Quickly I pluck it from his fingers, not wanting him to hold it too long—or risk madness seeping into his skin—and I press it into the pocket of my shorts. Out of sight.
“Thank you,” I gasp, trying to slow my breathing, trying to appear steadier than I feel—staring at theboy I’d made into a myth.
He nods, and the curves of his mouth pinch closed. I want to peer inside him, gather up the details of who he is before this moment is lost: a boy with a freckle beside his upper lip, hair that curls slightly around his ears, sweatshirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows, dark jeans faded, well-worn. They’ve seen miles of walking, of climbing trees, maybe, of being tossed onto a bedroom floor and forgotten for days at a time. Softened by years of wear. I force my eyes away, but they slide back, as if pulled in by gravity, skipping across the sturdy outline of his shoulders, and I’m certain you don’t get that strong from only reading paperback books. He is a boy of another breed. Not the kind you find in Cutwater. He is careful, quiet, and I want to tiptoe into his head and unearth all his thoughts. I want to remember him so I can sketch every part of him later, every missed detail.
“Did you just move to town?” My voice breaks the silence, but I’m holding back a tide of questions wanting to spill out all at once.
His bottle-green eyes flash to the trees. “No.”
“Do you go to Cutwater High?” I’m certain he doesn’t, but it feels like the right thing to ask, the acceptable string of questions.
“I go to school in Favorville.” I can hear the wariness in his voice, like he’s already given too much away. Like he’s looking for an escape out of these woods.
Favorville sits just across the county line, only a few miles from Cutwater. But they have a real indoor movie theater and a small local museum and a large public library. Students at Favorville High don’t venture into Cutwater—there’s nothing here. No reason to waste their time.
A new idea begins to form inside me: a theory, a notion that makes my heart begin to beat nervously again. I harden my jaw. “Someone broke into our garden two nights ago….”
His pupils are flat, emotionless.
“They stole my family’s tulips, cut them from the ground.”
He frowns back at me, but in an indifferent way. “Are you asking if it was me?”
My eyes feel like they’re vibrating, watching him, looking for any hint of a lie.Someone stole the flowers.And this boy is a stranger. Maybe it’s why he’s been lurking around the school—he heard the rumors about my family. Even in Favorville. And now he’s been selling the flowers he stole.
A heaviness sinks into my chest, like concrete being poured into my rib cage.
But he exhales. “I don’t want your flowers,” he answers, staring back at me, like he’s daring me to find even a molecule of mistruth in his words. But there is something else in his eyes, or alackof something.
I see no lost, swimming look in the center of his pupils. No dizzying desire. No craving, no twitch of need or longing taking shape in his stare. He seems unaffected by me. By being this close to a Goode. To anyone else, his gaze might feel cold, unsettling, but to me it feels oddly comfortable.Easy.Safe in a way I’m not accustomed to.
He is a boy whose face reminds me of a midsummer lightning storm—flashes of light and long, thundering darkness. I am wholly perplexed by him.
But I also believe him.
He seems like a boy who couldn’t care less about tulips or a Goode family curse. But this creates more riddles than it solves.
“Are you safe to walk home from here?” he asks bluntly, his eyes steady and unflinching.
I glance up the path, a route I’ve walked countless times. “Yes.”
His feet shift in the dirt, and he seems uncomfortable, as if the moment has been stretched out too long, standing here in the trees with me.
He takes a couple of steps back.
“Wait,” I say, moving toward him. “What’s your name?”
The muscles in his shoulders draw down, like he might not say it, like he might turn and vanish into the forest and I will never know. But he drags his eyes back to me, swallows. “Holden,” he says. “But everyone calls me Oak.” He sounds earnest, but there is something else in his tone, like maybe this isn’t the whole truth, or maybe he thinks he’s just given up a part of himself, like he’s worried what this knowledge will mean now that he’s said it aloud.
Oak—a tree that grows roots deep in the soil. A tree that’s goodfor rope swings and forts and climbing. A tree that stakes its claim in a bit of dirt and never loosens its hold.
“I’m Lark,” I offer, and it occurs to me that I’ve never needed to introduce myself to anyone. Lark Goode is a name that’s known before I even walk into a room.
But this boy from Favorville only blinks.
A second passes, then another, before at last he says, “I know.”
And as swift as the creek below the house, he turns away before I can reply, starting up the path toward town—a paperback book still in the back pocket of his jeans.
