Archive of Our Own

“how can you possibly still be tired? you only slept the whole plane ride up here.” 

megan flips her turn signal and slides into the right lane, one eye on the speedometer. 

beside her, yoonchae is stifling a yawn behind her fist. in the other hand, she has a red marker, which she’s using to circle various points on the map spread out across half of the dashboard. 

“be careful around the bend up here,” she says. “ease up on the gas a little.” 

megan lets the dial tick down from seventy to sixty-five. she had been going nearly ninety before. the roads are damp, but her guess is that it’s just from the heavy fog that’s been present ever since they left the airport in north bend. there hasn’t been a drop of precipitation their whole drive eastwards. 

“what,” she hums, “you think something’s going to jump out and get us? bigfoot or something?” 

the map crinkles as yoonchae presses her marker down in two more spots. 

“no,” she replies evenly. “i think it’s about to rain and i would like to keep this car on the road.” 

it’s sort of spooky how quickly the downpour starts after yoonchae says it. megan has to switch the wipers on as the wall of rain crashes into them, slowing to a steady forty-five miles per hour. in the passenger’s seat, yoonchae doesn’t even look up from her map. 

“what the hell?” megan gives the brakes an experimental tap and feels the wheels slide, just a little. “the sky was cloudless not five minutes ago.” 

yoonchae hums. 

“the weather changes quickly around here. it’s the topography.” she jabs a thumb out the window. “all those mountains.” 

megan can’t see any mountains through the rain. she can barely see the road in front of them. she eases off the gas until the car is going about thirty, punching the hazards button as she does. she takes the bend with white knuckles, checking the rearview every so often. 

almost as quickly as the rain had begun, it clears up again. by the time they’re around the bend, the only evidence of the weather is the steam rising off the road and the little rivulets of water running down the windshield. when she chances a glance up at the sky, all megan can see is an expanse of pale blue, like nothing had ever happened. 

“like i said.” yoonchae leans back from the map, looking over. her hair is mussed on one side where she’d fallen asleep against the window of the plane. “it’s unpredictable.”

the town they pull into immediately sends chills down megan’s spine. there isn’t anything outwardly strange about it, not really. the buildings are a little run down, but they’re similar to the buildings megan has seen in every other small town in the northwestern u.s. the diner yoonchae makes them stop at is just like any other diner. 

“two coffees, please,” yoonchae tells the waitress without looking at the menu. “and one of whatever is your favorite thing to eat here.” 

megan gives yoonchae a look, eyes narrowed. 

“make that two, if you don’t mind,” she adds, trying and possibly failing to smile up at the waitress. “thanks.” 

megan isn’t exactly sure why yoonchae had requested this case. the file came up through local law enforcement, pushed through to the federal level by the frequency of the supposed kidnappings happening in cavern crossing; five missing persons reports in the last two months. 

“do you open your windows at night, agent skiendiel?” yoonchae asks after their coffee has arrived. 

megan watches her dump two creamers in and take a sip without stirring. 

“well, yeah. of course i do. in the summer, when it’s really warm,” she replies. “don’t you?”

“you might want to rethink that habit,” yoonchae says. “at least while we’re here.” 

megan has never gone so far as to blindly believe the whispers she hears about jeung yoonchae and her spooky theories. in her time working with yoonchae have proven that her theories aren’t always completely off base. she's right often enough that megan has stopped dismissing her ideas right off the bat; she's gotten a lot better at telling the difference between yoonchae's dry jokes and her subtle warnings. she’s pretty sure this one is the latter. 

“it’s a good thing it isn’t summer, then.” she’s testing her own theory—the theory that yoonchae is giving her a glimpse into whatever hunch she’s turning over in her mind.

yoonchae nods seriously. under the table, her knee is jogging out a steady, anxious rhythm.

“good thing,” she repeats. 

the plates the waitress comes back with makes yoonchae choke on her next sip of coffee. it takes everything megan has not to laugh at the little dribble that spills out of the corner of her partner’s mouth. 

“what, um, what is this?” yoonchae calls after the waitress. 

the girl turns around with such a thoroughly annoyed expression on her face that megan makes a mental note to bump her tip up from twenty percent to thirty. 

“it’s a face,” she says flatly. “duh.”

megan looks down at her own plate and sees the whipped cream on a double stack of pancakes rapidly melting out of a shape that looks far more phallic than facial. there’s even a strip of bacon artfully arranged at the tip. 

at the tip of the nose, that is.

“easy, jeung,” she murmurs, not wholly able to stifle her grin at the bewildered expression on yoonchae’s face. “it’s just a smiley face.” 

“some smiley face,” yoonchae mutters, swiping the tines of her fork through the design. 

she gets a little bit of the whipped cream at the corners of her mouth as she eats. megan spends so long trying to decide whether she should reach other and thumb it away that yoonchae ends up taking care of it herself, swiping a napkin over her lips absently as she pays the check. 

“twenty percent?” she asks without looking up at megan. 

“make it thirty,” she instructs. 

yoonchae does look up, then, perplexed and a little annoyed, but she does it anyway. megan double checks the receipt before they leave, satisfied at the number she sees scribbled over the total line. 

they meet chief of police sophia laforteza at dusk on the steps of a shiny new police station. sandwiched in between two abandoned buildings, the station looks almost as out of place as the cigarette perched between the chief’s glossy lips. 

“we’re—"

“agents skiendiel and jeung,” the chief interrupts. she pulls the cigarette away from her mouth and megan realizes belatedly that it isn’t even lit. “call me sophia, if you don’t mind. only my wife calls me chief laforteza.”

yoonchae’s laugh is a shade more genuine than the usual polite chuckles she offers to professionals they meet on the job. she sticks a hand out. 

“you’ve been expecting us, i take it.” 

“oh, sure,” sophia nods. she shakes yoonchae’s hand and then megan’s. she beckons them inside, flicking the unused cigarette into a small trash can by the door. “i’m the one who submitted the request to get you out here.” 

“when you say us,” megan falters, gesturing vaguely.

“i do mean you two specifically, yes,” sophia replies. 

she’s led them into a bullpen, which is nearly empty aside from a dark-haired officer standing in front of a bulletin board. tacked up onto the board are pictures of what megan recognizes as the missing people from the case file she’d skimmed on the flight. 

“lara,” sophia calls. “these are the fbi agents.”

“hi,” megan says, sticking a hand out as the woman turns to face them. she’s wearing some seriously red lipstick. it’s smudged all over the rim of her coffee mug. “i’m agent skiendiel, but you can call me megan. and this is agent jeung.” 

yoonchae is already halfway across the room, squinting at the bulletin board. 

“did you know any of these people?” 

lara, whose uniform says officer rajagopalan, nods slowly. she takes a long sip from her mug, then presses her finger against a glossy shot of a curly-haired woman beaming at the camera. 

“dani,” she says, voice a little hoarse. “my, uh—yeah. daniela.” 

sophia steps forward to put a hand on lara’s shoulder. standard protocol dictates that megan should request to ask lara a few questions, but something stops her. there’s another smudge of lipstick at the top left corner of dani’s picture, and megan knows that yoonchae has seen it too, because she lapses back without another word, shoulder pressing into megan’s deliberately. 

later, yoonchae will ask her if she noticed lara's fumbling answer to her question, and megan will say yes, of course i did, how could i possibly have missed that? and yoonchae's lip will curl, but she'll shift closer anyway and ask megan what she thinks it means.

“officers,” yoonchae ventures after a few too many seconds of silence. “would either of you mind giving us a recommendation for a place to stay? it's getting late."

for half a second, megan wants to nudge her for being impolite, until she remembers this is yoonchae, and yoonchae is nothing if not intentional. 

sophia pulls away from lara long enough to scribble an address down on a scrap of paper. as they’re leaving, yoonchae’s hand closes around megan’s wrist, stopping her from walking any further down the hallway that leads from the bullpen to the main entrance. she’s left the door cracked open behind her. they can hear lara saying something to sophia, voice soft and urgent. 

megan can only make out snatches of the conversation from their position. 

“—trust them—tom—” yoonchae shifts at her side, and the rustling of her coat cuts off lara’s voice for a few seconds. “never understand—what’s out there—” 

there’s a pregnant pause. then, at a normal volume, lara goes: 

“hello?”

it’s a little comical how quickly yoonchae’s face drops and she starts pulling on megan’s wrist again to drag her out of there, but megan is too focused on not tripping loudly over her heels to really laugh at her. 

when they get to the car, yoonchae forgets to let go of megan’s wrist right away. she blushes furiously when she realizes that she’s still holding on, jerking away so fast that she smacks her hand against the rearview mirror, but megan gives her the grace of not mentioning any of this in favor of saying, instead: 

“they’re not telling us something.” 

yoonchae nods, pushing her hair behind her ears as she focuses on unlocking the car door, the tips of her ears still glowing red.

“i think there are a lot of things they’re not telling us.”

“for such a small town, they sure get a lot of visitors,” megan says lightly, dropping her bag on the bed next to yoonchae’s.

“according to the manager, most of the rooms are having issues with the plumbing,” yoonchae replies. “they're not renting them out right now. i spoke to him while you were getting your stuff.” 

the room they’ve been given has a queen bed, which is better than a double and maybe better than a king, too. there’s a small folding cot propped up in the corner of the room that they’re both ignoring. megan watches as yoonchae crouches down and lifts the mattress cover.

“any bedbugs?”

“you’d check too if you knew the statistical probability of infestation from motels and other short term residency options.”

yoonchae’s tone is a little too biting. it’s the long drive, maybe, or the frustration megan knows comes with yoonchae feeling like a truth is being withheld from her. for all the time that they spend together, she’s surprised that they don’t snap at each other more often. 

as yoonchae continues feeling around the edges of the mattress, megan excuses herself to shower and tries not to think too hard about her partner on the other side of the flimsy door as she undresses. 

despite the alleged plumbing issues, the water is warm and steady. it smells a little bit like chlorine, which megan decides is preferable to smelling like sulfur or worse, even if it will certainly dry out her skin. 

when she steps back into the room in her pajamas, hair wrapped in a towel, yoonchae is sitting at the edge of the bed with her head in her hands. she’s discarded her blazer and unbuttoned her shirt far enough that megan can see the edges of a lacy black bra. she is not more focused on this than the fact that yoonchae sniffles twice before she realizes that megan is standing there. 

“my turn?” she asks thickly, standing up and moving away so quickly that megan can’t get a glimpse at her face. “hope you didn’t use up all the hot water.”

she takes so long in the bathroom that megan gives up waiting and turns all the lights off before getting into bed. she’s almost asleep when the door creaks open again and the other side of the mattress dips. 

they’ve shared hotel rooms before. sometimes by necessity, sometimes not. it’s really out of habit that megan shifts closer, reaching out. her hands find yoonchae’s waist and she rests them there, thumbs slipping up under one of the worn college basketball t-shirts yoonchae always wears to bed. she traces little circles over yoonchae’s hipbones just to feel her shiver. 

“megan—”

“shh.” 

she likes when yoonchae listens to her without arguing. it doesn’t happen very often. she tugs, once, and yoonchae goes, forehead tipping down into megan’s chest. she loops her arms around megan’s waist and holds tight. in the morning, one of her arms will be numb, but she won’t complain about it. 

just before megan dozes off, it occurs to her that yoonchae’s hair isn’t wet and her skin doesn’t smell at all like soap.  

the next day at the precinct, they learn a few key facts about the case from sophia and lara. 

most of the missing individuals lived alone in older houses. the town, sophia informs them, has seen a lot of construction in the past few years. 

“we haven’t seen a lot of finished buildings,” she laments. “other than this station, every new apartment complex, shopping strip, and elementary school has been shut down halfway through the process and tied up in red tape. we’ve got a lot of folks waiting to move into new apartments that were promised to them years ago.” 

“you and daniela don't live together?” megan asks lara, gentle as she can manage. 

lara shakes her head, lips a thin line. “not officially. i moved back in with my parents when my father got sick last fall.” 

“and daniela?”

“dani lives alone. it’s her grandma’s house. it was supposed to be temporary, you know, just watching over the place until her parents could get out here to fix it up and sell it, but i guess time got away from them.” lara isn’t wearing any lipstick today. she isn't wearing any makeup at all. she scrubs a hand over her face hard. “if you’ll excuse me, agents.”

"she's been having a hard time the past few days." sophia murmurs as she watches lara go. “i think she’s losing hope that dani might still be alive.” 

megan’s stomach twists at the words. she’s been where lara is now, sort of. it’s a risk that comes with their line of work, but she still feels a little bit like the world is ending every time she finds out that yoonchae has put herself in serious danger in her endless pursuit of answers. 

“there’s been no evidence to suggest that she is alive,” yoonchae cuts in. she’s standing at the bulletin board, just staring at the pictures tacked up. next to the pictures of the missing individuals, she’s added photos of their houses and yards. megan tries not to glare. “but there’s also been no evidence to suggest that she’s dead. i wouldn’t lose hope just yet.” 

“real encouraging, yoonchae.” 

“you’re the one who scared away our only lead.”

sophia makes a face. “lara is your only lead?”

she says it like she hadn’t reported lack of evidence as one of the reasons for wanting federal assistance on the case, but she isn’t, like, wrong. they haven’t been to the victim’s houses yet, and megan is realizing that really should’ve been their first course of action. the photos that yoonchae has up on the bulletin board are just crime scene photos, and not very good ones at that. 

she manages to pry yoonchae away from the board with only minimal physical force. grabbing yoonchae by the back of the neck is, admittedly, sort of just for fun. fixing yoonchae’s bangs while she shrugs on her coat is marginally more necessary. yoonchae has this habit of raking a hand through her hair while she thinks and forgetting to pat it back into place. 

as they’re walking out to the car, yoonchae nudges megan’s shoulder.

“you know, lara is kind of our only lead. none of the other victims had people close to them who we could talk to. at least, not in person. they’re all away on trips, or have recently moved.”

“i’m sure that’s just a coincidence,” megan reasons. “and, no offense, i’m sure you missed a few. some people have friends that aren’t their coworkers.” 

yoonchae glares half-heartedly and flips on the radio in the car when megan tries to say something else. 

daniela’s back door is unlocked.

it’s the first thing that megan notices on their initial pass through the house. it looks more like a careless mistake than an intentional break in, though, and she can’t find evidence of anyone having entered the house through the back door. nothing at all to indicate any kind of struggle. 

the second thing she notices is that daniela avanzini either has very strange habits, or she wasn’t actually living alone at the time of her disappearance. there are two sets of dinner dishes in the sink; two chairs nudged slightly out of place at the dinner table; two towels hanging in the bathroom next to the shower.

in the master bedroom, yoonchae is poking at something white and lacy on the floor at the side of the bed—sheets unmade on both sides—with her pen. 

there’s a joke on the tip of megan’s tongue, but she thinks of waking up with yoonchae still nestled against her chest and refrains. 

“there’s lipstick on this,” yoonchae informs her. “and i doubt that it’s daniela’s.”

she lifts the bra off the floor with the tip of her pen. there are red smudges over the cups, which is more than enough evidence for megan, especially combined with all the other clues scattered around the house, but the urge to poke fun at her partner is still nudging at her. 

“i’m not really sure what you’re getting at here, yoonchae.”

“well, what i’m not saying is that ms. avanzini would’ve been able to reach her nipples with her own mouth,” yoonchae drawls. 

“oh my god—”

“but what i am saying is that someone else was here the night she disappeared,” yoonchae continues. “look, it’s not just this. over on the dresser.”

it doesn’t take much more than a glimpse inside the unzipped overnight duffel to see what yoonchae means. a blue ccpd shirt with rajagopalan printed in bold letters across the back sits atop a few other personal items. there’s even a toothbrush. 

“the windows are also open,” says yoonchae, gesturing around. “they’re open in almost every room of the house.”

“and the back door is unlocked,” megan adds. “no signs of forced entry or a struggle on the way out, though. it really does seem like she just got up and left.”

“i’m sure that officer rajagopalan could tell us a little more about what happened.” 

“could being the operative word there,” megan sighs. “i doubt she’ll want to talk to us again after she finds out that we were here. she already lied to us once.” 

“maybe not on the record. laforteza invited us to dinner at her house this morning while you were getting coffee.” yoonchae stands up slowly, letting the bra fall back onto the floor. her tie is crooked. it’s navy blue with little ducks. megan desperately wants to go over and fix it for her. “it’s tomorrow night. and i bet officer rajagopalan will be there too.”

“you think you can charm her into talking to you?” 

yoonchae gives her this crooked smile, head tilting. 

“you don’t think i’m charming, agent skiendiel?”

megan isn't not blushing as she digs around in her coat pocket for a plastic evidence baggie. she tosses one at yoonchae alongside a pair of latex gloves without answering, gesturing at the lingerie on the floor. 

“bag it up, jeung. it’ll only help us if we can confirm the lipstick is officer rajagopalan’s.” 

it does something funny to her stomach, watching yoonchae sink to her knees, face upturned at megan. she’s being a little bit facetious, taking her bottom lip between her teeth in a display of faux concentration as she slides the bra into the baggie. 

part of megan wants to snap a picture of yoonchae down there. for evidence. or to tuck into her wallet, or something. she wouldn’t want anyone else looking at it, and it wouldn’t be useful to anyone except her, really.

somehow, yoonchae convinces megan to spend most of the next day wandering through the edges of the wilderness looking for clues instead of going to the other victim’s houses or following up with any possible witnesses. 

they don’t find much more than pine needles and mud. or, megan doesn’t find much more than pine needles and mud. she isn’t really sure what they’re supposed to be looking for. yoonchae keeps picking things up off the forest floor. she pockets two pinecones, a pebble, and a shiny piece of foil packaging. chocolate bar or condom wrapper, megan can’t be sure. 

“there’s no sales tax here,” yoonchae says as they’re picking their way back to the car. her loafers are covered in mud and pine sap. “some people pay almost 9% in personal income taxes. keeps the state afloat financially.”

“right,” megan nods. she nearly trips over a root and catches herself on yoonchae’s elbow. her coat sleeve is sticky with sap too. “that why you’ve been buying so many tchotchkes here? because it’s cheaper?” 

she’s seen yoonchae purchase at least three little wooden figurines from various rest stops and mom-and-pop shops since they’ve been in oregon. hand carved, if the labelling is to be believed. they all have initials etched into the bottoms—an artist’s signature. or a clever sales gimmick. 

now, the dash of their rental car features miniature versions of sasquatch, an elk, and an osprey. yoonchae has been taking turns keeping one of them in her coat pocket every time they go out. right now, she has the osprey. megan can feel its edges digging into her hip as they walk together. she realizes she’s still hanging onto yoonchae’s elbow and lets go immediately, nearly running straight into a low-hanging branch as she does.

“most of of the people who went missing weren’t born anywhere near here,” yoonchae adds. “i can only imagine what was going through their heads when they moved out here to find that they didn’t have to pay taxes on their groceries but thousands of dollars were being shaved off of every paycheck.” 

usually, megan can piece together where yoonchae might be going with these things. she wants to blame it on the fact that it’s getting dark and her socks have been wet for three hours that she has no idea what yoonchae is trying to get at. 

“i doubt they were really thinking about that sort of thing, yoonchae,” she says gently. she can see the outline of their car parked on the side of the road through the trees, but yoonchae draws up short, hand going to her hip. “what is it?”

she rests a palm on the butt of her gun, turning to scan the treeline around them. it isn’t until she’s done a full one-eighty that she realizes yoonchae just has her hand cupped over the osprey figurine in her coat pocket. 

“i thought—” yoonchae’s voice breaks off, pitching up awkwardly. she clears her throat. “sorry, i thought i heard something. it must—it must just be the rain. or a deer, or something.” 

in the car, she takes the wooden bird out of her pocket and sets it back onto the dash next to the others. she stares at it for a long moment before starting the engine. 

“i almost bought a raven back in bend,” she admits as they pull out onto the road. at megan’s questioning expression, she says: “they’re bad omens. worse than black cats and broken mirrors, skiendiel.” 

megan can’t quite convince yoonchae into the sweater and slacks she has stuffed in the bottom of her bag for emergencies, whatever that means, but she does manage to get her to take off the blazer and tie. it’s mildly less government agent, especially when she lets her hair down. it curls over her shoulders prettily. 

“i don’t see what was wrong with your other clothes,” yoonchae says quietly, eyes fixed somewhere below megan’s neckline. 

“don’t you think a dress is a little more appropriate for a nice dinner at a colleague’s house?”

megan can’t quite get at the zipper by herself. she pads over to where yoonchae is sitting at the end of the bed and turns, sweeping her hair off her back. 

“um—”

“zip me up, agent jeung,” she commands softly. 

yoonchae’s fingers are warm. they fumble over the zipper for a moment before dragging it upward, then stopping. 

“i didn’t know you had a tattoo here.” 

she traces over the shape of the moth so delicately that megan feels goosebumps erupt across her back, chills traveling down her spine. 

“well, how many times have you seen me in a dress?”

“i’ve seen you plenty in a lot less,” yoonchae says without a hint of mirth. she sounds kind of reverent, hands flattening over megan’s shoulder blades. “why a moth?”

it feels a little bit like stepping on a dog’s tail when megan pulls away to check her makeup and get her heels. she can feel yoonchae’s gaze heavy on her back. 

“i’ll tell you sometime when we aren’t late to a dinner party slash investigation,” she hums. "come here and finish it, please."

yoonchae gets up from the bed to zip megan's dress up the rest of the way. satisfied, megan tucks her gun and credentials into a small pleather purse she picked up on a whim from an ‘antique’ shop nearby the police station, one of the only stores on the block not closed down for construction. yoonchae had spent nearly thirty minutes examining a small display of more wooden figurines and they’d nearly missed a meeting with one of the other missing person’s aunt. she hadn’t even bought one this time. 

yoonchae leaves her gun on the bedside table with a forlorn look. 

“c’mon, tiger,” megan urges, slipping an arm through yoonchae’s. she uses her other hand to pat her purse. “i’ll protect you.” 

“it’s just weird,” yoonchae says as they’re getting into the car. she keeps looking over her shoulder at the darkened treeline behind the motel. “it’s so quiet here at night.”’

and she’s right, is the thing. megan pauses to listen and doesn’t hear any of the usual sounds she’d associate with the woods at night. there aren’t any crickets. there’s a light breeze—she can feel it over her bare shoulders—but she doesn’t hear leaves rustling or branches creaking. 

she meets yoonchae’s eyes over the top of the car. they’ve been partners for a while now. she’s seen yoonchae with a gun to her temple looking less spooked that she does right now. 

“we should go,” she says. her voice sounds strange in the quiet. hollow. “sophia will get worried if we’re late.”

yoonchae nods, but she doesn’t make any motion to get into the car. her eyes drift off of megan’s face onto the treeline behind her. 

“hey,” megan raises her voice just a little. “yoonchae, really. we gotta leave.” 

yoonchae jolts, blinking hard and shaking her head slightly like she’s trying to clear away a fog. she practically falls into the driver’s seat and punches buttons on the radio until there’s music blaring. it’s a few notches too loud for megan’s preferences, and she isn’t really a huge fan of bossa nova, but the noise is a welcome change from the silence, so she doesn’t complain. 

megan keeps her eyes on the figurines lining the dashboard the whole drive there, like keeping the osprey in her vision might activate whatever protective powers yoonchae seems to think that it has. 

sophia welcomes them into her home so warmly that megan almost forgets they’d only arrived in town a week ago. she lets sophia hang her purse next to yoonchae’s coat and they’re both led into the kitchen, where the lights are low and there are a few others milling about with drinks. 

“agents, this is my wife, manon,” sophia says, rounding the kitchen counter to slump against the side of a woman pouring ingredients into a cocktail shaker. 

manon looks up from the lemon she’s juicing to give them such a radiant smile that megan feels a little faint. she forgets that she’s supposed to say something in return until yoonchae’s hand clamps around her waist, pulling her a little closer. 

“this is agent skiendiel,” yoonchae says, even though manon probably already knows this. “i’m agent jeung.” 

“please, call me megan,” megan adds, accepting the hand that manon offers to shake. 

“well, megan,” manon smiles, “agent jeung, it’s nice to finally meet you two. i hope you like sinigang.” 

she serves them mixed drinks in tumbler glasses that make megan wish her cupboard at home had nicer glassware than the plastic cups she got for free from her brother’s fire station fundraiser four years ago. 

yoonchae was right; lara is there too, chatting with a few people that megan doesn’t recognize. she eavesdrops for a few seconds on her way to the bathroom and ascertains that lara might not know these people especially well either, because they’re talking about the weather and the condition of the town’s roads. 

“one of us has to get her alone,” yoonchae mumbles as they hover awkwardly in a corner together. “preferably after she’s had another drink.”

megan is starting to feel a little bit guilty about attending sophia’s dinner party for the sole purpose of interrogating lara. the police chief seems like a genuinely kind person, eager to get to know them for real. she comes over to ask them both about their personal lives; nothing about the fbi or their current case. 

she’s good at it, too. yoonchae keeps giving her these sparse answers, disclosing almost nothing about her personal life until sophia goes: 

“did you happen to catch the game the other night?”

megan watches yoonchae’s whole face light up and realizes as her partner falls into rapt conversation with sophia about the wnba that she might have to try to get lara to talk on her own. by the looks of it, she’s got about half an hour before dinner is served. 

she is, in a word, unsuccessful. 

lara manages to skirt every attempt megan makes to engage her in conversation, and she ends up alone in the kitchen with manon instead. 

“would you prefer something else?” manon asks when she sees megan hovering by the doorway. 

“what?” megan follows the line of manon’s finger and realizes that she’s hardly touched the cocktail manon served to her. “oh, no, this is perfect.”

truthfully, yoonchae had informed her quietly there was cinnamon in the drink after her first sip and megan’s been looking for an excuse to put it down ever since. she walks further into the kitchen and sets the glass down on the counter, leaning forward to peer at the cutting board that manon is bent over. 

“can i ask what you’re making?” 

manon chuckles, putting her knife down. 

“i’ve been trying to get better at presentation,” she explains, nudging a hunk of white vegetable in megan’s direction. “daikon flowers for the soup, or my best attempt at them, at least.”

megan can sort of see the vision. there’s a distinctive center, and some artful cuts to create petals. 

graciously, manon spares her from having to comment on it. 

“can i ask you a question now, agent?”

“please,” megan nods, sinking into one of the barstools lining the counter across from manon. 

“how’s the investigation going?”

there’s something about manon that makes megan want to trust her. it’s certainly not bureau policy to disclose details of an investigation to an outside party, but they’re already pushing the boundaries of bureau policy by attending this dinner, and manon has this genuinely concerned expression on her face. she follows her own question up swiftly. 

“i don’t mean to pry,” she murmurs. “but lara is a close friend. it’s hard seeing her so lost.” 

“we’re getting there,” megan says slowly. her glass is sweating onto the counter. she uses a finger to swipe up the condensation. “it’s been difficult. we don’t—we don’t have any real suspects.” 

manon nods like she’d already known this, and megan supposes she had, being the chief of police’s wife and all. she feels a sting of regret at her willingness to trust manon so abashedly. she has no idea what manon's motives are in sharing this information with her. 

“this town, megan,” manon says, “a lot of people have given up hope. there were expansion projects in progress, promises for more job opportunities and more residents to help bring down local taxes.”

“sophia mentioned.”

“i’m sure she also mentioned that none of it has ever come to fruition. construction equipment disappears. workers stop showing up. worksites fail safety inspections. but it’s not just the buildings that have taken a hit. the people here have been asking for so long, and no one answers them. we had a spike in suicides last year.”

megan remembers, belatedly, that manon works as a clinical psychiatrist at the hospital an hour outside of town. it’s the closest one, and the only place to get medical help if the town’s small physician's office isn’t open. 

“what i’m trying to say here is that we don’t have anyone to turn to except ourselves,” manon sighs. 

“i’m not sure i—”

“if you’re looking for suspects in the people that live here, agent, you might be looking in the wrong place,” manon finishes. 

she doesn’t give megan much of a chance to respond to that. she’s calling everyone into the room to serve themselves dinner, and megan watches as people move around her, chatting softly and passing bowls around. 

yoonchae is standing in the corner watching too. they make eye contact through the small cluster of people, and megan feels more lost than she had when they’d arrived. 

they leave without having talked to lara. after dinner, manon gets lara to help her with cleanup in the kitchen, and yoonchae is buzzing with so much barely restrained energy that megan makes a few excuses about early wake-up times to get them out of there before yoonchae does something drastic like drag lara into a coat closet to get some answers. 

“some investigation that was,” yoonchae says as they climb into the car. she adjusts the volume knob on the radio enough to be heard over the music, but she doesn’t turn it off. 

megan tries to crack a window, a little warm from the soup and all the people, but yoonchae just reaches across her to roll it back up. 

“i talked to manon, actually,” she admits. “she said something interesting. basically, she told me that we shouldn’t be looking at the townsfolk as suspects. she talked about all the construction, too. apparently it’s taken a pretty serious toll on the mental health of the people here.” 

she isn’t expecting yoonchae to argue with her, not really, but she isn’t expecting yoonchae to nod so seriously either. 

“makes sense.”

“that’s it?” megan asks, a little bewildered. “you don’t think it’s a little odd that she essentially told me to stop pursuing our best lead and possible suspect?”

“not really,” yoonchae shrugs. she fiddles with the signal lever for a long moment and finally manages to get the car’s high beams on. “i think she has a good point. we should be looking at newcomers and transients.”

“yoonchae, she’s one of lara’s best friends. she could just be trying to keep her safe, throw us off her scent.” 

she isn’t sure that she really believes lara could’ve played a part in daniela’s disappearance, but she’s annoyed with yoonchae for dropping the idea so quickly. for someone so interested in the truth, yoonchae doesn’t spend a lot of time examining the things she’s told for possible deceit. 

“tomorrow, i’m going to have agent lee run a background check on anyone who moved to town in the past five years,” yoonchae says. “and i think we should go back to the other residences to check for prints.”

“lara’s prints?”

“anyone’s. we took it at face value when pd told us there weren’t any. maybe they missed something.”

megan blinks. one of the wooden figurines is missing off the dashboard. yoonchae, who once got so upset over her favorite brand of sunflower seeds changing their packaging to a slightly different shade of blue that she mailed five formal letters of complaint to the company, seems awfully calm about this sudden upheaval of their investigative theories. 

“is this why you gave up on questioning lara at the party? you had already decided she wasn’t a reasonable suspect anymore without informing me?”

yoonchae’s face flushes red. megan can see it in the dark, the glowing tips of her ears. 

“no, i was just talking to sophia—”

“oh, she’s sophia now?”

“megan—”

“save it. run your background checks tomorrow, dust for prints, whatever. i’ll be tracking down officer rajagopalan.” 

when they get into bed that night, megan doesn’t reach out to touch and yoonchae doesn’t shuffle any closer. she’s lying stiffly at the very edge of the mattress on her back, eyes shut deliberately. the lights aren’t even off yet. 

megan turns off the lamps and stares at the ceiling in the dark, trying to focus on the sound of yoonchae breathing next to her more than the oppressive silence engulfing them. 

when she wakes up the next morning, yoonchae is already gone. she’s left the car in the lot for megan to take to the precinct. all three figurines are back on the dashboard, even the osprey that had been missing the night before. 

megan stares at the line of them for a long time when she pulls into the precinct parking lot. she takes the little bird, turning it over in her fingers. the feathered patterning on the top of the osprey’s head is already starting to wear where yoonchae rubs her thumb over it repetitively. 

she drops it into her pocket before going inside. 

the precinct is mostly empty aside from a few patrolmen filling out paperwork and officer rajagopalan talking quietly to the building’s secretary. 

“agent skiendiel,” she greets as megan approaches. “i take it you’ve come to talk to me.”

“yes, ma’am.”

there’s a beat where megan thinks that lara is about to turn on her heel and book it out of there, but she just sighs and nods, gesturing for megan to follow her. 

“you can accompany me on my patrol,” she offers, shrugging on the vest hanging from the back of her desk chair. her radio beeps when she turns it on. “you can get a vest out of the closet back there.”

“you think i’ll need one?”

“it’s just a precaution, agent,” lara shrugs. “but do as you please.”

megan thinks if she were yoonchae, she’d probably forgo the vest on the grounds of the wooden figurine being enough as protection. 

since she isn’t yoonchae, she gets a vest out of the closet and straps it on. she leaves her coat on the back of lara’s chair, but she takes the osprey out and puts it into the pocket of her slacks instead. she isn’t yoonchae, but she isn’t exactly immune to superstition either. 

patrol, as it turns out, is mostly driving slowly around town and looking out the window. 

“we’ve increased the numbers on our nighttime patrols,” lara informs megan as they roll down main street. “but none of the disappearances have occurred during the day, so we’ve stuck to our bi-hourly ones. not much crime goes on here anyhow. nothing more than underage drinking and disorderly conduct, at least.”

megan doesn’t say anything. she’s too busy listening. the silence that she’s observed at night doesn’t seem to blanket the town in quite the same way during the day. she can hear leaves rustling in the wind, and the occasional bird call. 

“i guess you’ve found out by now that i was there the night dani disappeared,” lara says suddenly. 

megan turns to look at her, a little surprised, but she nods. 

lara eases the car onto the shoulder, orienting them so that the front bumper is facing the road. she presses a few buttons on the setup on her dash, switching on the speed gauge. 

“we don’t give out a whole lot of speeding tickets,” she tells megan, stalling. 

“mhm.” 

megan’s cell has been quiet all morning. she wants to call yoonchae to check in, but more than that, she wants yoonchae to call her to check in. 

“you have to understand, agent skiendiel,” lara says carefully. “if i told you the first day you were here that i watched daniela walk off into the woods all by herself, you would’ve locked me up in my own precinct as a suspect for murder.” 

megan sighs, trying to put the thoughts of yoonchae out of her mind. 

“honestly, we almost did. or, i almost did. my partner was less convinced.” 

“really? she was awfully set on getting me alone during that dinner party,” lara grumbles. 

in her pocket, megan presses her thumb down on the top of the wooden osprey’s head.

“yoonchae is…creative,” she hums. “she just wanted to hear your side of things. not incriminate you. she’s probably developing some theory about, i don’t know, forest spirits or something as we speak.” 

beside her, lara swallows hard, shifting awkwardly in her seat. 

“what?” 

“your partner might not be so far off,” lara admits hesitantly. she pinches the bridge of her nose, eyes screwed shut. “you’ll never believe me.”

“try me.”

once lara starts talking, it all comes spilling out so quickly that megan barely has time to get out her notepad to jot down the details. she seems relieved to finally be admitting it all, one hand stretched out to grip megan’s elbow subconsciously as she speaks. 

“it was real late, maybe two or three a.m. dani got out of bed kind of suddenly. i didn’t think much of it until she took too long coming back. i found her in the kitchen, staring out the back door. i tried to talk to her, but it was like i wasn’t even there. like i was a ghost. and she—i couldn't stop her. when she opened the door, i tried to hold her back, but she broke away so easily. i didn’t know what to do. she just kept walking, going into the woods with this blank expression on her face. i followed her as long as i could, but when i lost sight of the house, i—i went back. i called sophia, but we couldn’t get together a search party until dawn.”

lara’s voice breaks over the last word and megan feels the last of her suspicions melting away. she puts a hand over lara’s on her elbow, squeezing gently. 

“it’s not your fault, lara,” she murmurs. “you did what you could.”

“i just—” lara swipes a hand over her eyes, sniffling. “i don’t understand. why she went away, and—and why she hasn’t come back. we were having some issues, but nothing major—” she cuts herself off with a choked sob. “i just want her to come back.” 

in her pocket, megan’s cell starts buzzing, but she ignores it, leaning forward to wrap an arm around lara’s shoulders. 

“it’s okay,” she says quietly, mind already spinning. “i believe you, lara.” 

yoonchae and sophia are waiting for them when they get back to the precinct. lara is still sort of sniffly and red-eyed, and sophia immediately takes her around the waist and leads her away. yoonchae watches them go looking sort of baffled. 

“what did you do to her?”

megan brandishes her notepad. “i’ll tell you later. what did you find?”

“i tried you call you,” yoonchae says unhelpfully. “you didn’t pick up.”

“what did you find, yoonchae?”

she produces a piece of paper from her pocket. it’s a list of names with a few highlighted in glaring yellow. 

“newcomers with histories of violent or suspicious behavior. we didn’t find any prints that weren’t the house owners or visitors. we already questioned most of them, but we’re trying to locate a plumber and a lover.” 

yoonchae doesn’t even waggle her eyebrows or anything at that. she’s looking at megan with big eyes, face soft and open. she’s trying to apologize without apologizing, and it’s sort of working, infuriatingly enough. 

“let’s go get lunch,” megan sighs, “and i’ll fill you in on this.” 

she forgets her coat in the precinct, but yoonchae remembers it. she catches up to megan on the entrance steps and drapes it over megan’s shoulders from behind. 

if she notices the missing osprey when they get into the car, she doesn’t say anything. 

it takes almost three hours, but finally, yoonchae drops the manila folder she’s squinting at onto the table with a sigh. 

“what’ve you got?” megan asks, looking up from her own file. 

she’s been paging through the files of every person off their suspect since they got back from lunch, hoping that something might jump out at her as being indicative that they might be the one behind the kidnappings. unfortunately, most of their suspect list is either dead, imprisoned, or backed by airtight alibis. it’s late now, and she’s pretty sure everyone else has gone home, even sophia. 

lara had repeated her story to yoonchae at yoonchae’s request. she’d even answered the strange follow-up questions yoonchae had without flinching. did you smell anything unusual? what did the air feel like when you stepped outside? what made you stop and turn back to the house?

“i think we’re looking at this all wrong.” yoonchae stands, hands on her hips. “i don’t think anyone kidnapped these people.” 

megan barely has the self restraint not to roll her eyes.  

“you think these people just ran off into the woods of their own volition?”

“no,” yoonchae says. “i think these people were called into the woods.”

“called? called by whom?”

yoonchae levels megan with this very serious look. her eye makeup is smudged on one side, which happens sometimes when she drags a hand across her face after poring over case files for too long.

“the trees, megan.”

they’ve been working together for long enough that this kind of answer shouldn’t come as a surprise, but megan feels the corners of her lips twitch upwards anyhow; she wants to laugh, instinctually. you want me to tell chief laforteza that our primary suspect is a big hunk of wood? 

she almost says it too, but yoonchae is still looking at her so seriously. her jaw is tight, shoulders drawn defensively like she’s expecting megan to laugh and poke fun at this, even after all they’ve been through together. it sobers megan up enough to nod, mouth a thin line. 

“okay. the trees, then. tell me more.”

yoonchae’s going theory: the missing people, for one reason or another, were summoned into the woods by the trees themselves. she cites mycorrhizal networks as her evidence for thinking this, launching into a slightly grandiose explanation of how trees communicate with one another. 

“but humans aren’t connected to this network, yoonchae. they’re connected by their roots. we don’t have roots.” 

“we don’t,” yoonchae agrees, “but there are plenty of x-files on fungal communication through spores. organisms don’t need to be physically connected to communicate. daniela was sleeping with her windows open. i feel that it’s entirely plausible she inhaled spores of some kind that allowed the trees to communicate with her.”

she hasn’t fixed her makeup yet and her bangs are a little mussed now. megan isn’t sure if the look is adding to or taking away from yoonchae’s credibility. 

“but lara was in the room too, and she wasn’t affected in the same way. she came right back out of the woods. and it’s highly unlikely that a concentration of spores small enough to be inhaled like that would be able to take over daniela’s brain so thoroughly like that, if it’s even possible that they influenced her in the way you’re suggesting. lara said it was like daniela wasn’t even awake. like she was sleepwalking. i think it’s more likely daniela was, i don’t know, drugged somehow. something with a delayed release, or—or subliminal messaging of some kind, triggered by a scent in the air or a noise she heard. there are cia reports of sleeper agents being activated by things as ordinary as the smell of pine sap.” 

yoonchae shakes her head, adamant. 

“that wouldn’t explain daniela’s sudden strength. she shouldn't have been able to pull away from lara so easily.”

“it was late, yoonchae. lara might not have been fully awake,” megan tries to reason. 

“what about the others, then? if someone was going around drugging all these people, we’d be able to connect at least a few of them together.” 

megan puts a hand to her forehead, feeling a little overwhelmed. they’ve been in this interrogation room paging through files for a long time. she’s pretty sure she’s forgotten what fresh air smells like. 

“i don’t know,” she says finally. “it’s—i just think it’s highly unlikely, yoonchae. and i think that we should both get some sleep. it’s late. our imaginations might be getting away from us.”

yoonchae shakes her head, gathering up some of the papers scattered across the table. 

“i need to make a few phone calls. you go on ahead. take the car, i’ll make my way back.” 

megan knows her partner well enough not to argue. she leaves yoonchae alone in the precinct, pacing and dialing the numbers of people who megan isn’t sure she trusts any more than she trusts a perfect stranger. 

two days later, daniela avanzini stumbles out of the woods into the police precinct parking lot with leaves in her hair and a haunted look in her eyes. 

megan can barely make out a coherent word over the phone and she gives up on trying to understand lara. 

“we’ll be there as soon as we can,” she says before hanging up. 

yoonchae is dozing in the middle of the bed, trying to sleep off her string of all-nighters. it makes megan’s chest ache when she brushes some hair off of yoonchae’s forehead and gets an airy groan of protest in response. 

it’s just a plain red tie today, but her button-up is a little too big. fighting her way awake in the middle of the day while drowning in her work clothes makes yoonchae look more like a kid playing dress-up than an fbi agent. she’d probably shove megan and stick her tongue out at her for saying it, which wouldn’t exactly help the image.  

“yoonchae, hey,” megan murmurs. “wake up, c’mon ba—c’mon. they found daniela.”

she knows that yoonchae’s heard her because her whole body stiffens and her eyes get about then times more alert. 

“what?”

she tries to leave their motel room without her gun and her id, and megan has to pull her back inside by the belt to get her to stand still for long enough to put her loafers on and lace them up all the way.

then, she almost forgets the case file on the bedside table, and realizes that her own hands are shaking in anticipation as she climbs into the car. she’s had the osprey in her pocket for the past few days now, and she grips it in her palm to stop the trembling. 

“i really don’t remember anything,” dani says, hands wrapped tightly around a mug of tea. she keeps looking up at the big two-way mirror like she knows that lara is behind it, barely restrained by sophia. “it was like i’d woken up from a long nap when i realized i was in the parking lot. i don’t know how i got there. my head is still sort of—” she shakes it back and forth gently. “it’s all foggy. i feel like i haven't quite woken up yet.”

yoonchae is nodding like this all makes perfect sense. 

“daniela,” she says gently, sitting down at one of the chairs across from the woman. “your bedroom windows were open on the night of your disappearance.”

“yes,” daniela nods. “the central heating in my grandparents’ house is broken. sometimes, it just doesn’t stop, even when i turn off the thermostat. i have to keep the windows open even when it’s cold to regulate the temperature. it’s a problem in most of these older houses, actually.”

megan orders a few blood tests. she examines daniela as thoroughly as she can without cutting her open and determines that yoonchae’s spore theory is basically negligible, at least in terms of the evidence. there are no traces of anything foreign in daniela’s body aside from the dirt caked under her nails. 

yoonchae asks daniela so many questions that lara eventually barges into the interrogation room and drags the agent out by her tie, hissing angrily in the hall about trauma and space to process. 

megan is still sort of hesitant about letting the two of them go home alone together, even though she’s pretty sure there had been no foul play on lara’s part, but sophia assures her that she’ll be taking daniela to her and manon’s for the night. 

“lara will come too,” she admits. “but we’ll keep an eye on things. really, agent skiendiel, i know i’m close to this, but lara isn’t lying about any of what happened. we’d know if she was, and i wouldn’t hesitate to tell you that.”

there isn’t a scratch on daniela’s body, healed or otherwise. no bruises. even the soles of her feet, which were bare when she wandered into the woods, are unblemished. the only evidence at all that she’d been anywhere except her own house is the dirt smudged over her whole body.

yoonchae doesn’t seem shaken by any of it. she’s got the shining look in her eyes that she gets when she’s working on a serious theory, usually one that will make megan bite her lip apprehensively. 

“this means the others might still be out there,” she tells megan, hushed and eager. “we might have a real chance at figuring this thing out. haven’t you noticed the silence in this place at night? it only occurred to me when daniela told me she usually plays music to fall asleep. but she wasn’t with lara over. megan, i’m telling you, it’s the trees.”

yoonchae orders another search party for the remaining missing people. they meet at dusk by her request, which megan can hear the volunteers grumbling about. 

“thank you all for being here,” yoonchae calls through cupped hands. 

there really are a shocking amount of people. megan hadn’t realized this many people even lived in town. manon is there, drifting from person to person, greeting them all warmly. she seems to know everyone’s name, and they all know hers, and everyone else’s. 

“i know it doesn’t seem like it on the outside,” sophia whispers to her, hands resting on the collar of her vest. “but this community is, for the most part, very tightly knit. they’re all good people. they’re willing to come out for these folks they hardly know.”

something goes off in the back of megan’s brain. 

“we have a few precautions we’d like to take tonight to ensure everyone’s safety,” yoonchae continues. she holds up a walkman. “if you have a portable music device with you, we recommend listening to it at a low volume. otherwise, chief laforteza and agent skiendiel will be carrying small stereos. keep close to them. please stick with a partner. shout if you find anything. hopefully we can wrap this up in a few hours.”

megan switches on her stereo as people start to disperse, plunging into the trees with their partners. she’s already lost track of yoonchae, but manon and a few others come to her side holding flashlights. 

“you knew the people we’re looking for?” she asks manon. 

“yes ma’am,” manon nods. “all except one.”

megan breathes out slowly through her nose. the music is helping to keep the strange, heavy silence at bay, but only barely. she can feel it trying to weigh her down. 

“agent skiendiel?” manon prompts.

she wants to radio for yoonchae, just to make sure she’s nearby someone’s stereo. but there are four people hovering around her, ready to get going. 

she walks forward into the woods instead. 

it only takes four crowded house songs to find the first person. megan’s chosen one of the most upbeat, hopeful cd’s she could find in the ‘antique’ store nearby the precinct. she’d bought another wooden figurine, too. a little douglas fir made of douglas fir. she’d meant to give it to yoonchae, but had gotten worried it would come across like she was poking fun at her tree theory. it’s sitting in her pocket now next to the osprey instead. 

the man stumbles into the beam from manon’s flashlight with a wide-eyed look, but when megan introduces herself calmly, he’s looking into her eyes completely lucid. he’s covered in dirt, more than daniela had been, and it looks fresh, like he’d just crawled up out of the ground or something. there’s a little roly poly clinging to his left eyebrow.

“thank god,” he says, shaking his head. the roly poly loses hold and plummets. “i was—i don’t know how i got here. how did you find me?” 

“we have a search party going, sir,” megan discloses. “there are others out there.” 

he has more questions, she can tell, but manon comes over with a blanket and starts talking to him. megan grabs for the radio clipped to her belt. 

“agent jeung, copy?” she waits for ten seconds. “agent jeung?”

another twenty passes, the bridge of a crowded house song she’s never heard before, and then the radio crackles to life. 

“this is chief laforteza.”

“we found one,” megan says, but her heart is in her throat, and she’s not really thinking about the man anymore. “sophia, is yoonchae with you?”

she knows that sophia’s finger is on the button, because she can hear static over the line, but she doesn’t say anything for a long few seconds. 

“agent jeung disappeared approximately fifteen minutes ago, agent skiendiel,” sophia comes back finally. 

“and no one thought to tell me sooner?” 

sophia says something else over the radio, but megan isn’t really listening. she shoves the stereo into manon’s hands and grabs a walkman off of someone else’s belt. 

“federal agent,” she says by way of explanation. “i need to commandeer this listening device.” 

and it sounds so stupid. she can hear how crazy she sounds, and she gets a pretty good idea of how crazy she must look too, because manon lifts an eyebrow at her. 

“dr. bannerman,” she points, trying to sound buttoned-up and official and not at all terrified, “please lead this group back to the rendezvous point. i’ll meet up with you as soon as i can.” 

she doesn’t wait for much of a response. all her previous reservations about trusting manon have gone completely out the window. 

“this is agent skiendiel,” she says over the radio as she starts pushing through the undergrowth, snapping branches beneath her feet. “all parties please continue your search and include agent jeung in your list of missing individuals.” 

she gets a few scattered copy that’s, but no one tells her that yoonchae is just bouncing between groups or that her radio died and she’s fine. it makes her that much more frantic, biting down on her tongue so she won’t call out yoonchae’s name more times than strictly necessary. 

she can hear the calls for others echoing through the trees. there’s the occasional agent jeung amongst the shouts, but for a long, selfish moment, she wishes it were the only name bouncing around the forest so that it wouldn't get lost in the others. 

the person whose walkman she’s taken has chosen a cd with slow, melancholy music that makes megan feel like she’s already lost yoonchae for good. the rational part of her brain is telling her that yoonchae is most likely fine. maybe a little turned around, but fine, and not captured by spirits or eaten by werewolves or anything. 

the more imaginative part of her brain, the part that sounds a lot like yoonchae when it speaks to her, is creating all kinds of scenarios in which yoonchae turns up dead or doesn’t turn up at all, which would maybe be worse than a dead body. 

she wants to rip out the earbuds so that she can focus, but if yoonchae were here, she would tell megan not to, so she doesn’t. 

the silence is heavier away from people. megan can feel it closing in, trying to bleed through the noise in her ears. she twists the volume dial up two notches. 

“yoonchae! yoonchae it’s me!” 

it occurs to her that she could try calling yoonchae. she pauses next to a fallen log to dig out her cell, but she has no reception this far in the woods, and she barely manages to refrain from hurling the device at the nearest tree in frustration. 

it couldn’t possibly have gotten any darker since sundown, but her flashlight doesn’t seem to be working as well as it had been. the calls of the other groups are getting further and further away. the urge comes over her to just lie down in the dirt and give up. it’s so strong that megan drops to one knee, just momentarily. 

the movement shifts the little wooden figurines in her pocket; the tip of the douglas fir digs hard into her thigh. 

she blinks hard, thinking about yoonchae looking up at her from the floor of daniela’s bedroom; her mussed bangs; her breath against her collarbone as she snores softly. 

her voice is raspy when it comes, but it does. 

“yoonchae!” 

she doesn’t know how it happens, really. one second, she’s walking, and the next she’s on the ground in the dirt. her flashlight has tumbled out of her hands, and the beam has caught something decidedly human. megan feels sick to her stomach when she realizes that it’s a hand sticking up out of the dirt. 

her fingers hit hair first when she starts digging. bleach blonde, darker at the roots. it seems impossible that yoonchae has managed to end up in the ground like this, standing upright like she’d just sunk straight down. it takes megan two songs to unearth her face and shoulders, and when she gets her hands on yoonchae’s skin, the other woman gasps, eyes flying open so suddenly that megan yelps. 

“megan?”

“hi,” she greets, breathless and a little giddy. “holy shit. hi. how did—”

“megan,” yoonchae repeats. she looks away, down at herself, and confusion takes over her features. she starts struggling, trying to push herself up out of the ground. 

“stop, you’re going to hurt yourself,” megan instructs gently. “let me help.”

the dirt is packed so tightly around yoonchae that they have to work together to get her torso dug out, and by then, the little crater around her has started crumbling back in on itself.

“i’m going to try to pull you out, okay?” megan shifts to get into a better position, and the earbuds connecting her to the walkman pop out. “shit, wait.”

she realizes as she’s shoving them back into her ears that yoonchae isn’t listening to anything. she’s still got this dazed look on her face like she isn’t quite sure what’s happening. the only thing she’s said this whole time is megan. 

“here.” megan has to bend forward to get one of the earbuds in yoonchae’s ear while still keeping one in hers. “okay, c’mon now. help me out here.”

she hooks her arms under yoonchae’s and pulls, grunting with the effort. it’s like trying to pull a small tree out of the ground, except yoonchae’s hands close around the back of megan’s shirt, holding on. 

“megan,” she says again, sounding a little more coherent. “i hate this song.”

the laugh that bursts out of her is unexpected, and megan almost falls forward on top of yoonchae. she leans back to catch herself, and as she does, she feels something give way, and yoonchae goes with her, legs finally dislodging from the dirt. 

they lay on the ground together for a long moment, panting and listening to the stringy chords of the song yoonchae purportedly hates. 

megan pushes herself up on one elbow, looking down at her partner, who is staring up at the forest canopy with big eyes. she’s covered in dirt, just like daniela and the other man. her white shirt is probably not salvageable. megan reaches over to brush some of it off of her face, away from her eyes and mouth. 

“what happened to you?” she asks quietly when yoonchae looks at her. 

yoonchae shakes her head, nose scrunching up. 

“i don’t know.”

megan starts writing her report that very same night while yoonchae is in the shower. 

they found all the missing individuals except for one, who no one could recall having spoken to since his move to the town four years ago. he was supposedly an employee at the local supermarket, and despite recognizing his face, none of the volunteers had been able to come up with his name before being told it. 

all the individuals gave similar statements to daniela. their memories left off on falling asleep on the night of their disappearances and restarted at some point that night around the same time that they were discovered by the search parties. 

one woman shared vague memories of digging, coming up out of the soil like a flower, or something, which megan writes is vaguely supported by the dirt found under all the individuals fingernails and the scratch patterns on their hands. 

she leaves out finding yoonchae in the dirt, upright like a soldier with one hand sticking out of the ground. 

yoonchae gives her an informal statement when she gets out of the shower, hair dripping all over her basketball tee. megan makes her sit at the ground by her feet so that she can dry and braid it. 

“i’m not letting you get our bedsheets all wet,” she says, and she can tell that yoonchae is really, genuinely shaken by it all because she doesn’t make a single innuendo in response. 

“right before you found me, or i guess the last thing i remember before then, is this feeling.” she shifts, drawing her knees up towards her chest. megan realizes that she knows what yoonchae is about to say before she says it. “it was so heavy. like i couldn’t do anything except lie down and close my eyes.” 

megan ties off the braid. when yoonchae doesn’t move, she slides off the bed to sit next to her on the floor. 

“do you remember what you were thinking?” 

yoonchae’s eyes flick over at her and away again. she presses her hands flat against the carpet. there’s still some dirt underneath her nails. 

“daniela told me something,” she starts, “when i was questioning her. she said she didn’t remember anything from the night she disappeared. not after falling asleep, at least. but she remembered falling asleep.” 

megan’s been playing soft music from a stereo borrowed from sophia and manon since they got back. she’d taken all the figurines from the car, too, and lined them up along the windowsill. all except the fir tree, which she still has in her pocket. she takes it out, cupping it in one hand.

“she said that she and lara had been having problems,” yoonchae whispers. “that lara got offered this job in bend. police chief. a promotion she’s been wanting for years. she’d fallen asleep thinking about that. how she thought lara was going to leave her for that job.” 

she shifts, pressing closer, and megan drops her head down against yoonchae’s shoulder. she can feel yoonchae’s heartbeat where her head rests against her throat. 

“i don’t know exactly what’s going on in those woods," yoonchae admits. “i was wrong about the spores. but it’s not hard to imagine—” she coughs, choking over the word. “that some of these people feel really alone. that it would be easier to just,” she waves a hand vaguely, “disappear into the trees.”

“yoonchae—”

“i don’t know. i think you should report this as unexplained phenomena. maybe—maybe a result of a growing mental health crisis. i bet you could get a supporting statement from dr. bannerman.” 

megan lets it hang in the air for a moment. she won’t tell yoonchae this, but she’s already finished with her report. 

she pulls away, placing the small tree carving into the space left between them. yoonchae stares at it, silent. 

“i got this for you,” megan murmurs. “i meant to give it to you this morning, but i couldn’t find you.”

it’s a half-truth. she’d known where yoonchae was, but she hadn’t been able to catch her eye. 

“i’m sorry i didn’t take your theories more seriously. i should have. you—you were right. it was the trees.”

the look yoonchae gives her is heavy. grounding heavy, like it’s keeping megan from floating away. she doesn’t say anything, but she takes the tree slowly, rubbing her thumb against the grooves of the leaves. 

“we should get some rest,” megan offers into the almost-silence. 

she doesn’t have to do any reaching this time. yoonchae waits until she’s settled in bed and then crawls in right next to her, nudging a thigh between megan’s and pressing her face into the junction of her neck and shoulder. 

against her stomach, megan can feel yoonchae’s hand in a tight fist, wrapped around the fir tree. 

“goodnight,” she says, listening to their small stereo scratch as the cd loops back to the beginning. 

“goodnight, agent skiendiel.” 

“yoonchae,” she groans, trying to pull back enough to glare. 

yoonchae has her eyes screwed pointedly shut. megan sighs, settling back against the pillows. she’ll take what she can get, she supposes, and yoonchae here, in bed and not in the ground, is honestly good enough.

“night, megan,” yoonchae whispers after a few minutes, which is better.