The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 4 by Bella Forrest (life books to read TXT) 📕

perpetually looking all around, scanning the horizon, flinching at the smallest sound. Even Alex’s mother seemed concerned by her partner’s behavior, always asking if he was all right, always getting the same response.

“Just tired, my love,” he replied.

To Alex, Alexei still seemed happy, still brimming with love for the beautiful mother of his unborn child. It didn’t feel as if his father was planning to up and leave, in the way that Alex had always thought he had. There was no hatred, no animosity, no lack of love—but there was a permeating chill of dread running in Alexei’s veins.

What had he been so afraid of? It didn’t add up to Alex—they seemed so happy.

With another jerk, the vision jolted forward.

Alex’s mother and father were walking through Middledale Park in the early evening, the sun heavy in the deepening azure sky, casting a bronze glow upon the world below as it sank. It was a balmy evening, signaling the arrival of a baking hot summer. As they wandered, his mother turned to Alexei with a mischievous grin.

“Feel like some ice cream? I think the little kidney bean is after some mint chocolate chip,” she said, contentment clear in her soft voice.

Alexei nodded. “Whatever the kidney bean wants,” he replied, leaving Alex frustrated that he couldn’t see his father’s expressions. It made him feel strange, to hear himself referred to as “the kidney bean”—somewhere between happy and sad. “You want me to go?”

Alex’s mother shook her head. “No, it’s okay. My treat.” She grinned, bounding off toward the ice cream truck parked beside the children’s play area. There were still a few kids scrambling over the brightly colored, somewhat rusted jungle gym, and Alex watched as his mother paused for a moment, watching them with a wide smile upon her face, gently rubbing her stomach. She wasn’t visibly pregnant yet, her belly still mostly flat, but Alex knew he was in there, and he knew what she was thinking. She was picturing a bright future for herself, her child, and the love of her life.

Alexei turned, wandering toward the edge of the lake that gleamed in the center of the park, the murky water looking oddly tempting in the close heat of the evening. Where Alexei went, Alex had to follow. Stepping as near as he dared to the lake’s edge, Alexei looked down into the shifting surface, giving Alex his first proper sight of his father, in the flesh. The reflection was wobbly, small waves distorting the image, but it was definitely the same man Alex half-remembered from the grainy photograph he had found in the shoebox beneath his mother’s bed—the one that had made her cry such painful tears. Alexei was handsome and youthful, bearing a strong resemblance to Alex himself, making him wonder how his mother could bear to look at him, when the similarity was so clear.

Suddenly, Alexei looked up.

There was a man standing on the opposite side of the lake, watching Alex’s father intently, a smirk upon his face. Alex didn’t recognize the man, nor did he have the chance to get a better look. Alexei broke into a sprint, running away from the lake and his dearest love, who was standing obliviously beside the ice cream truck, ordering a cone of mint chocolate chip.

Alex wanted to scream at his father to turn back, but he had no control over his father’s actions—he could only watch and wish things were different.

It took a while for Alex’s focus to move away from his mother, but once he understood he could not go back to her, Alex realized his father was running down a familiar route. He ran across the main road that skirted the town, ducking into the dark, cool shade of the forest that ran alongside the highway, then moving down toward the train tracks and the railway bridge that crossed the ravine. It was the spot Alex had liked to run to when he was a kid, eagerly awaiting the arrival of a train so he could watch it clatter across the rails above him, the sound of it thundering in his ears, the vibrations shaking his whole body.

Alexei climbed past the place between the wooden beams where Alex had liked to hide, clambering up onto the train tracks themselves, not pausing for a moment as he took off across the bridge. Alex could hear the sound of footsteps behind his father. Alexei flashed a look back over his shoulder for any oncoming trains. Instead of a train, Alex saw the same man from across the lake, gaining ground, chasing his father down with a determined, cruel look upon his unkempt face.

The man was impossibly fast, and Alex realized with a sinking feeling that the pursuer was now too close to his father. He was almost within arm’s reach.

Alexei turned back, Alex’s vision following, just in time to see a shadow swoop from the darkness beneath the tracks and cut straight through the body of Alexei’s would-be attacker. For the briefest moment, Alex felt a wave of relief, but it was not to last. Seconds later, he felt his father’s body buckle. Alexei froze, turning back to see his pursuer evaporate into a black mist, blown away on the wind, disappearing into nothing.

In the shifting shadows below, Alex could see the flash of teeth and the ripple of a vaporous form. It was unmistakable—a sight Alex had come to associate with relief, now filling him with horror.

Something caught Alexei’s eye in the tree-line on the right-hand side of the tracks, distracting Alex for a moment. A hooded figure stood between the mossy trunks, smiling coldly from beneath the overhanging branches. Alex was certain he knew who that was too, making him wonder if the two had been in cahoots all along. He wanted to watch the figure for longer, to try to get a clearer image of the mostly shrouded face, but Alexei’s focus had turned to the sluggish river trickling away at the bottom of