I looked down at the key again.
“When do we leave?”
Daniel glanced at his watch.
“Sunrise is in seven hours.”
The cabin stood nearly two hours north of town, beyond a village called Bellmere. I had never heard of it, yet the name caused an inexplicable ache in my chest, like remembering the melody of a childhood song without recalling the words.
We left while the sky was still black.
Daniel drove an old navy sedan. Neither of us spoke much. The highway gradually narrowed into a winding country road surrounded by pine trees. Fog hovered between the trunks, and the car’s headlights illuminated only a few yards ahead.
I held Carl’s letter in my lap.
Every few minutes, I unfolded it and read the same lines.
Our meeting was not an accident.
I’ve known you your entire life.
You have always been loved and protected.
