“I mean you, being all alone for as long as you were. I have a hard time just being out by myself for a week. Then I get back to town around people again and it’s hard adjusting to them and all the noise.”
“I wasn’t alone, silly. My tree was with me the whole time, and there was a family of robins upstairs, and a squirrel would come by to chat. The wind brought me news from around the world and when the raindrops fell, I listened to them patter about all the neat places they had visited.” She smiled into the night sky. “The stars are really pretty, aren’t they?”
“Uh, yeah.” Scout worried that she’d bonked her head when Hunter flipped the bike. He locked onto an eerie feeling though; maybe she wasn’t making her story up. And then he remembered she was a little kid. Of course she was making it up.
Another question crossed his mind. “So was Hunter the first person you ever met?” Scout gave himself a mental pat on the back. She couldn’t avoid that one with a vague answer.
The corners of her mouth dropped and she brought her knees to her chest and wrapped them up in her arms. “No. I’ve known lots of people, but that was long ago in a different time and place. Those people have all passed on. I was a much different person then with a very different life.”
Scout crinkled his brow. “Catherine, you don’t sound like a six-year-old girl.”
“Well who said I was six? It’s not appropriate to talk about a girl’s age, you know.”
The night breeze rolled through the prairie grass and broke upon their backs. Then the wind disappeared again, leaving behind the steady sound of the creek.
“I guess I’m confused,” Scout said. “It’s not every day we come across someone your, uh… size out in the middle of nowhere. Were you traveling with your friends when you got separated?”
“No, we were separated ages ago.” She stood and regarded the sky. “But I have new friends now.”
Scout nodded and rose up beside her. He decided to put the questions away; someone in town would get her to talk and crack open the answers. “That’s right, you have us,” he said simply. “Let’s get back to the fire. I should check on Hunter, and you need more sleep.”
She hugged him. “I love you, Scout.”
Her affection caught him off guard. He offered her an awkward pat on the back.
She released him without a struggle and cocked her head at an angle as though measuring him for a new winter coat.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You really don’t believe anymore?”
Scout crossed his arms, feeling exposed. “I don’t know what to believe in.”
Catherine bent down and collected the water bottles. “I’ll just have to fix that, won’t I?”
“What are you talking about?”
Catherine smiled. “Let’s go check on Hunter.” She skipped ahead, leaving him standing there befuddled.
Along the way Scout gathered more sizable sticks under the branches of slumbering elm trees to feed the fire’s hunger back at camp. When he added them, the coals brightened and soon the flames popped and snapped over the new wood. Hunter hadn’t budged from the spot where he’d landed.
“He was making a funny noise earlier,” Catherine said. “That’s what woke me up.”
“Yeah, funny’s one way to put it.”
She knelt and placed her hand on Hunter’s head. Scout smiled at her concern. Maybe she was feeling for his temperature.
“I think I got his arm set right,” Scout said, consoling any fears she might possess. “Now it’s just going to take time for him to heal.”
Catherine laid her hands on the splint. “You did very well.”
Scout rushed forward in a surge of panic. “Be careful, you might mess up the set.”
“Don’t worry, silly. I’m just going to heal him so you believe again.”
She seemed careful about not moving or placing any pressure on Hunter’s arm and that decreased Scout’s anxiety. He shook his head. Catherine was laying hands like an evangelist performing miracle nonsense. He plunked his tired bottom by the fire and felt the crush of drowsiness the moment he was settled.
His head was just starting to loll when a yellow light pulsed underneath Catherine’s hands. Her forehead creased in concentration with sweat beading in the folds and instantly running down the sides of her face. The light crept up her arms like water soaking into a sponge.
Scout scrambled to his feet and rubbed his eyes. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real; he’d fallen asleep. What the heck was that light?
The yellow light gradually spread over Catherine and Hunter, completely covering them in a shinning intensity that proved hard to watch for periods longer than a couple seconds. Hunter’s head twisted back and forth and he groaned in his sleep as his feet shook violently. Catherine remained fixed and steady.
Scout became aware of his own breathing, ragged and harsh in the otherwise silent night. He was afraid to move, scared to look, and terrified he was losing his mind.
Then Catherine opened her mouth and the yellow light retreated, sliding off of her and Hunter only to disappear completely down her narrow throat. She closed her mouth and everything went dark, even though Scout heard the fire crackling and assumed—hoped—the stars still hung in the sky.
A moment passed. He finally focused in on Catherine’s dark silhouette kneeling next to Hunter’s prone body on the ground. Scout was struck with indecision: should he tap Catherine on the shoulder and see what’s up, or jump on his bike and ride for his life?
Catherine opened her eyes and the bright yellow light blasted forth, filling the entire area with its blinding radiance, like the sun going supernova, dazzling Scout’s sight once more.
Scout threw up his arms to shield his eyes, and then fell to his knees, disoriented by the overwhelming brilliance that thrummed like a living current all around him. An instant later the yellow light was extinguished by the night.
For a moment Scout saw only yellow spirals and squiggly lines swirling in his vision. The campfire flames rustled from the wind, and smoke filled his nose. Coughing, he waved his hands and crawled clear, relieved as his eyesight slowly returned.
Catherine lay in a heap beside Hunter.
Scout paced back and forth, wishing someone would wake up and explain what just happened. She was only a little girl. No way did yellow light shoot from her eyes like laser beams he’d seen in old comic books. Surely, he’d been dreaming. He lifted his face to the heavens. The stars illuminated the world with new possibilities.
Hunter’s snoring renewed with amplified volume, but Scout tuned it out. He covered Catherine with his sleeping bag, pleased to see her smile rekindled. Dropping beside her, Scout pulled his knees in close to his chest and kept a protective watch as the fire dwindled.
EIGHT
Molly staggered out of Brittany’s kitchen baffled and enraged. It was impossible. Her own brother betrayed her. She couldn’t care less what everyone else thought about her, but Mark was all she had left in this world.
She walked quickly, surrounded by nightfall and blinded by the red haze of her anger. Her thoughts turned violent, churning, building pressure that required release. She fought the urge to smash something. If she stopped walking it would signal a change of action and then something awful would happen; she just knew it.
Before she realized where her feet carried her, she arrived at Jimmy’s. She visited his house often late at night, fantasizing about knocking on his window and climbing into his arms, but she always chickened out.
Tonight she planned to go all the way after dinner. She had prepared herself to be brave, to walk out with him and finally tell him how she truly felt. Vanessa had ruined that chance.
The last thing Molly wanted was for Jimmy to come home and find her slinking around his yard like some crazy girl. Molly wasn’t crazy. She was alone, and now thanks to Vanessa, her solitude would last an eternity.
