“Can I get you anything? Coffee? Soda? Hot chocolate?”
Landon fussed over Leila as she sat in his break room, a small but cozy little space tucked away in the back of the ranger station in Fairmount Park, just a forty-minute hike away from where the grove and mansion were. They’d walked in relative silence as the events replayed in Leila’s head again and again. She sighed and tried to sink further into the squishy chair she’d decided to live the rest of her life in, nestling into the extra ranger jacket Landon had given her. It smelled like him, of the sawdust and crunchy leaves, sandalwood and vanilla soap.
“I’m good, thanks,” Leila said. She pulled out her phone and scowled at the dead battery, the black screen blinking on just to remind her it needed to be charged.
After a moment, he returned with two steaming cups.
“I got you a hot chocolate anyway,” he said, sitting down next to her and pushing the cup across the smooth wooden table. “Holding up okay?”
“I don’t know. It’s been a weird day. My biological mother is a magical creature from mythology. My father is, well,” Leila looked up at the small plaque in the break room, her heart heavy. “How’d you figure it out?”
“Math, I guess.” Landon shrugged. “The, uh,” he shook his head, “the lady in the woods said you’d been taken away when you were two. And almost everyone who works in the park service, at least the ones who work outside, know the story of . . . should we say your dad? Your father?”
“What?” Leila asked, her eyebrows arching up.
“It’s just, you know, I know he’s your biological father and all,” Landon said, his words careful, as though he was walking on eggshells. “Look, I just don’t want to say the wrong word here. You’re adopted now, you have a father, and this other man? I just know it’s a sensitive thing and want to be aware of what I’m saying. If that even makes sense.”
Leila smiled, and felt a bloom of warmth in her chest. She fought the urge not to reach out and hold his hand. Why couldn’t everyone be this sensitive to her situation?
“It does. And I appreciate that,” Leila said. “I suppose ‘biological father’ is fine for now. Or just his name.”
She glanced up at the plaque again.
In Memory of Jared Blackwell
June 8th, 1957 - August 17th, 2004
Service: 1979 – 1999
The Blackwell Ranger Station was built and established in June of 2005, to honor and remember Jared Blackwell, a member of the Fairmount Park Service for over twenty years.
In the photo attached to the plaque and in the bronze relief of his face outside the building, she could see it. In his features, his eyes, his cheekbones, and sharp nose. There was no mistaking it, and it shook her every single time she glanced up at that photo.
“I just wonder what happened to him,” Leila said, gazing at the photo across the room.
“Yeah, well, a lot of people do,” Landon said, walking over towards the plaque. “It’s one of those things they talk to all the new recruits about. Don’t go into the park alone, be careful at night, things like that. It isn’t just visitors wandering the park at night who can end up hurt or missing. Rangers, too. People with experience.”
“I just don’t see how that kind of thing happens when, you know, your girlfriend is a magical creature of the forest,” Leila said, shaking her head. “How do you get lost? Wouldn’t some woodland creatures come to save the day or some such cartoon-movie nonsense?”
“I dunno.” Landon shrugged. “Seems like they’re pretty stuck where they are. Maybe he fell, hit his head or fell in the water. It happens with hikers sometimes. That’s one of the theories. It’s a big park, Leila.”
She sat in silence with Landon, looking at the photo.
“I’m sorry, I feel like I’m being too blunt here.” Landon shook his head.
“No, you’re just being real. Is it weird that I’m mad?” Leila asked, still looking at the picture. She glanced over at Landon, who walked over to her and sat back down. “I mean, I dunno. All my life I thought that if I found some answers, they would be . . . different. Obviously not your-mother-is-a-tree-creature different, but, like, maybe she was a runaway who got pregnant, had to give me up, didn’t know my father. Maybe they were a couple but just too young, and are now living happily someplace with a new family, and they think of me from time to time. Or my birth father was an awful man, a criminal, who forced himself on her.”
She shook her head, trying not to let the tears come, but failing.
“That’s what happens, you know? You dream up all these scenarios. Some are grand and ridiculous and you know that they are, like your biological parents are millionaires or celebrities or even just, like, someone in your neighborhood that you’ve never run into before. Or they are tragic and awful, they gave their lives for you, or died in an accident, or got murdered.
“It’s messed up and I know it’s messed up but I can’t help it, we all do it.” Leila choked back a sob and Landon tentatively moved closer to her. “But this? A tree? A missing person? It’s like everything has just been taken from me and replaced with something so outrageous that no one will ever believe it.”
“I believe you,” Landon said, looking right into her eyes.
“Sure, because you saw it all.” Leila buried her face in her hands. “Oh my God, how am I ever going to tell Sarika about this? We’d talked about the voices. About ignoring them. She’s going to think I lost it. And how are we supposed to save the tree people, or whatever?”
Leila laughed.
“At least I got one cliché,” she said, shaking her head.
“What’s that?” Landon asked.
“My birth mother finds me, and what does she want? Help.” Leila stood up, pushing her chair out. “It’s one of the things everyone warns you about. There are a million Lifetime movies about it. Your biological parents could come back and end up being terrible. Maybe they’ll want money or want to use you. Need an organ or something. Be careful. Blah, blah, blah. And now here we are.”
“Well, it feels a little different than that, no?” Landon asked. “I mean, it’s not about her or her tree pals. It’s everything around them. It’s you. Your new family. Your friends. She could let the city die with her, all these humans who forgot about her and the system that didn’t believe your biological father, who let him just disappear. But instead here she is, reaching out.”
Leila paused for a beat and took a deep breath, nodding.
“Hm,” she muttered. “You might be right on that. Still. I know it’s hard to understand, but it’s like something was just taken from me. Now there’s this responsibility. And I don’t know if I want it.”
Silence hung thick in the room.
“I should get home,” she said, looking at Landon. “This was . . . you were great. So great.” Her heart started to pound in her chest as she looked up at him. “I wish we’d met under normal circumstances. Maybe again at the Raptor Trust, or catching you trying to help Milford fly again. But, well, it is what it is.”
“Eh, I’ve had worse,” he said, shrugging with a little smirk.
“You have not.”
“One time, this girl I went out with, her mother was a mermaid. Lived in the Schuylkill River, I kid you not. Her uncles were sturgeons. You’re not the first mythological-creature-human I’ve spent an afternoon with.”
“Landon.”
“You sure you have to leave?” Landon asked. “I don’t mind, you know, making more hot chocolate and giving you some time to collect yourself in here.”
“Thanks, really, but no.” She pulled her phone out and waved it about. “My phone’s dead, so Jon and Lisabeth are going to be worried sick. Sarika is probably exploding by now.”
“I’d say ‘let’s do this again sometime,’ but maybe come by to just see the birds instead?” Landon suggested, smirking again.
“Sure.”
“Come on,” he said, standing up. “You can charge your phone in my truck. I’ll take you home, and I’ll be there for whatever other adventures await after today.”
He reached out his hand.
Leila took it.