Page 155 of Mazywood

Imani scooted closer to her father. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said. “Maybe he was scared. Maybe he didn’t really want to.”

Johnny nodded, but his glazed eyes were not forgiving. Tasha ached for them both, hoping she could be the bridge between her husband and daughter. She might be the only one who understood that caution and enchantment could coexist. She would never forget that a fearsome creature had brought her water when she was thirsty, and maybe tried to warm her up when she was cold. Was its love for Mazelle why it had died today?

But she would have shot it too. Just in case.

Thirty minutes later, a loud cracking sound and tremors on the ledge signaled that the cavern was caving in behind them. The gap coughed out a puff of dust with a rotten smell, as if the entire cavern were a corpse. Tasha huddled with Imani and Johnny, afraid their ledge might break away too. She felt more afraid of tumbling to her death than she had in the dark.

But the ledge held them safely aloft even while it shook. And then the shaking stopped.

Imani, with her superb sense of hearing, was the first to notice the chop-chop-chop sound of an approaching helicopter. When Johnny and Tasha heard it too, they all cheered and waved their arms at the red and white bird soaring over the pine stand. As the helicopter circled the cliff, they yelled until they were hoarse.

Between her compass, remnants of their tracks, and a dose of luck, Sharise had hiked back to Bear Creek Lodge within forty minutes. The Jeep had started without complaints, and she had followed the hand-posted road signs back to Route 89, and eventually to McCloud. There, she stopped at the first business she saw, the Gas N Go. The woman at the counter, Sue, remembered Sharise’s family from their shopping trip when they had left two gas cans behind. (She had stored them, expecting them to drive back.)

She hadn’t even blinked when Sharise hysterically described the animal that had abducted her mother and sister as a monster. It was Mount Shasta, after all. And Mazelle Washington’s property. And anyone who’d lived near Mount Shasta or Bear Creek Lodge long enough knew that extraordinary things happened sometimes.

Just like Gracetown, some places courted the extraordinary.

Sue had called the sheriff personally, since she was her sister-in-law, and the Bell 206 JetRanger had been in the air within minutes. And Sharise, wearing a helmet and strapped in tight, was on board to point out the hollow tree and the cliff beyond from the sky. When she saw Imani and her parents waving like a family of tiny dolls below, she shrieked with joy.

It was such a pure and complete joy that Sharise would live the rest of her life knowing that she should never lose faith.

Just like her sister.

Forty

DAD WRAPPED HIS ARM AROUND Imani’s shoulders on the ledge while the two U.S. Forest Service rangers ventured inside the cavern’s gap to try to find signs of the animal that had attacked them. They had all agreed to simply say that the creature was big and they didn’t know what it was. Once the rangers saw for themselves, they could sound crazy in their own reports.

But the two rangers—one a man, one a very young woman—came back out almost as soon as they went inside the cavern.

“Blocked,” the man reported. “No one’s getting in there anytime soon.”

“You all are really lucky to be alive,” the woman said.

Imani could tell that they thought something wasn’t right about the story. They hadn’t found a sign of what Dad called the “bone room” either. Maybe the rangers thought their family had gone rock climbing and gotten into trouble, since there were no teeth marks or bites to prove the existence of a giant animal. Mom’s injury, which could have happened in a fall, apparently looked so bad that the older ranger looked as sick as Dad when he unwrapped her foot. Imani noticed how the ranger told Dad that they would rush her to the hospital to try to save her foot, and her stomach cramped again. Dad looked so worried about Mom’s foot that he didn’t mention the mauled body parts under the Jeep at Bear Creek Lodge. Not yet, anyway.

Because Mom’s cliff rescue was so dramatic and dangerous with ropes to hoist her and the medic into the hovering helicopter to take her to the hospital, Dad agreed to allow the uniformed forest rangers to lead him and Imani down from the cliff using ropes. Imani would have thought that rappelling down rocks with ropes was fun on any other day, but she only wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep.

She envied her sister for riding in the helicopter with Mom, but the rangers’ snowmobiles were waiting for them on the ground, so at least she didn’t have to hike back in her stiff boots like Sharise. Clinging to the male ranger on the back of his snowmobile was almost fun despite the cold and snow flying in her face. Almost. The snowmobile squirmed and nearly fishtailed once under their combined weight, and Imani thought she might die after all. But the rest of the ride was smooth. All she had to worry about after that was whether the doctors could save Mom’s foot. That question was a shadow hanging over the day.

Before Imani knew it, Bear Creek Lodge was in sight at the top of its bluff. It didn’t seem possible that the trek that had consumed so much of her day was so close to where she had begun. The rangers could only take them as far as the Steps of Death, so she and Dad said their thank-yous and walked the rest of the way back in weary silence.

Snow had covered all the tracks from earlier that day, so no raw vestiges surprised Imani as she trudged up the abysmal steps. The ski trail looked fresh and inviting, and she wished she hadn’t left her snowboard behind. Maybe she would want to come back here one day.

Imani and her father didn’t speak after they got inside the lodge either, where the generator was still running and the place felt as warm as a blanket. They entered through the side kitchen door, where Imani couldn’t help noting the mess on the checkered floor, including the spilled flour, where a trail’s streak made her stomach tighten with sadness. That and the second package of bottled water still sitting undisturbed on the counter.

Just because she could, Imani grabbed a two-liter Coke bottle and chugged it halfway empty. Then she grabbed handfuls of potato chips and stuffed her cheeks until they bulged.

When she walked into the hallway, she stared at the portrait of Mazelle Washington on the wall—not her awful movie posters, but the full-color painting of her in her red robe. Mom did kind of look like her, Imani mused. But now she knew she would never find the answers to all her questions. She would have to make up her own story about what had happened today.

Dad had opened his overnight bag and found fresh, dry clothes to change into by the time Imani made it into the living room. Everyone except Imani had left their luggage behind when he’d said they had to leave in a hurry early that morning, so her clothes were in the RAV. Hell, no. She didn’t feel like changing, or doing anything, much less returning to the scene of their nightmare. Her body rang with fatigue, and she could still hear the tumultuous echoes from the cavern. The explosion of the rifle.

After she took off her boots, Imani picked up Mom’s plum-colored jacket and hugged it to her while she lay down on the sofa bed to close her eyes. Maybe she could teleport herself back to her home bedroom if she tried hard enough. It might be possible to do anything.

“Shit,” Dad said while he packed his phone charger into his luggage. “I don’t know if anyone’s coming to take us to the hospital. Sharise probably thinks someone else is doing it.”

Ordinary problems were overtaking their day, replacing cliffs and helicopters. Imani noticed that she thought of him as Dad when she felt safe and in control; he was Daddy only when she was scared.

She must have dozed off. She woke up to the sound of the front door closing hard. Dad had been outside and returned with her duffel bag.