We followed the nearby burbling to a river. I wanted to sprawl on the bank, feet in the water, and let the mosquitoes have me. It was worth it, or it would be, if the bank hadn’t been covered in tall, feathery reeds I didn’t dare touch.
“Take off your shirt,” Eva said.
“What?”
“We need to cool you down.”
I bristled at the monster’s smug satisfaction but obeyed without further protest. When Eva returned from the river, she wrung the shirt out over my head. The trickle down my neck was blissfully cold.
“Back on.” As Eva dangled the damp shirt in front of me, her eyes strayed to the honeycomb tattoo on my bare biceps. Somehow her unwillingness to comment made it feel even more incriminating.
The kitten pounced on a silverfish in the dirt.
“Take off your shoes.”
“You know, you’ve gotten a little bossy.” But I couldn’t deny how much better I felt when the shoes came off. I carefully rested my arches on the laces. Sometimes I dreamt of grass between mytoes. It was a luxury I’d experienced only in snatches, and always just for a meager second, before the monster stole all the life out from whatever touched our skin.
Eva sank down beside me and we drank from our water bottles, the wind kissing our cheeks. The breeze blew a golden strand over Eva’s sun-rosed skin. She tucked it back. “You put the first aid kit in my pack, right? You got any aspirin in there?”
“Yeah.” I hadn’t told her my head was pounding, but of course she’d picked up on that. When Eva was certain I was cooling down, she left to fetch the other pack. The kitten apprehensively watched her leave, but one look at me and she settled, pawing at a line of ants.
“You’re a funny bug,” I murmured.
Mom’s memorial service felt far away, a distant memory from years past, instead of yesterday. So far, our hike had not gone well at all. In fact, I wasn’t sure how it could have gone worse.
At the rustle of wind, a strange feeling licked up the back of my neck. It was not unlike the feeling of the monster’s awareness expanding inside me to reveal the thump of a rabbit’s heart, or the ocean song of mycelium.
But this wasn’t the monster.
Arthur.
I stiffened at the musical lilt to my name and turned, unease collecting inside me. That voice had worn a groove in my brain I’d never be rid of. A broken-promise voice. A bedtime-story voice. A should-have-been-dead voice.
At first, I saw nothing but the green expanse of forest around me. When something moved to my left, I whirled, catching sight only of a fluttering branch. I blinked, thinking that I’d simplycaught a bird in flight. But there were no wings or shaking leaves, and the monster sensed no heartbeat.
The outstretched arm of a branch bent inward, like the joint of an elbow.
“Arthur!” This time my name came on the verge of panic. I shook off the feeling of wrongness, blinking hard, and the tree became just a tree again, solid and still.
The voice melted back into the wind.
“Arthur!” Eva crashed through the trees and burst into view. “It’s gone!”
“What?”
“The pack,” she panted. “It’s gone!”
Chapter 19
Arthur,
Before
Audrey’s weekly farmers’ market drew a hungry crowd from Cumberland Valley. They came in droves to fill their woven baskets with pears from the orchard and goods from the Honey Shoppe. Harvest season provided the town with a much-needed financial boost. With Jack up the mountain collecting samples of flowers to dry into tea, the task of selling the Shoppe’s stock fell to his daughters, and to me.
I managed the cash register, more than eager to lessen the risk of skin-to-skin contact. Citrine sunlight spilled in through the bay window, and an acoustic guitar thrummed outside. Through the crowd, I caught sight of Eva’s bouncing, messy bun.
“Excuse me.”
