Every year without him, it gets easier to pretend Nova doesn\u2019t believe in myth and magic. Easier to pretend she\u2019s doing okay. Easier to pretend she doesn\u2019t have a secret crush on the girl she fake-hates.<\/p>\n
Kiara Mistry is the luckiest girl in town and the thief of every crush Nova had her heart set on first. In theory, Nova should resent Kiara. But it\u2019s getting harder to deny her feelings.<\/p>\n
When Nova lays an unintended hex on Kiara at the Fall Festival, and one misfortune after another swiftly follows, soon Kiara\u2019s very survival is at stake. To reverse the bad luck, Kiara\u2019s exes turned BFFs commence a quest for the miraculous wishing well. There\u2019s only one person who can get them there . . . Nova.<\/p>\n
But to save Kiara\u2014and maybe find her dad, too\u2014she\u2019ll have to believe in something much stronger than magic. Nova will need to believe in herself.<\/p>\n
Nova, if you weren\u2019t so good at keeping secrets, you wouldn\u2019t be in the dark maw of the forest now.<\/p>\n
Certainly not on the heels of dusk, hugging myself against the biting cold and the prickling unease. Definitely not after I\u2019d been forbidden by my last remaining parent. Not once, not twice, but as long as memory. And considering these are the same woods that stole my father from us seven years ago, Mom has good reason.<\/p>\n
But she\u2019s given up hope, and I never will.<\/p>\n
I try to make it out here once a week, try to push myself to go an extra step, then fifty feet, then half a mile. Today I\u2019m the farthest I\u2019ve ever been, but compared to the impossible vastness of Longing Woods, that\u2019s not saying much. Between school, home, volunteering, and friends, I don\u2019t get to spend much time here. It\u2019s not nothing, but at this rate, I\u2019ll never find Dad.<\/p>\n
And after this long, I\u2019m the only one still looking.<\/p>\n
If anyone knew I was doing this, they\u2019d say it was a fool\u2019s hope. A desperate daughter plunging headfirst into danger to find a man everyone else believes to be long dead. Maybe they\u2019re right, but my heart tells me my dad is alive. And if he \u00adis\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. I\u2019m his last hope.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s been missing exactly seven years to the day. The day of our town\u2019s Fall Festival. Today is scarred into us like my parents\u2019 initials carved into the bark of the trees I passed a mile back. Losing him isn\u2019t something we\u2019ve gotten over or moved past, as though such a thing should even be possible. One of the people who loved me the most in the world is gone. Nothing about that will ever be okay.<\/p>\n
Mom and I have never acknowledged the anniversary of his disappearance, not even once. It hurt and confused me when I was a child, but I get it now. It already tortures Mom enough every other day of the year. The last thing I want is to compound it, but here I am, doing just that.<\/p>\n
Is it worth risking Mom\u2019s wrath and being grounded for the rest of my junior year?<\/p>\n
Without question.<\/p>\n
There are thousands of living things merrily going about their business, completely unconcerned with the fading day and the teenage girl in their midst and the fear nipping at her heart. I\u2019m the furthest thing from alone out here, but that\u2019s not as comforting as it sounds. Strange noises always follow me wherever I go. Something more than the wind rustling dry leaves or crickets calling to each other.<\/p>\n
There! There it is again.<\/p>\n
Soft crunches surround me. Whisper soft, like careful footfalls trying not to give themselves away. My breath catches. I rub away the prickles on the back of my neck, the insides of my wrists. Steady my breathing the way Dad and, later, my therapist taught me.<\/p>\n
It could be anything: Gray squirrels scrambling across brittle September leaves, collecting nuts. The huffs and grunts of antlered elk. Plump wild turkeys with their dark plumage foraging for seeds and insects, stalking the odd small reptile, too. I don\u2019t mind the frogs and lizards, but the last thing I want is to run across a snake.<\/p>\n
Dad\u2019s stomach wouldn\u2019t be tense with sick dread, but mine definitely is. I might have been raised by a fearless outdoorsman for the first ten years of my life, but I spent the next seven living in the shadow of his disappearance.<\/p>\n
I whip around, wild eyes darting.<\/p>\n
Nothing there.<\/p>\n
And even though I strain my eyes and ears, I can\u2019t hear anything except my own shallow breathing, and even that\u2019s drummed out by the violent ticking in my ears. Blood rushes to the tips of my fingers, and just like that, I\u2019m not cold anymore.<\/p>\n
Somehow, I always expect coming here to be easier, but it still takes all my courage to step beyond the tree line that stands as the gateway between the Tennessee mountain town of Prior\u2019s End and the Longing Woods. I\u2019m about two miles in today, according to the last trail marker I passed. The way has been uneven in parts but nowhere near as rocky and rambling as it will get if I go deeper.<\/p>\n
As much as I want to, I don\u2019t have the gear to keep going. Hiking and camping equipment is expensive, and besides, I have nowhere to hide it at home.<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t ask my friends to hang on to it for me, either. Austin and Caroline would rightfully flip out if they knew what I was doing; they wouldn\u2019t find it easy to keep my \u00adstuff\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. or my secret. And my forays into the woods have to be a secret, which means I have to be back before sunset. Before Mom wonders where I am or what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n
So tonight, this is as far as I go.<\/p>\n
Guilt surges in my belly. I was wrong. Two miles is nothing. If Dad was this close to civilization, he would have made it back to us. He would have come across other hikers who could have helped him. Wherever he is, it\u2019s nowhere close.<\/p>\n
And on my own, I\u2019m no closer to finding him.<\/p>\n
Even if it\u2019s hopeless, I need answers. I need to know his fate. Not to move on, because that\u2019s one thing I will never do. I will love and miss him forever. But I do need to reshape myself around his absence. And I can\u2019t do that if I don\u2019t know what happened out there.<\/p>\n
My father, Jules Marwood, was a wilderness survival specialist. He took groups out for overnight excursions, long weekends, even tailored weeklong corporate training designed to promote team building, problem-solving, and leadership. He and Shane, Austin\u2019s dad, practically spent their childhood in the woods. The two best friends knew every stump, stone, and stem. They were the ones who went looking for unprepared folks, not the ones who got lost.<\/p>\n
Which is why it\u2019s never made sense to me how Austin\u2019s dad got swallowed up in the Longing Woods, and so, too, did my dad when he went after him. My rational mind knows that park rangers and volunteer search parties made it deeper than I ever have before they gave up, but my wounded heart fights it like a wild thing in a trap, fierce and doomed.<\/p>\n
As I turn back, for a half second, I think I see a dark silhouette moving between the trees.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t dare blink, but it\u2019s gone anyway. If it was ever there at all.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t stop me from imagining a flash of a blue backpack, sleeping bag rolled tight and snug at the top. A man\u2019s dimple sinking into his beard when he catches sight of me, kind eyes crinkling at the corners. His favorite \u00adolive-\u200b\u00adgreen belt that had lost so much color over the years. Socks pulled up high against tanned calves. The same weathered down jacket he\u2019s had for years, a birthday present from Mom the year they began dating. He\u2019s the way I remember him, early thirties and a little scruffy. His smile overtaking his whole face, like he can\u2019t believe it\u2019s really his little Nova, all grown up.<\/p>\n
A Super Nova, he\u2019d joke, or at least I think he would. The passage of time is unforgiving, and memory is dicey. Austin and I didn\u2019t have our own phones when we were ten to record goofy videos with our dads, to immortalize the grins and \u00adgood-\u200b\u00adnatured protests when they\u2019d catch us. Unlike our friend Caroline, all we have are the faded memories that crumble a little more with every year that passes.<\/p>\n
What I can be absolutely sure of, however, is that I\u2019m just a girl alone in the woods.<\/p>\n
No backup, no true bushcraft supplies. The almost-empty water bottle and trail mix that\u2019s more sugar than nutrition would earn me one of Dad\u2019s expressive eye rolls, a bad habit I inherited along with, evidently, a penchant for bad ideas. I can almost hear his voice whisper on the wind, What\u2019s the first lesson of wilderness survival that I always tell my students before we head out on the trail, Nova?<\/p>\n
My answer is swift, instinctive:<\/p>\n
Trust your team. Your partners are your best rescuers in case of any injury, misfortune, or calamity.<\/p>\n
The anger is unexpected and immediate.<\/p>\n
It was your lesson, Dad. Why did you ignore it?<\/p>\n
Silence.<\/p>\n
See also<\/p>\n
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