Quiet Village by Eden Darry

Author:Eden Darry [Darry, Eden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635558999
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2021-08-01T01:47:40+00:00

Chapter Twenty-nine

Collie turned the disc over in her hand again and studied it. There was something comforting about it, which was strange because it wasn’t exactly pretty. She ran her finger along the edge, then hissed in pain and pulled her finger back. She looked at her finger.

There was a paper-thin cut, beaded with blood. The disc cut her. It was sharp. Really sharp. The cut was deep.

Collie sucked her finger and looked at the disc again. On one side was a circle within a circle, crudely carved. On the other, two crossed swords. At least Collie thought they were swords. They were mostly worn away like something—a thumb or finger, perhaps—had rubbed at them.

Last night, when they’d finally found their way back to the tent, and even though Collie had mostly convinced herself it was an animal in the bushes and nothing was actually chasing them, she decided they were definitely leaving. They would come back tomorrow and pack up the stuff, but right now, they were going home.

Then the car wouldn’t start.

It wouldn’t even turn over. She’d called the breakdown people who’d come out eventually at about five in the morning. She couldn’t even find a cab out here in the middle of nowhere.

She’d sat huddled in the tent, with Lana dozing on the sleeping bag next to her. Collie had been vigilant. No way she was nodding off at all. Except she had. For ten minutes. And when her phone rang, and the breakdown man said he was here, she’d come out of the tent and trodden on this thing.

The disc had been lying right outside the flap, on the small piece of carpet carefully placed there by the campsite owners, so people didn’t track mud into the tent.

When she’d been in the tree, she’d managed to convince herself it was all in her head. It had just been—a fox, just a badger—an animal, that she’d overreacted to in major proportions—blame it on her wild imagination and all those video games she helped design.

All the way back to the tent, she’d been terrified. She’d kept her gaze on those distant lights from the campground like a person dying of thirst keeps their eyes on the oasis up ahead.

Even when the car, which had always been reliable and was only three years old, had failed to start, she told herself these things happen. Cars break down all the time—wasn’t that why she’d got the breakdown insurance in the first place?

But that disc. This disc she was holding in her hand and staring at now, finally decided it for her. Something was out there, and it was fucking with her. Fucking with them. Maybe it was a person. Someone from the village with a screw loose who hated outsiders, or maybe it was something else. Something darker and far more dangerous.

Either way, it didn’t matter. They were going. She’d made the decision. Lana’s next school term finished at the end of April, which was only a few weeks away and also meant she wouldn’t miss the Spring Fair.

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