kids were pretty well adjusted. But then the twins had lived through their brother’s death . . . What had that done to them, losing their brother at such an early age?
There was a crack of branches. She opened her eyes to see Ryan approaching in the distance, his terrier not far behind. She didn’t see him much nowadays, only on the doorstep of one of her neighbours’ houses when he was called out to check a tree overhanging their garden.
He played a crucial role in Forest Grove’s fabric. Though living in a forest had many plusses, there were also many challenges. Trees had to be checked on a regular basis to ensure they didn’t fall down and harm residents. Alerts needed to be put out via the emergency text service Ryan had set up to warn of weather events, such as high winds, that might create safety concerns. There was a problem with wildlife too, from mice to rats, foxes and deer, something Ryan oversaw. He may not have been as sociable as other residents, living in the forest as he did and never attending events, but he was an essential part of life in the forest.
Melissa took the opportunity to watch him before he caught sight of her. He was wearing his usual uniform of black cargo pants and his green forest ranger T-shirt, which revealed his scarred, muscled arms. His fair hair had grown since she’d last seen him, curling around his ears.
He paused when he noticed her. She sat up and wiped her tears away as he strode over, his one-eyed dog bounding after him.
‘You okay?’ he asked when he got to her, his vivid blue eyes full of concern.
‘Not really,’ she admitted.
He gestured over his shoulder. ‘Need to be alone?’
She shook her head. ‘Please stay. I could do with the company.’
Sandy appeared from a crop of trees then, jumping up at Ryan as Ryan’s dog let out a low growl.
‘As obedient as ever, I see, Sandy,’ Ryan said as he crouched down to stroke the Labrador. He peered up at Melissa. ‘How you holding up?’
‘Not great.’
‘The kids?’
Melissa looked down at her fingers, scraping bark from beneath her nails. ‘Not great either.’
She looked up again to see that he’d kept his eyes on hers, and she wondered if he could see the secrets and lies within them. He did have a knack of knowing what she was thinking. Or at least he used to, anyway. They’d been so close as kids when they lived in the forest together. Ryan had arrived first, after his mother passed away giving birth to him. They’d lived in a miserable town a hundred miles away originally, but when his dad took a job as a forest ranger, they moved into the woods, Ryan’s dad burying his grief in the trees . . . and in drink too. He’d let Ryan run feral among the trees, and though Ryan was fed and had a bed to sleep in, there was no proper sense of nurturing, especially when his dad took to drinking.
They were living alone in the forest until Melissa moved there with her parents three years later. Her dad had lost his job as a lorry driver and fell behind on the mortgage repayments on the house he owned in Ashbridge, the nearest town. He found the dilapidated cottage a few minutes’ walk from Ryan and his dad’s lodge and bought it at auction.
Melissa had loved it when she first saw it, all the graffiti on the walls and the big hole in the top floor exciting to her at the time. Her parents were excited too, her dad harbouring grand plans to turn it into the ‘most beautiful cottage in the woods you’ve ever seen’ and her mother finally able to live in the forest she felt so spiritually connected to. She’d grown up in the New Forest, brought up by her New Age parents there. When she’d met Melissa’s father and moved to Ashbridge with him, town life had stifled her. But being back in the forest seemed to calm her. As the months wore on, though, and the strain of doing up the cottage intensified, that dream grew more distant, and Melissa’s father’s angry outbursts more frequent too.
So Melissa escaped into the woods one day as her parents argued, chasing deer and rabbits until she saw a muddy boy her age doing kung-fu moves on top of a tree trunk. His face was filthy, his fair hair