Chapter Eight: The Thread Between Worlds
The world looked the same.But Isabelle no longer felt like the same girl walking through it.
There was a hum beneath everything now—a kind of tension, like a chord pulled tight and vibrating. She noticed strange things: lights flickering when she touched certain objects, whispers in the wind when she passed beneath the willow, and the feeling—unshakable—that someone was always watching.
But she wasn't afraid.
She was ready.
In her bedroom, Isabelle spread out everything she had collected: Belle's diary, the pressed lavender, the faded photo of the willow from her dream, and a map of the town with the wooded area circled in red.
There was a pattern. There had to be.
She scribbled notes like a detective unraveling a cold case.
"Three names," she whispered. "Cassia. Belle. Isabelle."
All reborn.
All ending in loss.
She visited the willow at dusk. This time, she came prepared.
A candle. A mirror. A slip of paper with Eliza's name on it.
She sat cross-legged beneath the branches and closed her eyes.
"I want to remember everything," she whispered. "No more fragments. No more fear. Show me."
The wind stilled. The air thickened.
Then—crack—a pulse in the earth. The willow's roots lit with a faint, silver glow.
The mirror shimmered.
Her reflection changed.
She saw herself in layers: Isabelle… Belle… Cassia… each overlaid like a time-lapse of a single soul.
And behind them all—Cordelia.
"This time, you must choose differently," Cordelia's voice said. "The cycle remains because the choice remains unmade."
"What choice?" Isabelle shouted. "What am I supposed to do?"
The light dimmed. The vision faded. But one word lingered, etched into her mind like flame.
"Forgive."
Back at home, Isabelle pulled out Belle's diary and reread a passage she hadn't understood before:
"He betrayed me, but I loved him still. Maybe that's what binds us—pain unspoken, wounds unhealed."
Forgiveness.
Was that the thread that held her across lifetimes? Was she doomed to repeat until she let go?
Isabelle turned to her phone. She called Rachel.
"I need your help," she said. "We're going back to the woods. I need to find where it began."
Rachel, bless her soul, didn't even ask why.
"I'll bring a flashlight."
Later that night, with stars glinting through the canopy, they returned. Isabelle moved with purpose, drawn not just by instinct but something deeper—ancestral memory.
They reached the willow. But this time, Isabelle walked past it, deeper into the brush.
And then she saw it.
A stone archway, half-buried in moss, ancient and wrong, like it didn't belong to this world.
"I think this is it," she said, breathless.
"What is it?" Rachel whispered.
Isabelle touched the stone.
And the world cracked open.