The Harkma blood kept pulling Matt like a tide.
He had stopped questioning it—the strange feelings in his chest that felt like a compass, an invisible thread that tugged him westward through the ancient forest. Yvonne walked beside him, her hand still in his, her body pressed close to maintain the shroud's cover. They had not spoken for hours. The forest demanded silence.
The trees began to thin.
Matt felt it before he saw it—a clearing, wide and overgrown, ringed by oaks that had stood like it had been for centuries. And in the center of the clearing, half-swallowed by ivy and shadow, stood a house, not entirely magnificent.
It had once been beautiful.
Stone walls, two stories, a wraparound porch that sagged in places but still held. The windows were dark, some broken, their empty sockets staring out at the forest like blind eyes. The roof had collapsed in one corner, and the front door hung askew on rusted hinges.
