Author's Preface
Water hit my face. Hard, steady, warm.
I kept my eyes closed. Rain. I was still in the forest, still on the ground, still…
But rain doesn't come this warm. And the air wasn't moving. No wind, no green smell, no cold threading between the drops. Just steam.
I opened my eyes.
White tiles. Grout lines gone yellow with age. The curved lip of a bathtub pressed against my back, and my legs were folded under me at an angle that meant I'd been here a while. The shower above me ran steady and hot. Water ran down my face, pooled in my collarbones, sheeted off my bare knees.
I raised my hands. My fingers looked ancient. Deep wrinkles carved into every pad, the skin bleached and soft, waterlogged past the point of comfort. I stared at them. Turned them over. They were mine. That felt like something I needed to confirm.
I braced my palms against the sides of the tub and pushed.
My arms shook. My quads burned. Everything hurt in that deep, interior way that lives in the muscle itself, not on the surface. Like I'd run miles, like I'd fallen.
I stood under the spray, breathing. My breath bounced off the walls and came back to me too loudly. I ran my tongue along the inside of my cheek and found the spot. Raw. Swollen. The copper taste of old blood.
I reached past the shower curtain and twisted the faucet until the water stopped.
The silence landed on me like a physical weight. Somewhere beyond the bathroom door, a television murmured at low volume. Rain tapped the window. The motel's pipes ticked and settled in the walls.
I pulled a towel from the rack. Thin. White once. It scraped against my skin, and I was grateful for it, the roughness, the friction. Something that confirmed the boundary between me and everything else.
I pressed my face into it and breathed.
Wet earth. Salt. And beneath those, threaded so finely I almost missed it, something animal and dark that slipped through the back of my sinuses like woodsmoke. I held the towel against my nose. Inhaled again.
Gone. Just detergent and old cotton.
I wrapped the towel around myself and opened the bathroom door.
The room was exactly as I'd left it. Bedspread pulled tight. Curtains drawn. The television on the dresser was casting blue light across the carpet, local news murmuring just above a whisper. My pack sat in the corner by the radiator.
On the bed, two piles.
My hiking clothes on the left. The fleece, the sports bra, the leggings, the wool socks. Folded. Dirt still visible on the knees of the leggings, a smear of something dark along the hem of the fleece. On the right, the clean pile. The clothes I'd left in my bag. Also folded.
I hadn't folded my clothes. I didn't remember doing it…
I stood in the doorway, dripping onto the carpet, and looked at those two neat stacks. I fold laundry when I put it away. I don't fold dirty clothes. Nobody folds dirty clothes.
I pulled on the cotton underwear. Then the UW hoodie, the one three sizes too large that I'd bought from the campus bookstore because it was the softest thing on the rack. It fell past my hips. I tugged the sleeves over my hands and pressed the cuffs against my mouth.
My body knew what comfort was, even when my brain was running on fumes.
I sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped under me. I looked at the hiking clothes. Picked up the fleece. Brought it to my face.
Cedar. Mud. Sweat. My own smell. And under it, barely there…
The beaver pond. That was the last clear thing I remember. I'd walked off trail, found the pond, the black water. I remembered the warmth of it against my ankles. I remembered laughing.
After that, the memory fell apart. Fragments without sequence. Green. Dark. The feeling of ground under my feet.
I put the fleece down. Looked at my hands again. The wrinkles were already fading.
How did I get back here?
The phone screen hit my eyes hard. 5:28 AM. I thumbed past the lock screen. Squinted against the blue glare while my pupils caught up.
Three emails from the registrar's office, all automated. The ecology seminar study group on WhatsApp had been arguing about soil pH methodology since yesterday afternoon, fourteen messages deep and still going. Maren's group chat had a photo of Birdie asleep on the couch with someone's cat on her face.
Declan's message sat underneath, timestamped 11:47 PM.
~Declan— yo kovacova did you get washed away in that storm or what
I sent a heart emoji. Proof of life.
The pack went into the trunk first. Then the snack bag, half a sleeve of granola bars and two gas station water bottles. My hiking clothes went into the plastic bag from Thriftway, knotted at the top. I didn't want to look at them.
Clean jeans and my warm hoodie, more than enough for the drive home. Just soft cotton against my skin. My jacket smelled like a wet dog, which was fine. I tossed it onto the passenger seat.
One more scan of the room. Bathroom clear, nothing under the bed, nothing in the nightstand drawer. The television was still on. I clicked it off, and the room went gray. Rain streaked the window.
I pulled the door shut behind me.
The office smelled like burned coffee and processed cheese. A space heater rattled in the corner, blowing hot air across a stack of old newspapers. The guy behind the desk looked up from a foil-wrapped sandwich. Younger than I expected. Late twenties, maybe. Stubble that couldn't commit to a beard. A flannel shirt buttoned wrong.
"Checking out early."
"Yeah." I set the key on the counter. "Gonna head back to Seattle and crawl into my actual bed."
He laughed through a mouthful of egg and then swallowed. "Can't blame you. These mattresses aren't exactly selling the Forks experience."
"The Forks experience is the rain. You got that covered."
He grinned. Picked up the key, dropped it into a drawer.
I was halfway to the door when he called out.
"Hey. You be careful on 101, yeah?"
I stopped. My hand on the glass.
"You got back pretty late last night. Fatigue kills out here. People fall asleep at the wheel, end up in a ditch between here and Sequim, and nobody finds them for hours."
My fingers tightened on the door handle.
"What time was that? When I got back."
He looked at the ceiling. Chewed. "Three? Maybe a little after." He shrugged one shoulder. "I was doing the books. Saw your car pull in."
Three in the morning. The trailhead was an hour's drive from here. I'd been at the beaver pond around two in the afternoon. That left thirteen hours I couldn't account for.
"Thanks," I said.
He was already back to his sandwich.
I walked to the car. The rain hit my face, and I let it. Unlocked the door and sat behind the wheel. I didn't start the engine.
Thirteen hours…