Page 17 of Silver Linings

Just as he was about to return the phone to his backpack, he thought he spied a glimmer of something that seemed to sparkle in the undergrowth about ten yards or so from where he stood.

Immediately, his heart rate sped up in anticipation, even though he knew whatever he’d seen was far too small to be the mythical white horse from that Reddit bulletin board.

No, he thought it far more likely that some careless visitor had dropped a soda bottle or some other kind of shiny trash, although he wasn’t sure if he wanted to accept that explanation, either. For one thing, the sunny skies from yesterday had disappeared as if they’d never been, and there wasn’t enough light here under the canopy to make something sparkle like that.

Frowning, he moved forward, phone still in his hand. He told himself that whatever he’d seen probably wouldn’t merit a photo…but what if it did?

There was that incongruous sparkle again. He hurried toward the whatever-it-was, and then stopped, not sure exactly what he was seeing.

The plant was small and delicate, resembling a lily of the valley but also different somehow, its little bells more elongated, its leaves almost swordlike.

And he knew no lily of the valley had ever sparkled like that, as if the edge of every bloom had been dipped in diamond dust.

For a moment, he only stood there and stared…until he remembered his iPhone was still in his hand.

At once, he lifted it and took a quick series of shots, followed by a video of the plant from all sides as he walked around it. The whole time, he hardly dared to breathe, as if some part of him feared that if he made too much noise, the strange bit of greenery might disappear in a puff of smoke.

Because he was trying to be so quiet, the snap of a twig behind him sounded almost as loud as shattering glass. He whirled — only to see Sidney Lowell emerging from behind a nearby fir tree, her expression simultaneously embarrassed and annoyed.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

“What does it look like?” she replied, sounding far too reasonable.

“Spying?”

“Making sure you don’t get yourself into any trouble.”

About ten different responses crowded his brain, but none of them felt like the correct one for the situation. “What kind of trouble could I even get into out here?”

Now she stepped forward. “A whole lot.”

Belatedly, he remembered that her mother and grandmother had disappeared in these very woods, so he supposed she had good reason to believe the forest wasn’t exactly the safest place in the world. “I’m fine,” he said shortly, and turned back to the plant.

Only to realize it was no longer there.

“It’s gone.”

Frowning, Sidney stepped closer. “What’s gone?”

His first impulse was to stonewall and not say anything. But since he’d made the comment already — and because it seemed as if she’d followed him out of concern and not because she made a habit of being a snoop — he thought it better to be truthful.

“This plant,” he said, and went over to his camera roll so he could pull up the video he’d just taken.

Except nothing was there, just a fuzzy gray space, like a closeup of a piece of felt or something.

What the hell?

She stood there, arms crossed, one brow lifted at a quizzical angle. “What plant?”

Annoyed, he ran his finger across the screen, hoping that one of the still images had come out better. Maybe his phone was acting up.

Every single photo he’d taken of the plant was exactly the same — gray square after gray square.

Okay, what the actual hell?

“There was a plant,” he said as he lowered his phone and pointed toward the patch of grass where he could have sworn that silvery, not-quite lily of the valley had been growing just a moment earlier. “Something I’ve never seen before. I know this is going to sound crazy, but it was…sparkling.”

For a moment, she didn’t respond. Something flickered in her clear gray eyes, although Ben didn’t know her well enough to guess what the emotion was.

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