Spirit Hunters

2 || Spirit Hunters

"So, how do you know about this place again?"

As much as Cassia was trying to give Tinni the benefit of the doubt, she couldn't help but agree with Orsa. They'd driven to the edge of Heartwood, stopping outside a park there. Instead of delving into the park, though, Tinni led them off to the side, where a barely visible path led into the surrounding trees.

They'd lost sight of the park three minutes ago.

Their path was little more than dirt cutting through the twig- and leaf-strewn ground. Thin trees shot into the air, their branches skeletal with the deepening autumn. This was more of a wood than a forest, but it still felt isolated from the outside world.

It did nothing to help rid Cassia of the foreboding feeling that had followed her all day.

Tinni sighed. "Will you two just trust that I know what I'm doing?" When Cassia and Orsa shared a look, Tinni rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine. There're these three new students that go to my cousin's school. They look nothing alike, all have different last names, but they all started at the same time. That alone was pretty weird, but then one of them posted this flier about coming to them if you ever faced a problem that didn't seem quite natural."

"And let me guess. In this poster, they called themselves the Spirit Hunters?" Orsa asked, a derisive note to the question.

"If you find this entire thing so dumb, why are you even here?" Tinni shot a quick glower over her shoulder.

Orsa shrugged. "I might, but I still want to make sure everything is okay with Cassia. Or beat these guys with a stick if they end up being creeps."

"Maybe show support by helping me ensure Cassia isn't being haunted."

"Guys, really, I appreciate you both," Cassia cut in before they could continue. And she meant it. Even if they both felt overbearing in their own way—Orsa with her insistent dismissal and Tinni with her unnerving belief in all this superstitious stuff—they were sticking by her rather than dismissing her for crazy. A warmth settled in her chest, and the wood no longer closed in quite so much.

"But," she went on, "can we maybe not argue and instead focus on getting through this? Worst case, it's all a sham and we can go to Sweet Palace after."

Orsa bumped her shoulder against Cassia's and smiled. "Yeah, sorry. I just hear so much about this from my grandpa, you know? He swears up and down on all these local legends. It's crazy. Sometimes it gets tiring. No offense, Tinni. I get why you believe them when the older folks are so hardcore about it."

"Just because you say no offense doesn't mean I don't take any." But Tinni stuck her tongue out good naturedly.

"Now that that's over with." Orsa placed a hand on her hip. "Are you going to admit we're lost or—"

She cut off as they rounded a bend, revealing what had to be their destination. It was little more than a shack. A single room wooden building, based on its size, with a triangular roof and a slat of wood forming another roof over its makeshift porch.

"Tinni," Orsa said in a near whisper. "I think you've just led us to a murder sight."

"I, uh..." Tinni shuffled her feet. "No, this is where the directions said to go."

A small sign swung along the path leading up to the shack. A simple stake with wood swinging from a chain, but someone had tacked a hand-drawn poster on it. It featured a childish depiction of a ghost and scrawled words. Cassia inched just close enough that she could read it.