Luke’s voice was very soft, hardly troubling the serene silence. “I have to go back to the cabin now, Joey. I have my gear to collect.” Joey started and stared at him where he crouched, sketching formless shapes in the dust with a twig.
“You’re going to leave me here alone?” Joey could not quite suppress the quiver in her voice, it summoned up irritation at herself that turned on him.
“By all means, go. I’ll have a nice time here with the bears and wolves and anything else that might want a quick snack.” The absurdity of her words changed her annoyance to humor, but before she could continue Luke had risen to tower above her, his face solemn in the flickering light.
“You’ll be safe,” he said gravely. “And you won’t be alone.” He turned on his heel, looking over his shoulder as he reached the edge of the trees. “Watch the fire—if you get sleepy, put it out as I instructed. And stay in camp.” Without another word he bounded off, swift and silent as a stag in an alpine meadow.
Joey was left to consider his words. You won’t be alone. Tugging on her second sweater against the growing chill of the night, she had the uneasy feeling that she knew exactly to what he was referring.
As if in mocking confirmation of her thoughts, a howl rose and echoed beyond the pitiful illumination of the fire. Joey turned her head, trying to locate the sound, but it eluded her, the darkness seemed suddenly alive, and very alien. It was then she realized how much Luke’s presence had kept that terrible strangeness at bay. He was part of it, and it accepted him—and so it accepted her as well.
Now the only familiarity lay in the stars overhead, and even they were more vast and fathomless than the domesticated variety that shone feebly in the skies at home. She stared up at them and tried to concentrate on naming the constellations as a second howl joined the first, and a whole chorus broke out around her. The uncanny serenade continued for an endless time as Joey huddled by the fire, and then just as suddenly fell silent. But they were not gone. Joey knew it as surely as she knew anything at all, they were still there. All around her. Waiting.
She was very far from sleep when Luke returned. Bolting upright in an excess of jangled nerves, Joey was fully prepared to give him a thorough tongue-lashing. But the desire to do so died almost immediately; beyond Luke, at the edge of the trees, she could see the eyes—eyes that reflected the firelight and glittered from a dark core of shapes that moved in utter silence. Eyes that focused on her and then turned away, winking out of existence one by one like fireflies. There was not so much as a rustle of brush to mark their passing.
Luke set down his pack and sighed as he joined her by the fire. Joey was still shaking with reaction, but her relief at having him back was so powerful that it overcame every other consideration. Without thinking, she went to him and touched his arm, feeling the welcome solidity of his hard muscles under her hand.
“I hate to say it, but I’m glad you’re back,” she said with a wry smile. “If those were your friends again out there, looking after me, I’d hate to see your enemies.”
His arm was rigid, ungiving beneath her fingers, though he did not draw it away. “I’m sorry if you were frightened,” he said softly, staring into the fire. “It wasn’t my intention.You were never in any danger.” Suddenly his tone grew remote and almost cold. “You didn’t want to come back to the cabin, so there wasn’t much choice.”
Joey released his arm and backed away from the heat and strength of his body. “You’re right, of course,” she said with equal chill. “Next time you should ask your friends in for dessert, or coffee at least. They’ve earned it.”
In the small space that separated them Joey felt the gulf that lay between all she had known in her life and everything he was—everything she could not understand. Not only of him, but also of herself. She rose at last, unable to bear the dissonance between them, and retreated to the tent. She left its shelter just long enough to hang her day clothes out on the line for airing and hurried back to the warmth of her sleeping bag.