Page 17 of The Girl Who Cried Bigfoot

When the transformation is complete, I’m standing in my HIDE & SEEK shirt and my canvas trousers, a man who lives in the woods and keeps bees. I feel exposed in a way I have never felt before, even when I was nine feet tall and bark-skinned. I am just Rowan Warden, and she is Wren Cassidy, and the world is still full of drones and thermal scanners.

“I’m going to fix it.” She hitches her pack higher on her shoulders, her jaw set in determination. It’s the same look she had when she was hammering that bracket onto the lodge sign. “I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to fix what I started. You shouldn’t have to hide from ring lights in your own home.”

“The mountain isn’t something you can fix with a hammer, Wren,” I say. I offer her a small, dry smile. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

“I’m not a hammer person anymore,” she says, stepping back toward the trail. “I’m a marketing person. And marketing people know how to bury a story just as well as they know how to build one. I… I need to think. Can you meet me at the lodge later tonight?”

I nod, and Wren starts the walk down the ridge, moving purposefully now, her father’s boots finding the solid ground with a confidence that wasn’t there an hour ago. She doesn’t look back, and for the first time, I don’t feel like I need to watch her to make sure she doesn’t trip over a root. She is a Cassidy. She knows where she is.

Still, I watch her anyway, standing in the ferns until the sound of her breathing recedes into the hum of the forest. The storm is closer now, the wind shaking the branches with a restless energy. I look down at my hands, which are now entirely ordinary with their human skin and blunt fingers.

I am a Guardian. I have watched the humans come and go for centuries. Humans are as transient as a summer storm that passes and leaves the mountain unchanged.

But as I turn toward my own home, deep in the timber where the drones cannot find me, I realize that the storm hasn’t passed. It’s just getting started. And for the first time in a very long time, I am not interested in staying dry.

10

WREN

CONGRATULATIONS, YOU’RE IN THE BIGFOOT BUSINESS NOW

I stand on the porch, arms crossed against the chill, watching the rain pelt the gravel. My brain is doing something I usually reserve for tax season: rapid-fire, cold-blooded triage. Most people would still be back there on the ridge, screaming or fainting or questioning the chemical composition of reality. I don’t have that kind of time. The bank doesn’t accept “my neighbor is a bark-skinned forest spirit” as a valid reason for a late mortgage payment.

Bigfoot is real. Well, a version of Bigfoot, and he’s nine feet tall when he’s annoyed. Rowan is a Guardian, whatever that actually entails beyond looking like a Renaissance sculpture carved out of a hemlock tree. These are the new variables. I slot them into the mental spreadsheet I keep for the lodge, right between unpaid utility bill and potential lawsuit from the Crocs guy.

The logic is simple, even if the facts are impossible. I can’t stop the hotline without the lodge going under. Rowan can’t stop the tourists by scaring them, because a scared millennial with a ring light is a millennial making a viral TikTok about a jump-scare. If he chases them, more will come. If I market him, more will come. It’s a closed loop of mounting disaster, and we’re both stuck inside it.

I keep my eyes on the tree line. He’ll be here. A man who can move through a forest without snapping a twig isn’t going to let a little rain stop a conversation he’s been dying to have.

He emerges from the shadows near the gear shed, still wearing that ridiculous HIDE & SEEK WORLD CHAMPION shirt I sold him for twenty-four dollars. The irony is so thick I can almost taste it. He looks like any other hiker, albeit one who is inconveniently handsome and built like he could uproot a sapling with his bare hands. He stops five feet away, the rain slicking his dark hair to his forehead.

“You’re still here,” he says. His voice is a low rumble, steady and unbothered by the fact that I just saw him turn into a tree-man. His centuries of patience is visible in his perfectly still posture and the way he lets the weather happen to him as if he were just another part of the landscape.

“Why wouldn’t I be here? I have a business to run, Rowan, and currently, you’re the most popular item on the menu,” I say, leaning against the porch railing. My heart is doing a frantic little tap-dance against my ribs, but I keep my voice flat and professional. “We need to talk terms. Real terms. None of that get-off-my-mountain grumbling.”

He steps under the overhang of the porch, shaking himself like a large dog. The scent of him hits me—damp earth, pine resin, and something deep and ancient that doesn’t have a name. It’s the smell of the woods after a fire. “You want to negotiate for my existence, Wren Cassidy?”

“I want to negotiate for our mutual survival,” I correct him. I hold up a hand, ticking off points. “Point one: The hotline is staying on. I need the revenue to pay Walt and Marge and to keep the roof from collapsing. Point two: You hate the drones and the cameras. Point three: If I keep selling the mystery, but they never actually find you, the tourists stay satisfied enough to buy T-shirts but bored enough to eventually go home.”

Rowan’s eyes are dark and unreadable as he assesses me the same way a wolf assesses a fence. “You want me to help you lie and maintain the hoax.”

“It’s not a hoax if the thing actually exists,” I point out. “It’s... curated disclosure. Think of it as a PR firm for the paranormal. I manage the narrative so they don’t find your house and turn it into an Airbnb.”

A ghost of a smile touches his mouth. “And what do I get in return for this curation? Besides the pleasure of your father’s boots on my trails?”

“You get your peace back,” I say, stepping closer. I can feel the heat radiating off him, a physical weight in the cool evening air. “I’ll redirect the tours. I’ll leak ‘sightings’ in the South Ridge to draw them away from your territory. I’ll handle the idiots with the plaster kits. But you have to work with me. No more turning cameras. No more scaring people. We talk first.”

He looks out at the rain, the silence stretching between us until it feels like a physical wire. I’m asking him to trust the very thing that’s been eroding his world for a hundred years: a Cassidy with a plan. He’s a Guardian. His job is to protect. My job is to sell. On paper, we are the worst possible match.

“No more turning cameras,” he repeats, testing the words. He looks back at me, his gaze dropping to my mouth for a fraction of a second before snapping back to my eyes. “We talk first. On every move. If a camera is placed where it cannot be ignored, you remove it, or I will.”

“Deal,” I say, though the word feels heavy in my throat. This time, my gaze goes to his lips, and I have to give myself a mental shake. Working out a trade agreement is not the time for any romantic delusions. I stick out my hand, a reflex of my marketing world, then realize how absurd it is. He’s a supernatural entity; he probably doesn’t do handshakes.

Rowan looks at my hand, then takes it, his fingers wrapping around mine. His rough, calloused palm is startlingly warm. The contact sends a jolt through me that has nothing to do with the storm. It’s the feeling of a deal being struck and knowing you can’t walk away from it without losing a piece of yourself.

“Congratulations, Rowan,” I mutter, my voice slightly strained as I pull my hand back. “You’re in the Bigfoot business now. Try not to eat the shareholders.”

“I don’t eat people, Wren,” he says, his voice dropping an octave as he turns to leave. “They’re far too stringy. I’ll see you at dawn on the trailhead so we can decide what to do with the cameras. Don’t be late. I have work to do, even if you only have stories to tell.”