Page 16 of Beasts of Mine

EVIE

I barely slept that night.

Every time I managed to drift off, another voice outside my window dragged me back awake, and unfortunately, most of them belonged to animals who had absolutely no concept of reasonable sleeping hours.

Before yesterday, the nighttime sounds of the rainforest had been something I enjoyed. Frogs calling from somewhere near the water, insects buzzing beyond the screen, birds occasionally shifting through branches, and the soft rustle of something moving through leaves had always blended into pleasant background noise. I had slept through sounds like those in more places than I could remember.

Now I understood far too much of it.

Two frogs somewhere outside had spent what felt like an hour arguing over whether the rain would return before sunrise. Something small beneath the building complained repeatedly because another animal had apparently stolen its preferred sleeping place. A bird in one of the nearby trees kept calling for its mate, growing increasingly annoyed every time the other bird refused to answer quickly enough.

And somewhere around three in the morning, a gecko had discovered another gecko near my window. Their resulting territorial dispute had lasted much longer than seemed necessary for animals that weighed less than one of my camera lenses.

By sunrise, I had accepted that the nature spirit hadn't simply given me the ability to hear animals when it was convenient.

I heard them all the time.

That realization became considerably less magical after a sleepless night. I lay beneath the mosquito netting for another few minutes, staring at the wooden ceiling while warm morning air already drifted through the open window. My body felt heavy with exhaustion, but there was no point trying to sleep now. The research station had begun waking around me, and beneath the calls of wildlife, I could hear human footsteps moving along the wooden walkways and someone opening one of the equipment sheds.

Eventually, the smell of coffee reached my room.

That was enough motivation to move.

I pushed aside the mosquito netting and sat up, wincing when my braid caught beneath one shoulder. Most of it had loosened overnight, leaving strands tangled around my face and neck. I didn't bother fixing it beyond gathering everything into a messy knot at the back of my head before pulling on shorts and a clean shirt.

My reflection in the small mirror above the dresser was less than encouraging. There were faint shadows beneath my eyes, and one side of my face still had a crease from the pillow.

“Beautiful,” I muttered to my reflection, rubbing my fingers beneath one eye before giving up and heading toward the kitchen.

The communal building was already busy enough that I hesitated in the doorway. Two researchers I had only met briefly yesterday were eating breakfast at the far end of one table. Someone had left a plate of toast beside the stove, and the ceiling fan turned slowly overhead without doing much to move the humid air.

More importantly, a full pot of coffee sat on the counter.

I went straight for it.

“Morning,” Mara greeted me from the table behind me, and when I turned, I found her lowering a stack of papers to get a better look at my face. Her eyebrows rose almost immediately. “You look like you got about twenty minutes of sleep.”

“That's generous,” I told Mara, my voice still rough as I reached for one of the mismatched ceramic mugs and filled it nearly to the top. “I think I spent most of the night becoming intimately familiar with every sound this forest can make.”

Mara gave a sympathetic laugh and leaned back in her chair, one hand remaining around her own coffee mug.

“The first few nights can be rough,” Mara assured me, her expression softening as she watched me add powdered creamer. “It takes a while before your brain stops reacting to every noise like something is trying to crawl into bed with you.”

A small gecko clung to the wooden wall a few feet behind her.

Loud woman is awake, the gecko observed, its head turning toward me as its toes spread against the rough boards.

My hand froze around the spoon.

I stared at it.

The gecko stared back.

Hair looks worse today, the gecko added, edging another inch higher along the wall with what I could only interpret as smug satisfaction.

I slowly lowered my spoon.

Apparently, even reptiles had opinions about my appearance.