Chapter 23
Tight balls of tension worked at Helena’s clenched jaw. Her blistered heels burned with every stride, pack bouncing on her shoulders.
Liz and Maggie never stood up to Joni. It was as if she were too special, too golden, to handle the truth.
Then she remembered the way Joni’s face had fallen as she’d said that stuff about her part-time friendship. Beneath the burn of anger, she felt the smallest niggle of guilt.
She paced on. The valley led into woodland, where thin silver birches clustered close, a light breeze stirring their branches. The forest floor was dusted with the first fallen leaves of the season.
“Wait up!”
Helena turned and saw Maggie attempting to jog beneath the bounce of her pack.
She eventually caught up, face flushed, hairline damp. “You’ve got a stride on you!” she said, breathless.
“Walking off the rage.”
“How’s that going?” Maggie asked, wiping her brow.
“Ask me on the peak of Blafjell. Might be out of my system by then.” She glanced back to where Joni and Liz were finally rejoining the trail. “What’s the bet Liz will defend Joni?”
Maggie didn’t comment.
“Doesn’t it frustrate you that Joni turns up—unannounced—when we’ve not seen her in eighteen months? She doesn’t call. Doesn’t check in. The rest of us have been preparing for this trip for weeks, buying the right gear, getting fit—”
Maggie looked a little sheepish.
“Okay, fit-ish. But you did your best, right? Joni, though—she decides on a coin toss! Then she just orders some poor starstruck teenager in an outdoors shop to sort her gear, and just like that, she’s here—singing in the lodge, partying through the night.
Then she’s up and out on the trail this morning, running her fingers through the meadow grass like she’s found her bliss.
If I drank my body weight in booze, partied until dawn, and slept in my makeup, the next morning you could wear me as a Halloween mask.
Yet Joni wakes up in smudged kohl liner, piles her hair on top of her head, ties a bandanna, and looks like a bloody rock star. ”
“She is a rock—”
“Fine! The point is,” she said, not entirely sure what her point was going to be, “the point is . . . Joni bought her hiking boots yesterday and hasn’t worn them in, but is she going to be the one with blisters? Of course she’s not!”
At her side, Maggie was trying not to smile.
“Why are you making that face?”
Maggie’s smile widened. “The things that frustrate you about Joni—her impulsiveness, how she doesn’t give a shit about plans, that she’ll throw herself into any situation—those are also the reasons why you love her.”
Helena paused on that comment for a moment. She was saved from having to concede that Maggie was, in fact, completely right, because the trail had delivered them through a narrow band of trees and onto a riverbank.
“Oh,” Maggie said as the trees parted, revealing a glacial blue river rushing between two deep grassy banks. Water-smoothed boulders studded its surface.
“This must be where we need to cross,” Helena said, noting the two red T-markers painted on opposite sides of the river.
Three flat boulders looked like possible stepping stones, but they’d need another dozen if they were to make it across with dry feet.
“It looks too deep,” Maggie said.
But Helena was already thinking about the relief of peeling off her sweat-soaked socks and lowering her feet into the cool water.
—
When Liz reached the riverbank, she planted her hands on her hips and said, “We can’t cross here.” She consulted the map she wore around her neck. “I think we should keep on walking—see if there’s a narrower section up there.”
Helena could feel the pulsating heat of her blisters. Liz wasn’t even sweating. She looked hydrated, energized. Like Joni, her heels were no doubt blister-free. “I’m crossing here,” she snapped, unlacing her boots.
Joni was standing several feet away, sunglasses on, arms folded across her chest.
“It’s too dangerous,” Liz warned. “Anyway, you’re meant to keep your boots on for grip during a river crossing.”
Helena tossed her head. “And what, walk in soaking-wet boots for the next four days? My heels are already pulp. I don’t think damp pulp is going to help.
” She was being short-tempered with Liz but couldn’t seem to rein it in.
She peeled off her bloodstained socks, grimacing as they snagged against the damaged skin.
“Your feet!” Maggie cried, wincing.
“They’re fine,” Helena said, choosing not to look. She removed her trousers, stuffing them in her pack, then secured her boots to her backpack by their laces. She lugged the pack onto her shoulders and made for the riverbank.
“Helena, don’t,” Liz said.
Helena moved carefully between the first three stepping stones and then lowered her feet into the icy water. The cold rush made her gasp with pleasure and pain.
Beneath her soles, the riverbed was lined with large, round stones coated in algae. She took a moment to find her balance, bare toes clinging to the curves of stone. The weight of her backpack forced her to tilt slightly forward as she made one tentative step and then another.
The water was soon above her knees, the tow of the current surprisingly fierce. She was aware that everyone was watching her. She kept going, gradually reaching the middle of the river. Liz was right; she’d underestimated the depth and tow.
“It’s too deep!” Liz called.
It was the clipped bossiness of Liz’s tone that propelled her on.
She took another step, and as she did, she felt the sole of her left foot slide over the algae-slick surface of a stone.
She tried to grip with her toes, but there was no purchase.
She was thrown off balance, her body lurching forward, the weight of her pack toppling her further.
She reached out—but there was nothing to grab.
She felt the icy slap of the river smack her face. In an instant, she was under. The freezing water sealed above her head, the fizzing rush of it filled her ears and nose. She could taste its earthy, mineral bite as it gushed into her mouth.
Her backpack was strapped fast, forcing her down. Her knees met the riverbed, rolled over loose stones. She tried to push back to the surface, but the weight of her pack, which had filled with water, kept her pinned under. She heard the distorted screams from the others on the riverbank.
Her fingers grappled with the chest strap, fumbling, panicked. She managed to wrench the clip open and tried to pull it from her shoulders, but it was still attached at her waist with a second buckle.
Her lungs were burning, eyes wide to the blurry sting of the river. With blundering fingers, she scrabbled underwater to release it. Her wet hair fanned in front of her face.
The urge to breathe was becoming desperate. She clawed at the buckle.
Fire burned in her chest.
This is how I’m going to die, she thought.
Suddenly there was a strong yank above her, and she felt the pack being raised out of the water, Helena drawn with it.
She burst to the surface, gasping, sucking air into her lungs.
Joni, soaked, was in the river. She unclipped the buckle of Helena’s pack, releasing her from its weight.
“You’re okay,” Joni said calmly. Her sunglasses were studded with water. “You’re safe.”
Adrenaline spiked in Helena’s veins as she dragged in another breath, hair pasted to her face.
“Let’s wade to the other bank, okay?”
Helena nodded, a hand gripping Joni’s arm as they moved across the riverbed together, Joni holding the pack high above her head, muscles taut.
Reaching the opposite bank, Helena crawled out on her knees, chest heaving. Shock ricocheted through her body. She flopped down on the grassy bank, wiping snot from her face.
Joni clambered out beside her, clothes sodden, boots wet, and dragged the backpack away from the edge. She crouched in front of Helena, water dripping from her clothes. “Are you hurt?”
“I could’ve drowned,” Helena said, her voice small. “I was in waist-high water, but I couldn’t stand. I shouldn’t have crossed . . . I’m sorry,” she said, humiliated. She’d started to shake with the cold or shock.
“Here, take off your wet things.”
Helena nodded, peeling off her soaked top.
Joni searched through Helena’s pack for the spare clothes that were thankfully stored in dry bags and handed her a warm fleece.
Helena felt a deep rush of gratitude—and shame. Joni was the one who’d launched straight into the river, unthinking. Never hesitating. Never considering the consequences.
Helena looked at her. That was Joni, wasn’t it? Impulsive, brave, unthinking. It was her curse—and her gift. Just like Maggie said. You start choosing the parts of someone that you’d change or alter, and you realize those very parts are what also makes you love them.
Helena pushed her wet hair back from her face. “I’m sorry about earlier. For all of it. For posting the video. For what I said.”
Joni shrugged. “I’m sorry for blaming you. It’s my mess. My responsibility to clean it up.”
From the opposite bank, Liz and Maggie were calling to them both, asking if they were okay.
Joni and Helena held each other’s gaze for a long moment.
“We’re okay,” Helena said eventually, something like a truce settling between them.