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WE MADE OUR WAY TO the living room where we sat around the coffee table by the roaring fire. I clutched a throw pillow in my lap, embroidered with salmon, trout, and the words Wishing I Was Fishing.
Fox had salvaged some of dinner, and our plates sat half eaten on the coffee table. Mashed potatoes still stained my pant leg, but I was too dazed to do anything about it. Going upstairs to change presented a hundred problems, such as Fox leaving before I got my answers, or a headless monster appearing in my window to string me up in a tree as a warning to other stupid girls trying to find their sister in the woods. Both seemed highly possible while adrenaline still coursed through my weary limbs, short circuiting my brain from having any rational thoughts.
I didn’t know what kept me here anymore—true loyalty to my sister, or fear that if I tried to leave now, I might suffer a worse fate. I was stuck with the only option of wading through, like I’d gone out too far in the muddy bog to turn back now.
The clock on the mantel ticked ten more times, punishingly slow and loud, until Riss snapped first. “Just spit it out, Creek Boy!”
Ben snorted. A nervous reaction. He’d been irritated since the moment Fox stepped foot into the cabin, and it riled him all the more that Maple had made herself comfortable at Fox’s feet with her head resting on his foot.
Fox glared around the room at my friends till his gaze landed on mine. Then the glare softened to something pitiful. Staring directly at me, he began. “My family has a history with this land. We’ve been here a very long time, as early as the beginning of the 20th century when my ancestor—”
“Raymond Winter,” Riss interjected. “The forester who established Bald Eagle Forest and set out the plans for state parks.”
Fox scoffed lightly through his nose, the corner of his mouth lifting smugly before he corrected her. “More like his assistant foresters wanted the parks, and my great-great-great grandpa wanted the land to be kept private and all to himself.”
“It was a cover,” I guessed drily, feeling hollowed out like a dried gourd just after the holidays, scooped clean of everything that mattered inside. “He wasn’t really a forester.”
“No, he was,” Fox said with a wobble of his head. “But he used it for a cover, too. The parks he helped establish are right where he wanted them. They were his small concession to keep the majority of the land in the family.”
“So...” Riss drawled. “Your family owns most of the state forest?”
“Not on paper, but in every other way that matters... It’s claimed.”
I shivered at the word. Claimed. Like it was a territory to be fought over for some important reason I still couldn’t grasp at.
Fox ran his fingers through his onyx locks, then dropped them to flex atop his knees. After a pointed beat of silence, reminding us he didn’t have to share anything with us if he didn’t want to, he continued. “The point being, my family has these really old traditions and methods that I don’t entirely agree with. They’re supposed to keep us and our land safe, but now it’s at the expense of others. So, I wanted out.”
I tried to swallow, but a pit lodged in my throat. The words I forced out hurt and scratched at my throat. “And you were punished for it.”
Fox nodded, unable to meet my eyes as he stared into the fire, flame light flickering in his dark pupils. “Right.”
Though I had been determined to remain objective, to take everything he said with a grain of salt...I couldn’t stop the rush of sympathy rising up in me.
He was stuck.
He didn’t want his family, but they were all he had. They were all tangled up in the brambles together, and no one could escape without others feeling the sting of pulling thorns.
In a sense, it was similar to my own situation.
If I left, I would never see Everly again, but staying had its own pains since the rest of the family weren’t exactly accepting or loving toward me.
Granted, no one tied me up outside in the middle of a freezing winter night, but I understood family pains to a degree. I understood Fox and the decisions he had to make to hurt as few people as possible, himself included.
“Anyway,” Fox went on, shifting in his seat to ignore the uncomfortable looks from people he didn’t really know. “My old grandpa claimed this land, fought for it, and defended it. Now my family does the same. The family line goes back much further than the last century though, and they come from all over the world.”
Riss sat back on the sofa with a huff. “So, this is one big and seriously dedicated family drama. You guys come from some noble bloodline or something? Found out you’re related to an old king of England?”
Fox fixed her with a stare I felt across the room. Bitterly cold. Painfully disdainful.
Not even Riss was immune to such a look. She reeled and backpedaled. “What? I just don’t get it. What’s so important about your family’s bloodline? Are you guys immune to diseases or something?”
Fox sidelined her entirely, turning back to me as he said, “We’re losing the battles now. We’re losing land. We have to fight back in other ways, usually with money and lawsuits, but going up against people who don’t understand why the state let us tend this land for so long in the first place is exhausting. Every decade, new people come into office and think they’re gonna make a name for themselves by sorting out this century-old problem. And every decade, my family wins. The methods aren’t always orthodox, but...
“Now we need money, so we’re pandering. We’re running venues like this one. We’re letting loggers have a few acres here or there. We let a few scientists and historians look around to make it seem like we’re dedicated conservationists.”
Scientists and historians... It prickled something in the dark corners of my mind, but I didn’t give it too much thought. I leaned forward, hanging on to Fox’s every word.
