“SAM? WHERE ARE “you?” Lucas called.
Sam stood and brushed the forest from her knees. The stones left little divots in her skin, like they didn’t want to be so easily forgotten. “Over here,” she called, and he appeared almost immediately, his cheeks red from running.
“Sam! You’re okay!”
“Of course I’m okay,” she said. Was he really worried about her? “It was only a small cut.”
“Yeah, but there are other dangers in the woods,” Lucas said. “Ravines. Pits. Rusty nails. Old boots.”
“Some of those aren’t dangers,” she said, laughing. “Some of those are just things.”
“Say that after you’ve tripped over a boot. Oh!” He held out his hand. “Here’s a Band-Aid for your finger.”
Sam took it, suddenly embarrassed that she’d asked him to go to so much effort. He’d done it without complaining, even though they’d just met. She put the Band-Aid over the pinprick on her finger and tucked the wrapper into her pocket.
“Thanks,” she said, and meant it. “That helps.”
“I brought you something else, too,” Lucas said. He rummaged through his satchel and pulled out a battered brass disk. “It’s a compass! I got a new one for my birthday in March—it does a lot more things—so I don’t need this one anymore.” He pressed a button on the top and the lid flipped open. Inside she saw N, E, S, and W labeled around a circle, with a jittery arrow pointing left. “Do you know how to use one?” he asked.
“No, but I can figure it out,” she said, certain she could. There’d simply been no need for compasses in Los Angeles, where all the streets were marked with signs and there was no possible way to get lost in the trees. Mostly because there were so few trees.
“Okay, cool,” Lucas said. “My dad says I’m not allowed to explain things if someone says they don’t want to hear, but I do know a lot about compasses, in case you change your mind. My dad and I go camping all the time, and I’m always in charge of the map.” He reached into his bag again and retrieved his knitting. Maybe he always needed to be doing something with his hands. Like BriAnn and her sketching. Sam thought guiltily about the unanswered letter that was tucked into her backpack. She would write back as soon as she had a chance … and as soon as she figured out what to say. But for now, she needed to focus.
The compass sat in Sam’s palm, cool and heavy, like some sort of talisman. She twisted it left and right but the arrow stayed steady, as if it were anchored by an invisible string.
“It always points north,” Lucas said, craning his neck to see. “So to walk north, you turn in place until the N lines up with the arrow.”
“You’re still talking about the compass,” Sam said, but she spun until the arrow and N were touching anyway, and peered into the forest. North looked just like all the other directions. Without the compass, she never would have known it was there.
Lucas knew a lot of things that Sam didn’t. Maybe she could get him to help with her quest if she didn’t give him any of the details. She’d have to be careful not to betray Ashander’s confidence.
“Do you see a lot of mice when you go camping?” she asked lightly.
“Mice? Sure,” he said. “And deer and owls, and even one time a coyote. The coyote was my favorite.”
“A coyote! I’ve never seen a coyote at all,” Sam said. “And I’ve never gone camping, either. My mom hates bugs. Does your mom go with you and your dad?”
“Nope,” Lucas said. “I’ve never even met my mom.”
Sam glanced at Lucas. She shouldn’t have asked. She should have known better. It was none of her business.
“Don’t make that face,” Lucas said.
“What face?”
He furrowed his brow and squeezed his mouth into a tinier version of itself.
“I do not look like that!” she said, trying to smooth out her forehead and unclench her mouth.
“You do a little,” Lucas answered with a grin. “It’s okay. I’ve never met my mom, but my dad told me a lot about her. She lives in New York City and works for a fancy magazine and does not have any pets, not even a fish or a rabbit or a snake.”
Sam had so many questions, none of which felt appropriate to ask. What was it like to grow up without a mother? What was it like to know that she was living somewhere else and didn’t want to be with Lucas or his father? What was it like to be so far away from one of your parents?
Maybe she already knew the answer to that last one.
Lucas picked up an acorn from the forest floor and tossed it deeper into the woods. “You and your sister and your aunts should come camping with us sometime,” he said.
“That’s not—”
“You’d need your own tent, but we have an extra canoe and a bunch of life vests if we go to the lake.”
Talking to Lucas was like trying to drink water from the yard hose—there was too much all at once.
“We can’t go camping,” Sam interrupted. “We’re not going to be here that long. We’re just staying a few days, and then we’re going back to Los Angeles. School starts on the twenty-eighth.”
Whatever she said—it was all just the truth—seemed to surprise Lucas. “That’s not what my dad told me. He said you’re staying here for good.”
“That’s not true.” Sam’s cheeks grew hot. “Why would he say that?”
“Didn’t your dad hurt your sister?” Lucas asked, furrowing his brow. “They won’t let you go back. Probably not ever.”
Sam stood in front of Lucas, frozen, her brain refusing to tell her what to say or do. No one had ever said those words aloud before. Not Mrs. Washington, not the doctors, not her mother. Not even Caitlin. It was wrong to say them. Wrong. She didn’t have to listen. She wouldn’t.
She wanted to tell him to go away. She wanted to scream. But her mouth would not open, the words would not come. Sam closed her eyes and breathed. Her heart beat, too, and although it was fast, it wasn’t rabbiting. Anger was not the same thing as panic. Panic was a feeling trapped inside the chest, a bird beating its wings inside its cage. Anger was when feelings made it past the bars. When they made it out.
The compass sat in her palm, heavy and warm, and suddenly Sam wanted to throw it. To throw it at him.
The thud against the wall of Caitlin’s room. Glass shattering. A muffled cry.
Sam pulled back her arm and, at the last second, threw the compass at Lucas’s feet. He yelped and jumped back as if she had hit him. As if she’d thrown a bomb instead of a small metal object.
When Sam saw Lucas’s shocked expression, her anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced with the deepest, hungriest shame that gobbled her up from the inside.
It was not good to be angry. Anger was a disease, spreading from one person to the next. Sam could come home from school angry, like when Braydon Mannon stole her book—she’d been reading The Westing Game and Turtle was so close to solving the big mystery—and he wouldn’t give it back for the whole ride and on top of that lost her place. She’d bring the anger into the house and lash out at Caitlin or her mother, and her mother would get infected next, her lips thinning into a line. If she was still angry when Sam’s father got home, then that was it. He was always halfway there already. Her mother’s anger would push him over and then dinner would be lectures or yelling or … worse.
The forest was dangerous after all. Far too dangerous.
Sam turned and ran. She headed back to the house, because she didn’t know where else to go. She had no refuge. No sanctuary. She couldn’t crawl under the covers of her own bed and read by the light of a flashlight, like she had done so very many times before.
Lucas should not have said those horrible things.
He should not.
But she shouldn’t have thrown something at him, either. Not even at his feet.
Aunt Vicky’s house appeared through the trees, and even though it wasn’t home, Sam was relieved to see it. All she needed was some time to herself. First to catch her breath, and then to figure out how to catch a mouse. Lucas had distracted her from her quest, and she wouldn’t let it happen again.
The quest was the only thing that mattered.
As soon as she opened the door to the kitchen, she realized her mistake.
Armen and Aunt Vicky were right there, right in front of her, still working at the table surrounded by that morass of cords and computer equipment.
“Vickster’s niece, whose name I have since learned is Samantha, you have returned!” Armen said.
Sam stood in the doorway, uncertain how to answer such a strange greeting.
“Hi, Sam,” Aunt Vicky added in her quiet voice.
“Ooh, there’s the culprit,” Armen said, pointing at the computer screen. “That equation is not doing what it’s supposed to do.”
Aunt Vicky slid the computer mouse across the mouse pad and double-clicked. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, filling the kitchen with soft percussion.
“My son has not run off to join the wolves, I hope,” Armen said, not taking his eyes off the screen. “He does that sometimes for fun, but I don’t like it even then.”
“No,” Sam answered. And then, afraid he might continue the conversation, she added, “He’s, um, fine.”
“Excellent,” Armen said. “What every parent likes to hear.”
Aunt Vicky clicked the mouse again, and both she and Armen watched the screen as if it were the most exciting movie in the world. A second later, they cheered.
“Yes!” Aunt Vicky said.
“This calls for cake!” Armen answered.
Aunt Vicky laughed. “It’s not even eleven yet.”
“Pre-lunch cake is the best cake,” Armen answered. “Right, Samantha?”
Sam did not want cake. She’d lost her appetite in the woods, and every time she thought about catching a real, live mouse and giving it to Ashander, her stomach twisted a little more.
But she couldn’t say any of that, so she looked longingly down the hallway toward her room and said, “Sure.”
“I’ll get the plates,” Aunt Vicky said. She pushed the computer keyboard from the edge of the table and shoved the mouse back into the little thicket of cords.
A thicket of cords.
Sam barely noticed as Armen and Aunt Vicky bustled around her.
A thicket was like a bramble.
She couldn’t stop staring at the computer mouse.
A mouse.
With a computer-cord tail.
That sort of squeaked and scurried when it was used, didn’t it?
Sam’s whole body buzzed with energy. It did this whenever she figured out the answer to a crossword puzzle with her dad, or when she and BriAnn designed a really cool new superhero.
The riddle told her to fetch a mouse, but it didn’t say what kind of mouse. She could bring Ashander the computer mouse and pass the test without having to hurt anything or anybody.
Aunt Vicky held out a piece of cake on a plate. “Sam? Do you want milk?”
Sam took the plate and nodded. Her buzz faded.
She could give Ashander the computer mouse. But first, she had to steal it from Aunt Vicky.