Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 113051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
“You mean, aside from the fact that I would fucking die to just check my email and Instagram for a minute?” She brings her hand out of the water and peers at it, flicking tiny pieces of seaweed off her pruney skin. “I just don’t feel tested here, you know? My senior synthesis was supposed to be on fungi that survived the ice age, and yet, we haven’t gone anywhere near the peninsula yet. The classes are all over the place. Professor Kincaid’s are thought-provoking, but they’re still holding so much back from us. Lab work with Everly is just lip service. I just feel like I might be wasting my time.”
She’s right about all that.
“How are your sessions with Kincaid?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Fine. He’s not very thorough. We just mainly talk about this and that. What TV shows I’m missing, how it feels like the world is passing me by while I’m stuck here.” She pauses and shoots me a furtive glance. “Though I don’t tell him everything.”
I frown. “What aren’t you telling him?”
“Sometimes this place vibes me out.” She finishes her drink and then leans in close. “I’m not going crazy, don’t worry. But sometimes it feels like I’m being watched. When I walk to class. When we’re foraging. When we’re in the common room. It just feels like…eyes on me. Studying me.”
I swallow hard.
“And sometimes,” she goes on, her voice lower. “I see things…in the forest.”
“What things?” I whisper back, feeling my stomach churn from the wine.
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I don’t even know. Just…things. Like…shapes. Shadows. Sometimes I think I see glowing eyes.”
“Well, there are a lot of wild animals here. Could be anything.”
“I think the forest plays tricks on us,” she says.
I want to fight against that, but I know she’s right. “Yeah, well, the other night, I thought I saw Amani again. She was knocking on my door. I followed her outside to the boat yard, and it started snowing.”
“Snowing?”
“Yep. I can’t figure out if Amani was real or not, but the snow was. It was cold. I felt it. I watched it melt. It was real. And gone with the rain in the morning. The forest really is playing tricks on us.”
“Well, snow in early June this far north isn’t totally impossible. And it has been cold lately. Maybe a freak weather system passed over us?”
“Still doesn’t explain Amani,” I say quietly, staring down at my empty cup.
We both go quiet, thinking.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” I ask.
“No. Do you think I’m crazy?”
“No.” We both laugh. It feels fucking good to laugh, to put it all out there.
“We come with rocks!” Munawar yells, and we twist around to see him approaching with Rav, both of them with handfuls. They start trying to skip them into the ocean, creating dazzling sprays of water and light.
I keep drinking, I keep laughing. I tuck my worries away and force myself to pay attention to my friends, to live in this very moment. This much, I know, is real. This is what counts. But if Lauren ever tries to leave early, I’m leaving on that plane with her.
And Kincaid?
If things in a few months are the same as they are now with us—full of tension that has nowhere to go—then I’m going to have to cut my losses with him. Hell, I should probably do that sooner than later. It’s only making things complicated.
“Okay, I’m going to bed,” I tell them after a while. Rav comes over and helps me to my feet. The dock sways, or maybe I’m swaying because of all the wine. That’s the problem with drinking a box of wine in tiny cups—you have no idea how much you’ve had.
“I’ll come with you,” Lauren says, trying to get up but falling back on her ass and giggling.
“No, you stay,” I tell her, stepping away from Rav. “I’m going straight to my room.”
“Promise you won’t go for a walk in the forest!” she yells, trying to grab me and sprawling out along the dock. “The forest has eyes!”
“Take care of her,” I say to Rav and Munawar. “I mean it.”
Munawar gives me the salute, which I know means he’s on the case.
I stagger down the dock past Mithrandir, but the yacht is still completely dark. Perhaps he’s working late in his office.
But I’m still mindful enough to know that visiting him would be a very bad idea, so as soon as I stagger up the ramp, steeper now thanks to the lowering tide, I head straight into the lodge and through the common room. Noor and Toshio are playing a game of backgammon by the fireplace, and I wave to them before I head up the stairs.
I hesitate a little before I unlock my door, wanting to give any ghosties time to hide, and then I open it and step in.