Chapter Seventeen
The tree squeezed Noelle tighter by the second. A branch twisted around her mouth, muffling her screams. Edward and I rushed to her. He drew his knife and started slashing at the base of the branches where they connected to the trunk. Noelle’s eyes widened as Edward’s knife came dangerously close to her arm. The knife wasn’t big enough to make any real slices in the branches, so I pushed Edward aside.
“That’s not working!” I tugged on the branch around Noelle’s waist. Edward glared at me, but he threw the knife to the ground and helped me. Another limb swatted at Edward’s head. We needed help, but the others were fighting off attacks by the rest of the trees. Edward and I were going to have to find a way to free Noelle.
“I have an idea,” I said, looking into Noelle’s terrified eyes. Her mouth was still covered, so I didn’t wait for a response. I put my hand on her shoulder. “Edward, give me a boost! I’m going to jump on the branch around Noelle’s waist to get the tree to give a little. When it loosens its grip, you pull Noelle free.”
Edward bent down and interlocked his fingers so I could step in them like a stirrup. I placed my left hand on his shoulder for balance. Without warning, my entire body got warm, warmer, hot. My arms and legs tingled so much I could barely think straight. I figured I was having another vision, but Noelle’s eyes darted back and forth between Edward and me. She felt it, too. Edward studied his arms like he’d never seen them before. He was as shocked and confused as I was. Our eyes met and he shook his head, yelling, “Jump!”
I snapped out of it and jumped on the branch, stomping as hard as I could. The limb shook under me and then splintered. With a final stomp, the branch and I both fell to the ground. Edward didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Noelle and pulled her to him. They landed in a heap on the ground.
“Come on!” I yelled, getting to my feet. I took Noelle’s hand and pulled her up. Edward grabbed his knife off the trail and ran to help Garret, who was being swatted at by a large oak. Trent reached into his back pocket and pulled out his lighter.
“No! You’ll burn down the whole forest! We’d never get out alive!” I jumped on his back and yanked the lighter from his hand. The only reason I was successful was that I’d taken him by surprise. Once the shock wore off, he effortlessly flung me to the ground.
“Give that back. It was my grandfather’s lighter.” Trent ripped it from my fingers.
Morgan let out a primal yell, startling everyone. Even the trees shivered. “Run for it!” He didn’t wait to see if we were following orders. He took off, leaving us to fight our way through the branches that narrowly missed grabbing hold of him. Garret took his boot off and used it to hit the trees as we ran. He looked funny, especially since he was hobbling along with one shoeless foot, but it worked. Most of the skinnier branches broke on impact. We made it past the living trees and were forced to stop when we came to the mouth of a large, pitch-black cave blocking the path. This wasn’t the way Holly and I had gone after we’d fought off the trees the first time.
“Now what?” Holly asked, out of breath.
Morgan furiously flipped through the maps. “None of the maps show this cave! We must’ve made a wrong turn. We have to go back!”
“No way!” I blurted out. All eyes turned on me. I had to think of something, and fast. I scanned the outside of the cave. It was huge, almost like the cave cut through the mountain bordering the outer edge of the forest. The path led straight into the cave, which meant we had to go inside. “I think the cave might actually be a tunnel,” I said in an unsteady voice.
“A tunnel?” Noelle asked.
“The path leads into it. I doubt it’s a dead end. All the other trails have been connected or led somewhere. This one must, too.” I shrugged at Morgan. “Unless you want to give up the search, we have to go in there.”
“No one’s giving up!” He stepped toward me, stopping inches from my face. “If you’re wrong about this, I’ll see to it that you don’t make it past those trees on our way back.”
I gulped and forgot how to breathe. I was guessing. I had no idea how to read the maps or how to navigate the forest.
Trent whipped out his lighter and led the way into the cave. We could barely see, and we had to make a human chain to avoid stepping on each other. I was holding on to Holly and Noelle, who were both trembling. We walked through the darkness, guided only by the faint flicker of Trent’s lighter.
“Looks like we’re going down,” Trent called from the front of the line. “There are some steps, and they look steep.”
Holly and Noelle squeezed my arms. My foot slipped a little on the first step. The stones were really uneven. Holly was lucky she had Dad and me on either side of her because she never would’ve made it down these steps on her own. At the bottom, the tunnel opened up into a pretty big enclosed space. We were underground.
The walls were rusty brown and looked like dust clouds hardened into solid forms. Trent stopped to look at a small red arrow drawn on the wall. “It’s drawn in blood,” Trent said.
“Aristede must have marked the way through the tunnel. Keep moving,” Morgan said, pushing Trent along.
Our feet stirred up the dirt on the ground, making it even harder to see. A fluttering sound overhead drew everyone’s attention up to the ceiling. Brown fruit bats hung upside down in huge clusters. Holly’s nails dug into my arm as a bat darted through the dark alcove. I didn’t mind the bats, but the putrid stench of guano made me gag. Once we got past the bats, the trail narrowed and wound through a darker labyrinth of eerie rock formations. The tunnel started to look like a giant mouth with enormous jagged teeth.
I heard Holly gulp. “Keep the bad thoughts to yourself,” I whispered. The last thing we needed was her saying something that would make us all cave food.
I struggled to breathe. The air inside the cramped tunnel was hot and humid. The ceiling sloped downward, and we had to hunch at the waist. The trail continued to narrow with each step, and my shoulders brushed against the walls. I closed my eyes to keep my claustrophobia from taking over. After several more steps, Noelle and Holly let go of my arms. I opened my eyes and saw that we were facing a solid rock wall.
“What?” I murmured. The sides of the cave had opened up so we had a little room to turn around. I twisted to the right and saw Morgan advancing on me.
“I told you you’d pay if this wasn’t the right way to go!” He drew his knife.
“Trent, shine that lighter on the wall over here!” Dad yelled. “There’s another trail marker.”
Trent awkwardly made his way through the group and lifted his lighter to the wall. A faint red arrow pointed straight up to a circular hole in the ceiling of the cave. The space was just big enough for a person to squeeze through. There were no steps like there had been at the entrance. The trail converted into a vertical climb.
“Garret, you go first,” Morgan said. “Trent, you’ll go last since you have the lighter. We’d all be in the dark down here without you.”
Garret reached up, placed his hand in a recessed spot on the wall, and began to climb. We took turns scaling the walls until we were finally out of the tunnel. The air on the surface felt unusually cold after being underground. I swallowed painfully. My mouth was as dry as cotton, and I could taste the gritty dirt from the cave floor that covered most of my body. We all looked like we’d climbed out of our own graves.
Morgan’s eyes narrowed on me. “I guess it’s your lucky day.”
I didn’t think any of us had an ounce of luck thanks to our ancestors and the curse. Noelle gave me a half smile. I felt bad that she’d gotten wrapped up in all this when she wasn’t even cursed.
We moved quickly through the trails. Every time Morgan recognized a part of the forest from one of his maps, he pushed his way to the front of the group and studied the map to determine the next path to choose. After a while, the group came to a sudden halt.
“Get into the cover of the trees!” Garret whispered as he sidestepp
ed behind a tall oak.
I imagined all sorts of wild beasts ferocious enough to scare a crew of armed thieves. Someone grabbed my arm, and I was shocked to see it was Dad. He pulled me behind a bush. I looked directly into his eyes, hoping to see even a glimpse of the father I’d always known, but he stared far off into the woods. I turned to see what he was looking at, and there next to a large boulder was the hairiest looking beast I’d ever seen. It had wiggling furry arms all over its body.
Holly gasped and buried her head in my shoulder. “What is it?”
“I’m hoping it goes away before we have a chance to find out,” I said, but I barely got the words out of my mouth before the creature started coming right at us.