1
Eren Evers rode for the woods. She pedaled furiously. Her shoulders jarred with every bump and dip in the dirt path. She gripped the handlebars tighter and leaned into the chill morning wind, even as it stung her cheeks and tried to persuade her to turn back. She felt like an arrow shot from her house, straight into the trees. She wanted to be an arrow. She wanted to fly as far and as fast as she could, away from school, her mom, and even her friends.
In the pocket of her jeans, her phone chimed with a text. A flutter of panic raced up Eren’s spine. But she didn’t reach for her phone, and she definitely didn’t slow down. If anything, it made her legs pump faster.
Autumn had turned the forest into a storm of flame-colored leaves. Yellows and oranges and reds fell from the high-up branches and thrashed frantically in the air, trying to make their descent last as long as possible. Fighting every bit of the way. The leaves that finally gave up clustered along the path, hiding roots and holes and other dangers beneath their bright disguise.
Eren raced along the familiar trail, ducking under branches, dodging left and right. The trees had woven their fingers together overhead so that only the bravest beams of sunlight speckled the ground before her. At one bend, she swerved off the trail completely to hit a jump she’d built years ago. At just the right moment, she yanked the handlebars and soared.
That’s what she loved about being out here: She didn’t have to think. Her body knew what to do, and did it. Everything felt right.
Her phone chimed again while she was in the air, and she lost control for a second, twisted her handlebars when she should have kept them straight. She crashed back to earth with a thud that she felt from her teeth down to her toes. Only a quick shift of her angle kept her from flying off her bike altogether. Disaster averted, but barely. That’s what made it fun.
Then she was back on the trail, racing through the trees again. Her legs found their rhythm. Each rotation of the bike wheels took her farther from home, made it easier for her to breathe. She was an arrow. An arrow. If the forest covered the entire state of Oregon, she’d keep flying until she hit the Pacific Ocean.
When her phone beeped again, Eren almost screamed with frustration. No matter how fast she went, or how far, that horrid chime acted as a tether, yanking her back to reality. She was tempted to rip the phone from her pocket and throw it into the woods.
Eren sighed and skidded to a stop.
For a moment, she simply sat on her bike—one foot planted on the ground for balance, the other still on its pedal and ready to propel her deeper into the trees. All she could hear was her own huffy breaths. But as she recovered, the sounds of the forest emerged: squirrels chasing one another through leaf piles, birds composing songs in the branches, treetops creaking and swaying with old, sturdy bones. The pines soared above everything, still flaunting their green needles amid the autumn colors, as if not even the seasons could tarnish their majesty.
A gust of wind raced down the path and smacked into Eren, not unlike a rambunctious puppy, licking her arms and face with wisps of chilly air. The woods wanted her to play. That’s all they ever wanted. They didn’t care about her grades, or if she’d practiced the piece they were learning in band, or if she had a new zit threatening to colonize her chin.
And the woods definitely didn’t care about the name Eren was supposed to be writing on a piece of paper before school today. The name of her crush.
Eren shut her eyes and imagined she had a spy dossier on each of her classmates, with their faded Polaroid paper clipped to a crisp page detailing their qualifications. They all had pros and cons. Maybe she should make a chart. The plus column could have things like “Good personal hygiene,” “Shares three classes with me,” and “Pets every dog they see.” The negatives might include “Rude to teachers,” “Wore an offensive T-shirt that one time,” or “Saw a dog and didn’t pet it.”
There had to be a formula. A right answer. How else did people make such a big decision? It wasn’t like the movies, where you bumped into someone by your locker and when they helped you pick up your books the air exploded with heart-eyes emojis. If it were that easy, she’d have started bumping into people months ago.
A twisty vine of anxiety wrapped around Eren’s chest and squeezed. It was becoming a familiar sensation.
She opened her eyes, and the sunlit trees welcomed her back. Maybe she could stay out in the woods forever. Build a tree house. Befriend a raccoon. Harvest mushrooms for fun and food. Eventually Jessie and Kayla might even forgive her and come visit.
And when they did, they’d still want to know the name of Eren’s crush. Kayla had made that perfectly clear on the text chain. No one shared unless they all shared. If Eren didn’t come up with someone, she’d be ruining the pact for all three of them.
The wind tugged at the cuff of Eren’s jeans, insistent. Five more minutes, it begged. Pleeeease.
How could she say no?
Eren pulled out her phone, careful not to read any of the texts, and thumbed it to silent. The vine around her chest relaxed its squeezy grip. Not all the way, but enough for her to breathe again. She pushed off and returned her foot to the pedal where it belonged. The wind raced alongside her as she picked up speed. Soon, she would be an arrow flying through the trees once again.
Until a bird came hurtling down the path, heading straight for her face.
Eren yanked on the brakes and jerked her bike to the left. The bird dodged in the same direction at exactly the same time. They smacked into Eren’s collarbone and started to tumble to the ground.
Eren’s bike slid out from under her, and she did her best to control her fall. She had her helmet on and was no stranger to tumbles, but they were always dangerous.
“Oof.” She landed on her back and stayed there, assessing the damage. Nothing felt broken or gashed. All in all, a good fall.
She picked herself up off the ground and found the bird. They had landed in a nearby pile of leaves and looked just as dazed as she felt. Now that they weren’t trying to hurl themself into her face, she could see two tawny wings and a plump, songbird body. Their eyes were beady and intense, and set close to their stubby black beak. A wren maybe, or a kinglet.
As she got closer, the temperature of the air dropped suddenly, as if the bird were made of ice.
“I forgive you for trying to impale me with your beak, little bird, but what the heck happened to you?”
The bird regarded her with one of their eyes and hopped frantically, trying to take to the air again. Their wings seemed stiff and slow, as if they were frozen. In fact, as she studied the bird, Eren thought she could see a hint of frost creeping over their body. She blinked, and the vision was gone.
Eren crept closer. “Did you escape someone’s freezer, little bird? Is there a snowstorm high up in the trees?”
Unsurprisingly, the bird did not respond.
“I want to warm you up,” she told them. “Can you be brave while I try?”
The bird tilted their head sharply and stood perfectly still. They were probably in shock. She’d seen a bird behave like this before, when a cedar waxwing had accidentally flown into the glass sliding door in Eren’s kitchen. The local Audubon Wildlife hotline had told her to wrap the bird in a towel and put them in a box to keep them safe while they recovered. When she’d checked on her patient a few hours later, the bird had glared at her and flown away—super angry but perfectly fine. Maybe she could save this bird, too.
Eren pulled the soft scarf from her neck and reached for the bird. They remained motionless as she carefully scooped them up, babbling about how brave and smart they were, how perfect and strong. She held the bird against her stomach, letting her own body heat warm them. The tiny thing felt like a snowball! She ran her scarf over their head and found a shocking tuft of bright yellow feathers, arranged like a mohawk.
“Oh, you are a kinglet,” she said. “And what a fine kinglet you are!”
After a few minutes of gentle holding, she returned the bird to the ground and sat back to assess her progress. The kinglet seemed to be assessing her handiwork, too—hopping from one foot to the other, twisting their head this way and that. They flapped their wings once, twice, and then folded them against their body.
“I’m glad my work meets with your approval,” she said.
The bird bobbed their head once, as if bowing their thanks. Of course they weren’t actually bowing—they were only a bird, after all—but Eren nodded anyway. “You are very welcome.”
The phone in her pocket vibrated, startling her. Without thinking, she pulled it out and read the latest message.
You’re late, E. We want to start. You promised.
Eren groaned.
She looked up and the kinglet was still there, watching her. Weird.
“Don’t suppose you have any thoughts on who I could have a crush on?”
The bird darted into the air and flew away, disappearing into the trees.
“Good for you, bird. Save yourself. I’d follow you if I could.”
She’d probably never know how the little thing had gotten injured in the first place. If there was some secret, hidden patch of winter somewhere in the forest, then she’d never found it—and she thought she knew all the secrets of these woods.
Eren retrieved the pen and small notebook she kept in her back pocket, opened to a blank page, and mentally flipped through her classmates again. She landed on a boy with more pluses than minuses in his dossier and scribbled his name on the paper.
There. Done! Except the feeling of relief she’d been hoping for didn’t arrive. Instead, the anxiety vine was back, this time with a second tendril winding around her body.
But she’d done what Jessie and Kayla wanted. Maybe after this, she could forget crushes and just worry about the rest of seventh grade.
Eren brushed the leaves and dirt from her knees and recovered her bike. It wasn’t until she was home that she found a small patch of frost clinging to her sneaker.
2
As soon as Eren set foot in the kitchen, she was drawn into the whirlwind that was Stacey Evers, her mother.
“I thought you wanted a ride to school early this morning, E-bear,” Stacey said, moving with the efficient grace of a dancer between the kitchen island, where she was packing both their lunches, to the stove top, where she was heating water for her travel mug of tea.
“I do need a ride,” Eren said. “I’m already late.”
Her mother paused in her routine long enough to sigh. “Being on time is such an easy way to make a good impression. It shows other people that you respect them, and earns you their respect in turn.”
This was not the first time Eren had received this particular bit of wisdom. It had yet to stick.
But her mother wasn’t done. She’d spotted the dirt on Eren’s knees. “Go change, and I’ll finish with the lunches. I don’t want your teachers to think I’m raising a wild animal.”
Copyright © 2022 by Jenn Reese
