#Chapter 219 – Missing

“Come on, mama,” Alvin says, tugging at my hand and leading me towards the broken-down old house.

“Alvin,” I hiss, pulling him back. “We can’t go in there – it’s a ruin –“

He frowns at me, confused. “Mama,” he says, “the forest brought us to this house. Don’t you think it wants us to go in?”

I screw up my face at him, looking around at the forest. All my anger from yesterday is gone – drained from me. The questions…well, they’re still there. I certainly want answers. But I’m starting to suspect, really, that what tipped me over into anger in the first place yesterday was the forest.

The magic of this place might be mostly invisible to me, but it’s certainly working its will in its own mysterious ways.

“I don’t know if I trust this forest anymore, Alvin,” I say, looking down at him with concern. “I mean, it just separated us from your dad and your brother. How do we know that it’s friendly?”

“Can’t you feel it, mama?” Alvin asks, giving my hand a squeeze. Then he closes his eyes and smiles, breathing deeply from his nose as if he’s refreshed. “I just know it’s good.” He opens his eyes and his smile broadens. “If you can’t feel it, then you just have to trust me.”

“But why,” I say, frowning down at him. “I mean, I trust you, but why would the magic want to separate us from your dad and Ian?”

Alvin just shrugs at me. “Maybe we needed to be separated.”

I sigh, then, and let him pull me towards the house.

The steps at the front look about ready to crack as I put my feet on the first one, but I’m surprised, in the end, when it bears my weight steadily without even a creak. Encouraged, Alvin hops up the stairs, happy and excited.

I fight my fears, then, and insist upon opening the door first, not willing to let my child be the one on the front lines.

“Hello?” I call, looking into the room. No one – and no thing – answers me.

Instead…

I life my nose in the air, sniffing, my wolf’s senses taking

savory, with a

eagerly sniffing the air as well. “Mama, it smells so good,” he says, his hand going to his stomach. We’ve been eating regularly

him back as he moves to enter the house. “We can’t walk into someone’s house,” I say, “just because their breakfast

were getting a little two saucy for me as they approached 7. “Mama, there’s no

connections, sharing life forces, ghosts in the forest – all that I can accept. But a magical breakfast laid out for us in the woods? Somehow,

throwing his hands in the air. Then, he pokes me in the

put my hand over it as well. “They say to eat some breakfast,” I murmur, noting internally that we didn’t bring our backpacks with us in

whole thing as we enter – it’s just a one-room cabin, but also because I’m starting to believe my son

have sworn I saw cobwebs, and broken furniture, and

And the table…

what he sees there, and I admit that my mouth falls open when I see it. Everything I could want for breakfast, everything meal I’ve ever

and picking up a blueberry muffin that I swear – I swear – is identical to the ones my grandmother made me when I was a little girl, and which I haven’t seen the equal of since she died. And there are pancakes, and

this and smiles, giving it a warm

the muffin between my hands.

the edge of the table. “I had a craving. The

lot of mythology as a kid that said that the one thing you’re not supposed to do

to the other side, you have to keep going deeper.”

I snatch the cookie out of his hand, giving him a little bitter smile. “Fine, you win,” I say, quickly snatching a bite

at me as he begins to ladle stew into his bowl. “What does

up, and further in,” I say, sitting down at the

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