The Puppeteer and The Poisoned Pawn (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 3)

As I wander aimlessly into the Emerald Lake forest, I remember the taste of blueberry pie. Scarlett used to have the first sample of it after the pie cooled down. She’d stick her fingers in its center and scoop.

I focus on that smile. That rare, beautiful smile I’d only seen when she tried to cheer me up. If only she was here to make me that pie now. I’d give anything for a glass of milk and her arms around me. But the image of her sticky blue fingers, her sincere green eyes, that steaming pie held in her oven mitts… it darkens, loses its bright essence. Every good memory I try to conjure turns into something rotten. Something cold and decaying.

It’s not fair.

The only people that can make any of this less painful… are dead.

“Everyone dies around us,” the voice says quietly.

I press my hands over my ears. What is happening to me?

The sun sets, a blast of orange-and-gold rays cutting through the trees, glimmering off the dewy leaves, and warming my cheeks. Quick bursts of wind carry the scent of lilac, honeysuckle, and wet soil. I begin searching the trees for our tree house. I know it was in this forest, but I’m not even sure where I am, much less which direction to go in.

Stumbling in my black dress, I trip over vines, slicing up my ankles from thorny weeds and broken sticks. And I’m numb from the inside out. A cold river of blood flowing through my veins, forcing my heart to keep beating, and that’s it. That’s all I have left.

“Is this what you wanted?” I call out to the void. “For me to end up alone and angry? To find a nice hole in this forest to die in?” I’m not sure if I’m talking to God or any one of the people who has died.

“They all die.”

I throw my hands over my ears again and scream.

The sun sinks into the earth, and the cool-blue sky darkens. The winds pick up and coat my arms and legs in goose bumps. I stop walking, look out into the blue-and-green abyss of night draping over the forest, and I wonder how I’ve fallen this far. But even worse, I find myself waiting for Dessin to find me. To rescue me. My burning, tired eyes search the trees, praying I’ll see him standing there, waiting for me to run into his arms.

And with that dreadful thought and the unbearable reality crashing over me, I drop to my knees and curl into a tight ball. A spot in soft, moist soil. With sleep slipping over my eyes, I take a deep breath.

And pray that I don’t wake up.

A combination of the chirping of birds, the blazing morning sun, and a cold sprinkle of rain wakes me from the dreamworld I escaped into. It’s abrupt and nearly painful as I flinch against the fat blobs of raindrops that splash over my cheeks. My memories assault me with a vengeance. The last time I spoke to Kane before the battle. The sickle that went through Dessin’s chest. His blood on my hands. The conversation I had with Aurick. The coffin lowering into the ground.

I remember where I am. And my entire body shudders in despair. That aching hole in my gut and heart growing wider like an infection spreading to vital organs.

The sky rumbles with thunder, a loud crackle, then boom. The rain picks up, showering me, drowning me. I press my hands into the mud, becoming a sopping puddle, and push myself to my feet. I have to keep moving. Giving myself a task helps only a little. Find the tree house. Keep moving. Don’t look back. Don’t think about the harsh words I said to Ruth. Don’t think about Chekiss trying to chase after me. Find the tree house. Get out of the rain. Keep moving.

My black heels sink into the mud with each step, so I rip them off my feet and fling them into the shrubs to my left. Without much thought, I begin to run, ignoring the stabbing pain of splinters, thorns, rocks, and broken branches stabbing into my bare feet. The rain blurs my vision, smacking against my skin like sharp pebbles.

“Just let me find the tree house!” I scream into the misty void once again. “I’ve lost everything! Let me have this!”

“It’s a curse. They all die around us.” The voice emerges once more. It sounds so real, but I know I’m alone. I have to grind my teeth to keep from screaming.

My head pounds with a piercing headache, my thighs burn from the exercise, and I’m certain I’m close to fainting from not having food in days. Minutes of running with bleeding feet and mushy muscles, and I lose hope. What if the tree house was a figment of my imagination? What if I never escaped Albatross? I’ve finally gone mad.

But I spot a familiar cluster of vines and ivy, like a heavy curtain covering a tree. My footsteps slow to a complete stop, and all I can do is stare. My chest coils tightly, my blood goes cold, and I could cry right here.

I can practically see him pulling the vines away like a veil, showing me the wooden planks that go up the trunk of the tree. I shield my eyes from the falling rain and look up to see it. The tree house. The wooden refuge while we were on the run. The place I first met Greystone. The location where Kane gave me some answers.

I wrap my arms around my shivering core and sigh in relief. It isn’t much. But I made it here. I got away from the sad looks, the betrayal of Aurick, the mountain that turned Kane into something he hated.

My hand trembles as I pull the curtain of vines to the side, revealing the stepping planks. A ladder of sorts to find my way up. Despite the shooting pain in the pads of my feet, I start climbing. My hands grip the wood for dear life as I go slowly, careful not to slip from the falling rain. About halfway to the top, I grab a loose plank. The wood shifts a little, like the screw isn’t snug in the tree. It’s wobbly, not enough that it’ll give, but enough to give me pause.

And in that fraction of a second, I hold my breath like I’ve gone underwater. A rogue wave crashing over me, making me flinch, slamming my eyes shut against the powerful pressure.

“I told you to wait until I’m done!” a boy shouts from above me.

My eyes flutter open, expecting them to meet drops of rain. But there isn’t any. The tree is dry. The sky is clear and blue. And a boy about the age of ten looks down at me with frustration wrinkling his brow. Only… he isn’t looking down at me. He’s looking at the little girl holding on to the planks above me. Her white shoe is planted on the loose plank I’m gripping.

“I can do anything you can do!” she hollers back at him. Her long golden waves dance in the sunlight, shimmering like a spool of honey in the summer.

“It’s not safe yet, Skylenna.” He huffs and continues hammering.

Oh my god.

It’s Kane. And the little girl is me.

I use my other hand to press over my mouth, holding in the cry that wells like a storm cloud in my chest. How is this happening? It’s as if I’m really here. Like I’ve traveled back in time.

“Sure it is. You did a fine job.” The little girl stomps and tugs on the planks in emphasis, only the one under her feet shifts, and she screams.

“Hurry up, then, before you fall and break your neck.”

The wave falls back over me like a wet blanket, making me fly freely through the air, tumbling and locking my jaw as I wait for it to pass. Only at some point, I let go of the plank and am now soaring through the rain, gravity launching me into the air until I’m watching the tree house grow farther and farther away.

I crash-land in a puddle. Muddy water splashes all around me. The air is knocked from my lungs, and my joints burst with no central point of pain. The feeling is similar to being kicked in the stomach. My mouth gapes open as I try to gasp for a single breath.

What the hell just happened?

I suck in air, trying to avoid the rain getting caught in my windpipe, and force myself to think back on the talk I had with Aurick. He said I don’t have a split personality like Dessin. I’m different.

The mind of a female subject turns into something else entirely. The subject has visual and auditory hallucinations. They’re able to use their mind in different ways than Dessin could.

Can I go back and see my old memories? The ones I’ve been missing? Is this what that was? A lost memory from when I was a child? When I apparently knew Kane?

I wrap my arms around my body, holding in the aching shivers that roar up my spine. I want to remember everything. If I can’t have him in this life… maybe I can live inside my own mind, playing back each memory, reliving each lost moment I’ve been dying to remember.

I can still have him in some way. Even if it is watching what he was like growing up.

With a winded grunt, I rise from the mud, rolling my neck and stretching out my sore muscles. I’ll climb it again and again and again.

It takes me only a minute to get back to that loose plank. I tug and wiggle it, but nothing happens. The rain drenches me, splashing into my eyes already welling up with tears. And that familiar gnawing twinge of loss fills up my stomach.

I climb the rest of the way, collapsing on the wet, wooden floor of the tree house, sobbing as the shower of rain cloaks the Emerald Lake forest.

The sounds drowning out my cries for miles.