Her words startle me like waking from a dream. I don’t want to leave the small glowing fire pit, but I know I need to sleep, too.
“Sure,” I say, standing. “Me too. Thanks for the fire. And the soda. And the company…”
“It was a pleasure,” she says, reaching for a shovel to bury the fire.
Digging inside my pack, I pull out my wool ski hat, sleeping bag, and toothbrush. Normally, camping calls for a tent. But tonight, the stars, the moon, and the swaying trees invite me to sleep out in the open. I climb into my sleeping bag while my strange camping mate shuffles about a few yards away.
“Goodnight, Lodima,” I call to her. I feel safe.
“Goodnight, Ember,” she calls back, climbing into her tent.
Looking overhead, I take in the expansive sky and stars that peek through the tree branches. Hundreds of small skylights. The wind rolls rhythmically through the trees, like the ocean, the sound of deep breathing… of sleep. I drift off.
8
My face is cold. Dew covers my sleeping bag. The sun is rising but clouds hang low, prompting me to snuggle deeper into the warmth of my black sleeping bag. With squinting eyes, I survey the surroundings. The campfire. Lodima’s tent. Her backpack.
They’re gone. She’s gone.
I sit up, confused. My watch says it’s only 5:30 a.m. She must have packed up silently before the sun came up, and removed the rocks from the campfire. She left without saying good-bye. Weird.
Her abrupt departure feeds a general unease inside me. I stand and rip into my granola bar, and then, holding it in my mouth, rush to pack up my sleeping bag. Quickly, I tie it to the bottom of my backpack and then sling the whole thing over my shoulders. My hands tremble slightly as I cinch the straps across my waist. This whole decision to come to Trinity was probably a stupid idea.
My feet stay tied to the ground as the clouds travel quickly, forming that low fog on the forest floor once again. It gently crawls up and encircles my legs. My heart races and my throat becomes dry. I can’t swallow. I need to get out of here. Yet the fog disorients me, and the campfire ring was my only true landmark.
I head toward where I guess the barbed-wire fence should be, as if an invisible force pulls me.
After a few minutes, I’m running. The fog covering the path appears to create a tunnel. I race down it, hoping it’s a way out. Branches block my path and trip me, like creatures biting at me from the depths of some invisible swamp. Nothing looks familiar now, and a wave of confusion pulses through me. Panic.
Then I stop abruptly. A chill goes down my spine, spreading throughout my body, buzzing in every vein. Ahead: a bright, glowing light. And a gate.
I squeeze through a small space at the edge of the tall iron gate and step out of the dark forest into a bright field of tall green grass reaching past my knees. Sweat stings my eyes. The air warms my skin. The light blinds me at first.
Moving through an ocean of grass and red, white, and yellow flowers, my body overflows with a serene glow. The breeze moves through the long grass like a gentle current.
This is not at all what I expected to find in the dreaded Trinity Forest.
The breeze whips up sweet floral scents and I take in the steep, rocky canyon walls that encircle the meadow. Red spires. Yellow and gray jagged cliffs. White and blue mountain peaks in the far distance. If the rest of the town knew Trinity looked like this, they would be lined up at the gate. Hell, they’d have a whole other town built here.
I think of all the hikes I did with Maddie over the years. I wish we had found this place together. Maybe I can bring her here.
A few steps more and the deep voice of a boy punctuates the air, followed by splashing water. Laughter. I zigzag to find the noise, which ripples off the canyon walls like a raucous party. I follow it to the right, to the left, and after some time, I see them: a group of young people splashing in a lake at the bottom of a steep ravine. It’s as if I’m watching a party from across the street—one that looks so fun, but I’m not invited. Their laughter makes me feel gleeful and lonely at the same time.
I duck under a thorny bush and squat down to get a better look through the branches. Tall grass surrounds the water, which is so vibrant blue it could seriously be in a National Geographic photo. A shirtless boy stands dripping wet at the edge of the lake, his back to me.
“Y’all ready for this one?” he says, holding tight to a rope hanging from a cottonwood tree. Its trunk so thick it would take four of me to hug it.
“Me next!” A girl clad in a pink swimsuit tiptoes through the muddy grass to stand behind him. A flicker of envy sweeps through me. Blonde. Pretty. Tiny. She’s perfect.
The girl lets out a joyful laugh that reminds me of being little, of those lazy days catching water bugs in the river with my brother. The obvious ease of the friendship between the boy and girl makes me really miss Maddie and Jared.
Another boy, floating on the lake, shouts: “GO!”
The girl’s lilting laughter echoes in the ravine. The boy backs up and takes a running start, lifting his legs high, swinging over the pool of water. He splashes into the water, legs splayed out before he falls.
He comes up for air.
“How’d you get that high?” the girl asks him. “That was awesome!”
As I strain to see them through the bushes, my foot accidentally pushes some rocks loose. They roll down the hill—just enough of them to cause the girl to turn around and look up.
She sees me. I freeze like an animal spotted by a hunter. I feel weirdly guilty, like a creepy stalker. Which might be true. Kind of. Though I prefer the word curious.
I gaze wide-eyed at her, awaiting her next move. She squints, using one hand to shield her eyes from the sun. After a moment, my hand goes up slightly to say a weak hello.
The gesture elicits a grin. “Oh, hi,” she says with a small wave, dropping the rope and ducking down low to see me through the trees. After a moment, she climbs up the hill toward me.
“I’m Lilly,” she says, standing a few feet away, crossing her arms across her chest, water dripping steadily from her goosebumped body. Water dots her tiny nose and perfectly symmetrical face. A small gap between her two front teeth punctuates her smile. She’s about my age and familiar looking, the way pretty girls like that always are.
“I’m Ember,” I say.
“Wanna join us?” she asks, nodding her head over her shoulder.
I shrug and stand, wiping my dirty hands on my T-shirt. I let her lead me back down the hill. She is so genuinely friendly it’s hard to turn away, and frankly it’s good to be noticed and included. She calls to the others, “We have a visitor.” Or, perhaps, a creepy stalker.
As we get closer, the faces of the two boys become clear. They’re about my age, too. The one who jumped is now lounging on a big rock. He has shaggy blond hair and a rectangular face with strong features, and he could almost be cute. Except… I can’t put my finger on what it is, but something about him just looks, well, dopey. He nods and grins, eyes half-mast.
The other boy rises slowly out of the water, walking toward the shore, showing more of himself as he emerges. I drink him in: the dark hair, the strong jawline, striking eyes, and cut chest. He turns away to reach for a towel, and a gold looped earring twinkles in the sunlight. A black-and-red tattoo wraps around his arm from elbow to shoulder. He looks dorky with the earring, like he’s trying too hard for the cool, dangerous look. But maybe he can pull it off.
When he turns around, his eyes look hard as stone and his jaw clenches so tight you can see the muscles flicker in his temple. Dangerous. Maybe even like a guy you might meet in the lobby of a police station.
He blinks, his pale blue eyes like water, topped off with thick, dark brows and lashes. Okay, those eyes might make it tough to build immunity to Dangerous Boy.
“Hey.” It’s Dopey-Face Guy talking to me, his stringy hair kind of hanging in his eyes. He’s standing right next to me. I realize I am now staring at this bad boy
in the water, and my face flushes red from embarrassment. “I’m Pete,” Dopey-Face Guy says, pointing to his chest. He throws his head toward Dangerous Boy. “That, over there, is Tre.”
“Hi.” I offer a little wave to them both.
Tre nods at me, raising a hand as a half-hearted hello. His face reveals nothing. I can’t tell whether or not he’s annoyed that I spoiled their little clubhouse fun, but I’m definitely not getting the same welcoming vibe from him as I do the others.
Pete takes a step toward me and points to the far end of the lake where a man—maybe forty or fifty years old—sits on a rock, wearing jeans and a straw cowboy hat. The skin on his face hangs like leather, and he exhales a cloud of cigarette smoke and then gazes my way.
“That, over there, is Chris.” Pete’s breath smells like corn chips.
The man stands up and slowly walks our way.
“So, you hang out here often?” I ask.
Pete laughs. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. He sweeps his arm across the lake. “This is our spot, so to speak. Where’re you from?”
“Leadville,” I say, crossing my arms and nodding a little too many times. Awkward.
“Cool.” Lilly smiles and takes a step closer. I can smell the eucalyptus scent of her shampoo. She extends her hand to my arm, her ice-cold skin chilling me. “Why don’t you stay with us.” Her voice has bounce, and she stands on tiptoes, shivering with both arms crossed over her chest. “Swim with us? It’s pretty fun.” Her chattering teeth aren’t a great advertisement for diving in, despite the lake’s beauty.
“No, thanks,” I say. My lips strain for a half-hearted smile, still unsure of what to make of this place and the fact that I’m even here.
“Ya gotta stay,” Pete says, toweling off and looking up at the powder-blue sky. “It’s a beautiful day.”
“Swim! Swim!” Lilly pulls on both my hands and bounces on her toes. “Pleeeease?”
She’s sweet and kind of funny with her enthusiasm, but I have no plans to jump in this lake today. “No, really, I’m okay,” I say, feigning another grimace-smile and glancing around nervously.
Tre watches me carefully as he towels off his face on the shore. My whole body becomes tense, wound. I wrap my arm around my waist and then shift my weight from one foot to the other. It’s a stupid movement that telegraphs my nervous energy, so I rest a hand onto a jutted hip instead to look more at ease.
“Maybe I’ll just watch for a bit,” I say, shuffling backward casually and finding a seat on a rock the size of a coffee table. What now? Smile? Stare? Act completely like a stalker? Mission accomplished.
“I’m next!” yells Pete, racing to grab the rope before Lilly. She runs and pushes him with her shoulder, letting out a playful scream. Pete wins, exaggerating a gloating grin and giving a quick tug on the rope. Taking in the scene, my mind goes back to that place of wanting desperately to join. Maybe I just want to be easy with a group of friends like this. Maybe it’s just envy.
“Triple spin, Pete-o,” Lilly yells.
Pete nods and then swings high over the water, while Lilly stands on the shore grinning, her arms crossed over each other, shivering. Pete lets out a deep enthusiastic yell as he drops, sending a wave of water up and around him.
“That was a 5.6!” Lilly cups her hands around her mouth. “Poor technical performance. I would have thought a contender like you could have really nailed the landing.”
“You do better!” Pete says from the water. He tosses his head to flip his hair out of his eyes and wipes the water from his face with his hand. “Damn, that’s cold!” he says.
“Hey, Ember, what’s Pete’s score? Please tell him I am not wrong.”
I grin. “Um, yeah, 6.0 tops!” Joining in like this, I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to be a part of a group of friends that are so light and fun. People who treat me like I’m normal, not like the girl with the dead parents. For the first time in forever, in this moment, someone finally sees me. I really do want to stay and hang out with them.
A deep and gritty voice jolts me from the swimming show. “Recess at the pond.” The older guy, Chris, sits down next to me on the rock. I didn’t even hear him approach. I can see the dandruff in his dark shaggy hair and the lines in his weathered skin. He mindlessly touches a finger to a large mole on his left cheek. He breathes loudly through his nose.
“Why aren’t you out there swimming, too?” I ask. “You know them, right?”
“Over it,” he says with a slight twang. His breath smells stale, a mixture of coffee and cigarettes, and I work to avoid inhaling the stench.
“Pretty lake,” I say. The water glimmers in the sunlight.
He nods and lifts a lit cigarette to his crooked mouth, taking a deep drag, then spits out a cloud of smoke from his mouth and nose, forceful and angry. He glances at me quickly. “Welcome to Never Never Land,” he says.
He’s cryptic, a little unnerving, like a stray dog you’re afraid to pet. For a moment, I’m wondering whether I made a bad decision to come here. I consider standing up and leaving, but Lilly’s happy squeal keeps me seated.
Pete and Lilly playfully splash each other. After a moment, Pete’s bare feet emerge from the water, as he does a handstand near the shallow end. Lilly screams and her body disappears underwater. Pete undoubtedly grabbed her legs to pull her under. A moment later, she’s back up, splashing his face and laughing. “You suck,” she screeches.
Chris gazes ahead. “You gonna swim?” he asks.
“Naw.”
Lilly turns and stares directly at me. Her eyes initially brim with excitement, like she’s glad I came, but in a flash they soften and her mouth turns up in a small smile, almost like the look people gave me at my parents’ funeral. I break away from her gaze. I can’t handle people looking at me like that anymore. Like Dead Parents is written all over my face.
“So,” Chris says, swiveling to look at me. The opal buttons on his black cowboy shirt sparkle in the sun. “What’s your story?”
“Um,” I say, leaning away slightly. “My story. I live in Leadville?”
“You don’t say?” His bushy eyebrows rise, and a look of amusement lingers on his face. “We don’t see many locals around here.”
“Well, most locals see Trinity Forest as forbidden,” I say.
He laughs through his nose and shakes his head. So the urban legends about Trinity are all just a bunch of crap, and these guys have this beautiful place all to themselves. Brilliant.
I can still smell Chris’s breath. I desperately need to get away from this stale-smelling cowboy. I want to join and be part of this group. I stand and dump my overstuffed backpack off my sweaty shoulders. “On second thought, maybe I do want to swim.”
“She’s swimming!” Lilly yells, clapping a couple of times like a too-perky cheerleader. “Woo hoo! Girls against boys!”
“We’ll destroy you,” Pete says.
As I walk toward the lake, my grin falls on Tre and our eyes meet. He doesn’t smile back, but his stare is intense, mesmerizing. It’s hard to look away. I’m not sure what to make of him. After a long moment, his eyes break away from me and move to Pete.
“Yup,” Tre says, nodding, “Ember won’t top a 6.8.” His voice is like rich chocolate. The sound of it conjures up images of swirling amber and deep browns that pulse and seem to extend far into the recesses of my mind.
Voices never conjure my synesthesia.
“Oh yeah? Who’s scoring?” Lilly jabs Tre’s shoulder. His delicious tan shoulder. They look at each other for a long moment with an expression I cannot read. Maybe they’re a couple and they just got into a fight. It does seem like Tre is a little pissed.
I pull off my hiking shoes and sweaty socks and stride to the tree fully clothed. I give the thick rope a little tug to test if it’s really secure. Then, taking a deep breath and a couple of steps back, I feel a thrill shoot through me, and I run. Pushing hard as if it’s the most important leap I will ever take, I kick my feet off the gr
ound and sail over the water on the rope. Screeching with joy, with freedom, with lightness I haven’t felt in so long.
Pete lets out a “Yeeeeah!” and puts his hands in the air, like he’s signaling a touchdown, while Lilly sits huddled with her knees to her chest, grinning on the side of the lake. Tre’s eyes follow me, the edges of his mouth turned up in something that looks like a small smile. My eyes let go of him and my body spins as I swing back toward the shore again.
I wrap my legs tighter around the rope, clinging with my hands and my arms as my body spins and spins in circles. A merry-go-round. As I’m flung once more over the pool of water, the sunlight flashes on the surface, twisting the ripples into a dizzying silver ribbon.
My audience screams in unison.
“Go!” Pete yells.
“Just do it!” Lilly squeals.
I hold my breath and just let go.
9
Dripping wet, with purple and goosebumped skin, I climb up the steep ravine from the lake. I don’t even know how long we were down there in the water. It was invigorating. Light. Being here with these strangers has been one of the first times—excluding the stupid escapades with Perc—that I haven’t thought about life, real life, for one minute. That I haven’t hurt. It feels like no time has passed at all. I don’t want it to end.
“Sooooo cold,” says Lilly, wrapping her arms around her damp T-shirt. She tiptoes quickly up the hill. I run to catch up to her. As we near the top of the ravine, the sun drops lower in the sky.
“Where’re you camping?” I ask, grasping my shoes tight to my chest and holding my backpack strap over one shoulder.
Lilly shakes her head, watching the ground as we walk. “We’re not.”
“Where are you sleeping then?” I ask. “You just hiking out?”
“We have our spot. Come. I’ll show you.” She nods her head up toward the meadow. When we get to the top of the hill, I don’t see anything but open grass. A momentary doubt stirs inside me, telling me to turn around.
Ember Burning Page 4