In the distance, she could see the tallest trees that bordered the Refuge: pine trees that topped a high ridge, casting shadows as the sun inexorably set.It was too late to enter the Refuge.Dark would fall soon, and there were rules about when one could enter.Between sunrise and sunset, as Corinthia recalled.
Corinthia liked rules.They made life simpler.
So when she found herself, upon returning from the leisurely walk, selecting a light jacket least likely to snag on grasping branches, she was entirely surprised.
7
Shebroughtthebook.She didn’t know why—only that it stayed in her bag, when it should have been removed to lighten the weight; when it had absolutely no chance of being read any time soon, especially not in the fading light.
Still she carried it when she entered the Refuge, when the buttery light had cooled to silver.
The knowledge that she shouldn’t be there floated as distant as the cold-weather clouds, traced in the sky in the shape of horse tails.The sound of her sneakers striking the path drew her thoughts away from rule-breaking and hushed them with soothing whispers of sand.
Before, daylight had made the landscape stark in its strangeness.Now dusk blurred it until the walls of the maze became softened shadows, shifting their pathways when she looked away, like Castle Adventure and its movable walls.
The noises were different, too.Where before there were cries of hawks in flight, now there were quiet rustles of feathers in the deep brush, like small shaken-out blankets before bed.No snakes darted across the path this time, and if there were bees, they, too, had fallen silent.There were deep-voiced bullfrogs, and some other kind of frog, higher-pitched but cacophonous, with a sound like marbles crashing together in a bag.
The still-closed blooms on the lyonia bushes smelled like honey; the shorter brush to the sides of the trail smelled faintly of woodsmoke from old lightning strikes; every step turned up the salty scent of the beach; and below it all, rising from the aquifer deep beneath the sand, an exhalation of fresh, mineral-filled springwater.
The flashlight looked too bright.Corinthia turned it down until it was a soft circle of false moonlight, and then turned it off entirely.It was now truly dark.
It was against the rules to be in the Refuge after dark.
If it was against the rules, then why was she there?She should have rightfully returned the book to the shelf as her job required.Corinthia lived for rightful.How satisfying it would have been, to file the book on its shelf, alphabetically by author.And yet she carried the book further down the path, away from the library, away from rules and rightfulness, further up and further into the Refuge, knowing it was something shemustdo.
The path curved onward into the stand of pine trees that outlined the Ephemeral Wetland.Corinthia smelled the water before she could see it: it was crisp and metallic like cooled tea.Perhaps she could leave the book on one of the stumps and wash her hands of it; the chance of finding the nest again, especially in the dark, was slim to none.Whoever had taken it in the first place would surely run across it before any rain came—even while breaking the rules, Corinthia could not bear to think of a book being damaged.
She stopped and took it out of her bag.When she looked up, a breeze had rippled the surface of the water in the distance, fracturing it like a mirror, each crack lined with white light.
The ripples flowed toward a toppled pine tree that Corinthia hadn’t noticed before.Its trunk extended far out into the pond, like a bridge to nowhere ending in a puff of branches.
Only—itwasn’ta puff of branches.
It was a person, sitting on the log, for all intents and purposes appearing to be intentionally perched in the most unlikely of places.
Rosemary.
She wore what appeared to be a silk pajama set, color indistinguishable in the dark, with contrasting piping, and jeweled buttons on the shirt that glittered with diamondesque flashes so crisp they could have made an audible sound, like chimes.
Pajamas.In the woods.
All at once she knew why she had been compelled to bring the book.The forest had called—the forest had brought them together—and Corinthia opened her mouth, for the first time in her life without thinking ahead, and called out: “I’ve brought you your book!”
Rosemary wobbled on her perch.Her arms flew outward for balance.The gemstone buttons on her shirt cast their twinkles chaotically, like tiny stars flung around the clearing, until Rosemary lost her balance completely and fell off the log with a ringing splash that sent water flying into the air.
Corinthia gasped, dropped the book and the bag, and ran for the water.Her footfalls landed, left-right, left-right, with the refrain ofyour fault, your fault.
“I’m sorry!”she cried, racing to where she’d seen Rosemary fall, heedless of possible snakes or thorns, her shoes an instant ruin in the tea-like water, the cold seizing her around the ankles like it would drag her in entirely, to be finished off by the grasping, gooey mud.
Rosemary surfaced, dripping water, the depth of the pond a thick swirl of ink below the moonlit surface.
Corinthia rushed to her, seized her by the arms, and drew her up.Water fell from Rosemary in sheets.“Are you okay?”
Rosemary held Corinthia’s arms and said nothing for a moment, only gazed at her, dark eyes full of moonlight.
Corinthia, for whom feeling guilty was an infrequent but highly painful experience, began to askAre you okay?again but did not get more than the first syllable out before Rosemary laid a cool, wet, silencing finger on Corinthia’s lips.
Corinthia was shivering.Corinthia was in shock.Corinthia who would have normally shaken off such contact in an instant simply froze in place.
