8. Eight
Eight
Juliet
T he morning sun was blinding once again, so I buried my face in the pillow and vowed to pick up darker curtains sometime soon. Lace was pretty, sure, but who the hell used it for bedroom curtains?
Artistic old lady innkeepers, that’s who. I preferred to sleep in cave-like darkness—maybe I wasn’t so much like my grandmother, after all.
For a few minutes, I debated what to do with my day. Though I’d already filled an entire sketchbook with drawings, I had yet to break out my painting supplies. I could start work on an actual painting, spend more time searching through the dusty boxes in the other room, or venture out to one of the places on Gerard’s list.
The promise of adventure won out.
The day was going to be warm, so I threw on a pair of denim shorts and knotted a dark blue t-shirt at one hip. After shoving my hair into a ponytail, I laced up the hiking boots I'd packed, purchased years ago for a spring break trip to the Grand Canyon with Sarah, and loaded my backpack with a sketchbook, camera, snacks, and a water bottle.
I grabbed the bundle of letters from Nan off the couch and moved to the kitchen to add my mother’s to it, but the countertop was bare. For a long, silent moment, I stared at the spot where I’d set it down during my trips to and from the car, but it didn’t appear. A quick look in the recycle bin, in case it’d gotten stuck to the takeout boxes last night, revealed nothing.
Had I been so distracted by my run-in with Henry that I moved it and forgot where I put it?
Cursing the man under my breath, I brought Nan’s letters to the bedroom and tucked them under the mattress, safe from errant breezes and absentminded artists. I’d probably find Mom’s letter a week from now, tucked “someplace safe” that I’d convinced myself I’d remember and had immediately forgotten.
Back in the kitchen, I traced my fingertip down Gerard’s list, landing on a place called Cooper’s Point. His note mentioned a short hike from the parking lot to the lookout point. I was more the type to enjoy nature from a comfortable perch with a sketchbook in hand, but I was sure I could handle a few miles roundtrip.
Piece of cake. Hopefully the fresh air would clear my head.
The drive was short and simple, a straight shot past the turn leading into Spruce Hill. I pulled into the tiny lot and found a spot in the shade, grabbed my bag, and set off to find Cooper’s Point. At the edge of the trees, I located the path, which was well-worn and wide enough to walk two or three abreast in most spots. Birds sang in the trees overhead as I breathed in the scent of pine and soil and life.
Why didn’t I do this more often? Moving to Spruce Hill was the perfect opportunity to pick up a hobby like hiking, and the fresh air was intoxicating. The woods were so peaceful, everything around me coming to life as spring inched toward summer.
When the path slanted upward at an incline, my calves started burning with the exertion and my euphoria quickly faded.
This was why I didn’t hike. Right.
Pausing to catch my breath, I braced my hands on my knees and listened to a bird trilling overhead. Just before I continued trudging up the hill, a twig snapped somewhere to my right.
The tiny hairs at the back of my neck prickled like I could feel someone staring at me. I straightened slowly, fighting the urge to spin around and run back to the car. Though I glanced into the thick forest butting up against the path, I didn’t see anything unusual, certainly nothing to warrant the sudden rush of fear through my veins.
There was nothing except the quiet sounds of nature surrounding me, the rustle of wind and my own uneven breaths mixing with birdsong, but the feeling of being watched didn’t quite subside.
Forcing myself to start moving again, I hiked until muscle strain and the sweat beading across my forehead distracted me from my unease.
I could see nothing but trees and the worn path in front of me up until the final curve. Then, suddenly, the trail opened into a clearing. Before me lay a breathtaking view of the lake and surrounding forest. A rustic wooden rail lined the cliffside, which dropped down a distance far enough to make me dizzy when I peered over the edge.
Though the forest crept right up to one side of the clearing, to my left was a steep incline down toward the creek—not quite as terrifying as the cliff straight ahead, but I edged closer to the trees, just in case.
My muscle fatigue was quickly forgotten as I snapped dozens of pictures from a variety of angles and spent the next hour and a half sketching. The day heated up quickly as the sun rose high over the expanse of trees, but the changing light revealed new wonders for me to capture.
When I stood from where I’d been kneeling, I left the sketchbook on the ground to stretch out my back and arms. Then, with my eyes on the horizon, I took one step back away from the rail, then another, holding my thumbs and forefingers up to try to frame the view just right.
Almost there.
A sharp crack broke through the quiet of the forest, far louder than the snapping twig from my ascent and significantly closer.
My body jerked in surprise—was that a gunshot?
Before I could determine the source of the sound, the sickening realization that I’d stepped back too far broke past the rush of adrenaline, and I lost my footing.
For a heartbeat, I was frozen mid-air, trying desperately to catch my balance, then I tumbled down the hillside toward the creek bed.
Branches and roots clawed at me as I fell, snagging my hair and skin like talons. I tried to cover my face with my arms, but I could barely tell up from down, bouncing painfully over rocks and fallen tree limbs. When I finally rolled to a groaning stop at the bottom, I held perfectly still, afraid I'd broken every bone in my body.
The pain was all-encompassing. I couldn’t even tell where it was coming from.
The world spun drunkenly overhead in a dizzying blur of tree limbs, leaves, and clouds. I could hear nothing over my own ragged breathing, as though the birds had stopped singing upon seeing some idiot rolling down a hill.
“Oh my god,” I rasped, then reality hit.
I’m going to die out here, alone. No one will come looking for me.
I hadn’t told anyone where I was going, not even Sarah. Surely that was the most basic rule of hiking, and I hadn’t even thought about it.
Who was there to tell, anyway? The guy who hated me, or the old people who worked at the inn?
A strangled sob burst from my throat as I fought down the panic rising inside me.
Slowly, as my eyes focused again on my surroundings, I was better able to gauge the extent of my injuries. Every inch of exposed skin on my arms and legs was scraped raw. I lifted each arm carefully into the air, bending and flexing my elbows and wrists.
A sharp twinge in my left wrist seemed like cause for concern, but I could still open and close my hand. Nothing broken, which was a relief. The scratches on my arms weren’t deep, though they stung like hell.
When I attempted to bend my knees, I flinched. My right kneecap must have struck a rock or a log on the way down, and the resulting bruise blooming under my skin was already dark and angry. Both ankles seemed uninjured, a fact for which I was supremely grateful. The hike back to the car wasn’t going to be fun no matter what, but it would have been an awful lot worse on a broken or sprained ankle.
I turned my head slowly back toward Cooper’s Point, realizing my sketchbook and backpack were still up there.
Even on my best day, I wouldn’t have been able to climb back up the steep hill from this spot. I’d have to find the base of the path in order to make the ascent again, then hike all the way back to the car.
Forget it—I’d just hope my stuff was safe up there until I could handle the trek. Again.
I was still staring toward the Point when a flash of movement up at the edge of the clearing made my heart lurch in my chest, but it was gone before I could determine what it was. Human? Animal? After plummeting all the way down that hill, I couldn’t trust that I wasn’t imagining it.
The pain, that twig snapping in the forest along the path, the gunshot . . . it all melded into the perfect storm for a prime freakout.
I needed to keep it together.
Focusing back on my current predicament, I touched the pocket of my shorts, looking for my phone, but it had been knocked loose during the fall. With a gasp, I groped at my neck, terrified I might have lost my mother’s ring. Its reassuring weight still lay against my sternum, trapped between the t-shirt and my skin. I muttered a swift thank you to the universe for watching out for me on that front.
As I stared numbly back up the hillside, a droplet of something ran into my eye. I wiped at it, thinking my eye was watering, then I gaped at the back of my hand in horror. It was blood, smeared now across both my hand and my forehead. Though I counted my blessings that no bones were broken after that fall, the sight of those scarlet streaks caused me to whimper aloud.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” I whispered, repeating the words in a pathetic attempt at coaxing myself to stand. “Just get up, you’ll be okay.”
Some internal portion of me screamed back, This is definitely not okay!
I was caught between full out panic and the knowledge that no one was coming to help me out of this. If I didn’t get to my feet and start making my way back to the car, well, the alternative wasn’t something I wanted to explore.
Slowly, I sat up and looked around for any sign of my phone. Sunlight glinted off something buried in the dead leaves of the forest floor a few yards away.
With a sigh of relief that morphed swiftly into a groan, I rose to my feet. The phone was miraculously undamaged, but I had no signal out here. Out of options, I pocketed the phone, fixed the ponytail that had come halfway out of my hair elastic, and began walking.
A few painful steps later, I was already limping.
The trees were thick down here and my confidence in which direction I was traveling faltered embarrassingly soon into the journey. The soft babble of the creek kept me company, so I decided to follow it, hopefully back to the path I'd taken out to the Point.
My knee throbbed and, soon enough, the sweat beading across my forehead caused blood to drip into my eye again. I was barely managing to hold it together, stumbling along until the thin stream of water beside me joined up with the main body of the creek.
Once there, I doubled over and fought back the tears. If I started crying now, I was afraid I might never stop. It might have been melodramatic of me, but there was a certainty deep in my gut that my survival depended on me not falling apart out here.
“You can do this,” I said aloud. “You have to do this. Buck up, Jules.”
The words were not as reassuring as I might have hoped.
I rested a few minutes longer while I debated whether it was safe to use the creek water to wash the cut on my forehead or wet my suddenly dry mouth. Headlines about flesh-eating bacteria and sewage runoff flashed through my mind, so I decided against it. With a deep breath, I started hobbling along beside the creek, hoping I would soon find the original trail.
Even once I was sure I must have traveled far enough, I still hadn’t found it. The trees seemed to be closing in around me instead of spreading out, until I could barely see more than a few feet on either side.
Over the gentle trickle of the creek and the birdsong above came a different sort of sound and I froze.
Are there bears in these woods? Mountain lions?
What kind of moron went traipsing into the forest without researching local predators?
The sound, if there had been one outside of my overburdened imagination, was gone by the time I stopped berating myself. I checked the phone again for a signal, though whether I was hoping to call for help or research the local bear population, I wasn’t entirely sure. It didn’t matter anyway, since I still had no service.
I wiped at my left eyebrow with the back of my hand, relieved to see there was no resulting streak of fresh blood on my skin, and forced myself to start walking again.
A few minutes later, the sound came again—a distinct rustle of leaves, louder this time. I glanced wildly around for something to defend myself with and found a large branch, perfect for use as a walking stick. I gripped it in my right hand, trying to quiet the harsh sound of my own breathing.
At least I’d go down swinging.
The creature that popped out of the underbrush several feet in front of me was neither bear nor mountain lion. It was, strangely enough, an inquisitive-looking Border Collie wearing a red bandana around its neck.
I stayed right where I was, stick in hand in case the dog was rabid, but it simply wagged its plumed tail and trotted toward me.
“Hi there,” I said softly, lowering the weapon a smidge. The dog cocked its head at the words and padded closer.
“Blue!” The male voice sounded close. “Blue. Come here, girl!”
My head shot up. I shifted my grip on the branch again, wondering if some axe murderer had brought his dog along to track down lost women in the woods. When the owner of the voice appeared from between the trees, I was caught in a precarious balance between relief and dread, because I knew him.
It was Henry Walker.