Page 108 of Mazywood

“Near a big snowdrift,” Sharise said. “We don’t know where, but Imani has footage.”

Imani remembered her GoPro and tugged it from her head strap again. But this time, the screen was black when she looked. “My battery’s dead now. But the tracks went past the bush, and she wasn’t there. We looked for her in the snow, Daddy. That’s all we found.”

Daddy stretched out the sock, examining it from every angle. She wanted to tell him not to open the cuff, but he did—and his cracked, dry lips fell apart. His cheeks deflated so quickly that his skin might be melting away. He saw the blood. He bent over with a harsh sound from his throat that sounded like a heart attack, but he was weeping.

Imani had never seen their father cry. Neither had Sharise, from the anguish on her face.

The more she heard her father weeping, and then Sharise joining him, the more Imani felt her emotions drawing further away, as if she were watching them from the mountaintop. Crying had mauled her like a chestburster from Alien. No more crying for her today. Fuck crying.

Instead, she focused on the snow outside, to see if the ground would move again. She imagined how good it would feel to shoot the Beast dead.

Once Johnny could compose himself after seeing what he was sure was Tasha’s blood—his first sign that she had suffered and bled—he gave his daughters a tutorial on the rifle so they would be more sure-handed about reloading and aiming it. He told them they only had twelve rounds. When Imani asked how he knew so much about it, he said, “Uncle Ricky taught me.”

He wanted to tell them he thought he’d seen Uncle Ricky’s ghost, but they were worried enough about him. That would be a story for later. Unlike Mazelle and his mother and uncle, he would not keep important secrets from his daughters because they were inconvenient. Mazelle’s secrets were destroying them all.

Miraculously, the fire lasted another hour. Between the heat and the emergency blanket, Johnny’s shivering stopped. The fire helped dry his clothes. Except for the grief roiling in him, he felt strong enough to stand again. Strong enough to walk.

The snowfall was thinning, and in a far corner of the gray cloud bank, he saw shafts of sunlight. This was the time to find his way back to the lodge. He’d made the trek when he was thirteen, so he could probably do it again. He would leave the girls in the safety of their shelter and take the rifle to protect himself on the way back. The Beast’s fear of gunfire might get him to the lodge safely even if he missed.

Johnny had decided that his daughters’ snowboard boots would make it too difficult for them to walk back, since they didn’t have snowshoes. And even during the periods when they could use their snowboards, their speed would only create separation. As much as he hated the idea of leaving them—and they would hate it more than he did—he couldn’t fathom endangering them again when the tree was so secure.

Revealing this plan would be the second-hardest thing he had done today, second only to watching Tasha get dragged out of the car.

Johnny took a deep breath and told Imani and Sharise his plan.

“Fuck. That.” Sharise cut him off almost as soon as he’d started.

“Listen to me…” Johnny said. “That snow is too deep to—”

“I don’t care,” Imani said. “We’re going with you! The fire’s almost out.”

“Then I’ll look for more firewood,” Johnny said. “There’s no way you’re leaving this tree to expose yourself in the open. I’m bringing back help. This isn’t negotiable.”

“We’re not babies,” Sharise said. “We’ve been taking care of ourselves since it happened. We’ll be fine if we go with you. You have a whole concussion, Dad. Sorry, but you said you were talking to dead people.”

No matter which plan won, Imani couldn’t bear to see her precious fire die down to ash.

She didn’t want her father to see how close she was to crying despite her vow, so she slid to the rear of the hollow to search for wood scraps she might have overlooked. She crept her flashlight’s bright beam across the macabre pile of bones, which she had swept to one side.

Imani shined her flashlight into the rear tunnel opening again, illuminating the rough gray-brown walls, while Daddy and Sharise argued, their voices rising. She plunged her arm inside as far as her elbow to see if she would get lucky and pull out a thick, dry tree branch.

She wriggled her fingers. Nothing but cool air inside. But she couldn’t reach far because the tunnel forked in a different direction. Imani yanked her arm out the way she did when she pulled silverware out of the garbage disposal at home. That Beast might have babies with teeth, after all. Anything was possible in the world that had created it.

“So we’re just supposed to wait out here and see what happens? What if it crashes in here like it tried to before?” Sharise said. “If this was its nest, it’s not gonna leave us alone. We saw those teeth up close, Dad. You’re not thinking straight.”

Imani had learned long ago that if she and Sharise were on the same side of an argument against Dad (or Mom), her sister was like a high-powered lawyer. Imani didn’t have to say a word, especially since tact wasn’t her biggest strength. A part of her was glad Sharise might convince Daddy to change his mind so they could all leave together. And yet…

This hollow was her womb. She couldn’t explain it to Sharise or her father, but she felt as close to Mom now as she had when she was sitting behind her in the RAV, her last moment of happiness, with Mom telling her to put on her seat belt. Had those been her last words to her?—the last spoken words, not the words in her head she’d been so sure of, that had come to her when all she could see of Mom was those patterns in the snow.

(I’m still alive.)

That voice had motivated her to leave Daddy behind and convince Sharise to chase the tracks this far, nearly getting them both killed.

(I’m still alive.)

That voice had only whispered to her once, but every time Imani remembered it she felt warm breath in her ear.

(I’m still alive.)