“It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s her parents!”
“I know. And it’s our lives — which determine the safety of magic and the world as we know it.”
“So you would just leave them to die?” An angry flush spread across Farida’s cheeks as she stared down her grandmother.
“I don’t like it. I would prefer no one else became tied up in this. But some things can’t be helped. War is harsh.”
“We’re not at war.”
“Yet.”
“Not their choice,” I grunted out. “Your family chose to die. Mine didn’t.”
A look of hurt flashed across Farida’s face, but it was quickly replaced with resolve. She rounded on Masika again. “Exactly! Her parents shouldn’t have to die for something they know nothing about and never chose to get involved in. Part of the reason we guard the stones is to protect people.”
Masika paused. I finally managed to turn my head enough to catch her staring at me before her gaze flitted away. She started to say something in Egyptian.
“English,” I cut in. When she looked affronted, I added, “You’re talking about me. Talk to me.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. Without breaking my gaze, she said, “It was your choice to drag the girl into this, Farida. That’s the only reason her parents became a target.”
Farida blanched, mouth working but no sound coming out. Finally, defeated, she slumped against the inside of the car door.
With a soft sigh, Masika turned away from us and, after a moment’s fumbling, reclined her seat back. “We’ll rest here tonight, but we can’t stay. They might not hold off on attacking us for long. We leave on foot at dawn.”
“Foot?” I squeaked.
“Yes, foot. The car is too recognizable, as I said before, and now it’s destroyed. I doubt it will even start. Walking is safer and more reliable.”
We lapsed into silence. It wasn’t long before Masika’s breathing slowed and lengthened into the sounds of sleep. Still perched on the edge of the backseat by my head, Farida was staring at her hands fisted in her lap, her face a portrait of despair. Finally, so softly I could barely hear, she murmured, “What have I done?”
“It’s not—”
Farida was shaking her head before I could even finish. “You… you don’t understand. Masika’s right. I’m the only reason you got tied up in this whole mess.”
“What do you mean?” I tried to sit up, but my muscles were having none of it. “I had my chance to leave. I didn’t take it because I’d rather help you guys than get thrown in jail.”
She let out a long, slow sigh and closed her eyes. It took her another moment to actually speak. “When the dragon emerged from the museum, my grandmother and I were just outside Fredericton. We saw it fly by overhead and land somewhere. When we followed, it led us to you, unconscious in a field with a magic stone in your hand. Masika… Masika wanted to take the stone and leave you there. I don’t think she meant it cruelly or anything, but it didn’t seem right to leave you lying there.”
“So you took me in rather than letting me wake up in the middle of nowhere. That doesn’t make you to blame for all this.”
“No, listen — that’s not all. It wasn’t just about looking out for you. Masika wanted to leave you there because it scared her that a random person had been able to use magic and she wanted to keep it out of your hands. But I insisted we take you with us.” She met my gaze with wide eyes, equal parts guilty and pleading. “It was special that you could use magic and I thought that could help us. I specifically wanted you to get involved with this.”
“I—” But I couldn’t summon a response. Couldn’t process what she had just told me. And yet… And yet it had been obvious, hadn’t it? It had been Farida who wanted to tell me everything while Masika kept the details and history of magic a secret. It had been Farida who looked disappointed and defeated when I said I wouldn’t help. It had been Farida who had followed me up to my apartment, begging me to go with them.
It had been Farida. She had brought me into this.
But did that really mean this was all her fault? I had still had a choice. And I had chosen to stay.
“If I hadn’t taken you with us — if we had just grabbed the stone and left… Think of how different your situation would look if someone else found you in that field.”
Her words sank in slowly, realization creeping over me like frost. If I had been found injured and disoriented in the middle of a field, no one would have blamed me for the events at the museum. How could they? I probably never would have been suspected of terrorism. I could go home. I could have my normal life and continue on with my Master’s, hopefully doing well and sticking through it for more than the first semester. And I could keep in touch with Emily and try to understand Mitch, maybe even reach a point where we could at least still be friends. I would have no part in all this magic and madness.
And my parents wouldn’t, either.
“It’s okay,” Farida said softly, apparently reading my expression. There was a hint of a tremor in her voice. “I understand. Just get some sleep, okay?”
She slipped out of the car and shut the door behind her, then disappeared from view. I didn’t try to follow after.
Chapter Fifteen
At some point I had drifted to sleep. It must have been a deep one, too, because I woke up to a new voicemail on my phone and I knew I hadn’t turned my phone on silent. I forced myself upright, wincing at how stiff and sore my muscles were, but glad that the paralysis had at least worn off. I really needed to get a better handle on my magic. I couldn’t keep collapsing and becoming useless every time I tried to use it.
Masika and Farida weren’t in the car. A quick glance around told me they had walked off a couple yards away and were chatting in the middle of the field. It was early — the horizon was just beginning to lighten into the pale blue of morning. Still, even in the dim light, I could tell that Farida’s face was flushed. She was gesturing angrily toward the car as she yelled something at Masika. I felt heat rush to my own cheeks. Was she ranting about me?
Whatever. I wasn’t going to worry about that right now. Instead, I swiped down on my phone notifications so it would show me the phone number of the call I had missed.
My heart stopped. I knew that number. It was Dad’s cell.
I opened the voicemail.
“Amber,” Dad’s voice said, shaking in a way I had never heard before. Someone was crying in the background. Mom? “Amber, it’s your father. Listen to me — please, listen to me.”
“Tick tock,” another male voice said in the background. I didn’t recognize it.
Dad’s voice lowered, words spilling out in a rush. “They want you to come here. Don’t do it. They’re dangerous. Amber — you can’t even imagine. Stay away, stay safe, don’t—”
“Can’t even stick to a simple script!” the other man yelled. Mom shrieked. There was a loud clattering, like the phone had hit the ground. I was gripping my own phone so tightly I thought it might break as the sounds of yelling and scuffling played out in the background. Quick, rapid sounds like footsteps. Brief shuffling, like something pressing against the phone—
“End of message,” the near-robotic woman’s voice said. “To replay this message again, press—”
I hit end with trembling hands and let my phone fall to my lap.
I’d never fully admitted it myself, but secretly, in the back of my mind, I had hoped that maybe it wasn’t true. That it was a complete fabrication — they didn’t have my parents. They were just trying to scare me into coming alone. I mean, how would they have even found Mom and Dad?
But it was true. There was no mistaking Dad’s cell number or his and Mom’s voices.
But why? Why single out me, a random nobody in this world of magic, when I knew their real target was Masika and her family? Maybe they thought Masika would play the hero and charge in to save my parents. The idea was almost enough to make me laugh. No matter what
she claimed about her role in the Stone Age, Masika was definitely not a hero. She was a coward. She hid and protected her own skin while people died for her — because of her. Innocently. Helplessly. Cluelessly made victims of her agenda.
But then why? What did I have to offer that would make these people target my parents to get to me?
The car door swung open and I yelped in surprise.
“Sorry,” Farida said, offering a sheepish smile as she ducked to see inside the car. “Ready to go?”
I snorted and turned away. “What hole does Masika want us to crawl into now?”
In my peripheral vision, I could see her expression fall. But she kept her gaze on me. “We’re going to that farmhouse. Masika’s not happy about it, but I’m not running away anymore. I’m… I’m going to make this right.”
I glanced over at her. Her brow was knit together in a determined expression. She wasn’t lying. I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, trying to work past the lump in my throat before I murmured, “Okay. Let’s get going, then.”
~
I quickly realized I was not cut out for long treks on foot. Not only were my shoes — a worn-out pair of Toms — terrible for any degree of support or comfort, but I was seriously out of shape. After twenty minutes, my feet were sore and my legs were starting to ache. I’d never accounted for the wind, either, which was biting cold with the onset of fall and apparently determined to blind me with my hair. It didn’t help that New Brunswick was covered in hills. Every incline we climbed our way up made my calves feel like they were on fire. Even the downhill sections could be a nightmare if they were steep enough. The combination of exertion and cold made me even hungrier than usual, and my mood rapidly descended toward hangry.
I tried to at least enjoy the scenery. We kept just inside the treeline along the highway wherever we could, using its cover to hide us from traffic. We didn’t know how suspicious it might be for the three of us to be hiking along the side of the highway, or how likely people were to recognize us from the news. Keeping out of sight was definitely the safest option for the moment. The trees that surrounded us were embracing the onset of autumn, their vibrant red and orange and yellow leaves forming a brilliant canopy overhead — but it was hard to focus on much besides my physical misery and my constant, consuming fear for my parents.
I couldn’t get the voicemail out of my head. What had happened to them? Had that strange man beaten them? Were they going to be okay? And who had that man even been? It could have been Patrick. I hadn’t heard his voice much — he mostly stuck to wordless roars when he attacked us — so I couldn’t be sure if it was him I had heard threatening Dad. Or it could have been Arman. I didn’t know which possibility was more terrifying, and I couldn’t stop myself from imagining the horrible, bloody condition I might find them in.
My constant, spinning thoughts made the hike feel even longer.
At least Masika and I were on the same page when it came to this kind of trek. After a half-hour of walking, she declared it was time for a break. Farida seemed frustrated.
“We shouldn’t rest long,” she said as she swung her overloaded backpack off her shoulders. There had been a few backpacks and bags in the trunk of the car, which Farida and Masika had kept with them “just in case.” Her bag was filled with the mess kit, a gas-fueled water heating device called a Jetboil, the LifeStraw, and several bottles of water. Masika had been insistent about the Jetboil and water, even though we had the LifeStraw to filter any naturally occurring water we found. Apparently, being able to make tea while hiking all day was imperative.
I unshouldered my own pack, which held a few food items, tea, and extra layers of clothing. We’d had to downsize before abandoning the car, which included leaving behind more of Masika’s spare clothes, limiting her to just one outfit and an extra sweater. Suffice to say, she was not impressed.
But she got the easy end of the deal — all she had to carry was her usual backpack full of stones. I probably shouldn’t have felt bitter at a several-thousand-years-old woman for being too frail to carry a backpack full of food and water, but the growing pain in my shoulders and hunger in my stomach was not putting me in the most generous of moods.
“We will rest as long as we need to,” Masika said evenly. “It will do us no good to arrive on Arman’s doorstep exhausted.”
“We don’t know how long they’ll wait for us,” Farida said.
“We don’t know that they’ll keep her parents alive at all.”
My blood boiled. I tried to keep the anger from my voice as I snapped, “That’s why we need to hurry.”
“A lie has no deadline. If it’s a trap and they never intended to let your parents live, it makes no difference how soon we reach them.”
“Masika,” Farida snapped.
The old woman scowled at her but, thankfully, stopped talking.
Chapter Sixteen
The rest of the day stretched on uneventfully. I had turned my phone off to preserve battery and didn’t wear a watch, so I wasn’t sure how long we had been walking when the sun started to set. Farida declared that we would break for the night before it got completely dark so we would still have light to set up camp.
“Is it safe to sleep out here?” I asked, looking uneasily into the darkening woods. Somehow, I had never considered the possibility that we wouldn’t make it to our destination by nightfall.
“We’ll be fine. We’ll just have to put our bags of food up into trees so we don’t attract too many bears.”
That stopped me dead in my tracks. “Bears? No one mentioned bears!”
Farida glanced back with a raised eyebrow and cocked head. “We’re in the woods. How could there not be bears?”
“We don’t have bears on PEI! M-maybe we should just keep walking? We can’t be that far, right?”
Masika snorted. “Yes, let’s face Arman blistered and dead on our feet. That will go wonderfully.”
“We’ll sleep for a few hours,” Farida said. “And you and I can take turns keeping watch. That way if animals come near, one of us can scare them away.”
“I can’t scare a bear!”
Farida smiled, but turned and started walking again. “Just be loud. Black bears will stay away from people if they know we’re close by.”
There was a section of woods just off the highway where the trees were a little sparser, offering cover from passing cars while still having room for our sleeping bags. She hung the backpack with food high off the ground by stringing it between branches of two different trees with a length of rope.
“Come on,” she said to me after making sure the food was secure. “You’re gonna help me set up some shelter.”
She walked me through the steps of building a lean-to against a fallen tree. It was supposed to be simple, but I was exceptionally inept at any survival-related skills.
“No, like this,” she said, laughing, as she reangled the branches I was trying to prop up against the log.
My cheeks grew hot and my hands became clumsier. I shouldn’t have been so embarrassed, though — Farida was well familiar with my incompetence by now.
“So,” I grunted a couple minutes later as I hauled a branch over. We had decided that Farida would set up the actual lean-to while I just brought over branches. “Do you have a lot of experience camping like this?”
She was busying herself with carefully leaning the branches against the trunk as she said, “Not exactly.”
“Comforting.”
She laughed. “No, no — I know how to, I just haven’t had to do it a lot. Squats and sleeping in the car have always been our go-to, but my parents knew I might find myself in tight spots while travelling around to gather stones, so they made sure I knew how to handle myself.” She glanced over at me. “That branch is gonna be too big. We wanna try and keep the size fairly uniform.”
I tried not to huff as I dropped the branch and went off in search of a better one.
Once the frame was ready, we layered leaves
and moss and tree boughs on top of it, creating a naturally camouflaged, earthy tent that would provide some protection from the wind. It was only just big enough for two people to lay down inside. The cramped quarters were probably for the best, though — it would help us conserve heat.
Still, despite our makeshift shelter, I felt incredibly exposed. A pile of sticks was not going to protect us from bears.
Farida took first watch. I laid down next to Masika in one of the sleeping bags, hating how fast she drifted off and how her soft snores kept me awake. It was only early fall, so it was mild during the day, but the temperature dropped dramatically with the sunset. The cold made it hard to feel sleepy.
I must have fallen asleep at some point, however, because the next thing I knew I was being gently shaken awake.
“Your turn,” Farida whispered. It was too dark to see even a hint of her — the faint light of the moon and the stars couldn’t breach the canopy of trees overhead
Groggily, I dragged myself out of the sleeping bag. The rush of cold air snapped me wide awake. I bumped shoulders with Farida as I tried to find my way over to where she had been keeping watch.
“Hang on — take this.” She pressed something into my hands, still warm from her own. “I turned it off so I wouldn’t blind you when you woke up.”
I felt it over and realized it was a flashlight. “Thanks. You can use my sleeping bag — er, well, I guess it’s technically your sleeping bag. I just kept it warm for you.”
She laughed softly. “Thanks. I could definitely use the extra body heat.”
I was glad it was too dark for her to see me blushing.
Clicking on the flashlight, I made my way over the uneven ground to the fallen tree Farida had been sitting on. It didn’t make for the most comfortable perch — the bark felt about as sharp as a bed of nails — but at least that would help me stay awake. I heard cars pass by occasionally, streaking dappled light through the wall of trees. The only other noise was an omnipresent chorus of crickets. That, at least, made me feel a little safer. I could handle crickets. I wasn’t sure what I would do if a bear or a coyote or even a moose showed up. If I heard howling or anything like that, I would probably wake the others and beg to leave immediately.
She Who Rises Page 12
