Chapter Text
Until the story of the hunt is told by the lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
April 2001
“You’re doing it wrong.”
Maynard looks up from the cutting board where he’s dicing onions. “Am I?”
“Yeah. They’re just onions.” Danny reaches over Maynard’s shoulder and plucks the knife from his grip. “You’re using this thing like a scalpel.”
The kitchen glows golden in the late afternoon sun slanting through the windows. Steam rises from pots on the stove, carrying scents of garlic and herbs that have slowly filled the house over the past hour.
“No point in being sloppy,” Maynard says, but after eight years with Danny, he’s learned which battles are worth fighting; his onion-cutting technique is not one of them.
Danny demonstrates his rough-chopping approach. The onion yields beneath his knife in uneven chunks that would make Maynard twitch if he wasn’t so goddamn aroused by the way Danny’s forearm flexes with each cut.
“See? Done in half the time.”
“And twice as ugly.”
“They’re going in pasta sauce, May, not on the cover of Bon Appétit.”
From the other side of the kitchen island, Hazel snorts. She’s perched on a stool, tearing lettuce for a side salad while sneaking bits of carrot to Macaroni, who prowls the floor like a tiny orange convict looking for his next score.
“What are you laughing at, missy?” Maynard asks.
“You argue about dumb things a lot,” Hazel says.
Not arguing. Just a difference of culinary opinion.” Danny wipes his hands on a dish towel. “How’s that math homework coming along?”
“Almost done.”
“Almost meaning...?”
“Like, halfway?”
“Hazel.”
“It’s just fractions! When am I ever gonna need fractions?”
“Every time you cook,” Maynard says.
“Every time you build something,” Danny adds.
“Every time you need to split a check at a restaurant,” Maynard says.
Hazel slumps forward. “Ugh. You guys are worse than Mom was.”
Maynard’s hand tightens on the remaining half of the onion until his fingernails dig into the papery skin.
Six months since the phone call that changed everything. A social worker explaining Maynard’s name was listed as the father on a birth certificate for a daughter he’d never known existed. He remembered her mother, though: Willow, a pixie-cut hippie chick he’d dated for all of eight months twelve years ago. They’d broken up when he’d gotten an offer for a better-paying job in California. Had she known she was carrying his child then, or was it their lukewarm goodbye sex that had created Hazel? He’ll never know.
“You want help with your homework?” Danny asks Hazel.
Hazel lifts her head. “Can we do it after dinner?”
“Of course, kiddo,” Danny says with the gentle steadiness that first made Maynard fall for him. “But you’re still doing most of the work.”
“I know.” Hazel rolls her eyes.
“Can you grab some thyme from the garden?” Maynard asks her. “The fresh stuff, not the dried.”
She slides off her stool. “Can I take scissors?”
“Yes, but—”
“I know, I know. Walk with them pointing down. I’m not five.”
The moment she’s out the door, Macaroni leaps onto the counter.
“Down, you beast!” Maynard lunges, but Danny’s faster, scooping the cat mid-heist.
“Nice try, you little goblin,” Danny says as he cradles the squirming cat like a furry football. He scratches Macaroni’s chin, and the cat instantly melts from outraged captive to purring machine. The sight does something stupid to Maynard’s chest; Danny has always had this effect on creatures who don’t trust easily.
“You’re rewarding his behavior,” Maynard points out.
“I’m accepting that he’s a cat doing cat things. It’s his nature.” Danny deposits Macaroni on the floor and returns to the stove. “Like how it’s your nature to make those tiny, perfect onion cubes.” He grins. “I accept you both for who you are.”
Danny’s been incredible through all of this: the awkward meetings with social workers, the hastily converted home studio that became Hazel’s bedroom. While Maynard was ricocheting between shock and panic at suddenly becoming a father to a traumatized eleven-year-old, Danny was painting the new bedroom walls lavender (Hazel’s favorite color) and figuring out school enrollment.
The back door bangs open, and Hazel reappears with a fistful of thyme sprigs and a smudge of dirt on her cheek. “I got extra ‘cause it smells good. And also I saw a lizard.”
“Did you catch it?” Danny asks.
“No, but I named him Fernando.”
“An excellent name.”
Maynard takes the herbs from her. “Wash your hands. And your face.”
“Why my face?”
“Because there’s dirt on it.”
She touches her cheek, then glances at her fingertips. “Oh.” She squints at him. “Is that why you were staring at me all weird? You could’ve just said so.”
“I wanted to see if you’d notice.”
“That’s mean.”
“That’s scientific inquiry.”
Hazel sticks out her tongue and heads to the sink. As she passes, Maynard gently pats her shoulder, a small gesture of acknowledgment that even in teasing, they’re okay.
Danny adds the fresh thyme to whatever alchemy he’s working on at the stove, then points to a bowl of prepared vegetables. “Can you pass those over?”
Maynard slides the bowl across the counter, and their fingers brush in the exchange. A casual touch, but Maynard feels it like a current, even after all this time.
“What’re you thinking about?” Danny asks, catching his gaze.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. You’ve got that deep thoughts look.”
“Just thinking that we need more coffee.”
Danny raises an eyebrow but doesn’t press. He never does. It’s one of the thousand reasons Maynard loves him: this ability to recognize when not to push, when to let Maynard circle back to vulnerability in his own time.
“Who wants to set the table?” Maynard asks when the sauce is finished.
“Not it,” Hazel says immediately.
“Not it,” Danny echoes, stirring with exaggerated concentration.
Maynard sighs. “Really? We’re doing this again?”
“Doing what?” Hazel asks, all innocence.
“The thing where you both say ‘not it’ and then I end up doing it anyway.”
“If you know how it ends, why do you even ask?” Danny winks at Hazel, who giggles.
“I ask,” Maynard says, already reaching for the stack of plates, “because I live in eternal hope that someday you two will reveal yourselves as considerate human beings.”
“Harsh,” Danny says.
“But fair,” Hazel adds, in the exact same tone.
Maynard tries to maintain his stern expression, but these moments when Danny and Hazel unconsciously mirror each other always hit him in a tender place. The genetic connection isn’t there, but something else is forming between them, something just as real.
A loud crash from the counter draws all three pairs of eyes. Macaroni, having executed a stealth mission up the side of a bar stool, now stands triumphantly next to a fallen pepper grinder.
“He’s just trying to help,” Hazel says.
“He’s a menace.” But even as he says it, Maynard reaches out to scratch behind Macaroni’s ears. The cat blinks slowly at him, a look of such smug satisfaction that Maynard can’t help but laugh.
“See?” Danny says, sliding an arm around Maynard’s waist as he passes. “Even you can’t resist his charms.”
“I am selectively tolerant.”
Danny laughs and drops a kiss on Maynard’s temple, the kind of affection that happens a hundred times a day but never feels routine.
Maynard sets the table. Three plates. Three forks. Three knives. Three napkins folded precisely. The simple arithmetic of family life still surprises him sometimes, this clean division into thirds where once there had only been halves.
He’s arranging water glasses when the phone rings.
“I got it.” Danny reaches for the wall-mounted phone.
Maynard continues his task, half-listening to Danny’s side of the conversation.
“Hello? Yeah, he’s right here.” Danny covers the receiver with his palm and extends it toward Maynard. “It’s Paul.”
There’s a slight furrow between Danny’s brows, a question in his eyes. Paul doesn’t call often. Maybe once or twice a year—birthdays, holidays, the occasional random Thursday when he’s had exactly two and a half beers.
Maynard wipes his hands on his jeans and takes the phone. “Hey.”
Paul’s voice is taut, no greeting, no preamble. “Have you heard from Adam?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Shit.” Paul sighs into the receiver. “Of course he didn’t reach out.”
“About what?” Maynard instinctively angles away from Hazel, who’s watching him curiously.
“He made a movie. Some indie horror thing. It’s making the rounds at festivals.”
Adam has always been film school artsy, always carrying a camera and talking about perspective and framing and the poetry of light. Not surprising he made a movie.
“Good for him.” Maynard keeps his voice neutral, but a chill spreads through his chest.
Paul wouldn’t be calling about just any movie.
“It’s about that summer,” Paul says finally, confirming what Maynard already suspects. “Everything’s... thinly veiled. Changed names. But it’s us, Maynard. It’s what happened.”
Maynard goes still. Sounds become muted and distant, and the kitchen seems to recede around him. Not quite dissociation—he’s too familiar with that particular defense mechanism to mistake it—but a kind of suspended animation.
“Maynard? You still there?”
He makes a sound that might pass for affirmation.
“Look, I wanted to warn you. In case... in case someone sees it and recognizes... you know. The situation.” Paul’s voice dips lower, and Maynard knows he’s hunching over, cupping his hand around the phone as if the past might escape through the receiver if he’s not careful enough. “He called it Summer of ‘78. Prick wasn’t subtle at all.”
“What the fuck was he thinking?” Maynard says finally.
“He says he’s ‘processing trauma through art’,” Paul says, the air quotes audible in his voice. “But I think he wants attention. Or awards. Or acclaim for his fucking bravery in telling this story.”
“Have you seen it?”
“No. He called me a few days ago, all excited, saying I should come to the screening. Like I’d want to relive that shit in a dark room full of strangers.”
Maynard rubs his temple with his free hand. “Jesus. Does Les know?”
“Probably not. Dude doesn’t have a phone.”
“Must be nice.”
The kitchen has gone impossibly quiet. When Maynard turns, he finds Danny and Hazel watching him: Danny with the sharp attentiveness of someone who can read the tension in the line of Maynard’s shoulders, Hazel with the unfiltered curiosity of a child.
“I’ll call you back,” Maynard says into the phone. “I gotta go.”
He hangs up before Paul can say anything more. The receiver makes a too-loud click as it settles into the cradle.
“Everything okay?” Danny asks.
“Fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” Hazel says. “You’re all quiet and scary.”
“I’m not scary.” But Maynard feels how rigid he’s holding himself, sees Danny noticing it too. “Am I?”
“Not like monster scary. Like when the Jaws music plays but you don’t see the shark yet. That kind of scary.”
Danny turns off the heat under the pasta sauce. “Can you finish setting the table, Hazel? Your dad and I need to talk for a minute.”
“Is it about grown-up stuff?”
“Yes.”
“Is it about private grown-up stuff? ‘Cause Emily at school says when her mom and dad need to ‘talk for a minute,’ it really means they’re gonna kiss and be gross.”
Maynard feels his mouth twitch. “No, it’s not that kind of talk.”
As Hazel grabs the remaining napkins, Danny tilts his head toward the back door. Maynard follows him onto the small deck that overlooks their backyard and Maynard’s greenhouse. The door slides shut behind them, then Danny’s hand is on his arm. “What’s up?”
Maynard looks at the horizon, where the sun is setting in a blaze of orange and pink beyond the rooftops. “Adam made a movie about something that happened when we were kids.”
Danny waits, giving him space to continue, but Maynard doesn’t. Can’t, maybe. The words are too tangled and sharp-edged to get out.
“Something bad?” Danny asks.
Maynard nods.
“How bad?”
“Bad enough.”
Danny’s silent for a moment. His thumb moves in small circles against Maynard’s bicep. “You wanna tell me about it?”
“No.”
“Okay.” No push, no press. “Do you need anything?”
What does Maynard need? He needs the past to stay past. Needs Adam to have kept his camera turned elsewhere. Needs to never have found that fucking body in the first place.
But Danny can’t give him any of those things.
“I don’t know.”
Through the sliding glass door, he sees Hazel carefully arranging silverware. Macaroni sits perched in the fourth chair, his usual spot at the table.
“May,” Danny says softly. “Whatever this is, whatever happened… You know I’m not going anywhere, right?”
They’ve been together eight years, and still, Danny’s unwavering loyalty feels like more than Maynard deserves. “I know.”
“Good.” Danny leans in and presses a quick kiss to his forehead. “Now, let’s eat.”
Back inside, they seat themselves around the table. Steam rises from the pasta Danny dishes out. The sauce is rich with tomatoes and herbs, the table set, the scene domestic. But Maynard feels a dark current running beneath the surface of their evening. Paul’s call has opened a door he’d thought was locked for good.
He’s aware of Hazel watching him, his new daughter with her too-perceptive eyes. He needs to pull it together, push this down and deal with it later, alone. He’s gotten good at that over the years; compartmentalization is practically his superpower.
“Dad,” Hazel says, “who were you talking to on the phone?”
“An old friend,” Maynard says carefully.
“From where?”
“From Michigan. Where I grew up.”
“I thought you grew up in Ohio.”
“I moved around a lot.”
“Oh.” Hazel accepts this assessment without further question and turns her attention back to her pasta. Danny, though, is still watching him.
“Maynard?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re not eating.”
He looks down at his untouched plate. “Right.”
He picks up his fork and takes a bite. It tastes like nothing at all.
June 1978
You ever notice how the colors change right before sunset? It’s not just golden hour, it’s magic hour—that’s what Mom called it before her words started leaking out one by one.
Anyway. Picture four kids on bikes; Adam, Paul, Les, and yours truly—riding through this melted, golden light.
We cut between two houses where a chain-link fence had been flattened by years of kids taking the same shortcut (I bet Mrs. Francis still yells at kids cutting through her yard. She’s probably immortal at this point). Beyond was the woods. Older kids found dirty magazines and half-melted fireworks there. Some swore it was haunted. A kid two grades above us broke his arm there the previous summer, and my dad swore if I went back I’d be grounded until the sun exploded. But I did anyway, because fourteen-year-olds are powered by spite and peer pressure and a general belief that nothing can kill you.
We dumped the bikes by the tunnel entrance. It was a concrete tube, five feet tall, under what used to be a railroad. Our clubhouse, basically, if your idea of a clubhouse is “graffiti, grime, and maybe hepatitis.” (It was ours, though. That made it pretty cool.)
Paul had firecrackers. Adam wanted to blow up a G.I. Joe he stole from his little brother. Les, on the other hand, wandered toward the woods. You ever know someone who just drifts toward the weird? That’s Les. Once he spent twenty minutes watching ants disassemble a dead beetle while the rest of us skipped rocks across Miller’s Pond.
Anyway. We were about to light the fuse when Les spoke up. But it wasn’t a “hey, check this out” voice; it was flatter. “Uh… hey. Guys.”
I didn’t like that. Adam was already zeroing in, Polaroid camera in-hand, like this was assignment work for the yearbook (if our yearbook covered, y’know, the worst days of your life).
We pushed through sumac. Sweat glued my shirt to my back. Swarms of gnats, all bite and no respect for personal space.
Les was crouched by a rat’s nest of old blankets and Thunderbird bottles.
Paul was like, “If that’s another dead possum, I swear to God—”
I saw the foot first: a sneaker with a dirty red shoelace. I thought—please, let it be a doll. (Spoiler: it’s never a doll.)
The wind shifted, and the smell hit us. Like dog food left in a hot dumpster. God, worse. Sweet rot, the kind you can’t ever quite forget. I can smell it right now, just telling you.
I made myself step closer. I saw a leg—a calf, blanketed in black flies.
Les still didn’t move. Paul was white-knuckling my shoulder, mumbling “oh shit oh shit,” but Adam was already side-stepping Les to get a better angle. “Can you move your arm?” he said, frowning at me, like I was blocking the TV. The camera snapped.
I said, “Dude, what the fuck?” but he took another picture.
Paul wanted to run. So did I. Les too, probably. But Adam always needed proof. “Jim,” he said (I was still Jim, not Maynard yet). “Who is it?”
I didn’t know. I tried to remember the description from the flyers at Sav-On: a boy, ten years old, maybe eleven, brown hair, a scar near his elbow. Jared? Jamie? None of the names sat right.
“We should check,” Adam said. “Just to be sure. Maybe it’s someone we know.” His hands hovered near the camera again, greedy for another picture.
“Maybe he’s a runaway,” I said.
“Just leave it,” Paul said. “Jesus, Adam, let’s just get outta here and tell the cops.”
“If you can’t handle it, don’t look,” Adam said. “I thought I’d puke, but honestly? It’s not even that bad.”
Les finally spoke up. “Runaways don’t die like this,” he said. “They hide out. People have to, sometimes. You don’t just starve in the woods. Not in June.” I believed him, because Les saw things we didn’t.
“Could’ve been animals,” Paul said.
“No,” Adam said, too eager. “It’s not natural. And if it was an animal attack, who covered him up?” He looked at me. “Pull the blanket back, Jim. Somebody has to.”
And that somebody, it seemed, was me. Yeah, I could’ve said no. Probably should have. But like hell I was gonna look like a pussy in front of my friends, so I found a stick. (I can smell the lichen. I can see the bird shit. It was the only thing between my hand and whatever was left under there.)
Just do it, I told myself. Just do it and get it over with.
I raised the stick and peeled back the sour-smelling blanket. I saw a face. Swollen, purple, mouth open. No color left, no childhood softness, just something that used to be human and was now just matter. The skin at the neck had a deep purple ring, like a necklace drawn too tight.
Adam bent down and said, “There—that’s a ligature mark, where someone pulled something tight.” He sounded impressed. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to take that fucking camera and break it on a rock, but I didn’t.
Les turned away and folded into himself. Paul was freaking out. Adam’s camera snapped again, and the square fell into the grass.
Adam held up the Polaroid, studying it like a piece of evidence. “The police are gonna want to see this. Good thing we were here.”
Here with the ruin of someone’s kid. For a minute there was no sound but flies and breath. It felt like physics had let go. It took me years to figure out that it didn’t, that this was physics, too—what happens when a bad idea gets gravity and starts pulling.
Anyway. That’s where it began. That smell. That shoelace. That stupid, hungry camera. And me, lifting a blanket with a stick like a knight with a rotten sword, nothing noble about it at all.