Professor Gale strolled up to me, his smile growing as he got closer. “You’ve survived worse conditions.”
He was right about that. This was nothing.
I whispered unenthusiastically, “Yeah.”
He put his arm over my shoulder and pulled me too close to his side. “I know you aren’t scared.”
“A healthy amount of fear is good for your health,” I told him, and he belted out a big belly laugh that screeched against my nerves.
“You are right about that.”
“Well, I’m not scared. I’m staying.” Shannon appeared beside us, staring down at me with contempt. I hated when she used her height to hover over my five foot form. “And you are my only ally on this trip, so get your crap together. I refuse to be left alone with a bunch of heathens, with no respect for the environment.”
Shannon and I were the only students on this project intending to gather a strong enough argument to declare this place a protected sanctuary. The other students wanted to destroy and build over it.
Maybe that was why the bus crashed. Plain ol’ karma.
Shannon was right. If she didn’t have me backing her claims, the other twelve students would roll right over her during the debate portion of the project.
I took a deep breath to ease the adrenaline surging through my veins. The scratches around my ankle throbbed with each beat of my racing heart.
I’m still here.
“Fine.” I pushed the nausea in my throat down with a hard swallow.
“Good,” Professor Gale said with a gentle tone that didn’t sound right. “It’s good for your scholarship renewal.”
There it was. The soft threat.
A knife that would destroy everything.
Shannon crossed her arms, hearing the suggestion without understanding it. Thinking I was curating more favor.
Realization hit me. I was going to have to make peace with my enemy. At least for the next four weeks. I hadn’t considered that when we boarded that cursed bus this morning.
“Let’s go!” Professor Carter clapped her hands. “Welcome to South Carolina.”
The chittering of bugs in the air went silent, as if they were also shocked we intended to keep going. The wind even grew still, making the air that much more oppressive.
I grabbed my one bag of belongings and my equipment, taking a step towards the road that would lead me deeper into the swamp's embrace.
A rock almost tripped me, and I noticed symbols concreted into the ground. I squatted to get a better look and pulled out my camera.
Gale stopped beside me, “Already got something?”
“A repeating symbol has been cemented into the ground just outside the swamp.” My eyes followed the road to find the small symbols that followed the length of the road. “Like someone molded it in when they poured the concrete."
Did it go all the way around? Like an invisible fence.
What about the straight line of herbs following the symbols like a fortification?
When my fingers touched the herb, Shannon lifted an eyebrow. “Sage. It’s not on my natives list.”
So someone planted it here intentionally. A brisk wind made a shiver roll through me.
“Old places like this have their quirks.” He kept walking, like it wasn’t weird that the modern world would do something like this. Not a carving on a tree or effigies.
I pointed to the long, rectangular hard case in his hand. “You brought that?”
