Melissa hung back. If she went any closer she would feel dizzy. “Are you sure it's safe? You don't want to hit a rock or something.”
“In that deep water? And I told you Austin did it.” Alice sounded impatient. She stripped off her shorts and top and stood poised in her red bathing suit. “Count to five for me. Then I'll go.”
Melissa licked her dry lips. “Oneâ¦twoâ¦three⦠fourâ¦five.”
At the last minute she thought Alice was going to back out. Alice hesitated and her back went rigid. Then she took a deep breath, spread her arms apart like wings and jumped.
Melissa heard a huge splash.
She waited a few seconds and then called, “Alice?”
From the middle of the lake a loon gave a long warbling cry. A bumblebee droning in a patch of tall white clover was the only other sound breaking the silence.
Melissa had expected Alice to shout out something, tell her how great it was, urge her to not be such a baby, to jump too. “Alice?” she called again.
She edged closer to the edge of the cliff. She shouldn't be such a scaredy-cat. It wasn't as if the cliff was suddenly going to collapse. But she could feel her heart pounding in her chest.
She got close enough so she could see down into the bay to the spot where she figured Alice must have landed. A widening circle of ripples spread across the smooth water. There was no sign of Alice.
“Alice!” A wave of panic rose in Melissa's throat. There was no way Alice could hold her breath all that time. She imagined all kinds of terrible thingsâAlice somehow caught in the weeds or knocked unconscious from hitting a submerged log.
Help, I need to get help, thought Melissa frantically. She backed away from the cliff and plunged down the trail, her feet skidding on the brown pine needles. She frantically recited instructions over and over in her headâuntie the canoe, paddle back to the cabin, get Sharlene.
Melissa fumbled with the rope. She looked up and scanned the bay one last time.
“Hey, wait for me!” said Alice's voice.
She was treading water, right up against the bottom of the cliff, deep in shadow. She swam toward the canoe with strong strokes. Melissa's legs felt weak with relief. She took big breaths to steady her slowly growing anger.
“That wasn't funny,” said Melissa when Alice stood up in the shallow water beside the canoe.
Alice made her eyes huge. “What?”
“I thought you had drowned.” Melissa knew she sounded pathetic, but she couldn't help it. “Why did you hide like that?”
Alice looked like she was about to protest, but then she shrugged her thin shoulders and said, “It was just a joke. You don't have to get so mad.”
“Well, it wasn't a joke to me,” said Melissa furiously.
She waited stiffly in the canoe while Alice climbed back up to the top for her clothes. They paddled to the island in silence. I'm going back to the cabin, thought Melissa. As soon as we get to the island, I'm going to the cabin.
But as they were nearing the flat rock, her anger slowly melted away and curiosity overcame her. “So what was it like, anyway?” she said grudgingly.
Alice's words came out in a gush. “Great! Awesome! I felt like an eagle. You wait until it's your turn, Melissa. You just wait!”
W
hen Sharlene announced the next day that she was going to the store for an ice run, Melissa said, “I'm coming too.”
She didn't really like staying at the cabin by herself. She was afraid that the man with the dragon tattoo and his friend might come back. Sharlene had said confidently that they wouldn't, that they had got the message, but Melissa didn't know how her mother could be absolutely sure.
When they got to the store, Marge was full of talk about a forest fire burning in the valley next to them. “They've got forty firefighters and three helicopters over there. They're dive-bombing it with water. It's why the sky is so hazy today. That's not cloud, it's smoke.”
“You can smell it,” said Melissa. She was peeling the paper off an ice-cream bar for Cody. She wondered how long it took forest fires to travel. How far away exactly was this valley?
But Marge seemed more excited than worried. “Started with a cigarette,” she said. “Can you believe it?”
Sharlene bought the ice, a blueberry pie, an air mattress and three lime green noodles to play with in the lake. On the way back to the cabin she talked about planning something for Melissa's twelfth birthday. It was coming up quickly, just two days away.
Melissa never let herself get her hopes up about her birthday. She snorted when Sharlene said casually that they should think about a little party. “You and me and Cody? That sounds like fun.”
In the old days that would have bugged Sharlene. She would have attacked Melissa for her poor attitude and they would have ended up yelling at each other. Melissa realized suddenly that it was a long time since she had heard Sharlene lose her temper.
“You could ask Alice,” Sharlene said calmly. “And I think Bonnie would come. She told me she loves getting breaks from the guest ranch.”
The last time Bonnie had visited, Sharlene had accused Melissa of being rude. But she seemed to have forgotten about that. Maybe it isn't such a bad idea, thought Melissa. Most of her birthdays had passed by almost unnoticed. She had never had a real party like the other kids at school.
“Where would we get a cake?” she said.
“We'll be creative,” said Sharlene. “We'll think of something. There might even be something at the store. We'll invite Alice and Bonnie for lunch.”
“I guess so,” said Melissa.
She tried to imagine Alice with her family. Would she like Sharlene? And what would she think of Cody? Melissa sighed. She hoped she wouldn't regret this.
A dark blue pickup truck with printing and a round crest on the side and a boat strapped onto a roof rack was parked beside the cabin when they got back. A man was standing at the side door. Melissa read the side of the truck.
Conservation Officer
. She looked at the man curiously. He was wearing a blue shirt and gray pants and had a wide belt weighted down with pouches. A black gun gleamed in a holster.
“Hi there,” he called out. “Just checking in on you. Heard you were staying out here. How are things going?”
“Fine,” said Sharlene. “Just let me get this ice in the cooler before it melts in my arms.”
“That will take all of about five seconds in this heat,” said the man cheerfully. He introduced himself as Ted Stoneridge and stood back while Melissa opened the door with one hand, a grocery bag propped in her other arm.
Ted ended up staying for iced tea. He and Sharlene sat side by side in lawn chairs on the porch, Cody curled in Sharlene's lap, and chatted easily with each other. Melissa sat on the steps, sipping tea and listening.
Ted had more information on the fire. It had flared up in the night and the area burning had increased to thirty square kilometers.
“Are we in danger here?” said Sharlene.
“Not at the moment,” said Ted. “I'll keep checking in on you folks though. I'll be around the area a lot. You'd be surprised how many people think they should still be allowed to have campfires. They have no idea how quickly a fire can get out of control.”
Melissa glanced at the puckered scar on her hand. This was the cue for Sharlene to say, “We had a bad experience with a fire once,” and then go into all the details that were nobody's business, especially not Ted's. She tensed, but Sharlene just played with Cody's hair.
“If the fire heads this way, there's a remote chance you'll have to be evacuated,” said Ted.
“We could be out in a few minutes,” Sharlene said. “We don't have much stuff. I'd hate to get trapped down here.”
“I won't let that happen to you,” said Ted warmly. He drained his glass of iced tea and folded his large brown hands in his lap. He seemed reluctant to leave. He
likes
Sharlene, Melissa suddenly realized.
Melissa did a quick assessment. He was sort of good-looking in an outdoorsy way. She wondered idly if he were married. She peered at his hand to see if he was wearing a wedding ring but it was impossible to tell. It had been two years since Darren left. Her mother hadn't even gone on a single date since then. She didn't seem interested anymore. And Melissa couldn't imagine her mother going out with someone like Ted, who called people
folks
. Ted seemed nice enough, but Melissa was glad when he finally left and it was just the three of them again.
Alice looked pleased when Melissa invited her to her birthday.
“Don't bring a present,” Melissa said awkwardly. “It's not that kind of party.” She felt a pang of worry. Did Alice go to birthday parties all the time, the kind the kids at school talked about? “It's not even a real party,” she added quickly. “We're just going to have lunch.”
The girls were sitting cross-legged on the floor of the tree house. Alice had brought a jar of lemonade and a plastic container holding four cupcakes with pink icing and tiny purple and yellow sprinkles shaped like flowers. While she ate, Melissa couldn't pull her eyes away from the sword, gleaming against the wall. She had never known that ordinary people owned things like that. She licked icing from her finger. “These are delicious,” she said.
“Mom and I baked them last night,” said Alice.
Melissa had brought her sketchbook, and when they were finished eating she worked on a drawing of the tree house while Alice wrote. After a while Alice handed Melissa a sheet of paper. “Read this and tell me what you think.”
Melissa closed her sketchbook, leaned back against the wall of the tree house and began to read.
Warwick pulled the sword from its sheath. It gleamed
in the firelight flickering in the great stone fireplace.
Elfrida's back prickled with goose bumps.
“This was Papa's sword,” said Warwick. “He gave it
to me on the battlefield at Great Tor when he fell. With
his last breath he said, âThis sword has killed many
enemies and has served me well. It is time for it to serve
you now.'”
Warwick handed the sword to Elfrida. She gasped
when her hand touched the cold metal.
“Curse my leg!” spat out Warwick. “It should be me
going on this dangerous mission. And curse the spriggans
who have stolen our brother!” His dark eyes gleamed and
he touched his sister's cheek softly. “Go with speed and
be careful,” he said hoarsely. A sob escaped from him.
“Please, God, do not take my sister away from me too!”
Elfrida's eyes filled with tears.
“There is no time to lose,” whispered Warwick. “The
sword will keep you safe. Go now and bring our little
brother back.”
“It's great,” said Melissa, putting down the paper. “I like Warwick.”
“He's actually a lot like Austin,” said Alice. “Warwick and Elfrida are very close. Warwick would do anything for his family. He's so angry that he can't rescue Tristan himself.”
Alice was talking about them as if they were real people again. She had an amazing imagination. Melissa knew she could never have made up such a story. “What happens next?” she asked.
“Elfrida and the old woman, Mareea, travel to the pass above the valley where the spriggans have taken Tristan.” Alice frowned. “They're traveling on the horses and they can take some stuff but not a lot. So they'll have to hunt and gather berries and dig up roots and stuff like that on the way. I've been looking around on this island to see if there's anything I could try so I can get the feeling. But I haven't found much.”
“They could make bannock,” suggested Melissa. “It's kind of like a wilderness bread.”
She wasn't sure that Alice wanted her ideas but Alice stared at her and said, “What do you mean?”
“We made some two days ago,” said Melissa. “We fried it in a frying pan but Mom said you can wrap it around a stick and cook it in a fire.”
“Exactly how do you make it?” said Alice.
“It's just flour and water and baking powder and something called lard,” said Melissa. “We used margarine.”
“I know what lard is,” said Alice. “It's like fat. Elfrida could use⦔ She hesitated for a second. “Bacon grease.”
Melissa suddenly thought of something. “They probably didn't have baking powder in those days.”
“I'll leave it out,” said Alice promptly. She sounded excited. “It won't make that much difference. But I need to know how much flour and stuff.”
The recipe was easy to remember. While Melissa recited the amounts, Alice wrote quickly on a piece of paper. “It's a really good idea,” she said. “I'm going to put it in my story.”
Melissa felt her cheeks flush with pleasure. “Thanks,” she mumbled.
Alice jumped up. “Come on. I want to do some more exploring. I haven't looked everywhere yet. There must be some berries or
something
to eat somewhere on this island!”
The girls followed a path through some low willow bushes, which Alice said might have been made by deer. It ended at a low grassy bank at the edge of the water. Melissa could see far down the lake from this end of the island, but she couldn't see the Hopes' ranch.
“Our house is right behind that point of land sticking out,” said Alice. “It's at the very end of the lake.”
Melissa's face felt hot. It would sound weird if she told Alice now that she knew that, that she had paddled past the ranch and even seen Austin. It would seem like she had been trying to hide something. So she just said, “Oh.”
She and Alice tried pulling up a few plants to see what the roots looked like, but the ground was hard and dry and they made no headway, even with a sharp stick. They explored a few more trails that petered out quickly. While they wandered, Alice talked about her jump off the cliffâhow fantastic it had been and how it wasn't really scary at all. Melissa's stomach tightened in a knot. She had four more days until she had to tell Alice that she wasn't going to do it. She didn't want to think about it.