Chapter Eighteen

T he night air was thick with mist, a chill resting on my spine as I walked through the old, narrow streets, feeling an eerie presence at my back. The sound of my footsteps echoed softly, a rhythmic tap on the cobblestones that was oddly calming, yet unsettling. Ahead of me stood a girl. I didn’t know her aside from the little note Polly shoved in my hands at the bakery, but something about her presence drew me in, like a thread tugging at my heart. Like she was my answer to the truth.

Her pale skin almost glowed in the dim light of the street lights, her long, raven-black hair falling in waves around her shoulders. She was waiting for me, as if she knew I would come.

I found myself here not by choice, but out of necessity, as she represented my last chance to uncover the answers I desperately sought. She had to know everything. Polly insisted that I needed to meet this girl, but considering her packed schedule and how overwhelmed she sounded during our call, I realized my only option was to come to her in person to finally get the clarity I needed.

"Amery," she said my name softly, with a peculiar knowing in her voice, her gaze fixing on me with a certain intensity. "I’ve been waiting for you."

I stopped in my tracks, a chill crawling down my spine. "Hi…?"

"My name is Abella," she replied, a faint smile curving her lips. "And I have something to show you. Polly filled me in a little about your predicament."

“She told me about you.” I confessed, trying to pass on my awkward smile.

With a nod, she signaled for me to come along, and I did, climbing the stairs with her to her little apartment above the convenience store. "Come on in," she welcomed me, and I entered.

We headed over to the small sofa, where I settled in as she went into her room and emerged with a set of files and paper. "I can’t give you a lot of my time, but I’ll do my utmost to share whatever information I have." She stepped forward, her hands gently unfurling a piece of old parchment—frayed at the edges, stained with age.

She held the map out to me. My fingers brushed against the paper, and a strange sensation fluttered in my chest. This map wasn’t just a map. It felt like it held a secret, a mystery I wasn’t ready to uncover but couldn’t resist.

"Do you know the story of Willow Crest?" Abella asked, her voice quiet, as if the words themselves carried weight. "How it all began."

I shook my head, unsure of why the mention of the name Willow had anything to do with this town, and why it caused a knot to form in my stomach. But there was no turning back. Not now.

Abella nodded, the flickering lantern light casting shadows on her face. "There used to be a girl named Willow who owned this town—owned it, in a way. People feared her, Amery. They called her a witch." She paused, her eyes darkening, then leaned closer. "But that’s not the whole story. Not the real story."

The mention of the word Witch sent a tremor through me. It was a word I had heard before, whispered by strangers who avoided looking me in the eye after Willow arrived in this town, and friends who passed it on as a joke. I held my breath as Abella continued.

"Willow was beautiful," she said, her voice soft but filled with an intensity that made me hang on every word. "She had silver eyes, the kind that seemed to see through you. And her hair was brown—like the color of rich earth after rain. She was kind, a healer. People loved her. She cared for them, nursed them back to health when they were sick or wounded. But there was one thing she wouldn’t do. To give her body or to use her beauty. She refused the town lord’s hand in marriage."

My stomach twisted. I knew where this was going. The town’s lord, the same man in the history of Willow Crest, who had made countless advances toward women of beauty, who had killed husbands, fathers and brothers, just to kidnap women for his sickly desire, trying to use his influence to manipulate anyone and everything.

Abella’s eyes met mine, a knowing glint flashing in them. "Willow wouldn’t marry him. She couldn’t be bought. She loved her freedom, loved her work. But when she turned him down, rumors started. They said she was a witch. They called her dark, twisted names, as if they had to find some reason to explain her beauty and her power over them."

I could hear the anger in her voice, the way the injustice of it still lingered. It mirrored something inside of me, a feeling I couldn’t quite name, but it gnawed at me.

"She was just a girl," Abella continued. "An innocent girl, living in her Victorian manor. The house was as beautiful as she was, with gardens that stretched out as far as the eye could see. Willow grew all kinds of plants, fruits, herbs, flowers—everything you could imagine. And people came to her for healing, for remedies. But in the end, they turned on her."

I felt a flicker of something unsettling, something that struck too close to home. Amir had been taken, had been lured into something he couldn’t escape. Was this connected?

Abella’s voice grew quieter, more cryptic. "To protect herself from the town’s people, from the anger that had turned on her, Willow created something. A duplicate of her mansion. In the mornings, when people walked through the streets, they saw one manor, a beautiful, sprawling house—empty, yet welcoming. But in the evening, they would see another. The second mansion, standing just as tall, just as grand, but it was a place no one dared approach. It felt wrong, cursed."

I swallowed hard. "A duplicate? How could she do that?"

Abella’s smile was faint, knowing. "Only a few knew the truth. Willow wasn’t just a healer, not just a girl who lived in a mansion. She was more than that. She had the power to protect herself, to deceive. The townspeople couldn’t understand how—why they couldn’t find her in day and why the place at night was always so… off."

I shifted in my seat, my heart pounding in my chest. The words rang in my ears. A duplicate of her mansion. The strange feeling of déjà vu I had when I first visited that place. The whispers about Willow and the eerie silence that greeted me each time I passed by the mansion with Amir… Could it be that the mansion we had visited was the second one? The cursed one?

"But what happened to her?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "What happened to Willow?"

Abella’s eyes darkened. "She simply disappeared. Some argue she left of her own accord, while others assert, she died. The rumors took on a life of their own, suggesting that she had killed her lover, and so on. There are also claims that she was trapped in the other mansion, the one that was perpetually vacant. The truth remains elusive. Yet, her legacy lingers in the town… and within you."

I stared at her, confusion and fear swirling inside me. "Me?"

Abella nodded. "You’ve met her, Amery. The tales never became real. Her presence remained nothing more than talk until you two showed up, proving that Willow was still very much here. She’s still here. And she’s waiting. I might not believe in supernatural, but I do believe in the power of blessings and curse, and I believe Willow’s curse and Willow herself, are real."

My heart stopped. The world seemed to close in on me as I realized the truth. The girl I had seen that day in the mansion, the girl who had silver eyes and brown hair—she was Willow. She was the one who had taken Amir.

I can't believe I forgot seeing that picture in the mansion, even though I can vividly recall every detail of it coming alive when she stood before me in the bar that day.

“What she wants from me? From us?” I dared to look at Abella.

She chose to remain quiet, and that silence conveyed the loudest truth of all. She was unsure of the reasons, but she felt a belief in something that went beyond the logic I was trying to understand in this bizarre and confusing circumstance. However, one thing was unmistakable…

She wasn’t finished with me yet.