THE FOREST KEEPS

​Bonus Chapter between Book 1 and 2 
A Year of Quiet

Life was different when you weren’t chasing the dead.
Catherine Snowden stood at the wide sash window of the small Islington flat where she and Brett had set up house together. The city moved below without urgency. Red buses rolled past in patient procession. Cyclists weaved through morning traffic. A woman slowly walked a spaniel. The sky hung low and grey, but to Catherine it looked steady.
Predictable. Safe.
Behind her, the kettle clicked off.
Brett moved easily through the narrow galley kitchen, his sleeves rolled up, the faint scent of coffee cutting through the crisp October air drifting in from the street. He had settled into London more quickly than she’d expected. Perhaps they both had. New jobs, new routines, new boundaries.
No forest. No cold spots in corridors. No voices pressing at the edge of her consciousness.
Just paperwork. Briefings. Late trains. Groceries.
It had been eight months since they’d left the forest and the lingering shadows of that case. Eight months since Eliza had brushed against Catherine’s thoughts.
She had not felt a single whisper.
Not once.
The quiet had unnerved her at first. She’d lain awake that first week, half expecting something to reach across to her as though unfinished business respected neither geography nor landscape. But nothing came.
The silence remained.
And gradually, relief took root.
Brett handed her a mug. ‘You’re miles away.’
She turned back to him, smiling. ‘Just appreciating normality.’
He leaned against the counter, studying her in his careful way.
‘Do you miss it?’ he asked.
She considered the question honestly. ‘The work? Yes. The purpose? Always.’ She paused. ‘The intrusion? No.’
He nodded once, understanding without explanation.
The last case had taken something from her. Not belief—that would never leave—but a sense of separation. The veil had felt thinner than it ever had before. Too thin.
London felt thicker.
Solid.
Grounded.
Brett reached for her hand, his thumb tracing a slow arc across her knuckles. There was nothing dramatic about their relationship. No sweeping declarations. No volatility. It had grown working together last year, in shared glances across interrogation rooms, in the way he never doubted her when others had.
They had chosen this city together.
New postings. New beginnings.
And for the first time in years, Catherine felt she had stepped out of survival mode.
***
Four months later
Spring returned with pale sunlight and the scent of damp earth rising from small garden squares.
Their flat no longer felt temporary. Books filled the shelves. Her old case notes were boxed and stacked in a cupboard she rarely opened. Brett’s running shoes lived permanently by the door. The life they had tentatively stepped into had gradually become their life.
Catherine stood in the bathroom, staring at the thin white stick resting on the edge of the sink.
She had not expected to feel fear.
But it rose anyway— harp, protective, immediate.
She closed her eyes.
There was no cold air brushing her skin.
No flicker at the edge of vision.
No pressure at the back of her mind.
Just her own steady breathing.
A year.
An entire year without intervention.
When she opened her eyes again, the result had not changed.
She let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
‘Brett?’
He appeared in the doorway moments later, shirt half-buttoned, hair still damp from the shower. ‘Everything okay?’
She studied him for a second—the man who had walked into the aftermath of her strangest experiences and chosen to stay. The man who had believed her without any doubt. Who had followed her to London not to rescue her, but to stand beside her.
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘Everything’s fine.’
She held up the test.
For a heartbeat, he didn’t react. Then understanding dawned slowly, spreading across his face not in shock but in quiet awe.
‘Are you sure?’
She nodded.
He stepped forward, stopping just close enough that she could feel the warmth of him. ‘You’re okay?’
‘I’m okay,’ she repeated. And she meant it.
There was no tremor in the air.
No echo of something unseen.
No sense of being watched.
Just the two of them.
And the future, unfolding in an entirely ordinary way.
Brett rested his forehead against hers. ‘Well,’ he said softly, a smile threading through his voice, ‘that’s unexpected.’
‘Is that bad detective work?’ she asked lightly.
‘Apparently.’
She laughed—a full, unguarded sound she hadn’t realised she’d been missing for years.
Outside, the city moved on, indifferent and alive.
Inside, Catherine felt something she had not allowed herself in a long time.
Peace.
And for now, that was enough.
 
   
Book 2 of the A Catherine Snowden Paranormal Thriller series is called
The Drowning Hour is available at https://www.amazon.com.au/Drowning-Hour-Supernatural-Thriller-Detective-ebook/dp/B0GKGD5F6X
A Catherine Snowden Supernatural Thriller - Book 2
Detective Catherine Snowden is supposed to be on medical leave. Instead, she’s lying in a hospital bed when a dying man's spirit reaches out to her with a desperate message: I was murdered.
Oliver Armitage-Kent’s car went into the Thames, his brakes sabotaged by the uncle who's been embezzling millions from the family pharmaceutical company. Now Oliver's trapped in a coma, caught between life and death, and Catherine is the only one who can hear him.
But proving murder means finding evidence the killer thought was safely buried. As Catherine digs deeper, she discovers Oliver may not be Marcus Armitage-Kent’s only victim. Bodies have been disappearing into the Thames for years—young professionals who knew too much, who asked the wrong questions, who threatened to expose the truth.
And when the dead start calling for justice, Catherine must risk everything to answer—even as Marcus closes in, determined to silence her before she can prove what he's done.
Some secrets are worth killing for. And in the drowning hour, the Thames claims everyone.