Neon Orange Tape

A loud crack echoed through the trees.

I froze. My heavy boots stopped sinking into the mud. I held my breath. My shoulders hunched up to my ears. I waited for the ground to shake. I waited for the yelling to start.

Nothing happened.

It was just a dead branch falling from a dead tree. The forest was full of them. Last summer, a massive wildfire burned through this part of Northwestern Ontario. Now, the trees looked like giant black pencils sticking up out of the dirt. There were no leaves. There were no pine needles. Just tall, black sticks pointing at the bright blue spring sky.

"Keep moving," Emmond said.

He was walking a few steps ahead of me. His bright yellow rain jacket was the only color in the whole world. Everything else was brown mud, black wood, and dirty white patches of melting snow.

"I am moving," I said.

My voice sounded thin. It got lost in the huge, empty space between the burned trees. I looked down at my feet. My boots were covered in thick, brown mud. Every time I took a step, the mud made a loud, sucking sound. Shhh-wuck. Shhh-wuck. It felt like the earth was trying to eat my shoes.

My backpack weighed a ton. It was full of notebooks, pens, a heavy plastic clipboard, and three rolls of neon orange tape. We were here for our senior biology project. We had to find new green saplings growing in the burn scar. We had to tag them with the orange tape. We had to write down how tall they were.

It was supposed to be a simple project. But nothing felt simple anymore.

My stomach felt tight. It felt like I had swallowed a handful of heavy rocks. The rocks sat right in the middle of my belly, pulling me down. I hated this forest. I hated the smell of the wet, burned wood. It smelled like a campfire that someone had poured a bucket of dirty water over. It smelled like things ending.

"Look at this," Emmond called out.

He stopped and pointed at the ground. I dragged my feet forward. Shhh-wuck. Shhh-wuck. My legs burned. I wanted to sit down, but the ground was too wet. If I sat down, the wet cold would soak right through my jeans.

I stopped next to Emmond. He was pointing at a tiny, bright green plant poking out of the black ash.

"Jack pine," Emmond said. He pulled his cracked phone out of his pocket and looked at a picture on the screen. "Definitely a Jack pine. Look at the needles. They come in pairs."

I stared at the tiny plant. It was no bigger than my hand. It looked way too small to be living out here in this giant, dead forest. The wind blew hard, and the little green stem shook.

"Tape it," Emmond said.

I reached into my pocket. My fingers were freezing. I pulled out the roll of neon orange tape. The edges of the tape were covered in dirt and pocket lint. I tried to peel the end of the tape up, but my fingers were too stiff. I picked at it with my thumbnail. I dropped the roll.

It fell right into a puddle of brown water.

"Great," I said.

I bent down to pick it up. The water was icy cold. It soaked right into the cuff of my jacket sleeve. The cold wetness hugged my wrist. I shivered. My jaw clenched tight.

I wiped the wet roll of tape on my jeans. It just made a brown streak across my leg. I finally peeled the edge up and tore off a long piece. I kneeled down in the mud. The cold wetness instantly soaked into my knees. I wrapped the bright orange tape around the tiny green stem. I tied a loose knot.

Emmond pulled out the heavy plastic clipboard. He clicked his pen three times.

"Tree number one," he said. He wrote on the paper. His handwriting was messy. "Height is... what do you think? Four inches?"

"Five," I said.

"Five inches," he repeated, writing it down.

He looked at me. His face was smudged with black ash. He had a big streak of it across his forehead. His brown eyes looked tired. We were both tired.

"Only ninety-nine more to go," he said.

He tried to smile, but it looked fake. He was trying to act like everything was normal. He was trying to be the fun science partner. But I knew he felt the heavy rocks in his stomach, too.

We stood up and kept walking. The trail got steeper. There used to be a clear dirt path here, but the fire had destroyed all the trail markers. Now, it was just a confusing mess of fallen logs and deep puddles.

I had to lift my leg high to step over a massive, burned tree trunk lying across the path. The bark on the trunk looked like black alligator skin. When my boot scraped against it, the black wood crumbled into dust.

"You are walking way too slow," Emmond said. He was already ten feet ahead of me again.

"The mud is deep," I said.

"You are dragging your feet on purpose," he said.

"I am not," I said loudly.

My heart started to beat faster. My hands curled into fists. I felt a hot, angry feeling rising up in my chest. It felt like a bubble of hot air expanding behind my ribs.

Emmond stopped and turned around. He crossed his arms over his bright yellow jacket.

"You are ghosting your own life, Macey," he said.

I stopped. The wind blew a cold gust of air against my face. My nose was running. I wiped it with the back of my dirty, wet glove.

"Shut up," I said.

"No," Emmond said. He took a step toward me. "I will not shut up. You ignore my texts. You do not eat lunch with anyone. You just sit in the back of the class and stare at the wall. You look like a zombie."

"I am tired," I said.

"We are all tired," he said. His voice got louder. "But you have to stop acting like you are the only one who cares. Leo was my friend, too."

Hearing the name made my chest hurt. It felt like someone had punched me right in the ribs. The hot bubble of anger popped, leaving behind a cold, hollow feeling.

Leo.

Leo with the loud laugh. Leo who always wore a backward baseball cap. Leo who slipped on the wet rocks last fall.

I looked away from Emmond. I looked at the giant black trees. They looked like prison bars. I wanted to run away, but my heavy boots were stuck in the mud.

"It is my fault," I whispered. My voice shook.

"It was an accident," Emmond said. His voice was softer now. "He slipped. The rocks were wet. You could not stop him from falling. Nobody could."

"I was right next to him," I said. My throat felt tight. It was hard to swallow. "I should have grabbed his jacket. I should have done something. I just stood there."

"You reached for him," Emmond said. "I saw you. You tried."

"I missed," I said.

I looked down at my hands. My gloves were covered in brown mud and black ash. These were the hands that missed. These were the hands that failed.

"Stop looking backwards," Emmond said. "You are going to trip."

I did not listen. I turned around and started walking fast. I just wanted to get away from him. I wanted to get away from the heavy feeling. I wanted to get out of this giant, dead forest.

I stomped through a deep puddle. Dirty water splashed up to my knees.

"Macey, slow down," Emmond called out.

"Leave me alone," I yelled back over my shoulder.

I walked faster. I wasn't looking at the ground. I was looking at the sky, trying to stop the tears from falling. The sky was flat and white, like a dirty sheet.

My right boot hit a smooth, wet root hiding under the mud.

My foot shot out from under me. The world tilted. The giant black trees spun around.

I fell hard.

I threw my hands out to catch myself. My palms hit the rocky ground. A sharp, burning pain shot up my left arm. My knees slammed into a jagged piece of burned wood.

I heard my jeans rip.

I landed flat on my side in the wet mud. The breath got knocked out of my lungs. I laid there for a second, gasping like a fish. The cold mud seeped through my jacket.

"Macey!" Emmond yelled.

I heard his heavy boots running toward me. Splash. Splash. Splash.

I sat up slowly. The world was spinning a little bit. My hands were covered in dirt and tiny little cuts from the rocks. But the real pain was in my left knee.

I looked down. My jeans were torn wide open. Underneath the ripped blue fabric, my knee was scraped raw. Bright red blood was welling up, mixing with the dark brown mud and the black ash. It looked bad. It stung like crazy. The cold wind hit the wet blood, and it felt like fire.

Emmond dropped to his knees right into the mud next to me. He didn't even care about getting his yellow jacket dirty.

"Are you okay?" he asked. His eyes were wide.

"My knee," I hissed. I grabbed my leg right above the cut. My fingers squeezed my leg tight.

Emmond looked at the blood. He swallowed hard. "Okay. Okay, do not move. I have a kit."

He pulled his backpack off. He ripped the zipper open. He started throwing things out onto the wet ground. Notebooks. Pens. A squished granola bar. Finally, he pulled out a small, red plastic box. It was cracked down the middle.

He popped the box open. He dug through the messy pile of bandages and pulled out a little white square packet.

"This is going to sting," he said.

He ripped the packet open with his teeth. He pulled out a wet, white wipe. It smelled strongly of chemicals and alcohol. The smell hit my nose and instantly reminded me of the hospital. The bright lights. The loud beeping machines. The smell of bleach.

My stomach rolled over. I felt sick.

Emmond pressed the wet wipe against my bloody knee.

"Ow!" I yelled. I jerked my leg back.

"Hold still," he said. He grabbed my ankle with his other hand to keep my leg steady. "I have to get the dirt out. If I do not, it will get infected."

He wiped the cut again. The pain was sharp and hot. I squeezed my eyes shut. I bit down hard on my bottom lip. I tasted copper. I was biting so hard I almost made my lip bleed, too.

"Breathe," Emmond said.

I opened my eyes. I took a deep, shaky breath. The cold air filled my lungs.

Emmond tossed the bloody, dirty wipe onto the mud. He dug into the red box again and pulled out a large, square band-aid. He peeled the paper off the back. His hands were shaking a little bit.

He carefully placed the sticky pad over the scrape. He pressed the edges down onto my skin.

"There," he said. "Good as new."

It wasn't good as new. It throbbed with a dull, heavy ache. But the bright red blood was hidden now.

Emmond sat back on his heels. He looked at me. His yellow jacket was covered in mud now. His knees were completely soaked.

"You cannot run away from the ground, Macey," he said quietly.

I didn't say anything. I just stared at the band-aid on my knee.

"You cannot run away from what happened, either," he added.

I picked up a small, black rock and threw it into a puddle. Plop.

"I am not trying to run away," I said. "I just want it to stop feeling so heavy. Every morning I wake up, and I remember he is gone. And it feels like a house fell on me. I cannot breathe. I cannot think. I just see him falling. Over and over."

Emmond reached out and touched my arm. His muddy glove rested on my sleeve.

"I see it, too," he said.

I looked at him. Really looked at him. I saw the dark circles under his eyes. I saw how he kept nervously picking at the plastic zipper on his jacket. I realized he was carrying the heavy rocks in his stomach, too. He was just better at hiding them.

We sat there in the mud for a long time. The wind howled through the dead branches above us. It sounded like a giant, sad song. But sitting there, sharing the quiet, the heavy feeling in my chest got a tiny bit lighter.

Emmond pointed to the side of the trail.

"Look," he said.

I turned my head. Next to a huge, blackened stump, a tall plant was growing. It had bright pink and purple flowers clustered at the top. The colors were so loud and bright they almost hurt my eyes against all the grey and black.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Fireweed," Emmond said. "It is the first thing that grows back after a forest fire. Its seeds need the heat from the fire to pop open. It literally needs the worst thing to happen before it can start growing."

I stared at the bright pink flowers. They were beautiful. They looked tough. They were growing right out of the ashes.

"The forest is not dead, Macey," Emmond said. He picked up his messy backpack and started shoving his notebooks back inside. "It is just starting over. It takes a long time. It is messy. It is muddy. But it is happening."

I looked at the little Jack pine we had tagged earlier. I could just see the flash of neon orange tape in the distance.

I slowly stood up. My knee throbbed, but my leg held my weight. The mud sucked at my boots again, but this time, I didn't feel like it was trying to pull me under.

"Okay," I said.

Emmond zipped his backpack and threw it over his shoulder. He handed me the heavy plastic clipboard.

"Ready to find tree number two?" he asked.

I took the clipboard. The plastic felt cold and hard in my hands.

"Yes," I said.

We started walking again. The pace was slower now. I was careful where I put my feet. I watched out for the smooth, hidden roots. I stepped carefully over the crumbling black logs.

We found another tiny green sapling hiding under a rock. I kneeled down carefully, keeping my bad knee straight. I pulled out the tape. My fingers were still cold, but they didn't shake this time. I tore off a bright orange piece and tied it around the stem.

"Tree number two," Emmond said, writing it down. "Height... three inches."

"Looks like four to me," I said.

"Fine. Four inches," he said.

We found a third one. Then a fourth.

The rhythm of it started to soothe me. Find the green. Tear the tape. Tie the knot. Write the number.

It was a tiny, repetitive action. But it felt good to do something real. It felt good to be looking for life instead of staring at the dead stuff.

The sky started to change. The flat white clouds broke apart. A single ray of bright yellow sunlight pierced through the grey. It hit the muddy ground, making the puddles shine like dirty mirrors. The air felt a tiny bit warmer.

"I think the sun is coming out," Emmond said. He unzipped his yellow jacket halfway.

"Maybe," I said.

We kept moving. The forest was huge, but it didn't feel like a trap anymore. It just felt like a very big, very quiet room.

We tagged our fifteenth tree. My knee was aching a lot now. Every time I bent it, the band-aid pulled at my skin. But the heavy rock in my stomach had shrunk down to the size of a pebble.

"Let's take a break at the top of this ridge," Emmond said, pointing ahead.

The ridge was steep. It was covered in loose, black rocks and slippery ash. I took a deep breath and started to climb. I used my hands to grab onto solid rocks, pulling myself up. My boots slipped a few times, but I caught my balance.

Emmond reached the top first. He stood there, looking out over the other side.

"Wow," he said.

I scrambled up next to him. I stood up and wiped the dirt off my hands.

From the top of the ridge, we could see for miles. The burn scar went on and on, rolling over hills and valleys. But from up here, you could see the green. Millions of tiny, bright green dots speckled the black landscape. The fireweed flashed pink in patches. The forest really was coming back to life.

I took a deep breath of the spring air. It still smelled a little bit like wet ash, but there was something else now. The smell of wet dirt. The smell of things growing.

I looked down at my hands. They were dirty. My boots were ruined. My knee was bleeding. But I was standing here. I was alive.

Emmond reached into his pocket and pulled out his cracked phone.

"No signal up here either," he said, putting it back.

"Does not matter," I said. "We know where we are going."

He smiled. A real smile this time. It made the dirt smudges on his face crinkle up.

"Yeah. We do," he said.

He turned around to scan the valley below us for our next sapling.

I closed my eyes for a second, feeling the warmth of the sun on my cold face. For the first time in months, I felt quiet inside. The loud, crashing memories were finally starting to settle.

I opened my eyes and looked out over the endless sea of black trees and green shoots.

And that is when the loud, screaming whistle ripped through the air, followed instantly by a blinding red flare shooting straight up into the sky from the valley right below us.