Chapter 24
They’d agreed to camp by the river for the night, too exhausted to walk any further. A large clearing was bathed in lowering sun, and Liz toed the ground, looking for a dry, flat area to lay their tents.
Maggie rolled back her shoulders, feeling a spasm of muscles shooting down the left side of her spine. She stretched one way and then the other, lips pulled into a grimace. She couldn’t remember feeling so exhausted.
Looking toward the woodland they’d be hiking through tomorrow, she was struck by the sheer density of the trees. The landscape seemed to press up against them, a thick buttress of green. She reached into her pack to check her phone for a signal.
The screen eyed her blankly. Not a single bar. She felt the hot, panicky sensation of being too far from Phoebe. Too far from everything.
Behind her, Helena, heels blistered, hair still wet from the plunge into the river, was laying their tent across the grass, looking defeated.
All Maggie wanted to do was sit. Not move. She wished that were the full scale of her requirements—but she knew she had to help.
She dug into her pack for the bag of pegs and poles; they had split the weight of the tent between them. She emptied them into two piles beside the groundsheet.
Helena’s face was set, eyes dull.
“You okay?” Maggie asked.
“Fine.” Helena didn’t look at her.
“The instructions are sewn into the tent bag, remember? The poles are color-coded. That’s sexy, isn’t it?” Good organization always improved Helena’s mood.
“Very.”
Maggie began snapping poles into long lines, then she threaded them through the fabric hooks of the tent.
She and Helena had had a practice run in her garden a few weekends ago, Helena bringing wine and olives for the performance.
They had recorded it on time-lapse and laughed till their ribs ached, watching themselves back as they’d scratched their heads, laid and relaid it, Phoebe tunneling beneath the groundsheet.
This time around, there was no wine to motivate them, or Phoebe to make them laugh. In a few minutes they’d arched the poles together, pegged in the groundsheet, and were looking at their home for the night.
Helena disappeared inside, laying out her roll mat and sleeping bag and organizing her belongings in the tent pockets.
Maggie padded barefoot across the spongy grass toward the riverbank. Sunlight dappled its surface with gold flecks, colorful rocks wavering in and out of view through the clear water.
She stepped out of her trousers, trying not to look at her pink, dimpled thighs. She peeled her sweat-damp top over her head. The icy cool was glorious as she took a tentative step into the river. She’d not forgotten Helena’s earlier ordeal and decided she’d anchor herself to the riverbank.
She sluiced water beneath her underarms and across the back of her neck, washing away the day’s exertion.
Her skin was studded with goose bumps as she climbed back onto the riverbank.
She didn’t have a towel, so she sat facing the sun, letting the last of its warmth dry her skin.
She closed her eyes, listening to the soothing rush of the stream flowing over rocks, the low hum of Liz and Joni’s chatter as they set up their tent, the high cheep of a bird in the tree canopy.
She heard the lightest sound on the water. Like a whip of wind, followed by a light plink. She opened her eyes and looked at the stream, searching for a bird, or one of her friends throwing in a pebble, but Helena hadn’t left their tent, and Joni and Liz were still wrestling with theirs.
A whirring noise was coming from the far riverbank. Perplexed, she glanced about, then noticed a tiny current running across the surface of the river. She angled her head, peering at it, confused. It ran in the opposite direction to the flow of the river.
Then she caught the line shimmering in and out of view, only noticeable because of the water dripping from its thin stretch. A fishing line.
She blinked, following the line, which traveled to the opposite riverbank, where, obscured by a cluster of bushes, she made out the figure of a man.
Maggie startled. She grabbed for her top, pulling it to her chest.
He was wearing dark green trousers, a plaid shirt, and a peaked cap. She recognized him immediately: Vilhelm from the lodge.
His eyes were lowered to the river—but he must have seen her. Seen all of them. The noise and the chatter as they put up tents, the pops of color among all this green space. Had he been here when they arrived, silently watching?
She shivered. His hook had landed only a few feet away. What if it had snagged her? She thought of a metal hook at the back of her neck, the tug and tear of skin.
“Hey!” she called out in a loud voice, wanting him to know, I’m here. I see you!
Slowly, Vilhelm raised his head. At his feet lay his dog, muzzle on its paws.
“It’s Vilhelm!” Liz whispered, coming to her side with Joni.
“He almost hooked me when I was washing. It’s creepy, him all this way out here.”
Maggie wrapped her arms around herself, their little slice of tranquility feeling suddenly threatened.
“He’s packing up,” Joni whispered as he reeled in his line, then put the rod into a sagging bag.
Without looking at them, he lifted the pack onto his shoulders, turned, and walked east into the forest, his dog trotting behind him.
It was an eerie, lonely image in the ebbing light.
“Where’s he going?” Joni asked.
“There’s no path that way,” Liz said, voice low.
They watched, silent, as he was swallowed by the forest.