Page 53 of Anomalies

The Captain takes off walking towards the tree line, and for a moment I think about giving up and trying my luck at sleep, but when Callan pauses at the edge of the woods and turns back to face me…there’s a challenge in his moonlit gaze.

I realize then how stupid I must look, standing dumbfounded in the grass. My pride is too strong to turn down a challenge, so I wrap my shawl tighter around me and follow the Captain into the woods.

“Can you slow down?” I call to the bobbing head of dark hair moving quickly through the trees ahead. I pick up my pace when he doesn’t do as I ask, cursing to myself as I navigate large tree roots and dodge spiderwebs.

We’re deep into the woods at this point, and I make the upsetting realization that this is the start of every horror movie I’ve ever seen: Girl willingly follows a stranger into the woods only to be chopped up into tiny pieces and sunk to the bottom of the lake⁠—

His bobbing head disappears.

Vanishes entirely.

My voice is small and flat as it sounds through the dense forest. “Callan?”

Silence.

I hurry in the direction I’d last seen him, a scream tearing from my throat when I step out into thin air.

My stomach flips and my heart stops as I fall⁠—

Callan catches my waist before I hit the ground, and the moment I have my footing, my fist rears back and connects seamlessly with his jaw. I reload when his head snaps to the side, but he snatches my fist before I can land another hit.

“Stop that,” he scolds, like I’m a petulant child, but I don’t listen. I fight against his hold with everything I have until his grip tightens. “Holy fuck, Lucina, you’re fine.”

He lets go only when the fight in my eyes dies out, and I can’t help but smile as he stretches out his jaw.

“That… was a solid punch,” he says, and I feel my smile widen— “for someone of your size.”

My face falls at the backhanded compliment. “Asshole,” I mutter straightening my shawl. My feet shift on uneven rocks, and I swivel towards the direction I’d fallen from. There’s a three-foot drop from the forest floor to…creek rocks? “Where are we?”

When I look back, Callan is off again, walking parallel to a wide babbling stream, maneuvering through jagged rocks like he’s memorized each one and knows how much they teeter. The sheer confidence he has that I’ll follow is infuriating.

I wait a second before I do, just to prove a point, then I take the same path he’s walking. The sound of rushing water grows louder and louder, and at the creek’s end, the stream cascades into a small pool, a waterfall draped over moss-covered rocks on either side. It’s beautiful, really, an iridescent glow to the water that reflects off the dark grey stone beneath.

Callan plops down on a flat slab before me. It’s perched high enough that you can see the shallow pool below, without getting wet.

I hesitate to join him at first, but he rolls his eyes at my caution, then pats the space beside him gently enough that none of it feels threatening. It feels innocent.

I slide in beside him, keeping to the edge—this rock isn’t meant for two. My brows shoot up when the Captain abruptly unfolds himself and lies flat on the slab, his long legs dangling over the ledge, while his arms come up behind his head. It’s jarring to see him sprawled so casually, his gaze fixed on the sky. For a moment, I just stare⁠—

“Did you want to look at me or the stars, Lucina?”

A laugh bursts free before I can stop it, and I swear the corner of his mouth pulls up in response. “The stars,” I reply, lying across the rock beside him, pushing past how weird this all feels to be somewhat…cordial…with the Captain. “Holy gods,” I breathe. There are so many stars.

Thalvar—the tale-bearing star that guides travelers is right above us, and to the right is Nyxora, the daughter of midnight. She only shines for the hour of twelve, then fades back into the inky black an hour later. Zorath is further south, the red-misted star that Ivy’s nana called, the fury of the skies. And shining brighter than all of them, as always, is Lune Sylra.

“How did you find this place?” I ask, making no attempt to keep the awe out of my voice.

“Pax and I used to play in these woods when we were growing up. I found it by accident—twisted my ankle falling into the creek bed. We kept this place secret; it was the only thing that belonged to just us.”

Just them, until… now? Maybe the secrecy of it faded over time, but this was their hiding place. I had plenty of those, but I’m sure the Captain and I were hiding from very different things growing up. Though I guess we were both raised somewhere we didn’t belong.

I can’t figure out what’s worse: being taken from a home you never knew, like I was, or being taken from one you did know. Is being stuck with only the memory of how things used to be worse than never knowing what you missed out on? I’m sure the same vacancy exists, regardless, the one planted deep in my chest that sits empty. The kind of space nothing can fill.

Callan has it too, I think, except he wears his like armor, and I wear mine like baggage.

“Why couldn’t you sleep?” he asks, and his voice jolts my mind back in place.

“Aside from the fact that an Ajax loiters on my porch every night, watching me sleep?”