Page 13 of Every Little Thing She Orcs

Wren turns her face away fast, and her shoulders jump. She coughs into her fist. It’s a very unconvincing cough.

“Today,” I say, once my tongue works again. “I’ll take you up the north trail today.”

She grabs her pack off the chair, already halfway to the door.

“Great,” she says over her shoulder. “Let’s go before you change your mind.”

The first stretch of the north trail is easy walking, a wide, packed path with a gentle grade through hemlock and fir. A creek chatters off to the left. Hikers walk this part every weekend, and I keep it clean, safe, and intentionally boring so that nobody gets curious about what lies past it.

Wren stops every fifty yards to measure or sketch. She kneels to check a drain. She pinches a leaf of wild mint and holds it under her nose. When I offer to stop for a break, she shakes her head.

“There’s too much to see,” she says. “Keep going.”

Halfway up, she falls into step beside me. The trail’s wide enough here for two, if one of them isn’t me.

“Do you ever actually leave this forest?” she asks. “Take a vacation? Go to the beach?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“The forest doesn’t take vacations.” I glance down at her. “Where do you go after this?”

She shrugs. “Wherever there’s an opening. Maybe a wetlands contract in Oregon in the spring, or a bird survey up north. I go where the work is.”

Oregon. A bird survey up north. The words land in my gut like stones. I knew she was leaving. I didn’t know she’d be leaving for somewhere I can’t follow, because I won’t leave this forest. I can’t.

“You don’t like that,” she says, watching my face.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t need to.” She reaches up and flicks the tip of my ear with one finger, quick and light. Then she walks on like she didn’t just touch me on purpose for the first time.

A flash of blue darts across the path ahead of us. It’s a Steller’s jay, screeching like its feathers are on fire. Wren gasps and hurries after it, up the trail and around the bend.

I follow at my usual pace. I need a minute to breathe.

When I come around the corner, she’s standing at the first lookout with her hands on the rail. She whistles, long and low.

“Holt,” she says. “Look at this.”

I already know what she’s looking at. I stand beside her anyway and watch her face instead of the view.

The forest drops away below us into a long green valley. The creek winds silver along the bottom, and the far ridge is blue in the morning haze. A hawk turns slow circles over the trees.

“This,” she says softly, “is what people need to see.”

“The south loop has views, too.”

“Sure, but imagine if we could open this up to more people.” She sweeps a hand across the valley, her eyes bright. “A kid in a wheelchair. A grandma with a walker who used to hike when she was young. Right now, only people who can hike eleven miles ever get to stand here. That’s not fair.”

She’s right. She just wants others to feel what she feels right now.

And she’s standing three hundred yards from the one place in this forest I can never show anyone.

“It’s a long way to build,” I say.

“Everything’s a long way to build.” She bumps her shoulder against my arm. “That’s what this project is about.”