Page 18 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

Mandy wished her sister hadn’t been so quick to discount her theory about Babette being kidnapped. Not that she believed it, not really, but she wanted Liv to at least acknowledge something strange was going on. Babette’s absence had a shape to it, a buzzing energy that elevated the trip from standard-fare excitement to the potential for something bigger. The most likely answer—that Babette was delayed, that she’d join them later—would make it small again. Which was fine. Mandy didn’t want Babette to have disappeared. But she wanted the thrill of entertaining the possibility.

But maybe the act of rafting the Grand Canyon was thrill enough. They were a small yellow dot winding through the pumping heart of the river. Their first mile was a lazy cruise in the sunshine, Thor giving a half-hearted stroke every couple of minutes to keep them pointed forward. Everyone else held their paddles like extras on a movie set. Mandy looked up from the water to the sky above them. It was impossibly huge, the canyon walls framing a pale vacancy that made it feel as if she was at the bottom of an endless glass, a vessel filled with light.

“Are we just floating for an entire week?” Imogen asked.

“Not quite.” Thor smirked.

A warm breeze tickled Mandy’s neck, separating each tiny hair from its neighbor. While she appreciated the free ball cap, she found herself envying Fiona’s full-coverage visor, longing for Lucinda’s huge straw hat and protective rafting gloves. In Austin, the heat hugged her shoulders like a heavy blanket in summer. Here, it was so dry that the sun seemed to do the opposite, stealing every ounce of moisture from her body.

“That wind you feel, it’s the whitewater up ahead.” Thor’s voice was a smoky drawl, and Mandy craned around to hear him speak. “Horn Creek’s no kiddie pool. When I say forward, everyone dig in and paddle. You girls in the front will set the pace. If I say left, people on the left side stroke forward. Same with the right. If things get really dicey, I’m going to yell for y’all to lean in. Let me show ya.

“LEAN IN!” Thor dropped and curled up in the bottom of the raft, head down, like a hedgehog braced for impact.

“When will we need that?” Liv’s voice was clipped. Mandy looked across to where her sister was sitting ramrod straight, clutching her paddle tightly.

“Just if we get stuck in a hole. Or a giant wave. Flow’s high this week.”

“The itinerary glazed over how extreme this is,” Liv muttered to Mandy. “We should have trained.”

“Relax. We’ve got this,” Mandy said.

“You have no evidence for that.” They were still floating peacefully, but Liv’s body was rigid, her eyes straining to see the rapid Thor told them was up around the corner.

Pete’s giant supply boat pulled up in front of them and took the first position in the lineup. Then Katy’s raft. Then theirs. Liv leaned all the way forward, over the front edge of the rubber lip.

“What do you see?” Mandy asked.

“Ripples,” Liv said. “But that feels worse. Knowing it’s out there and not knowing what it is.”

Big Pete gave a whoop and took off. Katy’s raft peeled around the corner next. Mandy watched the boats vanish into the unknown and licked her lips.

Finally, it was their turn.

“Forward!” Thor called.

The surface of the river started to feather white in front of them, the sound of it sliding from babble to roar.

“Forward!” Thor yelled again.

They stroked. It felt good. Mandy glanced over at her sister.

Liv’s fingers were bone-white around her paddle.

“It’s coming,” Liv whispered.

“Yeah,” Mandy said. But she wasn’t scared. She was excited. She was a shaken-up bottle of champagne at midnight.

The boat dipped, and Thor’s voice shot out over the roar.

“STOP!”

Mandy lifted her paddle. The momentum of their strokes slammed the boat into its first wave, blasting her with water. It was wild and delicious, colder than she’d imagined. She glanced to her side again. Liv looked sick. Or paralyzed. Mandy needed to find a distraction, something to tear her sister’s terrified eyes from the lineup of waves in front of them, a devil’s staircase of whitewater.

“Keep your eyes on Katy’s boat,” Mandy prompted. “Tell me three things you see.”

“It’s skirting a giant hole of water—are we going to get stuck there?”

“LEFT TWO!”