“Then you won’t be scared to go back out there.” Kincaid squints at the clouds. “It’s daylight. Things usually don’t try to eat you in the daylight.”

I recognize his brand of teasing now, and I snort. “What is it with you and that marsh?”

“It’s a good place to be alone.”

“And you want to be alone with me.” Too late, I realize how it sounds. Oh, shit.

The last thing I expect him to say is “Yes.”

It opens a pocket of silence between us, the unspoken thing we’ve just acknowledged. My heart races and my body feels anything but still, yet we walk without discussion up a side street I’ve never taken, another shortcut, another steep hill that starts a fire in my quads. At an intersection of quiet streets, Kincaid scales the slope to an old cemetery surrounded by chain link. Ignores the gate, hops the fence. I follow. Inside stands a massive oak, leaves turned yellow, a blazing hand of glory against the sky.

We enter the woods on the far side of the cemetery, where the gravestones are sparse, forgotten-looking, a stone lamb for a lost child. Kincaid takes more care to make sure I’m keeping up this time. We follow two shallow gullies layered with blowdown and dead leaves, then come out in a familiar place, the ledge above the murals. He reaches out, holds my hand. My fingers feel small in his, oddly unfamiliar, and I can feel my pulse everywhere, every place I’d thought was private, untouchable.

He stashes his board in the weeds by the path, where his bag already sits; must’ve been there all day. Then we walk to the railroad bridge.

“How could anybody be under there?” By the time we climb the last slope to reach the railroad tracks, nerves have gotten me talking again. “I mean, I’ve seen the bridge. It’s not like there’s anything to hang on to in those tunnels. It’s stone.” I pause to catch my breath, watching him make the tracks. “Just saying, your Mumbler origin story needs some work.”

“He doesn’t follow rules like that. He can go anywhere.” Kincaid takes a few big steps, touching only the ties, arms out to the side for balance. “You’ve seen the painting. With those hands, he could probably stick on like a spider and crawl.”

A flash of white buzzes by my head, and I watch it spiral away, fluttering. “God.” I smooth my hair, imagining little insect legs tangling there, frantic. “I’m like a moth magnet lately.”

He looks up, watching it go. “Lace-border moth. They’re all over the marsh this time of year.”

And my closet, apparently. “What is he, then?” I say, actually finding the Mumbler a more appealing subject for once. “Where’d he come from?”