my shadow I’m seeing, not her. But sometimes I still gasp whenever I glimpse the dusky stain of my own shape.
Last night, I asked Iris again about her odd snatches of memory and what she had meant about everything being tied to the music. And again, she told me she didn’t understand what she was sensing. A tremor started deep in my core, and for the first time, I realized how upset Iris is. Does she think she’s failing me?
“It’s so quiet here,” Ty says in a low voice, interrupting my thoughts.
“Not really. You’re just not paying attention.” Stopping midstride, I grasp his arm. “Close your eyes and listen.”
I shut my own eyes and zone in on the orchestra tuning up around me. Aspen branches rasping as the breeze rubs them together like a bow against a string. The trill of birdsong. Water tinkling over rock in the nearby stream. The tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker.
“Amazing,” says Ty, and I open my eyes to find him watching me.
“What?” I ask, afraid to hope that he heard what I did—what I always do when I’m out here.
“I did hear something.”
“Really?”
Ty guides my hand to his chest, presses my palm against it. “My heartbeat,” he says. “It’s all I can ever hear when we’re together.” He winces. “How cheesy did that sound? Sorry. You make me nervous.”
“I make you nervous?” I ask, caught up in his stare.
Ty’s head lowers and his breath feathers against my mouth before his lips catch mine. I taste his tongue, warm and wet, soft and rough at once. Standing in the middle of the trail, we kiss for a long time, and when we stop, every nerve in my body is electrified.
I keep my hands on his shoulders, and Ty’s arms stay around my waist as he looks up into the trees. “The wind in the limbs sounds like cards in the spokes of a bicycle wheel,” he says.
“I’ve never heard that noise.”
“You’re kidding.” He draws back slightly and scowls. “What kid never attached cards to their bicycle wheels?”
“A kid who was fishing and hiking and playing hockey.”
“Yeah, right. You play hockey?” He gives me a measuring look of disbelief.
“Ice and roller hockey, as a matter of fact,” I say proudly. “Why does that surprise you?”
He shrugs. “You don’t look like the sort of girl who’d play such a rough sport.”
“Meaning, what? That I don’t have broad shoulders or tree trunk legs?”
“Well, yeah. Or a mustache.” One corner of his mouth quirks up as he pulls the edge of my stocking cap down to the tip of my nose.
I giggle and shove him away, then push my cap up again. We step apart and resume the hike. I spot a familiar wall of granite rising up the mountain side of the trail. Pointing, I tell him, “That’s part of one of the dikes that wind through this area. Have you seen them?”
He nods. “They look like the ridged sail on the back of a spinosaurus.”
“They do sort of look like that,” I say with a laugh. “If you believe in the legend, the wall captured the spirits of the Indians who used to live here, and if you lay your hands on the surface of the rock you can feel their energy inside. The legend also says that if you press your ear against the wall, you can hear the Indians beating drums and chanting.”
“My mother believes in all of that metaphysical stuff,” Ty says as we stop beside the wall. He places both palms against the rock and goes very still, then suddenly wails and his body starts jerking like he’s being electrocuted.
“Very funny,” I say, crossing my arms and smirking at him.
He pushes away from the wall, laughing hysterically. “I couldn’t help myself. Sorry. I didn’t feel anything. It just feels cold.” Leaning forward, he presses his ear to the spot above his hands and feigns a serious expression.
“Well?” I ask.
Ty steps back. “I guess my mom’s the only one in the family with an ear for music.”
“Your mother likes music?”
“It’s her life. She’s teaches high school orchestra and gives private lessons. She plays all of the stringed instruments. The cello. The violin.”
“That’s a coincidence.” I think of the violin in Dad’s workshop. “My mom used to play the violin, too. She doesn’t anymore, though. I’ve never even heard her.”
“What about you?” Ty asks with a curious glance and a flicker of something in his voice I can’t identify. “Are you a musician, too?”