Chapter Sixteen #2
Tessa gestures to the space beside me, and Declan moves into it like he’s walking to the gallows.
It’s the closest he’s been since he held my ankle last night, and I feel the heat of his body as he edges behind my table with me.
I automatically take a step back, landing awkwardly on my sore ankle.
Declan reaches a hand out to steady me, the warmth of his skin on mine sending a tingle through my arm and I jerk away.
I turn to look up at him at the same time he looks down, and there’s a look on his face that might be an apology. For a second, time pauses.
‘Ready?’ says Tessa, amusement in her voice, and Declan stiffens, the moment broken. We turn at the same time to face her, and he slowly lifts his arm to rest behind my back. He barely touches me, but I feel every whisper of his fingers against the fabric of my top, and I only just manage to smile.
Tessa holds up her phone. ‘Say trees !’
I swear Declan closes his eyes beside me.
‘Trees!’ I repeat automatically, half my attention on the phone and half on the man reluctantly murmuring the word behind me.
Tessa looks at the picture on her screen.
‘Perfect,’ she says. ‘Thanks so much, Clarrie, great to meet you. Looking good as always, D.’
Declan drops his arm and steps away from me, back to the other side of the table. ‘Thanks, Clarence,’ he says, but he doesn’t look at me as he guides Tessa back down the steps, leaving me alone with a pile of unsold books, a confusing ache in my chest and a hundred unanswered questions.
Jed is as close to buzzing as I imagine he gets when they return to the cabin, and he strides inside to get ready for spotlighting.
‘I heard a powerful owl on our way back,’ he says. ‘I’m sure of it.’
He gets dressed so swiftly that I barely even need to close my eyes to avoid seeing his bare chest, then marches to the kitchen and starts heating up some baked beans while Declan ducks outside to change.
I want so desperately to be alone, to process everything that happened with Tessa Dalton, and with Declan, and with myself.
And yet the idea of being with my thoughts in the cabin while they’re out spotlighting feels unaccountably lonely too.
Jed passes me a plate of baked beans – just baked beans – and frowns. ‘Are you coming like that?’ he asks.
I’m slightly offended by his judgement of my clothes, but mostly I’m just confused. ‘Coming where?’
‘Spotlighting,’ says Jed, and I blink back at him like I’m a deer caught in headlights.
‘Do you think my ankle will be up to it?’ I say, which is not at all what I was expecting to come out of my mouth.
‘I don’t know,’ says Jed. ‘Do you think your ankle will be up to it?’
There’s something about the straightforward and slightly frustrated way he asks that is fortifying.
And suddenly, despite the crappy, crappy afternoon, I do want to go spotlighting.
To experience this thing that Jed is clearly passionate about, to see what it looks like when someone does something they love. I test my weight on my ankle.
‘I think it’s okay,’ I say.
‘Good,’ says Jed, just as Declan comes back up the stairs.
I steel myself to defend my decision, but when he reaches the top step he barely even looks at me, just passes me one of the two head torches looped around his arm.
‘I have a head torch,’ I say snidely. ‘Are you sure Tessa doesn’t need this one?’
It’s a ridiculous thing to say and it doesn’t even make sense . I hate that I’m speaking out of my hurt, that he might know that he hurt me. But Declan just pulls his own torch over his head. ‘This one has a more consistent light,’ he says, and I shouldn’t be hurt, because I’m here for work .
Still, I feel nauseous at the sight of the unsold boxes of books next to my bed.
I change as quickly as I can, then falter over the two head torches.
Part of me wants to wear mine, but when I turn Declan’s on the beam is so bright that it lights up the room.
Damn it. I would be an idiot not to wear it, and it says something about my mental state that I still think about it.
But I pull it on my head and wrap the torch from Yumi round my wrist, knowing that she would be in no way offended by me taking the superior light.
She would absolutely be laughing her head off at the situation.
I take a quick picture to send to her, and then after a beat of hesitation I pick up the stick Declan got me.
Declan doesn’t say anything when I come out, but his eyes catch briefly on the torch around my wrist. Then Jed claps his hands three times.
‘Archer, I know you’ve been spotlighting before, but we’ll do a bit of a refresher for Clarence here.’
‘Right,’ says Declan, slightly awkwardly.
Jed begins by explaining the importance of keeping your feet nimble while your eyes are up, the art of spotting eyeshine and the best vantage points at the base of the trees. He runs around the forest near the cabin, demonstrating.
And, even though he is way more committed than I can ever imagine myself being to spotting animals at night, seeing his passion for what he does is kind of incredible.
A whisper of want trickles through me – not to be able to spot eyeshine from any vantage point – but to love something so much that you throw your whole self into it. It reminds me of Gran in the bookshop.
Finally, Jed deems us ready to venture out. He gestures to the forest, then leaps off like a lithe jackrabbit, leaving Declan and I little choice but to follow silently behind him, trying to avoid puddles.
There’s a soft hoot ahead of us, and I automatically exchange a glance with Declan in the torchlight, as though spotlighting has temporarily erased any barriers.
‘It sounds like a powerful owl,’ whispers Declan. ‘But I’m pretty sure it’s Jed mimicking the call of a powerful owl.’
The noise sounds again, and it sounds a lot like an owl . . . but also a little like Jed. And sure enough, when we catch sight of him in our torchlight, he’s softly hooting at the trees.
And you know what? Stuff it. I am all in.
I am going to throw myself into spotlighting, and I am going to follow a hooting Jed wherever he leads. For the first time in a really long time, I’m not going to think about what I’m doing or worry about the bookshop. I’m just going to be where I am.
And where I am is in the pitch black with an enthusiastic park ranger, trying not to break my other ankle by looking up to spot the owls.
Every now and then, Jed disappears ahead and Declan falls behind, and the darkness steals my breath away. I can hear my heart everywhere, can feel it thumping in my skin. I’m alone in a way that I’ve never felt before. I can’t quite tell if it’s terrifying or exhilarating.
Then after ten minutes of searching, a loud, screaming sound echoes through the forest and my heart stops for a second.
Declan stumbles behind me, his torchlight swinging around the trees, and I hear him softly swear under his breath.
I backtrack to find him looking down at his feet, one of which is ankle deep in a puddle.
The screaming echoes through the forest again, and I jump.
‘Masked owl,’ he says through gritted teeth, trying to work his foot free.
‘Sorry, what?’ I whisper, wondering where on earth Jed is.
‘That sound. Jed is doing a masked owl call.’
A slightly hysterical laugh bubbles in my chest as another scream rings through the trees, but the laugh stops short of my lips at the expression on Declan’s face.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask him instead.
He sighs, adjusting his head torch. ‘My foot is stuck.’
I shine both my head torches down at the ground. Mud is oozing out around his boot, fixing it in place. There are no trees close enough for him to use to pull himself out, and if I offer him a hand, I’m just going to end up in the mud with him.
I bend down and pick up the stick he gave me. Declan pauses his struggles to watch me shuffle over to the nearest tree, wrapping my arms around it. Then I hold out the stick; it’s long enough to bridge the gap between us.
I’m half expecting him to laugh at me, or to tell me that it won’t work, but he just meets my eyes in the torchlight.
Then he grabs hold of the other end. I grip the stick so hard that my hands start to burn, but I keep pulling until Declan works his foot free.
He lurches forward and a rush of triumph rushes through me, and I honestly can’t help grinning.
I drop the stick, stepping out beside the tree to steady him.
He looks up, his green eyes dark in the shadows of the torch, his arm gripping mine, a reminder of him steadying me before the photo today. My grin freezes in place.
‘Thanks,’ Declan says, his voice low.
Then Jed screams like a masked owl and his light appears through the trees. Declan drops my arm abruptly as Jed signals to us, and I pick up my stick again as though the moment never happened.
Five minutes later, we see our first owl.
Its eyes gleam white in the torchlight, and a thrill of what I can only describe as sheer joy bolts through me.
I’ve seen owls before, in pictures and at the zoo.
But it’s never felt like this. There’s something about the success and the silence and the realisation that we are the only people here in this moment.
For a beat, everything just washes away.
Jed, Declan and I stand in silence, and in the light of my torch I can see the whites of their teeth.
My ankle has started to throb a little, but there’s an adrenaline pumping through me, an aliveness that I can feel prickling on my skin.
I grip Yumi’s torch in my hand, and keep moving forward.