When had this mountain and the town of Breathless become a home? I still missed dad. I took every opportunity I could to call or Skype him on his days off and we talked for at least a half hour every time. But somewhere along the way, I didn’t miss my old house and friends as much as I thought I would.
Right then though, trying to find the right words to bring up what I was afraid to discuss, I’d have given anything for the comfort of what was familiar. I took a drink of my sweet tea, cool on my tongue and sat it down. I was stalling.
“Mom?” I started and dived in. “I want to talk to you about school. Please just hear me out, okay?”
Carly wiped her mouth and grabbed onto her own tall glass of sweet-tea; fingers dewy with condensation from the frosty glass. Her eyes never left mine.
I went on. “You know my friends Sirris and Thomas? Well, they start in a week too. But they don’t go to school here in town. See, Thomas has an aunt? She taught for twenty years before she retired to a cabin on Shephard’s Mountain. She lives near Thomas’ place. She’s home-schooled all the kids on the mountain for years. Sirris dad comes up twice a week too and teaches science. She said she’s sure they’d let me come too. I really believe that would be a better fit for me. I don’t want to go to Breathless High. I don’t like sports and so far, what I’ve seen of the other students there? They don’t want to know me, and I’ve no interest in getting to know them.
Sirris says everyone still takes class trips and they study for all the state exams. Several have gone onto college and maintained top grades there too...
I was talking too fast and then my voice faded. The shuttered look on my mother’s face wasn’t promising.
“Yeah, about that. I’m not so sure Sirris and Thomas are the kids I want you hanging out with, either. Look at what happened last week? You almost got yourselves killed wandering around in those mountains after dark when I specifically told you it was dangerous. You need to meet some normal kids your age.” She said normal like being different was an obscene word. “Learn about something besides hunting and tracking and running all over the woods. Breathless has a softball team. You used to love to play when you were little,” she added.
I stared at my mother. When had we grown so far apart that she didn’t know that hunting and being in the woods was who I was? I would never be some preppy snot that defined her life by the length of her nails or the cost of her hairdresser. That wasn’t who I was.
I pushed my plate away, trying to control my temper. “Doesn’t what I want mean anything? I’d be happy there. I won’t be happy here in town. That should count for something.”
Mom went on like I hadn’t said a word. “Besides, kids like that? Every school has them. There will be other students you can get to know I’m sure that won’t be as bad.”
My teeth ground together so hard I was afraid they would loosen as she continued.
“... I went there. It was fine for me. It will be fine for you too.” She finished. And that was it, she’d decided.
I swallowed a hard lump that had formed in my throat, afraid I was going to tear up. Life sucked right then, and I was tired of it.
“Can I be excused? I’m done here. You don’t really want to know about anything I want. This isn’t about me at all. It’s about you and reliving whatever part of your childhood you feel you screwed up.” I didn’t wait for permission. I stood and grabbed my half-finished plate and scraped it in the garbage before tossing it into the sink with a clatter.
I never looked back to see my mother’s devastated face as I left the room and headed for my jail cell. At least it was a private one.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I wished my mind would shut up. But it ran like an awful movie, driving me forward. I ignored aching thighs and burning calves that urged me to slow down as I ran up Shephard’s Mountain in the dark.
Memories tracked inside my brain like a runaway freight train, jangling along. The confusion of the divorce slammed into me. I remembered imagining that I caused that break-up. The faces of the friends I hadn’t seen in months and now missed, spun through my mind, though I couldn’t have said why. I missed my new friends too. I wondered if Sirris and Thomas were struggling with our forced isolation? Bitterness clawed at my gut. I was angry at them too because they had what I’d lost somewhere along the way. A parent that loved them and understood them. I was being unreasonable, and I knew it. But that only made me madder, as I pushed my exhaustion to its limits.
I came to a gasping stop, unable to proceed further, and leaned against a large lodgepole pine for support. It stretched tall and strong above me, weaving under the pressure of the wind on its lofty top branches.
I tried to suck in enough oxygen to breathe. At least I was still on the main path. It would have sucked big time if I’d somehow wandered off the trail and found myself fumbling around in the dark. What went bump in the night here might kill you and enjoy your bones for supper. The idea made me shiver and glance around. I tried to rein in the sawing of my breath as it rattled about in my lungs. I realized how far up the mountains I’d come and how alone I was. Stupid, stupid, stupid! What had I been thinking?
I turned around and looked back the way I’d come. I should go back before it was too late.
That was when a branch broke somewhere down the trail in front of me the way I’d come. Had my crazy thoughts conjured up my imagination and turned it into reality? My ears sharpened and sure enough, another twig snapped; closer.
It was already too late.
I shoved away from the tree and continued up the trail, praying nothing loomed ahead of me on the trail and I wasn’t running into a trap unarmed and alone.
I was the bait. I remembered that things didn’t turn out so well for the worm on the end of the hook.
My breath came in soft pants as I ran. The panic and knowledge of what closed in behind me didn’t help. The brief whiff of unwashed dog from below, carried on the breeze that whispered over my shoulder, told me the gap between us narrowing fast. If they caught me here, I was as good as dead.
I reached the stream and the large log from before that formed a footbridge. I took it at a run, never pausing. I tried to think. I was running out of trail. It ended in a wall of rock in less than a hundred yards.
I turned the corner on the last curve, and that wall loomed ahead. Glancing back, I watched the same three wolves from before as they came into view. All three looked hale and hearty and recovered from the many wounds that should have killed them a bare week before.
My hands hit the rock, and I spun around, my back to the smooth slick surface. I stood shaking, my mind shutting down as they fanned out and took their time. I remembered how they liked to play with their meals. Almost as if the actual act of chowing down was the dessert, and the fear sustained them.
Of a sudden, all the reasons that had sent me careening like an idiot up the trail seemed irrelevant. I was going to die because I’d given in to a tantrum. Smart Sadie!
I clawed at my back for my bow and remembered I’d left it at home. The night couldn’t get any better. I didn’t even have a knife! I sucked in a deep breath and expelled it on a whoosh. The sound ended on a sob. I wasn’t ready to die; not like this.
They came to within fifteen feet, in no hurry to get to me. They were crazy big, the smallest topping six feet easy. I had time to notice what I’d missed before. The intelligence of those glittery yellow eyes intent on mine alarmed me. The shortest turned to the tall leader and said something I couldn’t quite catch over the roar of my pounding heart. But I knew they were discussing me and how much fun they would have in the coming moments.
I started moving along the wall, my eyes looking for any advantage. Looking up, the rocky wall loomed twenty to thirty feet above me before it began the jagged jaunt over what formed the rest of Shephard’s Mountain Peak. Maybe if I found a foothold and climbed higher? As ideas went, it sucked. They climbed better than I did, but I was desperate. I could do this.
I sp
layed my fingers behind me, flat on the slick surface as I slid along. I stepped onto a large flat rock in my way and before I stepped off on the other side, my shoulder brushed over a roughened surface and snagged at my shirt. A tingling sensation made me turn. I stared at the same strange whorls and designs I’d seen before but hadn’t had time to examine. I was about to be eaten on a mountain in Montana by three werewolves. I didn’t have the time now, either.
But my fingers tingled and burned, and I reached out to place them against that strange pattern. At once, the entire thing lit up as if I’d hit the on button to a flashlight. I jerked my fingers back, and the lights vanished. I heard the wolves behind me moving closer, growing tired of waiting.
I shivered, imagining I already felt their breath on my neck. I had nothing to lose. I reached out again and set my forefinger at the start of the strange whirling design, traced the shape and followed its path. It lit up with my movement and grew brighter the closer to the center I went. It reminded me of tracing the lines on a maze. If I hit a dead end and had to back up, it dimmed. I traced the path faster, my fingers a blur. I heard silence behind me, and I knew they were gathering themselves to leap. For me it would be all over then.
With a gasp, I hit the center and light exploded in my face. I closed my eyes against the brightness. And then I was falling forward into space. My eyes flashed open as I landed on my hands and knees with a bone jarring crunch. I rolled forward, coming up in a crouch as I turned, expecting to see jaws and teeth and my impending death.
I blinked; sure I was seeing things. The wolves were still there. Sure enough, I watched them jump for the wall and scramble back in confusion as they hit with a bone-jarring thud. They bounced off and turned to glare at me through the translucent wall of the mountain. They saw me, but they couldn’t touch me and their snarls of rage told me they weren’t happy about it. Somehow I’d fallen into some kind of cave. A transparent door had shut behind me and I watched as they hit the outer wall again and landed in a tangled heap.
They leapt up and looked around, noses snuffling as they looked in confusion for a way in. They didn’t understand what was happening any more than I did. Not that I was complaining.
I looked about and realized I was only partially right. I was in less a cave and more a corridor that extended in both directions. I was in a long hallway on the inside of Shephard’s Mountain.
I watched the wolves tearing at the earth and the mountain walls in frustration, upset about missing their meal. After several futile moments more, they gave up. They held a brief conversation; turned and loped back down the mountain trail.
Glancing along the corridor in both directions, I noticed what I had missed before. Lighting the way were miner’s lamps, strung equidistant along the walls. The floor and walls were smooth as glass, dusty and dry.
When the unobstructed view to the outside of the mountain turned cloudy and faded to the same dull patina as the rest of walls I jumped up in a panic, running my hands over that fading surface. I was trapped! How was I going to get out?
I forced myself to stop and leaned forward, resting my forehead against the smooth surface. I didn’t know what was at the end of that corridor, but I knew what was waiting on the other side of the wall. Here I was safe, for now at least. It was at least three hours until dawn. Better to stay where I was until then. I stood up, dusting the sand and dirt out of the scrapes at my knees. The slight tackiness and sting told me my fall had cracked my chin and scraped the skin away.
I stared to my right down the well-lit path on the inside of the mountain. Hitching my backpack higher I again wished I’d grabbed my bow, knife, or anything. I grabbed my water out of the side and drained three quarters of it in one pull. I’m not sure why, when I’d left with nothing else, I still grabbed my pack. But there was proof of the state of my mind when I’d left. I stored the bottle and started walking. In for a dollar, in for a pound as they say. I was always trying to discover what lie around the next corner. Here I had my chance to do just that.
SHEPHARD’S MOUNTAIN was huge, one of the largest peaks contained within the Tobacco Root Mountain Range. Knowing that, I shouldn’t have been surprised when I was still walking a mile later. I saw several passages that wound off in different directions, but the lights along them weren’t lit and I had no desire to be wandering around inside the mountain in the dark. I remembered the strange patterned design I’d traced to get in. I wondered if I’d turned the lights on when I tripped the switch that let me in or if they just stayed on.
I’d been walking the better part of an hour, beginning to get bored in fact, when I rounded another bend and stopped dead. The lights ended, dead ending into another wall much like the one I’d come in through. Had I just walked a gigantic circle? But no, that couldn’t be right. The space I was in was much larger, easily the size of a small gymnasium. I looked at the dusty floor with a jolt. Hundreds of footprints of all shapes and sizes crisscrossed in random fashion, as if a crowd of people had been there milling about.
I looked at the far wall, solid and not transparent in the least. No obvious patterns adorned it anywhere to let me out. I began broadening my search, fingers traveling and frantic as I moved along the walls, searching for anything that might be like what I’d used before. My heart was pounding louder. I was stuck on the inside of this mountain labyrinth, destined to wander about until I died of hunger or thirst?
The opposite side of the room was under my exploring fingers when I looked back over my shoulder and froze. The main wall faded from solid to translucent as I watched, just like the original wall had. I glanced at my still fingers. They weren’t tingling, and the wall beneath them was smooth. I wasn’t doing this.
The other side of the wall to the outside was inky black, and I remembered it was still dark on the outside of the mountain. I edged closer, curious to see something, anything on the other side. I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
Pressing my face to the slick surface, my eyes adjusted, and I made out dim shapes in the darkness. I realized the moon cast enough of a reflection for me to make out a hint of vastness, the curve of a yawning valley and black forests. In the distance, maybe miles away, I thought I saw lights winking. A town, perhaps. Closer, small trees and darkened shapes showed as fat shadows just on the other side of the door. I couldn’t hear anything, but I realized the branches of some of the nearest trees moved back and forth. Windy out, I realized.
I looked down at my feet and realized that many of the footprints I’d seen earlier ended at the wall. I could just make out the path I’d come in on as it continued on the other side of that clear window, meandering through the trees out of site.
I pressed my nose flat against that glass-like surface and jumped back with a squeak of fear when the nearest dark shape turned and started walking in my direction. The echo of my thundering heart was loud inside my head as I flattened my back against the far wall. Someone was coming, and they were making no attempt to hide their approach.
A second shape detached itself and joined, and I realized there were two. They stopped on the other side of the glass wall.
I heard a whir of air and a breaking seal,, and then the wall vanished.
Relief that they were at least human fled beneath the cold-eyed gazes that stared at me, unblinking. They dressed in identical slate green uniforms. Soldiers, I decided. Was I under military arrest?
I didn’t want to find out. But there was no place to go, and I was fresh out of options. I opened my mouth to explain how I came to be there.
“Hello, I’m...” I got no further as they closed in on me and the shortest man reached out a hand and seized me in a hard grip. They turned me around and the taller soldier searched me, my skin crawling as his hands ran over my person, searching for weapons I imagined. My back pack was the first to go. They ripped it off my back and had it open in a second, rifling through my belongings and coming up with nothing important besides a second water bottle and a half-eaten granola bar. They thrust it ba
ck into my hands. The only thing they kept was the small folded jack-knife I’d forgotten was even there.
“Hey, I’d like that back!” I screeched, indignant. Dad had given it to me on my thirteenth birthday. “Who are you, and where am I?” I asked. I had questions, and I wanted answers.
But they ignored me. With a firm hand in the back of my shoulder blades they pushed me forward towards the door and through the opening to the other side.
The wind hit me with a small gust of air and it reminded me that the temperatures at night on the mountain could be brisk as I shivered and pulled my jacket tighter.
As they herded me down the trail, the taller of the two spoke up.
“Who are you is the better question? Don’t lie to me. I’ll know. No human has clearance to enter here. How did you get in?” The questions were asked in rapid fire, my mind whirled in confusion. None of it made sense.
I shrugged off the rude hand that pushed me faster. I was getting tired quick of their bullish manners.
“How about I’ll answer yours when you answer mine?” I tossed back.
“We’ll see what the mayor has to say.” The tallest said. After that, they were quiet.
We walked along the trail that bisected the woods on both sides for close to a mile. Off to my right I imagined I caught the brief wink of lights, but I couldn’t be sure. Besides, only moments later we turned a corner and emerged onto a bluff overlooking an insignificant town, recessed deeper in the valley and lit up like Christmas in July.
I halted at the sight and received a startled bump from behind for my efforts. I continued down the trail, taking it in as we descended.
It spread out in a long ribbon, snaking along the edge of a large lake that I had missed in the dark until then. No wonder; its wide expanse was murky and ink black in the night sky. No reflection of the moon danced across its surface.
I made out dozens of sizeable buildings as we drew closer along each side of the main cobblestoned drag that ran straight through town. There was no rhyme nor reason to the design of the dark shops and businesses I was too far away to identify. They had been built random, but solid along both sides. Small boxy houses not unlike what I had seen in Breathless dotted along the side streets.
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