The Murk

by Robert Lettrick

  Copyright © 2015 by Robert Lettrick

  Cover illustration © 2015 by Mark Fredrickson

  Cover design by Maria Elias

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.

  ISBN 978-1-4847-1939-8

  Visit DisneyBooks.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For my sister Suzanne, the intrepid explorer, and my brother Ron, the determined healer

  “All nature awakes to life and activity.”

  —Naturalist William Bartram (Travels, 1791)

  Piper Canfield took a full breath and began.

  While prepping for delicate surgery, she stared out the small latrine window of the rented American Eagle RV. Off in the distance, the majestic Cascade Mountains rose up like barnacles on the back of the world. Or at least that’s how she saw them after talking to a station attendant in town. The old man, a native Inuk, told her that the Cascades were once great whales that had grown too large to swim, beached themselves, and died. Looking at the mountains framed within the porthole, she could almost believe they had been living, breathing things at one point. They were quite magnificent. The Cascades’ highest peaks, marbled with snow, whispered to her spirit of adventure, and she was listening intently. Piper’s snowboard was practically vibrating in the RV’s equipment closet.

  Nothing could spoil her mood, not even the horrible stink coming from the loaded Huggies she was carefully peeling off her baby sister’s bottom.

  “Ugh, this is the worst one yet!” Piper declared, recoiling in horror. She dropped the sinister diaper into a plastic bag, closed the ziplock seal, and envisioned herself hurling the whole mess into outer space. She eyeballed the offender, six-month-old baby Grace. The great love of Piper’s life. Grace was flailing her arms in little circles on the changing table and blubbering her lips, oblivious to her big sister’s ordeal.

  “How you manage to convert strained peas and mashed pears into this biohazard, I’ll never know. Maybe I should call an exorcist, because there is definitely something evil going on inside you. No wonder you got a rash this week. But no worries—big sis is here to save the day.”

  Grace blinked and flashed a heart-melting, four-toothed grin. Piper tickled her belly, and the grin turned into a burst of happy giggles.

  “Oh, you find this funny, do you? You’re lucky I love you so much, Grace Lynn Canfield, or I’d let Mom change you, and we both know she’s chintzy with the diaper cream.”

  As if on cue, the RV’s entrance opened with a whoosh and folded into the stairwell. Piper’s mother came aboard. Jane Canfield leaned into the bathroom and smiled at the sight of her daughters. “Almost done changing the little poopzooka?”

  “Almost,” Piper answered, slathering her sister’s bare bottom with rash cream. She cleaned her hands then plucked a fresh diaper from the box. “Wrapping things up. Literally.”

  It was pretty clear which parent Piper favored in the looks department: slightly hooded brown eyes so light they bordered on gold; long auburn hair; a faint smattering of freckles. She had her mom’s everything. As for the rest of her genetic inheritance, she shared her dad’s heart-shaped face and athletic build, but that was all. This imbalanced combination made Piper a true Southern beauty with more than a few admirers at school. Not that she cared about romance. Her heart belonged to Grace.

  Piper pressed the fresh diaper’s Velcro tabs together at Grace’s waist and tugged on the hem to test the seal. It passed inspection. “Clean as a whistle and sharp as a thistle,” she proclaimed, then hoisted her sister to her chest and gave the baby a kiss on her pudgy cheek. “She’s ready for the paparazzi.”

  “Great. Bring Grace outside, would you, sweetie?” said Jane. “Once we flush your little brother out of his tree, we’re setting off on our hike to Lake Heather.”

  Piper snorted. “Good luck with that. Want me to fetch Dad’s rifle from the storage bay?”

  “I appreciate the offer, but let’s leave shooting him down as a last resort.” Jane winked, then went back outside.

  Piper hollered after her, “Lead with what gets results!”

  Despite her brother’s annoying antics, it had been the best summer of Piper’s life. At the start of the school break, her family rented a forty-foot motor coach in their hometown of Jesup, Georgia, sixty miles southwest of Savannah, and set out on the open road. They’d spent the next three months exploring the country, driving in a jagged diagonal line across the United States, making several stops along the way. They’d visited Graceland in Memphis; spent a week with Jane’s parents in Topeka, Kansas; white-water rafted the Snake River through the Grand Canyon; and, just two days ago, they’d fly-fished in Butte, Montana. The plan was to end their journey in Washington (although if Piper had her way, they would have continued on to Alaska; she’d always wanted to see the northern lights). They were running behind because of a flat tire in Spokane, and now there was only one day left to explore the Cascades’ scenic trails before the deadline to return the RV in Seattle. They would spend the night in the city and fly home the following day.

  Piper, like the rest of her family, was most happy in the great outdoors. She’d inherited more than just her parents’ good looks. She possessed their love of nature too. Piper wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, which was why she ended up on diaper duty more than half the time. No, that wasn’t honest. She took care of Grace because of a promise she’d made even before her sister was born. A promise between Piper, Grace, and the universe, and that was nobody’s business but theirs.

  With the baby cooing in her arms, Piper dropped the dirty business into the disposable diaper sack, then stepped outside the RV and into the shade-dappled campsite. Surrounded by forest, the fragrance of pine was so intense it made her a touch woozy. The tree-shaped air fresheners hanging strategically throughout the RV (several of them clustered above her brother’s smelly bunk) didn’t come close to the real thing.

  The ground was springy, a little muddy in spots. The air was cool and bug-free. They’d crossed into Washington on the tail end of a powerful rainstorm, but it had passed on to the Pacific Ocean, leaving behind a world as crisp as before the dawn of man. There was little at the site to suggest human activity, just an old, weathered picnic table and a rust-crusted barrel for refuse. There were no electrical or water hookups like those you’d find in a modern RV park. Not that the Canfields needed them. The RV was fitted with solar panels, and there was an enormous tank in the underbelly bay that could provide them with showers and drinking water for days. It was the perfect vehicle for dry camping, or boondocking, as her dad called it. This style of bare-bones living suited the Canfields just fine.

  Piper’s parents were standing at the base of a tall pine tree, their heads craned upward toward the highest boughs. Her ten-year-old brother, she knew, was somewhere
high above. She caught a glimpse of him, then tracked him by following the bouncing branches and the traveling rain of pine needles.

  “Hit the ground, Creeper!” Brad Canfield hollered up at his son. “We’ve got a five-mile round-trip hike ahead of us. We’d best get a move on!”

  A creature more lemur than boy came sliding down the tree trunk, bits of bark shredding away like sparks under the soles of his tennis shoes. “I made it to the top!” Creeper announced proudly. “I could see everything from up there, even the lake. That has to be the tallest tree in Washington.”

  “Not quite, buddy,” Brad said. “Your tree is maybe sixty feet tall. There are a few three-hundred-footers in Olympic National Park.”

  Creeper’s eyes lit up. “Really? I’m gonna climb them all someday!”

  Brad ruffled his son’s hair. “I believe it, champ.”

  Piper’s brother’s real name was Monty, but his dad nicknamed him Creeper for the way he was always climbing trees like a creeper vine. The boy’s life goal was to sit atop the tallest trees in every part of the world, especially there, the Pacific Northwest, home of cloud-tickling sequoias. He hoped to one day make a living competing in lumberjack contests, but Piper predicted he’d grow up to be one of those telephone-pole repair guys.

  “We’ll be back in two hours,” Brad told Piper. “If you hear anything suspicious, take Grace into Rolling Thunder”—his nickname for the RV—“and lock the door behind you. You keep one walkie-talkie, I’ll take the other. Keep yours close. Just say the word, and at a full sprint, I can be back from the lake in ten minutes. If Godzilla attacks and you need to call in the marines, the satellite phone is charging in its cradle. That one’s for emergencies only.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Piper laughed. “It’s totally safe here. Go. Have a great time.”

  Creeper said, “There’s nobody around for miles. I saw everything from the top of the tree. Heather Lake is all ours.”

  Brad seemed puzzled by Creeper’s scouting report. “All to ourselves? On such a beautiful day? That’s a little odd, but I suppose that’s fortunate for us.”

  “I don’t know.…” Jane was still on the fence about leaving her girls alone. “I could carry Grace.”

  Brad took Jane’s hand. “Sweetie, it’s not the most difficult hike, but the guidebook says the trail gets steep and rocky at points. It’ll be safer to leave Grace here with Piper. They’ll be fine. You heard Creeper—there’s no one around for miles.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay with this, Piper?” Jane triple-checked. “I can stay with the baby if you’d rather go to the lake with the boys.”

  “Go, Mom,” Piper insisted. “You deserve to have fun too. Besides, I like hanging out with Grace. She’s my sidekick.”

  “Okay, just promise me you won’t leave her side.”

  “I won’t,” Piper assured her mother.

  Brad said, “Everyone knows that steel is more breakable than a promise from Piper Canfield. You got that from your uncle Jake.”

  Uncle Jake was Brad’s brother, and like all the Canfield men, he’d served in the military. Uncle Jake was Piper’s hero. He died in a desert three years earlier, keeping a promise he’d made to the men in his charge—a promise to get them all home safely. They survived because Jake was an honorable man who did an honorable thing. Piper missed him, but she was also deeply proud to be his niece.

  Jane relaxed at once. “That’s good enough for me. You’re such a thoughtful sister.”

  “Says you!” Creeper scoffed. “Nobody asked my opinion.”

  Brad gave his son a withering glare. “You’re right about that.”

  “I don’t get it!” Creeper argued the injustice of it all. “How come you guys believe whatever Piper tells you, but I’m always guilty until proven innocent?”

  “Maybe because I never lie, and you’ve lied six times already today. And it’s still early.”

  “That’s not true!” Creeper flared. “Name one lie!” Suddenly realizing the ease of his challenge, he quickly revised it. “Name three lies!”

  Piper ticked them off on her fingers. “You said you’d make breakfast this morning, but you slept in, so Dad had to make it. You promised to straighten my tackle box after I let you borrow it, but when I checked it an hour ago, I found a tangled ball of line, lures, and Almond Joy wrappers. And third, you told Mom you brushed your teeth, but instead you just closed the bathroom door and ran the water so she’d think you were brushing them.”

  “How would you know if I brushed my teeth or not?”

  “I washed up after you,” she replied. “Your toothbrush was as dry as a cracker. Plus I can smell your stinky breath from here. It’s the worst thing I’ve smelled all week, and remember, I just changed Grace’s diaper.”

  “Shut up!” Creeper snapped. “You think you’re so perfect!”

  “Creeper!” Jane said, appalled.

  Brad handled the situation. “Listen, if there’s one thing I’ve tried to drill into your heads, it’s the importance of keeping your word. Your word is the foundation of your character. It’s the measuring stick by which people judge you and by which you should judge yourself. Your uncle Jake understood that, Creeper. Your sister understands it. Hopefully, you will too someday.”

  Creeper groaned, overcome by itchy impatience. “Fine. She’s Perfect Piper, and I’m a big fat liar. Can we just go already?”

  “Yes, let’s.” Brad kissed each of his daughters on the top of the head, then he and Jane set off down the trail toward Heather Lake. Creeper hung back so he could stick his tongue out at Piper without getting caught, and then he ran to catch up. He was lucky she had her arms full with Grace, as she had an overwhelming urge to peg him in the back of the head with a pinecone.

  Piper decided to get comfy. She brought Grace’s portable bassinet (Brad called it “the Moses basket”) outside the RV, set it on the picnic table, and placed her sister inside. Feeling clean, adored, and drunk on fresh air, Grace quickly fell asleep. Piper fished a Coke from the cooler and sat down on the bench. She took a sip, then opened up her ragged copy of Jack London’s White Fang. London’s tale of a three-quarters wolf seemed a fitting read. It was exciting to think that she was likely within a mile or two of real, live gray wolves—there were several in the Cascade valley. How amazing would it be to see one in the wild? Maybe she’d get lucky before the day was through.

  A noise disturbed her daydreaming. Something was buzzing nearby. It took a moment for her to register that the sound was coming from inside the RV. It was the intrusive hum of technology. The satellite phone. She’d never heard it ring before. It was for emergencies only, like her dad said, so she figured the call was important. She checked the bassinet. Grace was still fast asleep and Piper didn’t want to wake her.

  She went inside the RV and answered the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hey, stranger!” said a familiar voice on the other end.

  “Tad!” It was her classmate and best friend from back home. She hadn’t spoken to him since she’d left her grandparents’ house in Kansas two weeks earlier, a record. “I’m so glad to hear your voice! We can’t talk long, though. My dad’ll have a fit when he returns the RV and the rental guy hands him a phone bill.”

  “C’mon, it can’t be that expensive,” Tad said.

  “Um, yuh-huh, four dollars a minute!”

  “I stand corrected.”

  “How’d you get this number, anyway? It’s for emergencies only.”

  “A little detective work,” said Tad. “You know me. Besides, this is an emergency. I haven’t talked to you in literally forever!”

  “I don’t think you know what ‘literally’ means, and no, that’s not an emergency,” she said, laughing. But she knew what he meant. They’d met outside the local Food Lion when they were five. Tad put his quarter in the coin-operated horsey, but he let Piper have the ride. They’d been inseparable ever since. It was weird being apart for the whole summer. “I’m glad you called, though.”

/>   “I’m glad I called too,” he replied. “Having fun?”

  “Of course,” said Piper. She plopped down on the plastic cushioned L-shaped bench that made up the seating in the RV’s dining nook. Through the window she had a great view of the mountains. “It’s been an amazing trip. You should see this place.”

  “You’re in Montana, right?”

  “No, we left there yesterday,” she told him. “We’re in Washington now.”

  There was a pause on the line. A subdued static hiss. Then, in a deadly serious tone, Tad said, “Washington? Where in Washington?”

  “A camping spot near Mount Pilchuck in the Cascade Mountain valley. I remember Dad saying we exited off the Mountain Loop Highway to get here. You sound worried. Is Bigfoot back in the news?”

  Another pause accompanied by a distinct rustle of paper. On his end, Tad was fidgeting with a map.

  “Tad? You still there?”

  He didn’t answer. Piper thought she’d lost the connection and was about to end the call, when Tad blurted out, “Piper, haven’t you been listening to the news?”

  “No. Dad doesn’t like to drive with the radio on. It gives him a headache. Plus this trip was about getting away from it all, remember?”

  His next words came out in a frantic jumble. “Turn on the radio, any channel. It’s national news. You may be in danger—”

  Tad’s warning was tamped down by growing static. Piper listened for a few seconds, then realized she’d lost the signal. She checked the phone’s screen. It showed she had only one signal bar, indicating a very weak connection to the satellite floating somewhere far above in space.

  The urgency in Tad’s voice had frightened her. She wondered if the mountains were somehow interfering with the signal. She decided to move to higher ground before calling him back. Piper didn’t possess Creeper’s agility to climb trees or his innate comfort with heights. The top of the RV would have to do. She went outside and walked around to the backside of the American Coach Eagle, where a curved ladder was bolted to the vehicle’s frame. She climbed up to the roof, stepped around an array of solar panels, and sat down on top of the hamburger-box-shaped air conditioner, carefully so she wouldn’t dent it with her butt. She checked the phone. This time she had two bars. She dialed Tad’s number. He answered in half a ring.