Noah ⚡ 10:01 AM: Hey Ripples you’re an artist right?? Could you paint my face for something?

Ripley 🎶 10:05 AM: I’m... scared to ask what for

Noah ⚡ 10:06 AM: Nothing weird, just need to blend in with my environment for burglary purposes

Ripley 🎶 10:06 AM: Um

Raj 🔨 10:07 AM: We put in the security system at the house yesterday, we’re testing it tonight! Noah’s gonna try to break in and we’re going to see if it catches him. We think there’s an angle where you could get in from the roof

Me 10:07 AM: Okay but you guys do realize that if your neighbors see Noah crawling on the roof wearing face paint and visibly trying to break in, the actual police might be called, right?

Noah ⚡ 10:10 AM: No dude I’m not REALLY breaking in it’s just a test

Me 10:10 AM: Yeah but like

Me 10:10 AM: ffs someone help me out here

Ripley 🎶 10:10 AM: Might not be the best idea Noah

Ripley 🎶 10:11 AM: Also you have a lot of hardware in your face, idk if you want me to get paint on all that

Noah ⚡ 10:11 AM: Piercings can be replaced, but glory… that’s forever

Noah ⚡ 10:11 AM: Denzel Washington said that

Me 10:12 AM: No he absolutely did not

Ripley 🎶 10:13 AM: Oh well when you put it like that

Ripley 🎶 10:14 AM: Do you have a ghillie suit you want me to match colors to or?

Companion Plant 🍃 10:15 AM: Noah I will not bail you out of jail for the world’s stupidest non-crime, js.

Companion Plant 🍃 10:15 AM: Attachment (Image)

Raj 🔨 10:17 AM: Awww look at you two forest boys!! Wait is Jamie ok?

Noah ⚡ 10:17 AM: LMAOOOOOOO JAMIE’S FACE

Ripley 🎶 10:17 AM: Omg Jamie

Noah ⚡ 10:18 AM: Aiden looks SO happy and Jamie looks SO stressed

Companion Plant 🍃 10:18 AM: I look happy because Jamie keeps velcroing himself to me every time the forest makes an unexpected sound. I’m having a great time

Raj 🔨 10:19 AM: CUTE

Me 10:19 AM: Hate all of you

Me 10:19 AM: I’m for real gonna get eaten by a bear :( And then you’ll all be sorry for laughing

Raj 🔨 10:20 AM: Looks like we’ll be spending some quality time together, hey Ripples? Given that Jamie will be eaten by a bear and Aiden dead from trying to fistfight a bear and Noah in jail for property crimes

Ripley 🎶 10:21 AM: Sounds good! I’m down

Me 10:22 AM: Again, hate all of you

Noah ⚡ 10:23 AM: I bet I could put up a solid fight against a bear, tbh

Raj 🔨 10:23 AM: Ten bucks says you can’t

Companion Plant 🍃 10:24 AM: We’re about to lose reception, btw. Deep forest now.

Raj 🔨 10:25 AM: Have fun!

Me 10:25 AM: Oh god. If I never come back tell my mom I love her (Delivery Failure - No Service)

~~~~

“What was that?” I latch onto Aiden’s bicep and crush myself against his side. “Did you hear that?”

“Jamie,” he laughs. “We’ve been hiking for hours. Nothing has happened yet.” He works his arm free and loops it around my shoulders. “Would you relax?”

“I think you’re relaxed enough for the both of us!”

“I don’t know why you expected anything but this, Aiden.” Kasey is walking a few yards ahead, but she slows down so we can catch up.

“I’m not complaining,” Aiden tells her. “I just don’t want Jamie to have a nervous breakdown.”

“That’s true, we don’t want that. It’s a lot of very fast talking. And his face gets all red.”

“Yep, that sounds about right.” Aiden ruffles my hair, a sun-bright smile on his face. He seems happy out here, his blue eyes clear and confident, his laugh easy to rise out of him. I think he likes the miles of quiet around us.

Me, on the other hand. The moment of peaceful clarity I had at dawn has long since evaporated. In fact, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking - Aiden offered me an out, and I didn’t take it! I was chill when we first started walking a paved path into the forest, totally calm when the path turned into mud and dirt, and a little stressed out by the time that the path disappeared completely.

But now?

Aiden wasn’t joking when he said deep forest. I only started panic-grabbing him when the foliage got so dense and thick that it became difficult to see more than thirty feet in any direction - if that.

We’ve been on a steady uphill climb for a while, now, and I’m trying not to think about my sore feet or the way my backpack is starting to dig into my shoulders. At least it’s cool and dry, and sunlight is making its way through to the forest floor. But I’m very much back to hating camping on both a conceptual and practical level.

I will say, this is a lot less terrible without Ralph and a fucked up Noah along for the ride. That was a disaster. We didn’t find the cemetery, Ralph and Aiden got into a shouting match, Noah got lost…

In retrospect, Noah had the worst time out of all of us, that day. He’s the one who ended up shivering and alone on a dark forest floor, having what must have been one of the worst drug experiences of his life, given that he basically ditched it all afterward. I mean, not all, but I haven’t seen him under the influence of anything too heavy, not since then.

Or maybe that's more to do with him living in Raj’s house? Maybe he doesn’t want to get too fucked up and accidentally destroy all their hard work?

Or - some combination of the two?

Either way, if Noah can handle that nightmare experience and come out okay, well… I can do this, right? This is nothing, compared to that.

Kasey is already way ahead of us again; she can walk right through things, but Aiden and I have to find pathways. He releases my shoulders and glances at my face, then does a double-take.

“Are you alright? You look, um.”

“Oh no, really?” I groan. “Here I was like - okay, I think I’ve found a modicum of chill.”

“You... look like a man being hunted for sport.”

“Stop it! I’m totally calm and cool and fine-”

Aiden laughs, cutting me off. “Dear god. Okay.”

“What?”

“I have an idea.”

“Alright?”

He points to a tree some twenty feet ahead of us, just to the right of where we’re walking.

“What is that?” he asks.

“Um...? It’s a tree?”

“Obviously, but - what is it?”

I squint through the green forest light, observing the bark, the coloration, the dual trunks sourcing from the same roots.

“It’s an Ash tree.”

Aiden’s eyes travel up to the tree’s canopy. “How do you know?”

“Mmm - the pinnate leaves, straight boles, snowberry growing around the base, the - just trust me, it is. They usually prefer swampy ground, a stream or a river or something, but I guess this one-”

“Oh, look.” Aiden nods, and I follow his gaze to a shallow, moss-green pond, just around the other side of the Ash. I hadn’t noticed it from where we were, but as we get closer, it shimmers into visibility. “You were right, man. How old is the tree? Can you tell?”

“I don’t know for sure… Ash trees can live up to two hundred and fifty years, I think.”

“Two hundred and fifty fucking years?” Aiden stares up at the swirl of branches overhead. “Jesus Christ! So this thing could be older than William?”

“Oh, easily, yeah. I mean - two hundred and fifty years is nothing, not by tree standards. And a tree can be hundreds of years old but have roots that are thousands of years old.”

“Seriously?”

“Mhm. Trees live much longer in big forests like this... Most of them don’t like to grow alone, and some can’t. They work together to moderate the climate, they communicate, and share, support each other…”

Aiden smiles. “Companion plants.”

I can’t help but smile back at him, in spite of everything.

“Naturally occurring ones, but yeah, that’s the idea.”

“See, dude? This place is like, your domain. I don’t know why you’re so stressed. You can read this landscape way better than I can. I think if you relax for a minute, you’ll realize it’s actually nice.”

“It’s not nice!” I answer, a stubborn and instant reflex, but…

Aiden is right. I’m the one panicking, but I’m also the one with the toolbox, so to speak. Of the three of us, I’m the one who could use plants to determine our elevation, or figure out whether we’re near a limestone deposit, or water, or disturbed ground. Plants always have much more to tell us than we give them credit for. I’ve been so busy making sure I don’t walk into a spiderweb or the mouth of a grizzly that I haven’t been paying attention to what might actually give me a heads up about those things.

I take a deep inhale, breathing in everything that the trees are breathing out. My frantic nerves finally give me a moment of peace, and I scan my eyes over the dense plant life before us, tiny observations filling up my mind-

The sound of a twig snapping draws my attention. I spot a heavy blanket of sedges up ahead, and scattered amidst those, there’s some type of honeysuckle-looking plant with little globes of red fruit. Highbush Cranberry, maybe?

I know what type of animal likes to snack on those. I seize Aiden’s hand, stopping him mid-stride. He turns to look at me, affectionate exasperation on his face.

“Jamie, for the last time, not every sound is a giant animal coming to-”

I push a finger over his lips with my free hand, still gripping his fingers with the other.

“Aiden, look.”

He blinks at me, then twists to face forward, just in time to catch a glimpse of tawny fur moving behind the trees. His hand stiffens in mine.

“Shh,” I whisper. “We’re fine. Just don’t move.”

I expect some pushback on this, but Aiden holds perfectly still, and so do I, until the visitor wanders out of the trees.

A massive crown of graceful antlers, deep brown at the base and white at the tips. A black, wet nose, and a coppery coat that grows darker around the neck. It stops, looking at us. We stare right back, breaths held. The elk considers us for a moment, then huffs out a breath that mists on the cold air. He turns and threads his way through the trees until the forest swallows him back up.

“Holy shit,” Aiden finally says. He stirs and looks down at me, giving my fingers a squeeze. “You alright?”

“I… am.” Strangely enough.

Kasey suddenly appears through a tree. “Are you two coming, or what?”

Aiden’s eyes move back to my face, and I know that this is a question for me.

“Yeah, we’re coming.”

I don’t let go of Aiden’s hand when we start walking again. There’s something grounding about the warm, steady press of his palm against mine.

A sudden rush of wind spreads across the forest's upper canopy, sending the leaves dancing, and I close my eyes. Rustling trees in town sound like rain, but this is old growth, the freehand artwork of nature, and it sounds different. This sounds vast, more like the ocean.

It’s a quiet and powerful song, leaf and air, the language of these ancient pillars of fixed carbon that tower all around us, but also - my language.

Okay, I answer silently. I hear you. I’m listening.

~~~~

“Do you always do this with a flashlight in your mouth?” I ask Aiden, who has to pull it out to answer.

“Typically you’re supposed to set up camp before it gets dark.” He uses the heel of his hiking boot to push a stake into the ground. “But we were so close to where I planned for us to sleep, I figured we should just keep going…”

“We’re going to die out here,” I tell him, shivering.

“Dude, you were doing so well! What happened?”

“Night happened.”

“Here, come help me with the tent.”

“Kasey, you help him.”

“You know, I would just love to, but there’s a tiny issue with that plan.”

Goddamnit. I lurch back onto my aching feet and join Aiden by the tent, moving carefully, trying not to trip on any hidden obstacles. I can barely see anything out here, not even the details of our campsite. The beam of Aiden’s flashlight is basically the only break in a solid wall of darkness. I extract it from his mouth and point it at whatever he’s doing with the tent stakes.

Aiden is too tired to make the magic fireflies, and god, it’s dark. So dark. “Are we near the cemetery, do we think?”

“No, I didn’t expect to find it today, I wanted us to find a high vantage point,” Aiden explains, still bent over the stake he’s working on. “It’ll be easier to see the spectral lines from overhead. We’ll have a look tomorrow and then go towards the most likely place.” He straightens up, brushing off his hands. “Okay, that should do it.”

“Does that mean I can go in the tent?” I ask, my teeth chattering.

“Yeah, just grab your backpack.”

“Come on, Kasey, let’s go.”

“No thanks, I’m sleeping out here. I can’t get hurt, and I’m not into being the third spoon in that tent sandwich.”

“That metaphor makes no kind of sense, but fine.” I reach for her hand, then remember I can’t hold it. “Don’t go too far, though, okay?”

“Uh, too far into the pitch-black forest? Yeah, no, I won’t. I’m gonna sleep right here, don’t worry.”

Aiden and I pull off our shoes and socks and crawl into the tent. He unrolls the two sleeping bags he brought, then unzips them both all the way, turning them into two thick, oversized blankets. He spreads the first one out on the tent floor, and I sprawl out on top of it, flexing my toes.

“I’m so tired,” I tell him, fighting to keep my eyes open.

“Me, too.” He tucks the glasses into his bag and sits cross-legged by my knees, watching me.

“How can I be this tired? Is this a camping thing? It’s not even late.” I scowl at the tent ceiling. “And my feet hurt.”

Aiden’s hands drift down my ankles, and before I know what’s happening, he’s digging his thumbs into the arch of my foot, rolling the pads of his fingers into the muscle there. I let out a moan so loud and dramatic that he bursts into startled laughter.

Kasey sticks her head through the side of the tent.

“Okay, I am not about to listen to you two-” She stops, taking in the scene. “Um. What the fuck is-? You know what, actually? Don’t answer that. Goodnight.”

She disappears again, and Aiden shakes his head at me, grinning widely, one eyebrow quirked.

“Anything else I can do for you, princess?”

“Yes. I’m cold.” I reach for him, and he tosses his hat aside, climbing up to fit himself next to me. I suspect that the level of heat he’s putting off is due to magic more than body temperature, because it’s freezing outside, but I feel cozy in here. Either way, Aiden’s warmth is heaven on my sore body.

“Oh my god.”

“Mmm, what?” he mumbles.

“I just remembered that I can’t shower tonight.”

His low chuckle makes me curl a little further into him.

“The good news is, it’s gonna feel really great when you get to shower again.”

“Why do you know that?”

“Told you, I’ve done some sleeping outside.” His voice is as drowsy as mine, his eyes already closed. “Is it okay if I turn off the flashlight?”

I lean over and do it myself. Darkness engulfs us completely, and a little jolt of fear moves through me, but - with Aiden right here, this close… The panic doesn’t come. He tugs the other sleeping bag over us, then folds a protective arm around me. I pop a little kiss onto his forearm and snuggle back up against him.

“Wow, Jamie. I expected a full-on freakout when the flashlight went off.”

“I did, too.”

“You’re doing better than I thought you would. Overall.”

“Famous last words. The bears are going to come for us any minute now.”

Aiden’s laugh is sweet and sleepy.

“There’s nothing to worry about.” He pulls me closer and brushes a gentle kiss into the side of my neck. “Get some sleep. We’ve got a haunted cemetery to find in the morning.”