CHAPTER 1 — Lilies at the Edge of the Woods

Moonbrook looked like a postcard someone had held too close to a flame. Not burned. Warmed, softened at the edges. The late afternoon sun poured honey over the roofs and the quiet main street, gilding shop windows and turning passing dust into something almost holy. Even the people moved like they belonged in a gentler world: slow steps, unhurried glances, conversations that took their time.

I didn’t. I drove into town with my hands locked around the steering wheel like it might bolt, like the whole car might decide it had made a mistake bringing me here. My little sedan was packed with what survived the life I’d detonated: clothes in vacuum bags, a few framed photos I couldn’t bear to throw away, my battered veterinary textbooks, and three boxes labeled KITCHEN even though I didn’t know yet if the kitchen in my new house had running water.

The air smelled like pine sap and damp earth. The forest sat in a dark green ring around the town, close enough to feel like a wall and ancient enough to feel like a witness. And I had not come here to be witnessed. I had come to disappear.

Not vanish in some melodramatic way, no dramatic hair cutting scene, no revenge dress, no triumphant music swelling in the background. Just… gone from the reach of a man who used love the wrong way.

Kyle’s voice still lived in the corners of my brain, like mould behind drywall. 'You’re too sensitive, Nora.

You make me do this. No one else would put up with you.'

I swallowed and forced my attention back to the road. Moonbrook had a bakery with a lavender painted sign, a library that looked like it had never heard the word “renovation,” and a florist shop with lilies in the window, white petals splayed open like hands offering surrender.

Lilies. My favourite. My throat tightened for reasons I refused to examine.

At the far end of town, where the houses grew further apart and the trees pressed closer, I turned onto a narrow road that looked like it had been laid down as an afterthought. The GPS chirped cheerfully, unaware that my heart was trying to climb out of my ribs.

You have arrived. The house waited at the edge of the woods like a dare. Two bedrooms. One bathroom. A sagging front porch. Weathered siding that had once been a soft cream but now looked tired, as if it had spent years listening to storms complain. The yard was mostly weeds with the stubborn bones of a garden underneath.

It was perfect. Not because it was pretty because it wasn’t. Because it didn’t look like it belonged on anyone’s social media. It was the kind of place you could rebuild with your own hands, piece by piece, and every repaired board could feel like a small act of revenge against the past.

I killed the engine and sat in the sudden quiet. For a moment, I didn’t move at all. The forest was quiet.

That was the only way to describe it, the heavy inhale of wind moving through pine needles, the long exhale of leaves settling. Somewhere distant, a bird called out, sharp and clean. The air carried a coolness that slid under my skin, and with it came the prickling awareness of being close to something unknown.

Grace had told me not to come alone the first time. Had insisted, in that way grandmothers do, that you can disobey them, but you can’t stop hearing them.

“Wait for me, Nor. I’ll meet you there. And don’t you go wandering into those trees. Wolves and bears aren’t fairy tales here.”

I hadn’t listened. Not fully. Because I was tired of waiting. I was tired of living my life as if I needed permission to breathe.

Still, when I stepped out of the car, I locked it automatically, the click loud in the quiet. My gaze flicked to the treeline as if I expected Kyle to step out between the trunks wearing that smile he used when he wanted to look harmless.

Nothing moved. I hauled my first box onto the porch, careful of the nail that stuck up from the second plank. The house smelled like old wood and dust and the faint ghost of someone else’s life. I liked that, too. It didn’t smell like Kyle’s cologne, didn’t smell like the apartment I’d fled with shaking hands and a mouth full of lies to keep the peace long enough to escape.

I set the box down and let my eyes travel over the interior: scuffed floors, peeling wallpaper, a living room that could be cozy if you didn’t look too hard at the water stain on the ceiling.

A new beginning, I told myself. It's not a perfect one. But one I can control.

I was halfway back down the porch steps when I heard a car crunching over the gravel drive. I turned, already bracing because my body had learned to brace before it learned to trust.

A small SUV rolled to a stop, and Grace climbed out like she owned the whole world and didn’t see why anyone else should argue with her about it.

She was seventy two and still walked with the stubborn stride of someone who’d survived too much to be delicate. Her silver hair was piled in a loose bun, and she wore a cardigan the colour of storm clouds. A canvas tote hung from one arm, bulging with something suspiciously heavy.

“Nora.” She said my name like a blessing and a scolding at the same time.

I felt my eyes sting before I could stop it.

“Hi, Nan.”

She crossed the distance and wrapped me in a hug that smelled like rosemary and clean laundry. Her arms were thin but firm, stronger than they looked. Grace didn’t do fragile, not even when her hands shook from arthritis.

“You came without telling me you’d left,” she murmured into my hair.

“I texted,” I protested weakly.

She pulled back and fixed me with a look. Her eyes were pale hazel, sharp as tacks. “O please dear, you know I can't work my phone that well.”

Heat crawled up my neck. “I didn’t want you to fuss.”

Grace snorted. “Too bad. You’ve got one anyway.”

She looked past me at the house, then at the forest, and her mouth flattened. It was subtle, but I caught it, the way the trees made her wary.

“Still sure about this place?” she asked.

I forced my shoulders back. “It’s what I can afford. And it’s close to town.”

“And the woods,” she murmured, her voice turned careful.

I tried to keep my tone light. “Wolves don’t scare me.”

Grace’s gaze snapped to mine. “They should. Not because they’re evil because they’re wild.”

That phrasing landed oddly. It's not dangerous. Not vicious. Wild. Before I could ask what she meant, she hefted the tote and pushed past me into the house.

“I brought you food,” she announced. “And tea. Real tea, not those sad little dust bags you call a drink.”

A laugh tugged at me despite everything. “I like my tea.”

“You like sugar,” she said, and it was so accurate it felt like a gentle punch. “Now. Show me where you plan to put your little vet clinic.”

“My garage,” I said, following her through the living room. “It’s detached. Needs work, but it’ll do.”

Grace’s footsteps slowed as she entered the kitchen. She set the tote down and scanned the room with the brisk competence of a woman who had kept a home running through grief, storms, and lack. Her expression softened just a fraction.

“This is good,” she said finally. “Needs work, but it can become a good home.”

My throat tightened again. Grace turned, and her hand came up to cup my cheek. Her palm was warm, her touch steady.

“You’re safe here,” she said, and there was something in her voice, an iron certainty, that made my lungs expand for the first time in months. “You hear me? Whatever happened back there, whatever you think you did wrong… you're not there now.”

The words cracked something open in me. I swallowed hard. Tears threatening to fall. Grace’s thumb brushed beneath my eye, catching a tear I hadn’t felt fall. “You came to me. That’s where you were supposed to go.”

I closed my eyes for a second, letting the warmth of her hand anchor me to the moment.

When I opened them again, Grace stepped back into her practical mode. “All right. First things first. We eat. Then we make a list. Then we unpack.”

“Nan.”

“And,” she added, pointing one finger at me like a judge delivering sentence, “you do not go into those woods at night.”

I blinked. “I wasn’t planning to.”

“You say that now.”

I tried to smile. “I have not plans to go out in the woods alone. Are the woods that bad?”

Grace’s gaze drifted to the window, to the dark green line of trees beyond the yard. The sunlight was lowering, shadows lengthening. For a heartbeat, she looked older than she had a minute ago.

“It’s not bad,” she said softly. “It’s just… alive. " " And there are things in it you don’t understand yet.”

“Like bears,” I said, trying to keep it ordinary.

Grace’s mouth twitched. “Yes. Like bears.”

Her tone made it clear she meant something else, too. I didn’t press. I didn’t want mysteries; I wanted peace. I wanted a quiet job, a quiet house, a quiet life where no one’s anger could find me.

We ate at the wobbly kitchen table, sandwiches Grace had made, apples, and the kind of biscuits that crumbled into buttery heaven. She watched me the way you watched someone who’s been starving, making sure I actually swallowed.

Then we unpacked. She directed. I carried. The work was simple and repetitive and grounding. When she finally left, the sun was gone.

The house settled into its nighttime noises, pipes ticking, wind brushing the siding, the occasional sigh of wood shifting. I made myself tea the way I always did when I needed comfort: black tea, too much sugar, a splash of milk. I wrapped my hands around the mug like it could lend me its heat permanently.

I wandered room to room, taking inventory of what I’d need: a ladder, paint, a plumber, patience.

Then I shut the curtains. Because even though I told myself I wasn’t afraid, the forest felt closer at night. The darkness between the trees looked thicker than it should, as if it had weight.

I brushed my teeth, changed into an oversized shirt, and crawled into bed with a book, some worn romance novel I’d read twice already, its spine creased like an old friend. The heroine was kissing someone in a moonlit garden when a sound cut through the night.

A howl.

Long, low, carrying. My breath hitched. Another answered it from farther away, fainter but sharp enough to raise goosebumps along my arms. The hairs on my neck stood up as if my body recognized something my mind refused to name.

Wolves, I told myself. Normal. Grace said wolves.

But then, beneath the howls came a sound that didn’t belong in any nature documentary. A growl, agonized and ragged, like pain given a voice.

I sat up slowly, heart stuttering. The sound came again, closer this time, and it wasn’t just pain. There was fury in it, too. A raw, helpless rage. My feet touched the floor before I’d decided to move.

Vet instincts were a curse sometimes. You didn’t get to choose when compassion grabbed you by the throat. You didn’t get to choose when responsibility outweighed fear.

I crossed the room, quiet as I could, and peered through a crack in the curtain.

The yard was empty. The forest not so much. Something shifted between the trees, too large, too dark, moving wrong. Then, the moonlight caught a flash of something pale.

Metal. A cold thread of dread slid through my stomach. I should have stayed inside. Grace’s voice echoed in my head: Don’t you go wandering into those trees.

My hand found the doorknob anyway.

Because somewhere out there, something was hurting. And I had never been very good at walking away from wounds.