Chapter Twenty-Six
Up close, Thunder Spring was nothing like the other waterfalls Mandy had seen in the Grand Canyon. It didn’t drop in an orderly
sheet, plunge into pools, or cascade down rocks on its own private waterslide. Thunder Spring did all these things, all at
the same time. It was wide and messy and undecided, a crazy quilt of motion, like every waterfall ever created tumbled together
into a wild simultaneous eruption.
Surrounding the falls, Thunder Spring had spawned an oasis in the desert, with thick cottonwoods, a shag carpet of moss, and
undulating bursts of purple-veined white trumpet flowers. Fiona and Lucinda were sitting in the shade, picking feathery leaves
off a bush that gave off a sharp, familiar scent.
“Wild mint,” Fiona explained. “Excellent for preventing inflammation.”
“And quite refreshing after that hike.” Lucinda passed Mandy a sprig, and she took an experimental nibble. Delicious. This
was how breath mints should taste. Like redemption. Like rebirth.
“Where is Charlie?” Stefan asked.
“Over here.” The CFO was knee-deep in a shadowed pool at the edge of the falls. “Just trying to cool down before I get hiking
again.” Charlie pulled himself up onto the mossy bank and walked toward them. His hat was soaked again, along with his hiking
shirt and the bottom half of his pants. “I’m thinking I’ll head out soon.”
“But we just got here,” Lucinda protested.
Stefan looked from her to Charlie and then turned to Thor. “Is it permissible for us to go ahead?”
Thor shrugged. “It’s not protocol, but what Big Pete don’t know won’t hurt him. If you stick together, you’ll be fine. It’s
a straight shot from here to Surprise Valley. There’s a trail junction there with a sign pointing you to Deer Creek. Follow
the arrow, and you can’t miss.”
Stefan gave them a solemn nod. “Then I believe I will press on as well.”
“Sure you don’t want to enjoy the water a little?” Mandy said. “Looks like paradise here.”
“Paradise is a distraction I cannot afford,” Stefan said. “I will hike with Charlie. While you enjoy the splashing.”
She didn’t care if he meant it disparagingly; Mandy fully intended to enjoy the splashing. She approached Thunder Spring,
letting the waterfall roar in her face and sting her scalp. Close up, the water was rich with minerals, a pale aquamarine
whipped into a sparkling lather. She felt an irrational desire to lick it, to gather its iridescent foam and smear it all
over her body. She wondered if this was how Devon had gone from botany to Babette, out of the naked desire to bottle the glory
of nature and drench herself in it.
“Magic, right?”
She turned from the pounding cascade. Thor had a cocky smile on his face.
“Want to try something cool?” he asked.
“Cooler than this?”
“There’s a secret place. Behind there.” He pointed to a break in the falls where the spring ran over a ledge.
She looked dubiously at the water pouring over the rocks, the variable force of it, the way it galloped and gurgled in alternation.
“C’mon. Law of the wild. You’ll love it.”
Thor was already wriggling out of his long-sleeved shirt and sandals, his blond hair brushing the golden skin of his shoulders. He stepped out onto a fallen cottonwood whose trunk sprouted a line of nascent young trees, spindly sentinels poking up into the sky.
She looked back, but no one else seemed eager to follow Thor. Lucinda’s gloved fingers spun across strands of river grass,
weaving a braid of thatch. Stefan and Charlie were halfway up the hillside to Surprise Valley. Only Fiona met Mandy’s gaze.
“Your funeral,” Fiona said. “We’ll stay here.”
Mandy stripped to her bikini and gingerly traced Thor’s footsteps across the dead cottonwood, over a line of slick rocks,
and onto a ledge from which water spilled like a milkmaid’s pail. The spring moved quickly, but Thor picked out a path that
shielded them from the full force of it, dodging the slipperiest rocks and deepest pockets. He stopped at the edge of a shimmering
pool backed by a sheet of clear falling water.
“Here we go,” he said.
He took a deep breath and jumped in, taking short, hard strokes toward the cascade. There couldn’t have been more than three
feet to the drop, but the flow was pounding, and he was kicking hard to approach it. When he got close enough to touch the
falling sheet, he dove under.
Mandy waited. Five seconds. Ten. Had Thor slipped into a secret cave behind the waterfall? It didn’t seem like there was room
for that. But maybe the shadows were playing tricks on her.
Twenty seconds. It felt like forever. Then she heard a whoop, and Thor exploded out of the water on the far side of the pool,
at least fifty feet away.
She screamed. She couldn’t help it.
“How did you . . . ?”
Thor grinned and shook out his hair. “It’s called the Maytag. Like a washing machine. Your turn.”
“Is it safe?”
“Officially, we don’t recommend it. But unofficially? It’s freaking awesome.”
Mandy hesitated. She could hear Liv admonishing her that this was an unnecessary risk, that Mandy was already in danger, that even being alone with Thor in a sketchy section of a powerful waterfall was beyond reasonable judgment.
Liv wanted her to be cautious. But Thor’s dazed smile, his sparkling eyes, the way he practically shone with joy as he shook
out his wild mane—that was what Mandy wanted.
She jumped in and started powering her way to the waterfall. The current pressed in on her, but she kept windmilling her arms,
ignoring the warning bells ringing between her ears.
“Cover your head when you go under!” she heard Thor call out.
Her fingertips grazed the falling water. She raised her head, facing away from the spray, and took one last deep breath. And
dove.
The first thing she felt was the sensation of someone shoving her into a dark cave formed from sharp rocks, their edges banging
the soft skin around her shins. She instinctively curled into a ball, wrapping her arms over her head, trying not to panic.
She tried to count the flips as the water tossed her around the cave. It was impossible. She was spinning, losing control,
alone in the dark. It felt like someone had slammed the door on her from above and she was trapped—forever?—under the water.
Then, just when it felt like all the breath had been squeezed out of her, the water around her elongated, pulling her into
a channel. Was she moving up toward the surface? Or deeper? She had no way of knowing. No way of controlling it. It was just
taking her. There was a small pop, and then she was shooting across the pool, lengthening out, as if she were a crumpled silk
handkerchief pulled from the sleeve of a wily magician.
She surfaced two-thirds of the way across and shook herself free, gasping for air. Thor splashed over and grabbed her under
the armpits and swung her around in the water. For a moment, they were no longer guest and guide. They were children, hooting
and spinning and reveling in an impossibly cold pool under a perfectly blue sky.
Every ounce of her body had been liberated, reborn in this canyon that delivered terror and bliss in equal measure. If she
had to die, let it be like this. Wild and carefree.