Chapter 21

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Grave Matter

Karina Halle

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CHAPTER 21

"Oh my god, sunshine," Lauren exclaims as we step out of the lodge. "And holy fuck I think we can actually see the peninsula."

We walk over to the totem pole for a closer look, and sure enough, beyond the sparkling inlet and the forest of fir and hemlock on the other side, the mountainous mass of the Brooks Peninsula rises up into the blinding blue sky.

"I was starting to think it didn't exist," I say, taking a sip of my coffee from the paper cup, though now I don't think I need the caffeine. The change in weather alone is enough to perk me up.

It does the same to the rest of the students, everyone a little louder, with a little more spring in their step as we walk over to the learning center. The air is cool and soft, smelling of cedar and fresh-cut grass, birds call out from the trees, and everyone looks a bit healthier in the bright light.

Which is good timing because the camping trip is tomorrow and it would suck if the weather was awful. I once went camping with my father when I was eight years old, in Redwood National Park, and it poured the whole time. Looking back, it's one of my fondest memories of my childhood because I actually had my father's undivided attention, and I felt like the luckiest girl in the world despite the water seeping into our tent, but my poor father complained endlessly, feeling bad. Obviously he really wanted to have the perfect trip with his little girl.

Tears well in my eyes at the memory, grief as slippery as an eel.

We head inside the classroom and take our seats. Kincaid is at his usual spot, leaning against the desk, his arms crossed over his chest. He's wearing a dusky blue button-up that matches his eyes, the sleeves rolled up. I can't believe he's had my vagina in his mouth and yet I haven't seen the full extent of his tattoo.

"Morning," he says gruffly to the class. "Today we're going to spend our time discussing the camping trip to the Brooks Peninsula tomorrow. We'll be leaving bright and early, six a.m., so it's best that we go through it all now. This is a trip for all students, including those in marine sciences, and it's something we all need to be fully prepared for."

He pauses and clears his throat. "Before we get into that, however, I must inform you that a student had to be sent home. Clayton Wade."

I stiffen, my stomach twisting in knots.

Murmurs fill the room as we all look around, noticing he's not here.

What the hell?

"Unfortunately," Kincaid goes on, avoiding my eyes as I stare blatantly at him, "Clayton wasn't adjusting to life at Madrona the way that we had hoped. He was put on the first seaplane out this morning. Let this be a warning to all of you—if any of you are struggling in any way, please come talk to me. Schedule an extra counseling session if you can. This is a wild, tough land to inhabit, even with all the comforts of the lodge, and the isolation can get to even the hardiest of minds."

Kincaid then starts discussing the trip, but I'm no longer listening. Clayton was acting strange yesterday. Hell, he's been strange this whole time. I have to wonder what he discussed with Kincaid the other day. What was it that made him want to leave? He was a creep that seemed to mistrust the foundation, but I never heard him say he wanted to go, just that his fortune teller told him he wouldn't.

Wait, Kincaid said that Clayton was put on a plane, making it seem like it wasn't Clayton's idea. Was he forcefully removed from the premises?

Was it because of me?

Lauren nudges me. "Should be nicer without him around," she whispers. "Did you get Clayton in trouble?"

I shake my head. "Not on purpose," I whisper back.

Kincaid's focus is on me now so I press my lips together and force myself to pay attention.

When class is over, however, I head right to his desk, wanting to ask him what really happened with Clayton, because I'm not sure it's as simple as all that. But as soon as I approach, Everly enters the learning center.

"Good morning, Syd," Everly says to me cheerfully, though her smile is strained. Even in the morning she looks chic with a matching black yoga set that shows off her long skinny legs. "Sorry to cut you off at the pass, but I need to speak to Wes. Alone."

I look at Kincaid and he just gives me a subtle nod.

"Okay, no worries," I tell them, playing it cool. Of course, I only say no worries when I am absolutely full of worries.

I open the door, looking over my shoulder to see Everly's sharp eyes on me, waiting for me to leave.

Where am I?

Where the fuck am I?

Is this another crazy dream?

I sit up.

It's pitch black and I'm outside.

Not in my bed, not in my room, but outside .

Oh my god, oh my god.

I start feeling around with my hands, brushing over moss and ferns and twigs.

I can hardly breathe. Blood pounds in my head.

I know I'm not asleep. Everything is too real. Too cold. I can feel moisture seeping in through my pajama bottoms, the ground damp, the air thick and clammy. I breathe in sharply, my lungs weak and shallow, my nose catching the scent of the sea and pines and petrichor.

It's so dark, too dark.

How did I end up here?

Did I sleepwalk?

Was I…taken?

There's a helplessness embedded in my bones and I fear that most of all. Because this shouldn't be possible and my mind is no longer my friend.

My mind is turning on me.

And I am terrified.

So I sit, frozen in fear, unable to move. My eyes are starting to adjust, picking out the outlines of the trees above me, their branches moving in the breeze. Far in the distance I see the glow of a light, which hopefully means I'm not far from the lodge.

I need to get up, I need to work my way through the woods, toward the light.

And yet I wonder if I can just stay where I am. Stay still. Stay hidden. If I lie back down and fall asleep, will I wake up in my bed again? The last thing I remember was after dinner packing for the camping trip in one of the backpacks they loaned us, then getting into bed when the sky wasn't even dark yet, a bruised twilight.

You're losing it , I tell myself. You're truly losing your mind. You've been losing it all this time.

I have to find Kincaid. I have to talk to him.

I dig my fingers into the moss, cool, soft and damp, trying to feel what's real, trying to hold on to reality.

But the more I dig my fingers in, the deeper they go, until my fist is buried and I have a terrible feeling that something is going to reach out from underneath, grab my hand and pull me down.

I suddenly yank my hand out, the thought enough to get me up on my feet. I stumble, off-balance on the uneven ground, and I'm about to fall sideways when my hands catch the rough bark of a Sitka spruce.

It's a wide, rough trunk, an old tree, and I lean against it, trying to catch my breath, trying to push away all the scary images I have about what lurks beneath the moss, what hides between the trees. It feels like something is watching me, perhaps many somethings.

Stop that! I chide myself. Stop thinking like that. Find your way to the light!

But the tree feels comforting. The more I lean my head against it, the more I swear it whispers: rest, rest, rest.

It's just the wind, though, moving the branches above me.

It's just the wind that says, stay, stay, stay.

That whispers, Sydney .

Sydney, you're home.

I straighten up, my heart pounding. The wind is playing tricks on me. Everything here plays tricks on me, even the people.

Especially the people.

I take in a deep shaking breath, my body trembling.

I start walking, grateful for my slippers, one uneven step in front of the other, my ankle nearly giving out on a few occasions. My eyes have adjusted enough to see that I'm in a small, open area in the middle of the forest and as long as I don't look directly at the far-off light, I can see where I'm going.

That is until my toe catches on something, and with a cry, I go flying to the ground, landing in a pile of soft earth.

Soft, overturned earth.

I gasp, pushing myself upright but my hands sink in until the dirt is at my elbows. I'm about to panic when I realize that what I thought were stars behind my eyes are actually stars in front of my eyes.

The ground is covered in them.

Teal glowing stars with orange underneath.

Excandesco.

Excandesco, which means to flare and burn in Latin.

I'm staring at the Madrona mushrooms, glowing in their bioluminescence, and they're all around me, lighting up the earth like fallen stars.

I marvel at them, feeling like I'm floating in the phosphorescent sea, but there's a warning digging at the back of my skull. Something telling me to get up and keep moving. Something that says I need to get out of there, now.

I try to move, my knees sinking into the dirt now. For a second, I have a stupid worry about having to launder my damn pajama pants again, but that thought is quickly wiped away when I realize what this mound of soil I'm sinking into actually is.

It's a grave.

It's the dog's grave that Lauren and I stumbled upon.

It's been unearthed.

And I'm crawling in it.

Nope, nope, nope , I think as revulsion rolls through me, about to pull my hand out when something in the soil starts to wrap around my wrist.

I scream.

I rip my hand out in a panic, frantically crawling through the grave, crushing the mushrooms, dirt flying everywhere, until I finally reach hard ground. I stagger to my feet, running straight into a tree that nearly knocks me backwards again, and I look wildly for the light.

I push off the trunk, lungs squeezing, heart galloping as I try to run through the dark forest, branches scratching at my body, pulling at my hair like they mean to hold me captive. I can't help but feel like something is still around my wrist and I keep touching it to make sure there's nothing there, brushing all the dirt off me as I go, zigzagging through the trees.

I'm close to the light when suddenly the air changes, and I feel something heavy at my back.

A dark presence, suffocating and ominous.

Dread personified, looming behind me.

Coming after me with the snap of branches and a low, hungry growl .

I yelp and push myself to run harder and faster than I ever have, until I burst through the trees and find myself behind the Panabode cabins. I've never been so happy to see Madrona Lodge before.

I keep running though, down the winding paths, straight to the ramp. I clamor down as it shakes wildly, then speed along the dock, nearly slipping twice before I reach Kincaid's boat.

I scramble onboard, half crawling, my slippers nearly coming off as I fall onto the deck.

"Kincaid," I cry out, my voice hoarse.

The sound of the salon doors swinging open.

"Sydney," he cries out, and then he's wrapping his arms around me, pulling me to my feet.

I collapse into his arms. "Oh god. It was awful."

"You're shaking like a leaf," he says, running his hands down my arms. "Your skin is ice cold. What happened?" He pulls a few leaves from my hair and stares at them in amazement.

"Didn't you hear me scream?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Come, let's go inside, I'll make you a tea."

I nod as he leads me over to the doors and helps me down the steps. He grabs a blanket and puts it over my shoulders, then sits me down on the couch.

"What happened?" he asks again, going to the sink and filling the kettle with water. The boat's cozy low lighting and the warmth from the heater is already making my heart slow, the fear seeming further away. I have to look down at my nails, at the dirt embedded in them, to remember what happened was real.

It was real, wasn't it?

I take in a deep breath, slowly exhaling before I start. "I woke up in the forest. I have no idea how I got there. I went to bed early after I packed for the camping trip and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the forest floor."

He pauses. "I see." He puts the kettle on the stove. "And then what happened? You said you screamed."

"I got up and saw the light from the lodge, tried to find my way out when I…" I decide not to tell him about the wind and the trees whispering my name.

Telling me I was home.

"Yes?" he prods, lighting the stove and coming back to sit across from me, hand on my knee. "What?"

"I fell into a grave. That dog's grave that Lauren and I discovered. Grover. It was covered in the glowing mushrooms. It was empty, like someone had dug it up or…whatever was buried had crawled out."

If it was even dog , I think. I know I heard a growl of something behind me, but that could have been anything.

Anyone.

Oh god.

I look at Kincaid fearfully. "I know you must think I'm crazy."

"I don't," he says but he's frowning, breathing in deeply through his nose. "I'm just trying to tackle this one step at a time. The first and most important thing is figuring out how you woke up in the forest."

I nod. "Yes. Exactly. So how did that happen?"

"If only I still had cameras in your room, we could see for ourselves," he says quietly. God, he's right. Maybe he should put them back. "But we can only speculate. Do you have a history of sleepwalking?"

"When I was younger."

"Just like your nosebleeds." I nod. "Have you had any more?"

I think about when Amani had hit me in the face with a snowball. Had the snow cut me or was my nose bleeding?

"I'm not sure."

His brows knit together. "You're not sure?"

"Maybe. I was hit in the face with a snowball. It's hard to say if the ice cut me or not."

He blinks slowly, then sits up straight. "A…what? A snowball?"

"I woke up in the middle of the night and Amani led me outside to the field, where it started snowing. She threw a snowball at me."

"When did this happen?" he asks carefully.

"I don't know. Time is a blur. A week ago?"

His gaze sharpens, the grey becoming flint. "And you never told me. You know you're not supposed to keep secrets from me."

I laugh. "Oh, how the tables have turned. Sorry I didn't tell you, guess I was distracted by a million other fucking things happening that I have no explanation for."

He stares at me for a moment, the wheels turning behind his eyes. "It's interesting."

"Oh yeah, snow in June and having ghosts wallop snowballs at you is real interesting ."

"Amani isn't a ghost," he says. "As far as I know, she's not dead. She was here and then she went home."

"So then what? I'm hallucinating her?"

"Yes. That is the most logical explanation. Same as when you saw her before."

"Then the snowball was a hallucination too?"

"It can be."

"And snow in June?"

"We're too close to the ocean for that to happen. On the surrounding mountains? Sure, if a strange cold front moved in from the north. But not down here."

Well, fuck.

So I really did just imagine the whole thing.

Wait.

Or did I?

"What happened with Clayton?" I ask suddenly.

His gaze thins. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," I tell him. "One minute he's harassing me, the next he's being sent home on a seaplane."

"I thought that would have made you happy," he says stiffly.

"Happy?" I exclaim. "You did that for me?"

"Of course."

I can't help but stare at him. "You put Clayton on the seaplane and sent him home? For me?"

"I did."