Sommer’s brain was exhausted, and she wasn’t sure she could make a good decision. But surely whatever she came up with would be better than a coin toss.
Flipping to a topo map, Sommer needed to make sure the angle of descent was manageable, and she wouldn’t find herself on a cliff’s edge.
It seemed doable, and she made her decision.
Sommer shucked her backpack and began by making the kinds of trail markers she’d used at camp as a child, placing three sticks in an arrow across the path and pointing in her new direction.
One didn’t seem visible enough, even using thick pieces of dead saplings.
She made three.
Someone would have to step on them to move up this trail.
Next, she used a rock to hammer a pointed stick into the ground like a mini-flagpole. She pulled her hot pink trail tape out of her front pack pocket and tied enough streamers to her pole that it looked like a celebration.
No one could miss this.
On one of the streamers, she left a message about where she’d gone and why, about Abbie and Marna, her initials and the date so rescue could identify her.
Sommer stood back, looked at her effort, and thought that if anybody came up this trail for a hike — possibly that night or Saturday morning — they would find it, and they’d know to get help.
With her pack back in place on aching shoulders, Sommer started down the slope.
Here with no path, her feet were deep in leaf litter. She moved tree to tree, imagining herself an orangutan, gliding through the forest vine to vine.
Sommer heard a car nearby, but she didn’t speed up lest she wipe out so close to her goal.
Tree to tree, tree to tree.
Trudge.
Trudge.
Trudge.
When Sommer got to the tree line and no longer had that support, she sat on her butt and scooted along because the incline was too steep to be safe.
But she could see the black ribbon ahead, and she felt hope rising.
There, headlights bounced her way. Sommer dashed forward, both hands waving frantically.
But she was still lost in the shadows, a headlamp and dark clothes.
The driver drove on by.
After reaching the road, Sommer checked her map and started toward the closest building, a store a few miles farther on.
As she walked, she could feel her twin sister, Sloane, frantic for her safety.
The thought of Sloane worrying made Sommer concerned about the effect her fiasco was having on her twin’s nervous system.
They’d always been close and had always known when the other was in trouble.
“Sloane, you must be pinging loudly right about now.”
Sloane was on bed rest, ordered to keep herself calm lest Sloane’s twins come early. They were trying to avoid a long stint in the NICU.
Would this distress be dangerous to her babies?
