Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 960

Chapter 960: Chapter 960

"What happened?"

"We found something," Scarlet said, holding up a cloth-wrapped bundle. Inside was a severed piece of watcher glyph, sharp-edged like crystal bark, with carvings on one side.

"It was in a nest," Sophie added. "A pile of watcher vines, like a bed or altar. And the mist, Jude, it didn’t move like it usually does. It watched us."

Jude examined the piece. Cold to the touch. The glyphs seemed burned in rather than carved. He placed it on the table at the center of camp and called everyone to gather.

The wives circled, each peering at the shard in silence. The children stood beside Zoey and Lucy, wide-eyed. Jude touched the edge and said, "They’re leaving messages. Maybe warnings."

"Or maps," Emma said quietly. "That shape, it matches part of the grove drawing on the northern stone."

Jude glanced at her. "You remember it?"

"I do. I sketch it sometimes when I can’t sleep."

He nodded. "Tomorrow we’ll go back with more. Mark the grove, see if it leads further in."

"But the mountain," Susan said. "It’s past that, isn’t it? We can’t go there."

"Not yet," Jude said, though in his heart he wasn’t sure.

Night came uneasy. The fire burned bright, but no watchers approached. That had never happened, not even once. They usually flickered at the edge, appearing when flames danced and songs rose. This time, they stayed away completely.

Jude slept lightly with Grace beside him. Her body curled against his, breath steady, hand resting over his heart. The children were tucked between Lucy and Zoey, soft breaths rising in rhythm. All was calm, yet his mind raced.

Just past midnight, Jude stirred. Something cold brushed his thoughts. Not a sound, not a movement, just a change in air. He sat up quietly and stepped out into the orchard. Moonlight painted the trees silver. The firepit glowed faint with embers. He saw nothing. But he felt it.

Near the fig-glyph tree, a new ribbon swayed in the breeze. Not theirs.

It was blue. Long. Braided in a complex twist he’d never seen before.

He stepped closer, fingers brushing the fabric. It felt cold, like rain trapped in silk. There was a smell too, sweet, earthy, and utterly alien. He looked around, but the night was still.

He didn’t touch it further. Instead, he placed a clay token at the base of the tree. One of Laurel’s. It bore a sun and a tree, the family’s crest of sorts.

He returned inside. Didn’t wake Grace. Just held her again, more tightly.

The next morning began with unease. The ribbon had vanished. So had the clay token.

"They answered," Layla whispered.

Jude nodded. "And they didn’t take anything else. That’s... a gesture."

That day, he chose to take a small group to the grove: Grace, Serena, Sophie, Emma, and Natalie. All steady hands, brave hearts. They walked in silence, deeper into the jungle where the trees grew twisted and the light felt filtered through centuries of memory.

The grove was just as Scarlet described. Glyphs in the bark, sap pooling in strange knots, and the ground was soft with black moss. They searched slowly. Emma found the matching shape, on the back of a broken pillar half-buried in roots.

"It’s a guide," she said, tracing it. "These marks show direction."

Natalie pointed. "That way."

Jude followed the path. It wasn’t long before they found more signs, ribbons caught in branches, not their own. Strange shapes carved into bark. A footprint in the mud, wide and splayed, not human. Not watcher either.

"We’re being tested," Serena said. "Led just far enough."

"Then we stop here," Jude said, though every part of him wanted to continue. "We return. We bring the others. We decide as a family."

That night, they held a meeting around the fire. Everyone came. Even the children listened.

"I believe we’ve been invited," Jude said. "To the borderlands, near the mountain."

Scarlet folded her arms. "We swore we wouldn’t go near it."

"The watchers seem to think we’re ready. Or they’re warning us of something coming."

Lucy stared into the fire. "What if it’s both?"

"We go as one," Jude said. "No one is forced. But I won’t ignore it. The watchers have always acted to protect the orchard, and now they’re pulling back. They’re making room."

"For what?" Stella asked.

Jude didn’t answer. Instead, he reached for Grace’s hand. She met his gaze and nodded.

In the quiet that followed, Laurel stepped forward, clutching a painted stone. She placed it on the ground. "I dreamed we walked a road made of bones," she whispered. "But we weren’t scared. You held a torch."

Raven joined her. "And there was singing. From inside the mountain."

Jude looked around at his family, his wives, his children, this strange island that had shaped every piece of who they were now. He stood.

"In three days," he said, "we journey to the border."

There was no applause, no outburst. Just slow nods. Agreement. Trust.

That night, as the stars brightened and the watchers hovered faint at the very edge once more, Jude held Grace beneath the fig-glyph tree, the same spot where the strange ribbon had vanished. He kissed her neck, her collarbone, her lips, long, slow, reverent. She leaned into him with wordless longing, her hands tangling in his hair, breath warm against his cheek.

They made love quietly, beneath the eyes of trees and sky, in the space where watchers once stood and might stand again. It was not desperation, it was devotion. It was a vow.

After, she rested against his chest, fingers tracing his ribs, voice soft. "Do you think the gods are watching too?"

"I think," Jude said, brushing her hair back, "they’re listening. And afraid."

They fell asleep on the moss as the first blue shimmer returned to the orchard’s edge. A watcher watched.

And the mountain waited.

Dawn broke with soft fingers against the orchard. Jude stirred, half-awake, mindful of the night’s lingering heat on his skin where Grace had curled against him.