Lost in the Wild, page 1
Cassie Mint
Lost in the Wild
First published by Black Cherry Publishing 2024
Copyright © 2024 by Cassie Mint
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Cassie Mint asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
First edition
ISBN: 978-1-915735-54-6
Cover art by Angela Haddon Book Cover Design
This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy
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Contents
1. Evie
2. Rowan
3. Evie
4. Rowan
5. Evie
6. Rowan
7. Evie
8. Rowan
9. Evie
10. Rowan
11. Evie
Teaser: Close to the Edge
About the Author
One
Evie
My thighs burn as I hike up the stony path, rocks and dirt grinding under my brand new boots. The midday sunlight is buttery yellow, and the higher I climb, the hotter it seems to scorch my cheeks.
Cardio. Oh my god, cardio.
Climbing the daily five flights of stairs in my apartment building has not prepared me for this.
The cool wind whips at my clothes, chilling my sweat to my skin. This high up, the town of Starlight Ridge looks like one of those tiny painted model villages you see in glass cases sometimes, nestled down in the valley. I stop to catch my breath and swig water, dazed by the towering peaks, rushing rivers and green forests of this landscape.
Everything is so freaking big out here. And, well… wild. I’d never noticed how small and squishy my vulnerable human body is before, but I’m sure as hell noticing it now. Every time a rock slips under my boot, my heart jackhammers in my chest.
My stainless steel bottle clinks as I shove it away in my backpack, and I tug out a notebook and map of the area instead. A nearby boulder seems a good place to lean my tired shoulders, and my hands shake as I page through my notes.
Don’t fall in a crevasse.
Don’t get eaten by a cougar.
Don’t mess up this job.
Thanks, Past Evie! Super helpful.
The wind snatches at the pages, tugging them out of my grip. The map billows when I spread it out too, corners flapping in the breeze, but I can just about locate myself on the path I marked out this morning.
Oh, hell. So much farther to climb. How can the Wild Man of Starlight Ridge stand it? If he really does exist and this isn’t some wild goose chase, that’s the first question I’m going to ask him.
Thirty sweaty minutes later, it’s a relief when the path snakes away from the bare, rocky mountainside into a patch of forest. Shade from the burning hot sun! A soft cushion of pine needles beneath my boots instead of slippy rocks! I sigh happily, bumping my pack higher on my shoulders.
This isn’t so bad.
Sure, I’m halfway up a strange mountain, searching for a strange man, soaked in sweat with blistered feet—and all for a job I’m not even sure I want anymore. But my muscles are humming under my skin, my stride is lengthening, and for the first time all day… I feel strong.
“Hello?” I call, my voice bouncing between the trees. Birds flutter overhead, zipping from branch to branch, and pine needles crunch softly underfoot. “Wild Man? Are you there?”
Can’t hurt to ask, can it? And who knows, if I call out to the mysterious man I’ve come to meet, maybe I’ll scare off any nearby bears at the same time. Win-win.
Besides, I’ve been alone for hours now, huffing and puffing in silence. It’s probably the longest I’ve gone in my whole life without a conversation—while awake, anyway.
“My name’s Evie,” I call through the trees. “Evie Daniels. I’ve hiked all this way to interview you.”
Pride tinges my voice, though I guess a bonafide wild man won’t be impressed with me for walking up a single mountain trail. That’s like his morning commute, right?
Whatever, I’m impressed. And now that I’m here, out in the wilderness for the first time in my city-girl life, I’m kinda into it. Trees are lit! And it smells really good out here, like warm earth and pine.
I don’t smell good after sweating through my layers, but that doesn’t matter. The wild man is probably a huge grimeball, living up on the mountain without showers. If I smelled too good, I might freak him out.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are…”
My fingertips brush against tree trunks as I walk past, stroking scarred bark and spongy moss. The shadows are deeper here beneath the trees, and it’s cooler out of the sunshine. Small shapes scurry across branches overhead, chattering among themselves, and I strain to hear any other sounds.
For the hundredth time today, a small voice whispers in the back of my mind: What if you don’t find him? What if the Wild Man of Starlight Ridge isn’t even real? What if you came all this way, talked your horrible job into paying the travel costs, and it’s all a dead end?
Nope, don’t like that train of thought. Time to shut it down. Jolting my pack higher on my shoulders, I raise my head and march through the trees, whistling a jaunty tune.
* * *
Two hours later, it turns out maps are harder to read in the forest gloom—and paths are harder to follow. What seemed clear as day out on the bare, sunny mountainside is not so obvious in this maze of tree roots and mossy boulders.
“Right.” Spreading the map out against a tree trunk, I squint at the path I marked out in smudgy pencil. Landmarks. I need landmarks. “Right, okay.”
After five minutes, I turn the map ninety degrees to the left.
After ten minutes, I lower the map and let my forehead thunk against the tree.
I’m going to die up here.
I’ll be another statistic; another headline for someone else’s story. A pile of bones and a pair of barely-worn hiking boots, the insides stained brown with dried blood, left up here on the mountain in a sad little mound and picked clean by cougars and squirrels.
Will anyone mourn? Sure, I have casual friends aplenty in the city, and my landlord will notice the missed rent payments, but will anyone really care that I’m gone? What’s it all been for?
A deep sigh drifts through the pine trees.
It takes me way too long to realize that sigh was not my own.
Whirling around, I lose my balance and stagger to the left. A man stands ten feet away, watching me. He’s dressed in a pair of ancient jeans and nothing else, barefoot and bare-chested, and his crossed arms bulge with muscle. A frayed, once-white bandage is knotted around his bicep.
He’s dirty and bearded.
His hair is long and matted.
Piercing gray eyes gleam as he frowns.
Wild man.
I beam at the stranger, my brush with death forgotten. “There you are. I knew I’d find you.”
The wild man’s scowl deepens. He jerks his head back the way I came, and though he doesn’t speak, his meaning is clear enough. I should go home already, and stop blundering around on his mountain like a clueless tourist.
“Uh huh, totally, I will absolutely get out of your hair. But first, could you answer a few questions for me? Since I came all this way to interview you and all.”
Fumbling my notebook out of my backpack as I talk, I set everything else down and turn to a clean page, pencil poised, then smile brightly at the Wild Man of Starlight Ridge.
He stares back at me, nonplussed.
Wait, does he speak English?
Does he speak, period? What if he was raised by wolves?
No worries. I’m the reigning champion at Daniels family charades.
“So, are you aware of your reputation as the Wild Man of Starlight Ridge? Did you know that last year you made a list of top fifty folktales and urban legends?”
The man stares.
Oookay. No problem. Charade time.
“Did you—” I point at him, “know—” tap my head with my pencil, “you’re an official cryptid?” Notebook clutched in one hand, I mime an exaggerated creep through the forest.
The man shakes his head—but not like he’s answering my question. More like he’s trying to wake himself up from a weird dream.
And you know what? That’s a little unfair. I’m not the one who looks like Tarzan dressed in old jeans, but somehow this guy is edging away like I’m loopy, looking all the world like he’s about to melt back into the trees.
“Wait, wait, wait! Don’t go yet, Wild Man. Seriously, I have so many questions. And—I’m lost!” I add as he half-disappears behind a trunk. “If you leave now, I’ll definitely die of exposure or get eaten by a wild animal. Think of the mess.”
The man sighs heavily, then comes back out from behind the tree. His gray eyes are narrowed on me, annoyed.
So he does understand me. That makes things easier.
“Okay, next question. What’s it like living wild out here? What supplies do you have? Does it ever get lonely? Do you get sc ared?”
The man prowls closer, moving quietly through the trees. If I wasn’t watching him, buzzing with excitement that I’ve found him, I wouldn’t notice him at all. It’s like he’s one with the landscape, cloaked in natural camouflage, while I blunder around with my stiff boots and rustly backpack.
Hang on, how long has this guy been watching me? He could’ve been nearby for hours already and I wouldn’t have known. At that realization, a shiver runs down my spine, and the breeze feels extra cold on my cheeks.
The wild man reaches my side, bends down to pluck the map from my open bag, then spreads it on the tree beside me again. Taking my pencil, he draws a new path on the map, linking my previous route with some random spot in the forest.
Wow. I went really wrong.
Good thing Denim Tarzan is here, spinning me around by the shoulders. He points between the trees, then shoves the map and pencil into my hand.
“That way,” he says, his deep voice rusty from lack of use. “Go now, while you’ve still got good light. And keep whistling. Make plenty of noise. You should reach the town in four hours.”
“I knew you could talk,” I tell him, lifting my notebook again. “Please, if you could answer just a few questions—”
“No.”
I blink up at the man. He frowns down at me, and he’s so much closer now than before. Close enough to feel the body heat radiating off his bare, dirt-streaked chest, and to feel my neck twinge at how much taller he is.
“No?” I repeat, nonplussed.
“No.”
“But I came all this way…”
The wild man jerks his head back and forth, his long, matted hair moving over his shoulders. It’s some shade of brown, but it’s hard to tell when he’s caked in a thin layer of dirt. There’s a faint blood stain on his bandage, but it looks old. “I didn’t ask you to do that,” he says. “I don’t owe you shit, alright? Now go.”
“But I—”
“Go. And next time don’t come up the mountain unprepared. Don’t come where you don’t belong.”
Though it’s ridiculous, though I know this jerk is right, his words still sting. Inhaling sharply through my nose, I bend down to stuff everything except the map in my backpack.
Ouch. Who is this guy, and how can he hurt my feelings so easily? Why do I care what some mean, dirty cryptid thinks of me? Because… I do. I do care. My chest aches at the thought of this man thinking I’m stupid, and my lungs burn way worse than they did on the climb.
“You don’t know me,” I say quietly, shouldering my pack. “And you shouldn’t judge what you don’t understand.”
Denim Tarzan sneers. “I know enough.”
“Says the man who forgot how to comb his hair.”
Not my best comeback, but I’m tired and hurt and abruptly so, so done with this mountain and everything on it. It’ll have to do. Pine needles crackle underfoot as I turn on my heel.
“Don’t blunder into any bear dens,” the wild man calls after me, his deep voice drifting through the trees.
I flip him off over my shoulder and hike on, sniffing away frustrated tears.
Two
Rowan
The annoying girl with a hundred questions is a long, long way from home. It’s obvious, from the racket she makes stomping along the forest path, map crinkling and boots thudding, to the vivid colors of her clothes.
Red leggings and a white tank top; a lilac jacket and some kind of crocheted multicolored hair band holding back her auburn waves. This girl is an explosion of color, a bird of paradise lost in the wrong kind of forest, and tracking her back down the mountain is easier than breathing. Even if she stopped muttering to herself, cursing all rude mountain men everywhere, I could follow her easily.
“Blunder into any bear dens,” she mumbles, clambering over a fallen log clumped with toadstools. “Such an ass…”
Despite everything, my mouth curves up as I watch her from the shadows. It’s not so bad being near her when she doesn’t know I’m here. With her butterscotch eyes fixed on the forest floor, this all feels less intense. Bearable, even.
I hate to admit it, but… it’s not the worst thing, having some company. When was the last time I heard another human’s voice?
The girl stops walking, unfolding the map again to check her progress. All around us, the forest is quiet, and the sunlight shining through the trees is tinged gold. The birds are roosting, settling in for dusk, and she needs to move faster if she wants to get down off the mountain by nightfall.
I scratch my chest as I watch her, pondering.
The river isn’t too full. It hasn’t rained in a few weeks—not hard anyway—so she should be able to cross the bridge near town okay. No concerns there.
But far across the mountain, there’s a mournful howl. Another two animals cry out in response, howling in a ghostly chorus, and the girl freezes, her colorful body tensed in fear.
My gut twists.
The wolves won’t bother her. They’re too far away, and there’s better prey for them in these mountains, but I can’t tell my interloper that. Not without revealing myself between the trees.
Her hands shake as she checks the map again one more time, then folds it again hurriedly and sets off down the path.
She starts whistling again, the sound shrill and panicked. My bare feet press against dried pine needles as I track her through the forest, and my heart beats out a steady rhythm.
Look, I don’t want her death on my conscience. That’s all. And if this foolish city girl dies in my territory and attracts scavengers, I’m the one who’ll be chasing critters away from my home with a stick for months. Escorting her down the mountain just makes good sense.
It’s got nothing to do with that wide, friendly smile she gave me back there. Nothing to do with the happy way she said “There you are”, like I was the best thing she’d seen all day.
Nothing to do with her pretty red hair and freckled cheeks and the way she smelled like cinnamon spice when I got close. Obviously.
I may have checked out of society, may have walked away from my old life, but I can still do a stranger a good turn. Especially if she doesn’t even know it.
“Ow.” The girl slaps at her neck, then wrinkles her nose at the bug smeared on her palm. “Ew. Gross.”
You don’t have bugs in the city? That’s what I want to ask her, the words crowded on the tip of my tongue, but I’ve been following her in silence for too long now. If I speak, she’ll definitely freak out, and I don’t want that.
Even if it gets her moving faster down the mountain… somewhere deep inside, I really don’t want to scare this girl. The wolves are bad enough; every time they howl to each other, the sound carried on the breeze, City Girl jumps and lets out a tiny squeak then picks up the pace. Makes me want to step out of the trees, walk beside her, and say some comforting shit. Makes me want to be the man I left behind in that other life, at least for a few hours.
“Oh god,” the girl mutters, boots slipping over loose rocks as she clambers down a steep slope. “Oh, man. I’m too young to die.”
Too young.
Too sweet.
Too innocent.
…Agreed.
Why didn’t I answer her damn questions back there? Would it have killed me to be friendly for a change? Hanging back in the shadows, I follow her progress with a sour taste in my mouth.
It’s her fear—that’s what does it. The panic rolls off her in waves, making the trees shiver and my skin tighten and her footsteps extra clumsy. This whole forest is tensed when she finally steps wrong.
“Careful—”
My voice cuts through the quiet, echoing through the trees, but it’s too late. Like a slow-motion clip, I watch her boot land wrong, the loose rocks sliding away beneath her; I see her arms pinwheel and her weight fall back. Heart stopped, standing uselessly in the shadows, I watch the city girl slip and tumble down the rest of the slope, her colorful body slamming into rocks and hard dirt and exposed tree roots before finally landing in a colorful heap.
I’m running before my brain processes what’s happened. No attempts to be silent—my body crashes through the undergrowth, swiping plants and thin branches out of the way in my rush to reach her. There’s a high pitched ringing sound in my ears and suddenly I’m with my unit again, bullets flying, men groaning in pain, trying desperately to reach the injured—
