Wild Page 3
With a sweet smile, Josh sank next to her. His eyelashes glinted in filtered sunlight. The red glow from the tent made his eyes seem lavender instead of pale blue. Stealing a kiss, he said, “And I knocked the spiders out of your boots.”
Dara wasn’t afraid of them, but Josh was. Melted by cocoa and gallantry, Dara leaned into him. Dipping cold fingers down the front of his shirt, she pulled him closer and thanked him with another kiss.
Last night’s irritation had passed. She felt more than a little guilty, because even she could tell she vacillated between come-here and go-away with him. In her head, it was an irrational carousel that turned and turned. We’re together, we’re in love; we’re doomed, this time is wasted.
And even now, it turned again. He was warm and tempting, but they only had so much daylight in the forest. She’d come to the wild to be with him, but also to capture it with her camera. The forest had so many secrets; if she could just catch them, print them with light . . .
Gently breaking away, she said, “Mmm, okay, I have to get dressed now.”
“Go ahead.”
“I will as soon as you let yourself out.”
“You sure?”
“Josh,” Dara said, warning.
Amused, he sighed and rolled away. On his feet and already at the tent door, he looked back. “Because if you’re not sure . . .”
“Can you get the extra batteries out of the cooler, please?” she asked, changing the subject. “I don’t want to miss anything this time.”
Stepping into the cold, Josh pushed his head through the tent flap to smile at her. “You’re never going to get over that, are you?”
Dara shook her head. She had no pictures from their day trip to the Appalachians. All because of a pair of dead Duracells. The camera had hung heavy in her bag, chastising her with every step. This time, she had a forty pack of batteries in the cooler and eight more in her jacket. Just in case.
It didn’t take long to dress, or to bolt down the sparse breakfast. She filled their canteens while Josh hauled the cooler into the tree. It dangled listlessly against the trunk, like it had fallen out of a plane and gotten stuck. But it was up high now, and tied with bungee cords. The raccoons would have to find dinner somewhere else.
With their camp secured, Josh and Dara set off for the falls. The woods were sweetly manipulative. They tempted with strange and beautiful sights. Dew clung to a spiderweb canopy, a veil of diamonds overhead. New vines crept up the trees. Old, thick ones dangled from above.
And then, the forest opened.
Dara put her camera case on a mossy log. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. They stood at the foot of a cliff. It was obvious on the topological maps, but maps hadn’t prepared them for the sight.
The stone rose in curved walls, thirty feet high, at least. They were shaped like a horseshoe. No, a broken bowl, and she and Josh stood in the open end. It was like a giant had dropped a bowl in the forest, and the forest had grown in around it.
White, lacy water spilled over the far edge, a perfect waterfall. It filled a pool, never smooth, never glassy. Above, spindling trees stretched toward the sky, and left a clearing in the middle to reveal it. Fog lingered above the water, and early frogs peeped in their hollows.
“A gate to Avalon,” Dara murmured.
A scarlet bird burst into the air. It didn’t cry out. Just streaked from beneath the stone ceiling and disappeared.
“Look at that,” Josh replied.
He let his pack slip from his shoulders. It made a good chair, and he stared into the alcove. Pulling his phone out, he held it above his head. There was still no signal. The stone probably blocked it.
Freeing her camera from its case, Dara edged the pool carefully. There was so much to capture there. Too much. She angled up, stopped to focus on velvety moss and water-smoothed ledges. Then, down with the macro lens, to capture the fine sheet of ice lining the walls.
Despite the cold, she shed her shoes and waded into the pool. Not to get wet, but to get a picture of the mist in the air, and the water spilling into the pond. Aching from the frigid water, her toes curled over stones beneath the surface. The camera sang, clicking again and again.
It didn’t stop—she couldn’t stop. Not until she had the picture. The perfect moment. The gate to Avalon, captured forever. Everything else, home and camp, the noises in the woods and even Josh, fell away.
She was alone in the world with this strange altar to nature, and her camera.
Cade chewed a sweet gum twig as he checked his traps. It cleaned the night-taste out of his mouth. His mother said it protected his teeth, too, but he didn’t know from what. Every day, he did things she’d taught him.
Mixing ash with fat for soap. Rubbing crushed yarrow on his cuts and burns. Chewing willow leaves when he hurt.
His head was full of practical things. And the rabbit skin pouch at his waist was full of early herbs and greens. Dandelion shoots and parsnips, mostly. He broke into a smile when he found a patch of field garlic. Before he pulled it up, he stopped to study the land.
He wasn’t the only creature who ate greens. Better to let the rabbits have it, and then have the rabbits. As soon as spring bloomed, he’d have to leave the animals alone for a while. They needed time to grow their families, and to grow fat.
But this garlic, and the trails of it that disappeared into the underbrush, lay untouched. No pellets or scat nearby. The tree trunks bore no marks from nibbling deer. So Cade claimed it for himself, then hiked on to his traps.
The woods were quiet, but not silent. Birds sang this morning. Daredevil squirrels flung themselves from tree to tree. Just at the top of the hill, a doe quivered. Alert, she slowly turned her head. She bolted. Wind whispered, trees crackled.
And Cade’s own footsteps rattled through dry leaves and underbrush. No need to be stealthy today. Dara and the other one had hiked to the pool.
It made him anxious. They were in his forest. He knew they were there, all the paths they walked on. They touched things, and left their scents everywhere. They weren’t like the rangers who sometimes appeared. The ones who took samples of the water, and the earth.
When he was little, Cade had to hide when the rangers came. His mother insisted on it. She tucked him in caves, in burrows, and once inside a hollowed tree. She would whisper, “Shh, shh,” and wait for them to go.
Dad followed the soldiers when they moved away from the camp. Then he and mother would pack their things. That night, always that very night, they moved. Up the ridge or down it. Sometimes into the stone ruins left by ancient people. Never into the ruined hunting lodges or old mining town.
“Too many people remember these are here,” Mom explained.
It was the truth. Cade knew because he remembered where they were. When he was little, he loved to sneak back to them. Though the forest had swallowed the edges, the spaces between, Cade could still see the town in it. The houses fascinated him. They had windows. They had doors.
In one house, the floor had rotted away. It revealed a cellar, and in that cellar, people’s things. A doll, its face marred by crackled paint. Photographs faded close to nothing. In a fine box, he found a half-rotted Bible. Most of the pages were ruined, slick with mold. But he could make out spidery handwriting inside the back cover. Names. Jedediah and Hepzibah. Ann and Charles. Mary and Oren.
There were lives in that town. Their ghosts filled the ivy-choked walks, drifted through crumbling walls. This wasn’t the world his parents had described. It was an antique version of it. No Mustangs or telephones in the mining town. No televisions or escalators. He had the hardest time imagining an escalator.
Once, with a bit of charcoal, his father drew stairs to explain. His mother described the belts and the pulleys underneath them. The motor that made them go. She claimed the stairs would flatten into a metal band at the top. That gears would pull it inside. Then it would reappear at the bottom to turn into a step again.
“But how?” Cade asked.
&nb
sp; His parents exchanged a look, then shrugged. He’d asked for more than they knew. It happened a lot. More as he got older.
Though they both swore escalators were real, he never quite believed them. And it didn’t matter anyway. They claimed it was all gone. Forgotten, just like a mining town in a forest. Just like him.
A small scream jolted Cade from his memories. The cool air wrapped around him, the cool earth pressing from below. Winding down an uneven slope, he found a rabbit in his snare. It was fat, its fur shimmering in shades of brown and grey. Paws beat at the air. Black eyes darted, wild and frightened.
Cade picked it up with both hands, and gently turned it over. He stroked his thumb over its belly, then sighed. There was a litter in there already. He pulled out his knife, and cut the snare. Setting the animal free, he smiled ruefully.
No rabbit for dinner, and probably not for a while. Fish would have to do, and if he got lucky, he might find a wild hog. They rooted mercilessly, devoured turkey eggs, gobbled down roots and greens. It was never a bad time to take down a wild hog, and the meat would last if he cured it. The salt lick wasn’t far; it would be worth the trip if he took down a hog. It would get him through till summer. His stomach rumbled in anticipation.
But maybe soon he’d walk into Dara’s camp and say hello. Maybe she would feed him from her pot, and sit next to him. Close to him.
Maybe, beneath the full moon, he’d find out what color her eyes were.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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FOUR
Morning glow flooded through the walls of the tent.
Rolling over in the sleeping bags, Josh pulled a pillow over his head. He disappeared beneath the nest of bedding with a grunt. It didn’t look like he planned to get up for a while, so Dara dressed quietly. Jeans, boots, sweatshirt, jacket—and lots of batteries. The zipper rumbled as she eased it open.
Several times now, she’d had the sensation that she wasn’t alone in the woods. At camp or nearby, there was no way to prove that she wasn’t just noticing Josh’s presence in the forest. Pulling the topo map out of Josh’s pack, she unfolded it by the banked fire for a quick look.
The river where she’d heard the laughter wasn’t far. Then there was the tadpole pond. She hadn’t heard anything there, not exactly. It just felt like something—someone—had been nearby. A couple of times at the camp now, too. Josh could blow it off all he wanted.
And since he wasn’t interested in investigating it, she could do it herself.
Twice, something had drawn her attention by the water. That made sense—another camper would need to refill his canteens, too. Orienting herself by compass and map, Dara looked into the forest. Pale light filtered through the canopy, just streaks of it. Just enough light to make her feel confident.
Stepping on one of the logs they’d dragged to the fire, she opened the cooler in search of something breakfasty. The animals had already eaten the tastiest, easiest things. No yogurt, no pudding, not even a hot dog that she’d shamelessly eat cold since Josh wasn’t awake to give her a hard time about it.
Fishing around, she produced a bag of dried apricots. Little, fleshy disks that sat fuzzily on her tongue. The sensation made her shudder, but it was better than hiking off on an empty stomach. Slinging the water jug across her chest, she took one last look at the camp before setting off. It was so peaceful. No alarm clocks or honking horns. No banging cabinets or garage doors grinding open.
Wind through leaves, and birds in trees—that’s what made a morning in the forest. Almost out of reflex, Dara raised her camera and took a shot or six. Unremarkable photos, but they’d be memories. This is what serenity looks like. As much as she enjoyed hot and cold running water, the internet, walls, there was something about this place that made her feel whole.
As Dara started into the woods, her eyes flickered from color to color. On the other side of a fallen log she heaved herself over, red bloomed across the forest floor. A field of mushrooms had sprung up overnight. With thick red caps and white spots, they looked straight out of Wonderland.
Dara sank to her knees. Slinging the canteen around to her back, she picked up her camera. Crawling through the moss, she ignored the cold seeping through her jeans. There was a long column of light streaking through the trees. If she could line the mushrooms up with it just so . . .
Dignity would have to wait for another day. Dara slid onto her belly to find the right angle. The fresh, clean beam suddenly filled her viewfinder. A flare danced in the corner while she adjusted her settings. Now lying almost flat, she had an upward view of the mushrooms. The sun rose behind them. They seemed mighty, scarlet giants in perspective.
Her heart pounded, a wild, fluttering beat that rushed blood to her ears, and into her fingers and toes. She tingled everywhere, drunk and dazed on pictures she couldn’t have taken anywhere else. That’s what photography was to her. The essence of it, the soul: discovering unseen things and revealing them. Though she knew she could probably find thousands of pictures of these toadstools online, none of them would look like hers. This was her moment, a place in space and time that no one had ever seen but her.
“Eat me,” Dara murmured, firing off shot after shot. “Was that to get small or big?”
She made a mental note to look it up when she got home.
Up early to collect ice from sheltered water, Cade stopped when he heard Dara’s voice. Grabbing a supple hickory branch, he scaled the tree swiftly. Its budding leaves didn’t rustle around him so much as whisper. They weren’t big enough yet to provide cover.
Moving carefully along the branches, Cade resisted the urge to grab hold of the bittersweet vines left from last year. Usually, they were sturdy enough to carry his weight. They were better for swinging out over lakes, and jumping into deep waters than anything else. But when the branches were big enough, aligned enough, he could zip from tree to tree. It was still too early in the season, though.
Sometimes, the only things keeping the vines up were the shoots that tangled through the trees’ canopies. Once fall claimed those, the vines were dangerous. Without warning, they could snap, and he’d plummet into whatever lay below. Usually, it was brush.
Once, memorably, it had been a sharp bit of quartz jutting from the ground. It sliced through his flesh as cleanly as any knife.
His mother had sewed that wound closed with a fish-bone needle and thread she pulled from a worn shirt. Even now, Cade instinctively reached up to touch the scar that furrowed across his scalp. That was a lesson learned the hard way.
The tick-tick-tick of Dara’s box acted as a guide. Walking well above the ground, Cade almost passed over her. Only the ticking box stayed him. Curling his toes into the branch, he held on with one hand and leaned over the clearing above her.
Today, instead of tadpoles, it was mushrooms that delighted her. When she reached out to stroke one, he tensed. They were pretty, but poisonous. He collected them in the hottest part of summer to keep the flies away. Chopping them into bits, he left them in bowls of walnut milk. Flies swarmed them, drank, and drowned. It was too bad there was nothing that worked like that on the mosquitoes.
He almost spoke to warn her, but she took her hand back at the last moment. Relieved, Cade pressed his lean body against the trunk of the tree. He didn’t understand the ticky box. Or why he kept catching her with it, staring so hard at things in the forest.
But when she put it aside, she always took a few minutes more. Trailing her fingers through the tadpole pond; petting the mushroom with a gentle touch. It was more and more obvious to Cade that she wasn’t sick. And she was a little bit like him. She saw things with keen eyes.
As if to prove it, Dara suddenly arched her back. The sun reflected off a bit of glass in her box, the telltale ticking a threat in the quiet. Exhaling all of his breath, Cade closed his eyes and tried to disappear against the tree’s bark.
After a moment, Dara stopped squinting into the tree. She put her box down and brushed the dirt off her chest. Then, consulting a sheaf of paper, she hiked on into the forest. This time, though, she looked back—and she looked up. His pulse raced; he bit his own lips because he didn’t dare move.
Perhaps she wasn’t aware yet, but almost.
When Josh had gone to sleep, everything was fine. When he woke up, he was alone. And when Dara got back from her picture hike, everything went to pieces.
Josh heard Dara before he saw her. Running through a forest wasn’t quiet. It sounded like she’d slipped at the top of a hill and was hitting every tree on the way down. The only reason he didn’t panic was because she was yelling at the same time.
“Josh! Josh, look! Josh!”
Standing slowly, Josh dumped his stick in the flames. His stomach twisted with hunger. Since they had to ration everything out, breakfast for him was a cup of instant coffee, four Twizzlers he found in his coat pocket, and some peanut butter scraped onto crackers. They had canned stew and chili; those had to wait for dinner.
He felt like one of those starving cartoon dogs, looking around and seeing nothing but T-bone steaks. If they’d started hiking out after breakfast, they could have been in the truck no later than two. Any town in any direction would have a diner or a drive-through, and he could have that burger he’d wished for last night.
He could just imagine Dara’s face if he suggested it. She’d gnaw off her own arm before she gave up a place full of so many pictures. Though he kept it to himself, Josh thought all the pictures looked pretty much the same. A really big butterfly in one shot still looked like a really big butterfly in another. She insisted what she was doing was art.