He stands now, sensor wiped off on his jacket, and scribbles something down in his notebook. His brow furrows in concentration, lips moving silently as he counts or codes or whatever it is humans do when they turn feelings into numbers.
Faint lines bracket his mouth that weren’t there two summers ago when I first saw him. There’s a new tightness in the way he straightens, a hand pressing briefly to the small of his back, like he’s finally noticing what I’ve known for decades: The body is a tricky, temporary arrangement. It complains more as it goes.
He looks good. Different, but good.
He’s slightly softer around the middle, yet broader in the shoulders somehow, while his hair is longer and wilder, curls tumbling out the back of his hat. There’s a little more gray at his temples—just a thread, but I see it. I see all of it.
I hate that I notice.
I hate more that I like it.
He tucks the sensor into his pack with exaggerated care and moves on, following a faint game trail off the main path. I pad along parallel, feet finding familiar routes without thought.
I’m quieter than the fog. It’s a species trick—weight distributed, muscles choosing silence the way birds choose flight. Humans hear stories about us crashing through forests, breaking limbs, shaking ground. Easier to laugh at what scares them, I suppose.
Truth is, if I don’t want him to hear me, he never will.
My aunt once got so bored she spent an entire summer seeing how many times she could be photographed. Fourteen blurry photos, three shaky videos, and one hunter who swore he’d looked her directly in the eye. She loved cryptid hunters—said they were good exercise. Most of her entertainment came from running circles around them until they started doubting their own maps.
Compared to some of the people she toyed with, Elias isn’t exactly a challenge. The man could probably miss a marching band if he was thinking about soil samples.
He talks as he walks, narrating his own day.
“Okay, Cedar Ridge camera next, if the snow didn’t take it,” he says. “Then the microclimate station—if you’re gone, I swear, I’ll just lie down and let the lichens reclaim me. It’s fine. I’ll be fine. Totally fine.”
He laughs at himself. It’s soft, self-deprecating, and makes his shoulders relax.
I follow the line of his back with my eyes, the way his pack fits snug against it, the way his thighs flex with each uphill push. He stumbles over a root and catches himself with a curse that’s more amused than angry.
“Watch your feet,” I murmur, too quiet for him to hear.
If he heard me, I’d probably fall over from shock.
The higher we climb, the clearer the air becomes—crisp, edged with snowmelt and the faint metallic tang of rock exposed by thaw. The sky shows through in ragged cuts between branches, pale blue streaked with thin clouds. The forest floor is a patchwork of old snow, dark soil, and the first green shoots daring to exist.
He reaches the Cedar Ridge overlook around midday. The rock here juts out like a broad stone lip over the valley, and the wind is sharper, tugging at his hat and hair. He sets his pack down and goes straight to the nearest tree, eyes scanning the branches.
“Come on, come on…,” he breathes.
His camera trap is still there, higher up than human reach without a ladder. Higher than most humans can comfortably climb.
He doesn’t know that’s because I put it back after a winter storm shook it loose. Last December, during one of those aggressive snow dumps that make even me hunker down, I found it hanging by one strap, one more good gust from falling and disappearing into a ravine.
I recognized it. His work. His careful placement. His hope for continuity.
I put it back where he’d want it.
He doesn’t question why it’s still straight in spring.
Now, he stands under it with his hands on his hips and a grin pulling at his mouth. “Yes.” He fist pumps. “You beautiful, overpriced, pain-in-my-ass box. You held.”
He shimmies up the tree with more enthusiasm than grace, boots scraping bark, breath puffing in small oaths. At one point he almost loses his footing, and my heart stops in my chest so fast I feel dizzy.
If he falls from that height, the rocks below will crack him open like a dropped egg.
“Hang on,” I whisper, fingers digging into the bark of my own tree.
He doesn’t hear. The wind steals my words and scatters them over the ridge.
