A Beautiful Dark

avalanche.
    The songs.
    My parents.
    And the axis that brought them all together. Me.

Chapter 15

    N othing was as formidable as Aunt Jo on a rampage.
    She was waiting for us when we got back to the lodge near midnight, and not at all happy that Ms. Manning was allowing me to “run wild in the woods at night” after my brush with death.
    “I wasn’t running wild!” I insisted. Everyone was watching as they filtered back in from the campfire, and I tried to keep my voice down to avoid an even bigger scene. It was humiliating. “I was sitting. On a log. By a fire. It was very un -wild! It was the dictionary definition of un -wild. If you looked up un -wild on Wikipedia, you’d get a picture—”
    “Get your things,” she said. “I’m taking you home.” There was nothing I could do to argue.
    Half an hour later, I found myself in her silver SUV, snaking down the road that led away from the lodge.
    The mountain roads were dark and winding, scarier at night than they’d been in the early morning the day before. Aunt Jo drove in tense silence; I leaned my head against the window and tried to push out all the thoughts that were encroaching on my sanity.
    After Asher’s legend, as he’d called it, no one had been willing to compete with another story. I had hoped to catch up with Asher and Devin alone, but as the circle around the fire dissolved, Asher slipped away with Ellie and Devin simply slipped away. They were so elusive, the two of them. One minute, I felt I had a handle on each—the next, they were evaporating into the night and I was left staring into the fire, wondering what had just happened.
    As I stared out the window at the night shadows, Aunt Jo muttered every now and then under her breath. I caught snippets of “almost killed,” “incompetent teacher,” and “if your mother were here. . . .”
    “Aunt Jo,” I said finally, “you don’t have to worry so much about me. I’m okay. I wasn’t even hurt.”
    “When we get back to town, we’re running by the emergency room to make sure.”
    The emergency room. I shuddered. I hated hospitals. I hadn’t been since . . . well, since I was six. And I wasn’t about to go now.
    I groaned. “The medics already checked me out. I’m fine. ” And Devin had taken care of the one injury I’d had. How had he done that? Did he have some kind of hippie, voodoo medical training, where all he had to do was apply pressure to the right points, and, voilà, no more pain? Maybe I’d just been in shock from the fall and had exaggerated the pain in my ankle to begin with. It’s possible that the injury hadn’t even been as bad as I’d thought.
    But the fire Asher had created. The way the campfire seemed to respond to him as if he were able to control it. I couldn’t explain that one away.
    Aunt Jo sighed. “Fine,” she conceded. “But you’re staying in for the rest of the weekend. And if you’re walking even the slightest bit unevenly on Monday, I’m taking you to the hospital.”
    “What about your trip?”
    “What about it, Skye? Come on. I ended it early so I could take care of you.” She paused, and I could feel the whole car sigh under the weight of her thoughts. “It’s not going to be for that much longer. I’m going to start looking for Jenn’s replacement on Monday. I promise.” Her eyes were trained on the road.
    It was nearly dawn when we pulled in to the parking lot to pick up my car. When we got home, I crashed on my bed and slept the sleep of the dead. When I finally opened my eyes, the afternoon sun was streaming in. I threw on the faded maroon River Springs Community College sweatshirt that had once belonged to my dad, and padded down into the kitchen. The aroma of Aunt Jo’s ancho chili rub spiked the air. Cooking was her zen; maybe this afternoon she was in a better mood.
    She was at the counter next to the sink, dipping pork medallions into the spicy mix.
    “How are you feeling?” she asked without turning around.
    “I’m fine,” I said, hopping onto a stool by the island. She turned around, her hands covered in meat and spices.
    “I know you are, but it scared me, okay? I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”
    “You’re not going to lose me,” I said quietly.
    “That’s what I thought about your mom,” Aunt Jo said, turning back to the counter.
    We were silent for a while after that.
    Since I’d slept so late, the rest of the day went by quickly. We ate the pork medallions for dinner,