by SM Reine
“You found her on—oh Rylie, what were you doing over there?”
“I was looking for my backpack.”
“I’m sorry, Jericho,” Louise said. “I’ll take care of her.”
“I’ll see you around, Rylie.” Something about the way Jericho said her name sent chills down her spine.
Rylie followed Louise into the cabin, and sat on the edge of her bed when the counselor pointed. “The usual punishment for crossing over to Camp Golden Lake is confinement to your cabin and restriction from activities for a few days, but that wouldn’t work on you, would it?”
“You can confine me if you want,” Rylie said, grinning.
“That’s what I thought.” Louise shut her eyes and massaged her temples. Rylie got the impression she was silently counting to ten. “Tell me the truth. Are you planning on running off again?”
“No,” she said honestly. What good would it do? She wouldn’t find her clothing or the rest of her belongings if she went back to search a dozen times. The forest was too thick.
“I’ll explain your situation to Jericho. What am I going to do with you?” Louise asked. Rylie shrugged. “Fine. Stay here for the rest of the day. Did you at least find what you hoped you would find?”
“I guess.”
She left, and Rylie curled up on her bed to gaze out the loft window. Everyone else was in the middle of the afternoon activity, and Rylie was grateful to be alone with her thoughts.
Someone stood out amongst the trees. She sat up to get a better look. It was a boy with dark hair, wide shoulders, and a black tank top—Seth. Rylie leaped off her cot and hurried down the ladder, racing around the side of the cabin.
“Seth! I need to talk to you!”
But he was nowhere to be seen.
Five
New Moon
A few days later, Group B was assigned another round of archery. The afternoon was perfect for it. A cool breeze carried cool air down the mountain and the sky was slightly overcast so they could easily see the targets. Louise gave Rylie an encouraging smile when she lined up to take wrist and finger guards like everyone else.
Picking out her equipment, Rylie moved aside to watch everyone else string their bows. Louise wedged one end of the staff between her feet and forced the other into a curve, hooking the string over the end. The bows resisted being bent. It looked difficult.
Rylie hooked the end of the string over one side, braced the bow between her hiking boots, and used all her strength to push down.
It shattered.
The loud crack made everyone look over at her. Rylie stared at the fragments of wood in her hand.
“What happened?” Louise asked, hurrying over.
“I don’t know. It broke.”
“The wood must have been rotten,” she said. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
Rylie shook her head and the counselor left to dispose of the fragments. She selected a different bow. This time, she bent it gently, and it gave easily under her weight. She slipped the string into place.
She gave a few test draws without putting an arrow on the string. It pulled smoothly. Rylie felt like she could have drawn the string back far enough to snap this bow, too, if only her arms had been long enough.
She got at the back of the line and waited her turn to shoot at the hay targets. Since she strung her bow so much faster than everyone else, she was one of the first to shoot. Rylie mimicked Kim at the next target down, pointing her left arm straight out to the side of her body and aiming down her fist.
“Good, Rylie,” Louise said encouragingly as she passed.
Patricia and Amber were whispering two lines away. By all means, Rylie shouldn’t have been able to make out what they were saying, but their voices rang out crystal-clear in her ears.
“Have you seen what Rylie is wearing?” Amber whispered to Patricia. “With those skinny legs and that face, she looks like a horse in drag.”
Rylie glanced down at her clothing. She had tried to make the best of a bad situation and picked a bright red shirt out of the lost and found, coordinating it with a loose skirt. It didn’t match her hiking boots, but she had no alternatives.
Her hand clenched on the bow. They shouldn’t have talked badly about someone holding a weapon.
“Did you hear she tried to sneak off to the boy’s camp the other day?”
“Yeah. She’s so desperate for action. It’s sick.”
Anger made her vision blur. Rylie felt hot all over. She reached for her inhaler, recognizing the signs of an impending attack, but it wasn’t in her pocket. It took her a minute to remember she had dropped it in the forest.
“Your turn,” said the archery instructor, and she stepped up to accept her arrows.
Rylie’s throat didn’t close up. She didn’t need her inhaler.
But she needed to do something with her anger.
Patricia went to the front of her own line. Rylie felt the weight of eyes on her back, and she turned to see Amber watching her. She was wearing sandals and toying with the gold anklet with her toes. When she noticed Rylie looking, she pretended to be paying attention to Patricia instead.
“Loser,” Amber muttered in a sing-song voice.
“Do you need help?” asked the instructor.
Rylie shook her head and got into position. She aimed carefully. She had never shot a bow before, but she felt confident and powerful. Rylie could do anything.
Focusing closely, she pulled back on the string and released it.
Amber yelled, “Miss!”
Rylie’s arrow whistled through the air and hit the tree behind the target.
“Miss Louise!” Amber finished. Patricia snorted. She had done it on purpose to make Rylie blow the shot.
“Yes?” the counselor asked.
Patricia engaged her in a conversation, gesturing toward the targets. Rylie heard Amber repeat, “Loser.”
Rylie turned until Amber was in the line of her bow sight. It would be easy to release the string and watch the arrow bury in her neck. She was confident she could make the shot from this distance.
“Hey! Bow toward target!” snapped the archery instructor.
She hesitated. It would be so easy...
But now Rylie was being watched, so there was no way to do it without being seen. She eased up on the string and aimed at the hay. Loser? Yeah, right.
Her second arrow flew true. It sunk deep into the yellow ring around the bull’s eye.
After finishing, Rylie returned to the back of the line. Patricia still had Louise’s attention, so Rylie approached Amber. “What do you want?” Amber asked.
Rylie folded her arms. “If you have a problem with me, you need to say it.”
“What? You’re crazy.”
“You made me miss the target on purpose!”
Amber gave a barking laugh. “It’s not my fault you suck!”
“Why do you hate me so much?” she demanded.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you’re a freak who hides out in my cabin and wears old, nasty clothes?”
Louise heard them. She started to walk over.
“At least I’m not an idiot who thinks my daddy’s money makes me better than everyone else!”
“Shut up, bitch!” Amber pushed her, and sudden fury choked Rylie.
“Do not touch me,” she said.
“Like this?” She planted both hands on Rylie’s shoulders and shoved.
Something inside of her snapped.
Rylie slashed at the other girl’s face with her fingernails. Amber shrieked and fell back.
Pouncing on her, Rylie flailed with both fists. She wanted to beat her. She wanted to hurt her. But something about punching didn’t feel right, like her hands weren’t meant for that purpose.
She wanted to bite and tear.
Amber sobbed. It only made Rylie angrier, and in a way... hungry.
Hands clamped down on Rylie’s arms and hauled her off Amber. She kept trying to hit and kick with a guttural roar. Ryli
e’s skin was a thousand degrees. She was burning in her own anger.
It took Louise and two other girls to separate them. The moment they managed to get Rylie to her feet, however, Amber came flying at her. She lifted a hand to strike Rylie. “You’re such a freak!” she shrieked.
“Cut it out!” Louise snapped, putting herself between them. “Your nose is bleeding, Miss Richmond. Take yourself to the infirmary. Now!”
Amber wiped the blood off her lip. Her eyes widened and her face paled when she saw it. “Freak,” she spat one more time before flouncing away.
Louise rounded on Rylie.
“I have been very, very patient with you. My parents divorced when I was your age, and I went through a rebellious phase, too. But between your disregard for authority and aggressive behavior, we’re reaching a breaking point. Do you understand?”
Rylie barely registered the words. She couldn’t focus. Her flesh was overheating, and she could barely breathe. It wasn’t asthma.
She shook her head to clear it, but it only made the world spin more. She could hear the chattering of squirrels and the birds in the trees and smell nearby deer scat. Her back legs didn’t want to support her weight. It was all she could do to focus on Louise’s moving mouth through the haze.
“Are you even listening?”
“I hear you,” Rylie said, but the words felt clumsy in her mouth.
It was too bright. She needed to go somewhere quiet, safe, and dark.
Louise frowned. “Turn in your wrist guards and go back to camp. We’ll talk later.”
Rylie peeled off her protective gear and dropped them in the bucket without looking. She glanced up at the sun. It was late afternoon, and it would be dark in a couple hours. For some reason, that felt very, very important.
She thought sitting down might make her feel better, but when Rylie planted herself on a bench around the fire pit to write in her journal, she found she couldn’t stay seated. She kept shaking her head as she paced around the camp. A distant, persistent buzzing rattled in the back of her skull.
The sun dropped. It was getting dark. The new moon would rise soon, and it would be the darkest night of camp yet.
Her group didn’t go to the mess for dinner. They roasted hot dogs and corn over the fire, and still Rylie paced. She had to move. She had to go. The dark trees were calling to her, and the muscles in her legs twitched like she was ready to run.
When they were done eating, the counselor let the girls build the fire higher and higher. The leaping flames licked at the starry sky. Ash drifted through the air and stung Rylie’s eyes.
The heat from her anger had never faded, and now it settled in Rylie’s bones. She thought she might be sick.
“Can I go to bed?” she asked Louise in a hoarse whisper.
Louise looked annoyed until she caught sight of Rylie’s pallor. Her lips drew into a frown. “Yes. Of course.”
Rylie crawled into her cot and pulled the sheets over her body, shivering hard. She writhed in bed, rolling and twisting from side to side, and she struggled to keep lunch in her stomach.
The forest wanted her.
Shoving her window open, Rylie gasped cool air into her lungs. There was only one thing to keep her from dying of this fever, and she knew exactly what it was—running up the mountain and never stopping. She had to do it.
But Rylie couldn’t afford being seen leaving again. She waited as patiently as she could in bed, too hot under the covers but too cold without them. She kept kicking them off and pulling them back on again.
All the other girls came to bed after awhile, but Amber wasn’t with them. She had no sense of time anymore. She stifled her groans on her fist and in her pillow.
Peeking through the cabin door, Louise did a head count, and Rylie made sure she was visible. Her entire body shuddered with her efforts to stay still.
“Good night, ladies,” Louise said with a pointed look in the direction of the loft.
She turned off the lights and shut the door. The girls immediately started talking. Rylie waited, feeling like she was going to crawl out of her skin. Little ants marched up and down her spine.
Eventually, the other girls fell silent. Their breaths grew deep. Everyone was asleep.
Everyone but Rylie.
Pushing the window open the rest of the way, she slithered through the small opening and dropped to the ground outside. She eased around the corner of the cabin, watching for counselors. They chatted outside their own cabin, holding mugs of hot tea and discussing problem campers—more specifically, Rylie and Amber.
“I just don’t know what I’m going to do with her. Amber’s parents are threatening to sue. Rylie’s dad’s lawyer has already sent us a letter.” Louise sighed. “I can reassign them to different cabins, but what good would that do? I think they go out of their way to get into fights.” Rylie was tempted to stay and listen, but her body demanded movement.
She plunged into the forest, letting the fever drive her.
It was so much easier now. She never had to slow down to dodge the trees or leap over rocks. Her instincts guided her deeper and deeper into the wilderness. She could smell other beasts: wolves and bears, deer and groundhogs and squirrels. Rylie could even smell summer rain approaching.
Her lungs heaved with exertion. Her feet ached. Rylie’s ribs ached like something was trying to burst out of her chest. A wolf howled in the distant night.
She collapsed to her knees. The fever had been momentarily cooled by her flight in the forest but returned with a fury, and Rylie tore at her own skin. She wanted to shed it like clothing. She wanted to let the thing inside of her out.
Throwing her head back, Rylie screamed.
The sound that ripped from her throat was more beast than human.
Rylie awoke just before dawn feeling cold and damp from dew.
She sat up with a groan, cradling her head in her hands. Rylie was amongst a mess of torn-up trees. A couple of the towering pines were snapped in half, their shattered pieces jutting toward the sky. Others were clawed like the grove where she found her cell phone. It looked like a storm had whipped through the clearing.
And that wasn’t all. The ground had long claw marks in it, too. She ran her hands through the deep furrows in the ground. Her fingers fit perfectly.
Rylie turned her fingers around to study her fingernails. They were caked with dirt and blood.
“What the...?”
Her head throbbed, and she pressed the heel of one hand against her temple. Thinking too much was hard, especially after the disorientation of finding herself in such a mess. A single thought emerged from her muddied brain: if she didn’t get back to her cabin before Louise came to wake everyone up, she was going to be in big trouble.
Rylie had an easy time finding her way back. Even though she felt like she was recovering from the flu, the forest wasn’t as maze-like as it used to be. She smelled breakfast and followed it.
The door to the counselor’s cabin opened when she approached, and Louise emerged, muffling a deep yawn behind a hand. She didn’t see Rylie as she went to the first cabin. Rylie’s was on the other end. She had enough time—barely.
She scaled the cabin wall, using the grooves between the logs to lever herself up to the loft window. She wiggled inside.
Nobody else was awake yet. Patricia was snoring. Rylie had just climbed into the cot and pulled the sheets to her shoulders when Louise opened the door. “Good morning, campers! Shower time!”
Hoping she would be ignored if she stayed quiet, Rylie rolled over and pulled the blankets over her head.
“You too, Miss Gresham,” Louise called up to the loft.
Rylie picked out a fresh outfit and climbed down the ladder, trying not to grumble too loudly. Every inch of her hurt. She desperately wanted sleep, even though she felt like she must have been passed out most of the night.
Stretching under the spray of river water helped work the kinks out of her muscles, but it didn’t clear her head. It fel
t like her skull was stuffed with cotton.
Drying off with another hand-me-down towel, Rylie dressed and went to the mirrors to brush the knots from her hair. She found several pine needles and a soggy caterpillar tangled up in the back. She tossed them in the trash and hoped nobody noticed.
