Chapter Thirty
When the alarm on my phone goes off at two fifteen, I’m already awake. Nothing ruins a night’s sleep like an impossibly early
call time. Especially when said call time is for something this anxiety producing. The truth is, I want to go. Or at least,
I want to want to go. Which is close enough.
I throw back my covers and swing my feet onto a braided throw rug that is meant to add glamour to the glamping. We’d decided
to sleep in our clothes for an easy exit, so all I need to do is slip into my hiking boots. Lily is right, it’s up and down
on a trail that is practically a straight line. We’ll be back before anyone knows we left. I still can’t help but imagine
the look on Brick’s face if he finds out we’ve broken the rule he’s repeated over and over again, don’t wander off.
I have to shake Lily to rouse her. She groans and swats me away as if I’m making her wake up for school. “This was your idea,”
I hiss, and she blinks at me. Then she remembers her own scheme and flings back the covers. We’ll be traveling light: our
phones for photo ops, a couple of granola bars for breakfast on the move, and the bear spray clipped to my belt to appease
me. Lily takes the backpack she’s leaving behind and puts it under her blanket to form a half-assed body shape.
“When in the history of the world has that trick ever worked?” I ask.
Lily shushes me with a finger to her lips. “Alcatraz,” is all she says.
“Great,” I say, shaking my head, but putting my own backpack under the covers.
Within moments, we are tiptoeing out of the yurt. The sun may have set at midnight, but there is still enough dusky light
for us to be seen. We creep around the yurt, watching our steps for twigs that could snap or rocks that could make us scream
out if we stub a toe. But before we pass the shadow of our hut, we hear a bang and my heart stops. Lily grabs my arm so tightly
I am sure to yelp and give us away. We duck and swivel our heads toward the noise, and there is Ian stumbling out of the outhouse.
This is my fault; I should have factored this into our escape plan. I live with a man who wakes up three times in the night
since he hit fifty. I should have known that it was a risk to our getting caught.
Crouching behind the tent, we wait for Ian to find his way back to bed, and then we racewalk out of the camp and don’t stop
until we arrive at the trailhead. The adrenaline has hit and given us both the giggles. We hold our hands over our mouths,
each shushing the other until we calm down.
Lily lets out a sigh. “Thanks for doing this with me. I feel better already.”
“It’s all uphill from here, hon.”
“Right,” she says. “Things are going to get better; I can handle what’s coming.”
“No, I meant the trail. All uphill. Steeper and steeper.”
“No, you didn’t! A Big joke?”
“Bad?”
“Terrible. But I love it.”
I shrug and smile mischievously. Rule breaking has its upsides, a Lily proverbial pat on the back. Those are few and far between.
We wander past a wooden sign marking off the destinations on the trail. The Denali Viewpoint is four miles from here. A week
ago, that would have seemed impossible. Of course, it helps that right now the trail is flat, bordered by large, soft ferns
and that the mosquitos seem to still be sleeping. This part of the woods is swaddled by stands of white birch trees, far enough
apart to let the light in, and I keep an eye out for what could be watching us from behind one of them. I’m hoping it’s my
orange furry friend, but I also have my hand on the canister hanging from my belt loop, in case it’s someone else.
The incline comes too quickly, and the trail narrows and becomes tougher to negotiate. The dirt is hard packed. Roots run
like immovable snakes across our path. The growth bordering the trail grows thicker. Branches overhead block the weak sunlight,
and the air feels cooler and smells damper. It’s darker in here than it was yesterday.
I’m the first to trip and fall, stumbling over a rock I didn’t see. I land on my knees and hands, both of which immediately
become cold and damp and dirty. Lily hooks her arm in mine and pulls me up. “Watch it, klutzy.” She laughs and then steps
in a mud puddle that puts her in muck over her shoe.
“You were saying?”
“Shit,” says my sister. “Why is it so dark in here?”
“Because it’s three in the morning. Lil, we just need to get through the forest. Remember, it’s lighter when we are above
the tree line. Watch where you’re walking.”
“I’m not the one who fell first.”
This is Lily’s favorite game. The circular argument. She doesn’t mean a thing by it. It’s just something to entertain herself.
As tempted as I am to go nine rounds with her—it is our thing after all—we do need to watch where we are going or we’re not
going to make it back in one piece, so I let this round go to her.
We fall into a steady rhythm. I work on keeping my breathing even and ignoring the burning in my legs.
Soon we come to a fork in the trail.
“This wasn’t here yesterday,” Lily says. She walks a few feet up the left trail, turns and walks a few feet up the right.
“Did you notice this?”
“I was following you. Did we bring a map?”
“How would I have a map? We’re on a guided tour. We were following our guide. Besides, I distinctly remember it was one trail,
straight up.”
“Well, that one goes up.” I say pointing to the steeper trail that looks less traveled. The ground is not as hard packed,
and loose rocks, broken sticks, and small clumps of greenery lie scattered across it. “But it feels wrong.”
“We know we are supposed to climb higher, that’s where the view is. Not down here in the trees. I assure you; we need to take
this one.” She points to the rugged trail. Her voice sounds confident.
I am not convinced. “Maybe we should go back.”
My sister’s answer is to stride off on her path. I have no choice but to follow. Well, I do have a choice. I can take myself
back to camp from here. Of course, having yet to break the Lily habit, I follow her.
“Come to your senses?” she asks when I catch up to her. “You know I’m right about this. I know where we’re going.”
“I’d feel better with a map. Or an actual experienced guide.”
“Chickenshit.”
“I’m not—”
She turns around to face me, walking backward on the stony trail, flaps her arms like a chicken, and squawks.
So busy chortling at me and thinking she’s a comedian, Lily doesn’t see the root in the ground until she kicks her heel against it and falls on her ass.
She lands with an oof, and now it’s my turn to laugh.
I walk past her, not offering to help her up. “You little . . .” she yells after me.
Lily dusts herself off and runs to catch up to me. We laugh again and stomp up the trail, excited to be heading to a sunrise
few will see, happy to be together, busting each other, and swinging our arms like we don’t have a care in the world. We break
out of the woods where the trail runs alongside a steep hill towering over it. The hill is covered in loose rocks, similar
to the scree we hiked over the very first day. A large swath of them have tumbled down the incline, like a stone avalanche,
and covered the trail.
“This isn’t right,” I say.
“I don’t remember this part,” adds Lily. “At all.”
A thwack of dread hits my gut. “We went the wrong way. We’ve got to go back.”
“Okay, don’t panic. We can turn around and go back to the fork and go the other way. We still have time to make the sunrise.”
Our hike back to where we veered off the path is less jubilant. I can’t tell how far out we are from the starting point, I
wasn’t paying attention; but eventually we come to a fork in the path. “See,” Lily says. “No sweat, back on track.”
Within minutes, the trail becomes a steep downward path, the forest gets thicker, the air colder, and my heart beats even
faster. “This also feels wrong, very wrong,” I say, turning my feet sideways and holding my arms out for balance to manage
the sharp, unsteady decline.
Now Lily’s confidence is waning. “Shit,” she says, running a hand through her hair. “I could have sworn this was the way.”
“I don’t recognize any of this.” We keep going.
I inspect every leaf and bush hoping to find familiarity in it.
I don’t. I try to memorize landmarks, a tree with a broken branch that resembles a wishbone, a group of downed pines all covered in thick moss, a rock the size of a moose.
We round a curve, and up ahead I see a wishbone-shape branch again. “Lily, we’re walking in circles.”
“Shit, Big,” my sister says. “We’re fucking lost.”