Page 32 of Among the Screaming Trees

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were well fucked,” Lukaz says, scraping a section of crustose lichen into a specimen jar. We are supposed to collect all three principal forms: crustose, foliose, and fruticose, assuming these woods have all of them. Without doing the crouching and gathering, I’m playing my part by spotting the lichen and identifying the growth forms. The crouching and gathering can get in the bin.

“What makes you say that? Have you tried Pilates?” I don’t want to lie to him, but in the Wyldan Woods, while the namesake Professor looks on with malevolence, I’m not comfortable answering. Yes, we had sex, amazing, mind-numbing, on-display sex in front of his roommate. We hadn’t made any rules beforehand, nor after. And we were stupid for not being safe. I’m on birth control, so a pregnancy is unlikely, but something else? There is a clinic in Wyldan, but I’m hesitant to go there and risk running into someone connected to the professor or the college in the waiting room. The last thing I want is my sexual health as fodder for discussion by students and faculty. I’m tarnished enough, I can do without the thot moniker, thank you.

“I tried that bed thing once. Formation Pilates?” he says, shuddering.

“Reformer?”

“Fuck, yeah. That’s the one. That bed looks all innocent until your glutes and hamstrings almost divorce each other. Want me to kiss anything better? Or Fox can while I watch this time?”

His questions have full body shudders taking over my body. I’ve steered him away from my last sexual encounter, but for how long? And the idea of Fox’s head between my thighs has the residual ache down there burning like a kiln. When I turn again, searching for a form of powdery lichen known as leprose, I catch sight of Fox leaning against a tree, hands in his pockets. He’s staring at Lukaz and me with a kind of faraway look that might be longing, or I could be way off base. His class left earlier than ours, but we seem to have met up in the same clearing. What’s peculiar about Fox’s position and focus isn’t the issue. I’m about to wave until my attention is snagged by another figure in all black, a further sixty feet away. While Fox is busy looking in our direction, he’s unaware that he is the sole focus of another forest predator; Elijah fucking Wyldan.

Chapter Eighteen

Elijah

NOT LIKING THE LICHEN

Foxglove Muir is a fucking problem. The kid lurks like the fucking lichen my students are supposed to be collecting; the only difference is he’s no clinger. His obsession beats from a distance, and I’m uncertain if that makes him more, or less, dangerous. This status quo cannot continue. Someone reported seeing a figure dressed in black around the women’s dormitory, and Dean Grundy has every right to be worried. Unless the figure was me, in which case I need to be concerned. I’ve observed Fox since I returned to Wyldan after my marriage breakdown, knowing there is more to Foxglove than meets the eye, or ear. The mutism isn’t the result of a medical issue from the accident; it’s selective. Why?

Who decides against speech as an effective form of communication? Foxglove. Just another layer of intrigue to the onion that is Fox Muir. The fascination with Aspen hasn’t gone unnoticed, either. Between him and Lukaz Vaskari, the two of them are all up on her like potato vine on an old shed. It’s unsettling how their obsession wants to bloom into something it shouldn’t. And I’m familiar with a bloom of obsession withering into leprose lichen. Not this time, not again.

“Time’s up!” I bellow. “Groups, gather your tools and equipmentand make your way back to the classroom. There should be sufficient time remaining for you to preserve your specimens and begin your analysis. Don’t dawdle.”

I make my way to Lukaz and Aspen, who are placing vial samples into protective packaging before we hike back through the woods. A beam of afternoon sunlight splices the spruce and pine, landing on her locket like a laser. The gold Tree of Life necklace is one of the few feminine things about her. Her nails don’t hold lacquered color, nor her face an ounce of makeup. Aside from the rosy hue streaking her hair, she’s natural and perfect. The streak is her only rebellion—or the only one I’ve discovered thus far. Everything else I request of her, she complies without a hint of protest. When that changes is up to her. I’m pleased with how I take my fill of her. What I’m not pleased with is sharing her with Lukaz and Fox. Jackson I would tolerate, but these guys? No, thank you.

“Back to the classroom. Stop making heart eyes at each other and hurry up!”

“Aw, come on now, Prof. It’s impossible not to look at her that way. Isn’t she pretty? Aspen is sore from Pilates, but I don’t care. I’d carry her back if need be, cradle those sweet curves against me⁠—”

“Enough!”

“Okay, okay. We’re going. Or coming. One of them.”

“Vaskari, I swear to God…”

He finishes the packing and looks up at me through his dirty-blond hair that’s fallen like a curtain across his face. A flick of his head has it out of the way, for now. “Don’t swear; we have a lady present. We won’t even be the last ones back. You need to calm down. Cortisol isn’t healthy at your age, sir.”

The crimson blush fanning Aspen’s cheeks almost disguises her snort. Almost. She thinks he’s funny? This late-teen college boy who can’t distinguish calycanthus from cardamon.

C’mon Aspen, you can do better than that. Pilates, hun? “Must’ve been some workout, given your gait and pace.”

Her face glows like scarlet salvia has set it aflame. Yeah, it wasn’t Pilates, you little vixen. It was my cock driving deep into you last night, stretching you good and making you moan. My hand banding your throat, allowing you to breathe only when you behaved yourself. At my whim and mercy, coming only when I decreed you would. You can lead this little pissant around by the dick all you want, but only I know it was my cock buried in your sweet cunt only hours ago. I check my smartwatch. Eleven hours ago.

Without a backward glance, they move past the rocks and into the cover of the canopy, and the way back to college. Once the rest of my students are on the move, I turn and follow. I couldn’t give a fuck about the others out here. Amber’s class, Amber’s fucking circus, and she can deal with it. She’s lucky she still has a fucking job given her hostile display toward a student.

Jackson’s office is the usual deplorable disarray, hence the reason for the door between my pristine workspace and his fucking pigsty. Christ, I get the man has an aversion to a razor and scissors, but this is getting beyond concerning. There could be colonies of new lifeforms under his paperwork piles and energy drink cans. Fucking gross, dude. This won’t change just because I raise my voice or stomp my foot. I could drag the cleaning crew in here once a week, but the mess would still pile up. That’s the chaos of Dr. Jack Bonner, the brilliant mind, the empathetic buoyant heart, also happy to live like swine.

“Yo, fucker, are you in here?”

“Asking me that while staring at me. Are you ill?”

“I wasn’t sure it was you behind all the cans, and is that a half-eaten sub? Besides, in that brown sweater with your chestnut hair, you’re almost camouflaged against the timber paneling.

“For someone who arrived all chirpy this morning, you must’ve left your good mood in the woods. What’s wrong? Did you step in bear shit in front of your beloved?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, because if my hands aren’t busy encouraging stress from my limbs, I’ll deck him. “She’s not my beloved.”

“My bad, your obsession. Did you step in bear shit in front of you⁠—”