<h4>Chapter 206: The other side of the border II.</h4>


    <strong>ter</strong>


    I left the restroom and headed back outside. There was a small convenience store attached to the gas station. I bought a in grey hoodie off the rack and a baseball cap. I put them both on.


    Now I looked like any other young guy with a forgettable face.


    I rechecked my phone. The train station was about a mile away. I could walk there easily.


    As I walked, I paid attention to the humans around me. They moved differently from wolves. They are less aware of their surroundings, more caught up in their own thoughts. They stared at their phones, listened to music through headphones, and talked about mundane things like grocery shopping and TV shows.


    No one paid me any attention. I was just another person on the street.


    The train station was small and old-fashioned, with a wooden tform and a ticket booth that looked like it hadn’t been updated in decades. An elderly woman sat in the booth, reading a romance novel.


    "One ticket to Millbrook, please," I said, pulling out cash.


    She looked up at me over her reading sses. "Round trip or one way?"


    "Round trip."


    "That’ll be twelve dors."


    I handed her the money. She gave me my ticket and went back to her book without another word.


    The train arrived fifteen minutester—a small, regional thing with only four cars. I boarded and found a seat near the window. A few other passengers were scattered throughout the car—a mother with two young children, an old man with a newspaper, a woman in a business suit typing on herptop.


    The train lurched into motion.


    I watched thendscape roll by—fields, forests, small towns. Everything looked peaceful and boring.


    I wondered if Riley was happy here. If she’d been able to heal after going through those terrible ordeals.


    A teenage boy sitting across from me pointed at the scar on my forearm. "Cool tattoo, dude."


    I smiled faintly. "Thanks."


    "Got it for the festival?" he asked.


    "What festival?"


    "The one in Millbrook! You should go. It’s like the highlight of the year. Everyone dresses up as mythical creatures—vampires, wolves, that kinda stuff." He grinned. "Even the teachers join in."


    My heart skipped. Millbrook. That was the town Riley was in. Was this a sign from the goddess herself that I would have a fruitful journey?"


    The ride took about forty minutes. When we pulled into Millbrook station, I got off and rechecked my phone.


    Millbrook Elementary School was about half a mile away, within walking distance.


    I made my way through the small downtown area. Millbrook was quaint; the kind of ce with local shops, a diner, a library, and a park in the centre of town. People smiled and nodded as they passed. It felt like a ce where everyone knew everyone.


    The kind of ce where a neer would stick out.


    Unless that neer had been here for years and built a life. Like Riley.


    I found the school easily. It was a single-story brick building with a yground out front. A sign announced: "Millbrook Elementary: Home of the Bears."


    But something was off. There were way more people than I expected. Cars filled the parking lot. People streamed through the front gate—families, kids, adults.


    I stopped someone walking past —a man in his thirties carrying a toddler.


    "Excuse me," I said. "What’s going on?"


    He looked at me like I was an idiot. "The festival? The Harvest Moon Festival? It’s today."


    "Oh. Right. The festival."


    "It’s the biggest event of the year," he continued, adjusting his grip on his kid. "The school does this whole supernatural theme. Werewolves, vampires, the whole nine yards. They set up a haunted house, hold costume contests, and put on these cool disys. It’s great for the kids."


    I felt my stomach twist. A supernatural-themed festival. With werewolf disys. At my sister’s school.


    The irony was almost painful.


    "Where do I get tickets?" I asked.


    "At the gate. Ten dors for adults, five for kids."


    "Thanks."


    I walked toward the gate and bought a ticket from a volunteer. A cheerful woman in a witch costume. She handed me a wristband and told me to have fun.


    The school grounds had beenpletely transformed. Decorations hung everywhere, filled with fake cobwebs, carved pumpkins, strings of lights shaped like bats and moons. Booths were set up selling food, games, and crafts. A small stage had been erected where someone was performing magic tricks.


    And in the centre of it all was arge disybelled "Myths and Legends: The World of Werewolves."


    I walked over, half-amused, half-curious.


    The disy had information boards about werewolf folklore—transformation during full moons, silver bullets, and pack hierarchies. Some of it was surprisingly urate. Most of it was nonsense.


    There was even a person in a werewolf costume doing poses for photos with kids.


    I almostughed. If they only knew.


    But where was Riley?


    I walked around the festival grounds, scanning faces. Teachers were everywhere—helping with games, supervising activities, and talking to parents. But I didn’t see my sister.


    I made my way toward the school building itself. Maybe she was inside.


    I stood by the gymnasium entrance, looking around, feeling suddenly lost. There were so many people. How was I supposed to find one person in all this chaos?


    My palms were sweaty. I’d imagined this moment a thousand times, but now that it was here, I wasn’t sure what I’d say.


    "Excuse me? Need help finding someone?"


    A voice sounded behind me, so familiar that my heart skipped.


    A voice behind me. Female, familiar in a way that made my heart skip.


    I turned around and everything seemed to freeze because standing in front of me was no other than my sister, Riley.


    She looked different from how I remembered—older, obviously. Her hair was shorter now, cut in a practical bob. She wore sses that I didn’t remember her having. She was dressed in casual teacher clothes—jeans and a Millbrook Elementary t-shirt, and on the shirt was a name tag ’Emily Sanders’


    She was looking at me with friendly concern, the way a teacher looks at a lost visitor.


    "Do you need help finding something?" she asked.


    She didn’t recognise me.


    I’d changed more than I realised in the years since she’d left. I’d been eighteen when she went missing. Now I am almost twenty-one and have changed a lot.


    And she’d probably worked hard to forget what anyone from our world looked like.


    "I..." My voice came out rough. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I’m looking for Emily Sanders. Is she around?"


    Something flickered in her eyes a certain wariness that made me want to grab her in my arm and protect her forever "I’m Emily Sanders. What’s this about?"


    I pulled off my baseball cap and turned to look at her directly. At that moment, a big guy with muscles came up to stand next to her. His eyes darted from me to my sister.


    "I was looking for you all over," the big man said. "Is everything alright?"


    Riley nodded, staring at the man with admiration in her eyes. "He seems lost, so I was just trying to find out if everything is alright with him and see if there’s any way I can offer assistance."


    "Assistance?" The man turned his attention back to me. "Are you in trouble, sir?"


    "Not really!" I shed them a small smile. "I came here with my friends; I’m just wondering where they all ran off to. We agreed to meet by the ice cream stand, and yet there are still no signs of them."


    "Oh, do you have their numbers or something we could help you find them?"


    "Yeah," I nodded. "I’m trying to get reception to call them. It seems to be more here."


    The man nodded and leaned down to ce a kiss on the bridge of Riley’s nose before asking us to be careful and walking away.


    Once again, I was alone with Riley. She turned to me a patient smile on her face and at that moment, I threw caution to the wind.


    "Hi, Riley," I said quietly. "It’s me. ter."


    Her face went white. The clipboard she was holding slipped from her fingers and ttered to the ground.


    "No," she whispered. "No, you can’t be here. You can’t—"


    "Riley, I’m sorry, I just needed to—"


    "You need to leave." Her voice was sharp now and filled with panic. She looked around quickly, checking if anyone was watching us. "Right now. You can’t be here."


    "Please, just give me five minutes—"


    "I left for a reason, ter." Her eyes were filling with tears. "I built a life here. A normal life. And you can’t—you can’t just show up and—"


    She stopped talking. Her eyes went wide, fixed on something behind me.


    I turned to see what she was looking at.


    Standing at the edge of the festival grounds, half-hidden in shadow, was a figure. Watching us intently.