She nodded.
“Yes, I did,” I said. “Later, I’ll tell you everything.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” I said.
We sat in silence, in shadows beneath heavy redwood bowers. Somewhere above the sun was rising, but we could not see it, and we could not feel its warmth.
“Look!” I said.
A steelhead shot through the water like a bullet, fighting the current every inch of the way. A flash of scale like living sunshine, a splash of the steelhead’s dark and powerful tail, and then it was gone.
I stared down at the dark water, rushing so fast, and at the shadows that waited there.
The shadows didn’t move at all.
I drew the K-bar from behind my back.
The knife wasn’t what it had been. I knew that.
Maybe now it was something different.
My fingers parted. The blade started down.
Gleaming like a steelhead swimming upstream to die.
The K-bar sliced through the shadows without the slightest splash, and then it was gone.
The water gleamed like silver.
“Will you stay with me?” Circe asked.
“I’ll stay.”
The creek whispered below, the soothing sound of water rushing to the sea.
Circe reached out and took my hand.
