Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
“Is it too late to mention that I don’t know how to swim?”
A fog hung in the air from last night’s cold front. It weaved through the tall pine and fir trees and hovered over the lake. Octavia and I had woken before the sun peeked over the horizon. We’d done our best to tiptoe out of a quiet house full of four hungover adults.
Octavia was up first, naturally, and had already done her morning chores and taken Frog and Kat out of the stable to graze in their pen.
I watched her come back from the routine; she floated out of the mist like someone just becoming.
The cold made her lips chapped but didn’t dry out the curious look in her gaze when she had said, “Good morning. When do you want to head out?”
She gazed at me as if cataloging my every move. Before today, I thought she’d always been doing that, keeping a mental note of what I did to add to her list of reasons I was a con artist.
But now, with my necklace still dangling around her neck, Octavia watched me with evolved interest. I couldn’t confirm how she used her data now, but I enjoyed being under her watchful eye. I bloomed in the spotlight.
“Would you like to learn?” I bit back a laugh when her eyes went big and tore to the lake. The water was still, a deep blue dotted with clusters of lily pads.
“Not now,” I promised. “Not here.”
“Oh, well, in that case,” Octavia said. “No.”
I released my laugh and then tugged off my coat.
Despite the morning chill, I sweated underneath my multitude of layers.
The coat I wore was mine, something I had to hunt for in the back of my closet.
But the sweater that nearly hung off my shoulders was Octavia’s.
After she’d seen my thin, long-sleeve set-up, she’d grumbled and disappeared to find me something “decent” to wear.
I’d accepted her offer with a little too much excitement. Because it wasn’t every day I got an excuse to be this close to her smell. I could pretend she’d slept next to me and that was the reason the scent imprinted onto my skin.
Octavia wore an oversized green cable net sweater that made her look like a fisherman and paired it with baggy jeans. The way air caught in my throat whenever she looked my way was a cause for concern.
Rainwoods’ nephew, Jacob, was an earlier riser, too. He’d met us in his front yard, knees damp from morning gardening. Jacob gave us permission to take his canoe out as long as we wanted. As long as we got it in before sunset, because the woman he was seeing wanted to have a photoshoot.
“No? As in never learning how to swim?” I asked, and when she shook her head, I added, “Why not?”
“I don’t need to.”
“So?”
“So, what would be the point?” Octavia’s brows knitted. She watched in silence for a moment as I tugged off the tan canvas covering of a rusty metal canoe. There were two plastic paddles in the boat. I grabbed both.
“You would have a better chance of surviving a riptide,” I noted.
“Why would I get caught in one if I never went into the water?”
“You could increase your odds of surviving a gator attack.”
“Where the hell would I get into a situation with a gator?”
“Florida. Australia. The San Diego Zoo.”
“I’ve never been to any of those places, nor do I have any plans to go to any of them.” A smile played on her lips. “You know, both your reasons involved surviving something.”
“Is that so?” I tossed my coat into the canoe and stood up straight with my hands on my hips as I thought. “Huh.”
I gestured for her to help me push the canoe closer to the lake’s edge. The water’s gentle disturbance licked at the sides of the canoe.
“You’re always thinking about getting out of something you’re not yet in?
” Octavia was stronger than me, so as we pushed the canoe out, I barely helped.
I like that she could probably beat me in any and every physical activity despite my commitment to fitness ever since I had to run over five miles from a pack of wolf shifters last summer.
I grabbed the canoe’s side before it could float out into the water without us. “What can I say? I love daydreaming about life-altering danger.”
I offered Octavia my hand. She stared at it for a second.
“Me first?” She pointed to her chest.
“I figured I’d have an easier time keeping it steady for you. You’re a bit skittish.”
Octavia laughed. With each word I coaxed out of her, a wrinkle on her forehead disappeared. She was also unconsciously preoccupied with the thought of survival. Maybe even more so than me.
“You disagree?” I smiled at her.
“No, even though I want to.” Octavia accepted my hand. Her fingers were dry and cold. They wrapped around mine, stealing some of my warmth. I’d give her all of it and then some if it came down to it.
She made a small squeak of panic as she climbed into the boat.
It rocked under her weight. The water rippled, minuscule waves lapping up the edge of the land and kissing the edge of my boots—which were also borrowed from Octavia.
Not as cozy as the sweater, but still something that tugged me closer to her.
We just barely wore the same size, so my toe pressed against the leather curve.
The boots had been barely broken in, hinting at a couple of months of use.
Far nicer and newer than the ones she wore.
“Careful.” I tried to keep the boat steady. “Balance your weight.”
Octavia lowered herself onto the bench. I waited for her to get settled before climbing in myself and using my foot to push us away from the edge.
“Shouldn’t we have put these on first?” Octavia tugged out a couple of dirty life vests that’d been shoved underneath her bench.
I shrugged and sat opposite her as I started rowing. “Up to you.”
“Even swimmers are expected to wear life vests.” Octavia raised an unamused brow at me as she tugged on the vest. “You never know what might happen.”
“I’ll take my chances.” I winked at her.
She struggled to get the vest comfortably over her coat. I watched, biting back a laugh as she went to battle with the broken straps. I slowly rowed us away from the shore and into the middle of the lake.
“Quite the opponent,” I teased when she huffed, finally giving up trying to tie the vest on.
“Tell me about it.” She tossed a few locs out of her face, looking out at the water for the first time since she sat down. “Holy…”
The trees hugged the shore, soft greens and oranges appeared nearly melted from the low light and dew of the morning. Nothing but the soft hum of insects and occasional chirps of birds kept us company. Alpine was quiet, but this was another level of stillness.
“Beautiful, right?”
Octavia’s round eyes somehow got bigger. She glanced back at Jacob’s house. The heavy fog erased it. “Have you thought of the possibility of this whole town being haunted? Like a curse or something?”
“We should talk about something fun.”
“Is the paranormal not fun to you?” Octavia studied me for a beat.
“No, really? What’s more fun for you, being at those conventions or in the field?
You’re definitely not one of those people who hate their job; I have yet to see you annoyed at getting to work.
But maybe you’re good at hiding it. I’m sure stage life benefits a lot from acting skills.
Have you ever done theater? You seem like you would have been a theater kid.
That’s not derogatory; the theater kids were usually nice to me. ”
I swallowed a laugh. This woman could yap and always had a million and one questions and theories. “This was supposed to be a non-work-related hobby, so I’d prefer if we talked about non-work things.”
Octavia’s shoulders lifted and fell as she released a heavy sigh. A few dragonflies buzzed around, fluttering above the water. I continued to row, trying to give her the floor and a chance to flex her nearly nonexistent conversation skills.
“I have the most fun when I get to see people.” I rested the paddles on the edge of the boat.
Water dripped from their edges into the dark lake.
The sun tried to pierce through the fog, but it was fought off.
I couldn’t see much around us anymore, only a vague outline of trees that looked like the shadows of giants waiting for us to get close enough to touch.
“See people?”
“Once we set everything right and they realize they can return to their normal lives,” I explained.
“Typically, when we give an all clear, we spend a couple of extra days on site—just to be sure we didn’t miss anything.
I get to see people live in their world.
Worry about mundane stuff like restocking the fridge or getting their engine checked.
That’s the fun part for me, seeing people exist. Enjoying life’s calm. ”
Octavia was quiet for a moment, considering before she finally said, “So, you’re a voyeur?”
I laughed, and her eyes danced, pleased.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I shrugged and tucked my hands under my thighs. It was colder out on the water. We drifted slowly, making a slight circle in the middle of the lake. Besides a few dark outlines of fish underneath the surface, it was almost as if we were alone in the world.
“It’s just…something I never got growing up,” I confessed with a shrug. “The mundane. Sometimes it was even stranger than the paranormal. Sometimes I considered maybe “normal” life was the weird thing.”
Octavia tilted her head to the side as she studied me. “Do you resent it? Not having a normal childhood?”
I tossed the question around in my brain, feeling its delicate edges and how it pressed against my precarious relationship with hunting.
“Sometimes,” I said the word in a whisper because it felt like a betrayal.
Or maybe a curse. As if when I confessed this, everything I had would be taken away.
I didn’t know what I wanted, but it wasn’t exactly that.
“Sometimes I wonder how it’d be to have school yearbooks.
How it’d feel to grow up on the same block with the same people and watch everything change slowly while nothing changed at all. ”