Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 985

Chapter 985: Chapter 985

Morning broke in golden haze. The watchers remained, now settled. Some moved slowly across the orchard; one meditated at the well’s lip. Each seemed to integrate into life, not to watch, but to be part of pattern.

Jude walked among them, tracing branches, ribbons, moss lines. He patted a watcher’s mist-arm. It glowed in response, light pulsing under his palm. Intimate greeting from presence beyond.

Grace joined him, carrying the children. Raven offered a handful of wildflowers to a watcher. It knelt, slowly, mist swirling, and accepted, a delicate gesture. A moment passed like a heartbeat. The watcher rose with the flowers in mist, then drifted off, carrying petals to a sapling stump to the east.

Jude whispered, "They not only watch, they tend."

Grace kissed her daughter’s head. "They nurture memory as much as we do."

Over lunch, Susan suggested they build a small shrine on the bridge’s splintered stone to commemorate watchers and passage. Jude agreed. After clearing debris, the wives and children worked, laying stones, etching glyphs, tying wreaths of riverflowers and orchard petals. The central piece was a carved staff, entwined with watchers’ ribbons and tokens. Jude placed watcher shard at its base.

That night they tested the shrine. With candles lit and ribbons glinting, Jude read the vow again: to hold watchers as family. Grace followed, voice steady. Then wives each spoke small words of memory: "I remember when..." and dropped a token into the shrine floor, leaf, shell, petal. The watchers watched.

When the last token was placed, watchers’ shapes flared in golden blue. The staff glowed; ribbons pulsed. Mist swirled in the shrine, then pulled back. Glory moment, felt in bones.

Then watchers melted into orchard once more, but ribbons across saplings glowed in dawn.

Over the next week, ties deepened. Families moved in unguarded peace. The watchers roamed freely but tied to shrine, orchard, riverbank. Children slept with watcher-light in dreams. The wives painted glyphs on pantry walls, ensuring watchers had markers inside homes too.

One afternoon, Jude and Grace walked the riverside to collect new glyph stones. Serena and Scarlet accompanied them. They found five new stones shaped by water, flat and shifting polished smooth. Each bore faint glyph shapes. They carried them home.

Before dinner they gathered under the fig-glyph tree and placed new glyph stones at shrine perimeter. Lucy and Emma recorded each with date and symbol. The watchers watched silently, light rippling with smiles.

At dusk, Jude called a council. All wives assembled in circle. "We’ve woven watchers into story, but now we ask: what comes next?"

Grace added, "They now tend. They follow your tokens. But they don’t speak."

Layla offered, "Maybe they speak through our actions."

Rose said, "We let them direct the children’s paths to bloom new saplings."

Susan: "We preserve this arc: orchard to river, shrine to home."

Natalie: "But island beyond watchers?"

Jude pondered. "We follow watchers outward, not to conquer but to walk."

Scarlet nodded. "Then we take them to mountain trails, show them what we become when memory blossoms."

They agreed.

Next dawn, they prepared for journey. Kits of bread, seed clusters, ribbons, glyph stones. The watchers aligned along path. Jude and Grace led, wives in pairs, children in arms or baskets. The watchers walked at edges, guiding.

They passed the broken bridge, shrine newly lit. The watchers lingered, bowed at shrine staff, but did not cross.

That small gesture showed limits. They invited respect, not intrude.

Jude touched Grace’s arm. "They both walk with and teach."

They continued through thinning forest toward mountain foothills, watchers drifting along.

Mist clung. The glyph stones scattered along path glowed. Each wife carried one to mark steps.

By midday they reached glyph tunnel, the old wall carved in ancient watchers’ symbols. They paused to rest. Jude retrieved watchers’ shard and placed it on a flat glyph. Mist swirled. The watchers paused.

Grace spoke softly, "We honor what was built here, too."

They left shards and seeds. Tokens carried. Wives tied ribbons to roots.

Later, they reached orchard boundary. The watchers now stood aligned, fifteen strong, forming silent bridge between orchard and wild. Children marveled. Jude stepped into perimeter, reached out to touch watcher. It bowed and placed its mist-hand on his.

Grace and wives followed, touching watchers, crossing boundary into deeper forest.

They stood at orchard edge. The watchers parted and waited. Jude said, "We go forward. Together."

They entered.

The watchers led. Making a living corridor. Branches parting. Mist guided.

They moved through fern shades toward unknown.

Dusk fell. They never felt fear.

They were not alone.

The watchers walked beside them.

Memory carried them forward.

The morning mist clung to the forest edge like a veil, softening the outlines of trees and watchers alike. Jude stepped forward along the narrow moss-lipped path, Grace close at his side, twelve wives following, each carrying a ribbon or carved token, children trailing curious steps behind. The watchers, now fully woven into their lives, moved beside them in silent accompaniment, pale forms drifting above the ferns. This was uncharted territory, the land beyond orchard and river, led by watchers’ quiet guidance, and all hearts beat with excitement tempered by reverence.

They had prepared for this journey by mapping routes, gathering food that lasted two days, and carving markers to leave along the trail. A promise glowed in each carried ribbon: memory built, shared, and broadcast beyond home. Now they walked the forest floor, stepping where no one had stepped since ancient hands left glyph-lines tracings on stone.

Grace lifted a hand to hush the group as they reached the edge of a clear creek. Water dripped over stones and pooled into jade-green basins. On the far bank, a watcher crouched, mist forming around its ankles. It made a gentle gesture, as if asking them to cross. Jude accepted, placing Grace’s hand in his, stepping forward to test stepping stones slick with moss.

Scarlet helped Raven across; Susan lifted Laurel. Serena offered steady hands to the wives. One by one, they crossed, watchers echoing each step with light pulses in mist. On the far bank, the forest breathed differently, looser, older, wilder.