Excerpt from Weathering by Lucy Wood, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Excerpt
Weathering

A night of heavy rain which left the trees dripping. Water pooled on the front step and some of it came in under the door. Her mother was going to the shop but Pepper didn't want to go – it was always cold and the man that worked there, Mick, watched her and tapped his long fingers on the counter. Also, she felt a faint pang of fear whenever she thought of being in the car.

She was meant to stay indoors but everything looked varnished and bright after the rain, so she put her coat on and went outside, then came back in and slung the camera over her shoulder.

Through the sopping grass and down towards the river. It was wide and brown today, and it rippled and churned. There were deep creases when it went round rocks and a hollow, clunking noise. It looked strong, like a muscle. When she threw in a stick, the stick didn't float on the surface – it got dragged under, as if something had reached up to grab it. She walked along the bank and there was the bridge she'd seen in some of the photos – it had rusty railings and a broken plank in the middle. She made herself stand on it. The river roared under her feet. She crossed the bridge and the trees thickened in front of her. They were almost bare now – their trunks were silver and they tilted upwards and there was a path going through them. Pepper looked back at the house, then walked up into the wood.

The noise of the river and the noise of the trees were the same. They both roared and thrummed. Twigs and leaves rained down. The ground was slippery and smelled rich and there were wide gullies of water that she had to jump over. There were coppery leaves everywhere, and plants dying back to a dusky colour, and a pile of sawn branches that had orange insides bright as lamps. There was a shiny black beetle that looked blue close up, mounds of horse poo, piles of pine needles that she poked until ants came out.

The wood increased ahead of her; below, the river swung in and out of sight as if a door was opening and closing. Something flitted across a branch and she fumbled with the camera but the bird had already gone.

The tilting trees made her dizzy. The path branched and she turned right without noticing. Mud and leaves caught in her boots. Fat drops of rain fell through the branches and landed on her arm. There was a wigwam up ahead, made of branches that had been tied together at the top. A sweet wrapper glinting at the entrance. She looked inside. A dusty floor, lots of small footprints. She put her foot in and made her own prints, then kicked the sweet wrapper into the ground.

The path branched again. Pepper stomped on with her head down. Old grudges bubbling up: that boy who said there wasn't room for her to join his club, the teacher that forgot her name, that lowdown group of girls who told everyone she had a bad disease. That girl who seemed nice at first but then swatted a bee straight out of the sky. The stupid boy who wouldn't go into the park with her because he was scared of pigeons. Her father. That sour-smelling man on the bus that sang romance songs to her and made everyone stare. A branch cracked behind her and she spun around. The path veered downhill and she couldn't see the river. There was a clump of mushrooms on a tree, wet and salmony, folded over like ears. White mushrooms blotched with grey. Brown ones with dark frills. A branch cracked again. She turned round and started walking back, too fast, her feet sliding on leaves, the camera bouncing against her chest. The path forked. Both ways looked the same. Her breath was ragged in her throat. Her heart clattered and there was a hot feeling in her eyes which she tried to rub away. A small bird flapped above her. She fumbled for the camera but it was too late. 'Crapping hell,' she said.

'You've left the lens cap on,' a voice said behind her.

Excerpted from Weathering by Summer Wood. Copyright © 2016 by Summer Wood. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury USA. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.