Free Lies in Blood by A. M. Hudson Page A

the silence, making all the tiny hairs on my body stand on end. I could hear the wind kiss the thin edges of every leaf, could feel the small droplets of sunlight sneaking through the canopy, dancing intermittently on the bark around my toes, could hear the smallest insects crawling beneath the soil, and hear even the brush of a bird’s wing on the sky. This was my song. This was where I could plug myself in to all that I was, and just exist, for no other reason than to be a part of something greater. Here, I could think clearly.
    Here, I could focus on something other than the suffocating dread I had that something was missing.
    Here, I could quieten my mind long enough to see the answers beneath all the questions.
    “ Auress?” a child called.
    I slowly opened my eyes and lowered my arms, but as my gaze went to the Stone, a flash of gold hair caught my eye. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
    A child’s face showed around a tree trunk; her cheeky smile challenging.
    “ What are you doing?” I called, but she ducked out of sight again—her high giggles echoing off everything around me. “Eve, is that you?”
    She ran to the next tree, her hair trailing behind her like gold ribbons, but when I came upon her, she was gone again.
    “ Eve?” I called. “Please come out.”
    I waited.
    “ Eve?”
    She giggled again, this time appearing further away. I ran after her, my limbs opening up as I broke into a fast, human sprint, feeling the air expand my lungs like a breath I’d forgotten to take. I followed her all the way out to the clearing by the lighthouse, glad I’d decided not to walk naked today, and stopped dead.
    “ What the—?”
    Trees had grown up overnight like blossoming buds in a time-lapse film, their luscious leaves casting shadows over the long grass, where the scent of apples and rotting cider wafted on the early fog, making sweet perfume in the air. I walked cautiously between the columns of trees, pinching the leaves on a few branches as I went to see if they were real. And as I came to a stop at the giant oak tree, centre to the orchard, I knew then that the child I saw must have been Evangeline.
    “ Auress,” she said, and my gaze went up the trunk to the tiny child sitting on the longest branch—one leg dangling down, her finger twirling a lock of hair into a curl.
    “ What are you doing up there?” I stepped closer.
    She smiled and reached up to pluck something from between two branches, holding it out in her open palm after.
    “ Come down, Eve?” I offered my hand. “Please?”
    She smiled, but shook her head.
    “ Why? Why won’t you come down?”
    The smile grew, her eyes darting from my face to something behind me.
    And a hand came down on my shoulder. I spun around and shielded my eyes, blinded suddenly by the high sun, seeing only a silhouette of a man there.
    “ Jeeze, Ara, I’m sorry,” Jason said, helping me stand from the folded position I took. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
    “ You didn’t,” I said, feeling silly. “It’s just the light. It blinded me for a sec.”
    He laughed. “What were . . . what were you doing?”
    I looked back at the oak tree. Eve was gone. “I was. . .”
    “ You have no idea, do you?” he asked, taking a step back from me.
    I stood with my mouth open for a second. “I . . . no. Not really.”
    He laughed again. “You were talking to someone.”
    “ Was I?”
    “ Yes.”
    “ What was I saying?”
    “ I don’t know. It wasn’t in English.”
    I felt my face pale. “It wasn’t?”
    “ No.”
    My jaw angled slightly away from him then, my gaze drifting inconspicuously to the field. The apple trees were gone—the fog and the cool and the scent of the orchard fading with it. I rubbed my head. “I must have been sleepwalking.”
    Jase nodded, thoughtful.
    “ What are you doing out here, anyway?” I asked. “It’s very early.”
    “ Early?” He looked up at the sky, then into the distance where the manor sat, its cream fascia