TWO

TWO

Oatmeal bubbled in the saucepan over the campfire. It was just seven a.m. Helen had awaken to a dim, dreary day. As the oatmeal cooked, she prepared for the scheduled hike up the mountain. It was a weak attempt to force her mind from the episode with Theresa, but the memory of her strange, monster-like eyes clung to her like a potent odor. The smell of fear. 

She shuddered as the morning wind blew. The air hung heavy and wet with moisture. She contemplated getting a sweatshirt from the tent but decided not to. Theresa was still asleep. Helen didn’t want to wake her; she had no idea what to expect when her friend woke up�"would she still be acting like some green-eyed zombie?

            Fighting the anxiety in her stomach, Helen tossed a couple of granola bars into her day pack and pulled the oatmeal off the fire. Then she sat in her chair, legs pulled up to her chest, as she ate her breakfast and drank a mug of tea. The sky was a silvery blue, not unlike the eyes of the man from the airplane. She figured he must have returned home by now. She felt a twinge for him, a yearning to be near him again, as though he could somehow protect her. Lonely and confused, she didn’t like being in the middle of unfamiliar land with a friend who was not herself.

Hold on, she counseled herself. Theresa could have slept-walked from the campsite, or just had to use the bathroom, like she thought earlier. And maybe her eyes were the result of an optical illusion with the moonlight and darkness. There were dozens of explanations for what occurred, the least of all something supernatural.  

Another gust of wind blew, one that carried the stirrings of autumn, and the hairs on her arm stood. The charred embers crackled with fading pinpricks of light; she needed to rouse the fire to stay warm. As she reached for a stick to stoke the logs, something caught her attention out of her peripheral vision. She whipped her head around in surprise.

Theresa stood directly behind her, a statue, stone-faced, blank-eyed. Cold.

            “Jesus!” Helen cursed, dropping the stick. “What the hell, Theresa? You scared the crap out of me!”

            The air around Theresa melted the moment Helen spoke. As though snapped out of a hypnotic state, the color returned to her face. She plopped dramatically into a chair and grabbed the pot of oatmeal. “You didn’t hear me come out?” she asked, taking a spoonful.

            Helen bit the inside of her cheek to steady her nerves. She shook her head and quickly appraised Theresa. She appeared normal and, closer to the truth, acted like nothing odd had happened. “No,” Helen said firmly, annoyed. “I didn’t.”  

Theresa shrugged. “Sorry.” She pulled a bottle of water out of their supplies and took a drink. Then she looked up at the cloud-covered sky. “We’re hiking in this weather?”

            Thick, dark, lenticular clouds, so named for their lens or saucer-like shape, formed over the peak of the mountain. Helen smelled rain. “We can try,” she said with uncertainty. “We don’t have to go too far up it, you know; we could just skirt the bottom. The campground supervisor gave us a trail map last night that shows four separate trails that start at the base and gradually increase in elevation. We can choose one of the lesser ones.”

            Theresa nodded. “Okay, whatever you think we should do is fine with me. You’re the expert here, not me.” She disentangled her legs and hopped off the chair. “I’m going to change,” she said. “Are you wearing pants or shorts?”

            “Pants,” Helen said. “Much safer in case we run into rattlesnakes on the trail.”

             Theresa gasped. “You’re kidding.”

            She shook her head. “No,” she said, enjoying the fright on her friend’s face. “Be sure to tuck the cuffs into your hiking boots, too. Their fangs can go right through the fabric.”

            Theresa groaned and went into the tent to change. Helen cleaned up breakfast and extinguished the fire. Just as she went to enter the tent, she stopped, her back to Mount Shasta. The day was suddenly still; the birds were quiet, the trees no longer swayed in the breeze. She had the uncomfortable sense that someone or something was watching her. She could almost feel the presence; a current of energy ran up the right side of her body. Reluctantly, she turned her head and squinted into the distance, fully expecting to see a person staring back. There wasn’t�"not that Helen could make out, at least�"but the presence lingered, and whoever or whatever it was, wanted�"no, dared�"Helen to enter the mountain’s dominion.

            Helen wondered if Theresa already had. 

 

A steady misting rain fell for the first hour of their hike up the West Face Gully trail. As the girls struggled around a narrow bend clogged with thorn bushes and loose gravel, the trail abruptly ended at a vertical ledge about ten feet high. Helen didn’t think it was part of the trail until she spotted a marker at the top. She deftly scaled it and waited as Theresa gingerly started up. Just as she did, the skies opened up and rain spilled down upon them.

            “Damn it!” Theresa cried as her foot slipped. “Now what do we do?”

            Helen pulled two rain ponchos from her day pack and tossed one down. “Put this on,” she instructed. “And watch where you put your feet; the soil here is really loose.”

“Don’t I know it,” Theresa grumbled. Soil and pebbles fell away around her as she tried to ascend. Sighing, she tried again, this time listening to Helen’s suggestion to dig the soles of her boots squarely into the sides of the ledge. Helen grabbed her hand as Theresa approached and pulled her up. Tired and drenched, Theresa wiped mud from her face. “This sucks,” she complained. “And I’m cold. Why didn’t the map tell us about this cliff?”

Helen didn’t answer. She knew hiking with Theresa would be difficult, butthe

weather made it harder. They were exposed under the dark, threatening sky and the rain was coming down in sheets. Thunder rumbled ominously close. “We need to get to a dry place,” she said.

Theresa pointed to a rocky outcropping overgrown with bushes and other low-lying brush. “What’s that over there?”

“It looks like a cave,” Helen said.

            “I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Theresa complained. “What if there are snakes in there?”

            Helen wasn’t in the mood to placate her. “It’s a sure bet there will be,” she answered, “but we’re soaking wet so we can’t worry about that right now. We need to get dry as soon as possible.” She started for the cave. “Are you coming?” she snapped.

Theresa reluctantly followed. They waded through puddles of mud already so thick that it was like moving through quicksand. They reached the cave entrance where Helen knelt and peered into the opening. Darkness settled like a pool inside, prime real estate for four-legged animals. And bats. Theresa would have a fit if she saw a bat.  Helen threw a rock into the opening and listened. It landed a few seconds later. She turned to Theresa. “I’ll check it out first, okay? You stay out here for a second.”

            Theresa anxiously hopped up and down. “Do you have a flashlight at least?” she asked, her eyes to the sky. “It’s like night all of a sudden!”

            Helen pulled two from her pack and handed one to Theresa. Then she turned her flashlight on and directed it on the cave entrance. The beam of yellow light stretched about five feet inside. Moving in, she shined her light from left to right, keeping an eye out for animals. It was roughly four hundred square feet inside, and she was surprised to discover that not only was the cave bat-free, but snake-free, too. The cave’s ceiling was higher than the entrance, at six or seven feet tall, which enabled the girls to easily stand up.

Theresa came in, her flashlight bouncing erratically off the walls. “Is it safe?” she asked.

            “Looks like it.  I don’t even see bats. It’s strange.”

“There better not be scorpions, either.”

“No, I don’t think so. We should be fine. It’s a good place to wait out the storm,” Helen said. “Even if there are snakes or scorpions and you get bit, I’m a veterinarian’s assistant, remember? I know First Aid.” She pulled off her day pack and sat on the hard-packed ground, the earth beneath her cool.

Theresa walked distractedly around, running her light over every crevice. “For animals,” she reminded. “I’m not a cat.” 

Helen rolled her eyes. “It’s better than not knowing anything about First Aid, right?”

“It was a part-time job�"that you quit in June.”

“Who cares? I needed this summer to get ready for college. Doctor Farad taught me a lot in two years. At least I can fix some basic injuries with the kit I brought. Anyway, I really think we’re okay. You should sit down, relax. This storm is not going to pass anytime soon.” Helen took the granola bars from her pack and gave her one.

            Theresa sighed. “Fine.” She sat cross-legged with her back against the wall. The rain pelted the trees and ground outside and echoed throughout the cave. Thunder rumbled so loud it seemed to rock the ground.            

“I’m sorry about this,” Helen said. “I knew it was a gamble going hiking today in this weather. I should’ve known better.”

            Theresa shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now.” She glanced around. “It’s kind of neat in here, don’t you think? It’s sort of mysterious.”

            Helen nodded. “Can you just picture an ancient Native American family living here?” She stood up and shined her flashlight along the perimeter. “Sometimes they’d write or draw pictures on the walls.” She ran her hands along the rock face, enjoying the way the cool stone felt beneath her palm. She approached a narrow section of the cave near the back and studied a particular slab of volcanic rock. “This might be something,” she called, focusing her light on a faint red shape etched into the stone at chest level.

Theresa came up beside her. “What do you think it is?”  

Helen shook her head. “I’m not sure. Do those look like horns to you?”

Theresa nodded. “Looks like a cow,” she said. She wrinkled her nose. “Are there cows around here?”

She touched the outline with her fingertips. “Maybe, I don’t know.” She pointed to a red circular object that was cut into the space above the animal’s head. “Is this the moon?”  

“Could be the sun,” Theresa answered.

“I wonder what they used to draw it. It’s as red as blood.”

Theresa shuddered. “I hope it isn’t.”

Helen ran the light along the top of the wall and down to the ground. “It’s weird that there’s only one image. Usually there are many drawings, all showing a particular event, like a successful day of hunting or something.”

Theresa shook her head. “You know the most random facts,” she said, her eyes straying to the ground.

Helen laughed. “I’m a nerd, what can I say?”

But Theresa wasn’t paying attention. She knelt down and brushed her hand along the hard-packed earth. “There’s something here,” she announced. Her fingers wrapped around an object. She pulled it out from under the dirt and held it up to her flashlight. It was a black cord with a round pendant dangling from it. “It’s a necklace!”

Helen examined it with her light. “It’s pretty new looking�"compared to the Native Americans, I mean. This cord is modern.” She squinted at the pendant. “It’s silver, or at least silver-plated,” she murmured. “Wow�"look at the writing on it,” she said.

“Those look like hieroglyphics,” Theresa commented.

She was right. Symbols that resembled the ancient Egyptian language were carved along the rim. Helen recognized many of the more well-known ones; an eye, a bird of some kind�"an eagle?�"and a jagged line that reminded her of a mountain range. Two figures dressed in tunics faced one another in the center, their hands, palm-up, touching. Suspended in the air between their joined hands was another round disk. On the other side of the pendant there was one image�"a single, all-encompassing eye that unnerved Helen when she stared at it. It bore into her skull, as though it was, incomprehensibly, conscious.

“Someone must have dropped it here and it got buried in the dirt over time.” She winced as a painful ache shot through her hand.

“Let me see it.”

Helen gladly handed it over. “Do you think it has anything to do with the drawing on the wall?”  

“Who knows? But this necklace is so cool. What are the odds of us finding it? I mean, I just happened to see the cord sticking out of the dirt.”

The air in the cave changed then. Instead of cool, humid air that most caves had, the temperature here began to increase, becoming hotter with each passing moment. Beads of sweat broke out along Helen’s forehead and chin. “Why is it hot as hell in here all of a sudden?” she asked.

“Maybe the rain’s stopped and the sun’s come back out.” Theresa went over to the entrance. “Damn,” she said. “Still pouring out.”

Helen returned to the animal drawing. Something familiar, some long-forgotten fact, nagged at her subconscious. “I think they’re connected,” she said.

Theresa made a face. “Some stick-figure cow drawing and this necklace? I don’t. You said so yourself that the drawing is Native American. The necklace is Egyptian.”

Helen shook her head. “I might be wrong. I think…I can’t be sure…but I think the cow is an Egyptian symbol, too.”

“You’re thinking of the sphinx,” Theresa corrected.

“No�"besides them,” Helen said. “I really think the cow is connected to this pendant,” she insisted.

Theresa gazed at the necklace in her hands. “We won’t find out until after we leave here and get a better look at it, maybe take it to a local jeweler…if there are any around here. Anyway, do you want it or can I have it?”

Helen touched the pendant again and a surge of pain resonated through her hand. She recoiled. “You can,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

Theresa smiled. “I do. It fits me.”

Helen frowned. “I’ve never seen you with jewelry like this.”

She shrugged. “So what? I think I love it, actually.” She slipped the necklace over her head. The pendant seemed to glow from her porcelain white neck, threatening, just like the storm that raged outside, and just like her neon-green eyes the night before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Zaliodir]

I have enjoyed the story so far a whole lot! Its suspenseful, mysterious, and feels like a Native American myth. I can't wait to see what happens next! Thanks for sharing such wonderful writing. :)