Chapter 2

Ethan didn't just leave me alone. He couldn' t. A week later, he was back, not in person, but his presence was everywhere. He' d found me in the small town at the foot of the mountains where I' d gone to find work, trying to build a life far from the Montgomery shadow. He cornered me outside the diner where I was waitressing.

"You really expect me to believe you don't remember?" he sneered, his face too close. He still looked ill, a faint sheen of sweat on his brow. "The way you looked at me... you wanted me. You were always trying to trap me."

In his mind, our first life was twisted. He remembered me as a desperate, clinging woman, not the one who gave him life, gave him children, only to be murdered.

Suddenly, his eyes widened, a flicker of something like fear, or understanding. "You do remember. You're like me. You came back too." He grabbed my shoulders. "Alright. Fine. You remember. Then you know I love Chloe. I'll do anything for her. Stay out of our lives, Sarah-Mae. Don't go near my mother. Don't even think about us. If you do that, I' ll leave you and your hick town alone. Truce?"

His core motivation was clear: protect Chloe, at any cost.

I pulled away from his grasp. "Fine, Ethan. Stay away from me, and I'll stay away from you."

And we'll see who ends up destroyed this time, I thought.

"Good," he said, a final, cold warning in his eyes. "Because if you ever come near Chloe, if you ever try to interfere, I will make what happened to your town in the... in my dreams... look like a picnic."

He turned and left, confident he' d put me in my place.

The next day, the local paper, a rag usually concerned with county fairs and bake-offs, had a front-page story. "Appalachian Charlatan Preys on Vulnerable Families." It didn't name me, but it described a "mountain woman" with "folkloric claims" and warned locals. My boss at the diner fired me, his eyes full of pity and fear. People on the street whispered. Ethan' s reach was long, his methods crude but effective. Chloe, no doubt, was pleased.

I saw them a few days later, Ethan and Chloe, stepping out of a limousine in the nearby city, all smiles for the cameras. He was doting on her, his arm around her waist, whispering in her ear. The caption under the photo online read, "Montgomery Heir Devoted to Fiancée Amidst Health Scares." He was publicly reinforcing his loyalty to her, at my expense. My suffering was just collateral damage in his grand love story.

Humiliated and jobless, I was at my lowest. I was in the small town library, trying to find any information, any leverage, when I overheard two women talking in hushed, anxious tones. They spoke of Captain Jack Riley, a war hero from a nearby county, grievously wounded in Afghanistan. His injuries were extensive, his recovery slow, and the doctors said he' d never have children. His family was desperate.

A spark ignited in me. The folklore. My "gift." It was a long shot, a wild idea, but it was a way out. A new path.