by Raven Snow
“Whatever.” Willow hunched her shoulders and returned to her sulking. Her gaze remained on the water bottle, though. She hadn’t forgotten about it. It was impossible to. There was no doubt in Rowen’s mind that Willow was every bit as parched as she was.
True to Peony’s word, there wasn’t much water left in the bottle. Rowen weighed it in her hand, sloshing the contents against the sides. It was about a fourth full. It could be worse. “I’m not sure how much of this we can really ration out.” She took a swig and would have drank more had she not purposely stopped herself. “Here.” She handed the bottle to Willow. Willow snatched it but didn’t drain the bottle. She left enough for her sister, like Rowen knew she would.
“I’m still thirsty,” Willow complained, handing the bottle back to Peony.
“We’re not going to collapse from dehydration after one day,” Rowen said, even though she wasn’t sure of that. She didn’t think they would, but she had been sweating a lot. They all had. “Let’s just try to get some rest. We’ll figure out our next move when the sun comes up.”
***
Rowen slept fitfully. The ground was hard and uncomfortable. She missed her sleeping bag. Never again would she complain about sleeping out under the stars with one. A sleeping bag was Heaven compared to the situation she was currently trying to sleep her way through.
She wasn’t sure what time it was when it started raining. The weather forecast hadn’t said anything about rain this week. She had checked it ahead of time. The weather was a good thing to know when you were packing for an outdoor stay.
It was definitely raining, though. It had sneaked up on them. She hadn’t even smelled it coming.
Willow was already awake, a string of swears coming out of her mouth that would earn her a shocked reprimand from her mother. Without too much discussion, they all huddled closer together. Rowen stretched her t-shirt out and pulled her arms and part of her head inside. It didn’t shield her much from the rain. It mostly soaked through the fabric. At least the night was warm. Rowen wasn’t sure they could have handled being hungry, thirsty, and cold.
Of course, there wasn’t a whole lot of sleep to be had after it started raining. The rainfall stopped before sunrise, which was when Peony decided it was time to get up. “I think I know the right way to go.”
“No you don’t,” came Willow’s immediate, doubtful response. She was already wide awake, as was Rowen. At this point, they were just waiting for the sun.
“How do you know the right way to go?” asked Rowen. She wanted to believe Peony knew, but how could she? She hadn’t known the way out of the woods before. What had changed?
“I communed with nature last night,” Peony said in a matter of fact tone. “I spoke with some nature spirits. You know, like Mom taught us.”
Nadine had an affinity for nature spirits. If each Greensmith had an area of expertise, that was hers. “And they gave you directions, huh?” asked Willow. It was difficult to tell in the dark, but Rowen thought she saw her roll her eyes.
“Yeah. Yeah, they did.”
Willow snorted. This time she definitely rolled her eyes.
“What? I did. I talked with them. I had a dream.”
“You had a dream,” Willow repeated, quietly and mocking. “Say you did. How do you know they were telling you the truth?”
That was a good point, even if she was being rude about it. Nature spirits, faeries especially, were notoriously difficult to trust. It wasn’t like these were nature spirits they were familiar with. Nadine trusted and worked with the ones around her house because she had built a rapport with them. They had never been out in these woods before.
“Do you have a better idea?” challenged Peony.
“For all you know, they’ll lead us right off a cliff or into a wolf den or something. So, yeah. I have a better plan. No plan is a better plan.”
“Stop it.” Rowen’s scolding had grown half-hearted. She didn’t have the energy to keep the sisters from bickering. “Let’s wait for the sun to come up. We’ll think on what to do next then.”
They all lapsed into silence. It was an uneasy silence though, one Peony sounded desperate to break. After less than a minute of hmms and sighs she started again. “They said we should go now, while it’s still dark.”
“Wow,” said Willow in a deadpan tone. “That’s how you can super tell you can trust them. Go now, while you can’t see where you’re going. Oh, yeah. Great idea.”
“Shut up. You’re the one who didn’t want to stop for the night to begin with.”
“And you wanted to until some prophetic dream suggested otherwise.”
“Shh,” Rowen hissed, throwing up her hands. She was sitting between the sisters and she still couldn’t keep them from jumping down each other’s throats. “I’m about ready to pick a direction and start walking in the hopes I stroll straight off a cliff.”
“I’m not lying,” said Peony, a whine in her voice that made Rowen want to smack her.
“No one thinks you’re lying,” Rowen said quickly, before Willow could get a word in and make things worse. “Willow’s just concerned that these spirits you communicated with might not have our best interest at heart. I’m concerned about that too. Nadine taught me about this stuff too, you know. You guys probably know more than I do about it, but I’m sure she told you how unreliable they can be. You have to build a relationship, figure out which ones are trustworthy and which are the tricksters.”
Peony fell silent for several long moments. Rowen’s eyes had adjusted enough that she could see the thoughtful, far off look on her face. She was considering what Rowen had just said. “I told them I would start coming up here to make offerings and stuff. Like, once a month so it’s manageable. They don’t have anyone regularly making offerings, so it’s a good trade. I don’t think they’ll get us killed. They want me to come back, and I’m not going to come back here if I’m dead. They’ll lead us out of here. I think we can trust them.”
“Unless they don’t ever want us to leave,” said Willow.
“We’d be dead in, like, a week,” Peony reasoned. “Probably less. We suck at surviving out here. They said so.”
Rowen inclined her head. “That sounds about right.” She wasn’t sure how she felt knowing they were actively being judged by unseen nature spirits.
“So I think we can trust them… At least… I think it’s our best shot.”
To Rowen’s complete surprise, Willow shrugged and pushed herself up off the ground. “Sure, why not?” she said, standing. “Worst case scenario we die, right? I’m ready for death. This sucks.”
“You weren’t ready for death two minutes ago,” Rowen pointed out. She didn’t wait for Willow to explain herself. She knew all too well that her cousin was just being dramatic. “If you really think this is our best shot… I trust you.” Rowen pushed off the tree trunk at her back and rose to her feet. Her body cracked and popped in protest. “We just have to be really careful.”
“How careful can we be?” asked Willow. “If they lead us even deeper into the woods, that’s that. Either they’re helping us or they’re not.”
“They’re helping us,” Peony reiterated, firmly.
“All right,” Rowen agreed, trying to commit herself to the idea before she could over-think things and start waffling on it again. If these spirits were helping them and they said to start now, they needed to take that advice. Not taking it could very well doom them. God, Rowen was kicking herself for ever going off the trail. What if all she had accomplished was ensuring that the police later found four bodies in the woods rather than one. She would never forgive herself for getting her cousins killed. Not that she would need to, she supposed. Theoretically speaking, she would be dead too.
“All right.” Peony took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “This way,” she announced and began walking on ahead and with purpose. Almost immediately, she tripped over one of her own rocks. Had Willow not caught her by the arm, she probably would have fall
en right over. They weren’t off to a very promising start.
***
Rowen tried not to let herself think of worst case scenarios as they felt their way along in the darkness. She tried to keep her head in the present, to ignore the nasty pictures creeping up along the edges of her imagination. One foot in front of the other, eyes on the ground so that no one tripped or took a tumble down a steep incline. That was the best she could do.
The sun wasn’t overhead yet. There was an orange tinge to the sky, like it would be coming soon. It wasn’t enough to reliably see by, though. Not yet. Looking straight ahead into the trees only revealed darkness… or did it? Now that Rowen was really looking… did she see something? A light? “Hey, does anyone else see that?”
“What?” asked Willow. They all stopped walking to look where Rowen was pointing. “I don’t see anything.”
Rowen couldn’t be sure she had seen anything either. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, trying to get a better look around the trees. She saw it again. “No, I definitely see something. I think it’s a light.”
“A light?” Peony repeated. “Like fairy lights?”
“No… More like—” Rowen realized what it was she was seeing. “More like the lights off some kind of emergency vehicle. Come on!” Rowen rushed on ahead.
“Be careful!” Willow called after her. “This is how they get you! This is how you fall right off a cliff or get stuck in quicksand or—”
Rowen ignored her cousin and kept going. She kept an eye out for cliffs but wasn’t too worried about quicksand. The lights got brighter and more distinctively blue. It wasn’t long before she heard voices. It wasn’t long after that that she burst from the woods and onto the edge of a dirt road. The relief that rushed over her was overwhelming.
“Oh, thank God,” Willow breathed, doubling over, hands on her knees as she struggled to catch her breath.
“I told you! What did I tell you?” Peony was grinning, looking happier than Rowen had seen her since they got to the retreat.
Rowen expected a crowd to rush up to them, ask where they had been. No one did. The police car was a little ways up the road. She could see several people standing around it, but it seemed none of them had spotted Rowen or her cousins yet. “Come on. Let’s go tell everyone we’re okay.” Rowen walked toward the cop car, shielding her eyes as she went. Now that she was out of the woods, the lights were blindingly bright. Her eyes needed time to adjust from the darkness.
“Things are pretty far from okay,” said Willow, which was the truth. Somehow, Rowen had forgotten about Phoenix in all her relief. Remembering his body on the forest floor was sobering. They’d had to leave him out there in the rain. She knew he wasn’t inhabiting that body anymore, but it still felt cruel somehow. Rowen wasn’t looking forward to telling everyone he was dead. Veronica especially would likely take it very hard. She hated watching people grieve.
It was Lydia who spotted the girls first. Rowen could barely see her against the flashing police lights, but she recognized the shrill sound she made before she came running in their direction. It wasn’t long at all before she had closed the distance between them. Somehow, she managed to gather all of her nieces into a single bear hug. Maybe that was her special Greensmith talent.
“Where have you been?!” she demanded without leaving room for them to answer. “I was worried sick! We were all worried sick! Your mother was beside herself. You have no idea how--”
Nadine arrived and pulled everyone apart so that she could fuss over them, make sure no one was hurt. “When we didn’t find you in the cabin, we didn’t know what to do! We were about to drive back into town and call the police.”
“What?” Rowen looked at the police car. “Who called the cops then?”
“Not Crystal Spruce, that’s for sure,” spat Nadine, unusually angry. “Ben came on his own. He says you called him last night.”
“Yeah.” Rowen was scrambling for what to say next when Ben came up between her aunts. There was a uniformed officer a few yards behind him. He’d been slowed down by Crystal Spruce herself. Rowen couldn’t tell what they were saying, but Crystal was looking particularly animated.
“You were in the woods?” asked Ben, voice level, thumbs hooked in his belt loops.
Rowen nodded. “Yeah… It’s a… It’s a long story.” It wasn’t a particularly long story, but she didn’t want to blurt it all out in front of everyone. She licked her lips and, again, tried to come up with the right words.
Ben was perceptive enough to notice Rowen’s reluctance. “You mind giving us a second?” he asked Rowen’s aunts with a forced but well-meaning smile.
Nadine was still hovering over her daughters. Lydia looked at Ben without speaking. Finally, she sighed and nodded. “All right.” She took her sister’s forearm in hand. “Come on.” She gave it a tug.
Nadine shook her head. “But--”
“Come on.”
“We’ll be right over there,” Nadine said, like they wouldn’t have been able to discern that themselves. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
“We’re fine,” Willow assured her mother. She wasn’t nearly as over-dramatic when it came to reassuring Nadine. She probably wanted to get the worst of things over with too. Rowen couldn’t imagine Willow and Peony wanted to tell everyone what they’d found any more than she did.
“Should I call in a paramedic?” asked Ben, stony faced as he led the girls a little further away, so they could all speak in privacy.
“I think we’re fine,” Rowen said quickly, looking to her cousins.
Willow and Peony both nodded in agreement. “Just hungry,” said Peony.
“And thirsty,” added Willow.
“You’re probably dehydrated,” Ben reasoned. “You can come back into town with me. We can swing by the hospital, see if you need an IV or—”
“I think we just need a few gallons of water and a pizza.” Everyone was already making a fuss. Rowen didn’t want to have an IV shoved in her arm. Her family would never let her live that down. The time she had gotten her cousins lost in the woods and landed them all in the hospital.
Fortunately, neither Willow nor Peony sounded too keen on going to the hospital either. “A pizza sounds heavenly,” moaned Peony.
The corner of Ben’s mouth twitched into a smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Why are you here?” asked Rowen, before Ben could launch into the questioning she knew was coming. “If no one called you, then why—How did you know we were lost?”
“I didn’t.” Ben raised his shoulders in a shrug. “You have your gut feelings, I have mine. I hadn’t heard back from you, and I did some looking into the retreat. I tried to call and check in on their satellite phone, but no one answered. That didn’t sit well with me, so I came up. I’m glad I did.”
“So are we,” breathed Rowen.
“We saw the lights,” Willow explained, pointing to the police car.
Ben nodded, looking unsurprised. “I thought you might. I turned them on when I heard you were missing.”
“Nature spirits led us back, actually,” said Peony. “They probably led us to the lights on purpose.”
“Ah.” Ben looked at Peony, though he didn’t seem to have much of a reply. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. I’m just glad you’re all safe. How did you manage to get lost out there?”
“We went off the trail,” said Rowen. Here it was. She would have to tell him what they had found.
“And why did you go off the trail?”
“We, ah… We found a body.”
Ben squared up his posture and ran a hand through his neat blond hair as he took that in. “You found a body?” he repeated, like maybe he had heard wrong.
“We found a body,” Rowen reiterated.
“It was Phoenix. A guy who works here,” said Willow. “We found his bag, and then we found him a little ways off.”
“It looked like he had been strangled,” Rowen added. “Not that I
would know for sure. It just—” She touched her own throat. “There were marks around here, so I figured that might be it.”
Ben threw a quick look over his shoulder, back to where the police officer he’d brought along had a small crowd gathered around him. He turned back to the Greensmiths. “Could you show me where you found the body?”
Rowen swallowed. She had been afraid of that question. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “That’s when we got lost. I felt a pull toward the body initially. I don’t really feel that pull anymore.”
“You felt a pull to the bag,” Peony corrected, quietly. “I’m the one who found the body.”
“Bag?” Ben’s gaze was drawn to the bag on Peony’s shoulder.
Peony handed it over. “It was on the ground. Phoenix was a little ways away.”
“Why is this full of rocks?”
“I used them to mark the path we were taking.” Peony said all that with a touch of pride that wasn’t particularly warranted.
“I see.” Ben didn’t dig through the bag. Not yet, anyway. “All right. You three go get some fluids. I’m going to get in touch with the station. Clearly, we need more men down here. I’ll need you to try and show me where this body is. If you’re feeling up to it.”
“Yeah, of course.” Rowen looked back to her cousins. They seemed to share her sentiment, nodding.
“Anything else I need to know about?” asked Ben.
Rowen thought hard about finding the body. What else might be immediately relevant? “I don’t know if it means anything but, after I got off the phone with you last night, I kind of stumbled upon Veronica and Phoenix together. You know. Together, together.”
“I see.” Ben’s gaze went distant, like he was mentally filing that away for later. “Anything else?”
“Probably, but I’m having a hard time keeping my head straight right now.”
“All right.” Ben motioned them along. “Go relax. I’ll come see you in a bit, all right?”
“All right.” Rowen reached out and gave his forearm a squeeze. “Thanks for expecting the worst and coming out here.”
