1 ESSA It was her job to keep Puck safe. Puck--Essa''s nine-year-old sister, the budding genius, the girl she lived for. The royal pain in the ass who wasn''t supposed to be on this trip in the first place. It was Essa''s job to keep an ear out, an eye out, to be aware of any danger. It always had been. But it was especially true up here. Especially true tonight. Essa bolted upright, her eyes wide.
She saw nothing but consuming blackness. Was that a noise? Footsteps? It couldn''t be the deadfall; they hadn''t reset it after they''d caught a mouse. Essa rubbed her hands together for warmth, wiggled her icy toes inside her boots, pulled her knees to her chest. Her eyes adjusted to the night, and she could see snippets of moonlight sneaking through gaps in the walls of their tiny brush shelter. A stiff mountain wind whistled through the pine boughs and dead leaves they''d layered to keep the weather out. They''d been stuck in the storm for hours; everything had gotten wet. Even though it was June, Essa was cold. She knew it couldn''t be true, but she felt like it had dipped into the thirties.
She shifted on the forest floor. They''d forgotten to cover it with a layer of brush to insulate them before they went to sleep. All night, a chill had been reaching up from the ground, climbing through her thin hiking pants, sliding down her legs, wrapping around her ankles and toes. It felt like it had a mind of its own, the cold. Like it was out for her, thrilled that they were here, ten thousand feet up in the Mummy Range, lost, with barely the clothes on their backs. Like it was determined to make one thing understood: If you make it out of here alive, don''t come back. She heard it again. Snap.
Louder this time. She couldn''t tell if it was coming from inside or outside. She looked up at their shelter roof, but couldn''t see well enough to check the large tree branch they''d used as the main support beam. She hoped her bowline knot was holding. Shuffle. Snap. She heard it again, and this time, she was sure it was outside the shelter. She told herself it was a raccoon sniffing around their camp.
She told herself it wasn''t a bear that was about to rip through the sides of their pitiful homemade walls and attack. That it wasn''t the random creepy guy they saw earlier walking through the woods. That he wasn''t out there, stalking them in the darkness, lurking with an ax. She tried to calm down and picture herself back in the Zendo in Boulder, meditating on a cushion. She imagined that the sounds outside the shelter were nothing but the gentle shuffling of her Zen teacher''s robes as he settled just before zazen. It was one of her favorite sounds. Silently she recited the gatha she''d crafted with her teacher: Breathing in, I know my breath is the wheel of the ship. Breathing out, I know the storm will pass.
Her mind didn''t stay with her breathing. It did what it normally did: it reached for thoughts like a frantic monkey, grasping at one random idea after the other, feeding on disorder, on chaos. She thought about her mom back down in Boulder, more out of control by the day. About her best friend Micah, gently snoring next to her. How annoying he''d been at the party two weeks ago with the weed gummies he''d snatched from Pure Buds. She thought about sitting by the campfire last night, outside their shelter, after everyone else had gone to sleep. Exhausted. Wet.
Cold. Her belly aching with hunger, getting nothing from a granola bar and a few sips of pine needle tea. Afraid to eat the food they''d brought, not sure how long it was going to have to last. She thought about the soft firelight on Oliver''s skin. Oliver, the boy from Chicago she''d met not even a month ago. The one who felt so familiar, so fast. The one with the sister who was sick; the one who seemed to understand. The one who had pulled her close and kissed her .
She tried to return to her breath. To another gatha. Fears are clouds drifting by a mountain. Watch them. Tend to them. But know You''re the mountain. Another sound split the night. Crack.
It was even closer. Something or someone was out there. She reached over and nudged Micah. "Hey," she hissed. "Get up. I hear something." "Dude," Micah groaned. He snorted briefly and rolled over and went back to sleep.
She shook him again. "Wake up. Seriously." When he didn''t move, she grabbed a handful of his thick black hair and gave it a few firm tugs. "What the hell?" "I hear something," she hissed again. "Outside." Micah propped himself on one arm to listen. Just outside the shelter, off to their right, she heard it again.
Movement. Footsteps. Or something being dragged along the ground. "Probably just a raccoon," Micah mumbled. But he didn''t sound convinced. "We have no food in here for a bear to come after. It''s all outside. Unless you count the mouse I roasted last night.
And man, this ground is ice cold. " "We smell like people ," she said. "That''s all the incentive a bear needs." Crack. Snap. The sounds rang through the darkness. Her mind flashed to the guide Oliver left back in the car. They were in the Comanche Peak Wilderness.
Full of bears, mountain lions, coyotes. Fear sent her mind racing through other things that could be out there: Serial killers? Runaway felons? Ghosts? "What if it''s that guy we saw?" she whispered. She noticed for the first time that she was shivering. Her arms and chest quaked as she thought about the random guy they''d seen in the woods before they''d realized they were lost. He wasn''t wearing stuff hikers or hunters wore. He was in baggy black cotton pants. A preppy blue sweater. A straw fedora.
Rubbery black plastic clogs and white socks. He looked wildly out of place, like a snake in the bottom of a kid''s toy chest. A knife tangled up in your bedsheets. He claimed he was out looking for the site of a plane crash. Essa knew there was a trail to an old WWII B17 crash site somewhere in the area. But the man claimed the plane had been his grandfather''s, that it had been full of valuable Japanese antiques. He said he''d been searching the woods for years, looking for any that might have survived the crash. He said no one believed him.
Essa didn''t, either. She shivered again and wondered if it was the cold or the fear making her core temperature drop. "You think he could''ve followed us?" "Dude. Chill," Micah said. "That guy was harmless. Just a crazy dude out for a hike." Goosebumps tumbled down Essa''s spine, and instinctively, she leaned over and reached for Puck. Last night, Puck had gone to sleep at her side, Essa''s face nuzzled in her sister''s tangled blonde hair, the smell of Puck''s cherry lollipop dinner wafting up her nose.
Now she gently felt in the darkness for the reassurance of Puck''s tiny, warm body. Her hand landed on cold ground. She groped in the dark a little farther to the left. And then to the right. "Puck?" Silence. "Puck!" Essa hissed, frantically searching. "Puck!" Her breath hitched in the back of her throat, but she tried to stay calm. Maybe Puck had rolled over to a new spot in the night.
Essa strained her eyes in the darkness, but she couldn''t see. "Micah? Is she next to you?" She heard Micah search the shelter around him. "No. I don''t feel her." "Nudge Oliver awake," Essa said. "He''s not over here, either." "Oliver? Puck?" No one answered. A cold wind hissed through the shelter wall next to her.
She knocked into Micah as she scrambled onto all fours, searching every inch of their tiny home, running her hands along the ground, up the walls. She felt Puck''s backpack. "That''s probably what we heard outside," Micah said. "They probably got up to go to the bathroom or--" Essa didn''t wait to hear the end of his sentence. She bolted out the small exit hole of the shelter and got to her feet. "Puck!" she called into the dark woods. It felt like her voice was swallowed by the rushing wind around her. It died down for just a moment.
"Puck! Oliver?" Silence.