Page 2 of The Red Woman and the White Bear

Seb’s face, illuminated by the flames of the grill, fell when he saw Aisling and the others return without the armfuls of wood he’d clearly hoped they’d be carrying.

“What happened?”

“Poor planning,” Jackson grumbled. He walked over to the fire and kicked a couple of logs off the top. They were just beginning to catch around the rough edges of the bark and would be better saved for later on as the night darkened.

Aisling crossed the campsite to unzip her tent, and Briar lumbered in past her to stretch out on her sleeping bag. Before tossing her backpack into the corner, Aisling peered inside. The little being hadn’t left any trace behind, not a single hair or bit of dirt or scrap of fabric. It was almost as if she’d imagined the whole thing. Maybeshe had.

Seb and Jackson were arguing over the firewood issue, both adamant the other should go back into town for more, so Aisling snagged a burger off the grill and a beer from the cooler and went to join Lida by the fire. She wasn’t hungry, but it would give her something to do with her still-shaking hands.

“What do you think you heard on the trail?” Lida asked as Aisling sat down in a camp chair beside her. They pulled them up to the small fire, close enough that the pair could rest their feet on the ring of stacked rocks that encircled it. Any further back, and they wouldn’t have been able to feel its heat at all.

“I don’t know. A bear, most likely.” The look of terror that crossed Lida’s face was too serious for her to let the joke lie. “I’m teasing,” Aisling amended quickly. “Probably just a deer. They’re all over out here.”

“Jesus, Ash,” Lida sighed. “You were out there awhile. Jackson thought you’d gotten lost.”

“Jackson doesn’t know you’re a walking compass,” Seb interjected. He lowered himself onto the ground behind the girls and leaned against the log, balancing two burgers on his plate. “You know this place like the back of your hand.”

“Used to,” Aisling corrected. “It’s changed a lot.”

“Not that much. It’s still in there.” He flicked a bottle cap at her head and it fell into the fire when she dodged it. She rolled her eyes.

“Right before we found you earlier, I was starting to tell Jackson about that trip we all went on in high school, remember it?” A grin spread across Lida’s face, her raven hair framing it in the dancing light.

Of course she did. “I don’t think we need to relive it again.”

Lida took a swig from her water bottle and let out a hearty laugh. “Come on, it’s one of my favorites.”

“This was the time we got into my brother’s stash of booze, right?” Seb leaned forward so he could be a part of the conversation. Aisling nodded.

“I haven’t heard this story,” Jackson chimed in, joining the group. He patted Lida’s knee, and when she rose, he sank into her chair and pulled her back down to sit sideways across his lap.

“Your wife doesn’t come out of it looking great,” Seb teased.

Lida swatted at his leg. “It was a class trip; we were supposed to be learning about…something.”

“Constellations,” Aisling supplied.

“Constellations, right. But Seb brought his brother’s watered-down vodka, and we snuck off after Mr. Wilke went to bed. I think it was my first time drinking anything besides beer. It was your first time drinking anything at all, wasn’t it?” Lida looked across at Aisling, who nodded. The memory of the alcohol’s sharp burn on her tongue and its acrid aftertaste made her wrinkle her nose. Drain cleaner would have tasted better.

“And,” Seb added, “all we’d had to eat was a hot dog apiece.”

“We were trying to find one of the old hunting cabins to hang out in,” Lida continued, her words punctuated by fits of giggles. They were infectious, as always, and laughter bubbled up in Aisling’s chest as well. For the first time since her encounter off the trail, she felt she had mentally rejoined her friends. “By the time we gave up and decided to turn around, Seb could hardly seestraight.”

“Me?” he demanded. “Let’s talk about you! You ripped a hole in your jeans trying to get over a log.”

Jackson looked up at his wife for confirmation and she nodded, breathless from laughter now.

“I thought I could slide across it like the hood of a car; my entire ass was out. We were stumbling around like fawns, neither of us could walk straight. But you, Aisling,” Lida pointed to her with her water bottle. “Even drunk, you led us right back to camp like you’d known where we were the entire time. I don’t think you tripped once.”

Aisling’s face grew warm. “I’m sure I did once or twice.”

“No way,” Seb said. “You never do. You were practically cross-eyed but as surefooted as ever.”

The forest around the group quieted for a moment, the atmosphere at the campsite stilling, before a low rumble began beneath their feet. The earth began to shake, then undulate, rolling like ocean waves. Several of the rocks stacked around the fire tumbled off. Briar ran unsteadily from Aisling’s tent, tail tucked, to her side. She gripped his collar in one hand and her beer in the other, hard, so her knuckles blanched white as she attempted to brace herself against the tremors.

The earthquake lasted for only several seconds, and though Aisling’s attention turned immediately to inspect the surrounding trees for leaning trunks or falling branches, her friends were unbothered. Lida stood up off of Jackson’s lap to get herself a beer from the cooler.

“That was a big one,” Aisling said, a little breathless, as the sounds of the forest crept back in. She’d felt a handful of tremors since returning to the island. Most of those had been so small and over so quickly that she might have thought them caused by a passing truck, had trucks that large been able to reach the island in the first place.

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