Page 151

“I expect you to understand that Arthur gives each of his sons exactly enough truth to make him useful.” She exhales. “No more.”

Something dark flickers over Nathaniel’s face. “Did he kill him?”

“Nathaniel,” I whisper.

“Did my father kill his own son?” he asks.

Hazel’s lips tremble.

Nathaniel’s eyes burn. “Answer me.”

Silence.

“Hazel.”

The quiet stretches until I can hear my own pulse.

“Did Arthur have him killed?” Nathaniel says once more, this time low, like a growl.

Hazel flinches at the words, but then she changes again.

The tears vanish.

The softness drains out.

Her eyes become flat. Not cold, exactly, but emptied of everything vulnerable. The same neutral expression she had earlier.

Then she walks deeper into the forest.

Nathaniel notices. “Where are you going?”

“I’ve said too much,” is all she says, not turning to look at us.

He moves after her.

I grab his arm.

His eyes whip to mine. I see so much fury in him that I nearly let go.

Not because I’m afraid of him.

Because I’m afraid of what happens if I can’t hold him here.

“She knows,” he says.

“I know.”

“She knows what he did.”

“I know.”

Hazel keeps walking.

Branches catch at her cardigan. Her flashlight beam shakes across the ground. She doesn’t run. She doesn’t need to. She moves like a woman who knows these woods better than anyone alive should know them.

Nathaniel pulls once against my hand.

I step in front of him. “We have to finish,” I say. “This chest isn’t going to bury itself.”