“Honestly, I had you pegged as a tomboy like me.”
“Huh.” Berke shrugged. “I’ve been with Alex almost a year. She’s at PSU now. I wanted to go with her, but if I went…”
“Bye-bye, spine.”
“Yep.” Berke sighed. Started walking again. “I really gotta see her. She’s been acting weird lately. Like when I text her, she doesn’t respond for hours. Even on weekends. Especially on weekends, actually. She says she has tons of homework.”
“What’s her major?”
“Psych.”
Ash couldn’t picture a college freshman studying that long and often. Not at a party school like PSU. “Does Alex know about Snare?”
“Nope. Never told her about my trade. I was scared.”
“Of Candace?”
“No, of what Alex would think.”
“Why, she uptight?”
“Kinda. She’s a hardass, y’know? Compared to her, I’ll always be spineless. Just now, hiking these woods, I pretended I was her. Fearless bitch.” Berke bent her fingers like claws, made a scratching motion, then laughed. “Geez, I’m such a dork.”
“Sounds like you two balance each other out.”
“Kinda.” Berke ducked an eye-level branch. “What about you? Got a special guy?”
“Married to music, actually.”
“What about your bandmates? Any eligible bachelors?”
“Nope.” As she said it, Cheeto danced through her mind. “It’s bad luck to fuck a bandmate. Creates all sorts of problems. Look at Fleetwood Mac.”
“Who’s he?”
Ash snorted. “Fleetwood Mac is a classic rock group. They went through lineup changes because their singer—”
“Shh!” Berke turned her light off and drowned them in darkness. “You hear that?”
“I fucking told you,” Ash whispered. She checked behind her. Listened closely. Heard the flushing creek. The scratching forest. The wave-like brush of wind through the pines.
No crunching twigs though.
“Hmm. Now I’m the one hearing things.” Berke flicked her light on again. “Anyway, we’re almost there! Watch your step.”
They soon found the ledge. It ran straight for ten feet before jutting outward like a short, rounded diving board. At first Ash didn’t recognize the area. Then her ears caught a watery clicking. Now it made sense—the jutting cliff marked the creek bend. Pines fenced off the clearing below, and in the faint moonlight, they held a surreal quality, like a halo of shadow—something that would look sick on her next album cover.
“Over here.” Berke approached a pine near the ledge. She grabbed at branches, counting them off before pulling one down with a grunt. “Check the end of this branch.”
“For what?” Ash asked. But then she saw it, a hanging cylindrical black box. One of Candace’s wireless cameras. She grabbed it—barely thicker than a juice glass—and tried ripping it loose. It wouldn’t budge. Steel clips fastened it to the branch. “Damn. We’ll need to cut through somehow.”
“Good thing I thought ahead.” Berke poked her flashlight between her teeth and reached into her pocket. She pulled out a hunting knife.
Ash accepted it by its rubber handle. The custom grip made her feel like a born assassin. She removed the leather sheath with her teeth and touched the blade to the branch. It started bouncing as she applied pressure.
“Hold the branch steady.”
“Already am,” Berke said.
Ash stood on tiptoes and curled her left elbow around the camera to stabilize her end. She dragged the blade back and forth, building momentum. Her shoulder grew hot and tight. Warm blisters formed along her palm as the blade powered through. It sank deeper until the branch cracked and bent loose, hanging by a thread of outer bark.
Ash pocketed the knife and tore the branch free, camera included.
“Got it!” She flung the device into the woods. It bounced twice before landing with a final satisfying thud. “Now how do we get down from here?”
“Back where we just came from.” Berke pointed into the trees. “There’s a hill we can slide down.”
“Lead the way.”
39
Ash knelt over the bend and saw her. Ideal-Ash. Under the flashlight there was no mistaking the gorgeous coffee-dark hair, the perfectly symmetrical face, the rockin’ frame. Her reflection intimidated her. She couldn’t help but feel unworthy, like a dorky girl asking the hottest chick in school for makeup tips.
Wind thrust through the clearing. The tarp flapped and crackled behind her. Berke had set it up like a privacy curtain using tree branches as support beams. It worked well, but Ash couldn’t count on it staying upright forever.
She looked at her reflection.
At Snare.
“I have five people ready,” she said. “Can you talk?”
No mist rose to her lips. The creek flowed on. If Snare heard her, there was no indication.
“I’ll bring them here, but first I want my hand back.”
The creek clicked faster. A hole formed along the water’s surface. Same size as the one that swallowed her hand. It whirled in front of her, picking up speed. Water spritzed her jacket and soaked her jeans, chilling her thigh.
Ash hesitated, but unlike last time she had nothing to lose.
She slid her empty wrist through the opening.
The surface closed around her forearm. Icy water stung her bare flesh, burrowing through to the bone. As she adjusted to the discomfort, a wildly different flavor of pain exploded through her, like knives punching through her flesh. It reminded her of her phantom hand in the shower, yet different. It felt sturdier. Felt real.
“Finally,” she said, watching bones stretch from her wrist. “This time I better get to keep it.”
Mist floated to her lips.
“Not yet.”
“Not yet? Then give me a reason to trust you. People in town are freaked out, and I don’t blame them. I mean, why’d you wait till this week to talk? And to me of all people?”
“We’re the same, you and I.”
“Not even close. Do I look like a goddamned puddle to you?”
“No, but you were born from me.”
Ash raised an eyebrow. “Born?”
“Your mother traded with me. She couldn’t reproduce, so she sought my waters. Then your father—”
“Fuck them.” Ash spat the mist from her mouth. “I don’t care what they traded. I want my hand. Return what you stole.”
“I stole nothing. I needed your hand as a template.”
“A template? Like for making a new one?”
“Yes. Your request is special. Normally I only trade parts. Rarely do I create them.”
“What’s the difference?” Ash met her reflection’s eyes. “Either way I’m getting a healthy hand, right?”
“Trading is easier for me. People offer parts of themselves and I send part of myself in return. A bond forms. I sustain the Trader while holding onto their bad parts.”
“Why do you keep all those bad parts?”
Snare ignored the question. “Creating an extra hand, however, requires a different method. I have to split and reshape myself in order to bring another hand into existence. Imagine cutting your hair and donating it to a chemo patient. You’ll regrow the hair, but it’ll take time.”