by Sam Burns
When they went back into the cave, Devon took his one sharp branch and set it aside. Vera didn’t seem to notice, and the children didn’t ask, which was for the best.
They piled the wood into a neat-ish pile on top of some dry leaves Vera had managed to salvage before they’d gotten soggy in the snow. Devon pulled the lighter back out and started to worry. What if it didn’t work? What if the leaves were too wet, and a lighter was actually a pretty stupid tool for starting an actual camp fire, and—
No. Devon needed to stay calm. He knew that, and he knew even more that given his heritage, he controlled this. People always said if you believed you would fail then you would. In Devon’s case, that was literal. He could make himself fail by not believing.
The leaves were dry enough.
They would catch, and they would burn long enough to make sure the wood was burning too. The wood was going to last. It would last all night if it had to, because they were going to be fine. The worst of the storm would hold off until they were found. All four of them were going to live through this. Rowan Harbor had lost enough to that creature, and they wouldn’t lose any more.
The leaves burned. There was more smoke than he’d have liked, but Vera had enough foresight to keep the children back a little, so he was the only one coughing on it. Again, Lisa seemed terrified by Devon showing any kind of weakness, her eyes tearing up and lip quivering. Jayden wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her neck.
If they hadn’t been best friends before this, Devon suspected they were going to be. Shared trauma had a way of affecting people, and these two were going to be the only members of the kindergarten class who had been introduced to death firsthand.
There could only be one reason they hadn’t asked after Mrs. Anderson, after all. They already knew. They had seen it happen.
“I’m okay, guys,” he reassured them. “I’m just not very good at smoking.”
Lisa bit her lip. “Mommy says smoking is stupid.”
“Sounds like your mom’s a pretty smart lady.”
Jayden’s head popped up. “Mine too. My mommy’s smart.”
Oh dear. Had he insulted one kid’s mother by saying the other’s was smart? Why did it have to be kids? He sucked at dealing with kids. He opened his mouth to say something, but then he worried he’d just shove his foot in it, so he closed it again.
Vera, who had an arm around each child’s shoulders, was trembling. No, shaking. With laughter. Vera was laughing at him. He glared at her, but she didn’t even have the good manners to look chastened.
He turned back to the nascent fire. “Mine’s not,” he muttered.
Jayden gasped and stared at him. “Don’t you love your mommy?”
“Of course I do. She’s just not that smart.” Devon thought of his mother and realized he hadn’t called her in months. She probably hadn’t noticed, but still, it was time to call and tell her what was going on in his life. He had a feeling that as long as he was living in Rowan Harbor, he’d never see her. Which meant he’d never see her again. Inexplicably, the thought hurt. He looked up to see the children staring at him, so he shrugged. “You can love someone and know they’re not smart.”
“Like my baby brother,” Lisa agreed. “He can’t even write his name.”
Jayden’s gaze dulled and turned to the ground. “I’m not good at writing my name.”
“That’s not about being smart,” Vera assured them both. “It’s about learning. That’s why you go to school. You both have a lot of things left to learn.”
“How will we learn things?” Lisa asked, her eyes tearing up again. “Mrs.—”
Devon coughed again, loudly and deliberately. Lisa bolted out of Vera’s arms this time, and patted him on the back. “Will you be okay, Mr. Wade?”
Devon blinked. “Mr. Wade?”
“You’re gonna get married. But you’re still not a deputy, so you’ll just be Mr.”
Damn. No wonder people liked kids. They were freaking adorable. “Well, Wade’s his first name, so if I changed my name, I’d be Mr. Hunter. But I don’t think we’ll do that, so I’ll still be Mr. Murphy.”
“How will people know you’re married?” Lisa asked, hand on her chest, scandalized. He had a feeling it was a mimic of something someone in her life did.
“My mommy isn’t married,” Jayden announced. “She says I’m a miracle from science.”
Devon grinned. Okay, kids were kind of cool. He still didn’t want one, but he could hang out with them for a while.
“It’s on fire,” Lisa announced, sounding entranced. “Ooo, it’s warm.” She plopped down a few feet from the fire and held out her hands. Her little fingernails were almost blue, the fingers pale and bloodless.
The fire had indeed come to life, small but strong.
“Okay everybody, the fire’s nice and warm, but we need to be careful to stay far enough away that we don’t get burned.” He grabbed one of the sticks they hadn’t put on the fire yet and drew a line about a foot outside the flames, all the way around. “Only I’m allowed inside the line, and I’m only allowed so I can put more wood on the fire, okay?”
Everyone nodded seriously, even Vera.
Jayden’s stomach chose that moment to growl, and he clapped a hand over it. “Sorry.”
“I’m hungry too,” Lisa commiserated.
Pulling up the back of his coat, Devon reached into his pockets and pulled out granola bars. “You guys aren’t allergic to peanuts, are you? There are probably peanuts in here.” He was pretty sure kids were allergic to peanuts nowadays. He hadn’t been expecting it to be kids when he bought the damn things.
Both kids shook their heads and held out grabby hands, staring ravenously at the shiny wrappers.
“Okay, but if you are allergic, you’ll be sick, and we don’t have a doctor.”
“Only Jimmy is allergic to peanuts,” Lisa informed him. “And he’s weird. He eats broccoli at lunch.”
“Broccoli is good for you,” Vera pointed out.
“That’s why it’s gross.”
Devon decided not to point out that the granola bars were pretty healthy. He pulled one of the bottles of water out of his pocket and cracked it open. The walk, the running, and the stress of the day had dehydrated him. He wanted to drink the whole thing, but that wasn’t an option.
So he took one long drink, then passed it to Vera, along with a granola bar for her. “We could melt snow in the bottles when this is gone, but I feel like we should preserve this for as long as possible. Melted snow doesn’t seem like a hygienic option.”
Vera nodded as she took the bottle. She didn’t eat the bar but tucked it into a pocket. He suspected that she was going to save it and give it to one of the children if they ran out of food. He couldn’t question the choice, since he wasn’t eating one yet either.
After taking her own drink, Vera recapped the bottle and set it down. “You can have some water once you’re done eating, but you have to share it, okay?” The kids nodded, and Vera looked back up at him. “You said bottles.”
He held up his index finger. “One more.” A look at the mouth of the cave told him it was dark outside. It had been nearly five when he’d texted Wade, so even without the clouds, it would be dark. He could still make out the shape of the troll, lurking outside.
The sight made him shudder, and Lisa reached out and patted his hand. “Maybe you should put more wood on the fire, Mr. Murphy.”
She thought he was shivering. He inclined his head to her. “I think I might do that in just a few minutes.”
“I think maybe it’s story time,” Vera announced. “That’s what people do when they’re camping, right? Tell stories around a fire?”
Devon almost said something about ghost stories, but that was the last thing they needed. He was sure Vera knew what she was doing. Kids were her family, and she would never make them unhappy on purpose. “Sounds good,” he agreed. “Do you have a story in mind?”
“Since you ask, Mr. Wade,
I do.”
She proceeded to tell them a rousing and sanitized version of Little Red Riding Hood where the wolf was a werewolf who was secretly in love with Red and followed her through the forest protecting her, mostly from herself because she was so clumsy. It sounded familiar, but he opted to accept it with as much dignity as possible.
By the time she got to the big wedding scene where all of their friends came—even her sick granny, who had miraculously recovered—the kids were well and truly asleep. They were clinging to each other, and Devon wondered how long it would be before they were willing to be apart.
Vera pulled away from them, unzipped her coat, and laid it over them.
He frowned at that, but when he opened his mouth to protest, she waved him off. “I don’t get cold. I wear it for show, so I don’t get asked if I’m cold forty times a day.”
Devon considered for a second before agreeing, “Akiyama does that too, I think. Pretty sure he doesn’t get cold, but he wears that uniform coat everywhere.”
She chuckled. “Like most handsome young men, Deputy Akiyama knows what makes him look good.”
“Fair enough.” Devon sighed, and motioned to the sleeping kids. “Do you think they’re going to be okay?”
“Kids are stronger than people give them credit for. As long as they survive something, most of them can get through it emotionally if they have good parents. These two do, so I’m not worried.” She turned and looked toward the mouth of the cave. “Can you still see it?”
He glanced out, and then quickly back. “Yeah. How did you know what it was?”
“They’re from my part of the world. Well, farther north. People from the city always dismissed them as the product of ignorant rural folk getting bored or drunk and making up stories.” She grabbed the water bottle and took another sip from it. It was mostly empty, but with the kids asleep, hopefully that one would last the night.
“Your part of the world, huh? I take it Vera Owens isn’t the name your parents gave you?”
She was amused by the suggestion, but didn’t laugh, just agreed. “Definitely not. But it’s hard to keep the same name when you’ve lived longer than anyone should.”
He couldn’t question that. He hadn’t yet lived through it, and he supposed that living in Rowan Harbor, he’d have help if it ever came up. He glanced back out at the troll. “It’s probably a silly thing for me to focus on, but do they not make noise at all?”
She shook her head and then shuddered. “Silent. They rarely make any kind of noise. This one’s been unusually loud, knocking things over and crashing around. I think it’s injured, and it’s almost certainly lost. They’re territorial, and they don’t move around.”
“That’s . . . odd.” It made no sense at all, in fact, but Devon didn’t need to tell Vera that.
“It is.” She grabbed a stick and poked the fire with it, stoking the flames and then tossing the new branch in, then followed it up with another one. “Sorry, I’m breaking your rule.”
“Careful, or you’ll have to take a time out.”
The scene felt strangely comfortable, given that they were trapped in a cave, a monster lurking outside, waiting for them. Devon pulled out his phone and checked. Still no signal, and it was after six. He had a feeling that the night was going to crawl by.
He stood and went to the mouth of the cave. The snow was a few inches thick, but given the severity of the storm, he’d been expecting worse by that point. The snow made it seem brighter outside than it had been in the afternoon—what little light broke through the clouds reflected off it at every angle.
Looking up at the clouds, he repeated his earlier thoughts. Please. We need you to hold off a little longer. Just until the kids are safe. Then cover us with as much snow as you want.
Finished with the fire, Vera came up behind him. “I know it’s early, but you should try to get some sleep. You’re almost as exhausted as they were, and who knows how long we’re going to have.”
“I suppose you don’t sleep, either?”
“I do, but I think you should go first. I can keep the fire going with the wood we have here, but when it runs low, you’re the one with the magic. You might be able to keep it going longer than I can.”
That was an excellent point. He still didn’t know if he could do that, but he had a better chance than someone who didn’t have reality-warping powers. Even if he couldn’t make the wood burn longer, he might be able to dry out some live branches. He mentally apologized to the shrubs on the assumption that he was going to have to remove living branches.
He could imagine Oak telling him that the forest gladly gave of itself to preserve life, or that the purpose of the rowan was to protect, and he wished they were there. He could use their grounding presence.
He lay down on the dirt next to the kids, put his hands under his head, and tried to sleep.
He perched in a tree, looking down at the elementary school parking lot. There were two groups of people gathered. One was made up of citizens Devon knew at least vaguely, all bundled up against the snow. Cassidy was there, pouring cups of something steamy from an insulated container and then handing them to Isla, who passed them out. It was dark and snowy and freezing, and they looked demoralized.
They had been working tirelessly for hours to find the missing people, but the later it got, the less likely they would find them. They were at a point where if they sent anyone back out into the woods, they risked losing even more lives than those that might already be gone. They kept casting concerned glances in the direction of the second group of people, halfway across the lot.
Wade was standing there with Akiyama, Fletcher, and the mayor. He looked agitated, and he was gesticulating with his hands as he spoke—it was wildly out of character. Fletcher looked worried, and Akiyama as placid as ever, but it was clear that the mayor was trying to calm Wade with little success.
Devon called for him, but he was dreaming, so all that came out was the shriek of a bird. It wasn’t a blackbird tonight, but something bigger and louder. A bird of prey, perhaps. Wade looked up at him, and he willed his boyfriend to understand him. Listen.
The problem was that he didn’t know what to say, even if Wade was listening.
Wade broke away from the group and walked toward him. They had discussed the dreams and the bird before. Wade said something, not to the people following him, but to Devon, to the bird. He couldn’t make out the words, but he saw Wade’s lips move, and he knew that Wade was trying to hear him.
He still wasn’t sure how to use that attention, but the bird worked on instinct. It turned toward the forest, where he and Vera had gone in, and launched itself into the air, despite the difficulty of flying in the snow. It needed to show Wade where to go.
He heard a shout behind him, and his eyes opened to the cave ceiling.
“Dammit,” he muttered, kids or not. They were probably still asleep, anyway.
There was no way to know if anything he’d been trying to communicate had gotten through, but Wade had tried to listen. That was Wade. His Wade. Always there to listen and do everything in his power to help, whether he understood or not. Gods, he wanted Wade so much he could almost feel the other man in his arms.
He’d spent the last twenty-four hours contemplating running away from that. He’d thought that Wade was an extra responsibility added to his new, rather long list of them. But Wade wasn’t a burden. He was a partner. He was there to help when Devon struggled. What kind of willfully ignorant person threw that away?
A whimper beside him got his attention. Lisa had pulled away from Jayden in her sleep and squirmed her way out from under Vera’s coat. She seemed to be having a nightmare. “M’sorry,” she mumbled.
“Lisa,” he whispered, petting her hair. “Wake up for a second, kiddo.”
Her eyes snapped open, wide and dilated, her face full of fear.
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me. Mr. Wade, remember?”
She sniffled, threw her arms around his neck, and h
eld on so tight he was afraid she might choke him. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wade. It’s all my fault. I was bad, and it’s all my fault.”
Sitting up, he pulled her into his lap and hugged her tight. “Whoa, whoa, let’s slow down a little. Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“I spilled the red paint in art, and everyone was mad at me, so I ran away.” She had started to move away to speak, but obviously the memory still stung, and she put her head on his shoulder, refusing to look him in the eye. “I made Jayden and Mrs. Anderson look for me, and it’s my fault the monster came.”
Oh no. The poor kid. “Hey now,” he said, running his hand through her hair, soothing her. “It is not your fault. And it wasn’t your fault that you spilled that paint, either.”
“It is,” she insisted. “I’m a klutz. Everyone says.”
“Me too.”
She pulled back, shocked. “Nuh uh.”
“Uh huh. I am clumsy. That’s how I hurt my ankle. I’m always slipping and falling down and knocking things over.” He squeezed her lightly, not quite a hug because he didn’t want to break eye contact. “It’s normal. It just happens sometimes. My mom always said I never quite grew into my long arms and legs.”
“Was she right?”
“I guess so.”
“So maybe she is smart.”
He laughed. “Maybe. She knows some things, that’s for sure. Everybody knows some things.”
“Even my little brother?” Her little face screwed up in a dubious expression, eyebrows drawn together and nose scrunched up. “He only eats and sleeps and poops.”
“That’s what all babies do,” he told her with a chuckle. “It’s what you did when you were a baby. Me too.”
“You weren’t a baby, silly. You’re a grown-up.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding. “Shows what I know. But I promise you, Lisa, nothing that happened today was your fault.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck again and leaned in, whispering. “The monster killed Mrs. Anderson.”
“I know, kiddo. I know. That’s still not your fault. You didn’t do it, and you never would have hurt Mrs. Anderson. I know that, and so does everyone else.”