Maple Ridge

Chapter 48

Fiona Anderson

I have been walking around this forest for about half an hour now and till now, I haven't found a single thing that would indicate that someone was living around here. The moment I stopped in front of the school, the first thing I thought of was that she couldn't be inside the school, because if she had been, then we would have gotten some news of her by now, and the only other place Dixon could have been, would be the forest, but I am almost about to lose hope and turn around to leave when something catches my eye.

Just then, I see smoke rising out of the top of the trees, and my eyes widen as something really important that I had been forgetting about comes up in my mind. Back when I had been in school, attending Maple Ridge, I had come across a hut, a cottage of sorts, right at the far edge of the forest.

I had heard multiple stories about it, stories that I was sure weren't true, just due to the fact that there were about ten versions of it that I had heard. Some said that the house was haunted, some said that a school worker used to live there, and one day he disappeared, and had never been found again, while some just didn't believe that there even was a cottage in the woods at all. But that day, the day that I saw the cottage, I had known that none of the stories were true, because the cottage looked as normal as it possibly could have. Just like an old hut in the middle of the woods that had been deserted for years.

My feet began pounding on the ground as I sped off towards the direction where the smoke was coming from. It took me two minutes, before I found myself exiting out of the trees and into the big clearing that I had been to before just once. But this time, this time it looked plenty different from how it had back then. Because this time, the cottage didn't look like a deserted hut. Smoke was coming out of the chimney and I could see a blue lace curtain covering the small window from the inside.

The moment that I looked at the cottage, I knew, I knew that I had come to the right place. That this was exactly where I was going to find her.

I slowed down to a walk, as my hand went to my gun, taking it out of the holster and holding it up on eye level, I slowly made my way across the clearing. As soon as I reached, without giving it a second thought, I banged into the wooden door, pushing all my weight in as I felt the door give away in front of me, letting me into the small house.

My eyes widened, as I saw Mrs. Dixon's back to me. She was standing in front of the stove, an apron around her neck as she cooked something, slowly humming a song. But it didn't even take her a full second, before she turned around to see what was happening and realised that it was me standing in front of her. I saw as her expression slowly changed from shock, to confusion, and then slowly a look of alarm as she realized why I was here.

"Fi- Fiona?" she asked, her hand flying to her mouth in shock.

"Fiona? What are you do-" she started to say, but I interrupted her, also feeling a mix of emotions going through me as I looked at her standing in front of me.

So she had been living here. Living her life as if everything was perfectly normal. As if she hadn't murdered her best friend years ago. As if she hadn't taken everything that I had ever known from me without giving it a second thought.

I could feel my hands shake as anger burned through me like fire. How dare she go on with her life so, so normally?

"You don't need to put up an act in front of me anymore. I know everything. I know what you did to her. I know that it was you," I tell her, my voice coming out sounding almost devoid of emotion, making her widen her eyes even more.

"What are you talking abou-"

"You know exactly what I am talking about." I reply, giving her a disgusted look.