Saturday, September 27. Future Grove. Sure.

By the time we hiked back to the campsite, my tee was plastered to my back beneath my bulging backpack. The day had warmed considerably. I already wanted another shower. 

The trail ended and I stopped for a breather, setting down the shopping bags before shrugging off the backpack. The bag of salt I'd wrestled into it hit the ground with a heavy thump. I straightened and groaned.

Lusa stopped, but said nothing. She didn't even seem winded despite carrying more of our supplies.

I took stock for a second.

Nope. That irritation was all mine.

Now where was the tent—

“That way,” Lusa said, pointing off to the right.

“My head,” I snapped, my patience finally fraying.

“It was simple enough to deduce your confusion with observation.”

I got nothing from her side of the bond, the familiar wall rising.

I'd have to learn how to—

No.

I wasn't going to be stuck with this long enough for emotional self-defense lessons to be worth the effort. Focus on the problem at hand, Halberg.

Then another thought occurred to me. Maybe she couldn’t read my thoughts after all. 

Unless I was broadcasting them with my face.

Great.

Added develop a poker face to the list. For later.

“We are losing daylight,” Lusa said.

I shrugged the backpack back on, grimacing as it plastered my damp shirt against my skin, then grabbed the shopping bags. 

“After you.”

My phone buzzed and I dug it out of my pocket.

Sarah.

Finally. Something eased in my chest—

—then I read the message.

Sarah: I know you’ve got a lot going on.
Let me know when things settle down enough you can actually make plans.

Ouch. It sounded fine—on the surface, but I’d known Sarah long enough to be well aware she could rank high in a southern women’s passive-aggressive competition. My mom would medal, that was a given. But Sarah could hold her own. 

Had I even talked to her this week? I wracked my brain, trying to remember. 

No. Just a handful of texts. 

No wonder she was pissed.

I was headed for the doghouse if this kept up. I typed a response. I wasn’t too proud to pretend I hadn’t been waiting for her reply.

Me: I’m sorry. I know I’ve had to cancel a lot. I hate it. I’ll make it up soon. Promise. Call when I can. Love you.

I waited…staring at my phone.

Caught my toe on a root and barely avoided face-planting.

Sarah: Love you too.

I exhaled a long breath. I hadn't completely blown it...yet. I’d have to do some serious making up in the near future.

Lusa stopped, jarring me back to the present. 

Was something wrong? It was too early for hollows…right?

Then I saw the glaring orange of my tiny tent and the tight ring of salt around it.

Lusa set down the cooler and her own brand-new backpack. We'd stuffed it with clothes, toiletries, and a second sleeping bag. She’d balked at the toothpaste, toothbrush, etc., but I had put my foot down. No unnecessary expenditure of power until she was firmly grounded. Then she could magic her teeth clean and whatever else. 

It wouldn’t kill her to live like a human for a few days.

Weeks, on the other hand... 

I set everything else down and tugged the bag of salt out from my backpack.

My phone rang.

Checked the number.

Mom.

If I ignored it, she’d just call again. And keep calling every few hours until I answered.

Glanced at Lusa.

She was already seated on the ground, sorting through our odd collection of purchases for the things she said the ritual would need.

“You good?” I asked.

She nodded but didn’t look up.

“I’m going back for the rest of the salt. Back soon.”

Answered the phone before it rang again and started the hike back to the car. “Hi, Mom.”

“Hello dear, do you have a minute?” My mother’s voice was warm.

I didn’t but it wouldn’t do any good to tell her that. “Sure. What’s up?” I said, scanning the woods around me. 

Where was the trail again?

“Are you sure? You sound a little distracted.”

Something shifted at the edge of my vision. I swung to track it.

Nothing.

Squirrel, I told myself. Woods, remember?

“Nate?”

“Sorry, just dealing with something from work. Go ahead.”

I was just tense after last night. That was it.

Sure.

“I just wanted to see if you and Sarah were coming to lunch after church tomorrow.”

And church was heavily implied but not mentioned.

“Rachel and the boys are coming.” 

Which probably meant Danny, my sister’s husband, had work. Or was going hunting and said he had work.

Guilt stabbed me. I'd been blaming work for everything lately.

Shoved that thought aside.

It wasn’t like I wanted to be doing this.

“Can’t tomorrow, sorry. One of my coworkers left. I’ll be tied up all weekend.”

Mom sighed. I knew the one. That disappointed-mother sigh layered with guilt that your life wasn’t following whatever perfect plan she’d dreamed up.

“Nathaniel,” her tone switched to that you listen here one I swore she saved just for me. “You’ve got to find a different job. Sarah isn’t going to wait forever. You two have been together for years already.”

I could feel myself bristling at her words. “I know, Mom, I—“

“I want grandchildren, Nathaniel. Preferably before I’m too old to enjoy them.”

I snorted a laugh. My mother was a spry fifty-five years young. 

I got a hold of my temper and reminded myself this wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation. I knew the dance.

“I could just ask Sarah to move in and start working on those—“

My mother squawked in outrage.

“Nathaniel Soren Halberg! How dare you—“

“I’m kidding! Just…hang in there a little longer, okay? John says I’m shortlisted for the next team lead position when it opens. Ray’s supposed to retire next year. Once that happens—“ and I rebuild my ring fund, I added to myself “—we will be all set.”

“People used to just get married,” Mom sniffed. “They didn’t wait until the numbers added up. Why your dad and I—“

Another flicker of movement.

I stopped and slowly turned.

Nothing.

The woods weren't supposed to be this quiet…right?

“Nathaniel?”

I remembered the phone in my hand. “Sorry, I got distracted.”

When I glanced at the shadows again, they seemed normal.

I took a deep, calming breath. 

Just nerves. It had been a rough week.

“Sorry I can’t make tomorrow. Gotta get back to work. We will come by soon. Promise.”

“Oh, very well. Love you.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

I hung up and shoved the phone back into my pocket.

Fantastic. 

Dealing with my mother was nothing new—it was just a lot on top of everything else that had been dumped on me. At least I could push her buttons a little. 

I smiled, remembering her outrage over my suggestion Sarah and I move in together.

The hair on my neck stood on end, followed by a creeping sense of being watched.

Just your imagination, I told myself firmly.

But I found the trail and hurried back to the car.

By the time I’d hiked back in with the second bag of salt and the last of our purchases, every sense was on high alert. 

The flickers of shadow I’d seen on the way out to the car had resolved into something…else. It wasn’t mist. It wasn’t a liquid. It was something in between. Something oily. Viscous. Slightly opaque. 

They dotted the woods in patches, always in shadow. Clinging to the ground. A dying tree. A bare rock.

And I swear it moved. Never when I was watching, but always at the edge of my vision.

When the trail ended, I grudgingly consulted the bond to figure out where Lusa—and our campsite—was from there. It helped if I didn’t think about it too much and just set my feet on autopilot.

Lusa was spreading a much larger circle of salt around the crown of the ridge we’d claimed. 

I set the bags down and straightened with a groan. Mom might be a spry fifty-five, but at the moment I felt like I'd aged a decade on that hike.

I did what I was good at.

Shoved that thought—and the physical discomfort—aside for dealing with later. 

Preferably never.

I tracked Lusa’s progress, noting the ground she’d cleared of any sticks, rocks or other interruptions. The holes in the ground she’d carefully filled. 

Last night’s circle had clearly been quick, dirty work. 

…and the tree our visitor had dropped was in the way. So was the chunk of another tree it had brought down with it.

I grabbed the saw.

“What has to go?” I asked.

“The broken tree is fine so long as it doesn’t break the circle,” Lusa said.

I traced the path she was drawing, guessing the broken tree meant the part of the second that had been knocked down.

It looked like the circle would intersect a few feet above the broken end.

“So just cut the bottom chunk away?” I asked.

“Yes. The tainted tree must be completely removed. None can remain inside.”

A quick check told me that basically everything except the thickest section of the trunk fell into that category. 

“Do not touch it,” Lusa said. There was a weight to her voice that stopped me from pushing back, from asking why.

I dug out the gloves I’d bought today at her insistence and traded my sweaty tee for long sleeves.

“Should have bought a chainsaw, park rangers be damned,” I grumbled. 

But I started cutting branches.

Once the salt circle neared the fallen trees, Lusa grabbed her own gloves and helped clear branches. The shadows were growing longer as she dragged the last of them to our growing pile while I tackled cutting the remaining portion of trunk we needed to relocate into manageable pieces.

Movement caught my eye.

I stopped, scanning, until I found a dark cloud writhing on the roots. 

“What is that?” I asked softly. 

Lusa paused. Noted the direction I was staring. 

“Miasma,” she said. “A servant of darkness—little more than essence. A symptom of taint. Not dangerous. But its presence is concerning.” 

It took entirely too long to cut through the rest of trunk. The sun was sinking when I finally dragged the last section outside the circle. 

The miasma was moving more noticeably, as if the waning light made it bolder, or stronger. 

I sat by the tent wearily, sipping some water as Lusa finished pouring the last of the boundary. The air took on that same charged feeling I'd noticed the night before. It gathered at the unfinished edge of the circle as the two ends of the salt line drew closer.

The circle snapped into place.

Lusa sat beside me, reaching for her own water bottle. She sipped. Her expression didn’t change—but the bond soured for a heartbeat.

“What if it rains?” I asked. It was almost October after all. We’d had unusually cool weather the last week or so. It wouldn’t surprise me if the fall rains came early too.

I pulled out my phone.

“Can your window tell you the weather?”

“Yeah, there’s a weather app. It’s right about half the time.”

“And you trust it?”

I shrugged. “Fifty percent chance of rain tonight.”

Lusa looked skyward, inhaled. Closed her eyes and just…sat.

“It will not rain tonight,” she said. She sounded certain. “Tomorrow though—we will have to replenish the salt after it does.”