Chapter 9 : Jared's Not in the House

*Eliza*

Rain thundered against the house for the rest of the day.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon in the laundry stirring the vats of scalding water and mending alongside Scarlett, the two of us enjoying several hours of contemplative silence.

The quiet and steady manual labor was a welcome break, and gave me the time I needed to mull over not only my situation, but the conflicting feelings that were creeping in and out of my mind since my strange run-in with Jared near the edge of what he called the Dark Forest.

He’d given me some insight into the layout of the land. The Dark Forest was north and filled with danger, that was clear. But to the south?

He’d said something about the sea, and where there was a sea, there was a boat.

A boat that could, potentially, take me home.