“It’s my fault they found him,” Cadie said.
Daniela turned her head and waited for Cadie to continue.
“I created models indicating where beetles were most likely to kill off pines so we could dig firebreaks in areas with deadwood. Creeks and riverbeds make natural firebreaks, but sometimes they aren’t wide enough. We clear combustible brush so the fire can’t jump the waterways. I sent my projections to local fire stations. Most towns ignored me, but not Maple Crest. They cleared the brush.”
“On Silas Creek,” Daniela said.
“Yeah. On Silas Creek.”
“Do you still believe in trees more than people?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cadie said.
“When we were kids, I always suspected you talked to trees when I wasn’t around. And now you spend all your time alone in the woods. That’s the last place I’d want to be.”
Cadie pressed her cheek against the beech tree. If she disappeared, maybe only the forest would care. Sweat trickled down her neck. Even with so many years and wounds between them, Daniela still saw Cadie in a way no one else ever had. Daniela squeezed Cadie’s throbbing finger, the spike of pain anchoring her in the place she had so long avoided.
“What happens if you prove you’re right about the beetles and the fire risk?” Daniela said.
“We can monitor the infestation, predict patterns, and thin the pines to prevent fires before they get out of control.” Cadie repeated the line she had recited so many times before.
Daniela took Cadie’s hand to examine the finger where the splinter had been. Satisfied the bleeding had stopped, she turned Cadie’s hand to inspect the self-inflicted scar on the pad of her thumb.
“Do you still have your scar?” Cadie said.
Daniela opened her hand to show Cadie the faint pink line on her thumb.
“Blood sisters. We were ridiculous, weren’t we?” Cadie said.
“More than ridiculous.” Daniela’s eyes darted around the woods.
“Why’d you move back here?”
“I needed work. The hospital here needed a radiology tech, my parents wanted us to move in. Can’t argue with free rent.” Daniela picked up a small stone and tossed it back and forth between her hands. “All the important decisions I’ve made in my life were made out of convenience, not because I ever had a real plan.” Daniela finished the last of her beer. “I took the first job offer I got after school. I married the first willing guy, then let my parents rescue me when he died. I’m always playing defense.”
“I’m sorry. What happened to him? I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“It’s okay. A drunk driver hit him five years ago.” Daniela stared into the darkness. “He was a decent guy and a great dad.”
Cadie wanted to say something supportive, but she had no right to offer life advice to anyone.
“Think you’ll stay here until Sal graduates?”
“I don’t know yet.” Daniela sat up straighter and faked a smile. “How about you? Are you seeing anyone? Running away from anyone?”
Cadie preferred talking about insects over her love life, but her work problems seemed suddenly insignificant compared to Daniela’s situation. And Daniela seemed like she wanted to keep things light.
“I dated this park ranger from Vermont for a while. We talked about moving in together. But, I don’t know, it fizzled out a couple years ago. It’s been me and the beetles ever since.”
“Maybe if you worked on your wardrobe and personal hygiene you’d have better luck.”
Humid air wrapped around Cadie like a familiar blanket as she and Daniela slipped into old patterns. When they were kids, Cadie clung to Daniela’s tender jabs as evidence of their friendship. Daniela’s trust expanded Cadie’s capacity to dream out loud. She allowed Cadie to take risks and never judged her. With Daniela, Cadie had felt powerful and explosive and special. Just as she had when she was eleven, Cadie longed to be worthy of that confidence.
Even in the clumsy, surface-level conversation, Cadie felt at ease in a way she did with few people. She imagined friendships still came easily to Daniela, who invited people to like her with her unapologetic posture. She could ask questions that Cadie would never dare, but when they came from Daniela, the inquiries felt endearing and considerate. If Cadie did the same, she suspected she would come off as intrusive or nosy. Daniela attracted closeness, tenderness. She would have no need for a friend like Cadie, and Cadie felt childish and small for wishing otherwise.
Bats circled above their heads, weaving in and out of the trees. Daniela ducked when one dipped low.
“They won’t bother us,” Cadie said.
Even alone on her research expeditions, Cadie felt at home among the clicks and chirps of the night forest. The gentle crush of pine needles under her tent as she shifted in her sleeping bag soothed her in a way sheets couldn’t. The mossy tang when she unzipped her tent in the chilled morning air mollified Cadie like a drug. But she missed having occasional company in her tent. The park ranger, who used to wake her with pancakes over the campfire on weekends. Fresh coffee by a fire on a fall morning with him had been the one thing that soothed Cadie all the way to her core.
But her reluctance to move into his apartment and give up her cairn pushed him away, and he met someone more willing to play house. She missed him in the mornings. Or maybe she missed the body heat and the pancakes.
Another bat swooped lower than the first. Cadie flinched, and for the first time in a long time, she wanted to go inside.
Cadie stood up and snapped her fingers as they walked back toward her cottage, a habit she had formed over years spent working in the forest. “Remember the tambourine you gave me? I still carry it with me on all my hikes to warn bears off.”
“You do not.”
“I’m serious. I clip it on my pack every trip. I haven’t been eaten by a bear yet.”
Daniela stopped walking and looked Cadie straight in the eyes for the first time since she had walked in the door with beer and ice cream.
“You never told anyone?” Her stare pulled Cadie back in time, reminding her of that trust Daniela had placed in her so long ago. The trust Cadie had betrayed. Her chest ached as if a fist squeezed her heart, wringing the blood out of it.
“No one,” Cadie whispered.
A loon wail, hollow and wild, echoed in the cove.
“Then who took the gun?”
4
THAT SUMMER
Daniela lay on her back with her eyes closed, playing a wooden flute, when Cadie found her on the rock the morning after they met in the woods. She played the same song she had been whistling the day before. Although her eyes remained closed, her face morphed with each note, her eyes squeezing tight at the high notes and her eyebrows rising as she sustained a long tone. Cadie lingered at the edge of the hemlocks to listen.
Friar nuzzled Daniela’s neck. She scrunched her face at the dog’s wet nose, but continued playing without missing a note. The breathy melody expanded like an organic part of the forest, fused to the air, the leaves, and the stone.
“Did you see any bears?” Daniela moved the flute from her lips without opening her eyes and put an arm around Friar.