Starry Eyes

by Jenn Bennett

  Clear head, steady steps. Moving forward.

  We take a second break in the afternoon, and that’s when I start to feel the change in the air. A different scent. Sweet, almost. It’s sharp and fresh, and it’s carried on winds that are picking up.

  Lennon looks toward the sky. “See those? Cumulus clouds. They’ll start stacking up to make cloud towers. That’s when the rain’s coming.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  He checks the GPS on his phone. “We’re almost out of the—ah, crap. Phone died. Let me see yours.”

  I dig out my phone, but the battery’s dead too. Crap. I can’t text my mom. Surely she’ll understand and chalk it up to no cell service.

  He stares at the black screen for a long moment before handing it back. “Doesn’t matter. I know where we are. We’ll be out of the canyon in a half hour or less. Are you okay to keep walking?”

  “If it means not getting wet, then hell yeah. Let’s march.”

  We walk briskly for several minutes, but the winds are really whipping through the canyon now. Enough to blow my hair in my face. Lennon keeps looking up. I think it’s getting darker. I’m sort of wishing I had asked him for more information about the storm. This isn’t like me at all, but I’d been concentrating on the knowledge that we needed to get through the canyon without being eaten alive by mosquitoes. I didn’t think about what would happen after. And this storm isn’t going to give us a pass for winning. Like: You guys made it through? Great job! I won’t rain on you.

  What do we do when it rains?

  “Am I good, or am I freaking fantastic?” he says, several paces ahead of me.

  When I catch up to him, cresting a hill, I see what he’s seeing.

  A shady forest filled with giant trees.

  23

  * * *

  The canyon’s arms open up and deliver us straight into it, the river arrowing down the center.

  “Majestic Grove,” Lennon says, stopping to look up at the enormous trunks. “Giant sequoias. World’s largest trees. Many of these beauties are a thousand years old. The redwoods on the coast can get taller, but these here in the Sierras are bigger.”

  I’ve seen coastal redwoods around the observatory at home, but I’ve never seen an entire forest of giant trees. Some of them here are as big around as a car and they nearly block out the sky. And the canyon ferns we’ve been walking through have nothing on these. They create a pale green carpet on the forest floor, and their fronds are so large, it’s as if they’re in competition with the sequoias to see who can grow bigger.

  “It looks prehistoric,” I murmur.

  “Endor Forest scenes with the ewoks in Return of the Jedi were filmed in the Bay Area in a forest like this. So cool, right?”

  “It’s stunning,” I say as we enter the ancient forest, craning my neck up at the gargantuan trunks. The ground is spongy, and it smells strange here, like an outdoor library—musty. A good kind of musty. And it’s quiet. Which is odd, because the canyon was filled with the sounds of singing birds and the echo of the river off the rocky canyon walls. The water is still flowing here, but it’s a softer babble, absorbed by the great trees.

  I walk up to a sequoia and run my hand over soft, corrugated bark, marveling, and then stretch out my arms and try to hug it. “How many people would it take to reach all the way around?”

  “Too many.” Lennon stands near me and stretches his arms around the tree, too. We don’t even make it a quarter of the way around together.

  “I love this place,” I say, and mean it.

  “It’s my favorite part of the park,” he says, eyes sparkling. “My cathedral.”

  I understand why.

  He points to our left. “There’s a bigger trail that runs along the northern edge of the sequoias, several miles from here. No one comes down this way. It’s secluded. From man and beast. The trees block out the sunlight, so there’s less food for animals. Fewer insects for birds, so it’s quieter.”

  “No mosquitoes.”

  “Fewer mosquitoes,” he corrects.

  “I’ll take it. Any improvement is a good thing,” I say, looking around. “This is surreal. I wish we could stay here.”

  “We can,” he says. “This is where we’re camping.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Right now. We’re stopping early.”

  “Really?”

  “Truly. Reason one being that I love it here. I know it might sound weird, because it’s so dark in here, but it’s sort of my happy place. And when I first found it, one of the things I thought was that I wished you could be here to share it with me.”

  I look into his face and my heart melts.

  “Now you can,” he says, softer.

  Thunder booms in the distance.

  Lennon points upward. “And that right there is the second reason. That storm is going to be fierce, and we need to find a place to make camp. Let’s get a little farther away from the canyon and find a good spot. Hurry.”

  There’s not a trail here, so we have to pick our way around the trees and ferns as we follow the river and make our way deeper into the sequoias. The thunder’s getting louder, which scares me, but every time I find a clear spot big enough to accommodate our tents, Lennon glances up and shakes his head.

  “Why?” I finally say in frustration after the third rejection. “It’s close to the river, but not too close. It’s flat, it’s—”

  “There,” he says, pointing to another spot. It looks the same as this one, basically. Maybe a little more room. I’m tired of looking, so I follow him and am relieved to stop and dump my pack on the ground.

  He’s looking up into the canopy. “Yes, this should be okay. We’ll build the tents close to these two trees. They’re half the height of the others around us.” He’s already unzipping his backpack, fishing out his tent as lightning flashes above the trees. He stills, listening.

  Thunder booms in the distance.

  “Fifteen seconds,” he says. “Five seconds per mile. That storm is three miles away.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “These trees will offer protection, but they’re also tall, and tall attracts lightning. That’s why I wanted to build under shorter ones”—he gestures between the two trees flanking our tents—“so that the taller surrounding trees would absorb any strikes. This isn’t like a storm at home. People get hit by lightning out here and die.”

  “Everyone dies out here,” I complain. “It’s practically a tragedy.”

  His lips tilt upward. “I know, right?”

  “But—”

  “Build tent, talk later,” he says, unsheathing his tent pieces.

  I rush to get mine out, and by the time I do, he’s already got his tent erected. I start to lay out my floor next to his, as we’ve been doing, but he shakes his head. “Let’s build them door to door, facing each other.”

  I don’t ask why, but just trust that he has a plan while he checks something on my tent and measures out space, showing me where to start. Wind is whipping through the forest pretty fast, and the sky is so dark, it’s almost as if night’s fallen beneath the tree canopy. I get the tent in place and fit all my poles together, but we have the extra step of securing rainflies on top. It seems to take forever, and I’m trying to rush to stake my tent down before it blows away. Lennon finishes his and helps me erect the small vestibule awning that extends over my front door. He’s measured accurately, so apart from a tiny crack, it covers the space between the two tents, a tiny covered passageway.

  He hauls our packs into his tent, minus our sleeping gear. “I’ll get everything set up inside the big tent,” he tells me. “You fill up our water bottles. Mine’s almost empty, and we’ll need it for cooking. Don’t leave my line of sight, and hurry.”

  Thunder rumbles. I grab the water bottles and Lennon’s water filter, which is faster than mine. There’s a tiny path to the river that snakes between a pair of giant ferns. The water is running swiftly here, and though I could probably cross the r
iver in a dozen steps, it looks deep. I bend by the water, careful that I have decent footing, and begin pumping water through the filter.

  As the first Nalgene bottle fills, thunder rumbles. I mentally count the seconds and watch the trees. One, two, three, four, five—

  Lightning flashes.

  Five seconds. That strike was a mile away?

  “Hurry!” Lennon’s voice calls out from the campsite, making me jump.

  “I can’t make the water filter any faster,” I mumble to myself. Finally, the first bottle fills. I cap it and get the filter into the second one, then start pumping.

  I feel something on my head. Is that a raindrop? I slant my face upward. Definitely a raindrop. Two. Four. Twenty. It seems silly to be so concerned with collecting water when it’s about to fall all over us.

  Thunder booms so loud, it’s deafening. But almost immediately, the sky lights up. And just like that, the rain comes down. Hard. I hear Lennon calling my name, but I’m trying to concentrate. “Shit, shit, shit!” I say, pumping faster.

  But not fast enough.

  The entire forest lights up with the loudest bang I’ve ever heard.

  I lunge away from the river. The second bottle falls into the rapids, along with the pump filter. I’m disoriented for a moment, unable to hear anything. The bottle bobs and disappears under the foam. I start to run after it, but a stony hand grabs my arm.

  “Leave it!” Lennon shouts, dragging me away from the river.

  He grabs my hand, and I can tell by how hard he jerks me down the path through the ferns that he’s not fooling around. We’re in trouble.

  My heart hammers as I race after him in the rain, the green scent of sorrel and moss rising up from the soles of my shoes. And I smell something else, too: like Christmas on fire. The lightning. It singed the treetops.

  That scent terrifies me.

  I scramble across slick, springy ground, and our tents pop into view. Before we can make it there, lightning strikes again. For the first time in my life, I truly get the whole Zeus-throwing-bolts thing, because that’s what it looks like. As though an angry god is zapping Earth with a giant laser gun. It sounds like a bomb, and shakes the entire ground. Shrubs, these enormous trees, us—everything.

  I think I’m going to wet my pants in fear.

  My mind has flipped off. I want to cry, but I’m too scared. I’m nothing but blind terror and am wholeheartedly convinced I’m going to die.

  All these giant trees, and yet there’s nothing here to protect us. No shelter. No door to close and hide behind. No car in which to outrun the storm. And it makes me feel small and helpless.

  Right before we make it to the tents, Lennon pulls me down on the ground and crouches over me.

  Boom!

  My world goes white.

  I’m squatting in something that’s neither dirt nor mud, soaked to the bone, and the rain is driving down on us while burning wood fills my nostrils. It feels as if it will never end. Just kill us, I think. Go on, get it over with.

  Lennon’s muscles are steel when the next strike comes. But I feel him jump, too. It’s as if we’re in the middle of a war zone. Seconds later, another strike hits.

  But.

  This one isn’t as loud. Or as close. The thunder and lightning are separating again. We wait—for seconds or minutes, I don’t even know. But at some point, the world doesn’t feel like it’s falling apart around us, and Lennon’s body loosens.

  Is it over? I still hear thunder in the distance.

  “We’re all right,” Lennon’s voice is saying in my ear. “Told you it was a big storm, didn’t I? And listen to that. It’s moving more slowly now. I’m still counting thunder. Slow means a lot of rain, but we’re out of the lighting zone for now. Come on, let’s get up.”

  He pulls me to my feet, and I can’t see. “My glasses,” I say.

  Lennon looks around. “You lost them somewhere.”

  “I lost the water bottles, too.”

  “One’s on the riverbank. We’ll get it later. And we have another filter. Worse comes to worst, we’ll boil water.”

  And I can live without glasses for a couple of days. I’m too numb to worry.

  He lifts up my chin. “It’s all good. You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding.

  “That was intense.”

  “That was . . .” I laugh. I can’t help it. I’m not sure if it’s nervous laughter or just a release, but I’m pushing wet hair out of my face and laughing. “We just nearly got blown out of our shoes. We almost died.”

  “No, Zorie, we just lived.” Lennon lifts up both arms and pumps victory fists, yowling. “We’re alive! We won!”

  He’s right. We did live. Survival is a beautiful thing. I laugh again and hold up my dirty hands, letting them fill with rain until the mud washes away. Adrenaline is still coursing through my veins, and I feel invincible.

  Lennon shoves dark hair out of his eyes. His clothes stick to him, clinging to his shape. Every sharp plane. Every muscle. It’s practically X-rated. Or maybe that’s exactly what it is, because I blink away rain and see his gaze roaming over me too. And there’s nothing polite about the way he’s looking at me.

  Maybe the storm broke something in both of our brains.

  I inhale sharply. He makes a low noise in the back of his throat.

  Our gazes lock.

  We both pounce on each other at the same time.

  He pulls me against him, one arm slung around my shoulders, his other hand cupping the back of my head. His rain-slick clothes are cold, but his mouth is hot on mine. He kisses me hard. It’s an impatient, greedy kiss. Ravenous. And when thunder rumbles in the distance, I jump a little, but I don’t let go.

  My back hits the smooth, wet bark of a sequoia, and he presses himself against the length of me. He’s taut and solid, a brick wall of lean muscle, lifting me up until my toes skim the tree’s bumpy roots. And when he pushes his hips against mine, I push back, feeling unmistakable hardness between us. A thrill zips through me.

  My legs wrap around his hips, and he’s holding me in place against the tree, pinning me as he warms my neck with kisses. I smell his hair and the scent of sequoia bark, and the rain is coming down so hard, my grip around his shoulders is slipping. I throw both arms around his neck and cling.

  “Tent,” he says into my ear. I’m not sure if it’s a question or a statement, but I’m telling him yes. And he tells me to hold on, but I think if I hold him any tighter, I’m going to break bones. My back leaves the tree, and he’s carrying me several steps. We slide in the mud, and when he sloppily sets me down in front of the tents, I’m clutching so hard, I nearly pull us both down. His head bashes into mine.

  “Oww!”

  We’re both laughing, and I feel a little delirious. “We’re drenched,” I say.

  He pushes wet curls away from my face. “Yeah.”

  “The sleeping gear’s going to get wet.”

  “Maybe we should just, I don’t know”—he shrugs slowly—“get out of these clothes before we go in.”

  My pulse pounds in my ears.

  Naked.

  Lennon.

  Me.

  Us.

  “That would be the practical thing to do,” I agree, trying to sound casual.

  But this is so not casual. And we both know it.

  We lunge for each other, and he’s stripping off my shirt. My arms are tangled, and he’s laughing, trying to peel away the wet fabric. It gives, and his arm flies back. My shirt hits the tent with a loud slap.

  Lennon pauses for a moment, looking me over, a slow smile lifting his cheeks. “Are we doing this?” He sounds dazed.

  I’m a little embarrassed, but not enough to stop. “Oh, we’re doing this.”

  Shoes and socks are dropped in the mud. And then I get his shirt off, and we’re both attacking each other’s jeans as if they’ll self-destruct if we don’t get them off fast enough. And oh, okay, wet boxer shorts are definitely pornographic. I CAN SE
E EVERYTHING, and I can’t stop looking—I don’t even care that I’m shivering in my bra and panties in the middle of the woods.

  “Wait, wait, wait.” I put a hand on his chest. My mouth moves faster than my brain. “You can’t get me pregnant,” I tell him firmly.

  Lennon’s face contorts as several expressions flash. “That’s something a guy never thinks he’s going to hear.”

  “I mean, I’m sure you could, which is the problem. I just didn’t plan for this. That’s what I meant.” Ugh, idiot, I think, suddenly self-conscious. I was thinking of what happened with Andre, and how stupid we were. And now I’m making assumptions, because we’re getting naked. Should I not be making assumptions? I’m completely rattled now.

  “Forget it,” I say.

  When he opens his mouth to respond, he pauses and then says, “Hold on.”

  He dives under the short canopy connecting the tents and unzips the door to his tent, disappearing. I don’t know what to do. I’m standing in the rain, half-naked and humiliated, and—

  Lennon emerges. He crawls under the canopy to the big tent, unzips the door, and throws our camp towels inside. Then he holds up a long line of shiny metallic condom packages to show me before tossing them inside the tent, too. “You may not have planned, but I did,” he says, smiling. “Boy Scout motto. Be prepared.”

  “Good God.” How many of those are there?

  “Call it hopeful thinking. I guess I didn’t learn anything after the hotel-room fiasco. And, you know, one good thing about Toys in the Attic is an endless supply of free condoms. Come here.”

  Heart racing, I duck beneath the canopy, taking his offered hand, and quickly crawl inside the double tent. It’s dim inside, and it smells strongly of nylon and rain. I’m acutely aware of how cramped the space is, and how long Lennon’s legs are. How much bare skin is on display, both his and mine. Those pornographic boxers—DO NOT LOOK.