The Forest of Sleepers (Nowhere Book 2)

e i g h t e e n : p a r e n t s

Rose and Oscar Penny were not as stupid as their children sometimes presumed they were.

They knew all about their daughters' comings and goings when they'd sneak out down the oak tree by Marigold's window, when they'd park the getaway truck down the road, and when they visited Gwydyr.

It wasn't that the girls were particularly bad at sneaking around but that their parents were particularly good at knowing when they were.

It had been going on ever since Marigold had met Silas, the first ghost to come out of the forest.

They both knew this, of course, and Oscar had decided that it would be best to wait. To watch. To be there when the girls needed help or were in danger, but be otherwise oblivious until one of the girls confessed or was convicted that what they were doing was wrong.

"We have to let them grow up," Oscar had said on many occasions to his wife.

Tonight, the Penny household was quiet after dinner, which was a rare occurrence.

This was because three of its permanent residents were absent.

After their exploits into Gwydyr the night before, Rose could only pray that the girls respected their parents enough to at least stay away from it for a few days.

Rose and Oscar sat at their spots around the table, listening to the tick, tick, tick of the clock.

"Do you want the rest of that cobbler?" Oscar asked.

Rose slid her plate over to him. "Should we be worried?"

Oscar inhaled slowly. "I don't know."

Rose might have preferred a yes. At least then she would know how to protect her girls.

As it stood, she and her husband had to balance on a precarious line that not even their daughters understood or saw.

Nowhere, as one might guess if they spent more than ten minutes in town, was not like other places.

There were ghosts and magic and coincidences.

There were also oracles that told of the future. Futures that could be undone or remade, fulfilled or avoided.

When the Penny girls were born, each exactly a year apart, Rose and Oscar had already suspected that their girls were more than a coincidence.

By the time Ophelia was born, a responsibility weighed on the family. They had carried it well.

They hadn't realized how simple their lives were until it wasn't.

Rose and Oscar had always known that their girls were other.

They communed with the dead, had the ability to see them to the afterlife, and, apparently, the power to summon an ancient forest.

Never had any of them stopped to consider what the Penny sisters were. Because it was becoming increasingly clear that they were more than just three girls who could help dead spirits.

How far did this power--or whatever it was--extend? What were they really capable of? And what did this duty, bestowed on them from birth, consist of?

But one question weighed more heavily on the two people sitting at a silent dinner table.

How much did Rose and Oscar have to let them go?

"That forest," Rose said, "is calling to them. It's drawing them in, wanting them to help it."

"I know," Oscar replied placidly.

"We can't just sit here." Rose gripped her water glass so hard she wondered if it would break.

"What do you suggest?" Oscar asked. "We can't see the forest. We can't find out what it wants from the girls."

"They can't go back to it. That's just the way it is."

"Rosie." Oscar forfeited his dessert and took Rose's hand that was balled into a fist on the table. He waited until she met his gaze and said, "We've always said that our girls aren't all ours."

Rose jerked her hand away indignantly. "But this isn't ghosts, Oscar! This isn't harmless spirits wandering the streets and rituals that occur every few years. This is something..." her voice broke, but she swallowed down the knot in her throat, "this is something that we don't know."

"We'll know it eventually," Oscar said. "The girls will figure it out, for good or bad."

Rose stared down at the table, her eyes haunted. "And what if it gets them killed?"

Oscar didn't have an answer for that.

He got up and came around the table to kiss the top of her head. Rose leaned back against him and closed her eyes as if trying to ward off the nightmares that kept recurring in her mind.

Nightmares of the girls in the forest that night with Hal Best. Of Birdie, broken and maimed until the forest healed her. Of Wyatt's bullet wound that Rose had spent hours dressing and redressing. Of going into Ophelia's room after she'd had her own nightmares and stroking her hair until she fell asleep again.

And of Marigold. Of the distance in her eyes, the absence of her usual candor, of the way she was constantly pulling further and further away.

"It'll be okay," Oscar said and began clearing the table.

Rose, who usually protested this, did not protest tonight.

She trusted her girls.

But she did not trust the forest that her girls were beginning to fall in love with.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey everyone! Hope you enjoyed!

~General thoughts on the chapter?

Don't forget to comment, vote, and share!