I looked around at the paintings on the wall, the homey interior of Fiona and Lachlan’s little cottage, and considered her words.
“It seems like you’ve done a lot of worrying over the years.” Their relationship looked as healthy as any I’d ever seen. My older sister and her husband bickered more and seemed less happy than Fiona and Lachlan, and they’d only been married for two years.
“Let’s call it tending, instead. I think that sounds better, don’t you?” Her tone was light, but sincere.
“Yes, I suppose so.” Her smile was wide and contagious, and I couldn’t help but admire her. Fiona seemed like one of the happiest people I’d met. Lachlan, although curmudgeonly, seemed content. They must have figured something out to have lasted so long together.
“Well, one way or another, tended or neglected, our garden is about to bear fruit,” I said, putting a hand on my still-flat midsection. This was the first time all day that I’d been able to really consider what this meant, and I felt no closer to knowing if this pregnancy was a miracle or a catastrophe. Maybe neither. Maybe both.
“I’d say it gives you a really good reason to weed and mulch,” Fiona said absently. She was washing out the teapot and when she handed it to me, her hands lingered on the white porcelain. “You’ve got a bit of time before that fruit is ripe. You can’t be too far along by your figure. You’re so slim you wouldn’t even know you’re pregnant.”
She was right. David and I still had months before the baby. And in the meantime, what? Did David and I get married? He had half-proposed already. But with a man like David, someone who was fundamentally impulsive by nature, could I believe he was sincere? I feared that I was too infatuated with him to tell.
“What made you decide to move all the way out here, really?” I pressed Fiona with the inappropriate question before I could think better of it. Suddenly it seemed imperative that I knew, even though she and Lachlan were nearly strangers.
Fiona shrugged. “We both decided it would be fun.”
“That’s it?” I felt like that was an inadequate answer.
“What more do you need? When you just know what will make you happy, you just know.” She had so much confidence in her answer that I felt empty in comparison.
The only thing that I knew for certain was that I had two children growing inside me, and no firm plans about what to do about it. I hoped that clarity would come to me, or that I could at least figure out where to look for it. Like the flame-leaf fern, it seemed unnecessarily elusive.
“Oh, don’t make that hang-dog face,” Fiona said to me, drawing us both back to the group of men, who were discussing the proposition of smoking the flame-leaf fern for medicinal purposes. “You’re going to figure it all out.”
I sure hoped she was right.
30
David
Casey and I slept side by side that night on our terrifically uncomfortable, borrowed air mattresses. It felt like it was full of coins rather than air, although I knew my privileged upbringing had given me an unhealthy attachment to expensive memory foam mattresses. I couldn’t have been happier though. Casey may have been cold to me almost the entire day, but as we were drifting off to sleep, once Curtis was snoring and Trevor was quiet, she reached out to hold my hand. Her light touch woke me up in an instant. I propped myself up on an elbow and leaned over her.
“Am I forgiven yet?” I whispered, pulling her hand to my lips and kissing it. She smiled like she knew a secret.
“I suppose,” she admitted after yawning. Her voice was soft. “We need to make up because staying angry takes too much energy. I feel like I ought to punish you longer, but I really don’t have the endurance.”
“Because you’re a sprinter?” I teased.
“That’s right.” Her voice was thick with sleepiness and her eyelids were fluttering in a struggle to stay open. Her long brown lashes batted against her cheeks like butterfly wings. She’d been fading fast even during dinner, and I knew she was exhausted. She’d had a very long day.
“Mhmm,” I said happily, staring up into the rusty metal hull of the overturned boat we were sleeping under. Lachlan had propped the boat up on saw horses and used sheet metal to enclose it. It was almost a building. For the first time since looking at the potato-babies in the ultrasound this morning, I felt fully confident that everything would work out. I wasn’t sure how yet, but I just knew. “Well don’t sprint anywhere tonight,” I told her, “you’ll need your strength tomorrow.”
When Casey didn’t reply with a quip about knowing what she needed better than I did, I looked over. She was fast asleep. Her tiny little hands were clasped under her face like a cherub in a baroque painting. Her blonde hair framed her round, rosy cheeks and my breath caught in my throat. Even after a morning of huge life-changing revelations, a day-long hike, and a tiring interaction with strangers, she was ridiculously gorgeous. I was beginning to come to uneasy terms with the fact that she’d always strike me dumb with her beauty. The fact that someone had so much power over me was heady, if not slightly frightening.
In the weak morning light, before the sun even rose totally over the blue-green water in the bay below us, our group set off again onto the slope of the volcano. Armed with our gear, a breakfast of toast, and a final cup of Fiona’s magic fern tea, we were ready to go. We’d just said our last goodbyes to our lovely hosts and hadn’t made it past the first rise before Lachlan came barreling out of his house in hot pursuit.
“Wait!” He said the word like it had about five syllables.
As a group, we turned around on the slope to face him. We met him halfway down the small hill we were climbing. Lachlan planted his walking stick on the hard pumice beneath our feet and panted before speaking.
“Lachlan? Is everything ok? Is Fiona alright?” Trevor asked, despite the fact that he knew that I needed to be ‘hosting’ on the camera. The two odd men had forged some sort of improbable bond. I’d seen them talking early this morning, over tea. What did two men like them discuss, I wondered. Utility kilts? Card tricks? Hats?
Unfortunately, Lachlan hadn’t run all the way up the hill because he’d just remembered the perfect type of felt for a fedora and needed to tell Trevor.
“There’s a huge typhoon blowing up from the lower Pacific,” he said breathlessly. His exertion was making him even less intelligible than usual. “Ye need ta turn back. We’ve got two maybe three days, but the last ferry leaves tomorrow afternoon. I just got off the radio with the Doc.” He looked out toward the dark water and pointed at the even darker clouds to the south-east. They looked the same as yesterday’s dark clouds, but apparently there was a whole typhoon behind them.
Shit.
This was the worst-case scenario for our search. To come this far only to be defeated by weather was unthinkable. I resisted the urge to throw a temper tantrum like I’d just dropped my ice cream on the ground. In truth, a temper tantrum wouldn’t even make me feel better. A lot of whiskey, maybe. Seeing my brother Nathan trip and fall on his ass while accepting an award, maybe. But not a temper tantrum.
“You doona want ta be out here during a typhoon,” Lachlan repeated as our group stood, dumbfounded and confused by his news. “Ye need to turn back ta town before it hits.”
“We can’t turn back,” I stuttered.
“You need to, unless you want to get swept away by the storm.”
“We’ve got a few more hours, at least,” Casey said, looking at me with wide eyes. “We don’t have to give up yet. We’ve got a little bit of time.”
I nodded, still feeling cheated by the universe. This fucking fern seriously didn’t want to be found.
Lachlan looked at all four of us individually, angling his disapproving nose at each of us in turn. “If you insist on pressing on, be sure you turn back by around three. Otherwise you won’t have time to get back to the village. You can stay with us another night of course, but you’ll miss the ferry if you do.”
“Thank you, Lachlan,” I managed to say,
hoping he heard the sincerity in my voice. Although I was nearly paralyzed with frustration, I was grateful. “You’ve done us a true favor with this warning. We’ll turn back before it’s too late. The last thing we want is to get stranded out here in the storm.”
I shook his calloused, gnarled hand, and he nodded with a bemused expression. “You’re welcome. Be careful.” He started to walk back down to his home when he remembered something. “Oh! Look, I hope you don’t have to do this, but there’s a cave system you can take shelter in if absolutely necessary. They’re lava tubes. Not glamorous, obviously, but there are entrances all over. Just look and you’ll find them. But don’t go too deep. You can get lost forever if you aren’t careful.”
“Volcanic caves?” Curtis asked. He looked none too excited about hiding out in some volcanic caves. “Are they even safe? Can we ride out the storm in there?”
“No, no, you wouldn’t want to. They’re totally dark, barren, nasty caves. They could flood, too. I don’t even know, they’re totally uncharted. Also, and take of this what you may, the locals say they’re cursed. Now I don’t put too much stock in such things, but I also don’t believe in tempting fate.” He shook his head at the prospect of the caves containing any ghouls. “But if you’re in a pinch, and you need shelter, you can find some there. I really recommend heading back to the village if you can. Your television program isn’t worth your life. I’d go back right now if I were you.”
Trevor and Curtis exchanged a glance but remained resolute. If they were still in, I knew that Casey and I stood a chance. Lachlan interpreted our expressions and sighed.
“I’ll tell the Doc you’re going to keep going for a bit. She said the ferry leaves at noon tomorrow. If you aren’t on it, you could be staying for three or four months. I’m not exaggerating about that.”
“We understand,” Casey said for all of us. “We’ll head back to the village soon.”
“I hope so Miss Casey. The slopes of a volcano are no place for a lady during a typhoon.”
The slopes of a volcano were no places for the pampered heir to a chemical fortune during a typhoon, either, but I choked down the urge to inform him of the fact. I was tough. Relatively.
“At least take this with you,” he said, thrusting a small radio unit into Casey’s hands, “give it to the Doc when you get back to town. I just can’t stand the thought of you three out here with no lifeline.” He shook his head in frustration.
“We really appreciate your help,” Casey told him, reaching out to kiss him on the cheek. He flushed a deep red.
“You’d better not let Fiona see you do that,” he said in a low, joking voice. “She’s a jealous soul.” He looked around dramatically as if she might pop out from the barren landscape.
We all laughed and bid him farewell. He was an odd sort, but I actually found myself liking the eccentric Scotsman. He reminded me a bit of my uncle Alexander II, to whom I was indebted. Irritable and morose, but ultimately less abrasive than he seemed on the surface. Unlike Alexander II, however, Lachlan didn’t have the ability to manipulate or financially coerce me, which made me like him even more.
“So, do we really press on, or turn back?” Trevor asked once Lachlan was out of earshot and headed back down the hill toward his little compound.
“We keep going,” Casey said. She looked up at the volcano like it was a personal challenge. “And faster than before, because now we’re on a real timer. I don’t know about you three, but I’m definitely not going to risk hanging out in some caves during a typhoon only to spend another three months here in a tiny village.”
“Speaking of potential challenges,” Curtis added, “but we’ve only got three hours of battery life left. We weren’t able to charge last night, so we’re working off backup batteries as it is.”
31
Casey
The threat of imminent natural disaster—a typhoon, competing interests—the looming specters of pharmaceutical companies, and the practical limitations of modern life—waning battery power in our camera, pushed our group up and up the jagged slope of the volcano. The fear of coming so near to our goal, only to fail at the eleventh hour was great motivation, but it could only accelerate our progress to what our bodies were capable of. The terrain was difficult, the wind had picked up precipitously, and the storm clouds to the east had overtaken the sun. Each step over the sharp, jagged rocks felt like an achievement, even though there was still plenty of volcano left to climb.
Unlike yesterday’s difficult but optimistic hike, today we were filled with solemn determination. The weather mirrored our solemnity, growing darker and more ominous as we walked. Although it was only mid-morning, it looked almost like dusk now. Only tiny slivers of blue sky were visible, and swirling mist had begun to coat the landscape. It was only a matter of time before the rain began, and unlike the previous brief downpours, once this rain began, it might continue for days.
I was considering the likelihood that we could simply slide through the mud all the way back to the village when an exclamation of pain drew me to a halt.
“Shit!” Curtis’ cry was almost lost to the wind, and I had to grab David by the arm to pull him to a stop. We turned to Curtis, who was now being supported by Trevor.
“What the hell happened?” David asked, almost yelling against the noise of the coming storm. We both looked Curtis over for blood but saw none. He was balled up on the ground, tightly wound around himself in the fetal position. After a few moments, he uncurled like an armadillo, revealing no major wounds.
“I tripped and twisted my ankle,” he yelled back after he caught his breath. “It’s probably just a sprain, but it hurts like hell. I heard a crunch. Help me up?” Trevor and David each grasped one of Curtis’ arms to pull him up to a stand. He was heavily favoring his right leg.
“Can you stand on it?” Trevor asked, shifting his grip on the much larger man so Curtis could release David and wrap his arm around his shoulders. Curtis took a tentative step unassisted and grimaced against obvious pain.
“Yes, I can still walk, but I’m definitely not going to be very fast.” His voice, even projected against the howling wind, sounded pained.
“You need to go back!” I told him. “The sooner you start back to town, the safer you’ll be. You don’t want to be stuck out here during the storm. We’ll catch up with you.” He shook his head stubbornly. His mouth was a thin line and his jaw was set.
“The flame-leaf could be anywhere around here! We just need to get up above this brush!” He pointed to the line, some yards ahead of us, where the low scrub we’d been walking through disappeared, leaving just little patches of green below the final summit.
“No way,” I told him, pulling the camera gear from his shoulders and hefting it onto my back. It was heavy, but I had two working feet. “You’re going back right now. And you aren’t taking the camera with you.” I turned to Trevor. “But you are taking him.”
“No!” Trevor whined. Curtis looked like he wanted to protest as well but didn’t say anything. Instead he let Trevor express what I assumed was what both of them were thinking. “I don’t want to give up when we’re so close.”
“Listen to me,” I told Trevor, pulling him aside to whisper in his ear. I couldn’t even hear my own voice in the high wind, but I knew Trevor could hear me. “You’ve done an amazing job on this trip. Better than I ever could have asked for. But Curtis needs you. He’s too weak to make it all the way back himself. I can’t help him, I’m not strong enough. And David… we both know he won’t turn back no matter what. Maybe not even before the storm.”
Trevor looked at me for a long moment. “You should come back with us,” he whispered back. “You don’t know when the storm is going to hit. You could get stuck out here and end up walking back alone. I’m all for adventure, but I don’t have a death wish. I think he might.” David raised an eyebrow at our attention but couldn’t hear what we were saying in the wind. I shook my head at Trevor.
“It’s a ri
sk I’m willing to take,” I told him, keeping my voice low so no one else would hear. “Now go.” I made a little shooing motion with my hands. It had never worked on my idiot brothers, and it didn’t work on Trevor either. He stared at me until my eyes were stinging from not blinking, but he looked away first.
Trevor sighed, pushing his hair back from his forehead and looking up at the summit and then down the winding path back that led to the village below. Neither path was particularly appealing in my opinion, but at least one was downhill. “Ok. Fine. I’ll go.”
David pulled at my hand and drew me closer. “Casey, do you want to go back with them? I can go on alone.”
I shook my head and rested my head against his shoulder for a moment. “No way. I can work the camera. The audio will be shit without Trevor, but we can always do a voiceover in post-production.” I was talking about the production, but I was really meaning that we—David and me, would be ok. I couldn’t imagine leaving him now. Or ever.
He frowned and hugged me. “If you’re sure. I could never do this without you. I’m glad you’re still with me.”
Always, I almost said, but wasn’t ready to confess it yet, even though I knew it was true. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I was doing the right thing, but after drinking the miracle tea Fiona made last night, I’d woken up feeling stronger and better than I had in weeks. My skin was softer and clearer, and even my hair looked glossier and healthier. Fiona made some seriously bomb tea. But beyond the lingering physical effects of the tea, my mind felt clearer and better now that I’d forgiven David. I believed we could do this, just the two of us. The thought of the tea jogged my memory about something else, however.
Lost and Found (Scions of Sin Book 4) Page 17