I sat up with a wince. We hadn’t meant to fall asleep outside the tent, but Maya had wanted to try and decipher the sky, naming every constellation she could. She had fallen asleep next to me last night, but she must have woken up and gone to the river without me. She had a habit of wandering without telling me.
I stood sighing; I hated when she did things like this. It was our third time trying to be together. It has only been a week, but I’m already waiting for what will drag us apart this time.
I began to pick at charred wood from our long since extinguished fire. I sat there for half an hour trying to entertain myself with the ash before she finally returned. I heard snapping behind me and decided I was too tired to move from my position, so I raised my voice instead. “Hey, Maya, where’d you run off to?” It was awkward as she went silent before she cleared her throat and responded, “I heard something in the woods and went to investigate, it was a wolf, you should’ve seen the size of the thing.”
“I told you to stop wandering off alone, what are you going to do if you get attacked by the wildlife you so stupidly follow around?” I heard her laugh at my words.
Finally, I got up from where I was sitting and turned to look at her. “Maya? Where’d you go?”
“Give me a minute!” Her shout came from inside the tent, I hadn’t heard it unzip.
She poked her head out with a smile, “I got cold and wanted to put on some warmer clothing.”
“Are you alright Maya? You look tired.” Her smile faltered before she spoke again.
“Yeah, I woke up from rolling onto a stick so I didn’t sleep much. It isn’t my fault that I don’t sleep as if I’m dead like you, babe.” She hesitated between the word you and babe.
“Since when do you call me pet names? I thought you said they were corny.”
She cracked her knuckles and swallowed. “A girl isn’t allowed to change her mind?”
I laughed a little confused, “I guess we were apart for a little while.”
I watched in confusion as she began to crack her neck and crack her knuckles once more. “I thought you hated that sound. You once threw an empty bottle at me because of how much you hated it.”
Maya paused and her smile disappeared. She looked at me and all the warmness her face had ever held dissipated. For a split second, her expression was different from anything I’d seen in ten years of knowing her. It was akin to the look an animal has before attacking its prey. “I guess I’m in an odd mood. Do you think we could just leave today?”
I looked at Maya unsure what to think. It was gone so quickly it was as if it had never existed to begin with. “Oh, yeah, if you take the tent down I’ll start packing the car. But, I wanted to do the Starman Trail first.”
“Of course! It slipped my mind.” Her voice lacked its normal cadence. I heard her crack her knuckles again.
“How in the world are you still able to crack your knuckles?” I joked. Her response had a sharpness to it that startled me.
“Why are you being so pushy today?” The silence that followed was unbearable. We packed up the rest of the gear in a tense quiet.
“I finished stuffing everything in the car. Are you still up for hiking?” I tried to be careful with my tone. I wasn’t sure how to mend things since I didn’t know what I had done.
“Yeah, sorry about earlier. I just really didn’t sleep well.” She gave a meek smile and offered me her gloved hand.
We walked for about ten minutes before reaching the trailhead and starting down it. I noticed Maya seeming to not acknowledge its beauty but passed it off as her being tired.
We walked for a while as I told Maya about the different birds we passed. I appreciated her feigned interest. While I was telling her about American Goldfinches, her coat got caught on a branch. She tried to untangle it but got her glove stuck in the process. She tried to rip her hand away from the branch, but the glove slipped off.
A silence fell over the forest. Even the birds seemed to hold their breath. Maya let out a sigh to the side of me and muttered to herself. “So close.”
She turned her head to the side, and I heard the crack of bone as it went unnaturally far. I watched as the hand the glove had just slipped off contorted to inhuman length. I heard the bones crack as they snapped back into place.
Maya—the thing spoke once more–this time not sporting her voice. “Such a shame. I memorized her mannerisms and voice so well from how many times you two came here.” The voice crackled and dropped octaves from Maya’s.
I felt adrenaline fill me as I turned on my heel and ran for the car. I heard a crackled gasp of surprise and a frustrated groan as it tried to free itself from the coat being caught in the branches. I could hear the cracking of bone behind me as I ran and didn’t dare look back.
I don’t know how long I ran but I reached the car and took off as quickly as possible. I stopped by a gas station a mile off the trail head before heading home.
I’m convinced I must be dreaming. I wasn’t sure what to tell her parents or her work. What was I meant to do, tell them she became a creature? I pulled off to the side of the road and rested my head against the steering wheel. I’d driven about fifty miles and still had twenty-five to go. In the quiet I heard the cracking of knuckles from the back seat. I looked in the rearview mirror to see Maya’s shining face stretching into a large smile.
