The Witch Hunter Chronicles: Hunted
Chapter 21 - Nature Walk

“Honestly,” Lucía admitted, “I didn’t think I’d be able to land this thing in one piece.”

I’m glad I didn’t know that ten minutes ago.

“You barely did,” Marc replied. “Were you aiming for those trees, or did they just jump in front of you?”

Lucía ’s glare was impressive. “They make rotors sturdy for a reason hermano.”

“I’m fairly certain it’s not so you can trim the tops of trees with them,” Marc replied.

Jordan massaged his neck and added, “I think I have whiplash. It feels like that time I fell off the horse.”

“When have you ever been on a horse?” I asked. He looked a bit dazed, so I added, “You got a concussion bro?”

“You were always better than me at jousting, Arthur,” Jordan said. “I don’t think I unseated you once in all our practice sessions, but you picked me up off the ground more times than I could count.”

“Bro?” I looked over at Mark. His eyebrows were up as high as I’d ever seen them. Lucía turned around in her seat with an almost identical expression.

“What?” he asked. His eyes looked focused all of a sudden. “Why is everyone looking at me like that?”

“Because you were talking about jousting with King Arthur,” Lucía said. “What else do you remember.”

“Um, what are you talking about exactly?” he asked.

“Maybe we can talk about this after our thirty-kilometer hike in dress shoes,” Marc said.

“I was hoping you were exaggerating about that,” I said.

Marc shook his head.

“Gather up whatever water and snacks you can replace,” Lucía added. “I don’t want to be drinking stream water if we can avoid it.” Lucía looked at me and added, “Look for sunscreen too. We don’t want Mackenzie’s pale skin spontaneously combusting.”

“Where’s your dad keep his whiskey,” Jordan asked.

“Forget it. Alcohol will just dehydrate you,” Lucía said.

“If I have to walk for whatever thirty kilometers is, I’d rather be buzzed and thirsty than sober and hydrated,” Jordan added.

***

“At least the view is nice,” I said to a very sober Jordan.

We’d reached a hilly region with a few scraggly trees and jutting rocks and a lot of grass and shrubs. The sky was blue and free of air pollution, and the breeze smelled of something sweet like jasmine or honeysuckle. The temperature peaked in the high 80’s but was on its way back down. My arms looked paper-white from all the zinc sunscreen, but my nose and cheeks still felt like they were doing a slow burn.

Jordan slapped at a mosquito and glared at me. “Why are you so chipper?”

My feet have blisters from these stupid shoes, I’ve had a low-grade migraine for at least two hours and my legs feel like overcooked noodles. Still...

I shrugged but my eyes betrayed me. We’d all left modesty behind to varying degrees hours ago as we began to sweat through our dress clothes. While Lucia and I stopped at the satin, sleeveless undershirts, Marc and Jordan had lost the top half of their clothes altogether. I’d been slyly admiring the former so much that I probably owed him a tip.

He smiled. “Even I lost interest in the natural beauty in front of us four hours in.”

“You’re the one that likes exercise,” I added.

“This isn’t exercise, Kenz, it’s a slow march towards death,” he replied.

Marc looked back at us and said, “We’re not going to die tipo. The cabin can’t be more than a mile.”

Lucía stopped to look at the map on her phone. “It’s got to be just over this ridge.”

“You said the same thing the last two ridges,” Jordan said.

“Yeah, and eventually it’s going to be true,” Lucía replied.

She isn’t even sweating. It’s more like a healthy glow.

Twenty minutes later my stomach grumbled so loudly that Jordan side-eyed me. I checked the bag and came up with nothing but empty protein bar wrappers and a clear bottle with a swig of water left that looked a bit too cloudy for my taste.

“We have water left?” Jordan asked.

I handed him the bottle, he eyed it, frowned, and handed it back. “I’d rather die of thirst,” he replied.

The temperature began dropping fast as the sun receded on the horizon. I was the first to put my jacket back on, but we were all fully dressed as we began to crest the ridge.

Marc was the first to the top, and he pointed and said, “Lucy, is that it?”

Lucía bounded up the trail to take a look as Jordan and I trudged behind.

“Damn Amazon,” Jordan murmured.

When she reached the top, Lucìa asked, “Are you sure? It’s smaller than I remember.”

“That’s what she said,” Jordan and I said in unison. The siblings ignored us.

“That’s because we were kids at the time, Lucy,” Marc finally replied. “Everything seems bigger when you’re small. He pointed at a gnarled oak in the distance and said, “That was our tree fort, remember?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Lucìa said, showing the first signs of a smile in many hours. “We made it.”

When we reached the top, I followed Lucia’s gaze and saw the outline of a sharply peaked roof in an open plain a mile or so in the distance. The “small” cabin was bigger than all but the largest houses in my old neighborhood. The two-story structure was made out of stacks of whole tree trunks, with a pointy, wood-shingled roof, a deck around the bottom level and plenty of large pane windows. The few trees in the area were lone oaks and little shrubby trees, so the lumber used for this building must have been shipped in from somewhere else. Stone accents along the base of the structure matched the stone chimney that was roughly the width of a Fiat.

“I always wondered how the rich did camping,” Jordan said.

“Please say there’s food and water,” I said.

“And a Jacuzzi,” Jordan added.

“There’s both actually,” Marc said.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Yep,” he replied.

As we worked our way up the winding dirt road to the cabin, I noticed that the shutters on the windows were all closed, and the shrubs around the house were overgrown.

“How long since someone’s been here?” I asked.

“Years probably,” Marc said. “But I’m sure we’ll replace it well stocked. It’s got its own well and a gas-powered generator so we can cook and take hot showers. The foods all dry goods and canned stuff, so it’s not gonna be gourmet dining, but knowing my mom and her cousins, it’ll be enough to last us a year or so. The hot tub will probably need to be filled, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.”

“We don’t actually have bathing suits,” I pointed out.

“I’m totally fine with that,” Jordan added.

“There will be plenty of clothes at the cabin,” Marc said, “and I will make it my personal mission in life to replace trunks that fit you, Jordan.”

Oak tree spouts were coming up here and there, poking through the crushed gravel driveway – children of the large oak whose branches were growing dangerously close to the second-floor balcony. We walked up the wooden front steps and Lucìa reached above the door frame and pulled out a little copper colored key.

“Really?” I asked.

She shrugged. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere. The door probably doesn’t even need a lock.”

The bolt clicked and the door’s hinges protested as the door swung open into a dark interior.

“I’ll go around back and start up the generator,” Marc said to Lucìa. “Once that’s running, you can light the pilot, so we’ll have some hot water.”