“What came first, Torch or Dear Birdie?”
You’re still slowly moving toward me. Maybe you think I don’t notice.
“Dear Birdie, of course. It’s so easy to track people down with the little details they don’t even know they’re giving, find their social media, their Torch profiles, craft a persona for yourself that appeals to someone craving darkness, even if she doesn’t know it herself. Even when they think they’re anonymous, people give so much away, little details that tell the story. It’s not magic. Just algorithms.”
I let my finger slide over the trigger.
“So a Dear Birdie letter, a Torch profile. And if there was no match?”
You lift your palms, another step closer. “No match, no connection.”
“Were there some that slipped through your net?”
“A few.”
“And what about Melissa’s connection to The Hollows?”
You raise your eyebrows, impressed with my research, I suppose. “That was a surprise. I thought it was a sign actually that we were meant to be. You know how tricky The Hollows can be. But it turns out that she hated that place. She was—difficult.”
I see your anger now.
“In fact, each of my exes, they all thought they wanted to live off the grid, find a simpler way. They all said that they wanted to leave the world behind. But when it came down to it, no. None of them were really cut out for it.”
A chill moves through my body, thinking of them. You lured them here, kept them here when they tried to leave, finally making sure they stayed forever.
“You tried to convince them.”
“Yes.”
“And when you couldn’t?”
You’re inching ever closer.
“It wasn’t supposed to go like this. I never wanted to hurt any of them. I loved each of them, in my own way. I never wanted to hurt you, Wren. I love you.”
“Why me finally?”
Now you laugh a little. “It was always you. I was always trying to find my way to you, back to that land.”
I think about the article.
“It was you. You were Rick Javits’s client. You’re the one who wanted to buy the property.”
“But you wouldn’t sell.” Your face has pulled sad. “I thought you’d stay here with me, Wren. I thought you were ready to leave the world behind. It’s so dark out there, so cold, so devoid of life and hope. You of all people must know how broken we are. Those letters day after day. The modern world with all its digital malice, its soulless flash, how it takes, how it separates us from what’s real. I believed you were ready for the life your father wanted for you. I thought I could hear it in the tone of your letters. I thought it was time for us.”
I am still silent. There’s nothing to say. You’ve created me, thought I was someone else.
“Your father—you called him a collapsist,” you go on. “He believed the world was already ending. Look around. Was he wrong?”
Was he wrong?
“No,” I admit. “He wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t wrong that the world is in chaos. That it’s dangerous and cruel. That the planet is dying.”
“This land,” you say, still slowly moving closer.
My hand closes tighter. I lift the gun again and your eyes fall on it.
“I’ve healed it,” you continue. “Spent hundreds of thousands to dig up barrels, leave the land raw to repair itself. It took years. Then I built this house on the restored acres, just like your father’s place. You can hunt. We can grow our own produce. It’s paradise repaired, a reversal of crimes against the planet. Far from the damage done by the world of men.”
There it is. My father’s mantra.
But this is what I have come to understand.
The world is in chaos. It’s not about that. The world has always been on fire. Now, it might not be about saving it, as much as it is about helping each other through it all. Holding each other up, helping, fixing, working together, loving, forgiving. You don’t get to just leave, just make a space and hide there waiting for everything dark and frightening to go away.
The world of men—and women—it’s my world. I want to stay. I want to help.
But it’s not a thing someone like you can understand.
You who takes what isn’t given. You who breaks and destroys, lies and kills.
It’s you who needs to go. Not the world. Not the rest of us.
When you find your moment, take it, my father said when he was teaching me how to hunt. If you hesitate, wait even a second too long, he’ll be gone. He’ll sense you, your intention. You’ll telegraph your fear with a breath, with an uncertain step. And he’ll disappear into the trees.