Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

"Almost the last one," Everly says sweetly before she jabs the shot in my arm.

I grit my teeth together. "Almost? I thought this was the last? It's been two weeks."

"We'll do another one next week," she says, removing the needle. "Just to be safe." She places the circular adhesive on my arm and tells me to apply pressure, which I do.

"But the wolf still didn't break the skin."

"Just to be safe," she repeats, putting the needle away and snapping off her gloves. She folds her arms and stares at me, head tilted, long blonde hair hanging like a curtain of wheat. "How are you?"

Just peachy. Ever since I learned you think I'm a moron.

Though it was a couple days ago that I overheard her talking to Kincaid, her words still sting.

"Fine," I say.

She smiles thinly. "Good. Good to hear. I hope you've been thinking about what I told you. About wanting to prove yourself. Have you given it any more thought?"

"Not yet," I admit. "I'm looking for inspiration."

"Inspiration is all around us, Syd," she says. "The forest here…there are cedars that are five hundred years old, Sitka spruce that are close to a thousand. All those years, all that history, all those ghosts."

I look at her sharply. "Ghosts?"

"You think this place doesn't have ghosts? It's built on ghosts. On the indigenous who have lived here for thousands of years. On the trees that have fallen. On the animals whose bones sink into the soil. All these ghosts connected and living underneath our feet through networks of mycelia." Her eyes spark. "History stays alive here. I know you feel it. We all do."

"Maybe I'll make my study on ghosts, then," I manage to say, the hair at the back of my neck prickling.

She grins, her smile too wide. "I hope you do."

The rest of my day was thankfully uneventful. The rain hadn't stopped since yesterday and continued through dinner, leaving everyone in a soggy mood. My arm was super sore from the shot, and I cursed Everly for making me have another one next week, but perhaps they know something about rabies that I don't.

I didn't have class with Kincaid, and I hadn't seen him anywhere, which probably means he's avoiding me yet again. First, he kept his distance after the boat breakfast; now, he's doing the same after our argument in his office.

Which I still feel stupid about. Every time I think about what I said, I feel a rush of shame in my chest. What was I thinking, being so bold and brazen?

But you saw that look on his face , I remind myself. He wanted you to tell him the details of your dreams.

Still, the rejection has made its way into my bloodstream, clouding everything I do. It's hard to shake, hard to forget.

I'm standing in my bathroom, about to take off my makeup, when suddenly, there's a loud knock at my door.

My breath hitches in my throat.

It's ten at night.

Cautiously, I poke my head out of the bathroom to see a shadow on the other side of the door, the knob turning, rattling.

Fuck no.

"Sydney!" a voice yells. "Get up! The ocean is sparkling!"

"We also have wine!" adds Munawar.

I exhale with relief and head over to the door, opening to see Lauren, Munawar, and Rav with boxes of wine in hand.

"Get your shoes and your coat," Lauren says quickly. "The phosphorescence is going off tonight!"

"And Nick just got back from the Port Alice run, so we have provisions," Munawar says, lifting up the box of wine and attempting to pour it into his mouth. It explains the ruby stains on his Amateur Mycologist with Questionable Morels sweatshirt.

"Save some for the rest of us," Rav says, smacking him on the back, which only makes him spill more wine on his shirt.

"Okay, just wait for me, please," I tell them. I'm remembering Amani knocking on my door and taking off, and I'm afraid that if they go without me, I'm going to end up in a snowy field again.

They hang out in the doorway while I slip on my sneakers and hoodie.

We then leave my room, and I lock the door behind me before we clamor down the steps. In the common room, a group is cracking open beer cans by the fire, and Munawar yells at them to come join the show.

With that group now joining ours, we head out into the night. Twilight still stretches across the horizon, but the darkness is coming quickly, the stars appearing in the clearing sky as the rain clouds move to the north. The group is laughing, yelping, drinking, and for the first time since I've been here, I feel like I'm part of the gang.

"Have any wine to spare?" I ask Lauren as we pile down the ramp, our footsteps on the metal grid echoing across the inlet, shaking the dock at the bottom.

"I thought you would never ask," she says, pulling out one of the disposable paper cups from the common room's water cooler. Once we're level on the dock, we stop, and she makes me hold the cup while she pours red wine from the box, and then we continue on our way to the end, where there are no boats tied.

On the way, we pass by Kincaid's boat. From the looks of it, he's not home. Unless he's sleeping. All the lights are off.

"Is this wise to be partying beside the professor?" Munawar asks.

"We're in our fucking twenties, Munawar," Justin says, his words slurring slightly. "Nick is the one who got us the booze. We're allowed to do what we want."

Then Justin grabs Natasha's arm and pulls her close to him, and they start wildly making out.

Lauren snorts. "Geez. We get it, you like each other."

We all walk around the couple until we reach the end of the dock. Lauren drops to her knees and then leans over the side. The water is black, reflecting the sky, though if you look close enough, it does seem to be sparkling here and there. Could be the stars though.

Then Lauren dips her hand in, and the water comes to life, glowing a sparkling green and blue.

"Whoa!" a few people say in unison, and suddenly, we're all sitting by the edge of the dock. I get down on my side and reach down, my fingertips trailing over the water. It's freezing cold, but that doesn't matter when you're able to make light streaks by moving your fingers around.

"Magic," I say to myself, marveling at it. We have bioluminescence at home, but not that frequently, and it's just never that dark out. But here, there are no other lights aside from the dim ones on the dock and at the lodge, zero light pollution in the night sky when the nearest town is a hundred miles away.

Munawar and Rav decide to go to the beach to get some stones to skip, so I get comfortable sitting on the dock next to Lauren. Justin and Natasha have climbed into a fishing boat, and one can only imagine what's happening there. Everyone else is drinking and splashing the water around until it sparkles.

I take a sip of my wine. It's cheap, but it tastes good after not having any for a month.

"You going to let your hair down tonight?" Lauren asks, pouring herself another cup. "Relax a little?"

"Maybe," I say.

She touches her cup against mine. "Alright, well, here is to that maybe. Don't you dare go to sleep before the night is over."

"No promises," I say, downing the contents and handing it to Lauren.

"Off to a good start," she says, filling it back up.

"I hope so," I say as I take it from her. I'm already feeling a little fuzzy-headed, but it also feels like a weight has lifted off my shoulders. I need to keep myself in check though. I don't need to be drunk and hollering gibberish while pounding on Kincaid's boat.

"How have you been?" I squint at her. "I mean, really."

"Fine," she says, though her voice sounds clipped. She looks around, and I have a feeling she's looking for Rav. "It's been good."

I watch her closely. She seems a little thinner than she was, hollows under her cheekbones, and in the darkness, the shadows under her eyes deepen. I feel bad that this is the first time I'm noticing. As usual, I've been too wrapped up in my own brain, in my own worries. "Are you sure?"

She drinks her wine and nods. "Yeah. I mean, you know. I don't think it's a secret that I have a thing for Rav."

"And he has a thing for you. I've at least noticed that," I say. "So? How is that going?"

"Well, nowhere because neither of us has made a move. God, I feel like I'm in high school again." She sighs and looks off into the dark inlet.

"That's not a bad thing," I say. "You have all summer to explore that. You don't want to jump into anything right away." I look over at the fishing boat that's rocking slightly, the ripples making the water glow. "What happens if Natasha and Justin break up tomorrow and they have to deal with seeing each other for the rest of the summer? No, thanks."

"That's true," she says. She leans over and dangles her hand in the water again and sighs. "But actually, I'm not sure how I can survive the next couple months. I wonder if I can request to go home early."

My eyes widen as I'm struck with fear.

"Why? No. You can't. You can't leave me."

She gives me a soft smile. "You can leave too."

But I can't. I have no money and nowhere to go.

I shake my head. "Why do you want to leave?"

"You mean, aside from the fact that I would fucking die to just check my email and Instagram for a minute?" She brings her hand out of the water and peers at it, flicking tiny pieces of seaweed off her pruney skin. "I just don't feel tested here, you know? My senior synthesis was supposed to be on fungi that survived the ice age, and yet, we haven't gone anywhere near the peninsula yet. The classes are all over the place. Professor Kincaid's are thought-provoking, but they're still holding so much back from us. Lab work with Everly is just lip service. I just feel like I might be wasting my time."

She's right about all that.

"How are your sessions with Kincaid?" I ask.

She shrugs. "Fine. He's not very thorough. We just mainly talk about this and that. What TV shows I'm missing, how it feels like the world is passing me by while I'm stuck here." She pauses and shoots me a furtive glance. "Though I don't tell him everything."

I frown. "What aren't you telling him?"

"Sometimes this place vibes me out." She finishes her drink and then leans in close. "I'm not going crazy, don't worry. But sometimes it feels like I'm being watched. When I walk to class. When we're foraging. When we're in the common room. It just feels like…eyes on me. Studying me."

I swallow hard.

"And sometimes," she goes on, her voice lower. "I see things…in the forest."

"What things?" I whisper back, feeling my stomach churn from the wine.

She closes her eyes and shakes her head. "I don't even know. Just…things. Like…shapes. Shadows. Sometimes I think I see glowing eyes."

"Well, there are a lot of wild animals here. Could be anything."

"I think the forest plays tricks on us," she says.

I want to fight against that, but I know she's right. "Yeah, well, the other night, I thought I saw Amani again. She was knocking on my door. I followed her outside to the boat yard, and it started snowing."

"Snowing?"

"Yep. I can't figure out if Amani was real or not, but the snow was. It was cold. I felt it. I watched it melt. It was real. And gone with the rain in the morning. The forest really is playing tricks on us."

"Well, snow in early June this far north isn't totally impossible. And it has been cold lately. Maybe a freak weather system passed over us?"

"Still doesn't explain Amani," I say quietly, staring down at my empty cup.

We both go quiet, thinking.

"Do you think I'm crazy?" I ask.

"No. Do you think I'm crazy?"

"No." We both laugh. It feels fucking good to laugh, to put it all out there.

"We come with rocks!" Munawar yells, and we twist around to see him approaching with Rav, both of them with handfuls. They start trying to skip them into the ocean, creating dazzling sprays of water and light.

I keep drinking, I keep laughing. I tuck my worries away and force myself to pay attention to my friends, to live in this very moment. This much, I know, is real. This is what counts. But if Lauren ever tries to leave early, I'm leaving on that plane with her.

And Kincaid?

If things in a few months are the same as they are now with us—full of tension that has nowhere to go—then I'm going to have to cut my losses with him. Hell, I should probably do that sooner than later. It's only making things complicated.

"Okay, I'm going to bed," I tell them after a while. Rav comes over and helps me to my feet. The dock sways, or maybe I'm swaying because of all the wine. That's the problem with drinking a box of wine in tiny cups—you have no idea how much you've had.

"I'll come with you," Lauren says, trying to get up but falling back on her ass and giggling.

"No, you stay," I tell her, stepping away from Rav. "I'm going straight to my room."

"Promise you won't go for a walk in the forest!" she yells, trying to grab me and sprawling out along the dock. "The forest has eyes!"

"Take care of her," I say to Rav and Munawar. "I mean it."

Munawar gives me the salute, which I know means he's on the case.

I stagger down the dock past Mithrandir , but the yacht is still completely dark. Perhaps he's working late in his office.

But I'm still mindful enough to know that visiting him would be a very bad idea, so as soon as I stagger up the ramp, steeper now thanks to the lowering tide, I head straight into the lodge and through the common room. Noor and Toshio are playing a game of backgammon by the fireplace, and I wave to them before I head up the stairs.

I hesitate a little before I unlock my door, wanting to give any ghosties time to hide, and then I open it and step in.

I flip on the light, though I could have sworn I left it on for this very reason, then take a look around the room. Everything looks normal. I go over to the bedside lamp and flick it on for extra light.

Then, I slowly start getting undressed. I take off my hoodie, long-sleeved T-shirt and bra, then step out of my yoga pants, throwing them onto my bed. Then I cross the room to my dresser and take out my pajama top, pulling it on over my head. I spilled coffee on the bottoms this morning, so they're in a pile in the corner of the room, waiting for laundry day.

I turn around and go to the bathroom sink, grabbing a tub of cleansing balm and rubbing it on my face, staring at myself in the mirror. My eyes are a little glassy, and I look exhausted. I just hope I don't have a hangover tomorrow.

I rinse my face, mentally making a note to drink more water. I'm patting my skin dry with a towel when I hear a thump from behind me.

I go dead still.

My heart sticks to my chest.

Slowly, very slowly, I turn around to look.

My room is empty.

I step out of the bathroom and look around, wondering what it could have been that made the noise when I notice all my clothes are in the middle of the floor.

I stare at them blankly. I could have sworn I placed them all on the bed in a pile.

And my hoodie is almost totally under the bed, only the arms sticking out.

I take a deep breath, trying to calm my hummingbird heart, and then walk across the room and stop.

What if there's something underneath the bed?

I know it's a silly thought—why should there be anything under there?

But I can't help it. Goosebumps cover my arms, my spine like ice.

Just get on your knees and look under the bed.

I stare at the hoodie.

I can't do it.

I crouch down and quickly reach for the arms.

Just as a large, fat spider comes crawling out from under the bed, toward my hand.

I shriek and stumble backward, banging into the wall hard enough for the painting of the raven to fall down. The spider, seemingly scared, scurries back under the bed.

"Jesus," I swear, leaning against the wall, my hand on my chest. I glance at the painting, hoping I didn't break it.

But…there's something not right about it.

There's something stuck behind it.

A round, black metal object.

I reach down and pick the painting up, peering at the back closely.

Then, I flip the frame over and examine it.

Up close, I notice one of the raven's black eyes is extra shiny.

Dread creeps up my throat.

Oh my god. Please don't tell me.

I flip it over again, and I try to pull the black object off. I have to yank and twist, and finally, it comes out, destroying part of the painting in the process, but I have to know.

I let the painting fall to the floor and turn the object over in my hand, noting the USB slot in the side, peering into the lens.

Someone's put a fucking camera in my room.

I clutch my stomach, feeling sick. I put the camera in my pajama top's pocket, then go to the other painting on the opposite wall above my head. The center of the starfish is a glossy lens as well. I take that off the wall and rip the camera out.

I look around wildly, wondering where else they could be.

The ghost mushrooms.

I run over to the bathroom and lift the embroidered picture off the wall.

There is no camera on the back of the frame, but there is a small round microphone.

Someone has been watching me.

Listening to me.

Spying on me.

Stalking me.

And in the depths of my heart, I know who it is.

Kincaid.