‘Come on,’ she said.
He was used to living near trees, was bored by beauty, but today he felt different. The ancient woodland covered a hundred acres. At points the path was overgrown, thick with needles that had fallen from above. According to Abigail, the trees beneath the 130-foot pines were sugar maples, and their leaves were a dazzle of yellow and orange.
It was like walking into a fairy tale, the modern world disappearing behind them, the road silent and out of sight. He had the weirdest impulse to rip off his clothes – as if they were an insult to this place that had barely been touched by humans – and run naked. Of course, he would never do that, especially with Fox here, but by the time they were a mile or two deep in the forest, he felt as if some great power, some great dark power, was coming up through the earth into his body, filling him up, his senses alive like they’d never been before. The taste of the crisp fall air, the scent of pine needles, the crunching beneath his feet, and all the colours, so vivid they burned his eyes. And the hum, like electric cables. Like the trees were speaking to each other. He wondered if Abigail had slipped something into their water bottles, one of the ‘potions’ she sometimes mentioned. For a moment, he experienced a flicker of fear, the suspicion that he’d been led into a trap. But then he looked at Abigail, her face turned upwards, bathing in the glow of the forest, and he realised the voice of doubt was his mom’s. He pushed it away.
Abigail was good.
Abigail was pure.
He reached out and touched the trunk of one of the mammoth pines as he passed it. A warm, throbbing pulse rumbled through him, and for the first time in his life he felt truly connected to the planet, to nature, to the past and the future. That would sound like such bullshit to say aloud, but every bit of it was true. He understood how insignificant he was, a pine needle in the forest, but how important too: every needle, every life, was all part of this. He stared at Fox and Goat and saw that they were feeling it too. Their eyes shone, their faces were flushed.
Abigail stopped and stared straight at him. In that moment, framed by the trees, their glow upon her skin, she looked otherworldly, like she was one of the spirits she talked about, something eternal. A goddess. He experienced a rush of something he had never known before: love. Not the dizzying horniness he felt for Fox. Nothing like the weak love he still retained for his mom. It was the absolute knowledge that he would do anything for this woman. He would die for her. He would kill for her if she asked him to.
She gestured for him to come closer. But as he reached her she began to cough again. He stood helpless as she bent double, wet hacking noises echoing through the trees. At last, she recovered and stood straight.
‘Are you—’
She shook off his concern and spoke, her voice raspy. ‘I have it. Your animal. Your name.’
He stared. This was it. He would properly be one of them now.
‘Crow,’ she said, holding out her hands towards him while Fox and Goat looked on.
Later, he would look it up in one of her books. To have crow as your spirit or totem animal meant you had integrity, that you were willing to embrace change. More than that, it meant that once you knew your life’s mission, you would follow it without bending or veering off course.
But he wasn’t thinking about any of that. He was looking at Abigail, at her outstretched hands.
At the wet specks of blood on her palms.
I’m fading, she says again.
He refuses to be afraid. He is Crow.
And when the crow knows its mission, it follows it without bending.
Chapter 17
I sat on the deck outside my cabin, an empty beer bottle in front of me. It was almost dark and Frankie hadn’t come back yet.
I looked over to cabin twelve. David and Connie had gone inside a while ago. Maybe I should go and talk to them again, find out if they knew where Ryan and Frankie might have gone. Or perhaps I should go and look around the resort . . . except if they were just hanging around eating ice cream, I didn’t want to seem like an overbearing dad. Frankie needed her freedom to hang out with boys or her friends or whatever.
Still, there were limits. It was getting dark and she hadn’t told me where she was going. I decided I would give it another twenty minutes. If she didn’t come back by then I would go looking for her.
I went inside to use the bathroom.
I paced around. Fifteen minutes passed. Eighteen minutes.
And then I heard a woman shouting outside.
‘Help! I need help!’
I ran out of the cabin. David appeared outside his cabin too.
It was Tamara. She was on the deck of the cabin opposite mine. She had her hands in her hair, her eyes darting back and forth, almost breathless with panic. ‘Please, help!’