The Dead and the Dark(9)

Ashley made it to the parking lot outside the Lake Owyhee campground at half past five in the morning, armed with a travel mug of hibiscus tea and her best walking shoes. The sun was minutes from breaking the horizon, warming the dark sky with a hazy pink glow. Sheriff Paris stood in the center of the parking lot with a map of the Lake Owyhee wilderness splayed over the hood of his police cruiser.

“Morning,” Ashley said, stifling a yawn. “It might be just me today.”

Paris shook his head. “John was just brushing his teeth when I left the house. He’ll be here with the rest of your pack any minute.”

Ashley took a long drink of tea. Gray mist sat low on the water, obscuring the woods across the lake. They’d searched the area around town three times over, but the other side of the lake was untouched. A strange, cloying dread churned in her chest when she looked at the trees across the shore. She was sure something was there. It watched her, dark and hungry and waiting. Some mornings, she heard a low hum that seemed to echo through Snakebite. Bug and Fran swore they didn’t hear it, but even now, if Ashley closed her eyes it was there.

She focused on Paris.

“The vigil kinda felt like a funeral.” Ashley twisted the end of her ponytail between her fingers. “I was worried people would stop showing up to these.”

“Do you feel like he’s gone?” Paris asked.

Ashley pressed her lips together. She couldn’t explain what she felt. Some days, it was like the memory of him followed her just out of sight. She’d thought it was grief—conversations where she swore she heard him answer, the faint smell of diesel fuel right before she fell asleep, the constant anticipation that she would see him standing on his front yard mowing the lawn when she drove past. She’d felt grief when her grandma died, when they’d put down her first cat, when her father left town when she was in the first grade and never came back. This was different. She’d never felt this kind of longing before. It was like Tristan was standing next to her. She thought of him and a sadness filled her up, deeper and colder than any she’d ever felt. It was a sadness that breathed. It wasn’t final.

“No,” Ashley said.

“That’s what I wanna hear.” Sheriff Paris checked his phone. “Other people might give up, but you kids still care about him. That’s what’ll help you find him. And as long as I’ve got mornings off, I’ll be out here, too.”

“Thanks.”

Down the highway, an engine roared. John Paris pulled into the campground parking lot with Fran, Bug, and his best friend, Paul Thomas, crouched in the bed of his truck. Like usual, the five of them gathered around Sheriff Paris’s map for a rundown of the ground they’d be searching, and like usual, they split into two groups to cover more ground. For weeks, it’d been John and Paul in one group and the three girls in the other.

This time, Fran immediately latched onto John’s arm. “I feel like we should mix it up. See if we come up with something new.”

There was no arguing with Fran, so Ashley and Bug trekked into the hills beyond the campground alone. Once they were far enough up the steep incline of the nearest hill, Bug let out a sigh like she’d been holding her breath since she arrived. She plopped down on a rock and tied her hair into a bushy red ponytail. “She’s being weird, right?”

“Fran?” Ashley asked.

Bug nodded. Ashley cupped her hand over her brow and looked out at the next hill over. Fran and John walked side by side, playfully shoving each other back and forth while Paul tagged along behind them. They weren’t searching for Tristan; they weren’t searching for anything but a way to lose the third wheel.

“She likes him,” Ashley said. “It’s whatever. I wish she wouldn’t use searches to flirt.”

“You could say something.”

“So could you.”

Bug ran her heel through a loose patch of gravel. “But you’re better at it. She’d probably listen to you.”

“She’d listen to you, too.”

“She never listens to me,” Bug groaned.

Ashley tightened her ponytail. “I’ll talk to her later. Maybe.”

They both knew she wouldn’t say anything. Ashley had been friends with Bug since she was in diapers and Fran since the Camposes moved to Snakebite in first grade. There weren’t a lot of other kids her age in town, which meant that knowing everyone was a default. But as soon as Fran came to town, their trio was so much more than friends by default. They were a three-headed beast. There was no Ashley without Fran and Bug. Every party at the cabin across the lake, every summer road trip, every greasy dinner at the Moontide—it wasn’t Snakebite without Bug and Fran by her side. It wasn’t home.

Now, things were changing. It wasn’t just Tristan. Fran was drifting away, hanging at John Paris’s side, finding ways to be alone with him. Which left Bug either jealous of John, jealous of Fran, or jealous of some combination of the two. Ashley was sure there was a piece of Bug that wanted to fuse them all together and stop the drifting before it stuck, but it wasn’t that easy. College was on the horizon for Fran, and the ranch was on the horizon for Ashley. Bug still had two more years of high school, and she was looking at facing them alone. Quietly, the three of them were pulling apart. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just time. Maybe that was worse.