“In a few days,” I answer. “Or whenever I get all my stuff ready to go.”
“You don’t mean go to Indiana for a weekend trip again, do you?” Harrison asks, and I look up, meeting my twin’s eyes.
“No,” I say, heart hurting at the thought of leaving my friends. But it will hurt even more if something else happens to them. “It makes sense, really.” I blink a few times, telling myself I’m not going to cry. “I inherited a house that’s paid off and my lease is up in December. My rent is ridiculous, and there’s a barn and plenty of land in Thorne Hill. I won’t have to pay board for Mystery, which will save me a fortune. And it will put a safe distance between us in case another demon attacks.”
“Do you think it will?” Laney’s face pulls back with fear.
“I have no idea,” I tell her. “There’s just so much I don’t know. I didn’t send the demons after you or Leslie, but it all happened because they were trying to get to me. I couldn’t live with myself if I stayed and someone else got hurt.”
“What are you going to tell Mom and Dad?” Harrison asks.
“That it makes financial sense to go to Indiana. I can’t leave that house just sitting empty, and I’m not selling it. And a Victorian farmhouse with room for horses is my total dream house.”
“It is,” Laney agrees. “I’ll miss you.”
“It’s just Indiana,” I say, forcing myself to smile again. “I’m not moving overseas. Assuming things are calm, you know you’d be welcome to visit.” I look at Harrison. “You actually remember Thorne Hill.”
He gives me a half-smile. “Better than you.”
“What about Ethan?” Laney asks. “Have you told him you’re leaving?”
“No,” I say with a shake of my head. “I will tomorrow, once he’s home.” If anyone understands making a sacrifice to protect the ones you love, it’s him.
Saying bye to everyone was harder than I expected, and I expected it to be pretty damn hard. To everyone else, it makes sense why I’d move into a house with no mortgage and low taxes, and I was almost able to spin it to make it sound like I had a sense of duty to move in and care for a historic home that’s been in my family for generations. I think everyone was a little blindsided to why I rushed out only four days after my friend’s funeral, though Mom thinks my sadness is driving me to make a big change in the hope that it will help me feel better. She’s right in one sense, but she doesn’t know the whole story, and as much as it kills me not to tell her, I can’t. Not now…not yet.
Leslie’s husband, Adam, came to me only yesterday and said he can’t handle taking care of Sundance. He doesn’t know anything about horses, and seeing his wife’s horse is too painful, but he knows Leslie would want someone to make sure he’s taken care of. He wanted to just give Sundance to me instead of selling him and said we’d revisit things later when he was able to process everything better.
So, I loaded Sundance up in the new horse trailer I bought, along with Mystery, promising Adam he could have Sundance back if he wanted him. Grief can make people do things they might regret, and getting rid of his wife’s horse might be one of them.
And now I’m almost to Thorne Hill after twelve hours of driving. I cried the first hundred miles, missing my friends and feeling stressed to be driving a new truck that’s pulling two horses in a large trailer, but the closer I got to Indiana, the more I felt a sense of peace. It doesn’t make sense, I know, to feel welcome in a place I don’t remember growing up. By all accounts, I’m an outsider in this small town, yet it feels so right, so familiar, so safe, when I drive through town on the way to Aunt Estelle’s house.
To my house.
The sun is starting to set when I finally pull into the driveway, and my heart swells in my chest when the blue house comes into view. “We’re home,” I tell Hunter. I have him buckled in the backseat again, though now that I know he’s not really a dog, I suppose he doesn’t need it. I park in the driveway and put the strap of Romeo’s carrying bag over