Chapter Twenty Eight
TWENTY-EIGHT
The argument is not a long one. Everyone is too tired and too hungry for a showdown.
But the agreed-upon facts are these: Another human is likely nearby (there’s a possibility, adds Troy, of a lightning strike, but it’s a small one).
And if it is indeed a person, it might well be your defector in chief.
Then again, it might not be. Either way, you decide, it’s going to help to be in contact with another person.
They might have food. Or a way to contact help. Or … food.
But it’s also, undeniably, a gamble. Because if you can’t find this person, you lose time. And if it’s someone who won’t help you, you lose time. Also, and this quickly takes over the conversation, you don’t quite know what you’re going to do if it actually is Silas.
“I think pouring honey on his ass and leaving him on an ant hill would be fair,” says Will.
“We don’t have any honey,” says Fran. “And if we did, I would not pour it on an ass. I would eat it in front of all of you.”
“Maybe just the ants thing, then,” says Will.
You can tell Diana has thoughts about Silas, but she doesn’t respond.
Maybe it’s because you are portaging on an empty stomach again, heading toward the smoke, with boats on your shoulders and pain in too many places to count.
In your pack is the makeshift fishing rod, and you hope to whatever god Troy believes in that it works, because any nutrients you gained from that hellish foraged stir-fry have already been burned.
You remember your dad eating leafy greens a few years ago to lose weight, which means there probably weren’t a lot of calories in those bitter tendrils to begin with.
Another problem, and one you’re hesitant to admit to the group, is that the pain from the back of your head, which was intermittent at first, has become more persistent.
At first you thought it was psychological.
You’ve had a side order of tension headaches with your anxiety for as long as you can remember.
But usually that’s around your temples and forehead.
This pain is definitely close to the place where you got cut by that rock before the storm.
And when you reach back to run your fingers over the affected area, the wound is tender to the touch.
The portage is slow with frequent stops and dramatic moans along the way, and when you finally make it to the next lake, it’s so big, you can’t see the other side of it.
Also, in the time you’ve been walking, the day has slowly grown overcast, and the clouds feel lower to the water.
The lingering smoke, which is a bit to the east, is all but gone.
Only a wisp remains, which might mean its maker is on the move.
When you all shrug off your boats, balancing them on the rocky shore, everyone sits down to gather themselves for a moment.
Diana walks off into the bushes to pee. Fran lies down and splays herself across the rocks.
“I’m too hungry to move,” she says. “Are there any lemon drops left?”
Will shakes his head.
“Nah,” he says. “Just the bag, which might be lemon-flavored if you eat it.”
“I’ll consider it,” she says.
There’s a prolonged rustle from nearby.
“Hold on. I’ve got something!” says Diana.
Fran sits right up, craning her pink head in the direction of the voice.
Her expectant smile quickly fades when she sees what her friend is holding.
It’s a large grasshopper, lime green with electric yellow legs and bulbous compound eyes.
It has wings and the largest antennae you’ve ever seen.
It is eerily still in Diana’s pincer grip, but it appears to be looking at all of you at the same time.
“I saw someone eat one on a reality show,” says Diana, eyeing it. “They said it was like a cross between a potato chip and a grape, texture-wise. Good source of protein, though. He’s all yours if you want him.”
Fran’s face is a mask of horror.
“Him?”
“I’m assuming it’s a dude ’cause I caught him resting on a shrub, doing nothing.”
Fran’s face remains a mask of horror.
“I’ve never let a man near my mouth,” she says. “And I’m not about to start with him.”
“I’ll take it,” you say.
You’re not sure why you say this. Possibly it’s the head wound. Or it could be the slowly dawning fact that you’re holding a fishing rod made from a broken stick and you’ve barely ever fished in your life. It seems very possible, suddenly, that insects are your best bet at survival.
“I think you’re supposed to cook them first,” says Troy. “The Anarchist Vagabond…”
You take the grasshopper and stuff it in your mouth.
You bite. It wiggles for a moment, but then it crunches and squirts and you have to close your eyes and do everything in your power to keep from gagging.
It tastes incredibly bland and terrible at the same time, like a sour blueberry filled with guts, and you almost have it down when a barbed leg gets stuck in your throat.
It takes most of what’s left of your water bottle to wash it down.
By that point, the rest of the group is watching in silence.
“I was actually joking,” says Diana. “I didn’t think…”
“You ate a grasshopper,” says Will, a rare hint of reverence in his voice. “You ate that thing raw.”
If you thought about it at all, you could easily vomit right now, but you’re not thinking about the little bits left in your mouth. You’re thinking that this experience could have easily triggered a panic attack, but somehow it hasn’t. And maybe, in its own small way, that’s a triumph.
“That was a RAW GRASSHOPPER,” says Will.
“I know,” you cough.
“I don’t know who you are anymore,” says Fran.
“Are you guys ready?” you say. “That smoke is disappearing fast.”
You manage to keep your voice steady even though this taste will likely never leave your mouth again. At the end of your sentence, you cough again, and then there’s a wing back in your mouth. You spit it into your hand, iridescent and half chewed, and toss it aside.
Troy squints at it.
“Was that a…”
“Yeah,” you say.
You pick up the boat and set it in the water, and then you scramble into the front position, which you think you heard Silas call the “fore” one time.
You’re trying, despite your contempt for the man, to remember more of what he told you.
Will gets in behind you this time and picks up a paddle. He tips his head back and screams:
“COME ON, NARPS. IN YOUR BOATS! CASE JUST ATE A RAW GRASSHOPPER. LET’S GOOOOOO!”
Fran somehow manages to peel herself off the rocks, and Diana and Troy follow her into the other boat.
They all look to you for the lead. Somehow, with that stupid impulsive act, you have become the de facto leader.
At least momentarily. So you start paddling, heading toward the remaining tendril of smoke.
For a while, Will asks questions about the grasshopper (“Could you taste its brain?” “Do you think it was pregnant?”), but with the ache of work, his patter eventually dies out.
And there isn’t much conversation from the other boat.
Just the splash and plunk of wooden blades in water.
You’re hoping the sun will start to cut its way through the clouds, but instead it burrows in and the clouds seem to descend even farther until there’s a gauzy fog over the cobalt surface of the lake.
“Are we still headed in the right direction?” says Troy a few minutes later.
People look up in a daze, like the question hadn’t even occurred to them.
And you’re one of them. Time has come unspooled again, and you were heedlessly rowing, muscle memory keeping your brain from fully functioning.
But when you look up now, you can’t see far in front of you.
A wind is blowing, and small waves on the lake lap against the sides of the canoe.
“I’m pretty sure we were pointed this way,” you say.
But now it’s hard to tell if you’ve kept on the same trajectory. Or if the wind has blown you off course.
“Fran,” says Will. “Compass?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “We’re a little east, but that’s all I can tell.”
For a few moments, you float. And without any scenery around you, it feels like you could be lost at sea. You can still taste the grasshopper, and you hope it’s not the last thing you ever put in your mouth.
“HEY!” yells Diana suddenly. “If someone’s out there, WE NEED HELP! HELLLLP!”
“Diana,” says Fran, “that’s kind of in my ear.”
But it’s no use. Diana screams again:
“WE HAVE NO FOOD! OR SEDATIVES!”
“AND NO SUPPORT ANIMALS,” yells Troy. “I REPEAT. WE HAVE NO SUPPORT ANIMALS!”
There’s no response from the fog or whatever lies beyond it.
Just the light slap of the waves. A birdcall or two.
You assume Will is going to let Troy have it for his exclamation.
He’s certainly made it clear what he thinks of Troy’s emotional support wiener dog. But instead, Will takes a deep breath.
“HEY. MY DAD IS AN ASSHOLE!” he screams. “AND I’VE NEVER LIKED TENNIS.”
He’s breathing heavily behind you. But you don’t turn around. You leave him his moment. In the next boat, Diana and Fran are holding hands, paddles across their laps.
“I’M NOT A SNOWFLAKE,” yells Fran. “THE WORLD IS JUST A SHIT SHOW. THERE’S A DIFFERENCE!”
Diana tips her head back.
“I JUST WANT TO ENJOY NORMAL THINGS!” she adds.
The waves are getting stronger, and you can feel them turning your boat like it’s a spinner on a board game.
And though you don’t enjoy the sensation, the slightly seasick feeling is really familiar.
It’s essentially how you’ve felt every day since the funeral.
Only, when you were in the world, you had no illusion of control.
Not even a paddle. You just had to endure it.
“I MISS MY brOTHER!” you yell.
Your eyes are hot, but no one can see them in the fog.
No one says anything. You’ve all decided, it seems, that you’re not going to talk about any of this (what is said in the fog, stays in the fog?).
You wait for someone else to scream their next lament into the ether, but either everyone is screamed out or they’re stuck thinking about what you said.
Up until now, you haven’t so much as mentioned a brother.
Finally, you decide to look over at Diana.
She meets your eyes, and you think you see a nod before she turns away.
Then, a second or two later, you feel a scrape against the bottom of your boat.
“Yo, what was that?” says Will.
“Probably just a…,” Troy starts.
Then a similar scrape, like claws against the bottom of the other boat, steals the rest of the sentence.
“Jesus!” shouts Fran.
And she’s rewarded with another scratch.
“Are there alligators in the Boundary Waters?” asks Diana.
“Why would you say that?!” asks Troy.
With a juddering crunch, your canoe slams into a rock and pinballs to the side. Then you are barely afloat. Whatever is underneath you is taking over, and when you finally think to put a paddle down, it only goes a foot or so before it hits bottom.
“We’re on land!” you say. “Or near it.”
“It can’t be the shore,” says Fran. “This lake was huge. And we were right in the middle.”
Meanwhile, your boat has stopped. And when you hop out into the ankle-deep water, the fog is patchier. You look around, and the land seems to curve around you until it meets water on both sides.
“It’s an island,” you say.
“No way,” says Will.
And he stumbles across the water, landing eventually on his butt in the sand.
The other three are still in their boat, unmoving, all facing forward.
You step back toward the water and heft your boat up the shore, cutting a furrow in the gray sand.
You look inside, but it doesn’t appear to be damaged.
“Do you guys smell that?” says Diana, climbing out of her boat.
You cock your head and take a deep inhalation. The carbon reaches your nose in an instant.
“Woodsmoke,” you say.
You start running then, onto the island proper, through brush and over gnarled roots and leaves.
You can hear the water so clearly from all sides.
The island can’t be too big. The smell of the campfire is getting closer, and you can hear the sounds of your fellow travelers’ boots pounding behind you.
Diana races ahead, but not for long. Soon enough, she comes to a stop.
“Hey, Case,” she says. “Come over here. I need to show you something.”
Her phrasing sounds familiar, and you can’t pinpoint it at first. But the thought scatters when you see the embers, glowing through the mist like magma.
The coals are red, blinking when the breeze kicks up.
And after you see them, you immediately see what’s next to them.
And so does everyone else who has finally caught up.
It’s a tent that looks remarkably like Silas’s.