13. The Bobcat

Micah woke to red hair tickling his cheek as Andrew shifted and burrowed his face into the flannel sleeping bag with a sigh. His eyes adjusted sluggishly to the unsaturated light easing away from the velvety night as he stroked the frizzy halo of Andrew's hair. He wanted to roam further, underneath the sleeping bag which obscured their nudity—full of potential, but not the time.

Snaking his hands out of the bag, Micah rolled onto his back with a sigh. The sky was unblemished by clouds, powdery blue with a glow of gold rising from the horizon. The sun was just beginning to rise; it couldn't be later than five in the morning, based on how low the light shafted through the slender trunks of aspen, fir, and pine, turning them gold as pillars in a temple. Rearing in the southern sky was a mountain range of mostly velvety greens save for the highest snow-dusted peaks. White asters and the biggest lupine he'd ever seen dotted the underbrush like morning stars. A doe, muscular and silky, blinked at him when he climbed to his feet.

Micah smiled at her, stretching mightily, digging his bare toes into the grass beside the campfire embers. Then as a chill snaked up his spine, he hugged his elbows and hurried past the Saturn. A woodpecker yelled at him in a fir tree over his head, furiously tapping at the trunk of the tree. He found an unassuming spot a yard or two away from the Saturn and took care of himself. When he was about to go back to the clearing, he paused. His shoulders tingled strangely. Micah rubbed his goosebumped arms as his gaze roamed to identify what caused the feeling.

Then he gasped, "No way!"

Out of the leafy underbrush cloaking Micah's ankles rose a cluster of indigo five-petaled nightshade, neon yellow stamen trembling slightly like an eye blinking up at him. He crouched to study the alien flower with a slight shake of his head and a grin tugging at his lips.

"Serendipitous," he murmured.

When he looked up, a large pair of amber eyes round as full moons blinked at him. Micah yelped and lost his balance, toppling onto his hip and elbow, taking a mouthful of leaves on his way down. He spat them out as quietly as he could, freezing, his heart beating so fast it made his head spin.

A cat the size of a Labrador crept silently through the bushes toward him, its tawny, spotted fur rippling over muscled shoulders. Black tips twitched on its ears as its pink lips peeled back to issue a small chirp.

"Bobcat!" Micah whispered as he saw its stubby striped tail. "I'm locking eyes with a bobcat. Uh. Hey, pretty baby." He swallowed a hysterical giggle.

Micah held his breath as the bobcat stretched out and sniffed his chin, then his mouth. Then the bobcat butted its silky forehead against his. They remained face to face for a moment and Micah felt, rather than heard, the cat's deep rumbling purr.

When the cat moved back, Micah remained with his head bowed. Its sandpaper tongue kissed his forehead, coarse enough to feel like rugburn. The contact sparked a vision: twining green vines, a birchwood tree, an ice wall sprouting ivy. Feelings of courage and purpose. It took his breath away and he gasped, lifting his head. The bobcat blinked its amber eyes and kneaded the earth with knife-sharp claws.

Movement caught his eye and he looked to his left, back toward the Saturn. Andrew crouched past a sprig of juniper in the clearing, a silent portrait of terror, his hands clamped over his mouth.

Crashing past Andrew, Fadil bounded into the bushes toward the bobcat, tail straight up and puffed like a pipe cleaner. The bobcat's wedge-shaped head swung towards Fadil. Its white jowls split to show all its fangs as it hissed at the housecat. Fadil froze, dropping down to his haunches, eyes turning round and black.

Satisfied, the bobcat looked back at Micah, meeting his eyes once more and blinking slowly. Then it twisted, turned away, and padded into the bushes past the nightshade. In a moment, it had vanished into the woods.

Andrew crashed into the undergrowth and said, "Alright! Okay! What the fuck?"

Shaking, Micah climbed to his feet in mute wonder. His knees buckled once and he bent over with his head down. Andrew caught him by the elbow and steadied him. Without letting Andrew go, Micah scooped Fadil into the crook of his arm. When they got back to the Saturn, Micah hiccupped and then collapsed against the back door, dropping Fadil into the open trunk, diaphragm spasming with manic laughter interspersed with thin gasps.

"That was so amazing!" Micah said. "I…I saw stuff when it licked me! Visions!"

"I thought it was gonna claw your face off!" said Andrew. "I almost peed myself. I…I…I think you just got blessed." Andrew shook Micah's elbow. "That wouldn't happen if you were just going to fail in the Redwoods! My mum would say that was a goddamn omen, and a good one."

"Okay, settle down," Micah laughed, but he was thinking the same thing.

Andrew turned in a circle and braced his hands on the roof of the Saturn. "Look at this place!" he cried. "This is—ooh, a lake. Come on, then." They rounded the car to get a better look southward.

Down a steep slope, the trees grew sparser, obscured as they were by a veil of mist. A small mirror-bright lake reflected the peaks of the mountains, which were outlined with golden light as if kintsugi stitched together the mountains and the sky. The surface was still as glass except for where a great blue heron stalked through the shallows, searching for fish with ancient golden eyes.

Clasping hands, they gingerly picked their way down to the lakeside, unclothed and barefoot and covered in goosebumps. The underbrush hindered their progress a few times, but Micah always found a smoother course and ways to avoid the worst of the thistles and sharp branches. Then the ground cleared and turned to heavy, dark soil, and then coarse sand at the edge of the lake. The heron eyed them skeptically, shuffling its wings before it resumed hunting.

They stepped into the water. Andrew swore, hugging himself, dancing back onto shore to catch his breath. He tried again, a few times, but he kept gasping as soon as the water reached his chest.

Micah splashed in and belly-flopped. He opened his eyes under the welcoming swirl; there were colorful pebbles underfoot, nothing of the silty algae in Minnesota lakes. Yellow and green fish darted away from them, hopefully into the beak of the hunting heron.

When Micah emerged, shivering, he slicked back his emerald hair with both hands and spat a mouthful of water with a lopsided grin. He grabbed Andrew's hand and pulled him into a silly teeth-chattering waltz up to their shoulders in the lake.

They looked up just as something flashed through the air. The blue heron squawked in anger and spread its wings, taking off in a flurry as someone cannonballed into the lake. The wave caught Andrew on the back of his head, dunking him underneath. Coughing and wiping his eyes when he surfaced, he spluttered, "What the hell?"

"It's Chami," Micah told him with a wan smile.

Near them, Chamomile cackled as she wiped her eyes and swiped a stray silver-white hair back into the pile of a braided crown on her head. "This w-w-water is ice cold!"

Andrew sniffed and asked, "Does she ever make less dramatic entrances?"

"No. No she does not."

She swam over to them, water beading off her round chin. "Well, well, well. I have a suspicion you two got closer overnight."

"Mind your business," warned Micah.

Andrew wanted to say he had similar suspicions about the absence of the female faeries, but he kept his mouth shut.

Straight-faced, Chamomile used both hands to slap Micah with an enormous splash. Spluttering, he shoved her away, but she snapped at his hand and almost got his finger.

Past her, on the shoreline, Ingrid stepped into the shallows, naked and covered in dirt and blood.

Startled, Andrew yelled, "Whoa! Are you hurt?"

Hands on her mahogany curls, Ingrid blinked at him. "What? No. Why?"

"Blood," he said.

Ingrid paused. "Oh. We hunted," she said.

Andrew blushed. "Duh."

Ingrid paddled into the depths of the water near them, but she kept her curls dry, tied on top of her head. Clusters of yellow buttercups and small violets dappled her hair. She splashed her face clean even as she sharply inhaled through her nostrils.

Chamomile exploded to the surface at their elbows with a battle cry, breasts bouncing, climbing Micah's shoulders till she sent them both beneath the water with a gurgle and a splash. Andrew opted not to interfere, drifting away and dropping to his knees so the water lapped at his chin. He'd adjusted, or gone numb enough, to the temperature of the lake so he realized how silky the water felt. As long as he ignored the sensation of tiny fish lips poking at his ankles.

As she pulled herself onto a protruding boulder, Ingrid sighed, "Those two might have been lovers, but they act like children together."

Andrew glanced at her like he was looking at a work of art—flawless alabaster skin, soft muscles, and small breasts. She rolled her slender shoulders and looked at him with an eyebrow raised, her lips curling down in a frown.

"Sorry," he told her, combing his fingers through his heavy wet hair. "I don't suppose you're the Venere di Milo."

"I'm not that old."

"Just thought I'd ask."

"I'm not interested in a sexual relationship with you," she said, faintly apologetic.

Andrew snorted. "Likewise, madame. Fear does not arouse me, and neither do females." He paused. "I just like art."

Ingrid said nothing. The look on her face hadn't changed. She still seemed a bit penitent. Or maybe Andrew just hoped she did. Not because she didn't want to fuck him, obviously. But because she was forced to spend time around him, to consider him more than just her prey now that he was involved with Micah.

Micah and Chamomile had reached the other side of the lake and were standing on the shore skipping rocks. Chamomile's rocks bounced across the water a dozen times, each time disappearing with a plunk within an arm's reach of Andrew, and he was pretty sure that was on purpose.

He looked back at Ingrid. "I think you need a hobby."

She glared down at him, hugging her knees. "What do you know?"

"You put a lot of work and creativity into driving me insane," he told her.

"Hm, yes, and yet it seems to have failed," she said with a regretful shake of her head.

"How do you know? Maybe I just internalize everything. Don't be too hard on yourself. There's lots of different kinds of crazy."

"I think you're making fun of me."

"That would be ballsy of me," he said, looking away with his lips quirked.

"If that means foolish, then yes." Andrew glanced back up at her to see her eyes dancing. "Just like coming on this trip."

Ignoring that, he said, "Okay, but you know how often I was armed. Couldn't you have justified my training and fought me instead of doing all that haunting and stalking? Like, yeah, sure, I'm glad you weren't hurting me, but your methods were so much more fucked up."

"I didn't care to fight you. That wasn't really the point."

"Oh, I'm sorry, then what exactly was?" Frustration colored his tone, but at this point, he didn't think that expressing himself would get him hurt.

"Micah would say I was being ‘petty.'"

Andrew snorted. It was ridiculous, but it did explain things. "Joke's on you, I liked when you turned my tea into flowers. I pressed them in a textbook."

Ingrid looked bewildered, blinking several times. "You're an odd man."

"Yes, thank you, I'm aware." Then he tilted his head and asked, "Why didn't you just draw blood for blood?"

Her eyes shined like stained glass lit from within. "I would have then and there, but it surprised me when you immediately threw a medical kit at me. I was intrigued."

"Intrigued enough to put all that effort into stalking me for the next five years."

"Correct."

"So sweet."

Ingrid hesitated, scrutinizing his face. "Oh. That's sarcasm."

"I wouldn't dare."

Ingrid made a very undignified noise and looked away, but the corners of her lips curled in a faint smirk as she let the morning sunlight dry the beads of water on her skin. She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the rising sun. Behind her, the last of the mists clinging to the foot of the mountains began to dissolve.

Across the lake, Micah threw Chamomile in and then dove in after her with a whoop.

"But how did I manage to do it?" he asked. "How did I sneak up on you? You're…you."

She sighed, her cheeks turning slightly pink. "You showed up the day that Micah had last been in the bluffs. We argued. I was angry. And…sad." She pieced apart two curls with her nails and tucked them behind her long ear. "I got very intoxicated and wandered off for a nap."

Andrew started to laugh and then caught himself, clamping his hand over his mouth.

Narrowing her eyes, she stared at him in silence while he collected himself.

"So our encounter is what I like to call a natural consequence," said Andrew with a snort.

"Hm," she grunted, and then cast her gaze away from him, watching Chamomile climb onto Micah's shoulders with a war cry.

Andrew said after a bit, "Micah met a bobcat."

Ingrid's red lips rounded in surprise.

"He was taking a piss one second and then the next second I look, it just came right up to him—"

She stared up at the mountains in the distance, the smooth skin between her thin brows crinkling just slightly.

"Why don't you look surprised?"

She shifted her garnet-hued gaze toward him and smiled. "Come with me."

"Are you going to do something bad to me?"

"I swore I wouldn't. That's binding."

He paused. "Do you still want to?"

"Not particularly," she said with a shrug. "Do you want to hurt me?"

"Not particularly," he echoed with a shrug.

"Okay, then move."

Andrew followed the tall, naked faerie from the lake as if he was an unwitting hunter in a fairytale. He climbed back up the hill and into the trees. Going much faster than him, Ingrid vanished between two spruce and a sunbeam. Andrew took his time, listening to the birdsongs, soaking in the forest, sinking his toes into a patch of velvety moss and touching a puff of pollen in a marigold. A tiger butterfly flitted by as if on strings.

"Little fox," called Ingrid.

"I don't answer to that," he called back.

"I thought you lost your way," Ingrid answered, leaning against the Saturn, eyes on him as he approached.

"I was appreciating the scenery."

Chamomile yelled again back at the lake, followed by Micah's stern rebuke and a series of splashes.

Ingrid reached to the roof of the Saturn and carefully picked up a small skull in her long fingers. "I found this last night in the forest," she said, soft, reverent. She brushed off a lingering piece of soil. The mango-sized head was yellowed with age and spiderweb cracks ran from the large eye sockets up over the dome of its forehead. It had a mouthful of fangs intact except for one of the front incisors.

Andrew gasped.

"It's a bobcat. We found it while foraging, and I felt inclined to bring it back with me. Now I see why." Placing the skull in her spot in the backseat, she straightened and stared at it for a moment with her hands on her hips. Then she took a deep breath and shook her head, rounding the back of the Saturn to the trunk. She pulled out a plain black dress that went midway down her thighs and shrugged into it, and then pushed a few stray curls behind her pointed ears.

In the trunk, fresh-looking animal hide was neatly folded near the back of the compartment. He shuddered, but he was slightly impressed by what Ingrid and Chamomile seemingly accomplished just overnight. It didn't seem likely that the wildlife were altogether expecting to be hunted by Fae.

He dug his own change of clothes and then checked both his wrists. "Damn," he muttered.

Ingrid raised a brow.

"I lost my hair tie last night. In, uh…some activity."

Unruffled, she nodded, and then reached into the backseat. She emerged with a short strand of glittering black string that she tied off and handed to him.

"I feel like this is enchanted," he said.

"Maybe."

"Is it a good enchantment?"

"Yes."

Then she turned as Micah dashed back into the clearing, Chamomile in hot pursuit, with their peals of laughter ringing in the pure mountain air. They were cherubic in their nudity and joy.

Chamomile shrugged into a lemon-yellow cropped camisole and a flowing white skirt. Her eyes were alight and she pinched a handful of Micah's rear. Andrew shooed her away and she danced off to greet the cats where they lounged in the sun on the sleeping bags. She sprawled beside them with a contented sigh. Ingrid snuck up on her and then gave the sleeping bag a fierce push so it rolled up around Chamomile like a burrito. The smaller faerie squawked and the cats fled. Andrew laughed in surprise.

As he and Micah dressed in clean jeans and shirts, Micah gave him a sidelong look and said quietly, "What were you two talking about, hm?"

Andrew thought for a moment, watching the females roll up the sleeping bags and shepherd the cats back to the Saturn. "Everything," he finally said.

As the sun spilled golden light over the mountains and shafted through the trees, the Saturn rumbled back onto the interstate with Micah behind the wheel.

Grinning, Andrew rolled his eyes and set his phone on the dash.

"Micah," said Chamomile, "get me fast food."

"No."

Chamomile kicked the back of his seat for emphasis as she repeated, "Fast! Food!"

With a glance over his shoulder at Chamomile, Andrew patted Micah's knee and said gently, "Breakfast is probably a good idea. However—" He glanced back at the goblin. "—Now seems as good a time as any to note how disappointed I am by how decidedly un-soothing you are compared to your namesake."

Chamomile cackled. When Micah took them into a drive-thru, Chamomile dropped a slab of bark onto Micah's shoulder, winking at Andrew when he cast her a curious look. The unsuspecting cashier didn't even question it, accepting the bark as tender for their abundance of greasy foods and cheap caffeine.

With a mouthful of a muffin and sausage sandwich, Chamomile held out a hash brown in paper to Ingrid and said, "Try."

"Absolutely not." Ingrid curled a lip.

Sipping from an iced coffee, Micah said, "Aw, c'mon, Red. Live a little."

Andrew shook his head. "Pressuring people to eat junk food. Who even are you?"

Micah grinned at him around his straw.

Ingrid wrinkled her nose, took the hash brown between her thumb and forefinger, and took the tiniest bite. Then she stuck out her tongue and let it fall back off. "Ugh. No thank you." She wiped her fingers on the back of Andrew's seat, fortunately when he wasn't looking. Then she leaned over and resumed ignoring them all, intent on what she was working on.

Andrew twisted in his seat and watched her in silence for several minutes. She either didn't notice him, or didn't care.

Micah glanced at Andrew, and then back at Ingrid. "A new project. What is it? I love watching you work." He looked over at Andrew. "She makes all her own jewelry. I think she uses art to avoid the violence." He grinned when he caught her scowl at him.

"This is for you," she said.

"Ooh!" Micah exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. "Really?"

"You're putting the bobcat skull in that?" Andrew asked. "That's amazing."

On Ingrid's lap she held the bobcat skull and a pair of small antlers she was stringing together with small bones to make a circlet. She had a pouch bursting with flower blossoms beside her, which overpowered the smell of fast-food and made the car smell like a garden. She was pinching a golden crystal between her fingers and sliding it into the eye socket of the skull.

"You found a bobcat skull? What the hell? Did you know a bobcat found me this morning?"

Nodding, Andrew said, "I told her. It seems like some kind of synchronous spiritual experience for you two."

"Yes," agreed Ingrid. "It's a message. Nature has chosen your side." She used her long pinky finger and fished around to move the crystal in the eye socket, to macabre effect. She had a little pouch with what looked like more tools including the thread she'd used for his hair tie, and tiny bones and glinting crystals. "The Redwood Queen doesn't get to decide anymore whether or not you can wear a crown. You're not the same as the boy you were twenty years ago."

Micah looked over his shoulder at his sister for a long moment. Softly, he told her, "You're not the same either."

When Arwen climbed from the backseat and onto Andrew's chest, he propped his knees against the glove compartment, draped his flannel over himself and his cat, and fell deeply asleep. The soft flow of the air conditioner kept Andrew's loose red hair floating like he was underwater, and occasionally he'd reach up and slap his cheek as if the tickling got into his dreams. Soft orange stubble grew on his sharp jaw. It was white around the corners of his lips, but everywhere else across his cheeks was still fiery orange.

"He's very Fae-like," said Chamomile, leaning over the seat and inspecting Andrew. Ingrid gave Chamomile a sharp look.

"Oh, I've noticed," said Micah with a grin. "You guys will help me get out of a speeding ticket if we get pulled over, right?"

"Obviously," sniffed Chamomile.

"Yes," said Ingrid. "Would you like me to kill them?"

"No thanks, but it's sweet of you to offer." Micah met Ingrid's gaze in the rearview mirror, a sparkle in his eye.

The terrain changed from rocky and green to gray skies and emerald hills. It started to drizzle on them, and the sound put both Chamomile and Ingrid to sleep in the backseat.

Micah fixed the image of Julian's face in his mind. If he were to guess what was happening in the Redwoods, he assumed Julian was intoxicated on Fae-spelled foods. He didn't know what was happening or what happened in the kitchen before he disappeared—he was just somewhere else, lost in a lie. But if Micah were to entertain his deepest fears, it was that his mother was tormenting his father. Torturing him, humiliating him. And…

And…

He'd kill his mother if he had to.

Micah shook his head slightly. The thought was almost involuntary, startling. Foreign to his pacifist approach to relationships. Hardly human.

He sighed, glancing in the rearview mirror at Ingrid and Chamomile. He refused to tell them—they'd just say they told him so.