The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith

Author:Sasha Peyton Smith [Smith, Sasha Peyton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Oliver and I step out on the rain-soaked street. The air is heavy with the smell of sewage and damp garbage.

Maxine’s delicate dress sticks heavily to my skin as it becomes laden with rain.

My whole body still feels electric. For the first time in a very long time, I was brave. It’s hard to be brave when you’re sad, and I’ve been so sad for such a long time.

“Are you all right?” Oliver asks, but the thunderstorm carries his question down the gutter, where it washes away with all the other useless things.

I don’t answer, so he tries another question.

“Why aren’t you at the sanitarium?”

Ah yes, my cover story. How quickly I forgot that I’m supposed to be laid up with tuberculosis.

“How did you know about that?”

“Do you remember in the letter you wrote me, you said you went to the police station every Sunday at ten a.m. to ask about Will’s case?” He looks down at his shoes. “I went a couple of weeks ago. I should have done it sooner, but I finally felt ready, and I wanted to see you after—” He sighs. “Well anyway, you never came, and when I asked an officer about you, he told me what happened. Some story about the owner of your shop being found dead and you getting diagnosed with tuberculosis all in the same day. Quite the story.”

“Rotten luck,” I mutter.

“You seem well enough now.”

“I snuck out.” It’s a terrible lie. He doesn’t believe me, and I don’t blame him.

He takes a steadying breath. His hair is dark, wet and stuck to his forehead. I swear he’s grown again. “It’s the strangest thing—I tried to write to you, but no one could tell me the address. I wrote a dozen letters addressed to you, sent them around to every sanitarium in the state just to be thorough, but it doesn’t seem you received any of them.”

“You—you wrote me letters?” I ask. A small voice in the back of my head, the one I try to ignore, understands what he truly means: he tried to find me.

“Of course,” he whispers.

And the way he says it makes me feel like I’ve been put into the ring again—emotions raging, raging like a church bell ringing in a storm. I don’t have time for this, to sort through what it means. Instead, I shrug my shoulders. “You know how the mail can be,” I offer as an excuse.

He narrows his eyes. It hurts to be looked at by him with so much skepticism, even though I deserve it. “Why are you here?” he asks.

“I was invited here by a friend. It was probably foolish to have come,” I say.

He frowns. “Was it Finn?”

I let myself imagine for a moment that he’s jealous of me spending time with a boy who isn’t him. “I didn’t realize you two were acquainted.”

“I don’t know him well enough to speak badly of him. I never understood why your brother seemed so taken with him and his friends.

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