“Next time, give me a little warning about the flash,” I said.
“And miss the Ursulina? I’m sorry, Deputy, but no. Strike while the iron is hot!”
I said nothing. I kept scanning the snow for Jay’s footprints. My chest felt tight with fear.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” Ben murmured, his voice coming out of the darkness. Strangely, in the cathedral of the forest, it felt right to whisper.
“About what?”
“That when I was a boy, I saw the Ursulina.”
“I never said I didn’t believe you.”
“Well, when I told you about it the other day, there was a strange look on your face, which I assume was skepticism. Believe me, I’m used to it. However, even if you think my television show is a fraud, I’m not lying about what I saw.”
“No?”
“No, it really happened. Actually, it wasn’t all that far from here. I was camping alone on a weekend in September. I think I was eighteen. The woods have never frightened me, you know. Not like other people. I spend hours out here by myself, and I always feel perfectly at home.”
I wanted to say: Me, too.
“If I have my bearings right, we’re not far from Sunflower Lake,” Ben went on. “Do you know it?”
“Yes, I know it.”
I knew that lake, because this was where we’d camped when I was ten years old. My father, my brother, and me. This was where I’d gone into the woods and seen him, smelled him, heard him. Hufffffff. I’d come back to this place dozens of times to search for him. Weird, isn’t it? On some level, I missed the beast. He belonged to me in an unfathomable way. Not to Ben Malloy. Not to anyone else. Me. Rebecca Colder. I resented the idea that Ben had seen him, too.
“I was day-hiking along the lake,” Ben continued. “I was — oh, I don’t know — three or four miles from camp, staying close to the lakeshore. It was late, dusk, everything gray and shadowy, and that was when I heard this loud snort. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever heard before. I didn’t have a camera or anything, and I couldn’t see very well. But I ran along the beach, and that was when I saw him. Just a glimpse as he vanished into the trees with a crash. Upright, huge, spiky orangish fur. I ran, and I found the place where he’d disappeared, but it was dry, and there were no footprints. I spent another hour trying to find him, but he was gone. I’ve never seen him again. Mind you, I’ve looked and looked, but all I had was that one glimpse, a split second, no more. I’ll tell you the truth, though. Once you’ve spotted him, you grow obsessed with the experience. I won’t die a happy man unless I see him again. I suppose that sounds crazy. You probably can’t understand it.”
“Oh, I understand,” I said with a catch in my voice.
Ben pondered my tone. He turned on his own lantern and held it up to see my face, and then he simply stared at me. I tried to hide my emotions, but everything he said about his sighting — and how he’d felt afterward — was the same way I’d felt since I was ten years old.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Ben said.
“What?”
“You’ve seen him, too.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You search for him, don’t you? You listen for him. Just like me. That snort, it’s very distinctive, isn’t it? Sort of a hufffffff. ”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Ben shook his head in wonder, as if discovering a long-lost sister. “That strange look you had. It wasn’t skepticism. You were jealous. It’s hard to share him, isn’t it? I know what that’s like. It makes you feel special to have him to yourself. I’ve met a lot of people who’ve claimed that they saw the Ursulina, but honestly, I’m pretty sure most of them were lying. Except for this one old man. His story was almost exactly like mine, and there was this look in his eyes. A look that said he shared my obsession. I was actually depressed for days after I met him. I know how it sounds, but it’s like the monster had cheated on me. And yet, eventually, I came to realize that it was a good thing. I was able to put to rest that voice in my head that said I hadn’t seen what I did. You know the voice I mean, don’t you?”
“No. I really don’t.”
I turned away from his light, because I didn’t want him examining my face anymore. I swung my flashlight back to the ground, and in the snow piled near the trunk of a fat oak, I saw Jay’s trail again. It was quickly being erased by the wind. Soon the path would be lost altogether.
“Come on, we need to hurry.”
I moved as quickly as I could through the snow. Ben followed behind me. We were very close to the lake. Even in the darkness, I could see the paler light of a clearing not far away. The inlet was there, washing in from the deeper water, the trees ringing the shore. That’s where Jay’s footsteps led. Years ago, I’d been the one standing there by the lake, scratching my mosquito bites under the monster’s moon, listening to the warning of the owl and having no idea what was waiting for me in the woods.
The footsteps headed straight to the shore.
“Jay?” I called. “Jay, are you there? It’s Rebecca Colder.”
I stumbled forward to where the trees ended, my flashlight bobbing because I was practically running. The wind, with nothing to slow it down in the open, intensified to a roar, whipping the snow into a hurricane. The soft ground became a rocky beach under my feet. In some places, the snow was two feet deep, and in others, it had been blown clean down to the rough stones. There was no dark water in front of me, just a thick white bed of winter ice.
The cone of my light lit up a tiny piece of the inlet. There was Jay. He stood on the ice, snow swirling around him. A solitary teenager, overwhelmed by the cruelty of the world.
“Jay!” I called to him over the wind. “It’s okay. I’m not here to arrest you. I just want you safe.”
I motioned for Ben to stay where he was. I drew closer, walking down to the dividing line where the solidness of the land gave way to the solidness of the ice. Jay was about twenty feet away, buffeted by fierce gales. His hands were buried in his pockets, and his body shook. He looked cold. He’d been crying, but the tears had frozen to his cheeks. In the starkness of the light, his face looked haunted, almost like the hollow bones of a skull.
“Come on, Jay. Let me take you away from here.”
I took a step onto the ice, but then I stopped in horror. Jay took a hand out of his pocket and put a gun to the side of his head.
“No!” I screamed. “Jay, don’t! Put it down. You don’t want to do this.”
The teenager’s arm trembled, and so did the barrel of the gun. “Did you see Will? Did you see what they did to him?”
“I did. It’s terrible. But Will’s strong. He’ll get better.”
“The doctors say there could be brain damage. He’ll never be the same.”
“Jay, listen to me. He’ll get better.” I was trying to convince myself as much as him.
“I did this. He’s lying in that hospital bed because of me.”
“That’s not true.”
“I told him to stay quiet about us. Why couldn’t he stay quiet?”
“Because Will’s a decent, honorable kid,” I said.
“I love him.”
“I know.”
“I love him, but I destroyed his whole life. I wish I’d never met him. I wish I could go back and change everything.”