“I just know, Gavin. Please, trust me,” Arista said.
He pursed his lips before nodding his agreement. Valerie slung her arm around Gavin’s back to help him forward and they followed the eagle into the protective embrace of the Shades.
The eagle flew ahead of them, alighting on tree limbs when they needed time to catch up. Valerie handed her flashlight to Arista to light their way, but it was still tough to make a path through the brush. They were also soaked to the bone after being in the wet weather for so long.
The eagle led them deep into the Shades until they reached a clearing to stay for the night. The eagle remained off to the side, watching as Arista and Valerie set up camp. Once the tents were up, Valerie and Gavin went in to change out of their wet clothes. Arista paused near the flap of Gavin’s tent before turning back to the eagle. It watched her closely as she walked towards it. She brushed her fingers along one of its wings as it stood perfectly still.
“Thank you for watching over us. Will you be here all night?” she asked.
The eagle replied with a quiet but high-pitched noise that Arista took as a positive response.
“Are you Beshkno, the warrior who protects magic?” she asked.
The eagle tenderly touched her pendant with the tip of its beak, making a small clicking noise. It blinked, looking back at it her with its haunting yellow eyes. “Thank you, Beshkno,” she said, turning back to the tents.
When she was safely inside, Beshkno flew into the tall trees to keep watch over his wards for the evening.
˜
{ Chapter 46 }
Arista awoke to the sunlight streaming in through the canvas tent. Gavin was still asleep next to her and his sleeping bag rustled as he tossed and turned. She slipped out of the tent to find Valerie sitting in a canvas chair with a book open across her lap.
Beshkno squawked a greeting from a nearby branch before flying above the trees.
“He’s been out here with me for a couple of hours,” Valerie said. “He leaves every so often and circles the skies, I presume to make sure no one is around.”
“It was nice to sleep knowing he was out here last night,” Arista said, sitting down on a log by Valerie. “So what do we do now?”
“I want to study the barrier here today. Do you sense it like I do?” Valerie asked.
“Yes, but I don’t know how to explain it,” Arista said. “It’s like this calming wave washing through me. I’ve felt it ever since we walked into the forest.”
Valerie nodded. “It’s more than just a barrier against harm. I think it’s also replenishing and restoring the balance of our magic. I hope I can learn how it works. Maybe you and Gavin can look for whatever it is Grams hid here. Or see if there are any other items hidden here.”
“Have you found anything that might help us do that?” Arista asked.
“No, I haven’t,” she said shaking her head. She pulled out her phone to look at its glowing face. “And I’ve had no reception since we got here, so I don’t know if Kellen and Clarissa have had any luck either. At some point one of us needs to hike up to a higher elevation for a better signal.”
“Couldn’t you make it more powerful?”
“There might be a way, but it’ll be easier to try this first. You should check Gavin’s phone while you’re out walking.”
“Out walking where?” Gavin asked, poking his head out from between the tent flaps.
“To find Grams’ surprise,” Valerie said. Gavin walked out and sat on the log next to Arista while Beshkno landed on a branch overhead with a soft thud.
“Where do you propose we look?” he asked. Valerie and Arista both shrugged their shoulders. Arista looked up to Beshkno, perched on his branch.
“Have you watched people hide things in the forest?” she asked. The eagle let out a loud squawk in return.
“Can you show us where they’re hidden?” The eagle looked back at them with his yellow eyes.
“Are you supposed to keep it a secret?” This time, Beshkno cried out again.
Arista turned back to Gavin and Valerie. “Got any other ideas?”
Valerie lowered her book and looked at the eagle. “A relative of ours has been here before. Do you know who that is?”
Beshkno considered both Valerie and Gavin before letting out several loud cries. Valerie watched the bird curiously. “He was only making one noise before. I wonder…”
She stood up and grabbed a branch from the ground. With the broken end, she drew ten large, deep lines in the dirt.
“How many of our relatives have been here?”
Beshkno landed on the ground in front of the etched lines. He paced the ground, finally stopping in front of the fifth line.
“Five? You’ve seen five of our relatives in the Shades before?” The eagle cawed once in answer.
Valerie looked at Gavin, who stared back at her amazement. “Who else could have come here?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” his sister answered shaking her head. “Seems there’s a lot we don’t know about our family.
“Did they hide more than one item here?” she asked the eagle. Beshkno moved back to her lines and stopped in front of the third line. “Three,” she said and he screeched in reply.
“We’ve had five family members come here and hide at least three items? That leaves us with more questions than answers,” Gavin said, looking at the others.
“And you can’t tell us where those three items are?” Arista asked and Beshkno looked at her in reply.
“There has to be a way to figure this out,” Valerie said gazing at the lines scratched in the dirt. “They came here for a reason, to protect these items, right? There have to be places around here that are more secure, where your average hiker can’t randomly find them. We just need to figure out where those places are.”
“So we walk around until we stumble upon the spots you aren’t supposed to stumble upon? This park is huge,” Gavin said.
“They had to know we’d come,” Valerie said, trailing her fingers through the lines in the dirt. “They had to know we’d follow their trail and leave some kind of clues behind.”
She let her finger linger on the fifth line and she looked back at Beshkno. “Our mother. Did our mother come here?”
The eagle lowered its head with a soft cooing noise. Valerie fought back the tears that threatened to spill out. Gavin stood from the log and walked over to hug his sister.
“Mom would have left something meant for us,” she uttered into Gavin’s shoulder. “We have to find it.”
“Why don’t you keep working on this force field or whatever and Arista and I will start looking,” Gavin said.
“But how will you know where to look?” Valerie asked, wiping a stray tear from her eye.
“Where did Mom always take us whenever we were outside?” he asked.
“Water. Lakes, rivers… the creek,” she answered.
“That’s where I plan to start. That’s where she’d expect us to go first,” Gavin said, giving his sister one final hug.
“That sounds like as good a plan as any. Maybe when you get there, this guy will be more of a help,” she said, gesturing her head at Beshkno. The eagle blinked before flying into the air to circle the skies.
˜
{ Chapter 47 }
Gavin stretched his hand out to Arista and helped her over a tree that had fallen across the path to Sugar Creek. She grabbed onto his forearm as he guided her across the wreckage of branches and leaves. She jumped to the ground with a loud stomp, startling a squirrel sitting to the side of the path.
“So you never knew any of that about your mother? That she was a witch or anything?” Arista asked as she blew loose strands of hair out of her face.
“No, I didn’t,” Gavin said. “I never had even the slightest suspicion. She never talked to me about it. I guess Valerie knew, but she never told me anything either.” He looked off into the trees with a wistful expression. “I know I’m not quick to believe things
like this. But now I feel like there’s such a big part of her that I didn’t have the chance to know.”
“I understand,” Arista said. She intertwined her fingers with his as they walked through the shady ravine.
He glanced at Arista out of the corner of his eye. “I suppose you do. How are you doing with all this? With your mom possibly working with Salazar?”
“I’ve been trying not to think about it,” she said with a sigh. “I knew coming to find her wasn’t necessarily a good thing. I even knew this was a possibility, because of those rumors that she killed people in the ocean. I hoped that was where it ended. Regardless, I still need to know what happened to her — once and for all.”
“It’s hard to live with those unanswered questions,” Gavin said, making his way along the path. “You know, Nikan was right when he said you’re not her.”
Arista froze in her steps.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” he continued. “But he’s right, you’re not her and you don’t have to worry about being like her.”
“Some part of me knows that,” she said. “But it’s still so hard to shake that feeling. Part of me is her. Part of me even understands why she’s doing this. She was devastated when she lost my father. I don’t know that I’m strong enough to look her in the eyes and say that she’s wrong, that I have to fight against her.”
“But remember that her choices aren’t your own, and you don’t have to feel trapped by them. Just because you’re her daughter doesn’t mean that you have to follow her into the shadows.”
Arista nodded with a sigh. “I need to keep telling myself that.”
Gavin helped her over another tree. Even with his hand to guide her, she almost fell as she gazed across the scenery. Sugar Creek stretched out in front of them, lined on both sides by massive sandstone cliffs. Holes peppered the cliff sides, making them appear more like a giant honeycomb than rocks.
“It’s gorgeous,” she said, still in awe of the beauty. Beshkno circled once more overhead before landing on an outcropping of rocks near the river’s edge.
Gavin walked down and peered into the water. Arista followed behind him, slipping her hand into his. “What do we look for now?”
He continued to look pensively across the water. “I don’t know. Some sort of clue I suppose.”
“Well, it won’t be in the water,” she said matter-of-factly as she turned instead to face the ravine they had walked from.
“What makes you say that? She always took us to water.”
“But no one would hide something there. The water is always moving. They couldn’t guarantee it would remain hidden in the water, even if they buried it under rocks. They would have wanted something more permanent.”
Gavin nodded. “That makes sense.”
He looked around at the mass of trees and rocks covering the landscape. “For all we know, we could be in completely the wrong place, too. The river winds all throughout the park.”
“It’s as good a place as any to start,” Arista said with a shrug. “What else would you do with your mom? Think back to when you were young, what you would have done with her if you had come here.”
He turned his attention to the sandstone cliff weaving along the river. “I would have scrambled up there and gotten into trouble.” He turned and pointed back towards the cluster of trees. “Mom and Val would have gone over there to look for animals and flowers.”
“That’s the start of a plan,” Arista said moving towards the trees.
Gavin watched as she began poking through the brush before he headed to the cliffs. He walked along the base, looking for anything out of the ordinary. It would take a long time to scour the riverbanks, looking for a clue that was possibly not there. He turned his attention back to the cliff. Climbing to the first ledge would offer a better vantage point.
He carefully put his fingers in the natural handholds of the rocks and pulled himself up. He scaled the face up to the first major ledge and sat on it, his legs dangling over the side. He whistled to get Arista’s attention. She turned from investigating a knot in a tree and laughed when she saw him kick his feet in the air.
Gavin idly looked around the ledge behind him. It wasn’t that wide; barely large enough for him to sit on it. The cliff continued to rise up overhead. He carefully stood to examine the holes in its face. He supposed at some point the river had come through there and eroded the face of the rock, but that would have been a long time ago. He traced a finger through the hole in front of him, and paused to examine it further. It was a perfect circle.
He looked up and, not too far past the first one, found a second perfect circle bored into the rock.
That can’t be a coincidence.
Before too long, he had found several of the circles dotting the face of the cliff. Many of them seemed to be in a line.
“Arista, come this way,” he yelled as he continued to scrutinize the rocks, looking for more of the unusual circles.
“What is it?” she asked, calling up from the banks of the river.
“Can you see this here?” He pointed to one of the circles.
“You mean the hole?”
“Yes, but can you see anything about it from down there?”
Arista squinted up at where Gavin pointed. “It looks like a hole, same as the rest. What am I supposed to see?”
Gavin frowned and scanned the ground. “See those leaves that piled up down there? Go grab as many of those as you can.”
Arista ran to gather the leaves and Gavin climbed partway back down the cliff. When Arista had several handfuls of the leaves, she climbed a few feet up the cliff face to hand them to Gavin. She jumped down and watched as Gavin scrambled back up to the ledge. He traced his fingers along the face of the cliff and stuffed several bright green leaves inside the circles.
“Can you see where the leaves are?”
“Yes, I can see them,” she said. “They’re going in a straight line.”
Gavin continued to find the holes, wedging leaves into the circular gaps as he went along. He stopped when he heard Arista gasp.
“What is it?” he asked. “I’m too close; I can’t see what it is.”
“I think this is the clue, Gavin. It’s pointing up,” she said, still astonished at the green arrow that had appeared along the rocks. Gavin climbed down to join Arista. The shape was unmistakable. Highlighted by the green leaves, an arrow pointed up the side of the cliff to the plateau above.
“Do you think there’s an easier way up there, or will we have to climb?” Arista asked, eyeing the long distance to the top.
“Why don’t you ask your friend,” Gavin said, motioning towards Beshkno. The eagle sat watching them from the rocks nearby.
“Beshkno, can you lead us up there?” she asked. The eagle squawked and leapt off the rock into the air. He circled once overhead and flew along the path through the ravine.
“Let’s go,” Gavin said, taking Arista’s hand as they followed the eagle back into the forest.
…
Clarissa closed yet another book with a loud thump, causing Kellen to look at her in alarm.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“No,” she said with a sigh. “We haven’t found anything yet to help us. Maybe there’s nothing here and it’s all a waste of time.”
“True, but what else can we do? We don’t have a lot of options,” he said.
“We really don’t,” she said, the resignation clear in her voice.
Clarissa reached for the last pile of untouched family diaries. Kellen held out a hand towards her.
“I’m almost finished with this one, I can take another, too.”
Clarissa handed him the faded blue diary on top and took the brown one sitting underneath. She frowned as she took a closer look. A wide piece of leather and a small lock closed the two sides together.
She looked under the table in the box where Valerie had stored the books.
“What are you doing?” Kellen asked.
<
br /> “This book is locked. You haven’t seen a key anywhere?”
Kellen shook his head and got out of his chair to look under the table.
“I’m going to peek in Valerie’s room and see if she has it somewhere else,” Clarissa said, walking out of the room.
She felt bad looking through Valerie’s belongings, but hoped she wouldn’t mind in this case. Clarissa moved the pictures out of the open drawer in the nightstand next to her bed. She thumbed through the first few of Valerie and Gavin as children, smiling in response to their happy faces. She set those aside and poked through the drawer to no avail.
Clarissa turned to the rest of the room. It was small, without even a closet. Across from the bed was a dresser with a few drawers and a small jewelry box resting on top. As she looked at the box, a memory surfaced in her mind. She saw Rebecca Payne standing in the kitchen washing dishes. When Clarissa and Gavin walked into the room, she turned to greet them and the sunlight glinted off her necklace. The charm was a tiny key.
Clarissa opened the jewelry box and pulled the pieces out, spreading them across the dresser’s smooth glass surface. No key. She felt along the edge of the box until she found a small ribbon tab to pull off the top storage level. Beneath was a tangled knot of old necklace chains and bracelets.
She pulled out the knot and carefully separated the layers. There it was, nestled in the middle. Rebecca’s necklace with the key.
Clarissa walked back to the kitchen and slid the key into the lock with a gentle twist. The two halves of the lock separated slightly and she opened the clasp. Kellen came over to stand behind her.
She opened the cover to find a sealed letter addressed to Valerie sitting on top of its pages. Clarissa’s breath caught in her throat.
“What is it?” Kellen asked.
“It’s a letter to Valerie, from her mother. I recognize her handwriting,” she said. “It doesn’t look like Valerie ever opened this.”
“Do you think we should?”
“No,” Clarissa responded, taking the letter and setting it aside. “It’s possible those are Rebecca’s last words to Valerie… that’s not something we should take away from her. We should look at the rest of this book though.”
Tangled Ripples Page 25
