Something Wilder(76)

“Well, okay. It’s, um, a black-and-white photo,” he said. “It’s a picture of a cabin in the canyon. It’s tiny, made of wood, looks to be about ten feet across the front at most. There are two windows, small, identical. And between them is a chimney. And Duke is leaning against the tree on the left, holding a beer, smiling.” He exhaled slowly. “Duke’s tree, the stump we found.”

“Our left or his?”

Leo blinked over to her, confused. “The left side of the photo. He’s leaning against the tree with his right arm.”

“What hand holds the beer bottle?”

He looked down again. “His left.”

“Exactly. How many fingers do you see?”

His stomach seemed to drop straight out of his body and over the cliff. “Oh, shit.”

He looked up at her to see she was already shaking her head, eyes open now and smiling. “It’s impossible, right? He only has four fingers on his left hand.”

“Then how—?”

She took it back. “It’s a red herring. It’s intentional. Only someone who knew Duke could figure it out. Leo: this photo is a mirror image.”

A mirror image.

Duke wasn’t leaning against the tree on the left. He was leaning against the one on the right, and they hadn’t even looked for that one.

“But did you see another stump?” Leo hadn’t seen anything other than rotting wood and crumbled stone.

“No.” Lily grinned over at him. “But we wouldn’t have if it was buried under the collapsed fireplace.”

Leo let out a breathless “Oh my God. We have to go back.”

Lily turned, frantically digging into the bag. “Give me Bradley’s and Walter’s numbers.” He rattled them off, and watched over her shoulder as she texted the group: Photo was a mirror image. Don’t come for us yet. We’ll call when we know more.

Lily hit Send before shoving the phone back into her bag.

“Take two?” she said, grinning so wide he could count her teeth.

“Take two.”





Chapter Twenty-Eight


THE CLEARING OPENED up in front of them and, once they were positive no one else lingered nearby, Lily and Leo raced toward the crumbled chimney—right back to where they’d been barely two hours ago. Though both their hands were covered in cuts and scrapes, they hardly noticed as they dug through the pile to unearth a stump that was in considerably worse shape than the one on the other side.

Years of being covered by rock and other debris meant it hadn’t dried out and aged in the same way. Some of the grain was swollen; sections of bark had rotted and sloughed away. Hopefully whatever remained would still be legible.

Leo leaned in to study it while Lily hovered behind him, her heart in her windpipe. “Do you see anything?” she asked. “Is it braille again?”

“There’s definitely something here.” Reaching into his bag, he pulled out his canteen and poured water across the surface, just like she had last time. “Right? Do you see those dots?”

She crouched next to him, and though the markings weren’t as pronounced, she agreed they were similar to what they’d seen earlier.

But she was tired, and the longer she stared, the more they seemed to swim in front of her, turning into nondescript, blobby masses. “Looking at this makes my brain malfunction.”

Leo picked up a stick, swiped an area of the earth flat and clear of leaves, and began drawing the patterns in the dirt. After a few minutes, he pulled back. “Does that look right?”



She compared the drawings to what had been burned onto the wood. “I think so?”

Below the drawings, he slowly wrote 2, F, e, n, w, e. “I’m less confident this time around,” he murmured.

She pointed to the final series of dots. “But if this is an intentional dot and not a spot of decay on the wood, that would turn this final e into an o.”

“Right,” he agreed. “But if the two is the slot canyon, and the F is which crevasse we turn into, then the next four letters are directional turns deeper into the Maze, an o wouldn’t make sense.”

“The way you’ve drawn it looks right to me.” She looked up, hyperaware of every sound.

“Do we really think the first code was a decoy? Is that something Duke would do?”

“It is absolutely something he would do. I almost feel stupid for not anticipating it.”

He gazed down at the dirt and up at the log, back and forth, confirming. “If the photo of Duke is a mirror image, then this is definitely the right tree stump.”

“Let’s roll with it,” Lily said, tugging on his sleeve. She looked back up the path toward the slot canyons, paranoid and unable to shake the feeling that they weren’t alone. “Those two idiots might not be the brightest stars in the sky, but assuming we’re right about the tree, it’s only a matter of time before they realize that the earlier directions were wrong. And if they find us, I don’t think they’ll just zip-tie us again.”

Feet crunched through leaves behind them and this time Lily knew she hadn’t imagined it. She whipped around, knife in hand, and saw a man backlit in the low-hanging sun, standing about ten yards away. They both pushed to their feet, Leo shoving her behind him, shielding her.