Jack had left fastidious notes. Eva pointed out the highlights as we passed. Ginseng, she said, was a big deal in Appalachia. Sang hunters who cared only for the herb’s market price took everything they found, overharvesting be damned. When we passed a cache Jack had marked, Eva bent and pushed her fingers into the soil. Green shoots sprouted, tripling the trove. She left it all in the ground, always one to give instead of take.
Not like me.
At some point, my breathing grew too labored to hide.
“You need to stop?” Eva asked. “Take another drink?”
Water wouldn’t stop my body from feeling like I’d squeezed it through a paper shredder. My vision went slightly out of focus as I shook my head. It was these damn aspen trees. The endless sea of white bark and rippling green leaves swayed around me like an optical illusion.
“You have grown too accustomed to self-neglect.”The monster’s annoyance cut down my ribs. Before I could stop it, it slipped into the muscles of my arms and sloppily jerked my bottle from its pouch in the pack. Screwed off the lid.
I flushed with distress and tried to rip away from its hold.Fine, I’ll drink!
The monster didn’t release me.
Let me go.
“Push me out.”
My eyes widened. The monster had never demanded that before.
“Maybe I deserve a chance to pilot this ship, if you won’t captain it properly.”
“Here, have an apple.” Eva tossed one my way. I had no athletic skill, but the monster snatched it from the air. A bruise marred the fruit’s dark, carmine flesh.
“Eat.”
But even looking at the apple made me feel a little nauseous. It seemed the more space the monster took up inside me, the less appetite I had, though its presence didn’t fill me. If anything, it did the opposite, carving hunger into a hollow I couldn’t fill with food.
“Don’t make me into some kind of villain. You have to push through, little death-touch,”it snapped.“You’re too hot, and probably dehydrated too. You need to drink.”
The very thought of water made me smack the roof of my mouth with my tongue.
Eva planted herself on a rock, angled so when she leaned back, the pack squished under her. The pink glow of a sunburn striped her forehead. It wouldn’t last long, the way she healed. She eyed me. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine,” I mumbled.
“Drink.”The monster roughly jerked the open water bottle to my mouth. It sloshed down my chin, but some made it in. I swallowed hard enough to hurt.
“Now eat.”
The crunch of apple skin sent a shudder down my body. Toomuch like the tear of sinew off bone. But it took only seconds for the sugar in the juice to offer relief.
Eva unclicked her pack and crossed to me, pressing a hand to my forehead. “Are you dizzy?”
“No,” I lied.
Eva clearly didn’t believe me. “Let’s take a break and set up camp. We’re not going to make it to the meadow today anyway.”
“I can do it,” I gritted out to both of them.
Her gaze turned steely. “A good hiker resolves a problem before it gets worse.”
“He’s bad at that.”
My flush intensified. “I’m a good hiker,” I muttered, pride wounded.
“Good.” Eva lifted the straps of my pack. “Here, you unclick.”
