I was suddenly very aware of my appearance. “I’m not exactly dressed for this.” I brushed a hand through my hair and remember my fingers were dirty.
She waved a hand at me. “We’re not formal, Ox.”
“I’m dirty.”
“Well-worn, more like. Take this out back, would you? Thomas and Mark will be glad to see you.” She handed me a bowl of fruit and I held it along with the box that carried the stone wolf. Joe tried to follow me out, but she stopped him. “You stay here with me for now. I need help. Ox, away with you.”
“But, Mom—”
I walked through the back door. A large table had been set up in the grass. It was covered in a red tablecloth held down by old books set on the corners. Kelly was unfolding chairs around the table. “All right, then?” he asked me as I set the fruit down.
“Things happen… fast here,” I said.
He laughed. “You don’t know the half of it.” And as if proving my point, “Dad wants to talk to you.”
“Oh. About what?” I tried to think back if I’d done something wrong already. I couldn’t remember everything I’d said yesterday. It wasn’t much. Maybe that was the problem.
“It’s okay, Ox. He’s not as scary as he looks.”
“Liar.”
“Well, yeah. But it’s good you know that already. It’ll make things easier.” He suddenly laughed, as if he’d heard something funny. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, waving his hand at me.
They were grilling, Mark and Thomas. I wanted desperately to go stand by them. Shoot the shit. Talk like I belonged. I gathered up my courage.
Only to have Mark turn and walk toward me. “We’ll talk later,” Mark said, squeezing my shoulder before I could say anything. He left me with Thomas. Thomas had at least three inches on me and maybe forty pounds in his chest and arms and legs. I was bigger than most, even at sixteen. But Thomas was bigger still.
He eyed the box in my hand. “Joe tied the ribbon himself,” he said. “Wouldn’t let anyone else help.”
Honesty, maybe. “I almost told him I couldn’t take it.”
An eyebrow rose. “Why is that?”
“It seems… precious.”
“It is.”
“Then why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would he give it to me?”
Maddeningly, “Why not?”
“I don’t have precious things.”
“I understand you live with your mother.”
“Yes.” And then I knew what he meant. “Oh.”
“We’re all allowed to have certain things that are just ours.” He motioned for Kelly to come to the grill. “Walk with me, Ox.”
I followed him. He led me away from the house. Into the trees. A man I only met the day before. And yet I felt no hesitation. I told myself it was because I was starved for the attention and nothing more.
“We used to live here,” he said. “Before you. Carter was only two when we left. It wasn’t meant to be for as long as it was. That’s what is so funny about life. And so scary. It gets in the way and then one day, you open your eyes and a decade has passed. Even more.” He reached out and brushed his hands along score marks in the trunk of a tree. His fingers almost fit it perfectly and I wondered what could have caused such scrapes. It looked like claw marks.
“Why did you leave?” I asked, though it was not my place.
“Duty called. Responsibilities that couldn’t be ignored, no matter how hard we tried. My family has lived in these woods for a very long time.”
“It must be good to be home.”
“It is,” he said. “Mark kept an eye out every now and then, but it wasn’t the same as touching the trees myself. He’s quite taken with you, you know.”
“Mark?”
“Sure. Him too. You think you hide, Ox, but you give so much away. The expressions on your face. The breaths you take. Your heartbeat.”
“I try not to.”
“I know, but I can’t figure out why. Why do you hide?”
Because it was easier. Because I’d done it for as long as I could remember. Because it was safer than being out in the sun and letting people in. It was better to hide and wonder than reveal and know the truth.
I could have said that. I think I had the capacity and I could have found the words. They would have come out in a stutter. Halted and choked and bitter. But I could have forced them out.
Instead, I said nothing.
Thomas smiled quietly at me. He closed his eyes and turned his face up toward the sun. “It’s different here than anywhere else,” he said, inhaling deeply.
“Mark said that when we met. About the smells of home.”
“Did he? In the diner.”
“He told you?”
Thomas smiled. It was nice, but showed too many teeth. “He did. He seemed to think you were a kindred spirit. And then what you did with Joe.”
I was alarmed. I took a step back. “What did I do? Is he okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“Ox.” His voice was deep. Deeper than before, and when his hands came down on my shoulders, it felt like a command, and I relaxed even before I knew it was happening. The tension left like it had never been there at all and I tilted my head back slightly, like I was exposing my neck. Even Thomas seemed surprised. “What is your last name?” he asked.
“Matheson.” There was an undercurrent of panic, but his voice was still deep and his hand still on my shoulders and the panic wouldn’t bubble toward the surface.
He opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again. Then each word came, deliberate and careful. “Yesterday, when Joe found you. Who spoke first?”
“He did. He asked if I smelled something.” I wanted to take the stone wolf out of the box and look at it again.
Thomas stepped back, dropping his hands. He shook his head. There was a small smile on his face that looked almost like wonder. “Mark said you were different. In a good way.”
“I’m not anyone,” I said.
“Ox, before yesterday, we hadn’t heard Joe speak in fifteen months.”
The trees and the birds and the sun all fell away and I was cold. “Why?”
Thomas smiled sadly. “Because of life and all its horrors. The world can be a terrible place.”
IT CAN be. The world. Terrible and chaotic and wonderful.
People could be cruel.
I heard it when people called me names behind my back.
I heard it when they said the same things to my face.
I heard it in the sound the door made when my father left.
I heard it in the crack of my mother’s voice.
Thomas didn’t tell me why Joe stopped talking. I didn’t ask. It wasn’t my place.
People could be cruel.
They could be beautiful, but they could be cruel too.
It’s like something so lovely can’t just be lovely. It also has to be harsh and corroding. It’s a complexity I didn’t understand.
I didn’t see the cruelty when I sat down at their table the first time. Mark sat to my left, Joe to my right. The food was dished but nobody lifted a fork or spoon so I didn’t either. All eyes were on Thomas, who sat at the head of the table. The breeze was warm. He smiled at each of us and took a bite.