The forest paths were the greatest gift that Juniper Jones could have ever given Ethan Charlie Harper. That Sunday afternoon, he needed the time to think. The sun was high above the trees, and the air was thick and damp when he strapped on his sneakers and took off down the lane that wound away from Aunt Cara’s house and into the trees.
It was Father’s Day. Ethan had known it was coming, but was planning to feign forgetfulness and hope his aunt and uncle wouldn’t notice. And they hadn’t—after breakfast, they put on their church clothes and headed off to Mass with only a simple good-bye thrown over their shoulders. Ethan had relaxed then, and was just settling down with a comic when the phone on the side table rang.
Ethan hesitated, glancing a few times between the comic and the phone. The ringing continued. Finally, Ethan leaned over the love seat and lifted the blue phone receiver from its cradle. Wrapping the cord around his wrist, he said in his most inoffensive voice, “Shay residence, Ethan speaking.”
“Hi, Ethan,” came a familiar voice.
Oh. In the corner of the seat, Ethan pulled his knees up to his chest. “Hi, Dad,” he said. After a long pause, he added, “Happy Father’s Day.”
“Thanks.” Another pause. “I just wanted to see how you were doing. We haven’t spoken in a while.”
Not since you left me here, Ethan had thought, but held his tongue, instead saying, “Yeah.”
The sun beat down on the back of his neck as he wound through the trees. Sweat coated his arms and dripped down his cheeks, but Ethan forced himself to run harder. He thought that if his entire body was focused on this movement, he would be able to distract himself. But with every slap of his sneakers against the dusty trail, his conversation with his father did another lap through his mind.
It had taken a moment for Ethan’s dad to speak again. The two had never been particularly communicative with each other, but this awkwardness was new. It had started just after the incident with Samuel Hill and, Ethan could see now, had only gotten worse.
“So . . . how are things going?” his dad had asked at last.
Ethan had opened his mouth, then closed it again. Should he tell the truth? For some reason, the thought of admitting the torment he’d endured made Ethan’s face hot with shame. It felt like losing to admit to his father that this scheme had worked—that he regretted what he did, that he wished when stupid Samuel Hill had said what he said, Ethan had just turned and walked away.
“Good,” Ethan said at last. “Things are good. I, um—I made a friend.”
“Oh!” His dad sounded genuinely surprised, but caught himself in time to add, “That’s great, Son. I’m glad. What’s his name?”
“Her name. Juniper Jones.”
“Jones,” his dad said slowly, his voice growing distant for a moment. “Yes, that’s right. I knew her parents, back in the day. Cara was friends with her mom in grade school.”
Ethan frowned, realizing he’d never heard Juniper talk about her parents, only her aunt. He didn’t know anything about her family. But this thought lasted only a moment, because then his father was saying, “If she’s as cute as her mom was, you’re a pretty lucky guy, Ethan.”
Ethan bristled. His dad would do this sometimes, comment on the girls he befriended, and it made him self-conscious and uneasy in a way he couldn’t quite place. “It’s not like that, Dad,” he said tightly, even as Juniper’s smiling face flashed through his mind.
“All right, all right, sorry.” Ethan could practically hear him holding up his hands in defense. “Hold on, Anthony and Sadie want to talk to you.”
“Okay, well, I—” Ethan started, but his dad had already passed the phone.
“Hi, Ethan,” the twins said in unison, their voices loud through the receiver. Ethan held the phone slightly away from his ear, as if their spit could travel through the telephone line.
“Hey, guys,” he said. “How’s summer school?”
“Summer camp,” Anthony corrected him.
“Yeah, summer school is for losers,” Sadie added.
“Right, sorry, summer camp—”
“It’s great.” Sadie interrupted him. “We go swimming and make crafts and take the kayaks out on the lake. Have you ever been in a kayak, Ethan?”
“Well, actually, my friend Juniper and I—”
But his siblings had already begun to talk over him and each other as they told him about the bugs they’d collected during lunchtime. Ethan smiled to himself. He had never been close to the twins, and often found them annoying, but he still had a soft spot for them. When their mom had left, he’d been the one to pick up many of the duties—changing diapers, giving baths, remembering which foods they wouldn’t spit out all over the table. He’d been only ten then, and Anthony and Sadie certainly didn’t remember it, but those memories made him feel closer to them anyway.
Now, running through a stretch of forest he’d never seen before, Ethan thought of taking care of Anthony and Sadie, sometimes teaching his dad how to parent them—and he thought of how it had always seemed like his dad had been more interested in them than him. He’d always brushed it off, figuring it was just because they were younger. But now, picturing their rosy cheeks and wavy hair, he couldn’t help but wonder.
His dad had taken the phone from the twins soon after, and Ethan heard their laughter fading into another part of the house. “So, everything’s going good?” his dad said after a moment. Ethan imagined him leaning against the kitchen counter where their phone sat, his elbows on the white tiles.
“Yeah,” Ethan said.
“Good, good. Well, in that case—”
“Did Mom want me to come to Ellison too?” Ethan hadn’t realized he was going to ask the question until the words were already out. His heart pounded loudly as his dad sat in a seemingly stunned silence.
“Well.” His voice changed in the way it did when he wanted to brush aside a topic without explaining it, the way he had when Ethan was ten and asked where babies came from. “Well,” he repeated. “Actually, your mother doesn’t know that you’re there.”
Ethan pulled the phone away from his face and gaped at it, as if it could explain. He felt suddenly distant from his body, as if he was hearing himself speak from somewhere above his own head. “Sorry, what?” Ethan’s voice was tight and low. “You didn’t tell her that you sent me to this shit—”
“Language.”
“—to this shit town?”
Ethan could feel his dad bristle on the other side of the phone. “When was the last time your mother called you, Ethan?”
“Two months ago. My birthday.”
“Okay, and before that?”
Ethan paused, counting. “Maybe Christmas?”
“Exactly.” He sounded smug.
“Exactly what, Dad?”
“Your mother is not around,” he snapped. “She lives a separate life now. She calls you on holidays. I’m the one who takes you to school, who makes you dinner, who pays for your running shoes—”
“Dad, stop.” Ethan squeezed his eyes shut, trying hard to call to mind his mother’s face. He saw, instead, his own eyes, nose, mouth—his own skin. He remembered holding his mother’s hand as a child, how the brown of their wrists made one unbroken line. It was so easy back then, when neighbors would comment on how much he looked like her and he’d beam with pride, turning his face skyward to show off the dark cheeks she’d gifted to him.
In Ellison, his mother’s gift was nothing to be proud of. His dad had known this, Ethan was sure—it was the knowing that had made him so uneasy as he’d moved through Aunt Cara’s house, the knowing that twisted up his features as he drove away. But it hadn’t stopped him, because he would never understand. He could list all the things he had done for Ethan, gather mountains of material proof of his love, and still he would never know what it was like to be in Ethan’s skin. Even Ethan didn’t know completely what stood against him. But his mother did, and he was certain that if she’d known what his dad was planning, he never would have ended up in Ellison.
“I’m doing this because I care, Ethan.” His dad was shouting now. “I care about the man you are becoming!”
“But she’s my mother!” Ethan screamed, surprising himself with the volume. It seemed to shock his father, too, because when he spoke again, his voice was softer.
“I know,” he said, as Ethan breathed heavily into the line. “I know, I’m sorry. She is your mother, and she loves you. But I’m your father and your legal guardian, and I make the decisions.” He paused. “And for the record, I know your mother. And whether or not she knows that you’re in Ellison, she wouldn’t be happy about what you did either.”
“You don’t get to tell me how she would feel about this,” Ethan said. “Not when you didn’t even bother to ask her.”
“Ethan—”
“Bye, Dad. Happy Father’s Day, I guess.”
He slammed the handset back into its cradle. The living room was so silent that the air seemed to ring. Ethan felt as though he were coming back into his body—his head spun. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists until his nails left crescent marks in his palms.
He clenched them again, here, on the forest path. The sharp pain against his skin cleared his head enough for him to realize that his breath was coming in pants now, his mouth dry and gritty with dust. His body wasn’t used to such an intense workout anymore, especially in this Alabama heat, and he could feel his vision blurring with dizziness.
At the next bend, Ethan came to a skidding halt and allowed himself to fall to his knees in the dust. He saw that his sneakers were coated with brown, his shirt and shorts soaked through with sweat. At this point, he couldn’t bring himself to care—his lungs were burning, and his stomach lurched. He dry heaved onto the path until the stars in his vision rearranged themselves into winding tree trunks and shivering leaves.
“Okay,” he gasped. “Okay.”
Ethan walked home. Or perhaps the proper word was wandered, and aimlessly at that, because every curve and fork and bend looked exactly the same, and it wasn’t long before he wasn’t sure whether he’d gone left toward town or right toward the lake, or if maybe the lake was left and the town was right. His breathing was ragged and tired and sad, and his muscles ached and his lungs shrieked, but he trudged on. At some point it started raining—a brief sun shower, which he’d learned often happened here in the summer—and then he was drenched in both sweat and sticky rainwater.
Juniper found him at the base of a hill. He’d strayed off the path somewhere along the way and had stumbled through the trees until he found himself in a clearing. The sun was in his eyes and sweat pooled under his arms. He didn’t notice the ground had begun to incline until he once again tumbled to the ground.
At some point he must have closed his eyes, because suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder, prompting them open. Light blurred his vision. He spat out a few blades of grass and rolled onto his back. Juniper was staring down at him, looking a little bit confused and very concerned.
“Ethan?” she asked carefully, poking his cheek with one finger.
He coughed and slowly eased himself into a sitting position. She squatted beside him. “Juniper. Hey.”
“Are you all right? You’re all wet.”
If he’d had the energy, he would have pointed out that she was all wet too—the rain had plastered her hair to her cheeks, turning orange into muddy crimson.
“I—” He had to pause for breath. “I went for a run. I think—I think I got a little carried away.”
“No kidding. Look, I was going to save this spot for our next adventure, but there’s no use trying to hide it from you now. Welcome to Alligator Hill! Ethan? Are you paying attention? Open your eyes.”
Ethan groaned and kept them closed.
“Fine. That’s your loss. Anyway, remember how I told you that the lake was my second favorite place in the whole town? Well, this is my first. Alligator Hill. The best place in all of Ellison, Alabama. The best place in Alabama period, probably. If you climbed to the top right now and looked out, you could see the whole wide world. Some people don’t like it up here, because they say it makes them feel small. But I love it. It makes me feel big. Taller than everyone.”
She sighed. “Anyway, not like it matters. Not like you can even hear me right now. Are you asleep? Ethan?”
Ethan grunted and threw a hand across his eyes. “You look drunk.” Juniper snorted. “Maybe you won’t remember this place after all. I’ll bring you here sometime, and you’ll see how great it really is. Just you wait, Ethan. Just you wait.”
Somehow, through his own power or perhaps a show of superhuman strength by Juniper Jones, Ethan found himself back in the woods, trudging alongside the energetic redhead as she chattered up a storm.
“—don’t know what’s gotten into you,” she was saying, shaking her head so that her curls slapped Ethan in the face. “You gave me a real shock, showing up at Alligator Hill like that. I don’t know how you even found it. You must have gotten real off track. What happened?”
Ethan hung his head, tugged at the hem of his shorts, and shrugged. Now, he was conscious enough to think clearly about what his dad had said—he couldn’t stop thinking about it. The thought of his dad keeping all this from his mom made him feel sick to his stomach, as if he was caught back up in the same power struggle that had erupted in their home during the divorce. It made him want to disappear.
“Come on,” Juniper said, nudging Ethan with her shoulder. “You can tell me.”
Keeping his eyes on the path, Ethan took a deep breath. “My dad called today. We talked for a while, and he, um. He told me that my mom doesn’t know I’m here. He didn’t tell her.”
“Oh,” Juniper said, but sounded as if she didn’t understand.
“They’re divorced. I don’t see her much. But he didn’t even give her a say in all of this. As if she doesn’t even matter, which is how he acts pretty much all the time. And the thing is, my mom is—you know. Like me.” He lifted an arm, pointed to his arm. “Colored. And I just can’t help thinking maybe he didn’t tell her because she would have tried to stop him. And maybe then I wouldn’t be here.”
“Oh,” Juniper said again, softer this time. “Sorry, Ethan.”
Ethan shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I just want to go home,” he mumbled. “Or—not even home. But not here. I’d rather be anywhere but here.”
Juniper was silent, and Ethan didn’t realize why until he turned and saw the stricken look on her freckled face. “No, I didn’t mean—it’s not about you, I—sorry,” he said.
“No, it’s fine,” she said flatly. “I get it.”
“Sorry,” he repeated.
They walked on in silence for a while, until the path split in two.
“The lake is that way,” Juniper told him, pointing to their left. “Just follow the path to the right and you’ll end up back at your aunt’s house. Can you find your way from here? My aunt’s probably waiting for her afternoon tea, and—”
“I’ve just been thinking a lot about what you said the other day,” Ethan blurted. “About the people here, and the way they think, and I feel like—like I can’t ever belong here. And I feel like my dad knew that. But he didn’t care.” He dragged his hands across his eyes and sighed. “So I just want to leave.”
Juniper said nothing for a long moment, studying Ethan as he stood hunched in the middle of the path. Her eyes flickered strangely, and after a moment of hesitation, she said, “Hey.”
Her voice was sharp, and it startled Ethan. “I know it sucks. I know you hate it. But either way, you can’t go home. And I want you here. So you’re going to have to suck it up and let that be enough.”
“June,” he began, still staring at the ground, but she held up a hand.
“I can apologize for the people in my town,” she said in a low voice, “but I can’t change them. The best I can do is try to make things okay while you’re here.”
Ethan looked up, expecting to see a glare on her face, but instead found himself faced with a red-faced, teary-eyed, tight-lipped Juniper Jones. He was startled to see her on the verge of tears when he himself felt so zapped of emotions. He felt like he needed to comfort her, but for what? This was his pain to bear, not hers.
As Ethan looked on, Juniper balled her hands into fists and studied the ground, then, in a sudden explosion, threw her arms around Ethan’s neck and squeezed fiercely. Her chin dug into his shoulder. She pulled away before he could return the embrace and backed down the path toward the lake.
“I’ll see you around, Ethan Charlie Harper.” She gave him a watery smile. “Count on it.” And with a flick of her sunset hair, she turned and hurried away.
Ethan knew that she had tried to make him feel better, but he still felt the roll of nausea in his stomach. He was damp and grimy and tired down to his bones, but he cracked his fingers one by one and walked toward home. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, angry and swelling, a discordant beat that drowned out the lonely sound of birdsong. He squeezed his eyes shut as he walked, feeling the dust that rose in his wake.
When he found his way back to Aunt Cara’s, he stumbled straight to the shower, letting hot water pour over his head and wash the forest from his pores. Then he stepped out and put on his pajamas, refusing to look in the mirror. The tile floor was cold beneath his bare feet.
“Okay,” he said to himself, his eyes pressed gently shut. And for the rest of the afternoon he lay on his bed, eyes to the ceiling, and played a Billie Holiday record—it was the saddest one he owned. He thought about his father, with his unassuming green eyes, and his mother, whose face he still struggled to remember. He wished to know what she would say if she knew he was here and what had happened to him so far. He wondered if she would tell him, as he had begun to suspect himself, that her blood, and therefore his own, was poison.