20. Wren
WREN
SIR, I CAN SEE YOU RIGHT NOW
The humming of the lodge refrigerator is a constant, low-frequency companion that I usually don’t notice until it stops.
Right now, it’s the only thing keeping the silence from becoming a physical weight in the kitchen.
A single drop of condensation slides down the side of a milk carton, tracing a slow, erratic path through the frost. It’s been four days since the storm and the wonderful night I spent with Rowan, two days since Rowan walked into the timber and left me standing on the edge of a creek with a heart that felt like it had been recalibrated to a frequency I don’t know how to tune.
When I reach for the blue mug with the chipped rim that used to be my father’s, I realize my hand is perfectly steady.
It shouldn’t be. By all rights, I should be vibrating with a mix of existential dread and frantic marketing panic.
Instead, there’s just this strange, domestic rhythm that has settled over the lodge, a quiet competence that feels like a shared secret between me and the forest.
The hotline pings on the counter. I don’t jump.
I don’t even sigh. I just pick up the phone, sliding the thumb-worn screen to see a blurry photo of what is definitely a black bear scratching its back against a cedar.
I delete it, then I delete a voicemail from a man in Ohio who wants to know if Sasquatch prefers beef jerky or granola bars.
He gets the granola response template, mostly because I’m tired of people leaving cured meats in the parking lot.
“You’re doing that thing again,” Marge says, walking into the kitchen with a tray of empty ramekins. She doesn’t look at me, but Marge has a way of seeing through the back of her head that I’ve never quite mastered. She sets the tray down with a sharp clatter that echoes off the subway tile.
“What thing?” I ask, taking a sip of coffee that has gone cold enough to taste like battery acid.
“The thing where you look like you’re doing math in your head but you’re actually just thinking about the big man in the woods.
” She moves to the stove, stirring a pot of what smells like the beginning of a beef stew.
The scent is rich, heavy with rosemary and onions, the kind of smell that promises survival against the encroaching damp of a Cascade autumn.
“I’m thinking about the occupancy tax,” I lie. “And the fact that Cabin Six needs a new showerhead. That leak is costing us three gallons an hour.”
“Uh-huh,” Marge says. She tastes the stew, her eyes narrowing in judgment.
“And I’m sure that’s why you’ve been staring at the North Ridge for twenty minutes instead of calling the plumber.
Walt’s already fixed the showerhead, Wren.
He did it the day before yesterday while you were busy checking the trail cameras for ‘anomalies.’”
I stare into my coffee. She’s not wrong.
The partnership with Rowan has become a routine so seamless it’s started to feel like a second job I never applied for.
We have a rhythm now. I manage the digital noise; he manages the physical world.
I feed the internet a diet of blurry shapes and tantalizing ‘maybe’ stories, and he keeps the drones away from the hives.
It’s efficient and pragmatic. It’s also the most terrifying thing I’ve ever been a part of, because for the first time in years, the lodge doesn’t feel like a sinking ship. It feels like a home being defended.
“Bookings are up twelve percent,” I say, shifting the subject to the only ground where I feel I have a grip. “If we keep this pace through November, we might actually be able to cover the property tax without dipping into the emergency fund.”
Marge turns around, wiping her hands on her apron.
The warmth in her face flickers for a second, replaced by that blunt, pragmatic stare that I recognize from my childhood.
She knows the numbers as well as I do. She knows that twelve percent is a miracle, but she also knows the size of the hole we’re trying to fill.
“It’s good, Wren. It’s real good,” she says softly. “But twelve percent doesn’t pay off a hundred thousand in back debt. It just keeps the lights on while you figure out who’s going to buy the bulbs. Don’t go thinking a few extra hikers in tactical gear are going to save the family silver.”
The gut-punch of reality is a familiar sensation, a dull thud in the center of my chest that I’ve learned to breathe through.
I nod, sliding the hotline phone into my pocket.
She’s right. The viral fame is a band-aid on a gunshot wound.
It buys us time, but time is a resource that Rowan has in centuries and I have in monthly billing cycles.
I leave the kitchen before she can ask anything else.
The air in the lobby is cooler, smelling of woodsmoke and the faint, lingering scent of damp wool from the birdwatchers in the common room.
I sit behind the oak desk, the wood scarred by generations of Cassidys who probably felt exactly this same mixture of duty and desperation.
I open the ledger, but my eyes drift to the window.
The North Ridge is a wall of dark green, the trees standing in silent, watchful ranks.
Somewhere out there, Rowan is checking his traps or tending his bees, moving with that effortless, predatory grace that makes the rest of the world look like it’s moving in slow motion.
The hotline buzzes. A local number. I pick it up on the first ring, a reflex born of three weeks of digital firefighting.
“Bigfoot Hotline, what did you see?” I say, my voice falling into the practiced, professional lilt I use for the believers.
“I’m lost,” a voice says. It’s high-pitched and breathless, the sound of someone who has realized the forest is much larger than the map they downloaded.
“I went off the blue trail to follow a sound, and now I’m in a ravine and everything looks the same.
I think I’m near a waterfall but the water is loud and I can’t see the sun. ”
I straighten up, my marketing brain clicking off and my SAR-daughter brain clicking on. This isn’t a sighting. This is a problem. “Stay where you are,” I say, reaching for a pen. “Can you see any trail markers? Any yellow blazes on the trees?”
“No, just ferns,” the caller says, their voice cracking. “Please, I tried the rangers but I couldn’t get through. I saw your number on a sticker at the trailhead. You guys answer, right? You’re the only ones who answer.”
I feel a cold prickle of alarm. The hotline was supposed to be a joke, a way to sell T-shirts and book cabins.
Now, it was becoming a de facto emergency line because the park service was understaffed and I was the only person with a live human on the other end of the line.
It’s a misuse of the system, a dangerous precedent, and yet I find myself writing down the caller’s description of the ravine.
“Sir, this is the Bigfoot Hotline,” I say, trying to maintain a shred of the gimmick while my heart starts to hammer. “We aren’t a rescue service.”
“I know but you answered! Please. Just tell someone I’m here. It’s getting dark, and I think I heard something big in the brush.”
“Stay put,” I repeat, my voice firm. “I’m calling the county rescue. Don’t move from that waterfall.”
I hang up and immediately dial the SAR dispatch.
It’s a five-minute conversation, clinical and efficient.
I give them the coordinates of the only waterfall that fits the description—Half-Mile Drop—and wait for the confirmation.
When I put the phone down, my palms are sweating.
The hotline was a prank that had grown teeth.
It was a tool I didn’t entirely know how to handle, a bridge between a digital lie and a very real, physical danger.
When I look up, Rowan is leaning against the doorframe, looking as if he’s been there for an hour or a second. He looks out of place in the lobby, a piece of the mountain that has wandered indoors and found the ceiling too low.
“They found him?” His voice is a low rumble that vibrates in my own ribs, a sound that bypasses my ears and goes straight to my marrow.
“SAR is on their way,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “He’s at the Drop. He’ll be fine.”
Rowan nods, his expression unreadable. He moves into the room, his footsteps silent on the hardwood. He stops at the edge of the desk, looking down at the call log. There’s no irritation in him today, just a quiet, watchful presence that makes the air in the lobby feel thicker, more significant.
“The people use the phone for the wrong things.” He delivers the observation with the dry patience of someone who has watched humans fail to understand their own tools for centuries.
“They use it because it works, Rowan,” I say. “They’re scared, and they want someone to tell them they’re okay. And I feel responsible. So many people who don’t know how to be in the woods come here because of the hotline.”
He looks at me then, his eyes dark and steady.
There’s a question in his gaze that I’m not ready to answer, a reminder of the storm and the shelter and the way his skin had felt like warm stone beneath my hands.
We haven’t talked about it. We’ve managed the lodge and the tourists and the hotline, but we haven’t touched the thing that happened between us.
It’s a mountain we’re both pretending isn’t there.
“I need more of the brown cakes,” he says, breaking the silence. “The bees are active. I’m spending more time in the high timber.”
“Marge has a batch in the kitchen,” I say, my voice slightly too fast. “I’ll get them for you.”
“Wait,” he says. He reaches out, his hand hovering over the desk. He doesn’t touch me, but the heat from his palm is a physical presence in the six inches of air between us. “The man on the phone. He said he saw something big.”
“He was scared, Rowan. Everything looks big in the dark when you’re lost.”