5. Rowan #2
“Thanks,” she murmurs. “I’ll check it.”
I nod, the paper bag crinkling in my hand. I should leave. I have bees to tend to and a territory to monitor. I shouldn’t be standing in a room that smells like synthetic cedar, feeling a strange, unwelcome tug of sympathy for a woman who is the primary architect of my current headaches.
I walk out of the gift shop. I don’t look back, but I can feel her eyes on me. Outside, I step around a tripod that Barnaby has left in the middle of the walkway. The man is a walking hazard.
The air is cooling as the sun begins to dip behind the ridge, the shadows stretching out, reclaiming the gravel lot. I walk toward the tree line, the paper bag tucked under my arm. I have technically won. I have acquired the proof of my status. I am the Hide & Seek World Champion.
As I reach the first line of cedars, I stop and look back at the lodge.
Through the large front windows, I can see Wren.
She’s back at the front desk now, her head bowed over a ledger.
The light from a desk lamp catches her hair, giving her copper hair a golden sheen.
She looks so tiny behind the heavy oak desk, a lone figure trying to hold back the forest with a pen and a marketing strategy.
I turn and walk into the trees. The silence of the woods swallows the sounds of the shouting tourists and the hum of the dying generator. This is my world. It is a world of slow growth and ancient rules, where nothing changes that doesn’t have to.
I think of the small, gold flecks in her eyes. I think of the fact that she didn’t look away.
I am the champion of hiding, yet for the first time in three centuries, I find myself wondering what would happen if I stopped trying to win the game. It’s a dangerous thought. It is a thought that belongs in a room with orange paneling, not in the deep green of the forest.
I keep walking, the bag crinkling against my side, a navy-blue secret tucked away in the shadows. I have my shirt. And I have a persistent, nagging awareness of a woman in her father’s boots who is far more dangerous to my peace of mind than a dozen drones.
I reach the creek that marks the boundary between the lodge’s immediate grounds and my own deeper territory.
The water is high, rushing over smooth stones with a sound like a crowd whispering in a language only I can translate.
I step onto a moss-covered boulder, the weight of the paper bag in my hand a constant, physical reminder of the transaction.
Twenty-four dollars for a joke. Or an admission.
I find a fallen log a few yards into the brush and sit.
The wood is damp, but I don’t care. I pull the shirt out of the bag.
In the dimming light, the navy blue looks almost black, and the white letters seem to glow.
I trace the word Champion with my thumb.
It’s a human word for a human concept. There are no champions in the forest. Only survivors and predators, and the quiet ones who simply persist. But the word has a certain ring to it that the ancient part of me finds suspiciously satisfying.
I imagine wearing it beneath my flannel like a secret sigil.
If I were to stand in front of Barnaby Jones while wearing this, would he see the irony?
Or would he simply see another tall local in a tacky shirt?
The thought of Barnaby’s EMF meter chirping in the presence of the Hide & Seek World Champion brings a dry, rattling chuckle to my throat.
It’s an undignified thought. I am a Guardian.
I should be above such petty, human triumphs.
Yet, here I am, clutching a piece of mass-produced cotton as if it were a trophy of war.
I fold the shirt carefully—much more carefully than the teenagers in the shop had handled the plush toys—and slip it back into the bag.
My thoughts drift back to the lodge, specifically to the way the floorboards creaked under Wren’s oversized boots.
She’s a creature of friction. Everything she does rubs against the natural order of things, creating heat and noise and sparks.
And yet, there is a rhythm to her struggle that I’m beginning to recognize.
It’s the same frenetic, desperate rhythm of a bird trying to repair a nest in the middle of a gale.
I continue my trek toward my home, moving through the undergrowth without snapping a single twig.
It is second nature, a skill honed over centuries, but tonight it feels performative.
I am the champion, after all. The forest is my stadium, and the only spectator is a woman with a failing lodge.
I reach the ridge overlooking the valley and pause.
From here, the lodge’s lights are a cluster of yellow stars against the deepening blue of the woods.
The SUVs look like toys and the people like ants.
It should make me feel superior. It should make the irritation that had lit inside me feel distant and inconsequential.
Instead, I find myself lingering. I watch the window where I know the front desk is located.
Wren is still there, likely still fighting the sill plate in her mind or arguing with a guest about the “energy” of a room.
A small, quiet flicker of interest—not that sharp thorn of irritation, but something cooler and more persistent—stirs in the back of my mind.
It isn’t attraction, merely a recognition of a fellow defender, even if she is defending the wrong things for the wrong reasons.
I turn away from the lights, clutching the paper bag, and disappear into the absolute dark of the high timber.
I have the shirt. I have the secret. And for the first time in a very long time, I have the feeling that the game of hide-and-seek is about to get significantly more complicated.