or I’ll have Abigail to reckon with.”

Charlie laughed. She reached behind to touch her back pocket, making sure the card deck she’d tucked in there before leaving the house was still in place.

This was one of her rituals. Some might call it a superstition.

It was the same deck of cards she bought after Sophie’s death.

The cards that pulled her through the worst of her grief.

Once satisfied they were in place, she turned and started walking west.

It was a slow process. Charlie wasn’t sure what she was looking for, so she tried to search everything: the ground, which was covered in leaves, pine needles, and twigs that snapped beneath her shoes; the bushes, which ranged from thick and leafy to covered in juniper needles that stung when she tried to push them aside; and the trees.

The trees were her biggest point of interest. After all, it was a tree that had been vandalized with Nordic symbols, a tree upon which someone had hung Robbie’s shoes.

Charlie’s gut told her that the trees would provide the answers she sought.

Charlie was surprised by how invested she was in this mystery.

It’s not like it was great love for Robbie Carpenter that had pulled her into this; she barely knew him.

He was perfectly nice, if a little shy. Had never been the first to offer to host a house party.

Unsurprising, given that his father was the sheriff, but still.

The longest interaction Charlie’d had with Robbie was back in second grade, when she and Sophie somehow roped him into a game of tetherball on the playground.

Everything was going well—right up until Charlie accidentally launched the ball straight into Robbie’s nose.

He left the playground sobbing. Sophie had been distraught.

She never said so, but Charlie knew. Just like Sophie always knew when it came to Charlie. She missed that kind of knowing.

Charlie was so distracted by her thoughts she nearly didn’t see it.

She came to a halt in front of a birch tree. Skinny, sturdy trunk leafed with paper-thin slices of bark. It would have been so easy for her to walk right past. To miss the symbol carved just above eye level. The same one everyone had been talking about.

Odin’s Knot.

Charlie stepped closer. She reached out with one hand and ran her fingers along the deep grooves of the three interconnected triangles.

This rendition was smaller than the one carved so prominently into the ash tree.

Its grooves were not so harsh, so imbued with anger.

This knot had been carved with a sort of tenderness, perhaps even reverence .

“You’re awfully brave,” said a voice behind her.

With a shallow gasp, Charlie spun around.

In front of her stood a boy she’d never seen before.

Unusual, in a place like Silver Shores. About her age, he had night-black hair trimmed close on the sides but long and wild on top.

His eyes were a startling, brilliant green.

Around his pale neck was a long, thin chain.

Yes, definitely a newcomer. She would have remembered him, with his catalogue-brushed beauty, a face that would stick out from miles away in their decidedly small town.

Charlie inched backward. How had this stranger managed to sneak up on her without making a sound? There were leaves and twigs everywhere . Surely she would have heard his footsteps. Yet there he was. Head cocked. Studying her.

The boy didn’t seem eager to fill the awkward silence between them. It unsettled her.

“Who are you?” she blurted at last, then half winced. Rude, but maybe he deserved it, sneaking up on her like that.

His mouth pulled up at one corner. “I’m Elias. And you are?”

No last name. Instead of answering, she asked, “Why did you say I was brave?”

The boy— Elias —raised his eyebrows, letting her know that he recognized her deflection. “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked.

“No.”

Elias lifted a hand and pointed over her shoulder. She twisted her neck to see what he was gesturing to. Her eyes landed on Odin’s Knot.

“That’s the symbol, isn’t it?” he asked. “The one that everyone is talking about.”

Hesitantly, Charlie looked back at him and nodded.

“The one that means death. ”

She swallowed and looked around then, as if only just realizing how alone they were.

She did a quick scan of his body, looking for any threatening objects.

Knives, guns, anything. She found none, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t armed.

She took another step back. In the distance, she could hear the police, which was a good sign.

If anything happened—if, God forbid, this Elias was the one responsible for Robbie’s disappearance—she could scream, and they would come running.

“So.” Elias tucked his hands into his pockets. “I would say it’s fairly brave to walk right up to a creepy death symbol and run your fingers all over it.” He thought for a moment. “Or fairly stupid.”

“Why?” she asked. “It’s just a carving on a tree. It’s not like it can bite me.”

Elias’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. His lips lifted on both sides, the first real smile she’d seen on his face. “As far as you know.”

“What?” She felt thoroughly flustered by this boy.

There was something… strange about him.

About the way he carried himself. The way his green eyes seemed to stare right through her.

His gaze was doing something funny to her stomach.

Twisting it into a knot not dissimilar from the one on that tree.

Elias gestured to the wood. “Lots of things that can bite lurking around here.”

Lots of things that can bite. That phrase shook loose her memory of the night before. Of the animal she saw through the trees.

“Wait.” Charlie took a step closer to him. “Is that why you’re here, too?”

“Is what why I’m here? ”

“The animal,” she said impatiently. “The wildcat, or whatever it was. Are you looking for it, too?”

He held her gaze steadily. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” He somehow managed to say it in a way that suggested he knew exactly what she was talking about.

Charlie narrowed her eyes. “Okay, Elias . If we’re going to play things this way, at least explain to me why you’re out in these woods, all alone, on the day of a police investigation.”

Elias grinned even wider than before and gestured between them with one hand. “Pot, kettle, darling.”

Darling? Who did this guy think he was?

“I’m not alone,” Charlie said. “I’m with—” She craned her neck, looking for any sign of Lou. Scanned the trees, the bramble, the rocks. Nothing.

Elias leaned into her line of sight. “You were saying?”

Charlie sighed. “She’s around here somewhere.”

“Sure she is.”

Warning bells sounded in Charlie’s head. She shouldn’t be here. She was alone in the woods with a complete stranger, just two days after one of her classmates was pronounced missing. You didn’t have to be a genius to realize how unsafe that was.

And yet—

And yet Charlie didn’t feel afraid. Well, maybe a little, but any fear was overpowered by a different feeling, one entirely foreign to her. It was that fluttering in her chest again. Like a hummingbird had awoken in her breastbone, its delicate wings sending excited shivers around her body.

Is that what this feeling was? Excitement?

Jesus. She was even more fucked up than she realized .

“Seriously, though,” Charlie said, trying to steer the conversation back on track. “Who are you?”

Elias waved a hand. “A curious lurker, same as you.”

“I’m not a lurker ,” Charlie huffed.

“Sure you’re not,” Elias said jovially. He clasped his hands behind his back and walked in a small circle, looking at the trees around them.

“It’s been an interesting week to move to Silver Shores,” he said.

“Police tape everywhere. News vans driving in from all around the state.” He looked at her with an arched eyebrow. “Is it always like this around here?”

At last, some concrete facts she could latch onto. “So, you’re new to town?”

“I am.” His eyes glinted as he looked at her. “But I’m assuming you already knew that.”

“A good assumption,” Charlie said. “I grew up here, and I’ve never seen you before.”

He stared at her in silence for a few slow beats, just long enough to make her heart pound faster and her toes start to tingle. “I start at Silver Shores High tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she said. “Really?”

“Swear to Odin.”

“Odin?” she asked.

“You know,” Elias said, pointing at the tree behind her. “Odin. King of the Norse gods? Like Zeus, only more badass?”

“Can’t say I know much about Norse gods,” said Charlie.

“Well, you should probably brush up,” said Elias, raising his eyebrows at the carving of Odin’s Knot. “Seems like it might be pretty relevant here now.”

Charlie glanced at the carving, then back at Elias. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. How did this boy know so much? Was he just a freak, obsessed with Norse mythology? It seemed like too much of a coincidence.

“So.” He smiled again. “Are you a senior, too?”

“Junior,” she said, still eyeing him. She should probably find Lou. It wasn’t safe for her to be with this boy alone.

“Got it. Well.” Elias clapped his hands once, then rubbed them together, looking up at the sky as if checking it for the time. “I should probably be off, then. It was nice to meet you, Charlie.”

Charlie glanced over her shoulder, hoping she would find Lou walking toward them. “Sure. It was nice to meet you, t—”

But when she looked back, he was already gone.

She stood there for several seconds, staring at the place where he had been. What on earth? Had he sprinted away? But surely she would have heard that, same as she should have heard him sneaking up on her from behind. What was with that boy?

Shaking her head, she turned around to continue her search west.

It was only then that she realized he’d called her by her name.

And she’d never given it to him.