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Chapter One
Druscilla
My master’s degree had been a walk in the park compared to the work I was doing to complete my doctorate. Until now, I’d never struggled with anything school related. Straight As all the way through high school, scholarships when I entered college at fifteen. But with my master’s under my belt and my doctorate just a year out, I had found myself slowing down, searching for relevant data, and feeling completely dissatisfied with what I had to present.
My advisor was fine with it, and there was no reason to make any changes. Except, there were. Cryptozoology was referred to as a pseudoscience, but why did it have to be? If I hadn’t believed there was some truth to the legend of Bigfoot, I would have never taken it up. All because I saw one when I was a little girl.
Or thought I had…
Sitting in my office, I stared at my computer screen where my final draft of my thesis was loaded in email ready to send to my advisor. Could I really call what I had done here enough? It would be approved by the committee. My defense was also ready to go. But my finger hesitated over the button as I tried to decide if it was enough for me? This would go in the on-campus library with the work of many distinguished professors and others…and it had to be the very best I could do.
I’d pushed my personal experience aside because nobody would believe me if I had. It might be a “pseudoscience,” but my professors would not have even accepted me into the graduate program if I appeared to be one of those they loved to laugh at. I had written my thesis as if Bigfoot was a mythological creature who, if it had ever existed, was long extinct. Not what my heart said. But what I believed would be successful in completing my degree.
If I admitted to being one of the “crackpots” who thought they’d seen magical creatures, I would have a hard time being taken seriously in academia.
Worse than seeing one, it was quite possible it had been two.
At six, while camping with my family in a national park, I was awakened by the sounds of someone walking around the forest between us and the lake. My dad and brother had said they were getting up early to go fishing. Maybe I could catch up to them. Slipping out of the tent I shared with my mom, I tiptoed away to the tree line and scanned the darkness. The crunching of leaves guiding me, I listened for my dad’s low tone or my brother’s higher one, moving farther away from camp and before I knew it, I had gotten turned completely around and had no idea how to get back.
And, worse, I heard a growl that sent me to my knees, tears spurting from my eyes and splashing onto the ground. No Daddy or Bobby, just something very tall and hairy stomping past me then disappearing into the trees and coming back again. Or maybe it wasn’t the same one. I curled into a ball trying to disappear, while the thudding footsteps came closer and closer.
My phone buzzed, bouncing on the desk, and I jumped, torn from the memory that was never far from my mind. Just the person I needed to talk to. “Hi, Anais. How are things in your perfect world?”
“Perfect?” She snorted. “Rocky and Thad are amazing in every way, don’t get me wrong. But that amazingness can wear a girl out. Also, neither of them can hang up a towel.”
Two tiger shifters… If there was anything that could push my little-girl memories out and fill my grow-up woman mind with a whole other kind of image. “If you keep this up, I’ll be begging you for the name of a pair of tigers of my own.”
“You don’t want tigers. Those are my obsession. You want bigfoots.”
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine meeting them in person. Again…no, I hadn’t really had that experience, or perhaps I’d misinterpreted what happened. I’d only told one person about being rescued and returned to camp by a large hairy beast—at least since my parents freaked out and told me it was only my imagination and “don’t be running around talking about it to anyone else.”
Or they’d think I was crazy.
Anais did not think I’d lost my mind though. “Dru? You still there?”
“Yes, and I am so glad you found your mates and are happy, but tiger shifters are real, even in modern times. They are just rare. Bigfoots are not around now, if they ever were.”
“It was only twenty years ago that you met one, or maybe even two.” I’d never been sure if the same one came back after walking past me the first time or if it was a second. “If you saw them, and I believe you did, then why would there be none left?”
“Because I was very young and could have been mistaken.”
“Which you know you were not.” Anais huffed out a breath. “Your memories are clear, and it is well-known that children may not remember every Pop-Tart, but traumatic or shocking experiences don’t go away. Your description of the creature is very clear.”
“Mom said maybe it was a bear.”
“Unless it was Yogi or maybe a grown-up Boo Boo, no bear is likely to guide a small child back to her campsite when she’s lost in the woods. And since you never mentioned him asking for a pic-a-nic basket, I think we can confidently say it was not a cartoon bear.”
“But what’s the point of even talking about this now? I’ve gone back to that exact campsite every summer since I turned eighteen, also anywhere there have been sightings reported, and I’ve seen nothing.” The moment school let out, I had packed up my old camper van and headed out, searching until it was time to return in the fall. But I couldn’t keep doing that forever.
“Well, you’ll be wrapping up your thesis soon, and you can continue research without that hanging over you.”
“I just feel like I could have gone further, tried harder, like my thesis is not all it could be.” A student poked her head in the half-open door, and I held up a finger. She ducked out again. “I have to go and speak to one of my charges, but let’s talk soon. Maybe I can visit you or vice versa soon.”
“That would be nice.” We had attended different graduate schools, and now that Anais was with her tigers, she wasn’t even on that campus. “I can meet your mates.”
We disconnected, and I dealt with the student who was having difficulty finding resources for sightings of the Yeti in a certain area of the Himalayas. She dreamed of visiting there one day, but for now, I was able to connect her online with an expert who had, and she left happy.
As I was gathering my things to leave for the day, my phone chimed, and I checked to find a text from Anais.
