“Oh, that’s a little freaky.” Marna ran a hand up and down her arm. “Goosebumps.”
“It was eerie. I mean, there’s my cottage, the church, and the graveyard. It’s not like I have neighbors who might be making fun of me. I was worried that someone might be in the graveyard where they didn’t belong, vandalizing or something.”
“Or digging up graveyard dirt for their black magic,” Abbie said.
“I think in my childhood books it said that’s supposed to be taken from a fresh grave,” Marna said. “And Sommer’s graveyard is old.”
“There’s a fresh grave,” Sommer said. “They had a funeral about two weeks or so ago. Must have been a military guy. They were out there shooting the ceremonial guns.”
“See?” Abbie turned back around. “No one’s been buried there for years and years, and the night of the full moon someone was in the graveyard getting some freshly turned grave dirt.”
Marna looked over her shoulder. “But you kept singing?”
“There had to be a good explanation, and I was trying to figure it out. It stopped when I stopped. And that’s when I saw a long shadow shift on the road,” Sommer’s voice turned spooky like she was telling a ghost story at the campfire.
“Coming toward you?” Marna asked. “Were your doors locked and your alarm on?”
“Walking away. I was able to pull it up on my doorbell camera. It was some guy walking what I think was a Basset hound.” Sommer grinned.
Abbie dropped her hand, pressing her lips tightly together with a shake of her head. “Tease.”
“Sorry.” Sommer grinned. “After that, though, I was exhausted, climbed back in bed, pulled up the blanket, and that’s the last I knew until Abbie called.”
“Dog medicine,” Marna said.
“Indeed.”
Chapter Nine
Sommer
They had to park on the side of the dirt road that led to the ranger’s station. There were already a lot of people who had shown up.
Good.
Doused in tick spray, with their boots properly laced and their packs adjusted on their shoulders, the women walked to the ranger hut where they’d been told to report.
People stood in clusters dotting the small gravel parking area. There was a table to sign in and fill out paperwork. Sommer didn’t bother to read it. It probably just said that if she broke her neck, it was her decision to be there and her responsibility to deal with any bad outcomes.
“Do you see any of our people?” Marna asked, sliding her gaze from group to group.
“Look,” Abbie pointed. “Someone in a uniform is heading over.”
“False alarm,” Marna said as that person shifted into a group standing off to their left.
Sommer could make out a hiking logo on most of that group's shirts.
“Should we have worn one of ourWomen Top the Peaksshirts?” Abbie asked. “I didn’t even think about cohesion.”
“We’re not at an amusement park getting separated by the crowds. We’ll be on our trail all by ourselves.”
“Well, hopefully the kids will be there.”
“Hopefully,” Marna said.
The logo group closed in around the person wearing khaki tactical pants and a blaze-orange shirt. A few minutes intotheir briefing, the leader passed around a can of bug spray, and as it made the rounds, a plume of perfumed chemicals wafted their way.
The friends moved upwind and sat silently on a log meant to demarcate the edge of the parking area, watching that group head off on the Beaver Creek Trail. It was an intermediate-level climb.
