“Wait!” Josie said. “Our toiletries.”
Everything that smelled had to be stored away. The girls brushed their teeth and then spit into the final dregs of the fire. Only embers remained, pulsing lumps of orange and red. Neena wished she could rinse out her mouth, but she didn’t dare touch the water.
The girls rifled through their belongings for any remaining scented items—sunscreen, baby wipes. “Lip balm?” Josie asked, uncapping it to sniff.
Neena shrugged.
It all went in.
“Make sure you take it far from the tent,” Josie reminded her.
Neena lugged away the unwieldy canister. Though she didn’t have any blisters, her feet were still killing her. Her body was still freezing. Without the campfire, the temperature had taken another significant drop.
A jagged tree root snagged her boot. She nearly face-planted, and the canister thudded to the ground. Struggling up, she brushed the grit from her palms. The woods were as black as crow wings. Feathery shadows shifted. Sentient trees concealed. Her imagination began to spin wild and nightmarish tales, and she ditched the canister.
Back at the campsite, Josie was unfurling her sleeping bag inside the tent. “Everything go okay?”
“Fine,” Neena said icily.
“I didn’t know what to do with our packs, so I brought them in. I don’t know. It seemed . . . vulnerable to leave them out there.”
“That’s fine,” Neena said again, ducking to enter. The backpacks overcrowded the cramped space, but she agreed that it felt safer to keep them close.
The wind whistled across the netting. Josie poked her head through the flaps and made an ugly noise. Neena didn’t ask. She waited to be told. As Josie turned toward her, their white headlamps bore directly into each other’s eyes. They both hissed as if being attacked and winced away.
“The embers are still smoldering,” Josie said.
“Is that a problem?”
“We have to put them out completely. Something could spark and catch fire.”
“So put them out.”
“I already took off my shoes.”
Neena wanted to take off her shoes, too. She wanted to burrow into Win’s stupid girlfriend’s stupid sleeping bag and not speak to Josie again until morning—until their emotions had chilled and their bodies were in less pain. She huffed outside, back into the cold. The fire had been threatening to die out the entire time, but now it was impossible to fully extinguish. She was too afraid to stomp on it, blowing made it worse, and spitting wasn’t enough. The embers clung on for dear life. Her teeth chattered. Stretching her upper half back into the tent, she searched for, and nabbed, the water bottle.
“Hey,” Josie said as she realized what was happening.
The embers extinguished with a satisfying sizzle.
“What the fuck!” Josie shouted.
“I put the fire out.”
“You don’t use water.”
“What do you mean, you don’t use water?” Neena emphasized it in the same snotty way. “I’m pretty sure firemen aren’t shooting Cheerwine from their hoses.”
Josie’s tone clenched. “I meant that everybody knows you smother a campfire with dirt to save water. And that was the last of what I’d saved.”
“Everybody knows? Jesus, Josie.” Reentering, Neena jerkily zipped up the solid flap behind her, then the netting flap. Woodsmoke choked the tent. It permeated their clothing, hair, skin, lips. They tasted it on their tongues.
They didn’t speak as Neena wrestled with her sleeping bag. Their headlamps shone on opposite corners of the tent. Backs to each other, they removed their bras through the armholes of their shirts. Neena unlaced her boots and stifled a moan. The unwanted brutes were discarded at the end of her sleeping bag, away from her head so that she wouldn’t have to smell them. Her feet had never felt so sore—or so blissfully free. She exchanged her soiled socks for clean ones and put on her hoodie.
Josie, who was cold-natured, removed her jeans to add a pair of long johns and then wriggled back into the jeans. She also added a second pair of socks and a knitted hat, as well as a long-sleeved shirt between her T-shirt and hoodie.
You are going to boil, Neena thought with exhilarating meanness.
The girls both stormed into their downy sleeping bags—as best they could storm in an overstuffed, two-person tent—and turned off their lamps. Darkness engulfed them.
“Shit,” Neena mumbled. Realizing she didn’t have a pillow.
Josie did not respond.
They had planned to use their clothing for pillows, but the only thing Neena could locate in the dark was a clean T-shirt. She tucked it underneath her head. The comfort was flat and unsatisfying. Knowing Josie, she probably had an amazing pillow. She’d probably made it while Neena was snuffing out the fire.
“All I meant,” Josie said, her voice slicing through the dark, “was that you never know what might happen, and water is kinda important. The most important, actually.”
Neena closed her eyes and hoped that Josie would choke on her self-righteousness.
“Like, what if we try the water filter at the spring tomorrow, and it doesn’t work?” Josie pressed.
“Then I suppose we’ll have a shitty morning as we walk back to my car.”
“Or what if one of us gets thirsty in the middle of the night?”
“I told you I’m sorry.” She had not. “Okay? It won’t happen again.”
Silence. Twenty seconds, maybe.
“It’s just . . . sometimes I think you don’t take me seriously. It’s not outlandish to want to save a little water in case of an emergency.”
“Oh my God, Josie. How many times do you want me to apologize?”
“Once would be nice, but I’m not asking for that. I’m tired of you making me feel like shit all the time over totally rational things.”
Neena was blindsided. “Excuse me?”
“It’s not unreasonable for me to want water, or to want the tent set up before sundown, or to be afraid of animals that can eat me. It’s common. Fucking. Sense.”
“Okay.” Neena inhaled. Her lungs filled to capacity. “You want to play this game, let’s play it. How about how shitty you’ve made me feel today? ‘It’s common fucking sense.’ Well, I’m sorry I’ve never been in the goddamn fucking woods before. And it’s not common sense. Somebody told you once, too, so you don’t have to condescend to me like I’m an idiot every time I do something wrong—”
“Me? You’re the one—”
“I’m the one holding your hand.” Neena unleashed her resentment. She snarled it. “Without me, you wouldn’t even be here. You’d still be at home, feeling sorry for yourself like always.”
Josie’s voice glinted into a blade. “Without me, we wouldn’t be here. I’m the one who found the trail, I’m the one who had the gear—”
“Your brother found the trail, and your brother had the gear. And you lean on him like you lean on me. God, I’m so sick of it! Always having to make the decisions for both of us. Always having to watch what I say around you.”
“Are you serious? This is you watching what you say around me?”
“Oh, please. The moment I mention Los Angeles—”
There was a sharp intake from Josie.
“—or college anymore, you freak out. I’m moving in five days, and I’m terrified, and I can’t even talk about it with my best friend because she gets mad at me. Because, somehow, her feelings on the subject are more valid than mine. Her feelings always win.”
“Well, I’m sorry that it’s hard for me to pity someone who’s going to an awesome school in an awesome city.” Josie pronounced the word “awesome” as if it tasted like dung. “I’m sorry that it’s hard to have two supportive parents and that your life is so perfect and easy.”
“That’s not fair—”
“What’s not fair is that we made the same fucking As, and you get to follow your dreams, and I get to keep working at Kmart. So, yeah.” Josie spat it. “Maybe I’m testy.”
“All I’m saying is that I wish you could separate the two things and be happy for me. Or at least accept that I might be scared right now, too. But instead, you keep dragging me down—”
“Dragging you down?”
“Yes!” Neena hated how shrill her tone had become.
“How can I drag you down when nothing can stop you? You never stop needling. You never know when to quit.”
“Because if I didn’t push you, you’d never do anything! You’d be just like your mom.”
There was a ghastly beat. The tent thickened with malevolence, and Josie’s voice shaped into a damning and unrecognizable form. “You’re selfish, you’re reckless, and you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Both girls burst into tears.
DEEP DOWN SOUTH in the Appalachian Mountain system, in the Blue Ridge province, in the Pisgah National Forest, in the narrow gap between Frazier Mountain and the Misty Rock Wilderness, sat a tent. Tucked inside its fragile shell, two teenage girls were crying in the dark. Their tears streamed hot and quiet, punctuated by sniffles. Blubbery snot was gulped and choked. The girls lay side by side. Back to back. Their sleeping bags touched, but they had never been farther apart.
Me, me, me.
You, you, you.
Their unspoken, unscreamed grievances had finally exploded, and neither girl understood why she hadn’t been able to back down. Or laugh it off. Or attempt to salvage whatever was left. But perhaps it was easier to attack and sever ties now than to watch their friendship disintegrate over time as they grew into their new and separate adulthoods. Perhaps it was easier to kill something than to save it.
The tent bottom was nothing more than a tarp. They’d been advised to bring sleeping pads, which would have provided an additional barrier of insulation and cushioning from the ground, but they had decided not to. They’d needed the room for their chocolate and marshmallows, for their chairs and journals. Cold dampness seeped up through the crinkly fabric. Brittle pine needles stabbed and hard rocks wedged, agitating and deepening their bruises. Ironically, journaling might have provided some comfort.
Neither girl was willing to turn on a light.
* * *
• • •
Outside the tent, a lone bird called in the night.
Nothing responded.
Hours passed.
* * *
• • •
Every speck and seedling that landed against the nylon, every leaf and stick that tumbled over the earth, was thunderous and abrasive. To Neena, the wind blowing through the trees sounded like rushing vehicles. It reminded her of walking across an overpass in a big city. It made her anxious, like the guardrail was broken and she was about to fall.
* * *
• • •
To Josie, the wind sounded like the ocean. It reminded her of her father’s arms, strong and hairy and tanned. Every August, her family used to rent a house on Folly Beach, where they would spend a whole week gorging on shrimp burgers and basking in the sun. In an alternate timeline, she would have been there right now—or maybe returning home, asleep in the back seat with Win, sand on their flip-flops. But the tradition had died with her father.
Grief was peculiar. Enough time had passed that she was okay, mostly. Days or even weeks could go by without incident. But then something unexpected would happen, and the pain would come roaring back. The something could be good or bad. The response was simply triggered by being caught unaware. Her hurt was still instantly accessible. Her membranes were still thin and defenseless.
She was roasting in her sleeping bag. Silently, she stripped off her hat and the extra pair of socks. Her arms throbbed with the prickling heat of sunburnt skin. She imagined her father surrounded by nothing. She imagined herself, on the other side of nothing, surrounded by too much and not enough.
Josie was sweating.
Suffocating.
* * *
• • •
Neena was freezing. Shivering and shaking, she hated herself for not bringing more layers, and she hated Josie even more for bringing plenty. How could summer feel so much like winter? She had a headache from crying and a mounting pressure in her intestines. She tried to ignore it. All she wanted was to sleep soundly and without dreams.
It was so cold outside. So dark.
Neena had glow-in-the-dark stars on her bedroom ceiling. Her family—and even Josie—believed they were decorative, but they actually functioned as nightlights. Their soft green luminescence comforted and lulled her to sleep. There would be no such solace here. Rustling leaves gave the impression of a black bear trundling through the woods. Had she dropped the canister far enough away? The question made her molars grind.
Her stomach gurgled. Unable to wait a second longer, Neena squirmed out of her sleeping bag. Any last vestiges of warmth vanished. Her eyes had adjusted enough that she could see her boots, but her hands were so numb that it was difficult to tie the laces.
Beside her, Josie was stiff with alertness.
Neena grabbed a few squares of toilet paper and shoved them into a pocket, but she couldn’t find the shovel and didn’t want to ask. She groped for the exit. The zippers shrieked. She winced, even though Josie was already awake. Even though she wanted to propel Josie off the side of the mountain.
Josie’s sleeping bag swished as she lifted her head. An inquiry.
“I have to pee,” Neena whispered in annoyance, and as the flaps fell back behind her, she turned on her headlamp.
Mist had spread across the entirety of Deep Fork. The air shimmered in the lamplight. A screech owl called out to her solitary beam, its strange hoot like the whinny of a horse. With a shudder, Neena stumbled forward into the misty pines. Water steeped through the threads of her clothing. It dampened her nose and cheeks. Cautiously, she trod, aiming for the same area that she had used earlier, trying to fight the sensation of being watched by someone or something lurking just out of sight.
Her lamp ran into a thicket.
She didn’t remember one being here. Deciding that she’d steered too far to the left, she retraced her steps, back and diagonally to the right, but then hit another thicket.
Too far to the right or not enough?
Her light scanned the thickening mist. It was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. She didn’t know where she was, but she had to go. Scouring the ground, she located a rock to use for digging. It was glacial to the touch. Neena tugged her sleeves down over her hands and clumsily held on to it through her hoodie. When the hole seemed deep enough, she undid her jeans. The air was an icy slap against her skin.
For as long as I live, she vowed, I will never go camping again.
Business done and wiped, she reached for her pants. A faint crack rang out from beyond the thicket—the sound of a twig snapping.
Neena froze.
It’s nothing, she thought.
But then another twig snapped.
Her chest seized. Frantically, she hunted for the source, but the mist had swollen into a fog. Everything was the same color of wet darkness.
Something was moving. The forest was disturbed. Though the movements felt predatory, Neena didn’t think the something was an animal. She fumbled to switch off her headlamp. Anybody out there might see her light, panning back and forth, and know she was lost. A mosquito whined in her ear. Startled, she crushed it, smearing her lobe with her own blood.
She waited.
Listened.
The rustling and crunching grew louder. Closer. It wasn’t her imagination. Still in a crouch, Neena’s legs began to shake. Goose bumps dimpled her bottom and lower back. Never before had her flesh been so vulnerable or exposed.
Fear thumped through her. The footsteps moved heavily, steadily through the underbrush. Her vision strained. They were only a few feet away, but she couldn’t see anything through the veil of fog. She prayed her light hadn’t been noticed.
On the other side of the thicket, they stopped.
She covered her mouth. Positive her breathing was audible.
Solid and immovable as a boulder, the presence felt menacing. A darkness darker than the surrounding forest, a mass as obliterating as a black hole. Every fear she had ever had of the night, compacted and concentrated into a single, unseen form.
But then, just as unexpectedly, the footsteps moved on. Heavily, steadily. Fainter and fainter, until they faded away altogether. The woods held their secret in silence.
Neena’s limbs weakened into jelly, and she sank toward the forest floor. She hastily rose to avoid falling into her own excrement. Fumbling, she pulled up her jeans, used her boot to swipe the dirt back over the hole, and reexamined her surroundings.
She had no idea where the tent was. Her mind hurtled through the options. She’d left the emergency whistle in the tent—stupid, stupid—but if she cried out, Josie would come. Probably. But who else might come? Though Neena couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore, surely their owner was still close enough to hear if she called for help.
The tent had to be nearby. She hadn’t walked that far. Had she?
Why didn’t she bring a compass? She could have navigated by the stars or some shit! Okay, no. That wasn’t true. But she couldn’t stay here, and she couldn’t risk using her headlamp, either.
Neena hunched over and crept along the thicket line. Her best guess was that when the bushes ended, the tent would be at about forty-five degrees.
If she was remembering the correct thicket.
If she was oriented in the correct direction.
How easy it would be to wander in the wrong direction.
The Woods Are Always Watching Page 7