The Calling

by Kelley Armstrong

  We slogged uphill for at least two hours. I was guessing at the time. My watch had survived the first dunk after the helicopter crash but not the second one, when I'd been pulled right under. Daniel's still worked and I think Corey's did, too, but no one was asking them for the time--no one cared.

  When I heard the burble of a stream, I picked my way through a patch of bramble to get to it. Hayley was right behind me, fighting through the branches instead of ducking them. Sam got poked in the eye. When she cursed, Hayley jumped and slipped on a muddy patch. Corey ripped his shirt on thorns helping her up. All three complained, loudly and bitterly.

  "We need more water," Daniel said. "Which means you need to get to it, because we can't bring it back for you."

  "Well, maybe if Hayley was more careful," Sam said. "Not letting the branches fling back."

  "Well, maybe if you weren't walking right behind me," Hayley said. "Why do we need water anyway? We drank before we set out."

  "We need to drink from every stream I can find," I said. "As I've said, dehydration is the biggest risk we face out here."

  "Okay," Corey said. "But could you find a path without mud and thorns?"

  "I'll make sure the next one's paved."

  Daniel leaned toward me as we walked. "I bet if we bolted, we could lose them in ten seconds."

  "Don't tempt me," I muttered.

  He grinned and put out his hand to help me over a muddy patch. I crossed, then called back a warning to the others. Daniel seconded the warning and pointed out the mud. Hayley still slid and fell.

  At the stream--a little cascade splashing over a rock ledge--we got a drink. As we were leaving, Hayley said, "I can't do this," dropped, pulled up her knees, and buried her face against her legs.

  "I'm sorry, guys," she said, her voice tight. "I just can't. I'm cold and I'm tired and I'm hungry."

  I crouched beside her. "I know you're uncomfortable, but we're okay. Our clothing is dry now and it's not cold enough for hypothermia. We can survive without food as long as we don't dehydrate--"

  "You don't get it, do you?" Corey snapped. "We're tired and hungry, and you blather on about hypothermia and dehydration--"

  "Hey!" Daniel bore down on Corey. "She keeps talking about hypothermia and dehydration because you guys won't shut up about being cold and hungry."

  "Well, maybe we don't need to hear how this isn't going to kill us," Corey said. "Maybe we need more than a pep talk."

  "Like what? Sympathy? Right. Because that's going to get us out of these woods. Maybe you can show a little sympathy yourself under the circumstances and--"

  "Enough," I said. "You're right, Corey. I'm sorry. I know your knee is hurting. I know everyone's cold. I know everyone's tired. I know everyone's hungry. I know everyone's worrying about their parents and what's going on back in Salmon Creek. And we're thinking about Nic and Rafe and--"

  Oh God. My parents. Nicole. Rafe.

  I tried to finish, but I couldn't remember what I'd been saying, and I just stood there with everyone staring at me. Then Daniel was beside me, rubbing away the goose bumps on my arms and Corey was hobbling over, looking like a kicked puppy. He put an arm around my shoulder.

  "I'm sorry," he said.

  Hayley echoed him, on her feet again, standing there awkwardly.

  I wiped my eyes, and gave Corey a quick embrace before nudging him back. "I should look at your knee."

  "Nah, it's--"

  "I should check it." I glanced up at him. "Please."

  He nodded, and limped to a boulder to sit.

  "I'll go see if I can find some berries," Daniel said.

  "You won't and even if you do, eating a little..." I looked around at the others, then back to Daniel. "Sure, that'd be good."

  "No," Hayley said. "Eating a little will just remind us how hungry we are. There has to be a summer cabin around here somewhere. Everyone leaves food behind. I'd settle for cold beans from a rusted can."

  Corey's knee looked the same as it had that morning--scabbed over, bruised and tender to the touch. It had to be killing him to walk, but when I asked if he wanted to stay behind, his response was an emphatic no with an edge of panic.

  "Can I apologize again for snapping?" he said.

  "No." I sat back on my haunches. "We need to slow down for you. You're in pain and you're not going to remind us of that."

  "It isn't that bad. Really. I--"

  "See? Gotta be a tough guy." I lowered my voice so the others wouldn't hear. "How's your head?"

  "I didn't hit my head. Not yet anyway."

  "You know what I mean. Your headaches."

  "I'm fine." When I opened my mouth to protest, he clapped his hand over it. "I'm not pulling any macho crap, Maya. My head is fine. I'm getting twinges, but it's nothing I don't get everyday, even with the meds. I'll be okay." He looked around him. "And as soon as we get out of this place, I'll be even better. So let's hit the trail."

  The ascent was getting steep, so I decided to hike ahead. The others would follow slowly--we all had to get over this mountain, one way or another.

  Someone needed to come with me, for safety's sake. Daniel would be my first choice, but when Sam volunteered, I took her up on it. I wanted to talk to her. Alone.

  I left Kenjii with Daniel, using a length of vine as a leash. She didn't like that. He didn't like it much either, until I explained that by keeping her, he could find me as they followed along behind at their own pace.

  We picked a landmark, then Sam and I hiked off toward it. It was rough going. Daniel would find an easier route for the others, but I was taking the most direct one, which meant rock climbing. Soon Sam was puffing, red-faced. I found a stream--not much more than a trickle over the rocks--and we drank our fill, then I made her sit on the rocks so we could rest.

  "You'd never met your aunt and uncle before your parents died, had you?" I said as we rested.

  She shook her head. "Never even heard of them. At the funeral, my parents' lawyer introduced us. I knew my dad had a couple of sisters, but it freaked me out, no matter how nice the Tillsons were. I tried to run away. Told the lawyer they weren't really my relatives. Everyone thought I was having a breakdown. The doctor gave me something. The rest was a blur. I expected to wake up locked in a laboratory."

  "Instead you woke up in Salmon Creek. Did you think the Tillsons were really your aunt and uncle?"

  "I tried to." She stood and stretched, then we started walking again, hiking up a steep incline. "Most days I believed it. Even when I didn't, I figured it was a mix-up and I didn't want to argue. Mr. and Mrs. Tillson are"--she swallowed--"were great. Really nice to me, no matter how much of a brat I was. Salmon Creek wouldn't have been my choice of a place to grow up in, but it seemed safe. If I had to be somewhere, I might as well have been in some nowhere Canadian town where the bad guys wouldn't find me."

  "Only they did. That's what you thought when Mina Lee started asking questions. That they'd found you. Until you figured out what Daniel is. And by then it was too late to run. You were on the helicopter with us."

  She nodded. Didn't add anything.

  "The book Daniel and I read said there aren't any more benandanti," I continued. "It said they were wiped out during the Inquisition. Only they weren't. They just hid their powers and intermarried with regular people until future generations didn't have any powers. The benandanti went extinct. Then they were resurrected in an experiment."

  She looked over at me so sharply she bumped into a tree.

  "Mina Lee hinted at something like that," I lied. "With Salmon Creek being a medical research town, I figured any resurrection must be science, not magic. Daniel was born there. You were brought there. They say the town was created to do medical research but..." I shrugged, then continued, "You thought you'd wake up in a laboratory. You did. Just not the kind you expected. I think Salmon Creek is one big petri dish, designed to protect and nurture the first members of an extinct supernatural type." More than one type. I glanced over at her. "I'm right,
aren't I?"

  She paused, and I realized she hadn't figured all that out.

  "You do think there are more in town, right?" I said. "More benandanti?"

  "Maybe Corey," she said. "His parents aren't Italian, but that doesn't mean anything. We're a long way from the Inquisition. There's been a lot of intermarrying."

  Like my birth mother, who apparently carried the skin-walker gene, but looked Caucasian. I didn't. I'd inherited my looks from my... I thought of the man in the forest and squeezed my eyes shut. Enough of that.

  "Daniel and I thought that the people who started the fire were after the research," I said. "And we were right. We just didn't know kids were the research."

  "I guess so."

  "You said your parents were hiding from someone. The researchers? Or someone else?"

  She shrugged.

  "Did they warn you?"

  Shrug.

  "They were murdered. Do you think these people were responsible?"

  Shrug.

  "So that's how it's going to be? I share and you don't?"

  "You didn't share anything. You made connections that might be totally wrong."

  "Maybe I've got more."

  She shook her head. "You think you're smart. Well, maybe you are, but you're still just a kid who got caught up in something. Daniel and I, we're the ones they want. I know you're used to being special, Maya, but for once, you aren't."

  I'd been about to tell her the truth. As much as I wanted Daniel to be the first to know, it had seemed wiser first to share with someone who'd believe me.

  But if I said something now, I'd sound like I was just trying to be "special." Sam's about-face, from ally to antagonist, reminded me of my suspicions about her involvement in Serena's death.

  I played back her earlier words. "Mr. and Mrs. Tillson were great." No mention of Nicole, when I knew Nicole had gone out of her way to make Sam feel welcome.

  Someone had pulled Serena under the water and drowned her. Someone had pulled me under, then and now. Someone had pulled Nicole under, too.

  Sam hadn't liked Serena. She hadn't liked Nicole. Apparently, she didn't like me much either, no matter how hard she tried to pretend otherwise.

  Who did Sam like? Daniel. Who had been pulled under the water? His girlfriend, his best friend, and a girl who wanted to be his next girlfriend.

  "I think you should go back with the others," I said. "You're slowing me down."

  A look crossed her face, so fast I couldn't quite catch it. Then her features hardened.

  "Oh, so that's how it's going to be? Invite me along because I might tell you something useful? Send me away when I don't?"

  "Sound familiar?"

  "What?"

  I stepped toward her. "Last night, in the water, I didn't notice you going to your cousin's rescue. Or to mine. In fact, when we nearly drowned, I didn't see you anywhere at all. You popped up afterward."

  Her mouth went slack, before she managed a strangled, "What? Are you--? Wait a minute. I didn't--"

  "You said it yourself. You're special. You have powers." I met her gaze. "And we have no idea exactly what those powers are, do we?"

  I turned and loped uphill.

  It took Sam a moment. Then she shouted, "Maya! Wait! Hold on!"

  Brush crackled as she ran after me. "I'm sorry, okay? Just wait and listen to me. I didn't have anything to do with pulling you under the water. Or Serena, if that's what you think. I can barely swim. But I might know--"

  I heard a crash and a yelp as she tripped. I picked up my pace. By the time she recovered, I was too far away for her to catch me.

  TEN

  I MADE IT TO the crest in about an hour. Then I had to climb a tree to get a better look. Any other time, this would have been the gift at the end of a long hike, and I'd have found a last spurt of energy to grab the bottom branch and swing up.

  Now I stood at the base of a tree and thought, "I can't do this." I remembered last night's climb, the grief and the loneliness. Here on the ground, I could keep that at bay. But up there...

  Rafe was up there. Maybe he always would be.

  Or maybe he wouldn't. Next year, I might be climbing trees, remembering him only when a certain scent wafted past. Like with Serena. For months after her death, I'd go out of my way to avoid passing any lakes. That changed. I still couldn't go swimming in the one where she'd drowned. I probably never would. But just this summer, I'd gone with Daniel and a bunch of summer kids to another lake, and I'd been there at least an hour before someone shrieked, and I thought of Serena and had to leave.

  Remembering. Forgetting. I'm not sure which is worse.

  I gripped the tree trunk and closed my eyes, focusing on the rough bark under my fingers. Then I opened my eyes and stared at it. Rubbed my fingers over it. See, feel, smell the tree. Just a tree. Not a reminder of him.

  I circled it. No branch low enough for me to swing onto. I embraced the trunk and shimmied up ten feet to the first branch. From there it was an easy climb.

  My energy ebbed fast and before I was high enough, I had to stop and rest. I sat on a branch and looked out. There was little to see from here. Just endless emerald needles perfuming the air.

  I let my feet dangle and took a deep breath. The wind whispered past.

  Maya...

  I rubbed the back of my neck and closed my eyes. Don't do that. It's just the wind.

  A branch overhead creaked.

  Help... Maya.

  I swung up to the next branch so fast I almost lost my grip, and I sat there, trembling, looking down and thinking of what would have happened if I'd fallen. Then I thought about what Rafe's fall must have been like. The terror of those few minutes. The despair of knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  Had he regretted letting go? Had he thought Maybe, just maybe, I would have been okay if I held on? Did he blame me for not holding on to him?

  Up again. Climbing, climbing, climbing until I was so high my empty stomach made me light-headed and I had to stop, eyes squeezed shut, until the feeling passed.

  Then I looked out, and when I did, I wasn't looking for a road. Wasn't looking for a house. I was looking for him.

  I told myself I was looking for his body. That if I could find it, I could mark the spot, make sure he got a proper burial. But that was a lie.

  I was looking for Rafe. In spite of every bit of logic that told me he was dead, I could not stop myself from looking. From feeling he was out there.

  Of course there was no sign of him and so, finally, I began scouring the landscape in earnest.

  I made out the brown ribbon of a dirt road and a distant clearing that could be a town. However, if we were at the north end of the island, a clearing was just as likely to indicate a past forest fire or logging operation.

  I was about to decide the road was our best bet when I spotted a thin line of smoke rising near the foot of the mountain. I found a better vantage point, and could make out the faint outline of a roof, smoke swirling above it. The sight was so incredible that I didn't quite believe it at first, climbing yet another evergreen, until I was certain I wasn't imagining things. There was a house or a cottage down there. And someone was home.

  I scrambled down the tree and took off to find the others.

  When I glimpsed the white of Daniel's T-shirt, I started to run, grinning for the first time in days. Kenjii hit me in a full-on tackle, her vine-leash dangling behind her, as she knocked me down and licked me like we'd been separated for months.

  "I saw a road," I blurted as Daniel rounded a bend in the path, Sam right behind him. "There's a road down there. I think there's a cabin, too."

  "What?" Corey brushed past Daniel and Sam. "A house? You saw a house?"

  Hayley barreled forward. "There's a house? Where?"

  I took a deep breath. "I think I saw a cabin. Whether there's anyone in it or not--"

  "Who cares?" Corey said. "It's civilization. Let's go."

  He broke into a jog, and his knee g
ave way. I managed to catch him before he fell.

  "The only place you're going is flat on your ass," Daniel said. "Slow down. Even if it is a cabin, it's not going anywhere." He turned to me and I could tell he was struggling to play it cool. "You said there's a road?"

  "I did. That part I'm sure of. And where there's a road, there are people. In theory."

  The grin burst through. "In theory." He threw an arm around me, a half-embrace, whispering, "Good work," and I started to shake a little. It was over. Our ordeal was almost over.

  Except it wasn't. Our real problems--being subjects in a supernatural experiment--had only begun.

  I took a deep breath and hugged Daniel back. We'd worry about that later. For now, we needed to get to civilization.

  Before we continued, I insisted on checking Corey's knee.

  "Looking good, huh?" Corey said as I cleaned the scrapes. "You've got the touch."

  Apparently, I did. The bruises were fading already.

  When we set out again, I motioned for Daniel to walk up front with me. No one tried to join us. They figured we were discussing the situation and planning our next move, and they were happy to leave that to us.

  "You want to talk about Sam?" he said. "I take it you guys had a falling out."

  I gave him part of the story--that I'd told her my theory about Salmon Creek and the people chasing us, and she'd reciprocated by insulting me.

  "She blows hot and cold, and it makes me nervous," I said. "I feel like when she is being chummy, she's putting it on to get what she wants. It's almost..."

  "Sociopathic?"

  I lifted my brows.

  "Someone who can be charming to achieve their own ends, but ultimately doesn't care about others. And, no, I'm not studying crazy people. I've read case studies in my uncle's texts."

  Criminal law texts. Daniel wanted to be a lawyer, and although he was still two years from university--and even more from law school--he was already preparing.

  "Do you get that vibe from her?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "I'm not sure I would, if she's the same thing I am. But I agree about the hot and cold part. I don't think she's a sociopath, but it is--"

  "Troubling. I shouldn't take off alone with her anymore. None of us should."

  "Agreed."

  It was a quiet walk, but the silence became peaceful, happy even. We weren't lost any longer. We were walking through wilderness just like the one surrounding Salmon Creek. A wooded playground. Lakes to swim in. Streams to fish in. Cliffs to climb. Hollows to fill with bonfires and beer bottles. Nothing scary about that.