Wild is the Witch (40)
“You don’t have to understand,” I say, unzipping the tent. “But I’m going.”
“This is totally absurd,” Pike says, frustration sharpening the tone of his voice.
“Then don’t come.”
I step out of the tent and turn on my flashlight, then go to where my stuff is drying out under the tarp. I pull my headlamp out of my backpack, turning it on, and put my phone safely in my pack. I slip the straps over my shoulders and start off in the direction of the owl.
I ignore the way the trees snap and the wind howls, the way rain pelts my hood and the river surges through the woods.
The forest feels infinite, ferns and moss and huckleberry bushes covering the earth, large roots snaking through the dirt, and fallen trees resting on their trunks. It’s untouched and wild, exactly as it should be, beautiful in its abandon.
Lightning splits the sky in two, and seconds later thunder rumbles in the distance. I look up, but my light can’t reach the treetops, limiting what I see to only a few feet ahead.
I keep walking.
“Iris!” I hear behind me. “Wait!”
I turn and see Pike in the distance, his headlamp moving up and down as he follows after me. I don’t know why seeing his light makes my eyes burn and my throat ache, why I want to run toward it until I’m blinded.
I don’t move, watching through the rain as he gets closer and closer, until finally I could reach out and touch him. I could, but I don’t.
“What are we doing out here, Iris?” he asks, confusion and anger lacing his tone, pulling at his eyes and mouth.
“I have to get to him,” I say, my voice shaking. I need to keep moving, and I turn around to walk, unwilling to wait any longer.
“Why? Why right now?” Pike asks, his voice getting louder as he follows behind me. “He’s a bird; he knows how to survive in the rain.” He says it as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, as if I’m ridiculous for thinking otherwise.
“Don’t do that. Don’t chase after me just to tell me how ridiculous you think I am. I already know.” I walk faster, my pack bouncing up and down as I jump over roots and rush around tree trunks.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” he says, catching up to me, staying by my side. “I just wish you’d talk to me. You’re so in your head that you forget there’s someone else here.”
“Yeah, well maybe I’m so in my head because you aren’t in yours enough,” I say, frustrated. “And if I’m not giving you enough attention, you’re free to leave.”
Pike exhales so loudly I hear it over the wind and rain. “That’s so unfair. I’m here, aren’t I? I want to be here.”
“You definitely don’t sound like it,” I say, slipping on a rock and righting myself.
He catches my hand, stopping me, making me look him in the eyes. “That’s because I’m angry,” he says. “I’m allowed to be angry. This doesn’t make any sense, and you refuse to talk to me, running off without any explanation. This storm is only getting worse, and we should be back at camp, waiting it out, not walking directly through it in total darkness. But that’s what you insisted on doing, so here we are, standing in the middle of the woods at midnight simply because you felt like it.”
I breathe heavily, watching him as he speaks, watching the way his hair sticks to his forehead and the way raindrops run down his face. Watching his mouth and his eyes and his jaw as it tenses, the light from my lamp casting harsh shadows on his skin. His glasses are covered in drops of water, and there’s a small twig that I want to pull from his hair. My fingers ache with it, with the desire to reach out and touch it, with the restraint of staying still.
I push my curls out of my face, wanting to see him as best I can.
“You’re angry, and you still came,” I finally say.
Pike sighs, exasperated. “Well…yeah. You didn’t really give me a choice.”
“You could have stayed back at the tent.”
“No, I couldn’t have.”
I want to ask him why, want to know what made him come after me as I track down an owl in the middle of the night while a storm is raging. I want to know. But maybe it’s nothing, and he’s here out of some sense of obligation to keep me safe, as if I can’t do that myself.
It’s probably nothing.
I turn away from him and start walking, the wind pushing back against me. It’s so strong that even the brambles are shaking with it, everything hissing in unison. The owl hasn’t moved, and I tell myself it’s because he’s waiting out the storm in a dry hollow, safe from the weather taking place around him.
Another bolt of lightning illuminates the sky, so big I can see it through the canopy of trees. Thunder sounds right after, the storm getting closer, shaking the ground as it marches on.
Then a loud crack pierces the night.
“Iris, look out!” Before I know what’s happening, Pike grabs me from behind and throws me to the ground. He lands on top of me just as a huge evergreen falls through the trees and slams into the earth, my body lifting off the ground and dropping back down as the shock moves through me.
Something is poking through my hood, and I slowly lift my hand to touch it. A huge branch is lying over Pike, resting on the part of my head he isn’t covering, and my breathing gets quicker as I realize how close the tree is to us. How I would have been crushed by it if Pike hadn’t thrown me off to the side.