I clung to him anyway, desperate for his protection.
But my eyes stayed wide, unblinking, scouring the shadows beyond the firelight for the shape of a woman in white with tangled hair, drifting toward me with her eternal wail.
Even when he guided me back into the tent, zipped us in tight, and curled his body around mine, I couldn’t shake the sense of dread.
Within minutes Cody fell back into steady, even breaths.
I, on the other hand, lay wide awake, heart thundering, eyes fixed on the darkness, stiff as a corpse…
Which at this point felt like a rehearsal.
CODY
The morning sunspilled over the trees by the time I coaxed the little fire back to life and set my trusty old billy to boil. The woods smelled like pine needles and dew and smoke from our campfire.
Brooks hadn’t stirred. I’d left him curled in his sleeping bag when I woke up. I figured he’d had an anxious night and needed as much sleep as he could get before we packed up camp. Yet by the same token I was eager to get moving, to find out who it was calling out in the night.
When the water bubbled, I tossed in a handful of tea leaves, gave the billy a swirl, and poured two steaming mugs.
“Rise and shine,” I said brightly, sticking my head back inside the tent.
He cracked one eye open, holding his head like my voice hurt. “I don’t shine,” he croaked. “I barely even rise.”
I grinned and waved a mug under his nose. “Tea’s ready. It’s ginger and lemongrass. These leaves came all the way from Cambodia. Trust me, it’ll work miracles.”
He sat up stiffly, like every joint had been welded in the night, and accepted the mug with both hands, his hair sticking up at odd angles.
“So how did you sleep?”
“I think the question is, did you sleep at all?” He took a sip of tea and his face softened. “Ooh, that’s good.”
“Excellent,” I said. “Drink it down. We need to get a wriggle on.”
He blinked at me over the rim of the mug. “A wriggle on? What does that even mean? Are there worms out there? I hate worms!”
“No, I mean, we need to get a move one,” I answered. “Up the ridge. We need to head up the ridge.”
His shoulders stiffened, the mug frozen halfway to his lips. “What do you mean… head up the ridge? That’s where the scary voice was coming from last night?”
“I know. We need to find out who was making it.”
“Are you serious? Are Australians actuallyattractedto danger? If you jump in the ocean and see a shark fin, do you swimtowardit? Surely not!”
“Brooks.” I crouched to meet his eye. “If someone was calling out, they could need help. We can’t just pack up and leave them.”
He let out a low groan, tipping his head back like he was bargaining with heaven. “We most certainly can. That’s exactly what we should do. Head straight down this mountain, back to town, and let the forest keep its spooky secrets.”
“Or,” I said gently. “We could find out what’s really going on. It’s the right thing to do.”
Brooks pressed the mug to his chest like it might shield him. “No, no, no. Doing the right thing is heading back to town and telling Sheriff Gates there’s a banshee in the woods. That’s the right thing. That’s our civic duty.”
“Brooks,” I said softly. “What if it wasn’t a banshee? What if it was someone who’s lost, or hurt, or in desperate need of help? If we walk away now, and they don’t make it… could you live with that?”
His eyes flickered, and for a moment the panic gave way to something else—guilt, maybe, or reluctant reasoning.
“Of course you had to make this about morality,” he sighed defeatedly. “Camping was already hard enough—now it’s a rescue mission? Don’t you know nobody comes out of a Brontë novel with a smile on their face?”
“I knew you’d say yes.” I leaned down and kissed him. “Think of it as part of the adventure, handsome.”
