Whispers of the Turning Seasons (part 18)

The snow muffled everything—Rowan’s sharp breath, the distant deputies shifting behind the treeline, even the creak of the old cabin door.

Only one sound cut through the silence:

The woman’s voice.

“Welcome home, Evelyn.”

Evelyn froze in place.

The woman stepped fully into the clearing, boots sinking into the snow with slow, deliberate steps. Her face was clearer now in the pale afternoon light—sharper, older than the photo, yet almost unchanged since the night she appeared at the inn window.

Her eyes were the same:
Dark. Knowing. Searching.

Eyes that felt like they had once watched Evelyn sleep.

Rowan moved in front of Evelyn instinctively, gun drawn.

“Don’t take another step,” he warned.

The woman didn’t even glance at the weapon.

“This isn’t your place, officer,” she murmured. “This is between me and Evelyn.”

The child kept standing beside the doorway, holding the music box against his chest. His gaze never left Evelyn. He looked confused… hurt… eager.

Evelyn’s knees trembled.

“I don’t know you,” she whispered.

The woman tilted her head slightly.

“You don’t remember me,” she corrected. “There’s a difference.”


---

The Standoff

Ellis signaled her deputies to stay hidden but alert. She didn’t want to trigger anything that would endanger the child.

Rowan didn’t lower his weapon.

“You attacked my deputy,” he snapped. “You stalked Evelyn for days. This ends now.”

The woman’s expression didn’t change.

“I didn’t attack anyone who didn’t try to take her from me.”

Evelyn flinched.

Rowan’s voice hardened.
“Evelyn was a child. You had no right to—”

“Rowan,” Evelyn whispered, grabbing his sleeve, “let her talk.”

He turned to her sharply.
“Evelyn—no.”

But her voice shook.

“I need to know.”

The woman’s gaze softened, almost tender.

“You always were brave,” she said. “Even when you were so small you had to hold my hand just to walk through the woods.”

A memory flashed—
a tiny hand clinging to a larger one
snow falling
a lullaby
a fire crackling in the distance

Evelyn gasped and stumbled.

Rowan caught her again, eyes full of worry and fury.


---

The Woman’s Story Begins

The woman took a slow breath, then spoke clearly:

“You were mine before she took you.”

Evelyn’s blood turned to ice.

“My mother?” she asked haltingly.

The woman didn’t blink.

“She wasn’t supposed to have you. Not after what she did.”

Evelyn shook her head violently.

“No. My mother saved me. She—she raised me.”

“Raised you?” the woman repeated softly. “Yes. After she stole you during the fire.”

Rowan murmured a warning, “Evelyn, you don’t have to listen to this—”

But Evelyn raised a trembling hand.

“I want the truth.”

The woman nodded.

“Very well.”

She looked at the cabin behind her.

“You were born here,” she said. “In this forest. In this house. You spent your first four years with me… and with him.”

She motioned gently to the child.

Evelyn’s heart hammered painfully.

“That’s not possible.”

The woman’s voice was soft.
“Why do you think he remembers you?”

The boy took one step toward Evelyn.

“You left,” he whispered, voice cracking. “You left us in the fire.”

Evelyn stepped back as if struck.

“No. I didn’t. I didn’t—”

She felt Rowan’s hand grip her arm.

“Stop,” he said sharply to the woman. “She was a toddler. She couldn’t have—”

“She didn’t set the fire,” the woman said.
“But she was there. And she saw everything. And her mind protected her the only way it could.”

Evelyn’s breath shortened.

“What did I see?” she whispered.

The woman looked at her with a devastating kind of sorrow.

“Your mother,” she said quietly.
“The real one.
And what she did to us.”


---

The Memory Cracks Open

The pain hit her skull like a hammer.

Evelyn clutched her head as fragments of memory snapped back into place—

Flames licking the cabin walls
Her mother screaming
A hand pulling Evelyn from her bed
The boy crying
Smoke everywhere
Her mother breaking through the window
Snatching her
And the woman—the one standing before her—reaching out desperately:

“Give her back!”

Evelyn gasped for air, collapsing to her knees.

Rowan dropped beside her, panic in his voice.

“Evelyn—Evelyn, stay with me!”

The woman didn’t move.

“It’s happening,” she whispered. “She’s remembering.”

Evelyn sobbed, pressing her hands to her face.

“I saw you,” she choked. “I saw you during the fire. I… I think you were trying to save me.”

The woman nodded slowly.

“You were ours,” she whispered. “You and the boy. My children.”

Rowan’s eyes widened in horror.

“What are you talking about? You’re not her—”

But the woman finished softly:

“I adopted her. Legally. I raised her. Until her birth-mother found us and destroyed everything.”


---

The Cabin Truth

The air grew colder, heavier.

Evelyn looked up, tears freezing on her cheeks.

“You adopted me?”

“Yes.”

“You raised me?”

“Yes.”

“And the boy?”

The child stepped closer.

“We were a family,” he whispered. “Until the fire.”

Evelyn’s voice was barely audible.

“Why didn’t I remember?”

The woman’s expression turned to grief.

“Because the night your mother took you, she told the doctors you suffered trauma. She said it was better for you to forget. And they agreed.”

Rowan stared in disbelief.

“You’re saying Evelyn was kidnapped… by her own birth mother?”

The woman nodded once.

“She took her back by force. She hid her. Changed her name. And told her I never existed.”

Evelyn covered her mouth with her hands, shaking violently.

“No,” she whispered. “No, she wouldn’t… she wouldn’t have lied to me like that…”

But deep down—
she already knew.

Her mother never spoke of Vermont.
Never spoke of those years.
Never let her near forests.
Never let her keep the music box.

Never let her ask questions.


---

The Final Blow

The woman took one small step forward.

“No one comes this far unless part of them wants the truth,” she said. “You came back to us, Evelyn. Your feet remembered the path even when your mind could not.”

Her voice softened.

“Come home.”

The boy held out the music box again.

The lullaby played.

Evelyn felt her world shift, crumble, then start rebuilding itself in a new, terrifying shape.

Rowan stood slowly, placing himself between Evelyn and the woman.

“She’s not going anywhere with you,” he said, jaw tight.

The woman looked at him with something colder than anger.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she murmured.

She tilted her head.

And gave a chilling, almost tender smile.

“She came all this way because she still belongs to us.”