Page 68 of Among the Screaming Trees

“Entirely up to you. I can wait while you go grab something.”

“No need,” she says, pulling something out from behind a cushion. It’s a framed photograph, the one that used to sit on my desk in the study when I lived alone. The one I shoved inside a drawer when I knew I’d be receiving guests for the foreseeable future.

“You see, I received an email from Norway. The research team that was working with my father needed to speak with me. They want to do it in person or over video chat, not wanting a paper trail. I needed some paper to take down suggestions on flying over as soon as possible, the various airlines out of Anchorage or via Seattle or Vancouver. Imagine my surprise when, searching for a pen to write on the paper I pulled from the back of your printer, I find this in your drawer!”

I don’t need to look up; I’m aware of exactly what she’s holding.

“You don’t want to take a closer look? You have aged well; only the glasses are new, and Jack’s hair is much shorter, wouldn’t you say?”

“Aspen.”

“Do you want to tell me why you have a fucking framed photograph of yourself, Jackson, and my mother in your desk drawer, from when you all attended university in Colorado together? I know Dad taught Jack; he told me already. But this is my mother, and she’s sitting on your fucking lap!”

“Aspen, I…”

“A tattoo of an Aster on your chest, a framed photograph that obviously means something to you, and Malchoydian Pepperberry trees growing in the Wyldan Woods.”

“Aspen. I don’t⁠—”

“If you say Aspen one more time, I’ll stick that poker so far up your ass, you’ll be tasting metal. After I heat it, of course. And this!”

She slaps an old brass key onto the coffee table next to the ottoman I still picture her kneeling on.

“The code on the back of my mother’s pendant opened a little safe holding that key, Elijah. Now, sit the fuck down and start talking. I want answers to every one of the questions I just asked. Don’t say ‘Aspen, I.’ Just be honest with me for the first fucking time since I’ve known you. None of this was about your wife or ex-wife. This all relates to Aster, and you are going to tell me why, right fucking now!”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Jackson

BATTLES AND BICKERING

As much as I’d like to help Elijah climb out of the hole he’s dug for himself, he’s big enough and stubborn enough to clamber out on his own. If he was expecting a quaking Aspen to cower to his whims and be grateful for the helicopter Uber home—he’s shit out of luck there, too.

Given the ruse had been offered that we were all struck down with a stomach upset, there’d be little point attending classes, which offered us plenty of time to catch up on the sleep we’d lost when we’d been so physically intimate with one another, and our unexpected journey into the woods.

Thoughts of us slinking back unnoticed had been blown out of the water when we discovered a voicemail for Fox, that George wanted to talk to him about an ongoing investigation, and news that Vaskari’s dad had an accident at one of his logging sites and Lukaz might need to get up there to see him. Fuck. Aspen checked her email and read out a very cryptic message from a Norwegian research facility wanting to discuss an urgent update—in person. Jesus fucking Christ, we disappear for one day, one fucking day! While I can’t really help Fox or Luk with their requirements, I can be there for Aspen, only that plan went to utter shit when she found a framed photo in Eli’s study and lost her ever-loving mind. First, why did he keep that photograph in a place where she’d be likely to discover it, because endless questions were sure to follow? Because I’m the other person in the picture, she grilled me first, and I offered as much honesty as I believed she could take, suggesting she point the same machine gun at the professor when he arrived home. I couldn’t even forewarn the man because she had been watching me like a predacious vulture circling a carcass, and I’m not ready for that—yet.

So, I lie in bed, listening as the raised voices flare from downstairs. He knows what to say, what we rehearsed after she accepted the scholarship and before she arrived in Wyldan. All he has to do is stick to the script.

“Don’t say ‘Aspen. I.’ Be honest with me for the first fucking time since I’ve known you. None of this is about your wife or ex-wife. This all relates to Aster, and you are going to tell me why, right fucking now!”

Oh, she’s coming in hot. What have you got, Elijah?

“I attended college in Colorado. Arthur lectured there…”

“Don’t dodge this. My mother is sitting on your knee with her arm around you and Jack. Explain the lead up to this photograph, and why you still have it in a frame in your study!” A thump is heard. She must have jammed those balled hands onto the coffee table. “Why?”

Come on, let’s see what you’ve got. When she’d asked me the same thing, I told her my truth. Arthur taught Aster, Elijah, and I when we took botanical science. We attended a heap of parties together, as we were all around the same age and had similar likes and dislikes. Our circle remained pretty close until Aster drifted away a little. Being a few years older and having studied biology previously, none of us knew she had a baby at home. Baby Aspen.

“We were friends,” he says after a long pause.

“You sure look friendly,” she scoffs. “How friendly?”

Elijah sighs, and I want to take up residence on the top stair and send him calming thoughts.

“Friends. A group of us hung out; we were all studying similar streams. Aster didn’t party as much, being a little older, but we all got along, Aspen. What are you accusing us of? Accusing me of?”

“I’m asking you to be honest! Explain this photograph to me!”