"No," Jude said. "I think you’re being watched. Like all of us. And it’s using us, one by one."
Scarlett’s mouth tightened. "I thought I was dreaming. It ca to in the water. I was bathing in the shallow stream. One mont I was alone, the next... I could feel soone’s hands. But no one was there. I even called out to Susan, but there was no answer. Then I blinked, and it was like it had never happened. Except I was already dry. I was dressed. I don’t rember doing it."
"Did it say anything?"
She shook her head. "No. Just... the feeling. That I wanted sothing. That I couldn’t hold it in anymore."
He nodded and made a ntal note. The next few conversations mirrored the sa pattern. Zoey spoke of losing ti while foraging and returning to camp with a full basket she couldn’t rember picking. Grace described a mont in the night where she was certain soone was lying beside her in her hammock, whispering her na. Susan said she’d found her spear pointed at one of the treehouses without rembering ever lifting it.
Natalie was the only one who claid nothing had happened.
"I’ve been watching," she said. "I’ve seen the change in the others. Their eyes get distant. Their words get slow. Then they blink and act like nothing happened. But I’ve been waiting. It hasn’t co for yet."
"Yet," Jude echoed.
"It will," she said softly. "Because it knows I’m watching."
He finished his rounds by evening, disturbed but not surprised. The stories confird it, sothing was taking hold of them. Testing them. It wasn’t random. It was choosing monts that mimicked desire, need, intimacy. It was blurring the lines of their relationships, pushing boundaries. That night, as the fire burned and dinner was eaten in tense silence, Jude watched the circle of faces and tried to pretend they weren’t already haunted.
"I need to ask one more question," he said, standing near the flas.
The wives turned to him slowly, every one of them braced.
"When the blackouts happen, when you co back, do you feel anything? Like sothing lingering?"
There was a long silence. Then Emma spoke, her voice barely audible. "Yes. It feels like sothing wet on the back of your neck. And it’s gone before you can turn around."
Scarlett nodded. "I feel it in my teeth. Like a buzzing."
Serena hugged herself. "Like I’ve forgotten sothing important. Like there’s a hole in ."
Alia shivered. "Like being in love. But poisoned."
The fire crackled. The wind pressed softly against the leaves, as though eavesdropping.
"We’re going to stay together tonight," Jude said. "Everyone. No one sleeps alone."
No one protested.
They moved into the largest treehouse, crowded but close, mattresses laid out side by side. They kept the oil lamps burning low, and Jude stayed near the middle, where he could see every face, every breath, every twitch of a shadow.
It was around midnight when it ca again.
The wind died completely. The jungle went silent. And one by one, eyes began to close, not in sleep, but in submission. Jude felt the shift like gravity reversing. His heart pounded as he sat up, scanning the room.
Stella jerked upright suddenly, her eyes glassy. Her lips moved silently, whispering a language that wasn’t hers. Jude crawled to her, grabbing her shoulders.
"Stella, look at !"
Her eyes t his. Blue light bled from her irises for a mont. Then her body went limp in his arms.
He looked up, breath catching in his throat.
Every wife was now sitting up, eyes glowing faintly. Every single one.
And they all spoke at once.
"You brought us here. You broke the seal. You are the key and the lock."
Jude staggered back, his blood turning to ice.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
Their voices rged in a chorus that didn’t belong to them.
"We are the inheritance. We are your truth. And soon, you will rember."
Then, just as suddenly, it ended. Every woman blinked, gasped, looked around in confusion. So cried. So clutched their heads.
But Jude stood in the center of the treehouse, heart racing, the final words echoing in his mind like thunder across the sea.
You will rember.
The air was still heavy from the night before, as if the jungle itself had witnessed what transpired and was now holding its breath in anticipation. The morning had no birdsong, no scurrying of small creatures in the underbrush, no rustle of wind through the treetops, just an oppressive silence that clung to every leaf, every branch, every breath Jude took. He was the first to rise, sitting motionless at the center of the crowded treehouse. All around him, the won were still asleep, their faces softened by rest, but sothing in the way they lay felt too still, too delicate, like statues posed after a storm.
He studied them one by one, Scarlett, curled tightly on her side with her arms around her knees; Serena, mouth parted slightly, brows knit even in sleep; Sophie, half-buried under her blanket, only her dark hair visible; Susan, fingers twitching now and then as if fending off invisible dreams. They all looked peaceful now, but the mory of last night hung in Jude’s mind like smoke. All of them, sitting up in eerie synchrony, speaking in one voice. Blue light in their eyes. Words that didn’t belong to them, a presence that didn’t belong to this world.
"You brought us here. You broke the seal. You are the key and the lock."
Jude rubbed his eyes and stood slowly, careful not to wake the others. The wooden floor creaked under his weight as he crossed to the open window and looked out over the camp. The early mist had settled like a blanket across the treetops, veiling the world in softness that belied the fear coiling in his gut. What had happened last night wasn’t a shared dream or hallucination. Sothing had *spoken* through them. It had used their bodies, their voices. And it had known things only he should know.
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