Page 7

The change of subject caught me off guard. “What?”

“My name.” She held out her bare hand. “Hazel Morgan.”

I hadn’t shaken a hand in this town in a long time. Some people waved or shouted their thanks; others left casseroles. I looked down at my hand. The claws hadn’t fully retracted—blunt-edged now but still visible.

She looked up at me with eyes the exact blue of the dried cornflowers in the jar above my stove. She held out her bare hand. Her fingers fit neatly inside my palm, her skin warm and soft against mine. My bear rumbled, a quiet sound only I could feel, a deeper, more primal acknowledgment than any words. I held on for half a second longer than I should have.

I let go before I could overthink it. “Barrett.”

“Barrett what?”

“Just Barrett.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you always answer questions like that?”

“When people ask questions I don’t want to answer.”

“I need to know who I’m speaking to.”

“You know who you’re speaking to.”

“The enormous man telling me I’m not allowed to study my own research site?”

“It’s not your research site.”

She gave me a look I knew well. I’d seen it on contractors when I’d told them they couldn’t fell a healthy tree blocking their view, and on children forbidden from climbing the old quarry fence. She wouldn’t let this go.

“Can you help me?”

She looked tired, determined, and hopeful in a way that created an uncomfortable tug beneath my ribs.

It wasn’t my job. I had trees to clear and a forest to keep safe. I didn’t have time to escort a researcher who thought she’d found something her grandmother had written about in a notebook.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “No.”

Her expression fell.

“I mean,” I added, feeling like an idiot, “it’s not my job.”

I heard a dry crack, a long way off, like a tree limb finally giving up. It came down through the understory forty yards north.

She didn’t hear a thing. I felt the impact through my boots a second before the sound reached her.

“What was that?”

“Beech split by a storm. The branch has been hanging on, waiting for the wind.” I looked at her until she looked back. “There are things in this forest that don’t behave the way your books say they do.” I nodded at the moss she’d disturbed. “You’ve met one. There are others.”

“Others?”

“I recommend you don’t stand underneath the pale lace growing on the low branches, particularly in full sun. And the ground east of the beeches looks solid, but it isn’t.” I bent to pick up my rope. “And if you hear music coming up out of the ground, you walk the other way and keep walking.”

Her mouth dropped open, and for a moment I wondered if I’d said something wrong.

“Music? Underground? Is that documented? Has anyone ever recorded⁠—”

“No. And you don’t want to be the one who does.” My hand was still warm where hers had touched it. I had no business noticing it. “This forest doesn’t warn you twice."

“Look, clearly you know this forest better than anyone I’m going to meet at a council desk. If I told you what I was looking for, is there any chance you’d⁠—”