what to say to her, was unsure why she seemed so sad suddenly. He was confused about all of this. Part of him wanted her to leave right away so things would go back to normal, and the other part of him hated his normal. “Do you think they might need me to fight in the war? Are they looking for soldiers?”
“No, I don’t think so. I really have to go. My family will be looking for me.”
He frowned, not understanding how she suddenly knew her way back when they hadn’t even stepped outside of his house, but before he could ask, she said, “You’re not uncivilized at all, Jak. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you are, okay?”
He didn’t answer. Who was he going to tell? As far as he knew, he might go his whole life never talking to anyone except Isaac Driscoll again.
“Let me walk you to—”
“No.” She took a quick glance around the room they were in, her eyes moving over the ceiling like she was looking for something. “I’m fine now.” She walked to his front door and opened it, turning around after she’d stepped onto his porch. He stood in the doorway, watching her. She gave him a shaky smile, reaching her hand out. He looked at it, not knowing what she wanted. “Shake my hand, Jak. This is what people do.”
He reached his hand out and took hers, and she grasped his hand, holding on and moving her eyes up and to the side like she was telling him to look somewhere with her eyes. But before he could figure what she was telling him to look at, she pulled him to her, and as she hugged him, she whispered, “There’s a camera in that tree behind me. Don’t make it obvious you know it’s there. I saw one down by the river too as I was on my way to you.”
On your way to me? “Camera?” he whispered. A camera took . . . pictures. He remembered. He remembered that word.
“You’re being watched. Please don’t tell anyone about me.”
Before he could ask her anything, she turned and ran away, going through the trees toward the road in the not too faraway.
He watched her until she disappeared, his heart pounding. They’re watching you. What did that mean? Watched by who? I saw one down by the river too. A camera. A camera watched.
Jak closed the door and then sat in his cabin, doing the numbers his baka had taught him in the long ago as he tried to clear his mind and slow his speeding heart. What is going on? He counted to one thousand, twice, and then took his bow and arrow and his coat and went back outside. He took a few steps in the snow and then bent down like he was fixing something on his boot, but while his hands moved on a tie, he looked upward through his hair that hid his face.
He didn’t know what he was looking for and it was a few minutes before he saw a small flash of something dark that was not a material found in the forest high up in the branches of the tree. He stood, putting his bow and arrow on his back again and walking toward the river.
His thoughts rolled and jumped like a downhill stream as he tried to make sense of what was happening with what was too little knowing.
Should he ask Driscoll? Maybe he was being watched too. But Jak threw away the thought. He hated the man, and he’d been trading with him for less and less as the winters had passed. Jak had either figured out how to do without things he’d gotten before from Driscoll, or he’d learned to make them himself using things he could find in the forest.
For all he knew, Driscoll was the one watching him. His skin prickled. Driscoll is bad. He’d known that, though, figured it out a long time ago. But . . . what did Jak have to fear from Driscoll’s badness, whatever it was? Jak was way stronger than him now, though he’d never tried to hurt Jak even when he wasn’t.
The river came up, the low roar of the icy water splashing over rocks and around small raised pieces of land in the middle of the rushing river. He’d bet there was a name for those, but he didn’t know what it was. He’d bet there was a name for everything, if