Page 26 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty (The Legacy of Aquila Hall #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

DOROTHEE

Mirrors surrounded me everywhere, and wherever I looked, my reflection shone back at me. I wore a white nightgown with long sleeves and wondered when I had changed into such clothes. I wasn’t even sure I owned a nightgown.

Stepping closer to the full-length mirror in front of me, I studied my tired reflection. My long hair was frizzy and curled at the ends, which was odd. I’d always had pin-straight hair, and while it was thick, it took hours to get any texture in it.

I glanced down at myself to check for my straight ends before looking up again—only to realise that the girl in front of me wasn’t my reflection.

“You’re Dottie, right?”

She was my age, and it was almost terrifying to look at her. We were identical, except for a few subtle differences.

I was a carbon copy of my great-aunt.

She smiled softly at me. “Mairead was right. You do look exactly like me, just mirrored,” she said, her voice echoing surreally through the mirrored room. I tried to focus on her. I knew she had to be a spirit. I was searching for proof, but before I could find my answer, she noticed how intently I was staring and spoke again.

“I didn’t get to choose whether I wanted to stay beyond the veil. I’m no spirit—it’s just a dream.”

“What do you mean by that? What happened to you?”

Dottie shifted, suddenly appearing in the mirror to my left. “My soul was taken from me, but I can’t tell you how. He made sure I couldn’t. But I’m no fool. I took my own precautions in secret before it was too late.”

I spun around as she shifted into the mirror behind me, her expression tinged with sadness. “I didn’t understand what was happening until it was too late. The De Loughrey’s have been made by the stars for one reason only, and since I couldn’t fulfil our birthright, it’s yours now.”

My heart was racing in my chest as she moved from mirror to mirror, making me turn in circles until I caught her again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please explain it to me,” I pleaded, but Dottie shook her head, placing her hand on the mirror.

“You have to find the Book of Shadows and fight for what’s right. Keep the balance, and don’t fall for the moon’s temptations,” Dottie spoke frantically, as though time was slipping away. “The truth will reveal itself like a puzzle, but always remember that I’m a part of you, and you’re a part of me. We’ll meet again, sooner rather than later, I fear.”

Her reflection turned translucent, and panic crept up my spine. “Don’t leave me, Dottie, please!” I cried, spinning like a maniac, searching for her in the mirrors.

“Trust the Fox. She’s the keeper of what you’re searching for,” her ethereal voice whispered before the mirrors dissolved into mist.

I woke up with a gasp, clutching my chest where my heart thundered wildly. Sweat clung to my skin, and I threw off the blanket, sitting up to glance at the digital clock on my nightstand. It was half-past five in the morning. After the phone call with my grandmother, I must have fallen asleep still wearing my clothes from dinner.

I glanced over at my roommate’s bed and saw she wasn’t hosting Nathaniel’s company tonight. Maisie was soundly asleep, and I felt guilty the moment I decided to wake her.

“Maisie, please wake up,” I whispered, shaking her gently by the shoulder. She stirred, groaning softly.

A full day lay ahead of me, but after Dottie appeared in my dream, I couldn’t wait until evening to visit the chapel and seek answers from Gwyneth. I needed answers now.

Maisie sat up in bed, her blonde hair escaping the tiny French braids she’d worn for dinner. She squinted against the light as I switched on her bedside lamp. “Doe, what’s going on? Are you all right?”

I moved back to my bed, pulling on my shoes and tying the laces as I replied, “it’s a long story. I’ll explain on the way, but we need to hurry before someone catches us, or we’re doomed.” Finished with my laces, I stood and grabbed my leather jacket, that I had tossed over my chair after returning from the graveyard with Archer.

The thought sent a shiver down my spine, and I closed my eyes briefly.

Nope.

This was not the time to think about him.

“Gwyneth holds the answer to the riddle. We need to get to the chapel—that’s where she’ll be waiting for us.” At least, I hoped she would be. “And since the last time I saw her, she tried to drown me, I was hoping you’d come with me for a bit of backup.”

Maisie jumped out of bed, pulling long trousers over her shorts and slipping into her shoes without bothering to tie the laces. She tugged on one of Nathaniel’s jumpers, clearly not pausing to overthink the situation.

My heart warmed a little. I’d asked for help, and she hadn’t hesitated to act.

She grabbed her phone and turned on the flashlight. “We have to take Naomi with us.”

“I’m not sure she’ll agree to—” I began, but Maisie cut me off.

“Naomi might be a bit blunt sometimes, but she’s actually a beacon of light.”

I frowned. “You think every breathing creature is a beacon of light with a warm heart.”

Maisie chuckled, unlocking our door. We kept it locked at night for privacy.

“I do, but Naomi really is a soft soul under her mask. Besides, without her, we’re not going anywhere. Did you forget, Doe, that I can’t see, sense, or feel spirits?” she whispered, opening the door and stepping into the corridor of the girls’ dorm.

I followed her, distracted by the dream. Of course, I’d forgotten that Maisie wasn’t like Jesse, Naomi, or Archer. Something about her and Nathaniel’s bloodline made them too pure to sense the dead.

Mental note: ask Maisie why that is when we’re back from the church.

I followed my friend through the corridors, letting her lead me since I had no clue where Naomi’s room was located. We weren’t necessarily close. Though I had to admit that I admired the way she didn’t give a single care about anything but herself and what she wanted. It didn’t seem to be in a narcissistic way to me. She was just so full of confidence, it almost awoke some kind of jealousy in me.

We stopped in front of a door only a few metres away from our own. Minoru and Tanner were written on the sign at the door.

Maisie pulled out a key from her pants and unlocked the door. When she pushed the wood open, it made loud squeaking noises, and I held my breath, hoping no one, who wasn’t supposed to, heard us.

Both girls sat up in their beds, and the light switched on.

“For fuck's sake, what do you want here?!” Rebecca Tanner yelled angrily at us, pushing her sleeping mask off her eyes.

“I'm terribly sorry for waking you, but we need to talk to Naomi, it’s really important,” I apologised, but if eyes could kill, the blond girl would have been my end by now.

Normally, I tried not to judge people in a bad way, but Rebecca was a bitch. She had the belief that she was somewhat better than everyone else, and from what I had seen, her biggest and only insecurity stood right next to me. And just as I thought about it, her eyes snapped to Maisie.

“I’ll tell Chadwick about you breaking into my room in the middle of the night. He’ll probably expel you for being a threat to others, you psycho,” she hissed, and suddenly, I didn’t feel sorry at all for waking her.

Naomi got out of bed, getting dressed the same way we had, by just throwing thicker clothes over the ones she was already wearing. Even awoken before the crack of dawn, she still looked strikingly beautiful.

“Get a grip on yourself, Rebecca; not everything is about you. What’s your plan—to knock on a teacher’s door in the middle of the night, looking like a student in scandalous need? And in the morning, how mad must you sound when your word stands against the three of us? Little Miss Tanner needs some attention again. Scandalous, so scandalous ,” Naomi taunted, and I had to press my lips into a thin line to hide my amusement.

Rebecca gaped at her and threw a pillow at Naomi, which she caught easily. “I hate you. All of you,” she spat. We didn’t bother to continue this one-sided conversation and stalked out of the room.

“Do you think she’s mean to us because she doesn’t like me?” Maisie asked quietly as we made our way towards the marble stairs.

I scoffed, “don’t be ridiculous, how can anyone not like you? She’s just mean to everyone.” Well aware of my words speaking anything but the truth, I held on to the lie. Maisie was a sweet soul, and I didn’t want her to be hurt by some girl blinded by arrogance.

“You don’t have to act like you don’t see how she basically bares her teeth at Maisie in every given situation. She knows,” Naomi assured without looking at me.

It wasn’t difficult to leave the building without getting caught. Honestly, it was a surprise that we could easily sneak out like that. On my first day, most teachers made sure to remind me that the curfew was so significant and the consequences of breaking it could result in up to two weeks’ detention.

My mind had imagined security wandering through the halls of the school at night, only waiting for an opportunity to catch a student misbehaving. To our luck, none of that was the case.

“Naomi is right, I’m well aware of Rebecca’s disliking towards me,” Maisie said in a normal tone now that we had made it out of the building and jogged forwards to the woods where we could slow down since surely no one would catch us hidden between the massive trees. “We were never close, but we were nice to each other, and I still am to this day, but she only sees an enemy in me. It’s sad, honestly, but it’s not my fault Nathaniel isn’t in love with her.”

My head spun around to look at my friend, a little surprised. “Oh, it’s about jealousy?”

She nodded, holding her light up between the trees as we made our way further into the forest. “I didn’t know she liked him before Nathaniel and I got closer. He had always been a loner, and at first not even I was his biggest fan. So mean and quiet.” She started grinning. “With me, he’s never quiet.”

Naomi cleared her throat and stopped walking. “Can we do the girls talk sometime this week, and someone could just explain why I was woken before the crack of dawn and now follow you into the darkness of the woods?”

“We have to get to the chapel before someone notices our disappearance—which is not likely, but I would prefer not to stay in these woods in the dead of night for too long.” Paranoia was already playing with my mind, and I imagined eyes watching me from the trees. “I know the answer to the riddle lies hidden in the chapel, and I need to find those answers because… because…”

Because I need to prove to myself that I wasn’t a waste of oxygen, that I could do something great.

Dottie told me that I was meant for something big, that I was the last De Loughrey to take on our birthright. I might not know what specifically I was made for, but I held on to the hopes of having a purpose in this life.

The words lay on the tip of my tongue, but as much as I tried, I couldn’t force them out.

“Because I have the feeling if we don’t find the Book of Shadows before our destiny catches up to us, that Archer and my death will be only the start of something far worse,” I said and continued to walk along the path that led us to the old chapel. The nights got colder and colder as the days passed by, and from what I have heard about this area, we had to expect snow around the beginning of December.

“What do you mean by that, Doe?” Maisie asked from my left side, while Naomi had caught up to me on my right.

“Dottie appeared in my dream, and I’m certain that what she told me wasn’t just an imagination of my own fears. She sounded frantic about something, but whenever she tried to tell me… it seemed like something was blocking out the truth.”

“Since we first discovered the riddles and Umbra in general, we’ve tried to ask the more decent spirits what this is all about. Every time their eyes started to glaze and the next second they spoke about something else, our questions completely forgotten,” Naomi told me, confusion filling her own voice. “We didn't give it much consideration, just thought they were too stubborn to tell us.”

I frowned, thinking back to Gwyneth, who had attempted to tell me something she couldn’t. First, I had thought she just liked teasing me, but thinking about it…

“It’s like the truth of the past is cursed to never be spoken again,” I said out loud.

“But who would try to hide what happened?” Maisie asked, almost tripping over a rock. “Oh, didn’t notice that one,” she mumbled, continuing to light us the way.

I shrugged. “There’s too much to figure out.”

“Our grandparents could have at least left us a handbook on how to sense spirits without looking like a mental idiot,” Naomi joked, and I chuckled, “would have been nice.”

We made it onto the last path that would lead us directly to the chapel’s front porch in around three minutes. It was also the path where the trees were hugging so close you felt like you’d be the next big story horror movies will be made of.

I would die one way or the other, so I might as well use my time left to fight my fears.

“What else did Dottie tell you?” Maisie questioned, as light as ever, without a hint of fear in her voice. “And why hasn’t she ever revealed herself as a spirit to anyone else?”

I recalled my ancestor's words. “She said something along the lines of, I didn’t get to choose whether I wanted to stay beyond the veil. She mentioned that she’s not a spirit and that her soul was taken from her.”

“If we assume her soul was destroyed—although I don’t even know if that’s a real possibility—how could she still speak to you?” Naomi’s question was a good one, and I had no answer.

“Maybe because I’m related to her?”

She scoffed. “That doesn’t make sense. Blood doesn’t bind you.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “And how would you know that?”

“My father passed away when I was nine. I never saw or felt his presence around me. If spirits decide to move on from their path between life and the afterlife, we’ll never see, feel, or hear from them again. It doesn’t matter how much we might wish to.” Naomi swallowed, her gaze narrowing. If I wasn’t imagining it, her sadness hung around her like an aura.

“I’m sorry about your father.” I touched her arm gently, and she allowed it, lingering in her sorrow for a moment before sighing heavily. “It’s been years. I’ve learnt to live with the knowledge that his illness can’t hurt him anymore. At least we know spirits don’t connect through blood, so your great-aunt must have done something before her death to ensure she could send this message to you.”

I let go of her arm, sensing she didn’t want pity or to dwell on her father’s memory. Grief was something I’d never truly experienced, and I couldn’t imagine mourning my own deadbeat of a father. But Naomi’s grief still felt raw in some way, and being near her when she expressed it made me feel a pang of sorrow. A theory formed in my mind.

What if Naomi could sense the emotions of the dead so strongly that it influenced her mood—or even affected the living around her when she was distracted or vulnerable?

I’d have to think about this more once we were safely out of the woods.

Turning to Maisie, I said, “Your grandmother told Dottie about me, and Dottie wrote a letter to her sister, my grandmother, saying a piece of her would return. The letter was received the day after her death, though it was written three days before. Dottie knew she was going to die, but she also knew a piece of her would be reborn in me. Somehow, Dottie and I are connected, and maybe that’s why I’m the only one she can communicate with, even in death.”

We stopped walking, and I gently held Maisie’s arm to halt her since she’d been too focused on the ground to notice we’d reached our destination.

Her gaze met mine, and her eyes widened in amazement. “My grandmother could see decades into the future? I can barely manage a year,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Nathaniel once managed to glimpse our future after Aquila, but he had a headache for a week afterwards. The sight is a curse, really.”

There wasn’t much I could say to soothe her pained expression. She was right. This entire situation was a colossal curse.

“Are you ready?” I asked the two girls beside me.

“To step into a haunted church where a girl is looking for friends to join her in death? Of course. She’d better make it quick—I’ve got Algebra first period,” Naomi quipped, and I pushed the heavy doors open.

The only light we had came from Maisie’s phone. As we entered the dark building, a chill ran down my spine, and I braced myself for something dreadful to emerge from the shadows.

“Gwyneth?” I called out, surprised by how steady my voice sounded despite the fear gnawing at me.

It was fine. I wasn’t alone, it wasn’t Samhain or any other day when the veil was thin as tulle, and I had the tourmaline necklace around my neck. Safer than ever.

The phone’s light began flickering, and I cursed under my breath, taking a deep breath to steady myself.

“Don’t tell me your phone’s dying,” Naomi hissed at Maisie, who shrugged. “It’s fully charged.”

The flickering stopped, but there was still no sign of Gwyneth. Maybe she was angry with me for not dying the way she’d wanted. A peculiar reason to hold a grudge, but who was I to understand the minds of spirits?

“Oh no,” Maisie muttered as her phone’s light went out entirely, plunging us into darkness.

A hand gripped mine firmly, and I sighed with relief. “Naomi’s right, we should stay together,” I agreed, searching for Maisie’s hand with my free one.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t say anything,” Naomi snapped, her voice tinged with fear. For the first time, I started to believe this might actually be a terrible idea.

“I know, but you grabbed my hand,” I replied, giving the hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Doe?” Naomi’s voice came from my other side, sharp and alarmed.

“What?” I asked, turning toward her even though I couldn’t see a thing.

“I’m not holding your hand.”

“Neither am I,” Maisie’s voice echoed, and I froze.

I stopped breathing, trying to pull my hand away, but the grip tightened until my fingers began to tingle.

“Gwyn?” My voice was barely above a whisper.

A second hand stroked my arm, sliding up to my shoulder. Panic surged within me. You won’t rip off my necklace again.

“I know you’re a spirit, and I don’t want you near me. Stop touching me,” I commanded, my voice sharper. To my immense relief, the grip loosened, and the hands retreated.

The votive candles suddenly burst to life, casting a dim glow around the room. Standing before me was Gwyneth, her face a blend of shock and sadness.

“Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out, Dottie,” she whimpered softly, and my heart ached with sympathy, remembering how I had felt drowning in that lake in her place. Seeing my mother fade away from my grief, and having no one other than myself. But I shut out her feelings she had been implying on me.

“So you can try to kill me again?” Gwyn flinched at the coldness of my words. “And I’m not Dottie.”

“I know you aren’t, but you look so much like her,” was all she had to say, not acknowledging the mention of her trying to kill me.

I swallowed my fears and took a step forward, but Naomi took hold of my arm, shaking her head as I faced her. “We can’t trust her after what she tried to do to you.”

“She won’t get that close to me ever again, I promise.”

I looked back to Gwyneth, noticing the mist clinging to her arms as she rubbed them, as if she were feeling terribly cold or just uncomfortable. The second thought was, I assumed, the more fitting truth.

“Dottie told me the fox is the keeper of what we’re searching for,” I recalled her last words from the dream, and Gwyn’s eyes widened as she started to nod rapidly.

“Yes, she came to me the day before–” her eyes suddenly glazed, and she looked around the room, almost dazed.

Naomi squeezed the place where she still held on to my arm. “That’s precisely how the others reacted too.”

“What are you the keeper of, Gwyneth?” I snapped her out of the trance, and she shook her head, her unfocused eyes blinking away the confusion before she looked back at me again.

“I’ll show you, but you have to trust me,” she answered slowly.

“I don’t know if I can,” I said my truth. My trust was something precious, and I couldn’t have people keep using it against me. Not any more.

Gwyn nodded, understanding. “I know you hate me for what I’ve done to you, but I want you to know that I had no other choice. I’m really sorry.” Tears streamed down her deep bronze-coloured cheeks, and it was fascinating to see that even in death you could still experience sadness and regret. Were all emotions accessible in death?

“What do you mean you had no choice?” I questioned her, feeling Maisie taking my hand. I looked at her for a second, remembering that she could only hear one side of this conversation.

I would explain everything to her later. Right now, she was just trying to give me some kind of comfort.

“I was just trying to do the right thing to–to change–” Her face cringed in pain, and she gasped, visibly unable to continue talking about it, so I cut her off.

“What do I need to trust you with?”

Her eyes gleamed thankfully at me changing the subject, and her features relaxed. “You have to take off your necklace, so I can show you what Dottie brought me that day to keep until it was time, and where it’s hidden. I can’t show or tell you in this form.”

“Yeah, fuck that, she certainly won’t do that,” Naomi hissed at her, and Gwyneth angrily squeezed her eyebrows together. “It’s Doe’s decision, not yours. Your grandmother was so much nicer.”

“Says the girl who casually tries to drown her self-claimed friends.”

“Naomi,” I warned softly. She wasn’t wrong, but if we made Gwyneth angry, she probably wouldn’t want to help us anymore.

I turned my gaze back to the spirit. “You can’t hurt me because I have my friends with me, and they’ll protect me.”

Gwyn nodded, her tight curls spilling down her shoulders at the motion, and she brushed it behind her ears, which made her look even younger than the day she’d died. From what I knew, she would have been almost seventy now. But she was damned to be forever fourteen.

“You don’t think about trusting her, do you?” Naomi asked, not believing what I was about to do. Frankly, I couldn’t believe it myself. This was suicidal.

“She can’t tell us anything about what we’re searching for. If it’s the only way, then I’ll risk it.”

“What are you two talking about?” Maisie looked from me to Naomi, and I could see in her expression that she hated not being able to follow our conversation.

“Gwyneth wants to show Doe a memory of the day Dottie made the fox the keeper of whatever the fuck we’re searching for. For that, she has to take off her necklace and let Gwyneth in, which is madness.” Naomi didn’t care that the dead girl stared at her in disgust. She clearly wasn’t her biggest fan, but why should I care? It’s not like the two of them needed to work together. I just needed Naomi to be my anchor to reality if I started to lose control over my body again.

Maisie looked around the room, almost as if she were searching for the spirit she wasn’t able to see. “I’ve seen the last two times Doe almost died. I don’t recall a third time so far.”

Well, that was delightful to know.

Especially the ‘so far’ part.

I turned to Naomi with a tight smile, “see?”

She rolled her eyes. “Let’s get it over with then, my stomach started growling twenty minutes ago.”

A chuckle escaped my throat, but it died down as soon as my fingers lingered over the clasp of my necklace.

This was mental.

Fuck it .

I opened the clasp and took my necklace off, handing it to Maisie.

“You have to allow me to show you the memory,” Gwyneth informed me as she watched me, waiting patiently for her to begin.

“Fine. I allow you, Gwyneth, to get into my head and show me the memory of the night my great-aunt made the Fox the keeper.” I tried to be as specific as possible in the hope of keeping her from being allowed to do or show me anything else.

The candles began to burn higher, and a breeze made them dance wildly.

In the blink of an eye, Gwyneth was in front of me, and her hands caressed my cheeks softly.

Her endless dark eyes were the last thing I saw before the darkness overtook me, and my mind was pulled into a memory made fifty years ago.

The majestic doors of the chapel flew open, and I tilted my head, wondering who might seek the Lord’s company in the middle of the night.

Back when I was at Aquila, the students hadn’t been allowed to leave the school grounds during the night. Getting lost alone in the woods seemed dangerous, especially when the moon was hiding, and every stone could mean death. Oh, such a terrible death—to fall and crack your skull open, not knowing if anyone would ever find you.

My mood lightened when I saw my dearest friend standing in the doorway with a book clutched to her chest.

“Dottie!” I chirped happily, walking towards her.

She visited me daily, and with her, I wasn’t a lost soul. She made me feel like I was almost eighteen, too. Just my appearance made me seem younger. But it didn’t bother me when my friend continued to treat me like an equal, even in death.

The doors fell closed behind her, and my heart twisted when I saw her pained expression. “Gwyneth—” her voice broke, and she collapsed to her knees. I dropped down beside her, placing my hand on her shoulder, knowing she was comfortable with me near her. She trusted me.

“What happened?”

The only thought that crossed my mind was that perhaps James, her lover, had broken her heart, but it seemed unlikely. He was such a nice boy, full of joy, and he made her so happy. Ever since the two of them had gotten together, she loved to tell me stories of how it felt to be in love and be loved by a boy. Something I could never have, but it was fine since her stories were always so full of detail that I felt like I was a part of their love.

“I’m going to die, Gwyn,” Dottie sobbed, clutching the book tighter to her chest.

I felt helpless. Never before had I seen my friend this broken, this scared for her life, since the day I died. She was always a dreamer, the most optimistic person I’d ever met.

I shook my head in disbelief. “You won’t die.”

A broken heart couldn’t kill her.

My friend lifted her head, her red eyes meeting mine, and I saw the truth in them. She wasn’t joking, and she wasn’t talking about heartache. She was talking about the ultimate end.

Death itself.

“This will be the last time we’ll see each other, Fox.”

I continued to shake my head, denying what she was trying to tell me. She didn’t get to leave me alone. And she didn’t get to use the name we had written stories about when we first met at the age of twelve and became the best of friends.

“I don’t understand. Are you thinking about taking your own life?” My Dottie loved life too much to leave everything behind.

She narrowed her gaze, focusing on the dirty wooden floor. “Something like that, but I don’t have a choice. This is how it has to be.” Her eyes lifted to meet mine again. “My great-niece will find you one day. She will be scarred by the life the stars designed for her, and you have to help her. Lead her on the right path, push her to her limits so she will find the truth.” Tears streamed down my cheeks, while Dottie’s began to dry, as if she were starting to accept this fate, but I couldn’t.

Maybe she could join me in death, but I didn’t want her to. There was no way for me to get back the life I had lost, and the only thing that kept me from succumbing to the darkness of insanity and sorrow was watching my friend live the life I could never reclaim.

It had been hard enough for me to watch my parents leave Aquila for the last time after my memorial. My soul was bound to these grounds, and I could never see them again.

“Dottie—”

“You will know who she is before she says a word to you, but don’t be fooled by how much she resembles me. She’s not me, and you’re not allowed to treat her as such, or she will end in ruin. Do you understand?”

“Dottie—”

“Do you understand?” She wasn’t talking to me as a friend. She was talking to me the way a teacher would talk to a student, and the stern seriousness in her icy blue eyes scared me.

“I understand.” Giving in, I started to listen to more of the commands she kept throwing around.

“I have no knowledge of the future, only the fear that I failed my family’s destiny,” she began, sounding like she was in agony. If only I could do something to help her. But listening was the only thing she wanted me to do.

Dottie brushed her long red hair over her shoulder, giving me a clearer look at the book she held like her greatest possession.

It was her diary.

A brown leather-bound book that was held together by an elastic band to keep the pictures and notes that stuck out in place.

“Show me a place where I can hide it. A place where it’s safe from all nature and evil that could destroy my words, and I make you the keeper and protector of it until my great-niece is ready.” Dottie spoke so quickly it was difficult to understand each word she said as thunder continued to brighten the room through the windows.

Summer nights were terribly scary when the night cooled the warm air to a decent temperature.

I jumped to my feet and ran over to the second row of benches, kneeling and searching for the loose wood. My friend followed me and saw what I was doing. She knew I couldn’t touch and lift the wood to reveal the empty place beneath it, so she did it instead.

Underneath the loose floor was a metal breakfast box I once used to hide the treasures I had found in the woods, like pretty stones or flowers. As a child, I had imagined a story for each treasure and played as if fairies wanted me to find them.

Suddenly, it hit me why my friend was asking me to be her treasure keeper. She knew that I protected what was mine and had hideaways everywhere on school grounds.

Dottie lifted the box lid to reveal where my handmade tiara, made from the materials these woods had gifted me, lay.

She placed her diary underneath my tiara and her ivory necklace on top. I gaped at her. “But that’s the necklace James gifted to you.”

She looked at the beautiful necklace where a rose quartz was hugged tightly by ivory, which danced around the crystal like ivy, with tears in her eyes.

“I know,” she said, full of sorrow as a tear spilled over. But instead of breaking, she closed the box and let the piece of wood fall back into place, making the floor look as though nothing was hidden underneath.

“You’ve been the best and kindest friend I could have ever wished for, Gwyneth. May we someday meet again and have the time that was long stolen from us.” Dottie got up without looking at me and walked down the aisle towards the doors.

I imagined my dead heart racing in my chest as I ran after her.

She wasn’t saying goodbye to me. I wouldn’t let myself lose the last person who meant something to me.

“Dottie, stop!” I called, clinging to her arm tightly, as the next words she said ripped me apart.

“I won’t allow you to touch me. Leave me alone, Gwyneth Wright.” The command in her voice sliced through me, and my hand went straight through her arm.

I cried out in agony as she left me without looking back.