20. Don’t Step On the Grave
I don’t leave her alone this time. After last night? Not a chance.
The storm’s let up some, but the path’s still wrecked, slick with mud, scattered branches, and loose rocks. It’s hell on her ankle, but leaving her behind felt like the more terrifying option.
I hack through the brush with the machete, booting stones off the path so she doesn’t trip. I still can’t tell if this was once a man-made trail or one worn down by animals. Either way, I hope it leads us outta here so I can get Luna home.
Behind me, she holds my crossbow like she was born with it. One hand grips the modified handle I designed, the other aims the bolt down and away from us like I taught her. She’s vigilant, head on a swivel, even as her mouth never quite stops.
Her stream-of-conscious narration rolls on like eerie background music. Pressured to the point of discomfort for both of us, rambling, chaotic. But she’s in good spirits, excited that I’ve gone over more “rules of the holler” with her.
I’ve taught her a lot already, the first being how to walk out here.
Her dainty feet clomped like a Clydesdale when we first set off, crunching anything and everything we encountered.
So I showed her how to read the ground, roll heel-to-toe, and find stable footing so she wouldn’t tumble down the drop-offs inches from us—an ever-present danger in these mountains that I never truly feared until I had precious cargo limping behind me.
She listened, thank Christ. Having to focus seems to help whatever storm is spinning inside her. She’s still vibrating with energy, but no longer on the verge of combusting. As far as I can tell, she might even be tiring out, steadily relieving some of the tension in my chest too.
I think the forest calms her, like it does me.
People weren’t meant to be so accessible all the time.
Out here, it’s easy to escape from the world’s gray chaos and get lost in nature’s rich hues and the grounding feel of rough bark and crumbling dirt under your fingers.
For me, the scent of earth and flowers brings thousands of happy memories.
My future wife being settled the same way is like a balm on the nerves she fired up last night.
She tossed and turned in my arms until instinct told me to thread my fingers through her hair. As soon as I started massaging her head, her breathing slowed and she finally drifted into a deep sleep. I followed soon after, waking up refreshed.
No night terrors. No flashbacks. No burning screams that left my throat raw. Just peace in Luna’s arms. That’s two nights now that I’ve held her, and two nights the nightmares were kept at bay. Luna can call me superstitious, but I know better. That shit ain’t coincidence.
I don’t bring up how fucking right sleeping in her arms felt, and of all the things she’s chattered on about, she hasn’t brought up any part of last night either.
I sense she’s more embarrassed than anything, so I leave her be, pretending I’m not hanging on every word for signs she’s slipping again.
Another thing I don’t mention… the fact that she shouldn’t be able to keep up with me.
Not with frayed slippers, a shredded tutu, and a bodice that must be stabbing her ribs by now, and certainly not on that ankle.
But she tightened her makeshift tulle wrap and she’s managing the trek remarkably well.
I don’t think she’s even cold in the morning mist. She wears my jacket only at my insistence, but it slides off her shoulder as if she doesn’t notice its warmth.
Every sign that she is not okay wears on me, but I try to take the good, not focusing on the bad omen it feels like.
Her energy is too electric, her pain tolerance alarmingly high.
The kind of tolerance you only see in fighters who don’t know they’re bleeding out until it’s over.
I’m worried, but if she insists she’s fine…
I have to trust her. So for now, we walk comfortably in tandem.
Until I realize she’s suddenly quiet, unnerving after hours of her reassuring voice. Then there’s a thump.
“Son of a…” Luna grumbles.
“You good?” I halt and ask over my shoulder, scanning for danger. We’ve come up on a verdant meadow, its colors muted in the hazy fog. Something about it feels… familiar.
“Yeah, sorry,” she answers. “I thought I saw something and bumped into—I think it’s a little fence?”
“A fence?”
“Yeah, an iron one. Got my shin a little. No big deal. But… whoa, cool.”
The coast clear, I lower the machete and turn to find her shifting the crossbow to her back, inspecting a mossy stone. It’s half-sunken in leaves and tall grass, surrounded by bent thigh-high, rusted iron fencing. She brushes dirt away with careful fingers.
“I think this is a gravestone,” she murmurs.
My heartbeat stutters.
“What?” I ask, breathless, looking around with new eyes.
Fog crawls heavily through the meadow, and dark stones reach from the ground like skeletal fingers. My pulse slows, my machete going slack at my side, suddenly too heavy to hold.
“Shame it’s all overgrown,” she continues, not realizing my vision is tunneling and I’ve gone still. “I hate seeing them go without care. It’s sad, you know?”
“I… I know where we are,” I whisper.
“Oh really? Where? That means we’re close to some kind of civilization, right?” she asks lightly in that stream-of-consciousness way again, brushing off more moss that’s collected for six years. “Wow, the stone is even blackened. Like there was a?—”
“Fire,” I finish softly, staring blankly at the charred tree trunk, crumbled to ash and no longer blocking the fence’s only outlet. “It burned… everything.”
Her hand freezes over the headstone, where she was tracing the last name I already know is there. The energy that’s ridden her all morning goes calm. Her gaze rises, cautious now.
“Orion,” she whispers. “How did you know there was a fire here?”
I stare at the stone my family has avoided for six years.
“Because this is where my momma died.”