Page 21

We’ve been in the woods for less than two hours, and I’m already over it. Frankly, I’ve already spent two hours more than I wanted to in Tayla’s presence.

When we found a clearing for our base camp a while back, she’d taken charge of setting up Austin and Caroline’s tent—a fact that bugged Austin more than he wanted to let on—and explained what a bear bag was and why it was important, even though he had brought one.

It’s obvious all her knowledge comes from YouTube rather than lived experience, and what makes it even more insufferable is that she knows she’s still the best prepared out of her entire friend group.

Every time she opens her mouth, I’m livid all over again, and I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next few days without my friends by my side.

Our two-way walkies, bulky and old-school, are our dads’ spares—much like Austin’s old red tent—and ever since Tayla said she had room in her backpack to hold on to my radio, I’ve carried it with a death grip.

“I’m sorry about earlier. I promise Tayla isn’t usually so…Tayla,” says Kiara, falling back to where I’m straggling. “Hey, you okay? You look a little winded.”

“I’m fine,” I say automatically, unwilling to admit to weakness. I thought it would at least be day two before the walking wore me out, but evidently I don’t even have the stamina for that.

“You hate gym, and now you’re in the forest with Tayla. You can admit you’re not fine.”

“How do you know I hate gym?”

“You come out of the girl’s locker room after everyone else. It’s a delay tactic, right?”

I shrug, wincing as the straps on my backpack dig into my shoulder. “It works out on the days Mr. Cole forgets to take attendance.”

“What, you mean you just stay in the locker room the whole time?”

“Haven’t been caught yet.”

On the rare occasions that Mr. Cole doesn’t assign her as a team captain, she’s first pick in team selection. The only reason I can get away with being a no-show is I’m always in the bottom four anyway.

“Maybe next time I’ll hang out with you,” she says with a grin.

“But you actually like gym.”

“Maybe I’d like loitering around with you, too.”

The idea of Kiara Mistry disappearing for fifty minutes of gym to spend time with me, with no one any the wiser, is so implausible my tummy actually lurches, all fluttery and twisty.

Just me and her. No exes lurking over her shoulder, suspicious and hostile.

But I could do without inhaling the overpowering locker room odors of sweat, wet swimsuits, and obscene amounts of body spray.

No, if we’re hanging out, I’d like to be somewhere nicer.

Not the Cauldron—I want a place that she associates with me, not with her near-death experience.

Maybe Demeter’s Drinks. A cozy little booth where we’d have to sit so close together our thighs touch, and Kiara’s subtle coconut scent sticks to me even hours afterward.

I want it to linger the way we’ll linger long after we slurp the last of our drinks, maybe even order the same again.

I’ll get the maple latte, and I think she’ll choose something sweeter with a cherry and lots of whipped cream.

Maybe she’ll offer me a lick. My tongue feels like sandpaper all of a sudden.

Stop thinking about food, Nova , I chide myself.

Stay on mission. You don’t want anything else.

“Think they’re making all that noise to ward off the hypothetical bears?” When I jolt, Kiara uses her chin to nod at her friends up ahead, loudly gabbing away about the latest episode of some fantasy show they’re all watching.

“Or to stay awake,” I say. “I think I caught Radhika yawning about ten times so far.”

“Yeah, I was so anxious about this that I couldn’t fall asleep until almost six in the morning,” Kiara admits.

I glance at her profile. “You can’t tell.”

She giggles. “Trying to say I’m pretty?”

Good job, Nova, you really walked right into that one. I tear my gaze away and mutter, “You really need me to tell you that?”

“Need it? No. But maybe I’d like it.”

“You’re making fun of me,” I say. I can’t put my finger on why the teasing bothers me so much.

Kiara’s smile dips, and then she says, “Is it weird that we sell all kinds of camping stuff, and yet I’ve never been camping in here before?”

“Not really. The woods can get weird sometimes.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m a coward.”

“I don’t.” I really don’t. “Anyway, sometimes being scared is a good thing. It means you have self-preservation instincts.”

“If I wasn’t hexed, I probably wouldn’t have ever stepped foot in here.

That one time our class came here when we were in eighth grade, do you remember?

We couldn’t find Evan for hours. I remember the teacher had to hold my hand because I wouldn’t stop crying.

Evan and I had just broken up, and I was so mad I wasn’t with them.

I thought that somehow my being with them would make a difference.

I told myself then and there that it didn’t matter if our relationship was over; I would always keep the people I love in my life.

” She gives me a quick sidelong glance. “Did you know the school board forbade any more field trips to the Longing Woods after that?”

Shaking my head, I say, “Not just because of Evan. They found out I forged my mom’s signature on the permission slip in order to go.”

The laugh startles out of Kiara like a flock of birds fleeing a tree. “What?”

“Don’t you remember my mom barging into class to shout at our science teacher?” I ask.

“Oh…oh, right.”

Mom had raged for ten minutes straight about how nobody had the right to take her daughter into those woods, how she’d never signed the field trip liability waiver, how dare they how dare they how dare they .

I can still remember my horror and humiliation, the teacher’s stammering confusion, the entire room’s stunned silence, and, somewhere in the back of my mind, the fleeting feel of Kiara’s hand squeezing my shoulder from the row behind me, bringing the scent of her strawberry shampoo with her.

Her gentle comfort had lingered then, too, like a friendly ghost. And if I’d leaned into her touch, well, that’s just another ghost of the past. Something we don’t talk about.

Not even Austin and Caroline—who had both chosen to visit the school library instead of going on the field trip—know.

“Do you make a habit of lying to your mother?” Kiara asks.

I almost stumble over an uneven patch in the path we’re following. Kiara steadies me. Her hands are warm on my arm even through all my layers. Or maybe I’m imagining it. “You, Mom, everyone.”

Her eyes widen. “Nova…?” she says.

Her voice sounds small, baffled. She didn’t expect my flippant words.

Hell, I didn’t expect my flippant words.

Regret bites hard and ravenous. I cast around wildly for something to say and land on a truth I had no intention of sharing.

“You heard Radhika,” I blurt out. “She…she was right. I do walk in the woods. Nobody knows. If people found out, they’d try to stop me. ”

“Why do it, then?” Kiara’s fingers lightly dig into my arm.

“Sorry,” I say, flustered. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

She looks at me askance but doesn’t press the bruise I’ve inadvertently revealed. She lets go of my arm and puts a bit more distance between us but not as much as there was before.

By the third hour, we’re deep enough in the trees that we only get dregs of pallid sunlight.

I’m officially the farthest into the forest I’ve ever been, every step from now on taking me farther away from home.

From the corner of my eye, I spot the stopping point from a few weeks ago, a giant flat rock big enough to use as a seat while I guzzled water.

The others don’t give it any notice, but to me, going beyond the rock is an achievement.

Hope floats in my chest, airy with possibility, thrusting me with enough forward momentum that I feel like I could walk another three hours without stopping.

The trunks are packed more densely here, branches tangling up with each other to create a canopy overhead, gnarled roots grasping for the path like hungry limbs.

Twice so far, someone’s mistaken a root for a snake, which put everyone on edge, considering I’m with people who turned green dissecting frogs and owl pellets in biology.

The air is strange, still and silent, like nothing and no one has passed by to disturb it.

I itch to ask Radhika if this is normal since evidently she’s been one with nature, but she’s not exactly forthcoming with information, hoarding her book like it’s as rare and precious as Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester .

Now that I think of it, when was the last time I heard the chitter-chatter of squirrels and birds? It must have been when we’d parted ways with my friends, leaving them at the threshold of the forest.

The lack of sound is disconcerting, especially since it’s getting darker and Keiffer’s already got his flashlight on. Did he bring so many batteries that he can afford to waste them?

I frown. If he runs out, I certainly don’t have enough to share.

I’d scooped a ripped-open box of Dad’s old batteries from the junk drawer to power the walkie-talkies, and as much as I want to check in with my friends, I have to remember one of Dad’s favorite maxims: Be prepared, not scared.

I hold on to his words as hard as I clutch the radio.

I jog to catch up to Keiffer, bypassing Evan, who’s listening to something on a super old iPod, the kind that wouldn’t be worth anything now, too obsolete yet not retro.

Tayla’s walk is militant, not breaking stride and not stumbling over anything, unlike me.

She spares me a glance as we march shoulder to shoulder.

“Thanks for having my back earlier,” I offer, holding out the olive branch.