Page 25 of The Girl Who Cried Bigfoot

“They’re not bugs,” I grumble, picking up the smoker. “They’re a highly organized social structure with a complex communication system and a sting that can ground a man of your size for three days.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Honey Man,” she says, already turning to head back toward the trail. Her gait is steadier now, her movements more confident. She’s taken something from this place, a piece of the stillness, and tucked it away under her skin.

All the more reason not to tell her about the boot print and the broken branch. I’ll have to move the hives soon. Not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but the world is coming for this clearing, and I am the only thing standing in its way. The weight of the guardianship feels heavier than it did an hour ago, a physical pressure across my shoulders that no amount of honey can sweeten.

We reach the truck just as the sun dips below the ridge, casting long, bruised shadows across the dirt. I help her into the passenger side, my hand brushing hers as I reach for the door handle. The contact is brief, less than a second, but it’s enough to make the air between us vibrate with that same low-frequency hum of the hive. She looks at me, her mouth opening as if to speak, then closes it and stares out the windshield.

I drive us back to the lodge in a silence that is full of the things we didn’t say, the ways we didn’t touch, and the terrifying realization that the bees and their whispers were right.

I am afraid of what I might do because I am afraid of how much I want her to stay.

When we pull into the gravel lot of the Cassidy Lodge, the lights are already on in the lobby, glowing yellow against the encroaching gray of the evening. The sign is still leaning to the left, a testament to the rot that is slowly eating away at the foundation. Wren climbs out of the truck and looks up at the peeling paint and the sagging porch.

“Thanks, Rowan,” she says. “For the bugs. And the silence.”

“Anytime, Wren,” I say, handing her the keys. “Just don’t make a habit of it. I have a reputation to maintain.”

She laughs, a small, genuine sound that carries over the sound of the gravel under her boots. She walks toward the lodge, her steps rhythmic and sure. I watch her until the heavy oak door closes behind her, leaving me alone in the dark with the smell of woodsmoke and the lingering heat of her hand on mine. As I slip silently through the woods like the shadow I am, I think about the boot print in the moss and the way her hand finally went still when I held it. I think about the century of bees and the century of Cassidys, and the way the forest always finds a way to demand a price for its protection. I am a patient man, but for the first time in three hundred years, waiting feels like a slow-motion collision I can’t avoid.

I stay deep in the trees, watching the light in her office window until it finally goes dark, leaving me in the absolute, crushing silence of a mountain that is no longer big enough for the both of us.

14

WREN

EVERYTHING THIS MAN KNOWS IS WRONG

Barnaby Jones is wearing a vest with so many pockets I’m reasonably sure he could house a small ecosystem in it. He stands at the head of the lodge’s common room, bathed in the glow of a projector that’s currently displaying a grainy, sepia-toned slide of a cedar stump. Barnaby, however, doesn’t see a stump. He thinks the stump is a territorial marker left by a solitary male in his prime.

I lean against the back wall, arms crossed, trying to keep my expression neutral. Beside me, Rowan is a tectonic plate disguised as a human. He’s opted to stand in the shadows, his massive frame nearly vanishing into the wood paneling, but I can feel the heat radiating off him. It’s a dry, mounting pressure, like a forest before a lightning strike.

“Now, notice the horizontal fracture at the four-foot mark,” Barnaby says, the red dot of his laser pointer dancing over the picture of a piece of rotten wood. “One might mistake it for natural decay, but it’s a deliberate wood knock. Our research suggests they use these to communicate across vast distances, often signaling a desire for a mate or a warning to encroaching rivals. A linguistic bridge, if you will.”

Rowan shifts, the floorboards groaning under the weight of his sudden, rigid posture. I steal a glance at him. His jaw is so tight I’m surprised his molars haven’t turned to dust. His eyes are fixed on the slide with the kind of intensity normally reserved for blood feuds.

“Research,” Rowan mutters. His voice is a low vibration that barely carries to my ear, but it’s thick with a centuries-old disdain that makes my skin prickle. “He called a fallen branch a linguistic bridge.”

“Hush,” I whisper, nudging my elbow into his side. It’s like hitting a granite cliff, but he doesn’t move. “He’s a PhD in Crypto-Zoological Anthropology. Respect the credentials, Honey Man.”

“He’s a PhD in making things up to fill the silence,” Rowan says, his voice gaining a dangerous edge of clarity. “That stump was hit by a falling hemlock during the spring thaw three years ago. I saw it happen.”

I suppress a snort. The common room is packed with the Cryptid Response Unit types: men and women in tactical fleece, nodding along as if Barnaby is reciting the Sermon on the Mount. They’ve paid a premium for this Masterclass in Hominid Behavior. When Barnaby suggested doing the lecture here, I hesitated, but the mower needs a new belt, and Marge and Walt need to be paid.

“Furthermore,” Barnaby continues, clicking to the next slide, which features a diagram of a very muscular, very naked ape-man crouched by a stream. “The Sasquatch is a strictly solitary creature. The males are fiercely territorial, spending ninety percent of their lives in total isolation. They avoid all social contact, even with their own kind, except for brief, violent mating windows.”

Rowan actually scoffs. It’s a wet, derisive sound that makes a woman in the third row turn around and shush him. He doesn’t even notice her. He’s leaning forward now, the concealment influence he usually projects feeling thin, frayed by the sheer friction of Barnaby’s confidence.

“Solitary males,” Rowan repeats, the words landing like stones. “No.”

“He’s the expert, Rowan,” I murmur, my heart doing a strange, fluttering dance against my ribs. It’s partially the thrill of the lie and partially the way Rowan’s proximity seems to pull all the oxygen out of my lungs. I swallow a laugh as I say, “Maybe you just haven’t read the latest journals.”

“I am the latest journal,” he growls. “That man talks about me like I’m a mountain lion with a personality disorder. We are social. Just like humans, some are more social than others. I wouldn’t be standing here if I weren’t social.” Every time he says the word social, he sounds more disgusted.

I clap my hand over my mouth before a giggle can burst out of me. Rowan claiming to be social is the funniest thing I’ve heard in weeks. As far as I know, the man speaks to me and sometimes interacts with Walt and Marge.

Barnaby clicks to another slide. “Communication is key to understanding the beast. They communicate through wood knocks and high-pitched whistles. They use the trees as instruments to broadcast their presence.”

Rowan looks like he’s about to either storm the stage or spontaneously combust. The internal monologue in my head, usually a sharp, marketing-driven list of tasks, has narrowed down to a single, hyper-focused observation: Rowan Warden is currently losing an argument with a projector, and it is the most endearing thing I have ever seen.