Chapter 18
T here was no opportunity for further conversation. Buck set a pace brisk enough that even Estelle was forced to save her breath for hiking rather than peppering Honey with questions.
The trail—if it was a trail—degenerated to no more than a faint line scuffed in increasingly rocky ground.
The trees thinned out, cottonwoods and maples giving way to elegant aspens and tall, austere pines.
Buck led the way without hesitation, his steady stride never altering no matter how rough and uneven the ground.
This is where he belongs , Honey realized, watching his back. There was an easiness to the way he carried himself; a slight loosening of that constant tension. Out here, in the woods, all that coiled energy found an outlet. A purpose.
After half an hour of relentless uphill hike, even Archie was starting to flag.
Honey found herself having to keep rounding up stragglers, chivvying the kids along.
She did her best to distract the kids from their aching legs by pointing out wildflowers and getting them to try to identify bird calls.
Ignatius, of course, was having none of it. All her attempts to get him to appreciate the surroundings were met with withering eye-rolls and sulky grunts. For someone still a few years off puberty, Honey reflected, he made an excellent teenager.
“Come on, Ignatius,” she called out, forcing a chipper, upbeat tone despite the burn in her own thighs. “You’re falling behind again.”
He shot her a death glare as he struggled up the trail. Honey didn’t think his slow pace was entirely due to lack of enthusiasm. He was clearly finding the hike a lot harder than the rest of the kids.
Secretly, Honey sympathized. There was only so long she could keep this up herself. She hoped Buck remembered she didn’t actually have shifter levels of strength and endurance.
Ignatius dragged himself the last few feet to rejoin the group. He stopped at Honey’s side, chest heaving for breath. “How much longer are we supposed to endure this forced march?”
“I’m getting a bit tired too,” Finley said, although he wasn’t looking nearly as sweaty as the sullen dragon shifter. “Can we take a break, Honey?”
“I think that would be a good idea.” Honey raised her voice, calling ahead. “Buck! Isn’t it time for a rest?”
He stopped, turning to survey the campers. “What, getting tired already?”
“No sir!” Beth said instantly, but she was in a minority of one. A chorus of general complaints rose from the group.
“Can we have a snack? I’m soooooo huuuungry.”
“Honeeeeey, Archie made me step in something gross and I can’t get it off my shoooooe.”
“My pants are too hot and my socks are too itchy and a bug bit me and I’m booooooored! ”
Buck heaved an expressive sigh. “Fine. We’ll rest here for a while, then head back.” As he came back down, he added, casually, addressing the words over the tops of the kids’ heads to Honey alone, “See? I told you it would be too far.”
Archie, who’d just flopped to the ground with a groan of relief, lifted his head again. “What would be too far?”
Buck unscrewed the lid of a canteen, taking a long, unhurried swallow of water. “Nothing.”
Honey suppressed a grin, catching on. She turned to the kids, assembling an expression of forced cheer, as though covering some disappointment.
“Don’t worry,” she told them all. “We’ve got all summer. We can come back another time.”
The effect on the kids was electric. Though they’d all been expressing complete exhaustion a second ago, now they popped up like prairie dogs.
“Come back where?”
“Is it something cool?”
“Are we nearly there?”
“I wanna go now !”
“Wonderful.” Buck rolled his eyes at her, though she could see the gleam in those dark depths. “And now you’ve got them all riled up. This is exactly why I told you not to tell them, Honey.”
“Tell us what?! ”
“You idiots,” Ignatius said. He looked around at his fellow campers. “Can’t you see what they’re doing? It’s just reverse psychology. They’re trying to trick us into walking further.”
Buck didn’t so much as bat an eye. “Yep. Got it in one. Absolutely nothing to see at the top of that ridge.”
“Which ridge?” Flora shaded her eyes. “That ridge? That one right there, up ahead?”
“That’s not so far,” Claire offered.
“Yeah, we could totally make that,” Estelle agreed. She tugged at Buck’s arm. “Take us there, Buck! Pleeeeeease?”
He made a skeptical sound in his throat. “I thought you were all tired.”
“I’m not tired!” Archie yelled, bouncing to his feet. “I’m not tired at all! I can walk loads more!”
“Yeah! We all can!”
“Miles and miles!”
“I am surrounded,” Ignatius said in tones of wonder, “by idiots. ”
Despite Ignatius’s suspicions, there was in fact something to see over the promised ridge.
Ten minutes of revitalized hiking brought them out into a broad mountainside meadow, carpeted in waving wildflowers.
On one side, the ground fell away sharply, offering a spectacular view onto Thunder Lake.
On the other, a small stream tumbled over a cleft in the rocks, forming a leaping, glimmering waterfall.
“Keep the kids occupied,” Buck murmured to her. He shrugged off his pack, unstrapping a shovel from one side. “I need a while to get set up.”
Honey was dying to ask him how all this fit into his mysterious master plan, but there was no time. The kids had, of course, immediately gravitated to the side of the clearing that could kill them. She hurried over to supervise.
“Not too close, Archie,” she said, catching the back of his pants as he leaned perilously over the edge of the cliff. “Bears can’t fly, remember.”
“I can see my house!” Beth said, for once sounding just as young as her actual age. “And yours, Rufus, look! And there’s your mom’s horse ranch, Estelle.”
“Our cabin!” Flora exclaimed, pointing. “There it is, look, right there! There’s the whole camp!”
Rufus leaned forward, eyes narrowing. He pointed at the lake shore.
“Really?” Finley squinted, then shook his head. “I’ll have to take your word for it. I can’t make people out at this distance at all.”
“Hellooooo!” Estelle yelled, her voice echoing from the mountainside. She waved both arms above her head. “Hello down there! We can see you! Well, Rufus can, at least.”
“I bet there are great thermals here.” Beth said, looking longingly into the great void of air. “Can we shift now, Honey? Please?”
Honey hesitated. She glanced back at Buck, but he was busy clearing a space in the grass with his shovel. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, kids.”
“Please, Honey?” Flora begged. “We haven’t shifted all morning.”
“ Some of us haven’t,” Beth muttered, casting a pointed glare at Archie.
She knew it would be safer to refuse and distract them with some other activity.
After all, the more the kids were in animal form, the higher the risk that they might start pestering her to join them.
But she was only going to be at camp for a few days…
and really, when else was she going to have a chance to play with a group of magical shapeshifters?
“Well… all right,” she said. “But you have to promise that you’ll all stay nearby, okay? I don’t want anyone going out of my sight.”
“Can I go over there to get changed?” Flora asked, pointing at some large boulders. “I can’t shift with my clothes on, and my moms say it’s not polite to show other people my human butt.”
“That’s fine,” Honey told her, and the girl trotted off. “Boys, you can use those bushes over there.”
Archie, already kicking off his shoes, gave her a puzzled look. “What for?”
“For privacy ,” Beth told him.
“Oh, I don’t need that,” Archie said cheerfully. He plopped down to pull off his socks. “I don’t care if anyone sees my butt.”
“We know,” Beth sighed. She made a point of turning her back on Archie. “Do you want to fly with me, Rufus?”
Rufus eyed the long drop and shook his head.
“Oh, come on,” Beth wheedled. “You’ll never get better unless you practice, you know.”
“No pressuring him, Beth,” Honey said. “It’s good to push your limits, but also sensible to be aware of them.”
“It’s more fun to fly with someone, though,” Beth said. “Finley? You’ll come with me, won’t you?”
Archie, who was busy wriggling out of his shirt, paused. He squinted at Finley through one armhole. “I thought you said you were a shark.”
“I am,” Finley said. He made pointed eye contact with Beth, jerking his chin in Ignatius’s direction. “But I’m sure someone else would fly with you, Beth.”
Beth pulled a face, but reluctantly approached the dragon shifter. “Ignatius? Would you like to—”
“I would like to go home where I have internet access and no-one force-marches me up mountains,” Ignatius spat. He turned his back on the others, stalking away as though the whole world existed to persecute him. “Leave me alone.”
Beth shrugged at Finley, looking more relieved than put out by the snub. “Well, I tried.”
Honey had seen Buck and Archie shift before, but she’d never been in a position to properly appreciate the process—in the former case, because she’d been too busy freaking out over the whole giant glowing winged wolf thing, and in the latter because Archie tended to simply explode into fur without warning.
Now, she finally had a chance to watch properly.
It was nothing like the werewolf transformations she’d seen in a horror movie.
Beth didn’t drop to all fours, stretching and contorting in pain.
She just shimmered, her shape blurring into a smudge of colored light.
And then, like a camera refocusing, something else was there.