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“Did you ever make it all the way to the lake?”
She frowned. “No. I finally convinced them to camp out on the most level area we could find. We were about a quarter way up the trail. They complained about everything. The ground beneath the sleeping bags was too hard. It was too cold, though I built us a safe campfire. The night was too noisy. I have no idea how the hell they expected to manage the hike in the first place. I warned them about how difficult it was going to be.”
“I assume you started back down the next morning?”
“No.” Bree stared out the window for a moment. The parking lot was sparse, a good thing considering we were at a hospital, and the blustery morning had turned a stormy afternoon. “I hope Kyle can find something with a lot of protein in it.”
“I’m hungry, too.” I glanced at my watch. “Grams should be pulling in to town soon. I should text her and let her know where I am, but I don’t want her coming directly here and I think that’s what she might do if she knows where I am before arriving at the house. May’s going to tell her where I’m at, so I guess I’ll leave well enough alone.”
Bree nodded. “That sounds about right. All right, long story short, the next morning I led three of the group up the rest of the hike. The others opted to return to the parking lot and though I didn’t want to let them out of my sight—you do have to look out for your group despite waivers—I knew it was better if I go with the three who wanted to make it to the lake in order to try to keep the idiots from killing themselves. They threatened to go on by themselves.”
“That makes sense. How long did it take?”
“Oh, we never made it all the way. Two hours later, we’d barely climbed another quarter mile and the entire way, they were bellyaching about how hard it was. I decided to take advantage of that and stressed that it was going to get worse the further we went. Finally, they decided to pack it in, and we turned back.
“Although they were barely a quarter way through the actual hike, the return trip was worse because if you think going up the trail is bad, going down is harder. One of the guys—I think it was the father—sprained his wrist. There were skinned knees, roughed up elbows, Marla—the daughter, tripped face first into a patch of stinging nettle and had welts all over her…honestly, by the time we got back to the office, I was seriously contemplating starting up a new business.”
Bree let out an exasperated sigh, blowing her bangs off her face. She snorted. “I know they’re threatening to sue me, but damn, I wish I’d gotten some pictures.”
“Why are they threatening a lawsuit?” I knew that people sued at the drop of a hat, but this could seriously impact Bree’s business.
“They claim I didn’t warn them how hard the trip was. I have everything in writing, including the waivers they signed that spelled out the difficulty of the hike, so I’m not all that worried as far as the courts go. But they can try to ruin me with online reviews.” She worried her lip, sobering. “That could damage my business, though I can always try to respond.”
She stopped, looking up as Kyle and his bodyguards returned, carrying various food containers. He handed me a plastic-wrapped sandwich, along with two single-serving sized bags of potato chips. One of his bodyguards handed Bree a box containing two hard boiled eggs, several slices of turkey breast, three slices of cheese, crackers, and a bag of apple slices.
“I thought you might like some fruit,” the man said.
“Milo, let me introduce you to Bree Loomis. She’s Elphyra’s best friend. Bree, Elphyra, this is Milo Renshaw. And his brother, Taylor.” Kyle sat down, opening his own lunch. Inside the cardboard container were several egg rolls, some fried rice, and a dipping sauce.
The bodyguards nodded to Bree and to me, then sat down with their own food on the other side of the room. But they kept Kyle under strict watch as we all fell to our lunches.
By the time we finished lunch, I received a text from Grams.
why didn’t you tell me you were at the hospital? i would have understood. i’ll stay here and talk to may and bran for awhile. let us know if you need anything.
“Grams made it to the house,” I said. miss you. i’ll be home as soon as i’m able. bree’s here with me, and kyle. faron is in surgery now.
i send my best wishes, Grams texted back. i’ll set up a healing candle as soon as the operation is over.
In our tradition, we never started healing spells until the wound or injury or infection had been looked at and until some form of physical healing work had been done, because—as I’d been taught since I was little—sometimes, to heal meant to die, and we didn’t want to push anybody over the edge until the effort to save them had been made.
Bree asked the desk to turn the television station to the HGTV channel. The shows there were calming, at best, and innocuous, at worst. There was no need to stress out over news events or true crime shows, or anything of the sort. And it seemed kind of cruel to turn on the cooking channels, given most people in the hospital were on hospital food. As we sat there, watching a new reality show—House Reno Wars—Kyle studiously read. The bodyguards sat in silence, alert and watching.
By four, I was growing restless, and so was Bree. She didn’t say anything, but I could tell that she would rather be anywhere except the hospital.
“You can go,” I said. “Please don’t feel you have to stay?—”
“I want to. I’m your bestie. And…Faron is growing on me.”
I glanced over at Kyle, who was absorbed in his e-reader. Lowering my voice, I said, “Well, don’t feel you have to be his bestie. I’m still not sure what’s going on between us. Or between Bran and me. But I feel like I should be here, and I…I guess I love him, in a way. So here I am.”
Bree paused, glanced at Kyle, then changed the subject. “All right. Today would have been my brother’s birthday and it’s always hard. This year, it’s especially bad since my parents are on their sabbatical.”
Bree’s brother had been killed in a pedestrian-car collision—he was the pedestrian—close to Yule when she was younger. They had been close and she still felt his loss keenly. And then, a month ago, her parents had packed up and decided to spend a year traveling around Europe. They were currently in Italy for a month, and Bree was getting showered with texts and pictures from the countryside. They had asked her to go with them, but her profitable times of the year were spring through autumn, and she couldn’t afford to take time off.
“Do you think you can get away to see them during winter?”
“Maybe,” she said. “They’re talking about hunkering down in upper Sweden for the winter, but my guess is they won’t last long in that climate. My mother’s a sun bunny. I can’t get away until January, anyway. Last year, at the town Yule festival, I promised to pull together horse and buggy rides for the town council. We’ll be running them from the town square every weekend from Thanksgiving through New Years. I’m in charge and can’t drop the ball on it. But maybe I can get away the first week of the new year.” Looking resigned, she went back to scrolling her My Page app.
