Half an hour later, I was no longer feeling so warm and fuzzy toward the woods. I had lost whatever trail I thought I’d been on. My legs were scraped up from twigs, my neck had been feasted upon by mosquitoes, and I didn’t even want to think about what my hair looked like. But mostly, I was annoyed at myself, and a little incredulous that I had gotten lost so close to home.
I didn’t have my phone, which, with its built-in compass, not to mention GPS, would have come in handy at the moment. I couldn’t see any houses around me, nothing to get my bearings, but I wasn’t panicking yet. For right now, I was still hoping that if I could just find the path again, I’d be able to trace my way back. I no longer cared about the shortcut—I just wanted to go home.
Somewhere in the distance, I heard a bird caw and then, a second later, heard the sound called back—but badly, and not by another bird. A second later, the bird call repeated, slightly improved this time, and I headed in the direction I’d heard the sound come from, walking fast. If there were bird-watchers in the woods, it meant that maybe they could direct me back to the road, that maybe I wasn’t completely lost.
I found them soon enough—it helped that the bird-imitation calls kept coming—two guys, one tall, one around Gelsey’s height, both with their backs to me, both looking fixedly up at a tree.
“Hi,” I called. I was beyond worrying about embarrassing myself. I just wanted to go home and get some breakfast and put calamine lotion on my bites. “Sorry to bother you, but—”
“Shh!” the taller one said, still looking at the tree, in a loud whisper. “We’re trying to see the—” He turned around and stopped abruptly. It was Henry, and he looked as surprised to see me as I felt.
I felt my jaw drop again, and hurriedly closed it. There was no doubt in my mind that I was blushing, and I wasn’t even tan enough yet to hide it. “Hi,” I muttered, crossing my arms tightly over my chest, wondering why each time I saw him, I somehow looked worse than I had before.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in the same loud whisper.
“What, am I not allowed to be in the woods now?” I asked, not quite as quietly, causing the kid next to him to turn around as well.
“Shh!” the kid said, a pair of binoculars raised to his eyes. He lowered them, and I realized with a shock that this was Henry’s little brother, Davy—recognizable, but just barely, as the seven-year-old I’d last known. Now he looked a lot like Henry had at his age—except I noticed that Davy was very tan for this early in the summer and he was, for some reason, wearing a pair of moccasins. “We’re trying to track the indigo bunting.”
“Davy,” Henry said, poking him in the back, “don’t be rude.” He looked over at me again, and said, “You remember Taylor Edwards, right?”
“Taylor?” Davy asked, his eyes widening, looking up at Henry in alarm. “Seriously?”
“Hi,” I said, waving, and then immediately crossing my arms again.
“Why is she here?” Davy half-whispered to Henry.
“I’ll tell you later,” Henry replied, frowning at Davy.
“But why are you talking to her?” Davy continued, not really whispering anymore.
“Anyway,” I said loudly, “if you could just—”
There was a flurry of wings from the tree the Crosbys had been looking at, and two birds—one brown, one blue—flew into the air. Davy scrambled for his binoculars, but even I could tell it was going to be too late—the birds were gone. His shoulders slumped, and he let the binoculars drop on the cord around his neck.
“We’ll come back tomorrow, okay?” Henry said quietly to Davy, resting his hand on his brother’s shoulder. Davy just shrugged, staring down at the ground. “We should go,” Henry said, glancing up at me. He gave me a fraction of a nod before he and Davy started to leave.
“Um,” I started, knowing it would probably be better just to get it out, rather than stalking the two of them through the woods in the hopes that they might lead me home. And what if they weren’t even going to their house, and I ended up following behind them while they chased some other random bird? “Are you going back home? Because I’m a little turned around, so if you are…” My voice trailed off, mostly at seeing Henry’s expression, which was equal parts incredulous and annoyed.
He let out a breath, then leaned down slightly to talk to Davy. “I’ll meet you at home, okay?” he asked. Davy scowled at me, then took off into the woods at a run.
“Does he know where he’s going?” I asked, as I watched him disappear from view. He certainly seemed to, but that’s what I’d thought when I entered the woods as well.
Henry seemed to find this funny for some reason. “Davy knows these woods like the back of his hand,” he said, the corner of his mouth turning up in a half smile. “He just took his shortcut—God knows how he found it. I’ve never even seen it, but it gets him home in half the time.” Then Henry seemed to realize who he was talking to. The smile faded, and the annoyed expression returned. “Let’s go,” he said shortly, and headed off in a totally different direction than I’d been walking.
We tromped through the woods in silence for a few minutes, Henry not looking at me, but straight ahead. I was just counting down the minutes until I would be at home and this would be over.
“Thank you,” I finally said after I couldn’t take the silence any longer.
“No problem,” Henry said shortly, still not looking at me.
“I just…” I started, not really sure where I was going with this, but feeling like I needed to explain somehow. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I was just trying to find the way home.”
“It’s fine,” Henry said, a little less brusquely than before. “We’re going to the same place, after all. And besides,” he said, looking at me directly for a moment, that ghost of a smile returning, “I told you it would be inevitable.”
I started to respond when I noticed that our path was blocked—there were two enormous trees down, moss already growing all over their trunks. Mixed in around the fallen trees were pieces of lumber, boards of different sizes. “What is that?” I asked. The whole thing, the downed trees and the jumbled pieces of wood made for a huge obstacle—where the pile was the highest, it reached almost up to my waist.