Molly stood at the edge, for a moment, and looked down at the now tiny unicorns below. It was hard to see them because of the fog. They looked like the Dippin’ Dots her mom liked to get at the mall.
Ripley pulled on Jo’s arm. “Why is it so foggy?”
Jo looked around. “Fog happens when cold air meets warm air,” she said. “We must have hit a colder spot. Probably because we’re getting kind of high up.”
“Cooooool,” Ripley exhaled and watched as the phantom of her breath mixed with the fog.
April coiled the rope and slung it over her shoulder in case they hit another steep part. “Okay,” she said, pointing to the gap in the rock where the trail continued, “upward!”
Everyone started walking except Mal. “Uh. Hey, so, just asking, but when do you think we’ll be back?”
April turned. “I don’t know. I mean, the plan is to get to the top, and we don’t know exactly how long—”
Mal’s eyes darted to the side. “Do you think we’ll be back before dinner?”
Jo shifted her backpack. “Why?”
“I have . . . an appointment to practice the accordion with Zodiac?” Mal said, her voice uncertain. “Before dinner.”
“Okay, but we have a plan.” April’s face did a small crumple, like a little fold in a crisp piece of paper.
“Yeah,” Mal said, hopeful, “I know, I just . . .”
Molly, Ripley, and Jo looked from April to Mal and back.
“Sure,” April said, a little unsure. “Once we finish this.”
“Okay,” Mal said.
“We’re almost there!” April cheered, switching gears to let’s-get-up-this-mountain mode. “I can feel it!” And with that, she turned and started hiking again.
“Stay close,” Jo called back, as Ripley scampered behind her.
Mal walked a little slower than a scamper. Molly watched Mal’s shoulders hunch. Like she was bummed. Like she didn’t even want to be hanging out with them.
Molly felt a little drop in her stomach. The fog swirled like soft serve in increasingly thick layers, so it was harder and harder to see.
Molly could feel . . . something.
Something? Something . . . not weird. But . . . something.
CHAPTER 23
Back at the mess hall, Jen was feeling pretty good about her counselors’ meeting. They got a bunch of stuff done. Made plans for repairs and for various duties that different cabins would take on. Initial organization for the upcoming Intergalactic Space Fanatics Convention (which is what they were calling it, maybe that wouldn’t be the final name) was also starting to take shape.
Now she just needed to check in with Rosie.
Great. Jen’s shoulders sagged ever so slightly, like someone had just placed a small sack of flour on her back.
Jen stepped up to Rosie’s private cabin. Stood up straight, pushed her shoulders back to Jen position. Jen knew (because her mother taught public speaking skills) 80 percent of the success of a transaction like this was attitude. “Your name is Jen,” she whispered to herself. “Your name is Jen and you are a capable, responsible camp counselor.”
Jen leveled her little green beret. Next to Rosie’s door, an angry raccoon statue, recently carved from the trunk of a massive pine, bared its teeth.
Jen turned and bared her teeth back at the creature. Then she straightened and knocked twice on the door, hard.
“COME IN!” Rosie hollered from inside. “DOOR’S OPEN!”
Jen took a deep breath and stepped inside.
“JANET!” Rosie’s voice had the force of a small freight train.
Rosie was seated behind her desk, which was covered in scratches and marks from where she’d stuck her ax in there for safekeeping. Although some of the marks on the desk did look distinctly claw-like. One corner looked like someone, or something, at some point, had taken a bite out of it.
A really big bite.
Jen leaned forward. Wait, she thought, is that a tooth still IN the desk?
Rosie was enjoying a mug of chamomile tea and was working on what looked like a large wooden clock. A clock that seemed to have at least four minute hands.
“What is that?” Jen asked. “And it’s Jen, just, by the way. Jen.”
“Oh, just a little piece of gadgetry, something to keep track of things, you know,” Rosie said, carefully sliding a metal wire into one of the many keyhole shapes in the box and twisting it with her fingers. There was a blue spark and the wire disappeared. “Damn.”
Jen shook her head. Not knowing what Rosie was talking about seemed as normal as the weather. “We’re almost done organizing our next round of camp activities,” she announced, voice level, firm, confident. “The counselors are really excited—well, I’m excited, with the lunar eclipse coming, to talk about some celestial things with the scouts. It’s going to be great.”
“Excellent.” Rosie looked up. “I’m sure you have a handle on it, Jinni. So what are your scouts up to today?”
“Oh,” Jen nodded efficiently, unfaltering, “it’s Jen, and they have a list of things they need to get done. I’m sure they . . .”
Jen paused, with a feeling not unlike the feeling you get when you start to slip on a patch of ice. No, they probably weren’t, were they? They were probably doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. “Oh, uh. I’m just about to check on them,” she blurted.
“Oh, they’re smart scouts,” Rosie said, turning back to her strange clock-like contraption, which was glowing green now. “What did they do the other day? Oh yes,” Rosie looked up. “Living the Plant Life!”
Jen tapped her clipboard, suddenly anxious to see what her very smart scouts were up to. “Yes. They found . . . um . . . Clow Bells, and unicorns,” she added.
Rosie dropped the second wire she’d unwound from one of the larger spools on her desk. She raised an eyebrow. “Unicorns?”
“Oh,” Jen waved her hand, “I mean, yeah, when I found them they were with these unicorns, next to a large . . . mountain, I guess? Anyway, I should get going.”
Rosie adjusted her glasses. Unicorns and Clow Bells, she thought, with a slightly concerned “hmmmmm.” Unicorns and Clow Bells. What was it about Unicorns and Clow Bells? And a mountain? Something. Possibly something worthy of some level of concern.
Rosie stood up and grabbed her ax from its spot wedged in her desk and her moose bridle from its hook on the wall. “Jen, I think you and I should go find your campers.”
“Well, it’s J—. Oh. Yes. Really?” Jen’s eyes grew wide. “Why? Is everything okay?”
“I’m sure it is,” Rosie said, tossing the bridle over her shoulder. “But let’s just go check to be sure.”
CHAPTER 24
The path up the mountain continued to twist to the left and the right, getting steeper and steeper, like it was pulling up and away with every step.
Meanwhile, the fog was getting soupier and soupier. Ripley focused on keeping Jo’s head in her view. Fog swirled around them, painting the air so that everything was soft white and hard to see.
Molly focused on the purple women’s symbol patch sewed onto the back of Mal’s jacket.
“This seems dangerous,” Mal said, possibly to herself. “Right? Like I know I say this a lot, but we can’t even see our own hands in front of our faces.”
Ripley pressed her hand up against her face. “I can see MINE,” she yelled back. “But it’s like RIGHT UP ON.”
Mal groaned, pressing to keep up. “We’re going to lose each other.”
Molly looked down. She couldn’t even see her own sneakers, just her knees and the swirl of movement of each of her steps.
“APRIL!” Molly called out. “Mal’s right, we need to SLOW DOWN!”
Bubbles squeaked nervously, wrapping his tail tighter around Molly’s head and grabbing her ears with his little paws.
Jo reached forward for April, touching her lightly on the shoulder. “April. This fog is crazy.”
April frowned. It wasn’t c
razy, it was just thick! Fog was thick! That’s why they called it fog!
April swiveled, squinting as Jo stepped into view. “It’s fine!” she said. “We’ll clear the fog and we’ll be able to see.”
Jo shook her head. “I think maybe,” she pressed, “we should turn around.”
“Turn around?” The thought of it was like a red light blinking behind April’s eyes. TURN AROUND? Did turn around mean STOP? It did. STOPPING would be . . . would be . . . UNEXTRAORDINARY!
That was it exactly, April thought. We can’t turn around! We’re extraordinary explorers! Sure, there were people in this world who turned around when things started seeming impossible, but April was not one of those people. Rosie would probably NEVER turn around because of FOG.
“We can come back tomorrow,” Jo offered. “Maybe we just need a day with better weather.”
April threw her hands up. “We’re so close!”
Jo stopped walking. “April.”
April shook her head. “We just need . . .”
April stopped. Jo paused. Ripley froze.
April felt something. Like her foot hit something gooey. Or soft. Or like instead of standing on a mountain, she was standing on mud, or Jell-O, or muddy Jell-O.
Her foot. Was sinking. Slipping backward.
Jo’s eyes went wide. “Whoa,” she said, “did you feel that?”
April wrapped her hand around the rope on her shoulder. “I think so,” she said, cautiously.
April’s foot sank a little farther.
“What’s happening?” Ripley whimpered, pulling one foot up, then the other.
“Hey, guys!” Mal called. “Are you there? What’s going on? It feels like—”
And there was a sound.
Like a whoosh? A skittering like the sound icy snow makes in the wind.
“Did you hear that?” Mal asked.
“What?” Molly said, stepping forward and, she hoped, out of whatever she was sinking into.
“Whoosh,” Mal said.
“Whoosh?” Molly asked.
Mal tilted her head. “Like the sound snow—”
“GUYS!” April screamed.
April grabbed Jo who grabbed Ripley who grabbed Mal who grabbed . . .
“RUN!”
CHAPTER 25
April scrambled up the slope. Jo grabbed Ripley by the back of her shirt and starting running with her like she was a human suitcase.
It felt like they were running in a dream, arms and legs moving, going nowhere. It was impossible to tell if they were moving, because all they could see was fog. It wasn’t even fog anymore. Just a sea of solid white filling the air.
“WHAT’S HAPPENING?” Ripley hollered, her voice shaking as she was jostled in Jo’s grip.
The ground. It was like when you try to run up a sand dune, Jo thought. It felt like it was slipping away.
“The rope!” Jo called to April.
April grabbed the rope off her shoulder and tossed an end down to Jo.
Jo made a few loops in the rope and tossed it back to Mal and Molly. “GRAB ON!”
Mal scrambled to get her footing, with Molly scrambling behind her. Mal spotted the rope and lunged forward, arm outstretched to snatch the loop as it swung through the air. Not that she could see anything. The rope landed on her palm just as she stretched out her fingers.
Mal closed her hand, gripping tight. “I got it!”
As Molly’s feet continued to sink into what used to be the rock of the mountain, which was now clearly something else, she felt something curling its way around her ankle. Something twisty. “AUGH!”
“WHAT IS IT?” Mal yelled back, twisting the rope around her wrist so she wouldn’t lose it.
“My leg!” Molly reached down to slap whatever it was that was now curling its way up her calf. “There’s something on my leg!”
“WHAT?”
“I DON’T KNOW!”
April tied Jo’s contraption to the other end of the rope, her hands shaking. Good thing she had her My Fair Lasso badge. If she threw the rope upward, maybe it would catch on something? Maybe they could . . .
April could hear Mal and Molly yelling, and she could feel Jo and Ripley puffing behind her.
April flashed to the first time she tried knitting, which was something on a list long ago, and she dropped a stitch and then the whole sleeve she was working on just . . . came apart.
That was the perilous thing about knitting, it can go from a sweater to a ball of mess in a matter of seconds.
Makes you wonder why so many people think knitting is “relaxing.”
Which is not to say April didn’t finish her sweater eventually.
All the cold air of adventure drained out of April’s body, and her head got hot with fear. What if something happened? What had she gotten her friends into?
April frowned. Nothing’s going to happen to my friends, she thought. No way, not on my watch. NOT HAPPENING.
Gritting her teeth, she tossed the rope, with Jo’s metal contraption on the end, in the air, swung it in two wide arcs, then she whipped it up as hard as she could and . . .
April felt the rope thread through her fingers as it sailed. Up?
And?
CHICK!
The rope hit something and then . . . went taut.
Okay, April thought, Jo and Ripley are tied on, so are Mal and . . .
“MOLLY!”
Mal had stopped running, spun around, and was reaching back, the rope twisting tight around her wrist as she held her free hand out to Molly.
“Grab my hand,” Mal cried. She could barely see Molly’s face, her eyes wide, for the fog.
There was a moment where she felt Molly’s fingers hit her fingertips, once, and again as Molly tried to get a grip on Mal’s hand. “MOLLY!”
“What’s happening?” Jo called down. She couldn’t see a thing.
“I can’t reach,” Molly gasped. She couldn’t run because it felt like there was nothing to run on, her feet circled in the air. She reached one more time, grabbed at the tips of Mal’s fingers.
And just as Molly’s fingers slipped out of Mal’s grip, something snaked its way up Molly’s calf, along her side, and across the palm of her hand.
CHAPTER 26
“It’s just this way.” Jen’s voice bounced and wavered as she shouted against the wind. She was perched behind Rosie on the camp director’s favorite moose, Jeremy. One hand on her beret, one hand around Rosie’s waist, Jen gripped Rosie’s flannel shirt for dear life. “To the left!”
Jeremy was a fine riding moose, the pride of Rosie’s stable, with antlers as big as canoe paddles, but even a fine riding moose is not an ideal ride for two. Especially when galloping through the woods.
“You saw this mountain WHEN?” Rosie hollered back at Jen.
“Day before yesterday,” Jen considered. “Is there some special mountain stuff I don’t know about?” She grumbled to herself, “Not that there aren’t a million mystical things around here no one ever tells me about.”
“What’s that?” Rosie called back, her voice steady and loud in the whistling wind.
“I said what is it about the mountain?” Jen called forward.
Jeremy snorted, not really enjoying people yelling while on his back.
“There’s a story,” Rosie said. And she pulled on the reins and Jeremy ground to a halt, right before he ran into a field of unicorns. “It’s an old story, so I’m not sure I’m remembering it correctly. But it’s about a mountain near a field of unicorns.”
“What’s the story?” Jen said, dropping down from Jeremy’s back and into the field of Clow Bells.
“Like I said,” Rosie said, rubbing the fog off her glasses, “I can’t quite remember it.”
“THIS story you can’t remember!? Of all the stories, THIS story is evading you?”
“Well, there are a lot of Lumberjanes stories to remember,” Rosie reminded her, shoving her glasses back on. “I remember most of them.”
Jen�
��s eyes went wide with frustration.
Rosie looked around. “Just give me a minute.”
There was a distant rustling sound. The rave of unicorns stirred.
“Man, that is a strong smell,” Jen coughed, covering her nose.
Rosie sniffed and wiggled her nose. Yes it was. “Smells like the toe jam of an ancient seafaring Monolusky,” she noted.
“Whatever that is,” Jen said.
The unicorns were all stepping forward and circling around to see who the new moose was. Moose can’t mind the smell of unicorns, so Jeremy was pretty much fine with this. He snorted appreciatively. Held his head up high to show off his cool antlers.
One unicorn whinnied as if to ask what the moose was doing there.
Jeremy snorted back that he had no earthly clue.
Just then, Rosie felt something grabbing onto her foot. She bent down and looked carefully at the little green threads working their way onto her boot.
“Well, hello there,” she said, “little clinging thing.”
“What is that?” Jen asked, walking over. “Is that poison ivy? Wandering vine?”
“Nope.” Rosie held up the little green vine for Jen to see. “This,” she said, “is a very clingy and sometimes useful thing called Clingy Vine.”
CHAPTER 27
Clingy Vine grows in places where a person might find any bell-type plant, also wherever you find berries or baklava. It likes attention and tall grass, and it is not in any way poisonous, or edible. If you see Clingy Vine, it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be inconvenient if you are not into the idea of having Clingy Vine around, or if you’re trying to keep your shoes clean.
Clingy Vine can be a useful thing, because in addition to clinging onto you (to your shoes, shirt, and so on), it can also reach out and cling onto other things.
So it’s actually a very useful thing in very stressful falling situations.
When Molly’s hand slipped from Mal’s, the Clingy Vine that had wrapped itself around Molly’s ankle and leg and waist grew. It twisted around Molly’s right arm and across her open palm, dove off her fingertip, and landed on Mal’s left hand. It crawled across Mal’s hand to her wrist, where it twisted itself around and around, threading a bridge between Mal and Molly.
Unicorn Power! Page 7