Page 18 of The Bleeding Woods

I can’t get him out of my head. The way his soft fingertips scour my body.

The way his voice leaves me blooming. The way his kisses create new galaxies.

I want more, I want him, and more than anything, I want to stay.

We will dance forever in this strange place, our energies in perfect harmony and our bodies living to touch and be touched.

Did I have a life before now? Does it matter?

Can we stay in our pocket singularity, forever present, forever unconcerned with the rest of existence?

Perhaps he’s been reaching for me for as long as I can remember.

Perhaps I felt divorced from others because I was destined to connect with him alone.

There was a hole in my heart uttering his name.

At last, at last, our hues are blending.

I am his, and oh, what a joy it is.

“Clara?” asks Grayson, a mere whisper in my new world. “Want to come with me to hunt for service again?”

Using my tongue is such a terrible struggle. I long for Jasper’s telepathy, as it’s far more natural for my kind. Our kind. I’m not human, why should I pretend to be? Alas, I suppose I must keep up the performance for the time being. Our time will come soon enough.

“I’m feeling a bit tired today. Would it be all right if I stayed with Joey?”

“Oh, sure . . .” He’s disappointed.

How sweet, Jasper chuckles in my mind.

“Jade and I’ve got it. You wanted to head out today anyway, didn’t you, Jade?”

Jade emerges from the trunk with an invigorated smirk. She looks like a lioness about to hunt, hands confidently propped atop her hips. “Yeah, and we’re hunting for more than service today, Warner. We need to aim higher. Supplies, gas, tools. Got it?”

Grayson shakes his head through an exasperated smirk. There’s no arguing with her, especially when she’s running on half a protein bar. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Clara,” she orders. “Stay here. No more impromptu hikes, no more talking trees, and no more general weirdness. Joey, keep an eye on her. Hold down the fort for us.”

Joey salutes, and Jade, a worthy drill sergeant, salutes right back.

The two depart, leaving us alone with our dwindling snack supply and ancient, peeling playing cards.

Like the rest of the Jasperless world, it’s all so far away.

It’s static at the edge of a screen I need sharpened.

My antennae are attuned only to Jasper’s channel, ever in search of his reverberant pixels.

When our tomorrow arrives and I return to him, reality will be right again.

“Clara.” Joey’s voice, a squeak, rips through my radio stations. “You have to eat something, or drink something, or . . . Come on, snap out of it, please. Don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me alone.”

The mirage of Joey does not dissipate like I’d expected it to. He’s still there, still real, even though my heart insists there is only one other being with whom I share the universe. His hands—dainty, ice cold, and undeniably solid—grab my shoulders to give them an urgent shake.

“Clara, wake up,” he begs.

“I’m here, Joey. I’m awake.”

“No, you’re not.” His face is far too stern for his age. He looks like he’s playing the role of someone’s flinty grandfather. “I saw it again, Clara. I saw the thing. It did something to you, didn’t it? That’s why you’re so out of it.”

“Everything’s fine, I promise. We’re safe.”

I smile, my head filled with strawberry gumdrops.

Joey doesn’t know the depth to which Jasper is wonderful.

Clasping on to his trembling hands, I offer the most honest and reassuring gaze I’ve ever wielded.

No roles, no games, no tricks. I don’t have to play a human character to relate and convince.

I know what love is now. I know how to scream it from the rooftops and whisper it between quiet, sacred breezes.

“He’s incredible, Joey. I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. I know he looks scary on the outside, but we spoke, and now I understand him. I trust him, and so should you.”

Joey’s eyes glisten, his bottom lip twitching like a dragonfly in flight. “What happened, Clara?”

“What do you mean?”

“Something’s wrong with you. Something’s wrong with this entire forest.”

“Joey—”

“Don’t do that. Don’t talk to me like I’m some frightened little kid. Whatever he is, he’s clearly messing with your head, because anyone in their right mind would be running for the hills.”

I throw my eyes to the horizon, smirking at the distinct lack of hills to run to.

There are only trees. His trees. Him. The great and glorious him.

I wonder what he’s doing right now. Is he wandering through the shadows, lost to whatever beautiful musings exist behind his brows?

Is he watching over me, a guardian angel banished from the skies yet alive on the earth?

Joey snaps his fingers an inch away from my nose. It is effectively a thundercrack. “I’m telling Grayson and Jade,” he says.

“No.” I snatch up his hands again, suddenly desperate enough for the both of us.

“Don’t. Grayson has enough to worry about, and Jade and I .

. . you know how she’ll react, Joey. Don’t tell them, please.

You’re right. Something is probably wrong with me.

I’ll stay in the car, safe and sound, until we find a way out of here. Okay?”

He’s wary, but he’s buying it. His tension floods away with a grievous exhale.

For now, he’s surrendering, and all I need is now.

My smile becomes a timid curve of earnest bravery in the face of danger.

I play the damsel staring up at a dragon from behind her brigade of knights.

I accept the terms laid out for my safety, returning dubiously to the castle that is our car.

After nightfall, I’ll have darkness on my side, and in darkness, Jasper and I reign.

Pills. My pills. Jasper isn’t supposed to be my salvation; they are. They’re the reason I agreed to come along for this trip. I need to focus.

I need to go to him again.

I need to get out of here.

I need to stay.

I need my pills.

I need him, him, him.

Jade returns just as evening tempts the sky. Her eyes are wilder than usual as she tears open the trunk and rips through her duffel bag. Without a word, she piles a flashlight, a news clipping, and a sloppy notepad into her arms. “We found something,” she says.

“What?” Joey asks, his voice thin and frightened. “Wait . . . wh-where’s Grayson?”

“He’s waiting for me.”

“You left him alone?” Horror floods Joey’s eyes. He leaps out of the Hummer and stomps up to my sister with more bravery than I’ve ever been capable of. “How could you leave him alone?”

“Relax, J. He’s fine. We just didn’t want to lose our spot.” Jade rests her hands on his feeble, shivering shoulders. “I just need to see something real quick. We’ll be back before nightfall.”

“No! Th-this isn’t fine! You shouldn’t have left him! Where is he? Tell me where he is!”

I won’t be of much use, but I step out behind Joey to offer some modicum of comfort.

Jade sends me a glance that is enigmatically harmless.

Her priorities are preoccupied by something far more important.

Silently, the two of us try to plot a means of calming Joey down.

Sadly, she lacks my aptitude for telepathy, and even if I could send her a thought, I wouldn’t. I won’t take the risk.

“Stay with Clara. He’s just up that way. I’ll go get him, and we’ll be back before it gets dark, I promise,” she assures us.

Joey replies with a quivering frown, betrayed. He rips himself away from her and takes off in the direction of his brother. He doesn’t bother to stay with the road, sprinting with all his might into the trees, relying solely on Jade’s vague gesture to guide him.

My veins turn to sharp, terrified silver. If any of Jasper’s whispers had been holding me drunken, I go completely sober right now.

“Joey, wait!” I rush after him. Jade runs close behind.

Come to me. Come to me. Come to me.

The trees sing my name, but I tune them out. Grayson and Joey are here, somewhere, at the mercy of someone too much like me.

Jade whistles. The sound, cutting as a blade and precise as an arrow, shoots through the deep green foliage.

Quietude follows for a succession of torturous seconds before her signal is returned.

I recognize Grayson’s voice, even when reduced to an air funnel between his two front teeth.

Joey, still in eyeshot, follows it like a lifeline to shore.

At the mouth of a half-collapsed cave, Grayson leans unharmed. He doesn’t enliven until Joey comes racing in, his stormy eyes beclouded with concern. “Joey? What are you—” His lips lock shut as Joey collides with his chest, arms wound tightly around his waist.

“You’re okay. Y-you’re okay. It didn’t get you. It didn’t get you.”

“Hey, hey . . . it’s all right. Everything’s all right. What’s wrong? What didn’t get me? Why are you here? Jade said she was just running for flashlights.”

Grayson throws a look of admonishment in Jade’s direction. He’s covert about it for his brother’s sake, but the message is very much delivered.

“The kid took off. What was I supposed to do?” she scoffs.

“What . . . did you find?” I ask, peering into the gloomy den we’ve padded up to.

Oddly, almost impossibly erupted from the soil below, a cavern dips down toward a tenebrous void.

To the passing eye, it might appear to be a simple rock formation.

Up close, it is clearly something more. The walls crackle off in geometric patterns suggestive of influence beyond natural corrosion.

Right where the shadows begin to rule, a rusty spire pokes out from the gloom. A handrail.

“I don’t know,” Grayson responds, exasperated. “Jade wants to take a closer look, though.”