Chapter 149

Evelyn's POV I stared at the plant sample in my hand, feeling frustrated. The roots we'd spent days digging up weren't the Stellaris Moonbane Root I desperately needed. Just another plant that looked similar but didn't have the purple lines along the stem that I was looking for. "Damn it," I muttered, throwing the useless plant aside. The afternoon sun came through the trees, making long shadows across our temporary camp at the edge of Thunder Creek. Jackson walked over to me, looking worried instead of his usual calm self. "Evelyn, I think we should think about going back. Something's not right about this place." I brushed the dirt off my hands and stood up, looking at the quiet town below us. Thunder Creek was strangely quiet for a town its size. Even though it was small, barely a thousand people, the streets should have had more people walking around. "Have you noticed how few people we've seen since we got here?" I asked quietly. "And the forest... it's too quiet." "No animals," Er