Silver Bound Girl

Chapter 31

            Willow lounged on her deck, wishing the humidity would lessen. Even with the fan she had pulled out of the house and set up so it remained pointed at her, she felt like she was melting. She wished she could stay inside without having a panic attack. Nothing was lovelier than air conditioning on a hot day.

            The faint sound of rustling grass had Willow groaning. She shaded her eyes against the sun’s brief appearance, and turned her head to look, not willing to move any more than that. A figure slowly came into view, its movements fluid but careful. Willow recognized the, for the family, slender figure that edged closer to her.

            She sat up, frowning. “Fitch, what’s the matter? If you’re hiding from Eloise, she, Parker, and Everett are in town so you don’t have to worry.”

            Her cousin met her eyes steadily. “I’m not hiding from them,” he said, his voice shockingly low for someone who had barely entered puberty. “I came to talk to you. There’s something in the forest.”

            Willow swung her feet around, so she was sitting straight and facing the boy. “What do you mean? You didn’t run into that bear had trouble with the other day, did you?”

            Fitch shook his head, coming forward until he stood where the deck met the grass. “No. There’s no bear. Uncle Glen and Uncle Allistair ran her off. I went for a little hike into the forest today. I thought I’d go swimming in the creek. But I hadn’t gotten that far off the paths when I smelled something. I know I’ve smelled it before, I just can’t tell what is. But I know it’s not something that should be in the trees. I thought I’d better tell you, so you can tell Aunt Celeste.”

            “Where were you when you smelled it?”

            “I was at the creek near where it joins the waterfall’s pool.”

            Willow choked for a second. What her cousin was calling a little hike would take her all day. She knew, as the whole family had realized fairly early on in his life, that Fitch was the same type as Uncle Glen. More at home in the trees than in a house, solitary, and happy to not see anyone for days at a time. He was even still homeschooled at eleven by his own choice, where most of them joined public school at around the age of eight. In short, her cousin was a loner.

            She shook her head to rid herself of the distracting thoughts. “Can you tell me anything else about it and why it bothered you? I know you, more than anyone except Uncle Glen, know more about what does and doesn’t belong in the forest, but I’d like to know how bad this is.”

            Fitch shrugged. “I don’t know. Just that it doesn’t fit and it wasn’t a good smell. That’s why Aunt Celeste has to know.”

            Willow sighed. She knew she should count herself lucky to have gotten this much out of Fitch, especially since it was the most words she’d ever heard out of him at once, but given how Aunt Celeste generally pumped them for information whenever they came to her, she knew there were going to be a lot of unanswered questions. “You won’t go to see Aunt Celeste yourself?”

            Fitch shook his head, backing up a step. “She’s too much like Eloise.”

            Her lips twitched as she nodded. “I should hope she’s like her, being Eloise’s mom and all. But it’d really be easier if you talked to her, since you’re the one who-” Another head shake from Fitch had Willow breaking off. “Alright, alright. I’ll talk to her. Next time you’re out that way, will you mark the area where you smelled whatever it is, just in case Aunt Celeste or one of the other rangers has to check it out?”

            “I can do that. I’ll mark it with the careful, bad, and drop-off symbols.”

            “Or you could just put an arrow with the letter s, for smell.”

            Fitch stared, the smile faintly. “That’ll work. Thanks, Willow.”

            She nodded. “No problem. Just let me know if you come across anything else, find that smell again, or remember what it is. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open as well.”

            “I will. Bye,” he said, not giving her a chance to reply, but loping off back into the trees.

            Watching him, Willow was impressed as she always was by how effortlessly he disappeared into the greenery. She knew how dense those plants were, and Fitch melted into them with little noise and no apparent difficulty. She didn’t think, as some members of the family did, that Fitch and Glen were just more in tune with the bear side of themselves than the rest of them were. She couldn’t imagine a bear getting through the undergrowth without a lot of crashing, snapping, and more noise than her cousins made when wrestling.

            Willow dropped back down onto the lounge chair, staring up at the grey patches of the white clouds that filled most of the sky. She’d call her aunt later, since it was too hot for anyone other than Fitch or Uncle Glen to be out in the forest. She was already dreading school in the morning, with how often the air conditioning failed, and how many people were in the classrooms at one time, she couldn’t imagine she’d come home anything less than drenched with sweat.

            Willows thoughts, like they were being blown around by the winds that pushed at the clouds, drifted, bringing her to thinking how nice it would be to sit in one of the forest pools, preferably one of the ones that was heavily shaded. It might even still be cool…

            Her mind floating with memories that blurred into half-formed fantasies, Willow fell asleep.