For Manna.
It was 10:45 by the time the packing was done. The day was pleasantly cool, peculiar for early summer, the sun sending long shadows from the old sycamore slanting across the driveway and the dinged-up green SUV. The squabbling of the squirrels in the bushes coincided with the squabbling of the three youngest children as they argued over who had to sit in the middle and who got the grape juice box, while Mrs. Bertilak feebly tried to keep peace. Mr. Bertilak and his son fought with the duffel bags in some vain effort to force them all into the trunk, and the dog ran underfoot, poking his wet nose into everyone else's business.
Kent Tialys stood off to the side and wished there was something he could do to help. Every summer for the past five years, his best friend had welcomed him into his family for their customary trip to the lake, and every summer for the past five years, Kent had felt wholeheartedly useless. The trunk of the car was always shut before Mr. Bertilak would let him lift a finger to assist; the dishes were always whisked out of the sink while Mrs. Bertilak insisted he needn't bother. He was left standing in the grass and adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses for the tenth time in as many minutes, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
"Ah, don't be so morose, my friend!" Sain called. "Think of all the fun awaiting us! The days out on the dock, the rope swing over the water, and let's not forget all of the stunning young ladies!"
"Perhaps you should spend more time watching yourself than the women," Kent said as a suitcase tumbled out of the back of the car. "And in any case, I am not morose."
"Just look at your face! You look like you're being dragged to the opera!"
"I wouldn't have to look so severe if you weren't so careless!" he replied, smiling despite himself. The two made an odd pair; with his square glasses and his collared shirt tucked into his khakis, Kent looked like an accountant, too serious for his eighteen years. His short-cropped red hair had a military sort of cut in contrast to the messy brown mop that fell in Sain's eyes and stuck up in the back. A pair of headphones hung around Sain's neck, and he wore a souvenir T-shirt from a Knights of Lycia concert the year before. They likely would never have said more than two words to each other if they hadn't gone to band camp together; Sain was the life of the party, the class clown, and was known by half the school, and Kent was third in their class, beloved by their teachers, and worked part-time at the hardware store.
"C'mon, boys. We're ready to go," Mr. Bertilak said. He shepherded Sain's younger brothers and sister into the back of the car.
"Thank you again for inviting me along," Kent said as he followed Sain to the SUV.
"You don't need to thank me. You know you're always welcome here."
His cheeks flushed and he hurriedly clambered into the. Sain whistled for the dog, who jumped up onto the seat between them, and he shut the door with enough force to rock the vehicle.
Within the hour, they were tearing down the interstate, the rolling green landscape stretching for miles around them. Huge bales of hay, still damp from the previous night's rain, dotted the fields between faded white fences and farmhouses that were so old they seemed to be part of the land. Sain's sister, little more than six, exclaimed loudly over the purple wildflowers on the roadside and the red-tailed hawks that soared in lazy circles, their pinions scraping the bellies of clouds. Sain was in the middle of telling a story about his friend Wil, who played the trumpet and had run away from home for over a month when he was twelve. Kent's book lay open in his lap, forgotten as he listened to Sain talk.
It wasn't long before the car rumbled over the gravel road that wound up the hills in a narrow gray ribbon, half-obscured by the thick growth of trees. They pulled up in front of a modest, single-story building, its blue paint faded and beset by creeping green mold. A homemade tire swing hung from the bough of a gnarled oak. The dog's tail thumped against the seat, his tongue hanging out, and he stepped on Kent in an effort to see out the window. They tumbled out of the car in a chaotic jumble of jabbering children, luggage, and a barking ball of fur.
Kent and Sain shared the same room they had for the past five years. It was a nearly empty little place across the hall from the kitchen, with a bunk bed and a single dresser. It wouldn't be long before Sain's clothes were strewn across the floor and the dresser was cluttered with bird's nests and river stones, but for the moment, Kent savored its stark cleanliness. It reminded him of his own room.
"Ah, home away from home!" his friend said with an overdramatic sigh. "How I missed thee, O Sweet House of Summer! Long have you sat fallow, through autumn's rise and fall, through the howl of winter and the glowing return of spring, slumbering until the day your people returned to you. And so here we are, our sojourn begun, and you may resume your ever-watchful vigil!"
"Remind me again why you haven't auditioned for drama club?"
Sain grinned and dropped his bag to the floor.
"Talent like this is a gift to be used when the situation is right, not to be paraded out for every drear little play our school would put on," he replied.
"In other words, you'd rather catch the eye of whatever unfortunate girl happens to be nearby than actually work."
"I'm hurt! Why, if people listened to you, they'd think I was just some lazy bum and not the best tenor sax in the whole band!"
"In your own mind, perhaps," he teased, setting his backpack and duffel bag in the corner. "You're no drum major."
"You can take your clarinet and shove it."
He stuck his tongue out playfully and ran into the kitchen before Kent could reply. Ignoring his friend's words, as Kent had grown accustomed to doing, he walked back to the car to see if there were any more bags he could help with. He was brushed off, bade to unpack his things or go have fun, per usual. Kent uneasily returned to the cabin. He didn't especially want to go "have fun," not when Mr. and Mrs. Bertilak were still trying to get things in order. His own father certainly wouldn't have tolerated him idling.
His father wasn't there, though. Both of his parents traveled and were scarcely home, even when Kent wasn't absent. He did much of the day-to-day household maintenance on his own, buying the groceries and doing the cleaning. To Sain, who still didn't take care of his own dishes, Kent's responsibilities seemed staggering. He liked knowing that he could take care of himself, though. It made him itch for something to do out on the lake, and spurred him to do his own laundry in the middle of the night to keep Mrs. Bertilak from taking care of it for him. So instead of "having fun," he calmly unpacked his luggage, refolded his clothes to keep them from wrinkling, and stacked them carefully in the dresser drawers. His toothbrush and toothpaste were moved to the shared bathroom, a little strip of electrical tape wrapped around the handle with "K. Tialys" written on it in all-capital letters to keep people from accidentally using it.
He had just begun to put up his bags when Sain returned, a grin on his face.
"Kent, my friend, come out here. You've got to see this," he said, eyes wide. "No, no time for protest. Just come on!"
He knew it would be easier to follow than to argue. Kent set his things down and broke into a jog, wondering just what Sain had found—possibly a black bear, like the one that had eaten their chips the year before. It had been impossibly big, standing little more than ten feet from them, reared onto its back legs to manipulate the bag with its paws. There were all sorts of creatures denned up in the still-wild forests around Bulgar Lake, prowling animal trails and grazing on low-hanging leaves, and Sain knew the names of every one of them.
"There," Sain said, screeching to a halt.
Kent peered over his shoulder with a curiosity that was immediately replaced with exasperation. A girl sat on the dock of the cabin next door to theirs. Her back was to them, although with her ponytailed hair spilling over her shoulders and the dock itself, it was hard to get a good look at her. She didn't seem to notice either of them; her neck was craned back, eyes focused on the fleecy white clouds.
Kent shot Sain a dirty look.
"Tell me you're not going to go bother her. Please."
"Bother? Oh, I wouldn't dream of it. Politely introduce myself and ask to make her acquaintance? Now that's another story," he replied with a wolfish grin.
"Sain, we haven't even finished unpacking. Let's just go back to the cabin and finish helping out, because—Sain!" he shouted helplessly.
His friend was already strutting down the path, wearing his best charming smile. Muttering under his breath, Kent chased after him.
The girl heard them coming, leaping to her feet like a bird flushed from the bush. Her eyes were slanted, too large for her sharp features, and she watched them both with cool, fierce appraisal, stance wary, combative. Her long shirt, edged with traditional Sacaen designs, looked sorely out of place with her shorts, which were far too short for Kent's liking; Sain would be utterly beside himself around someone as beautiful as her, and he had enough trouble dealing with him as it was.
"Ah, hello!" Sain said with companionable ease. "I can't say I've seen you around these parts. I'd surely remember it!"
"And you are?" she asked, her mouth a tight, disapproving line.
"I'm Sain! My family lives right over there, if you ever need anything. We'd be delighted to be graced by your presence."
"I'll be sure to remember that," she said, although Kent sorely doubted that she would take Sain up on his offer.
"Please forgive him. Most people flee once he opens his mouth, so I fear he doesn't have much in the way of manners," Kent said, shooting his friend a sharp glare.
"Hey! That's not true!"
The girl's lip quirked like she was trying to stifle a smile. Her eyes flickered to the indignant Sain and back to Kent, who apologetically held up his hands.
"And who would you be?"
"Kent Tialys. Of no relation to him," he said.
Sain pushed him to the side, making a face.
"Quit it, Kent! You would speak so ill of me after we brought you out here? I swear, next year we're leaving you at home!"
"I wouldn't say it if you didn't deserve it," he replied, adding in an undertone, "Some gentleman you are, fighting in front of a lady."
Sain eyed him shrewdly, as if he knew better than to take his words at face value. He bit back his arguments, though, and in an instant his most winsome smile was back like it had never been lost.
"My apologies, then. My companion here really does bring out the worst in me," Sain said with a laugh, elbowing Kent in the ribs. "What brings you out here?"
The girl's severe expression didn't lighten, her opinion of the two of them stamped clearly on her face. With Sain's less than subtle attempts at flattery, Kent couldn't blame her; he would have disliked them, too. He was struck with the urge to explain himself, to say something of his grades or his relative disinterest in the institution of dating. Speaking up would seem as foolish as Sain's petty squabblings, however, and he kept his thoughts to himself. Presuming she wouldn't dismiss them both, she could make her own judgments.
"I'm staying with my grandfather this summer," she said, jaw set defiantly as if she challenged them to laugh at her. "My name's Lyn."
"A beautiful name, well-suited for a beautiful girl!"
"…If that is all, I have things to do," Lyn replied, eyes narrowing. She crossed her arms in a movement like a castle gate slamming shut, and she only stood there a moment longer, as if to make her point. She turned and walked off with long, masculine strides, her shoulders squared and head held high.
"Way to go," Kent muttered, eyeing Sain sternly. "Look what you've done."
"Me? With you looking like this—" he made a face like an angry bulldog's "—no wonder she left! Are you truly so determined to ruin my chances with every girl we meet?"
"This isn't about romance, you idiot. You've gone and made a poor impression of your family, which she'll surely pass on to hers. How would you like to explain that to your father?"
Sain grimaced, looking chastised.
"I hadn't thought of that," he admitted.
"My case in point. If you're through embarrassing yourself, there's still unpacking to do. I'm heading back to the cabin."
He started walking without waiting for Sain. The image of Lyn's fierce, disapproving eyes was burned into his head, accompanied by a feeling of dread. They'd upset her, and Kent hadn't done a thing to fix it. To think that she'd gone from peacefully watching the sky to storming off, and it was his fault…
Kent straightened his glasses and banished the thoughts from his mind. There wasn't anything he could well do about it by that point, so there was no reason to worry. He instead finished taking care of his things, before trying to offer his assistance in the kitchen. The clock on the mantle chimed that it was past noon and, as Sain's youngest brother whined, it was high time for lunch. Per usual, Mrs. Bertilak wouldn't accept much in the way of help, but he did his best to make himself useful. In a few minutes, they had grilled cheeses sizzling in the skillet and the dog begging at their feet, his fluffy tail thumping against the cabinets.
Kent was the last to eat, despite Mrs. Bertilak's insistence that he take his sandwich and sit down. The shame from his run-in with Lyn still hadn't faded as he slowly chewed his food, posture stiff. It still bothered him as he took the dog on a walk, as he pushed Sain's brother on the tire swing, and as he tried to focus on his new tax reform book. Sain, of course, bemoaned the loss of such a beauty, at least for the first hour, after which he was merrily splashing around in the lake with his sister squealing with joy on his shoulders.
He wouldn't be missed, Kent thought, if he just nipped off for a minute. Only long enough to apologize and make amends. That was all. If he told Sain, he'd only get laughed at, only feel ridiculous and realize how truly, impulsively stupid this was. Better to just go and be done with it before his common sense caught up with him.
He headed up to her door, apprehension slowing his steps. Steeling himself, Kent brushed out the wrinkles in his polo, readjusted his glasses, and knocked.
A faint voice yelled, "I've got it, Grandfather!" before Lyn threw open the door.
Her look of curiosity was replaced with icy disappointment.
"Oh, it's you again. Kent, was it?"
He nodded in affirmation.
"I wanted to apologize for earlier," he said. "We acted like a pair of children. I'll make no excuses for my behavior or Sain's, but I'd truly appreciate it if you'd forgive us."
She quirked an eyebrow, shifting her weight to her back foot. He stood stiffly and maintained eye contact.
"If you're truly serious, then I suppose I could. You're certainly more polite than your friend," she added, shaking her head.
"Sain means well, really. He'd be here too if he'd known I'd left."
Lyn cocked her head to the side.
"Any reason he doesn't?"
"I thought you might not take me seriously if he was hitting on you every other word," he bluntly said. "I'd like to try again; my name is Kent Tialys."
He held out his hand to shake. Lyn grinned, rolled her eyes, and took it. Her hand was calloused and rough, to his surprise, and her grip was strong.
"Lyn Chehalis. Which cabin did you say was yours?"
"Mine? None of them. My parents can't…" He cut himself off, embarrassed. "We don't vacation much. I'm here with Sain."
"Oh. How long are you two going to be up here?"
"Until late July. And you?"
"About the same. School doesn't accept 'I was on vacation' as an excuse for being absent, after all," Lyn said. She brushed her bangs out of her eyes with a lazy swipe of her hand. "You don't have to deal with that, do you?"
"What do you mean?"
"You look a little old to be in high school, is all. What college do you go to?"
"I only graduated this year, actually. I can't be much older than you," he said with a shrug. At her silence, he added, "It's fine. I get that a lot, actually."
To his surprise, she chuckled.
"May I ask what's so amusing?"
"You may," Lyn replied with a grin.
"Then I shall. What's so amusing?"
"You," she said, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. Her smile was infectious; the corners of his mouth twitched in spite of himself.
"Who is it?" a voice called from inside the cabin. Kent's smile vanished like a rabbit down its burrow.
"One of our neighbors!" Lyn shouted back.
The sound of springs creaking cut the air like a serrated knife. Faltering footsteps dragged on the ground. Lyn's face contorted with worry, and she ran back into the house.
"Grandfather! You don't need to get up!"
For all of Lyn's concern, Kent would have thought her grandfather would be frail and sickly. Despite his slow steps, though, he held himself with the same pride and dignity his granddaughter did. He had the same penetrating eyes, which raked over Kent like a bird's talons and returned to Lyn. The redhead was left with the strong impression that he'd seen this man before, although he couldn't for the life of him place him.
"Is this a friend of yours, Lyndis?"
To Kent's surprise, she replied, "Yes. This is Kent. He's staying with the family next door."
"Pleased to meet you, sir," Kent said evenly.
They shook hands.
"And you. Please, do come in," her grandfather said.
"Ah…I can't," Kent replied. "I've got to be home. Thank you for the offer, though. It was nice seeing you, Lyndis."
He didn't know what had prompted him to use her full name. She hadn't introduced herself as such, but the word slipped off of his tongue before he could think about it. Lyn looked at him with bewilderment, but she didn't say anything more than, "Goodbye."
Kent could hear her grandfather laughing through their door as he walked off, his cheeks burning. He'd succeeded in controlling the damage Sain had caused, but he'd made an idiot of himself in doing so. Apologizing was really the only right thing to do, but all the same, he cursed under his breath and vowed that next time, he'd simply cuff Sain on the back of the head and shut him up.
Sain was sitting on Kent's bunk when he got back to the cabin.
"Where'd you run off to?"
For a brief second, Kent considered dodging the question, but his sense of honesty forbid any deception. "I went to apologize to Lyndis," he said.
"You what?" Sain exclaimed, eyes widening. "Let me get this straight, my boon companion! You, Kent Tialys, ditched your best friend to speak to a girl? Did you suffer some sort of head injury? Am I in a coma? Is this even real?"
"I was attempting to make amends for your churlish behavior," Kent replied.
Sain sighed melodramatically.
"And you didn't think I'd want to be there, too? For shame, Kent. For shame!"
Finding no sensible response to his friend's ranting, Kent took out his trusty book and settled onto his bunk with it. He considered the topic as good as dropped, and after another minute of fervent protests, Sain let it go as well, sulking up in his own bed.
Kent didn't think anything more of it until the next day. The sun blazed overhead, its rays gleaming a fiery orange off the surface of the lake. Boats and jet skis had been tearing across the water for the better part of the morning, leaving frothy trails in their wake, the people showing up as splotches of red and yellow life jackets against the forested backdrop. Kent and Sain were down on the dock in their swim trunks, feet in the water as the kids and dog splashed around.
"A most beauteous day," Sain sighed for the twentieth time since they'd gone outside. "The water's not even cold."
Kent nodded, although in truth, he didn't feel much like swimming. One of his contact lenses had torn a week before they'd left and he hadn't had a chance to get a new pair. His eyesight wasn't so bad that he absolutely needed them, but he felt vulnerable without them.
"Come on, we really should go swimming," Sain pleaded. Kent knew that only the glasses perched on his nose had kept Sain from pushing him in already, especially after he'd lost one pair that way. It had been three years back, but Sain had received such a thorough tongue-lashing from both his friend and his father that he hadn't dared to repeat the gesture in years since.
"If you really want to get in, I'll come," Kent said. He carefully folded his glasses and set them on the tackle box Mr. Bertilak had left on the dock, making sure to notify Sain's siblings that they were there and warn them to be careful.
Sain was already in the water by the time Kent turned back to the lake. He eased himself in, wading out to where Sain stood.
"It looks like we're not the only ones out here," his friend said in an undertone. "Check it out."
Lyn was on the raft a hundred yards out, sitting on the edge and looking their way. Kent raised his hand in a stiff wave, and Sain shouted, "Hey!" at the top of his lungs.
"Hey!" she yelled back, barely audible over the distance.
"Race you there," Sain said, taking off with clumsy, powerful strokes. He had spent far more time in the water than Kent had, and he easily outpaced him. Still, by the time they both got there, Sain's chest was heaving, while Kent was barely short of breath.
Lyn was wearing a skimpy bikini top and boy's swim trunks, her hair braided in a futile effort to make it manageable in the water. From her tanned skin, she'd clearly spent a lot of time outdoors, and Kent had to elbow Sain to keep him from openly gawking. He pulled himself out of the water, taking the seat next to her. It might serve as a reminder to his friend to leave his usual spiel back at Caelin.
To Kent's eye, the two of them were aesthetically unpleasing beside her. He was skinny and lanky, squinted for lack of his glasses, and sported a comical farmer's tan from years doing marching band; Sain was shorter and stockier, had his bangs hanging in his eyes, and was even paler than Kent was. He nervously went to fix his glasses, only to remember he wasn't wearing them to begin with.
"Did you sleep well?" Lyn asked them, breaking the awkward silence.
"But of course!" Sain replied at the same time as Kent said, "Well enough, thanks. You?"
"I've been up here a few days already, so I've gotten used to it. The air's much cleaner than it is in town."
"Where do you live?"
A frown flickered across her face.
"…Caelin," she said after a pause. "I only just—"
"That can't be! Us, too!" Sain interjected. "Perhaps we were fated to meet here!"
"I only just moved there, actually," Lyn said, her tone guarded and measured.
"Is something the matter?" Kent asked quietly. Her sudden reticence had him worried, although he didn't want Sain to exclaim over her discomfort and make her clamp her mouth shut over the words. He wanted to offer some manner of comfort, but the best he could do was a concerned look.
"It's nothing."
Her words carried a note of finality, a guillotine dropping over their conversation and cutting it cleanly in two at that point. Her eyes took on that same fierce, hawkish light they had earlier. Kent knew full well that it wasn't "nothing;" her defensiveness proved it. It wasn't his place to badger her, though, and he dutifully let it go.
"All right, then," he said. Raising his voice above a whisper, he continued, "We live in a little town in southern Caelin. Not many have heard of it."
"I live in the city. Tall buildings, traffic, and people everywhere…This trip is a welcome change from all that," she replied with disdain.
"But the lights! The wonder! The glitz and glam of movie stars and chic cafés, towering skyscrapers and the subway…Anything you need, you can find in the city," Sain said. "Oh, it's nice enough out here. The breeze, the birds, the sound of wind on the water…But it's different, don't you think?"
She looked at Kent, and he could have sworn she smiled a little.
"Different isn't always bad. Where I grew up, it was like the world was caught between the pages of a photo album. We had a wood stove and a pair of horses in the barn and a telephone with a rotating dial."
Sain and Kent traded incredulous glances. It was only through the sheer surprise of such a statement that they had even kept their mouths shut. The redhead thought fondly of his computer back at home, a clunky desktop a couple of years old, and how that machine could do nearly anything he asked of it. He could hardly imagine life without such conveniences.
Sain spoke first: "Well, you're happy to be here, and that's all the counts, right?"
Kent envied his friend's eloquence in that moment. He wished he'd been able to pull out the perfect save to such a situation, to bring the conversation back on track without offending her. All he could manage was an affirmative nod and a forced smile.
"Pay me no heed. It's fine out here and in Caelin," Lyn said, shaking her head. "Do you come here often?"
Sain whispered to Kent, "No, but if this how the company is, I'd sure like to." He snickered, clearly pleased with himself.
Disgusted, Kent pushed him into the water. Sain let out a wild yell and hit the surface with a satisfying splash.
"Every summer, actually," he said to Lyn, ignoring the spluttering Sain, who shouted old-fashioned insults and glared something fierce. She watched the both of them with a look of mild alarm.
"I'll show you funny, you dastard!" Sain yelled, climbing out of the water. As Kent stood to fight him off, he tackled him, sending them both plunging into the lake. They came up coughing and wiping water out of their eyes. Kent clung to the raft's side, grimacing. He should have known better than to try and reprimand Sain—his friend always got in the last word, and they were acting like idiots around Lyn again.
He shook out his hair and clambered back onto the platform while Sain smirked triumphantly. Kent looked to Lyn, about to apologize for their fighting, when she slammed into him, knocking him back in the water with her on top of him.
He disentangled himself from her as his head broke the surface. The water had the temperature of lukewarm soup and tasted unsanitary, but he could only focus on her smile and the challenging, playful look on her face.
"Nice one!" Sain called, swimming over to join in on heckling his friend. "That's what you get for shoving me in!"
Lyn promptly put her hands on his shoulders and dunked him.
"You, too. Don't think I didn't hear that," she returned with a mock-scowl.
She was awkward and clumsy while swimming, flailing as much as she treaded water, her hair a waterlogged mess that tangled itself up in her arms. It was as inefficient as a wet bird splashing and fluttering to stay afloat, but Lyn grinned at him anyway, either not noticing or not caring.
They talked and swam until Sain's younger brother called them in for lunch. Kent reluctantly bade her goodbye, finding her sense of humor riveting, her perpetual grin intoxicating. His eyes lingered on hers, and he offered a small smile of his own.
Sain's brother shouted out to them again, and they waved Lyn goodbye before beginning the swim back to shore. Sain winked at Kent as they started, a smug smirk on his lips. Kent, confused, simply passed it off as another of Sain's quirks and focused on the swim.
They scrambled up onto the dock, Sain rushing into the cabin to tell his mother that they'd befriended their new neighbor. He dripped all over the floor and looked like an unwelcome wreck that the dog had brought in and dropped on the doorstep. Kent, calling out apologies to Mrs. Bertilak, toweled himself off outside and replaced his glasses.
The weeks tore by in a whirlwind of inside jokes and days on the raft. They'd clambered up the old oak tree and climbed on the cabin roof while Kent paced on the ground and called for them to come down before they hurt themselves. It seemed to Kent like there hadn't been a weekend before two-year-old movies in Lyn's living room with Sain's wisecracking and Lyn sitting so close on the little couch that their legs brushed and she sometimes rested against him when the night got too late. It made heat rush to his face and his eloquence desert him, but Kent wouldn't trade those nights for the world.
All too soon, however, June surrendered to July, and as the days dragged on, even happy-go-lucky Sain bemoaned how little time they had left on the lake. Kent couldn't shake the fear that coiled up in his chest as Mrs. Bertilak marked yet another row of red X's on the calendar or as Lyn worked on her summer reading project.
The end-of-summer cookout was Sain's idea, but there wasn't a single one of them who disagreed. Soon the smoke rose off the bonfire in thick, choking waves that tumbled and roiled up through the dusky sky. Hot yellow light splashed over the tree trunks as the flames cracked and popped, pine resin sizzling in the fresh-hewn cords of wood. The smell of evergreen and barbeque was laid on strong.
Lyn sat on a folding camp chair, her legs crossed at the ankle and an orange cream soda in her hand. The condensation ran off in rivulets as Kent watched with fascination, ice-cold water trickling over her delicate hand and down her bare arm. He and Sain had thrown on shirts after their afternoon swim, but Lyn hadn't bothered to change out of her bathing suit, a fact which he was more than aware of. The flickering firelight darkened the shadows around her ribs, overemphasizing her willowy thinness; it cast a wild shine on her eyes, bringing out the brilliant color of them.
Kent took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt, ripping his gaze from her. His mother had raised him better than to stare. Instead, he looked down at his barely-touched paper plate, soggy from too much barbeque sauce. He picked at his meal, nibbling at the edges of his burger and sipping at his diet soda. He usually loved Mr. Bertilak's cooking, but his stomach violently argued with the food, and for fear of heaving his guts on the lakeside, he finally set down the plate. Kent put a hand to his forehead, wondering nervously if he'd caught something. They had too few days left to waste on him being feverish and bedridden.
Lyn's eyes flickered to him, a worried look on her face.
"Kent? Are you feeling well?"
He forced a smile.
"It's nothing. I'm just not that hungry right now," he said, shrugging in a manner he hoped was casual. Her eyes bored into him, concerned, suspicious, but she nodded and took his word for it. Sacaens never lied—he remembered reading that somewhere—and she probably expected him to conduct himself with the same honesty. Kent's conscience nipped at his heels like a dog herding sheep back into line. He couldn't bear for anyone to waste time fretting over him, though, and so he sat a little straighter and defiantly took another drink of his soda.
"I hope you're not too full for dessert," Lyn said. "Grandfather brought my father's world-famous homemade strawberry ice cream."
He looked queasily down at his half-eaten sandwich.
"World-famous, you say? I suppose I must try some, then," he replied. To his credit, no hint of trepidation showed in his words, but his stomach did flips at the very thought of it. He managed a shaky smile.
Lyn grinned and got to her feet, setting her drink in the chair's cup holder. She offered her hand to him, and he took it. Her skin was soft from hours in the water, and he hurriedly stuffed his own in his pockets as soon as he stood. Lyn's smile wavered for a second, but then she turned towards the card table with the plastic tablecloth laden with food. Sain fell into step beside them as he followed her.
"What's going on?" he asked. A splotch of barbeque sauce was on the corner of his mouth and his hair and shirt were soaked.
"I could ask you the same," Kent replied.
"I was giving my siblings horsey rides and I slipped on the dock," he said with a shrug. "I suppose you could say I was a seahorsey, then!"
Sain laughed at his own joke, perpetually finding amusement in even his own mistakes.
"Well, then, we're getting ice cream. Her grandfather made it, you know," said Kent.
Lyn had already doled out the dessert into two heaping bowls. Kent barely stifled a groan; he'd been hoping he could choose his own portion and get out of having to eat much more.
"Hey, Sain?" she said. "What are you doing over here? Your father was looking for you."
Sain seemed crestfallen, clearly intent upon joining them. He shot Kent a look akin to a kicked dog and slunk off in the direction of the grill. He carried his own little bowl of ice cream as if to curry favor, and he looked back over his shoulder twice on the way over.
Kent choked it down as quickly as he could. He didn't notice the taste for his nausea, but it seemed to make Lyn happy. She ate hers slowly, savoring each bite.
"Kent," Lyn began, halfway done. "This smoke is blocking out the stars. These constellations out here are so like the ones back at Lorca…"
"Do you want to go somewhere where you can see better? We can wait for Sain. I'm sure he knows a good spot," he said, confused.
"He's busy, though. It wouldn't be too much trouble to just ask you?" she said, cocking her head to the side.
"Well…There's an old campsite down that trail. Just let me tell Sain where I'm going—"
She closed her hand around his wrist and pulled him in the direction he had indicated. He hesitated. Kent looked back at his friend, who was fighting with the grill fire, which had somehow gone out, then back at Lyn, who flashed a smile.
"I…suppose I won't be missed," he said. She released her grip and walked beside him, spooning ice cream into her mouth. Kent didn't understand what the big deal was—Lyn had the opportunity to see the stars nearly every night, and another glance didn't exactly warrant kidnapping him, but he couldn't tell her "no" on such a simple request.
He mutely led the way, fervently thanking the little flashlight he kept on his keychain. It was a short dirt path, little more than a deer trail, still bound up with tree roots and rough stones guaranteed to make for difficult walking; it would be nearly impossible to navigate without that light. Lyn glided over the path, her feet finding easy purchase on the uneven ground. He plainly lacked her natural grace, tripping over the roots and his own two feet.
"Watch your step," she said after he nearly clocked his head on a low-hanging branch.
"Do you know all of the stars out here?" he asked. The tightly-woven canopy blotted out the sky, but if she was so enthusiastic about them that she would want to leave the lakeside, he figured she must.
"Only a handful of constellations," Lyn admitted. "My father could tell you every one of them, though. I only really recognize the Flying Fish and the Three Brothers, maybe a few more…Do you?"
"I'm afraid I never learned that in school. Now, ask me about fiscal policy and maybe I can offer a better bit of conversation…"
She snickered. Confused, he stared. Did she think he was kidding? It didn't matter; it was probably better if she didn't assume him to be some dorky wannabe economist with his nose buried in a book all the time. His glasses slid down his nose, a subtle reminder that he was exactly that.
He fixed them for the thousandth time and asked, "Why did your family move out here?"
The topic had come up before, but Lyn had dodged the question so often that Kent had nearly given up. He didn't want to upset her, but it hurt to watch her grow guarded and silent in response to things he didn't know to avoid.
Her amusement dissipated like mist on a high wind. She stopped in her tracks, looking at him with dark, sober eyes. Lyn cleared her throat awkwardly.
"…My parents died in an accident a few months ago," Lyn said, her voice little more than a whisper, a rustle of feathers. "I stayed there, in our house, alone…for weeks. I didn't know what to do."
Her words were choked, eyes pricked with hot tears. She held that cheap Styrofoam ice cream bowl like it was a lifeline, yet she maintained eye contact with him, jaw clenched tightly. Kent's chest ached at her prideful attempts to pretend she was all right. He longed to put his arms around her and hold her, to offer the same tired words of comfort that people had used since the dawn of time, to do something rather than stand there, eyes wide as hubcaps, brow drawn with worry.
"...I'm sorry," she said, furtively wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. He stoically pretended not to notice.
"You don't need to apologize."
"No, I…It isn't important anymore. Let's go."
"If it's important to you, than it's still important, Lyndis," he said.
She looked at him, wary and hurt, and gave a shallow nod. Lyn didn't say anything further. She simply continued walking, holding that half-melted bowl of ice cream, and he matched her pace, knowing when to keep his mouth shut.
They reached the campsite after another fifteen minutes of walking. It was a small clearing, overgrown with weeds. A patch of bluebonnets smiled at them from its spot on the edges, while a moldering old picnic table, nearly green from years of neglect, stood silent vigil over the open space. A charred circle of round stones remained the only relic of a dozen years' worth of campfires, and a rusted tin can sat beside it, half-buried in ash and sand.
Lyn looked up at the sky, the patch of black as dark as a barn owl's eyes, and smiled.
"They're exactly the same. I've seen them a dozen times out here, and it gets me every time," she said, voice hushed. "Oh, Kent…There's Reinfleche, the great bow…And Hyperion, the wyvern…"
To his eye, they were just speckles of light, balls of fire and gas so far away they would never affect him. Yet affect him they did, for Lyn traced the paths between them with one finger, eyes huge, so caught up that she seemed not to notice the way she shivered in the bitter night air.
"Are you cold?" he asked, coming to stand beside her.
He didn't wait for her to answer, shrugging off his shirt and handing it to her. The temperature bit into him and raised goosebumps on his arms, but he pretended not to care.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"Yes, I'm fine."
She hesitated a moment longer before taking the garment and pulling it over her head. His button-down shirt hung off of her slender frame, but Lyn ceased her trembling, and that was enough to make him smile.
"Thank you, Kent. Not just for the shirt," the girl said.
Surprised and bewildered, he replied, "It was nothing."
She shook her head but didn't argue, going on to point out another half dozen clusters of stars that didn't really look like any of the things she said they were. Sain always said Kent lacked imagination, but even if he tilted his head to the side and squinted, he couldn't see how anyone saw a phoenix in four stars that looked like a squashed rhombus to him. Still, he pointed out the only constellation he knew—Hartmut, the Knight—and nodded along with her labels nonetheless.
His watch beeped on the hour, as it always did, causing them both to jump.
"It's nine o'clock," he explained.
"Have we been gone long?"
He looked around at the miserable little campsite and up at the brilliant stars that paled in comparison to the smile on Lyn's face when she'd seen them.
"…Not so long," he said after a pause. "Certainly less than an hour. Do you think they're looking for us?"
"Maybe," said Lyn, while simultaneously shaking her head. She pulled his shirt closer around her, looking up at him as if he would somehow have the right answer.
He folded his arms across his chest in a feeble attempt to keep warm.
"If we're missed, we're missed. A few more minutes can't hurt," Kent said, the words almost painful to say. The idea that he might be disobeying authority bothered him deeply. His father would have cuffed him for such a move, and that was without the fact that Sain or Mr. Bertilak might have needed his help with cleaning up…
Her smile stole his breath and banished his worrying. Neither could seem to look away, trapped, paralyzed, her smile melting from her mouth, replaced with a lips-parted, cheeks-flushed stare. He chuckled embarrassedly, short and nervous, acutely aware of how they were standing nearly chest to chest, her face so close her breath fogged his glasses and they nearly touched noses.
Lyn's lips brushed against his in a hesitant kiss before pulling back, suddenly shy and on edge in a way that she never was. He stared at her and she stared back, both of them solemn. He licked his lips and brought up a hand to fix his glasses. An impulse struck him, and at the last instant he changed the movement, resting his hand on the back of her head and kissing her, the only answer he could think of. The bug spray that clung to their skin tasted acrid to his tongue, and she knocked his glasses to the ground with her forehead, but at that moment he wouldn't have it any other way.
They didn't talk about it. Lyn calmly bent down to find his glasses, her cheeks flushed a brilliant red, and tried to put them back on for him. In the dark, she nearly took out his eye, but he smiled nonetheless and fixed them when she wasn't looking.
"Thank you," was all she said until they got back to camp, where her grandfather was frantic over her absence. Kent stood awkwardly to the side, wearing his shirt once more as Lyn explained the old campgrounds and the way she'd seen her father's favorite constellations. From the understanding way her grandfather nodded along, Kent was fairly sure neither of them would be punished for their disappearance.
He walked out to the edge of the dock and took a seat, his feet trailing in the cold water. His shirt still smelled like Lyn, and he grinned like an idiot at that realization. There wasn't much time left in their summer, no, but with the lights from the cabins across the lake glimmering like so many stars, he could almost bring himself not to care. After all, they still had time for a few more cheesy movies and days out on the lake, precious moments to work themselves out before the summer ended for good. They'd just have to work extra hard to make every last minute count, and that was a responsibility he was sure he could handle.