Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MILO
I had just shared dinner with a seven-foot cryptid.
The thought circled my brain for a solid thirty seconds while I stood in the middle of the kitchen with an empty plate in my hand like it might offer some kind of explanation.
Outside, the forest had slipped into near darkness. The last rays of light filtered through the trees in thin blue shadows, and somewhere beyond the clearing an owl called once, low.
None of that felt nearly as strange as the fact that Calder was still out there, keeping watch near the trees as if leaving the clearing had never occurred to him.
I set the dirty dishes in the sink and stood there for a moment, trying to decide whether the sensible response to tonight’s events was to lock the door, crawl into bed, and pretend the entire encounter had been some kind of extremely vivid wilderness hallucination.
Except the butter was still warm on the pan, and the second mug sitting on the counter suddenly made me realize something uncomfortable: I wasn’t ready for the evening to end.
The last of the coffee dripped into the pot while I stood there arguing with myself and before I knew it, I’d poured two mugs and made it halfway to the door when my brain finally caught up with what my hands had already decided.
“You’ve officially lost it,” I muttered under my breath, then continued outside anyway.
Calder stood near the edge of the clearing, broad shoulders angled toward the darkening forest as if the trees themselves had asked him to keep watch.
For a moment, I just stood there, taking him in again—this time without a plate, a squirrel, or a near-death misunderstanding getting in the way.
“Hey,” I whispered, lifting the second mug slightly. “You ever tried coffee?”
Calder glanced over his shoulder, attention landing on the mug and studying it with the same quiet focus he’d given the fork earlier. “No,” he stated simply.
I raised an eyebrow. “Never?”
“I have watched humans drink it.”
That answer felt much more like him.
I approached and offered him the mug. It was one of the heavy ceramic ones from the cabin cupboard, thick-walled and sturdy enough to survive the average careless camper. Even so, it looked like a thimble when Calder reached for it.
His claws were the first problem.
They were longer than my fingers and curved slightly at the tips, built for a rough grip and tearing rather than delicate handling. Calder turned the mug once in his hand, clearly ignoring the handle entirely, before settling his grip carefully around the body of it.
The ceramic disappeared halfway inside his palm.
He examined it briefly, then lifted it slowly.
I found myself watching far more closely than I probably should have.
Up close, the mechanics of it were fascinating. Calder’s lips pulled back slightly when he tilted the mug, revealing the edges of sharp white teeth before he adjusted the angle and let the liquid slide past them instead.
No sipping.
More like controlled pouring.
He swallowed, the movement visible in the strong line of his throat, then lowered the mug again.
“Well?” I asked.
Calder stared down at the cup like it had personally offended him. “It is bitter.”
“That’s coffee.”
“It is unnecessarily bitter.”
I laughed under my breath. “What do you usually drink then?”
“Water.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “From a mountain spring under a full moon?”
“From streams.”
The answer came so matter-of-factly that I took a sip of my own coffee just to hide another smile.
Calder turned the drink slowly in his hand as if still deciding whether humans were foolish or merely strange, then set it carefully on a flat stone near his feet.
Standing this close, I noticed something else for the first time.
He smelled… good.
Not the way a wolf enclosure smells at a zoo as I expected. His scent was cool and clean, like rain hitting stone after a long drought, mixed with the sharp green smell of crushed leaves. There was nothing artificial about it, and it suited him.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Calder had turned his attention back toward the trees. His head tilted slightly. “Owl,” he muttered.
I frowned up into the branches. “You can actually hear that from here?”
“Listen.”
He lifted one clawed finger slightly, indicating the space above the clearing.
I focused harder, trying to separate the sounds the way Calder apparently could.
At first, I heard nothing but wind whistling through the pines. Then, slowly, another sound separated itself from the rest—a soft hollow call drifting through the canopy.
“Okay,” I admitted. “That’s impressive.”
Calder ignored the compliment and crouched slightly. “Deer passed earlier.”
I stepped closer to see what he meant. He brushed one claw beside a shallow print in the soil, and suddenly the shape became obvious: a hoofprint.
I leaned in a little more to get a better look—and the side of my shoulder brushed against Calder’s arm.
The contact was brief but solid, like brushing against a warm wall. Calder’s arm was easily twice the size of mine, dense with muscle beneath the dark fur.
Neither of us broke the contact.
“You really hear all of this,” I murmured.
“The forest speaks constantly,” Calder said. “Most humans do not listen long enough to hear it.”
Something about the way he said it made the woods feel less distant somehow, as if there were an entire layer of sound and movement I’d spent my whole life overlooking.
“Which sound do you like best?”
Calder was quiet for a moment, his attention drifting toward the trees. “The ones that return.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Frogs after winter,” he said. “Crickets after rain. Wolves after humans leave.”
I let that thought settle. For Calder, it wasn’t really about the sounds themselves. It was about what they meant.
I straightened slowly, still standing close enough to feel the warmth radiating from him and warding off the evening chill. “I don’t think I’ve ever really listened that way.”
Calder tilted his head slightly toward the woods again. “Then listen now.”
I leaned against the trunk of the nearest pine and tried to do exactly that. For a few seconds, all I heard was wind moving through branches and the faint rustle of leaves shifting against one another.
Then something moved in the underbrush to our left.
“There,” I whispered. “Rabbit.”
Calder shook his head once. “Raccoon.”
“I definitely heard something smaller than a raccoon.”
His gaze stayed fixed on the brush. “You did not.”
A moment later, a striped blur pushed through the undergrowth at the edge of the clearing, small hands digging briefly through the leaves before it disappeared beneath a fallen log.
I exhaled. “Okay. Fine.”
Calder said nothing, which somehow felt worse than if he’d teased me.
We stood there another minute, the forest quieting around us again.
Then a low call rolled through the trees—long and hollow.
I straightened. “Owl.”
Calder glanced down at me. “What kind?”
I floundered for a response. “… big owl?”
His expression didn’t change, but I had the very uncomfortable sense that I had just failed some kind of cryptid field exam.
The call sounded again, and something about it tickled the back of my brain. “Wait, barred owl?”
There was a brief moment of silence, then Calder gave a single, clipped nod. “Yes.”
The word carried the faintest trace of approval, and for reasons I couldn’t fully explain, that felt absurdly satisfying.
I leaned back against the tree, folding my arms. “So what you’re saying,” I began, “is that with enough practice I could eventually become a slightly less incompetent forest listener.”
Calder considered that. “With enough practice,” he echoed, “you might stop announcing raccoons as rabbits.”
I laughed.
The sound slipped out before I could stop it, warm and easy in the quiet clearing.
Calder watched me for a moment, something thoughtful passing through his eyes.
Humans screaming in the woods was apparently something he expected.
Humans laughing? Maybe not so much.
The forest eased deeper into night around us.
A breeze whipped through the clearing, cool enough now that I could feel it through the thin fabric of my shirt.
Calder adjusted his position slightly beside me, broad enough to shield me from the wind before I could even realize what he’d done.
“You know,” I murmured after a moment, “most camping guides don’t come with built-in cryptid instructors.”
Calder didn’t look at me. “They should.”
I watched the dark line of trees stretching beyond the clearing, listening to the layered sounds Calder had pointed out—the owl, the rustle of smaller creatures moving through leaves, the distant murmur of something larger passing deeper in the forest.
A few days ago, all of it would have sounded the same: nothing but noise.
Now the woods felt… alive.
I glanced sideways at the massive figure standing beside me. “Can you tell them apart?”
He looked at me.
“The animals,” I clarified. “Not deer from wolves. I mean... one fox from another. One owl from the next.”
Calder was quiet for a moment. “Most.”
I frowned. “Really?”
“The old buck near the marsh favors his left foreleg after the first frost. The vixen beyond the creek lost part of her tail three summers ago. The barred owl with the clouded left eye returns to the same hollow every spring. It has for seventeen years. The painted turtles always reach the south bank before the first lilies bloom.”
I wasn’t sure what surprised me more—that he could tell them apart, or that he’d answered with more than a single sentence. Calder rarely volunteered words, but ask about the forest…
Apparently, that was different.
“You know all of them?”
“Not all.” His gaze drifted back toward the trees. “Enough.”
Calder wasn’t simply living in the forest—he belonged to it, knew the heart of it.
I stared into the dark trees for another minute before pushing away from the trunk. “Well,” I said, brushing my hands together, “good news.”
Calder glanced down at me.
“You’re officially the most interesting thing that’s happened to me all year.”
A pause.
Then he said, completely deadpan, “You should camp more often.”
I grinned. “Careful. I might take you up on that.”
Calder turned his gaze back toward the woods, and for a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he spoke. “You will come back.”
For a beat, I forgot how to breathe.