It Waits in the Forest, page 1
Copyright © 2024 by Sarah Dass
All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 77 West 66th Street, New York, New York 10023.
First Edition, May 2024
Designed by Phil Buchanan
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dass, Sarah, author.
Title: It waits in the forest / by Sarah Dass.
Description: Los Angeles : Disney-Hyperion, 2024. • Audience: Ages 12–18. • Audience: Grades 7–9. • Summary: Inspired by Caribbean folklore, eighteen-year-old Selina gets pulled into a string of mysterious murders on her island home.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023035537 • ISBN 9781368098335 (hardcover) • ISBN 9781368098724 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Supernatural—Fiction. • Murder—Fiction. • Rain forests—Fiction. • Families—Fiction. • Interpersonal relations—Fiction. • West Indies—Fiction. • Mystery and detective stories. • LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction. • Thrillers (Fiction) • Novels.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.D33552 It 2024 • DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023035537
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Visit www.HyperionTeens.com
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
The Ghosts of St.Virgil
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Ninteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Praise for It Waits in the Forest
To my sister, Rebecca. Thirteen months younger but much wiser. I have too much to thank you for, so this one’s for you.
The Ghosts of St. Virgil
You picked up this book. You looked at the title. And if you’re like me, your first question was: What waits in the forest?
Are you sure you’re brave enough to find out? Oh-so-many things await. The central mystery of the novel, yes. That is terrifying enough. But the ghosts of the past also lurk in the shadowy trees—broken hopes and dreams, the secrets of a whole community that may tear Selina DaSilva’s life apart once and for all.
Sarah Dass invites us into a world of magic and murder. She imbues the sunny island of St. Virgil with a dark, sinister mood as effectively as Walter Mosley did for 1940s Los Angeles. This is a novel that will keep you turning pages as layer upon layer of mystery is peeled away, slowly revealing the truth behind the strange goings-on in this supposedly sleepy Caribbean hideaway. What really happened when Selina’s father was murdered? What did her mother see that left her unresponsive and bedridden? Is witchcraft just superstition, or is it something more? And who—or what—is killing people on the island?
Our hero, Selina DaSilva, is the perfect companion for this journey. She is savvy but melancholy, resilient but hurting, jaded but hopeful. She has an impossible legacy to live up to. Her father was a police investigator until he himself was murdered. His unsolved death still haunts Selina. Her infamous mother was the island’s most prominent woman of magic—both feared and respected, although ultimately scorned—but she left Selina none of her magical gifts… or at least, so it seems. Selina will have to be both detective and magician to find the truth and stay alive.
As compelling as the plot is, what I really love about Dass’s novel is the way she conjures up an entire world of complex and sympathetic characters. We are thrust headlong into a living, breathing network of friends, family, rivals, enemies, frenemies, lovers, and exes. The emotional investment is immediate.
It Waits in the Forest is a love letter to life on a Caribbean island: the tight-knit, small-town dynamics; the double-edged sword of tourism; the sense of isolation but also local pride; the dissonance of living in paradise while struggling with poverty, lack of opportunity, claustrophobic relationships, and the weight of your family’s reputation. But these are characters any reader can relate to, no matter where you live. I found myself reading for the interpersonal drama as much as the action. Sure, I want to know what force is stalking victims on the island. Is there actually a serial killer on the loose? But I also want to know why Selina and Gabriel broke up. I want to understand why Janice is so mean to Selina, why Allison really came back from the mainland, what Edward wants in a relationship, and whether or not I can trust Muriel, or Dr. Henry, or… well, really any of these wonderfully crafted characters.
At its core, this story is about overcoming the past. Is it ever possible? Can we embrace and accept where we come from, deal with all the baggage of our families and our personal relationships, and somehow manage to become more than our history? Are we controlled by destiny, restrained by our roots, or can we make our own fate?
Waiting in the forest are the answers. But you’ll also find many ghosts… unresolved traumas, hidden tragedies, ruined lives, and dreams of what might have been. It’s a potent brew. It will haunt you long after you finish reading. But to tell the truth? I wish I could read this book all over again for the first time. Now I feel like a ghost myself, waiting in the forest, hoping for another chance to step into the sunlight of St. Virgil. Sequel, anyone? I’m ready!
My mother always said that guilt had a scent. That it was as acrid as unripe akee fruit and just as toxic. She claimed she could smell it on a person like the tang of unwashed skin. That it hung in the air like the scent of oncoming rain, suspended overhead like a threat.
Then again, my mother lied about a lot of things. I learned at a very young age not to believe everything she said.
“Look how the sky set up again,” Edward said, facing the shop-window. He had his back to me, the lines of his broad silhouette blurred against the sullen gray clouds. Outside, the colorful buildings cast gloomy shadows on the almost-empty street. The bad weather seemed to have deterred the day’s tourists from venturing beyond the pristine shops of the town center to our little souvenir store, which was tucked like an afterthought at the end of Main Street.
“It’s Sahara dust,” Edward said confidently. “That’s what have it looking like that.”
“It can’t be,” his sister, Allison, said. “If it was, I’d be coughing down the place.” She sat with her feet propped on the counter, snacking on a brown bag of honey-roasted cashews. She’d bought them from Cliff, the nuts man, whose cart rolled past the shop a few minutes earlier. Her eyes never left her iPad, an American dating show playing on the screen. “Selina, tell my brother he’s wrong.”
“You’re wrong,” I said, dusting off the postcard display, only half-listening to the siblings’ disagreement.
From time to time, particles of Sahara sand swept across the Atlantic Ocean, darkening the skies of the small Caribbean island of St. Virgil. It coated our land and our lungs and left a hazy, hazardous mess in the air. The sunsets were stunning, though, the skies streaked with brilliant reddish hues.
“Ha!” Allison said. “There. Selina knows.”
“Selina works for you,” Edward said dryly. “She’s not going to disagree with you while she’s on the clock.” He drew closer to me. “Besides, I know what I’m talking about. They mentioned it on the radio last night. Said it might last a few days.”
Allison tucked her long twisted locks behind her ear. “Who listens to radio anymore?”
“I did, last night.” He rested his chin on my shoulder. His warm, minty breath brushed against my cheek. “In the car. Selina can vouch for me.”
In my memory, the radio had been background noise. At the time, I’d been too distracted by the feel of his lips and his hands to listen to any reports, and honestly, I was a little offended to learn that he hadn’t been. But still, he wasn’t wrong. We’d been together last night, and for many of the nights before—a part of an unlabeled relationship that had bloomed between us over the past few months.
Edward wrapped his arms around my waist. I reached up to dust the highest row of postcards—scenes of Crimson Bay at sunset, an ibis bird perched in a frangipani tree, the mountains that stood like sentinels on the northern end of the island—all of them faded and yellowing with age. In the seven months
I’d been working in the shop, we’d sold maybe three in total.
“Ew,” Allison said. “If you two start kissing in front of me, I will vomit.”
“We won’t,” I assured her.
Edward drew me even closer. “Well, let’s not completely close off the possibility.”
I pulled away to rearrange the carved figurines in the window—some were dancing, others playing drums or steel pans. Overhead, wooden and bamboo chimes hung from nails in the rafters. Over the past few weeks, Edward had become bolder with his public displays of affection, as if he no longer cared what people thought about our association. I found the notion as tantalizing as it was worrying.
Edward sighed dramatically. I continued to ignore him. He might have been pouting, but I knew he wasn’t actually offended.
Early in our relationship, I’d learned he enjoyed my seeming indifference. It was all part of my mystery, as he called it. Honestly, it was more like my weird, though he was too tactful to say that. Everyone on St. Virgil knew about my family, what my mother had done, and what had happened to my parents.
Edward, like his sister, had a slightly morbid streak—perhaps a result of a very comfortable life? Not that I’d ever be foolish enough to call him out or criticize him for it. Not when it was that same streak that attracted him to me in the first place. And I’d be a hypocrite if I denied that it was his distinct lack of weird that made me like him back. I’d had enough weird in my life already.
Besides, Edward was movie-star gorgeous, with luminous brown eyes and rich dark brown skin. Apparently, he’d liked me since we were in secondary school, him two years ahead. He said that’s why he used to tease me so much.
Even if he had made his crush obvious in the past, I wouldn’t have noticed. Yes, he was smart and charming, and the son of the revered chief of police—but none of that mattered. Back then, I’d only had eyes for one person, and it wasn’t him.
An argument broke out on Allison’s dating show. The shop filled with voices raised in anger, occasionally undercut by the sound of a bleep censor.
“Can’t you watch something with a bit more substance?” Edward asked, returning to the window. He’d studied filmmaking for only a year before dropping out to take a job at his mother’s real estate firm. And yet, he considered himself the local authority on all forms of visual entertainment media. “There’s so much better content to spend your time on.”
“How is this any different from those documentaries you’re obsessed with?” Allison pointed at her screen. “This is about real life, too. Except, you know, not boring.”
“No, documentaries are about finding and presenting the truth. The trash you’re watching—”
A thunderous hammering from next door cut him off. It rattled the walls and shook the glass windows.
“What the hell?” Allison rocked forward, raising her voice to complain over the noise. “Not again! It’s after six. The construction should be done for today.”
“It’s only five to six,” Edward interjected, but either Allison couldn’t hear or she didn’t want to listen.
“I’m sick and tired of it,” she said. “First, it was the bakery across the street, now it’s the jewelry store beside us. Here I am, just trying to watch this cinematic piece of art—”
“No,” Edward said.
“—without feeling like I’m being repeatedly punched in the ears.”
The hammering stopped.
“Thank you!” Allison said, when the silence persisted. Her chair creaked as she kicked back again. “I swear, if it’s not one thing—”
“Incoming!” Edward announced, sounding a little too excited.
“—it’s another.” Allison sucked her teeth. She paused her show. “Tell me it’s not Miss Heather again. No way she burned through all that incense already. We’re almost out of stock.”
“No, it’s someone else.” Edward leaned closer to the window. “Older woman. White. A tourist, probably. I don’t recognize her.”
“Well, don’t stand there gawking at her.” Allison tucked the iPad under the counter. “That’s not a one-way mirror, you dodo. Your face will scare her off.”
Edward approached the counter, reached across, and swiped the nuts from her. “Better my gawking face than your ugly one.”
“Hey!” Allison tried to retrieve her snack from him.
Edward held on to the brown bag, twisting the top to seal it. He threw me a smirk and started to back away. The door opened, triggering the chime that hung over the top.
“Oh, thank you,” Edward said, clutching the bag to his chest like it was some great prize rather than an oversweetened street snack. He did this sometimes—pretended to be a customer, brimming with awe and gratefulness. No one asked for this performance, but he seemed to enjoy it.
“I can’t tell you what this means to me. I didn’t know what else to— Oh!” He backed right into the new customer, then made a show of recoiling in surprise, as if just noticing her for the first time. No doubt he’d formulated some story in his head. Perhaps he was pretending to be a farmer who needed a charm to cure blight, or a new homeowner who asked for a talisman for protection from evil jumbie spirits. A future Best Actor winner, he was not.
Thankfully, Edward did not stick around, promptly exiting the scene after chewing it up.
The newcomer paused in the center of the shop. She looked the way most people did when they came to us: Nervous. Suspicious. A little thrown by the innocuous decor. From the outside, our shop was no different from the eleven or so souvenir stores she’d have passed on her way here. But almost everyone who came to this shop came for a specific reason.
“Can we help you?” Allison asked not too kindly, when the silence stretched.
I continued to clean the other side of the room, sneaking glances at them from the corner of my eye.
“I’m…. uh…” The woman hesitated. “I’m looking for someone. Someone who can… help me.”
“Are you sure you have the right place, ma’am?” Allison’s tone was dry. Dismissive. “They have an information booth on the port and a health center down the street. Maybe one of them can help you?”
The lady rocked back on her heels, indecisive. Allison’s tone was a bit rude, and there was always a chance the customer would leave, but we had a system. A routine. A show that had started the second she’d stepped inside the shop.
Step one: Establish an antagonist.
“I… I heard about you from Mikael,” the lady said, cautiously stepping forward. “He told me to give you some… password—some phrase—but I can’t remember it. Maybe you know him? He works as a waiter on my ship.”
Ah, Mikael. It had been a while since he’d sent someone our way. Not as prolific as some of our other referrers, but he had a talent for sniffing out the right kind of person to send.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Allison said, not sounding apologetic in the least. “I think you have the wrong place.” She left the counter, crossed the room, and pulled the front door open. The lady flinched as she passed.
“Gloriosa superba,” the lady blurted out, startling us and herself. “That’s it. That is what he said to tell you. Gloriosa superba.”
Allison’s eyes narrowed. She said nothing, the door still open.
Step two: Establish an ally.
“You heard her,” I said without turning to face them. “She said the magic words. She can stay.”
Allison waited a few beats, then appeared to reluctantly relent, shutting and locking the door. She turned the sign so that it read CLOSED to anyone passing by.
“Is that… necessary?” the lady asked.
“You know where you are?” Allison asked, but gave her no room to answer. “If you did, you wouldn’t ask them kind of questions.”
“Oh—yes. Of course.” The lady’s polite tone strained with false confidence.
I waited, listening as Allison revealed the cost and took payment. There was a rattle and clip as Allison unlocked the safe behind the counter, then said, “Please empty your pockets and place all your things inside.”
“What?” the lady asked. “Why?”
“They can be distractions.”
“I won’t be distracted.”
“It’s not for you,” Allison said. “Everything you own carries a psychic history of touch and use. Everyone who held it. Every place it’s been. Leaving it behind will allow for a clearer, more focused reading.”
