Chapter 9 #2
One by one, we turned and started heading back toward the main grounds. By the time we arrived, the sky was slipping toward twilight, shadows stretching longer between the cabins and across the open spaces.
Everything looked the same as it always did at this time of day. It just didn’t feel the same.
“All right, guys,” Caitlin called out, clapping her hands to snap everyone’s gazes to her. “We’re not starving just because some psycho decided to vandalize everything. Can I get a kitchen crew?”
A few people volunteered, heading off toward the dining hall. The rest of us drifted toward the main campfire area, more out of instinct than any real decision.
“Feels weird doing this with no kids around,” Jesse muttered as he dropped onto one of the logs.
“Yeah,” Jasmine said. “It’s way too quiet.”
The massive fire pit was already set up from previous nights; a wide ring of stones blackened from repeated use with half-burnt logs still sitting in the center.
It didn’t take much to get it going. Just a bit of kindling, a lighter, and a few minutes of careful coaxing before the flames caught properly and began to build.
Caitlin returned from the kitchen a few minutes later and snapped her fingers to get everyone’s attention again.
“Okay,” she said, voice crisp and authoritative. “We’ve decided on spaghetti bolognese, garlic bread, and salad. But we’ll need a few more volunteers, because we’ve got to make enough for thirty-two people.”
I stuck my hand up. Jasmine, Jesse, Tamsin, and Wren followed suit.
The next forty-five minutes passed in a strange, almost normal rhythm as we chopped vegetables, stirred simmering pots, boiled pasta, and assembled trays of garlic bread.
The kitchen filled with all the familiar smells, rich and comforting in a way that felt almost surreal given everything that had happened today.
Eventually, we all settled around the roaring fire with our plates of food and dug in.
By now, the sun had set completely, and the surrounding woods had dissolved into a dense, impenetrable darkness that seemed to press in at the edges of the firelight, making the clearing feel smaller than it really was.
As usual, the group had roughly split into two factions, with the Legacies all sitting on the other side of the fire, their faces intermittently lit by the shifting glow of the flames.
After I finished my first bite of dinner, I glanced up at the others around me. “Do any of you think this is really just a prank?” I asked in a low voice. “Because I feel like I’m right at the start of a horror movie.”
There was a long, pregnant pause. I could tell from my friends’ expressions that they were all thinking the same thing; that today’s events were far more insidious than an elaborate prank.
At the same time, none of them seemed willing to say it out loud, as if doing so would somehow manifest all the things they were afraid of.
“It’s crazy,” Jasmine finally said. “But it has to be a prank. What else would it be?”
Jesse and Tamsin muttered their agreement, though neither of them looked or sounded even remotely convinced. Wren didn’t say anything. Just stared into the fire with her lips pressed into a thin, tense line.
We sat like that for a while, eating and talking in low voices as the fire crackled between us.
At some point, I noticed movement on the other side of the clearing.
A small group detached itself from the Legacies and began making their way around the fire, weaving between people and stepping over outstretched legs.
Rhys was at the front with Sutton just behind him, and Zach and Logan were trailing along.
They slowed as they reached us, and Rhys stopped, his gaze flicking briefly over each of us before settling somewhere in the middle.
“Hey,” he said. “Can we talk for a second?”
There was something about his tone that made the conversation around us taper off almost immediately.
“Sure,” Tamsin said, shifting slightly on the log to face him. “What’s up?”
“We’ve been talking things through,” he said. “And Brad and Olivia have volunteered to walk to Millhaven tomorrow.”
Sutton cut in smoothly, folding her arms. “They’re our best options, because they’re not exactly your average walkers,” she said. “They both do endurance sports at Yale.”
“They’re almost Olympic level,” Zach added.
Rhys nodded. “They said they’re confident they can make it in a day and a half if they pace it properly.
So they’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning, walk as far as they can, camp overnight, and then finish the rest the next morning.
If everything goes to plan, they should hit town around lunchtime that day.
Then they can get help for the rest of us. ”
The group absorbed that in silence for a moment.
“Sounds like a decent plan,” Wren finally said, nodding slowly. “Also, depending on how far this signal issue extends, they might not even have to make the whole trip. They could hit service a few miles down the road and call for help from there.”
“Or a passing car could pick them up once they make it onto Route 30,” Jesse added.
Sutton’s expression shifted almost immediately, some of the tightness easing out of it. “That’s true,” she said. “We didn’t even think of that.”