Page 55 of Mazywood

She bent over to blow again. A baby flame sprang from the ember, born hungry. When Imani blew again to nurture it, the smoke grew to a cloud big enough for Tasha and Sharise to see. They both cheered while Imani fanned the flames until they were tasting the thicker logs. She wanted to be sure the fire would survive before she stopped nursing it.

“Great job, baby!” Mom said, and pulled Imani close to kiss her temple.

“You actually did it,” Sharise said. “Let me shut up, I guess.”

“Yes,” Imani said, giving Sharise a long look. Then, more softly: “You’d better.”

When the lights had gone out, everyone forgot about the big confession Sharise was about to make, and Imani was itching to warn her sister not to say anything about the deer’s head or she would spill every secret she could think of—real or fake. She privately raised a finger to her lips: Shhhhh. Sharise pursed her lips, defiant. But she nodded her agreement just out of Mom’s sight.

“There’s nothing to be worried about, Imani,” Mom said, trying to comfort her for the wrong reasons. “Even if your dad can’t get the generator going—”

A rumbling sound came from outside, and the kitchen lights came back on, with cool light sharpening their faces. Mom turned on a table lamp shaped like drooping rose petals, and with homier light it was just a living room again.

Everything looked normal except for the pile of blankets and pillows Dad had said they should bring while he was in the garage, in case it took him a while. Dad knew how to change tires and put on snow chains, but he wasn’t exactly a handyman, so when he said he didn’t know what kind of shape the generator was in (or, probably, how to turn it on), they had prepared for a long, cold night. But he’d gotten the generator going in less than ten minutes!

Imani heard the door from the garage open (with that freezer full of meat) and close hard, more like slamming. Dad locked the door fast.

“Good job, hon!” Mom called out.

Imani expected her father to be smiling when he joined them in the living room, but when he pulled off his jacket’s hood to show his face, he looked weary and shaken, as if he’d been outside for hours. Dad didn’t notice the fire or look anywhere except at Sharise.

Dad went straight to Sharise and leaned over her. “Tell me what you saw outside.”

Nineteen

TASHA AND JOHNNY HUDDLED OVER Imani’s GoPro camera, their faces close to her miniature video screen. The lighting was bright and sharp on the footage, so the frozen blood and shredded flesh on the deer’s neck looked close enough to smell and touch. No wonder Imani had barely taken a bite of her dinner! The poor animal had been ripped apart. Mangled. The thick streak of blood across the tree trunk looked unnatural. Ritualistic.

Tasha remembered to suck in a long, slow breath to keep from spinning out. Sharise and Imani had seen this carcass so close to the lodge and hadn’t said anything? Her anger at her daughters helped blunt the deeper fear coiling in her belly, masquerading as nausea.

Tasha felt Johnny’s thrumming chest beside her, as if his heart were trying to wrestle past his rib cage. His jawline too carved through his cheek. He’d come back from the generator already looking sick from his ordeal outside, a story he had not yet told her. When they stared at each other after seeing the ghastly images on the video screen, their faces mirrored what was weighing in their minds. We made a mistake. We might be in trouble.

Johnny squeezed Tasha’s hand and held on for what felt like a full minute. Then he pulled his fingers free. He turned to face their daughters, who were side by side on the sofa awaiting a reckoning. Tasha steepled her fingers in front of her mouth because she didn’t trust the words that might fly out from her simmering fear.

“What time was this?” Johnny asked the girls, his voice so soft that the popping twigs from the fireplace nearly overpowered it. “When you saw it?”

“There’s a time stamp,” Imani said. “You could just look.” She could sound pissy when she didn’t mean to, with her unvarnished approach to communication. Tasha fought another surge of annoyance, but Johnny patiently studied the video screen again.

“It was right before we came in,” Sharise said. “Maybe… three forty-five?”

“I see now,” Johnny said. “Three fifty. And it’s right by the steps up to the lodge?”

They nodded.

Johnny straightened, pacing. He took off his jacket and carefully laid it across the back of the sofa next to the rifle he’d propped up there when he came inside. Between the fire and the central heat, the room had warmed up fast. Tasha could swear she already had the heightened sense of smell that came with pregnancy, and their nervousness had a sharp, sour smell. Their collective nerves might be raising the heat too.

“You should have told us,” Johnny said.

Sharise leaned forward to take responsibility. “Dad, I’m sorry, we just—”

“And that’s a conversation for another time,” Johnny said. “I need to tell you what happened when I was outside just now. Something is out there. I think it’s circling the lodge.”

Sharise gasped, clutching Imani’s hand.

“Johnny,” Tasha said, startled that he would say something that frightening to Sharise and Imani without telling her first so they could devise a strategy. She had thought he had stronger emotional control tonight, but now he sounded like he was almost talking to himself.

“I don’t know if it’s the same thing that got into the house,” Johnny went on, ignoring their reactions until they listened, hushed, “and I don’t think it’s a person. Just like whatever killed that deer, I don’t think it was hunters. I heard it up in the tree, and it kind of… slithered down. Then it hid under the snow. Maybe it’s a mountain lion.”

Tasha felt the room dimming when Johnny said the word slithered, only snapping to alertness again when he filled in a picture of what animal might have moved in such a way.