The Gray: Prologue–Chapter 16

At first, he thought I had something called heightened sensitivity with social anxiety, or another thing he called a panic disorder, but after a while he said that maybe when my senses get overwhelmed, what I seem to be experiencing is what he calls generalized anxiety with occasional panic.

I see or feel too much or have super-realistic dreams. Tight spaces can feel like being held down; loud noises are a megaphone in my ear. Crowded places just make me want to hide. Dr. W has his own labels for it. He says it’s an “exacerbation that comes from an overuse and overdependence on technology.”

When I get overwhelmed, it feels like I go to a different place—it’s like I’m in a different world. I call it the Gray.

Uncle Lou knew what it was like to see and feel too much. He called my sensitivity a “gift”—the way I could see and hear even the quietest of animals hiding in their knotholes or the beat of the woodpeckers in the trees, and sometimes, if I was quiet and still enough, the slimiest salamanders in the pond would swim right into my hand.

Cows graze in fields alongside hills spotted with barns.

A tree-covered hill rises up through wisps of fog, and I think about what it was like the last time I came here.

The world was swirling. I felt off balance, queasy, like I might flip upside down.

My server will be annihilated by the time I get back. Everything I built—gone.

Uncle Lou’s sculptures and carvings greet us as we come up the driveway—badgers, rabbits, foxes, and other creatures everywhere I look.

I heard the frustration in Dad’s voice. He wants to save me. He wants to fix things. Fix me. I get it. He’s an engineer—fixing things is what he does.

Then, even though their voices were muffled, I heard them talking about Aunt Ruthie, that she said she’d “take me for the summer.”

The camp was on the verge of closing down, anyway, when one summer, a young girl from town got lost near the camp and was never found.

She’s also the only person I know who has actually choreographed dances to Star Wars music.

Even though she’s shorter than I am, she practically lifts me up with her hug.

A small, very realistic coyote carving is sitting near the side of the house that frames the entrance to the deepest part of the forest.

I head downstairs, and we go out the door and start down the trail, weaving through the huge maple and birch trees near the outskirts of the pond.

We watch the frogs as they swim down into the murky water.

The ghost person, or whatever he is, stands perfectly still against the rippling pond and the gently swaying boughs of the beech trees.

“Eli? Eli,” she says resolutely. “Of course. Well, I haven’t seen you in an age, and you’re taller than ever. What brings you out here to the Stone of Power?”

He trudges up the small hill, one boot at a time, to the top of the stone.

Aunt Ruthie’s house is, as my father says, rustic—which makes sense, because it’s somewhere between rust and ick.

The sky tinges gray.

I kind of like the idea of building my own routine, but I still feel unsettled.

Suddenly, we hear a loud whinny from far away on top of the hill. I see a horse moving like a storm through the meadow, its silvery coat and long black mane flying in the wind behind it.

We start off in the big pen riding in long circles, practicing with the reins, learning to lean back.

In Earthforge, you can ride a horse—virtually. They are easy to control if you just spawn a digital carrot and feed it to them. The controls are simple, and I feel the keyboard on my fingers like I’m in the game, but then Duke starts to trot, and as I bump along with each step, I’m reminded that this is not a virtual world.

Something slithers nearby, a snakelike thing with yellow eyes, its mouth gaping like it might swallow me in one bite.

In the field it sounds like the grasshoppers are growling and the trickling water in the ponds is a waterfall—everything bigger and more than itself.

She opens her canteen and pours the water until my hair is completely soaked.

Duke stays steady at first, but right as I almost get myself all the way up, something moves in the tall grass near the stream. Duke lurches forward and I feel my leg stretching.

I wonder if this counts as even riding at all. Duke nudges my shoulder with his giant muzzle, maybe trying to tell me that this time it’s different.

I should feel more nervous, but right now at least, it feels safe, tranquil, like nothing out here could harm me.

Eventually, the path opens onto a wide green field with a broken backstop and rusted soccer goals on either end.

I want to get away from all this commotion.

I walk fast, but I’m nervous now, and my stomach is churning.