The Forest of Sleepers (Nowhere Book 2)

f o r t y - f o u r : d e v a s t a t i o n

3 MONTHS LATER

Birdie stood in the greenhouse for a long time, listening to the whir of the irrigation she'd installed that weekend and the brush of tree branches against the glass windows.

She'd cried out all of her tears in the three months since Wyatt and Marigold had disappeared.

Now there was nothing but emptiness in her chest.

She pulled on the too-big gardening gloves that hung neatly on a peg beside the door and knelt down in the rose bed to begin pruning.

She'd never been a gardener before, but had become one in a surprisingly short amount of time.

"Why are you torturing yourself like that?" Ophelia had asked her one night.

"Because it was his dream," Birdie had replied. "And I won't let that die too."

Marshall had miraculously survived the disappearance of Gwydyr and had shown up in the clearing about a month ago. It gave everyone a small amount of hope, though it shouldn't have. Marshall was a ghost. And if Marigold and Wyatt appeared in the clearing, it would mean they were ghosts, too. Birdie was glad to know that Ophelia had someone to help her grieve over Marigold and Wyatt because she was certainly no help.

And her parents...Birdie couldn't bear to think about them for too long.

Apologies had been what made up most of Birdie's lexicon and her parents would only cry and try to console her.

She didn't want to be consoled.

As Birdie tried to dig up a new patch of dirt, her shovel hit the cement at the bottom of the bed.

She jammed her shovel into it anyway, angrily trying to break through until the shovel snapped in half.

Birdie let out a frustrated scream and threw the pieces to the side. Her yell turned into a sob and she sunk to her knees, crying into the roses Wyatt had loved so much.

She sank her hands into the dirt, watching as her tears stained the brown soil.

She whispered, "I will find you."

It was a promise she made almost as frequently as she breathed. Somehow, she'd find them, even if she had to tear the world apart to get to them.

She sat back on her heels, wiping her damp cheeks with her forearm.

Throughout the long days since the disaster, Birdie's emotions had played a chaotic symphony inside of her.

There was loss and grief and fear, of course. There was nightmare upon nightmare replaying the events of that day. But there was also anger--deep and festering and crimson.

Birdie hated the questions that kept blaring in her mind. Why had Marigold chosen Gwydyr over them? What could she have been so desperate for in order to sell her soul to a forest instead of wanting to be with her own family?

Maybe it was the hurt talking, but Birdie was ashamed to find that she was livid with Marigold just as much as she desperately missed her.

The cost of her actions were more than the consequences of a mere mistake. They were tragedies that would last until the end of time. Never to be forgotten.

Wyatt had tried to save Marigold and she'd taken him down with her.

Birdie hated herself when she had these thoughts, but couldn't seem to get rid of them because her thoughts were the only things that kept her company.