Page 10
Mel’s face did something she tried to hide by reaching for the salt. Momma looked down at her plate, and Aaron got very interested in the water in his glass. I hated all of it.
After dinner, I found Jonah on the back porch, elbows on his knees, staring past the yard toward the treeline. The porch light threw gold over one side of his face and left the other in shadow.
A year ago, I would have expected him to be texting five different friends by now, making plans, and acting like the world existed to be survived at top speed. Instead, he just sat there wrapped in his hoodie, with his phone dark beside him.
I lowered myself into the chair beside him and sat quietly with him for a minute. “Your mom says you’re taking some time before leavin’ for OSU,” I said, trying to keep my voice easy, because I could feel him bracing already. “Nothin’ wrong with that. Hell, I took a gap summer after high school and stretched it until Tom threatened to drag me into ranger trainin’ myself.”
Jonah gave me a faint glance. “Yeah.”
“That’s all I get?” I asked, leaning forward and resting my forearms on my thighs. “I drove across five states to get one syllable?”
His mouth twitched, but it didn’t become a smile. “Didn’t ask you to, Uncle Luke.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said, keeping my eyes on the same dark strip of trees he was watching. “But I’m here anyway, so you’re stuck with me now, alright?”
The silence after that had weight. From inside the house, I could hear dishes clinking and Mel laughing at something Momma said, but out on the porch, Jonah looked like he was listening to something far away. His knee bounced once, stopped, then started again.
“I read the files about your camping trip,” I said gently, and Jonah visibly flinched.
I regretted the words the second they left my mouth, because fear crossed his face so fast it made him look younger. He swallowed hard, and his gaze snapped to the trees again.
“I’m not talking about that,” he said.
“Okay,” I replied, meaning the words. “Then we won’t talk about it.”
His fingers curled into his hoodie cuff. “Everyone wants me to talk about it. Cops, Mom, therapists, school people. They ask the same shit in different voices, like I’ll forget I already said I don’t know,” he said, then cringed a little. “Sorry for cussin’, Uncle Luke.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I watched the muscle jump in his jaw and made myself stay calm. “Do you? Not know, that is.”
Jonah looked at me then, and for the first time all night, I saw the kid under the fear. Angry, exhausted, and trapped inside a story everyone else wanted to finish for him.
“I remember enough,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “That’s the problem.”
A chill crawled up the back of my neck, but I didn’t push even though every instinct in me wanted to, especially after Reyes’ wall of faces. But Jonah wasn’t a file, and whatever happened in those woods had already taken enough from him.
So, I nodded and said, “You don’t have to tell me tonight. But just know that I am here whenever you want to talk.”
He stared at me for a long moment, suspicion and relief fighting for first place in his expression. “Mom said you’re living in the old ranger cabin.”
“Yeah, I moved in yesterday,” I said.
His expression changed so sharply, I felt it in my gut. “Don’t follow any blue lights if you smell something sweet and weird in the air,” he said.
I kept my voice steady. “Sweet and weird how?”
Jonah stood up abruptly then. “I’m tired,” he said, already moving toward the door. “Goodnight.”
I stayed on the porch after he left, staring at the same trees he’s been watching, and told myself there were a lot of ways trauma can turn ordinary darkness into something scary. The human brain wants a shape to put to that trauma. It wants a monster because a monster is easier than a missing girl and dogs refusing to track past the creek.
Now I’m back at the cabin with Jonah’s face in my head when he told me not to follow blue lights.
“They’re still tellin’ stories about the Lantern Stalkers, huh?” I murmur to myself and shake my head, then grab my bag and step out of the truck.
When I move to unlock the front door, a chill runs up my spine and my heart feels like it wants out of my chest when I catch a faint herbal scent on the breeze. I turn around to look at the treeline.
“Hello?” I say, already knowing no one would be there.
Man, Jonah’s words must really have gotten to me.
