Chapter 6
1257 Words
The gear was heavier than it looked.
Penny adjusted the straps of her backpack for what felt like the hundredth time, wincing as the weight settled unevenly across her shoulders. The trail beneath her boots narrowed to a single muddy track, cutting through the dense undergrowth like a forgotten artery. Towering evergreens crowded close on either side, their trunks moss-cloaked and ancient, as though they were less trees and more silent sentinels.
Every step was uphill. Her calves burned. Her breath puffed out in visible bursts, fogging the chilly morning air. Somewhere behind her, the river still whispered, but even its voice had grown faint beneath the forest’s hush.
“Who signed me up for this?” she muttered, half-laughing, half-gasping.
A rustle in the underbrush answered her.
A raccoon waddled across the path ahead, pausing just long enough to throw her a look of withering judgment. Its dark eyes blinked slowly, unimpressed, before it continued on its way as if she were nothing more than an inconvenient tourist in its ancient domain.
Penny dropped her pack with a groan and planted her hands on her hips.
“Don’t judge me,” she said, breathless. “You’re not the one hauling a forty-pound pack full of drones, trail cams, and enough tech to launch a satellite.”
The raccoon disappeared without comment.
She rolled her eyes and laughed under her breath, the sound small and bright against the hush of the trees. The exertion was real—but so was the exhilaration. This wasn’t a manicured park trail. This was true wilderness. The kind of place her father had spoken of with awe in his voice. The kind of place Harry Voss had called “church.”
She pulled out her water bottle and took a long drink, cool and metallic-tasting. As she recapped it, a sound rolled through the trees—a sharp, echoing bugle.
A bull elk.
The call stretched over the mountains like thunder, low and haunting and beautiful. The hairs on her arms rose. It sounded less like an animal and more like a summons.
Raw. Primal. Alive.
She closed her eyes.
This was what she had come for.
She pressed onward.
The trail wound higher, the air growing thinner and sharper, biting at her skin. Fallen needles muffled her footfalls, and the scent of cedar and old earth clung to every breath. Time seemed to warp in the forest—minutes slipping past unnoticed, shadows shifting faster than the sun.
Still, Penny saw the world through her inner lens, even without her camera in hand. The way light filtered through the treetops, turning dust into gold. The movement of branches that hinted at something just beyond sight. The way a deer trail curved like a question mark through the ferns.
Every frame was perfect.
She paused when a flash of white caught her eye—a snowshoe hare bolting into the underbrush, its feet kicking up a spray of leaves. Moments later, a quiet hush swept through the trees. Stillness. As if the entire forest had paused to listen.
Penny frowned, the hair on the back of her neck prickling. Her fingers drifted unconsciously to the pendant at her neck. It was warm again, vibrating faintly against her chest like it had its own breath.
She looked up.
Nothing moved. But something watched.
She didn’t see it, not exactly.
She felt it.
A presence.
Not hostile. Not even threatening. Just… there. Enormous. Waiting.
She blinked hard and shook her head, forcing a deep breath into her lungs. Probably just altitude and nerves. The pendant pulsed once, then settled.
“Get it together, Voss,” she muttered. “You’re not being haunted. You’re just tired.”
Still, she kept walking faster.
By mid-afternoon, she reached the site she’d marked near the confluence of the Skagit River and Ruby Creek. The river’s song rose to greet her, clearer now—a steady rush of cold, living water carving through stone and time. Pines lined the riverbank like guardians, their roots twisted and ancient. The air here was different—colder, sharper. Charged.
Penny stepped out of the trees and onto a flat patch of earth near the water’s edge. She dropped her pack and stood for a long moment, just breathing.
“I made it,” she whispered.
And it was beautiful.
The mountains loomed in the distance, violet and blue against the horizon. The river churned silver, cutting across boulders like liquid light. Overhead, the clouds rolled in slow swirls, trailing mist like veils. Birdsong filled the spaces between gusts of wind, and somewhere upriver, a tree cracked loudly in the stillness—falling under its own age.
She let herself laugh, a sound of triumph and relief.
“I made it, Dad.”
Her voice caught in her throat.
Then, without delay, she began to work.
First, the tent. Then the fire ring. Then the trail cameras—mounted on nearby trees where game trails converged. She checked her drone’s battery, calibrated the satellite uplink, and set her equipment in a waterproof container under a low rock shelf.
She moved with purpose, hands steady. This part—the ritual of setting up camp—was second nature. Her father had taught her every step.
You don’t just survive in the wild, he used to say. You make it know you belong there.
By the time the sun dipped low, her drone was in the sky, humming like a distant insect. It swept above the tree line in slow arcs, capturing thermal footage and wide-angle scans. Penny monitored it from the laptop, watching as trails lit up—ghosts of elk, small carnivores, even a pair of black bears near the far ridge.
But one quadrant showed nothing. No movement. No heat.
She frowned.
The trees were thicker there. Older. And something about that blank space itched at the back of her mind.
Still, it was quiet. Too quiet.
Even as the drone returned and clicked into its charger, Penny sensed it: the stillness wasn’t peace. It was anticipation.
The forest was waiting.
She swallowed and turned her focus to building a fire. The chill had grown teeth, biting through her coat. She knelt, fingers stiff, and coaxed a flame to life using dry twigs and bark from her starter pouch. Smoke curled upward, carrying the sharp scent of pine resin and earth.
Soon the fire crackled.
Penny sat cross-legged beside it, rubbing warmth into her hands. She peeled open a protein bar and chewed slowly, watching the flames lick the dusk.
Overhead, the sky turned ink-dark. Stars blinked through in slow succession—first one, then another, until the heavens glittered like shattered ice.
She raised the wrapper in a half-hearted toast.
“Here’s to the wild,” she said, voice low. “And whatever the hell I’m about to find.”
A howl pierced the silence.
Not close. But not far either.
Low. Long. Full of something ancient and mournful.
Penny froze.
It wasn’t a coyote. It wasn’t a domestic dog.
It was a wolf.
Her fingers flew to the pendant.
It was burning.
Not painfully—but radiating heat like a coal under her skin.
She looked toward the tree line.
Nothing moved.
But her breath caught.
Something was out there.
She felt it again. The presence. The same awareness she’d sensed earlier—closer now. Watching her from the darkness just beyond the firelight.
And for the first time, she didn’t feel alone in the forest.
She felt… seen.
- Writer
