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“We’d better be long gone before that much snow piles up out here,” I told her. “But we can build one back at the resort if we get enough.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” she said. Her smile was so open, so contagious, I felt like if I just stayed near her, none of the worries I carried every day would feel so heavy.
“Guys?” Wiley summoned us over to the tree he and Aubrey had been focused on. “There’s definitely something here.” Wiley lifted his hands to the spot she was staring at and scrubbed at the trunk. “Lichen growing over it.”
Emily and I joined them, and the excitement inside me grew bigger as we confirmed there was another carving. It wasn’t as deep as the initials and partially obscured by the moss that covered some parts of the trunks.
“Is it a number?” Emily asked as Wiley’s fingers cleared the green growth.
“Oh!” Aubrey said suddenly.
Wiley stopped and looked down at her. “You okay?”
“I meant, ‘oh look, it is a number,’” my sister said but her voice was off.
“What’s going on?” I asked, turning to focus on her. She wore a strange expression, and I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. Aubrey was pretending everything was fine.
“Read the number,” she said, ignoring my concern as Wiley moved toward her.
“525?” Emily said. “Or maybe 575? Or it could be 515. But those are fives, for sure.”
The snow had begun drifting down determinedly around us, and it was cold enough that the flakes stuck to the ground and held. The road would stay warmer for a bit, preventing much accumulation there, but if it kept up, we were definitely in for it.
“We need to get moving pretty soon,” I said, the worry reigniting inside me. There was something going on with my sister, and I didn’t want to be responsible for a very pregnant woman having any kind of issue this far beyond a paved road.
“Photo,” Emily suggested, lifting her phone out of her jacket pocket and taking a few pictures.
“Let’s head back,” Wiley said, meeting my eyes with the same worry I felt.
“Or,” Aubrey said, drawing the word out. “Or maybe we might want to...oh shit.”
I stared at her, fear spiking inside me as her face went from surprise to worry, and she looked down at her feet.
“What’s wrong?” Wiley asked, his voice higher than usual.
“That was my water breaking, I guess,” Aubrey said.
A decidedly dark spot was creeping down the legs of her jeans. My inner alarms suddenly began ringing at eleven, but Aubrey seemed completely calm, collected.
“That’s it.” Wiley scooped her up and practically sprinted back to the car. “Let’s go, Ghost!”
Emily and I exchanged a wide-eyed look and then followed back to the car. I slid into the driver’s seat, turning to look back at Aubrey. “You okay? What do you need? What do we do?”
“I guess we’d better head to the hospital,” she said, sounding impressively calm.
I glanced at Emily, who looked totally put together given the impending labor and snowstorm. “It’s an hour in the wrong direction. Should we take you back first?”
Emily shook her head. “Of course not. Worry about me later. Let’s go.”
“The baby’s going to be born in an SUV,” Aubrey moaned. “I’m a terrible mother.”
“You’re going to be a fantastic mother,” Wiley assured her as I started the engine and pulled us back onto the rumbly dirt road.
“Should we call the hospital to let them know we’re on the way?” I asked Wiley.
“Should we call an ambulance?” he asked.
“The ambulance would be coming from somewhere down the hill,” Aubrey chimed in. “It would be quicker to get going than to wait for them to come up to drive me back down.”
