The candlelight in Jessi's room burned low, casting soft shadows across the floorboards. Elora sat by the doorway, one hand resting on the frame, the other clutching her pendant—a small crystal threaded through an old chain Mira had given her weeks ago. The crystal pulsed faintly, but not enough to distract her from what she saw.
Jessi was curled into herself beneath the covers, her brow damp with sweat, her breath uneven. Even in sleep, she looked like she was hurting.
The aftershock of Mira's ritual hadn't spared her best friend. Elora hadn't even realized how deeply it had affected Jessi until hours after they'd returned from the ritual room. Mira had warned them that those emotionally bound to Elora might feel… echoes.
She hadn't said it would look like this.
Watching Jessi tremble in her dreams, jaw clenched in silent pain, made something claw at Elora's chest.
She didn't ask for this, Elora thought. She followed me into this mess without hesitation. And now she's paying for it.
A sharp breath caught in Elora's throat. She stood and walked quietly across the room, then knelt beside the bed. She gently brushed a curl from Jessi's forehead and whispered, "I'm sorry."
The words cracked in her throat. Her hands shook.
"I don't know if Mira's plan will work," she said softly. "I don't even understand all of it. But I'm praying it does. For you. For all of us."
The candle flickered.
"I'm scared, Jess," she added, her voice cracking now. "And I don't know how much more I can carry before it breaks me."
Elora sat on the floor beside the bed, her back leaning against the wall. The moonlight peeked through the lace curtain, silvering everything in the room. Jessi murmured in her sleep but didn't wake.
So Elora talked.
She wasn't sure if it was for Jessi's benefit or her own.
"I never thought I'd stay in Hawthorne this long," she said quietly. "I thought I'd come, keep my head down, finish school. Maybe discover something about my mom's past, maybe nothing at all. But I've done everything except keep my head down."
She laughed, but it wasn't a joyful sound. "Since coming here, I've seen things that shouldn't exist. Roots that move. Whispers in trees. Doors that lead nowhere. Mira bleeding into a bowl and calling on a curse no one sane should ever touch."
Her voice lowered. "And then… there's Devin."
The name hung in the room like a heavy mist.
"I don't know how to explain it. One minute, I'm ready to fight him. The next… I feel like I've always known him. Like he's some thread sewn into my story long before we ever met. It doesn't make sense. It's not just… attraction. It's something else. Something deeper. It scares me."
Elora drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
"And Mira…" She paused, unsure whether to speak the rest. "She knows more than she's told me. That much is obvious. She speaks in riddles. Stares at me like she's already seen the ending and is just waiting for me to catch up. Sometimes, I think she's proud of me. Other times… I think she's preparing herself to lose me."
Her voice broke at the edges. "That's what terrifies me the most."
Outside, a wind picked up. The leaves rustled with something more than breeze.
At a point Elora wanted to wish she had never agreed to come to Hawthorne.
Elora continued, her voice a whisper now. "I don't know what my future holds. But every day it feels more like it doesn't belong to me anymore. Like it's being pulled toward something I can't stop. Like the deeper I go into this… the more of me disappears into it."
She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and exhaled.
"I just want you to know… if something happens to me—" her voice trembled, "—I didn't mean for it to. I didn't mean to bring this to your doorstep. You were the only normal I had left."
Jessi stirred. Her lips parted but formed no words.
Elora reached up and gently touched her hand.
"I'm not giving up," she whispered. "But I think the storm's coming soon. And I don't know if we'll all make it through the fire."
She looked toward the window.
Toward the night.
Toward whatever fate had written in the stars above Hawthorne.
_________________
Elora couldn't sleep.
Even after Jessi's breathing finally calmed, even after her whispered confessions had thinned into silence, a pull in her chest refused to let her rest.
Elora slipped into a trance like state.
The air was crisp, the sky scattered with pale stars like scattered salt across velvet. The Clove garden was alive with quiet—still, but watchful.
And at its center, A tree stood waiting.
Its branches stretched wide like the arms of something both sheltering and strange. The leaves rustled faintly, though the wind was still.
Elora approached barefoot, her body moving as if summoned.
She laid a hand against the bark. It was warmer than it should've been.
"Are you watching me?," she whispered.
The bark was rough under her palm, but beneath it pulsed something… alive. A rhythm. A heartbeat. Not hers. Not Mira's. Not human.
The tree didn't speak.
But Elora felt it listening.
She knelt at its base, curling her fingers in the soil. There, too, was warmth.
"I don't know what you want from me," she thought, unsure whether she meant the tree, the town, or fate itself. "But I'm not who you think I am. I don't have control over this. I'm just trying to survive it."
A sudden gust of wind stirred the leaves—only the leaves directly above her.
She looked up.
A single blossom—blood red—fell from the tree and landed in her lap.
She stared at it, heart beating fast.
She didn't know what it meant.
But something inside her whispered, "It has begun."
Elora rose slowly, flower in hand, and glanced once more at the ancient trunk.
"If you're truly alive," she said softly, "then don't just watch. Help me. Help her."
The leaves stilled.
And Elora jerked awake.
Stunned.
And in that frozen hush, Elora felt—for the first time—that she was not alone in this.
Not truly.