Sherlock Holmes meets Pride and Prejudice in this bewitching and scintillating romance between an eccentric gypsy detective and a young spinster governess.
Harriet Morgan, a shy, nurturing young woman, watches the finishing school she has seen as he...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
THE FOREST
The prickling at the back of Harriet's neck would not stop viciously haunting her. Every fair hair was standing in the awareness that they were still being followed, despite Harriet's aversion to hide in an underground cave she had stumbled upon by chance. But as soon as they had left the safety alcove, Harriet felt that prickling sensation at her neck again.
She didn't know how, but the men were back on their trail.
"I think we should call this Birnam Wood," Felicity Ward stated as the girls shuffled through the forest, hungry and alone. Harriet turned to her, cradling small thirteen-year-old Grace.
Harriet's ankle burned and throbbed as she carried the extra body weight. She had literally stumbled upon the cave, twisting her ankle in the process. At first, it had seemed fine, like a low ache, but then the blood flow began to sharpen, and the swelling thickened in retaliation to every step she took. She refused to look at it and bore the pain instead. She was not about to let Gracie go when the girl's fever continued to climb.
The leaves crunched under her feet and Harriet was astonished by how she was able to find the strength to continue to move forward with each step. In all reality... she should have crumbled under Gracie's weight days ago. Especially since Harriet was tiniest out of the other girls, but she was the oldest and they were all looking to her for guidance.
It had been two days since they left the cave.
"Why would you say that, Felicity?" Harriet asked.
The light auburn-haired girl pinched her silvered eyes in reply, "Because the men moved from the woods, sealing our fate like Macbeth."
"Our fate is not sealed."
The sun tried to peek through the bare, empty trees from time to time as the young women traveled, barefooted. How she found herself here, being responsible for these girls in a life-or-death situation was shocking. Harriet had always been gifted with the patience of teaching, but she was shy and as a little girl she would easily cry behind curtains, not wanting her mother to witness her tears.
Now that little girl was buried deep inside by a force of sheer will.
Harriet looked up, saddened by how much she used to adore strolling in these woods, especially during the autumn season. Instead, they trekked with bloodied feet in a bare forest that's yet to bloom from winter's departure.
Random noises that once made the girls startled, now comfort them. The things that stirred made them feel alive. But Harriet didn't think she'd ever step foot in any kind of woods again... if they made it out. The place was a shelter and had given them a means of escape, but it also caused their doom and harbored unforeseen enemies.
The breeze was cool, but not life-threatening as it whirled around, making empty almost black branches sway and creak. Some kind of pollen or mist hovered over the ground and around them. It had been days since they last had food and all of them were thin and willowy. As the leaves tumbled down around them, Harriet noticed how they all looked like ghosts wandering in the wilderness.
