“I can see it’s wet.”
“Isn’t it gorgeous?”
It was hard to imagine how anyone could mourn this M. Night Shyamalan landscape, but Kia thought she saw love and grief flash behind Sullivan’s eyes, more intense than anything Kia had felt for the villages and bayous she’d visited on her travels.
“There’s a footpath through the wetland,” Sullivan said. “Follow me.”
They were going to walk on afootpathacross water? This really wasn’t something to love.
“Are there snakes?”
“They’re not poisonous out here.”
“That was not the question. They aren’t going to fall out of the trees and land on me, are they?”
“No.” A shadow passed over Sullivan’s face. “I haven’t seen a miniature Oregon tree snake in at least a year.”
Sullivan headed toward a wooden sign that readDENNY E. ELWOOD MEMORIAL WETLAND TRAIL. He’d probably fallen in and gotten eaten by the snakes. That happened in Florida. With climate change, those ropes of Satan had probably made their way to Oregon.
Kia pinned her location for Deja to look for her body. She took a picture and WhatsApp-ed it to Lillian.
Kia:She’s taking me on a picnic in a WETLAND
For once, Lillian texted back immediately like she had before she gave up ballet and fell madly in love with Izzy.
Lillian:Iz says they’re beautiful
Kia:Iz is OREGONIAN
Lillian:Facts
Kia texted a picture of her De Luxe Heel Platform Converse.
Kia:She hates me
Lillian:Everyone loves you
“You could have warned me about this,” Kia called after Sullivan, but Sullivan was practically dancing down the narrow muddy path between decaying clumps of reeds. “Georgie does not like it out here,” Kia grumbled.
Sullivan set the pace, moving with the grace of a TikTok dancer, floating and gliding just above the path, whistling.
“That’s a blue heron.” She quoted some poetry becausethatwas appropriate in the minutes before being eaten by pythons. “I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, and now my heart is sore. All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight, the first time on this shore.That poem’s about swans though.”
Kia’s heel sank in the mud. Every step felt like a struggle, amplifying her frustration. Sullivan glanced over her shoulder.
“Keep up, Jackson.” Was the lightness in Sullivan’s voice teasing or mocking?
Sullivan widened her lead, still pointing at bushes, although Kia could no longer hear the botany lesson. Kia tried to hurry but her heels stuck. The path dipped. Water flowed slowly across it. Sullivan had jumped it. Kia would fall in the mud like she had outside Sullivan’s house and break her neck.
“Alice Sullivan!”
Sullivan turned and waved. Didn’t their days at Jean Paul Molineux mean enough to Sullivan that she wouldn’t strand Kia in a swamp? Was Sullivan going to hike out of the forest behind the wetland, call an Uber, and leave her? A drop of rain hit her face.
A nearby clump of reeds trembled. So did Kia’s Afro. Her anxiety spiked. Something rippled in that water. Inside her chest, Kia’s heartbeat sounded like a boxer landing blows on a punchingbag, forceful and a little erratic. Snakes. She yelled the only thing she could think of. The truth.
“I’m scared of snakes, Sullivan, and I’m stuck.”
With the grace and speed of a steeplechaser, Sullivan closed the distance between them.
