It took only a second of contact with my skin for the first creeping phlox to wilt. I bit my lip and closed my eyes, trying to halt the starving thing inside me thatwantedso badly. It felt unnatural, at first. It always did. The monster’s appetite was all-consuming. It wanted me to suck the life from the little flowers and crush their skeletal remains in my fist.
It wanted me to take.
I thought of the sky, as Eva had taught me. Storms moving through me, instead of sucking me down. I thought of the earth. It was easy with the monster’s awareness so tuned in to the woods around me. Water rushed from the damp soil into nutrient-seeking roots. Sunlight bathed the hungry leaves. Inches away, Eva’s heartbeat thumped. Anxious. Eager. It was an anchor, and I tethered myself to it until my breathing slowed.
When I looked again, I found three little blooms still blushed with pink.
“You’re getting better,” Eva said.
I passed the bundle back to her. In seconds, it was green again. Iwanted to argue. Three blooms out of nine didn’t feel like enough, and neither did I.
A peachy sunrise cast the glade in hazy soft-focus, dew-glossed spiderwebs sparkling in the grass. Birdsong constellated the woods around us. I grinned and swung my leg over a fallen tree, motioning her to sit in front of me.
This was the reason we woke at such an ungodly hour.
When Eva was properly situated, I lifted the Minolta strap and draped it over her neck.
“Ready?”
Eva nodded, rubbing her thumb over the advance lever, as I’d taught her.
Somewhere above us, a bird released a syrupy trill. I leaned closer, wrapping my arms around Eva and notching the settings into place with my thumbs. “What’s that?” I asked her.
“Robin?”
I nodded, my nose brushing her hair. When I whistled in perfect imitation to the songbird, goose bumps pebbled down Eva’s arms. The monster watched them in fascination.
“Now, that is a sight to behold.”
“Show-off,” Eva muttered.
I grinned.
As a kid, Mom’s job-hopping had left me plenty of time to wander the woods alone, practicing the calls of any and every bird I came across. I’d thought she would like that I’d spent so much effort learning their songs. Mom always did love birds.
My throat lodged with emotion. I’d been with the Moreaus for three months now, and I was fine, happy even. Still, not a day went by that I didn’t think of my mother and worry.
She hadn’t called once.
A newchirruppainted the air, and Eva sat up. “What was that one?”
“Tufted titmouse.”
“That’s a funny name,” she said, lifting the camera and squinting through the viewfinder.
“You see your bird up there, Ev?”
“I see… a blur.”
I buried a chuckle. “Here. Switch with me.”
While I scanned the canopy for movement, Eva flipped through the pages of the bird identification book she’d picked up, still so new that the slick pages stuck together. The breeze tossed a dark gold strand of hair onto her cheek. There were endless variations to the colors in her hair. Yellow, wheat, molasses, gold. It refused to stay straight but didn’t quite curl, caught somewhere in between. Usually in the heat she wound it into a braid, but this morning it tumbled freely down her back.
When she found the page with the tufted titmouse, her face lit up. “It’s so cute!”
I watched the way her fingers ran over the edge of the illustration. They weren’t even real feathers, but she touched it so delicately they might as well have been.
Eva leaned back against my chest and took the camera from me again. I cupped her elbow instinctively to steady her.
