Midnight Howl (8 page)

The Two Medicine campsite was pretty, on the edge of a lake, and surrounded by evergreen trees.

We set up the tents and put the food in the storage lockers, which are big metal boxes to keep food safe from animals. Hailey, Lily, Bonnie, and I were sharing one of the four-person tents. It was going to be a tight squeeze: There was really only enough room for four people if everyone was in her sleeping bag. We took turns going in to unroll our sleeping bags and put our backpacks down. When it was my turn, I felt the bottom of the tent.
Yikes.
It was cold and hard, even with the tarp underneath. I was probably going to be tossing and turning and freezing all night. Clearly, I was just a soft city girl at heart.

Once the tents were ready, it was starting to get dark, and Lily and I and the other kids who had brought telescopes began setting them up around the campsite. We weren’t going to stargaze until after dinner, when it would be really dark, but we wanted to get ready so we wouldn’t have to fiddle with them too much in full darkness.

“Heads up!” came a call behind me, and I flinched as Anderson lurched into me. A second later, his Frisbee bounced off my telescope.

“Hey!” I said indignantly. Bonnie came over and picked up the Frisbee.

“You should be more careful,” she said, smiling at Anderson.

“Sorry, ladies,” he said. “Sometimes I cannot be contained.”

I rolled my eyes and readjusted my telescope as he walked off, but Bonnie smiled and ran her fingers through her red curls. “Do you think he’s kind of cute?” she whispered.

I thought about it. There was nothing really wrong with Anderson’s looks, but he was so jittery and jokey that I couldn’t think of him as cute. “Not really,” I said. “Do you?”

She blushed a little and shrugged. “I guess,” she said. “I like funny.”

The teachers got a campfire going, and soon the smell of cooking hot dogs and burgers wafted over the campground. I wandered over to Lily, who was reading something in her notebook.

“I’m starving,” she moaned. “Doesn’t it smell good?”

“I’m not really into burgers,” I reminded her, “but I am getting hungry. Do you think Jack remembered to bring veggie burgers?”

“Sorry, I forgot,” she said. “And yes, I think Jack probably remembered.” She gave me a sly little smile.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“I just think Jack likes you,” she said. “He’s always looking at you when you’re not watching.”

Was he? It was a flattering thought, but I shook my head. “Jack likes everybody,” I said. “He’s just nice to me because I live in his house and our moms are best friends.”

“O-kay,”
Lily teased in a singsong voice. “Anything you say.”

“Is there something in the water here?” I asked. “Bonnie was just telling me she thinks Anderson is cute.”

“Really?” said Lily. “Huh. I can see them together, actually. Interesting choice. Now, Jack —”

“Shh!” I said, and I could feel myself turning bright red. Jack was walking toward us holding a plate of food. Lily giggled.

“Hey,” he said to us both. “Here, Marisol, I got them to fix yours and Hailey’s first so they wouldn’t be contaminated with meat grease.”

“That was really nice of you,” Lily said, nudging me with her foot.

“Thanks, Jack,” I said.

“No problem,” he answered. “Mr. Samuels cooked the burger, but I brought you some of my secret-recipe coleslaw and potato salad.” He nodded encouragingly, waiting for me to take a bite. I took a spoonful of coleslaw and smiled at him. “Mmm,” I said. “Good.”

“Thanks,” he said, looking proud, then turned to Lily. “The meat stuff should be ready now. Come on!” He headed back toward the food.

Lily leaped to her feet and hurried after him. “So hungry,” she said, waving at me.

I followed them slowly, looking around. Everyone was getting plates of food, settling into small groups, and talking quietly.

I sat down next to Hailey, and she smiled at me. “Doesn’t the fire smell good?” she said. “I love campfires.”

“Me too,” I said.

Outside the circle of light made by the fire, the forest was dark around us. The light flickered over everyone’s faces, and the stars shone brightly overhead. As people finished eating, some of the kids got out their flashlights and left the fire, playing flashlight tag farther away in the clearing.

“Stay out of the woods,” Mr. Samuels announced. “We don’t want to lose anyone. Remember there are wild animals out there. Put all your food trash and leftovers into the black plastic bags so we can secure them. We don’t want to attract bears.”

“Or wolves, mountain lions, or coyotes,” added Mrs. Abrams, another of our teacher chaperones.

“Yikes,” I said, and shivered. I didn’t want to think about wild animals roaming outside our tents.

“Don’t worry,” said Hailey. “I doubt we’ll see any animals at all, as noisy as this group’s being.” She looked wistful.

“Time for stargazing,” Lily announced when everyone was done eating.

I hurried to my telescope. Bonnie, Amber, Hailey, and Jack joined me, and I showed them Venus, Jupiter, and Mars, and we were even able to see the rings of Saturn.

“This is awesome,” said Jack.

“What about the moon?” asked Bonnie. “Let’s look at the moon.” I focused the telescope on the moon and pointed out the craters. The moon was yellow and almost full, and it hung just above the treetops.

“There’s sort of a ring around it,” said Hailey. “What is that?”

“It’s from the moonlight refracting off ice crystals in the upper atmosphere,” I explained. “It’s like a rainbow, but from the moon.”

“Wow,” Hailey said. I glanced over and saw that she was smiling.

After everyone had a chance to look through the telescopes, Lily called us back to the fireside for dessert and storytelling. As I headed over, Jack grabbed my arm and pulled me back behind the others.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” he asked.

I felt a flutter in my stomach. No matter what I said about just being friends with Jack, he was just so cute. Was it true that he liked me? “Sure,” I said.

“I’ve never been able to get Hailey to come along on anything like this before,” he said. “She’s shy, and people made fun of her last year because she’s more interested in animals than people.” He hesitated. “Anyway, it’s just good that you got her to come.”

“Well,” I said, and shrugged. “I like Hailey.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s nice.” He smiled.
“You’re
nice.” He squeezed my arm. I felt myself blushing. We stood silently for a moment.

“Anyway,” he said, “come on. You have to get one of my special raspberry chocolate brownies before they’re gone.”

Once we were all sitting around the fire, Lily pointed out some constellations and told the ancient Greek myths behind their names.

Jack was next to me, and I leaned against him just the tiniest bit as I ate my brownie. His arm felt warm and solid, and I couldn’t help glancing at him sideways a little. He glanced back at me and smiled, and my insides jumped with a happy nervousness. The fire was crackling. The brownie was delicious. Life was good.

After Lily finished talking, Becka from astronomy club got up.

“Um,” she said, twisting her shaggy black hair in her fingers. “This is a true story my brother told me. It happened to some kids he knew when he was our age, right here at this campground.

“These three kids were best friends, and they convinced their parents to let them go camping by themselves. They had a great time, fishing and hiking and cooking over a campfire. But when it got dark, they started hearing weird noises in the woods. They heard branches cracking and leaves rustling. It sounded like something big was making its way toward them through the woods, getting closer and closer. Then they started hearing a terrible groaning noise, like this:
whoo-hoo-hooooooo.

“One of the guys got scared, and he wanted to call their parents to pick them up. But his friends laughed, and said the noises were just an owl or something.

“He finally got mad and went to bed. He was almost asleep when he heard horrible screaming and banging around, so he ran out of the tent. It was just his friends, yelling and hitting a pot with spoons
to scare him. So he went back into the tent and zipped it closed.

“A little later, he was almost asleep when he heard his friends screaming and yelling again and even shaking the tent. He totally wasn’t going to fall for it, so he put his head under his pillow and fell asleep.

“The next morning, when he woke up, there was no one else in the tent. His friends weren’t in the campsite, but the ground was all torn up around where the fire had been, like something with huge claws had dug at the ground. And when he looked back at the tent, he saw ragged scratches on the sides, as if something with paws as big as his head had tried to claw it open.”

Becka lowered her voice and walked closer to us listeners. “They never found his friends. The woods were full of park rangers searching, but they didn’t find anything except a few scraps of cloth that might have come from one boy’s shirt.

“A year later, the boy who was left behind came back to the campsite. He walked into the woods and he saw something terrible.” She paused and looked around at us. I leaned forward to hear. “In the dark
of the night … he saw … BOOO!” She suddenly screamed at the top of her lungs.

We all shrieked. I realized I was gripping Jack’s arm and giggled. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly, letting go. “She scared me!”

“I’ll protect you,” Jack said mock seriously, patting me on the shoulder.

Everyone was laughing. It was just a joke story: a scary setup to make us jump.

But my eyes went back to the moon, so close to full, and a chill swept over me despite the warmth of the fire.

It was late when Lily, Bonnie, Hailey, and I crowded into our tent, and I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep right away.

It felt much later when I suddenly opened my eyes onto darkness, wide awake. Something was outside the tent. There was a snuffling noise and a scratching against the tent wall.

“Guys?” I whispered. No one answered. Something brushed against the wall beside my head, and I thought about how thin that tent wall was.
“Guys?”
I repeated anxiously, not whispering this time. I reached out to shake Bonnie, who was next to me.

“Mmmph,” she mumbled. “What? It’s the middle of the night!”

“So why are you talking?” said Lily sleepily. “Shut up.”

“Listen,” I said. “There’s something outside the tent.” There was a pause while they listened.

“There’s nothing out there,” said Bonnie grumpily. “You’re just scared because of Becka’s stupid —”

A horrible snuffly growl came from outside, and we all screamed.

“What was that?” Bonnie shrieked.

“You guys?” said Lily suddenly. “Hailey’s not here.”

My heart plummeted. I couldn’t breathe for a minute. I reached out toward where Hailey had been sleeping and found only her empty sleeping bag. Outside, the snuffling noise came again, along with the clattering of something metallic.

Hailey? But the moon’s not full yet, I thought.

The rest of the campsite was waking up. “What was
that?”
a voice asked, and I heard some boy start making fake, ghostly
oooooooos
. “Is it a BEAR?!?” someone shouted.

Lily switched on her flashlight. “I’m going to look outside,” she said bravely.

“Yikes,” said Bonnie. “If it eats you, can I have your cute black boots?”

Lily made a face at her and unzipped the tent. She stepped outside, and after hesitating for a second, I followed her. Bonnie came after me, hovering nervously in the opening of the tent.

Lily’s flashlight beam darted around the campsite. Everything looked normal. The metallic clatter came again, and Lily trained the flashlight beside our tent. “Oh!” she said.

I craned my head to look past her and saw a fat raccoon, its head in an aluminum pan. It was eagerly licking the inside, its little paws holding on to each side of the pan.

Mr. Samuels crawled out of his tent on the other side of the site, a pot in one hand and a spoon in the other. He got to his feet, took a good look at the raccoon, and then started banging on the pot and shouting,
“Aaaaaaaaaaah!
Go! Go!”

The raccoon took its head out of the pan and gave Mr. Samuels a long, offended look. Then it turned and unhurriedly shambled its way into the woods.

By this time, everyone was crawling out of their
tents, laughing and talking and trying to figure out what was going on.

“WHO left food outside of the food locker?” Mr. Samuels shouted accusingly.

There was a scuffling as everyone looked away from the angry teacher. Then Jack slowly raised his hand. “Me, I think,” he said. “That looks like the pan the brownies were in. I’m really sorry.”

“Next time, don’t forget,” Mr. Samuels said sternly. “If it had attracted a bear, we would have been in big trouble. Now, everyone, back to bed.”

Jack nodded sheepishly, and people started to slowly head back to their tents. I was scanning the campsite. “Where’s Hailey?” I whispered to Bonnie and Lily, who looked as anxious as I felt.

Then, behind us, we heard a voice. “What’s going on?”

I whipped around to see Hailey, looking cheerful and relaxed. “Why is everyone awake?” she asked innocently.

“Where have you
been
?” I demanded.

Hailey frowned. “I had to go to the bathroom,” she said with a shrug. “What’s the big deal?”

Bonnie waved her hand dismissively. “Raccoon. Going back to bed.” She disappeared into the tent.

Hailey pouted. “I missed a raccoon? I love raccoons! They’re so cute.”

“Everybody freaked out,” Lily said, rolling her eyes. “Good night.”

As I settled back to sleep, I smiled.
See?
I told myself.
Everything has a perfectly logical explanation.

The next morning, it seemed unusually bright. I groaned and rubbed my eyes. “It’s so early,” I moaned. “I don’t know what time it is, but I can tell it’s very early. And cold. Very,
very
cold.” When I sat up and my top half came out of my cozy, puffy sleeping bag, it was like I had walked into a giant freezer.

“Up and at ’em,” Lily said cheerfully. “It’s a beautiful day.” She was already fully dressed and busy brushing her hair.

Bonnie grunted, snuggling deeper into her bag. Lily went on, “I’ve got something to tempt you out of bed.” She rummaged in her backpack and pulled out a map. “Today we’re going hiking!”

“If you think the promise of hard physical activity is going to get me leaping out of this sleeping
bag, you clearly don’t know me as well as you think you do,” Bonnie said drily.

Lily rolled her eyes and spread the map out neatly on top of her sleeping bag. “Look, there’s a whole bunch of trails near us. The guidebook says the best trails for groups are probably the ones to Running Eagle Falls, which is an easy hike, or to Scenic Point, which is a little more challenging.”

“Hmm,” said Hailey, kneeling next to Lily. “What do you think, Marisol?”

I wriggled out of my sleeping bag and winced as the cold air hit the rest of my body. I had slept in my cozy old sweats, but I was still freezing — I didn’t want to think about how cold I would have been in pajamas. I leaned across the tent to look at Lily’s map.

The Scenic Point trail clearly involved some serious uphill hiking, and, from the name, probably led to a pretty amazing view. The Running Eagle Falls trail was a lot shorter. I like waterfalls, but I also like hiking, so why not the longer trail? I was about to say so, when I noticed that the Running Eagle Falls trail crossed several winding blue lines. Water. Running water.

I looked at Hailey. She would probably choose
the same hike I did. Silver hadn’t bothered her, but that wasn’t a real superstition about werewolves, except for silver bullets (and I wasn’t going to shoot her). If she could cross running water, would that prove anything?

Not entirely.
Something as vague as — what had Anderson said? —
some cultures say a werewolf can’t cross running water
— wasn’t going to make me stop wondering about Hailey. But if she couldn’t cross the water, or if she made an excuse not to cross it, then that would be more evidence that she
was
a werewolf. The experiment was definitely worth a try.

“I think I’ll go to Running Eagle Falls,” I said firmly, looking straight at Hailey.

“Okay,” she said. “Me too.”

Lily frowned. “Shoot,” she said. “I thought for sure you two would come on the harder trail with me. Bonnie?”

“Are you kidding?” asked Bonnie. “It’s either the easy trail or staying at the campground and painting my nails.”

“Fine, then,” said Lily. “I bet Amber and Becka will come with me.”

Bonnie laughed. “Amber will want to jog it.”

After breakfast, Amber and Becka did decide to hike to Scenic Point with Lily, along with a few other kids and one of the chaperones. Some of the kids chose to do part of a longer trail, and Jack, Anderson, a bunch of other kids, Mr. Samuels, and one of the other chaperones came with us on the trek to Running Eagle Falls.
Good,
I thought.
I can see if Jack can cross running water, too.

It had warmed up during breakfast, and it was a beautiful day. The air was clear and fresh. The snow high on the mountain peaks and the scent of the pine trees around us reminded me of Christmas. I realized that when Christmas came in a couple of months, I’d be going back to Austin. For the first time, I felt sad about leaving my friends here and going home.

“Look,” said Jack, pointing up at the sky. Overhead, a huge bird circled, looking for prey.

“Is it a hawk?” I said uncertainly.

“A golden eagle,” he said. “There are almost three hundred species of birds in the park, and October’s still a pretty good time to see them.”

“And animals,” Hailey added. “Look, there are fox tracks on the side of the trail, and if you watch the mountains, you might see goats.”

I scanned the peaks, hoping to see a mountain goat climbing, but didn’t see anything. Above us, I could hear squirrels scolding in the trees. Hailey touched my arm and pointed, and I saw a huge white hare hop lazily away from the trail, avoiding us, but not seeming particularly scared.

I could hear rushing water ahead of us and, as we rounded a bend in the trail, saw a rustic wooden bridge crossing a river.
Running water!

I hung back a little to watch Hailey cross it. Jack strode on ahead of us, but Hailey hesitated. “What’s up?” she said. “Did you want to take a picture?”

“Oh … yeah,” I said. I had forgotten about my camera, but I fished it out of my jacket pocket and snapped a picture of the bridge and the mountain rising behind it.

Hailey stayed standing next to me. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, trying to tell if she was steeling herself to cross the bridge. “Are you coming?” she asked, a little impatiently.

“Sure,” I said, and started walking, trying to be subtle about watching her.

As we walked over the bridge, nothing happened until we were almost across. Then Hailey’s foot skidded, and she fell backward.

“Hailey!” I said. “Are you okay?” She was just sitting there. I looked up the path to see if anyone was coming back, but no one had noticed. “Hailey!” I said again.

Hailey pulled herself up, laughing. “What a klutz!” she said. “The wood is wet here.”

“You’re not hurt?” I asked, and she shook her head.

We walked on over the bridge, my mind buzzing. Had she fallen because of the running water, or had she just slipped? She’d gone over the bridge, but was that even what crossing running water meant? Maybe she couldn’t walk through a stream, and crossing a bridge was hard but not impossible.

I was driving myself crazy. It wasn’t even like this “not being able to cross water” was a definite thing. I sighed.

We rounded a bend in the trail, and there were the falls. They were amazing, coming from high among the rocks. It was, I saw, actually two falls: a narrow trickle coming down to meet a larger spume of water.

“In the summer, when the water levels are higher, the top falls are stronger and hide the lower falls,” Hailey told me. “Some people call it Trick Falls instead of Running Eagle Falls.”

Trick Falls. I thought about the waterfall concealed all summer beneath the stronger fall, and how you could see it without realizing there was another level underneath. Was Hailey that way, too? Was the girl who shared her house with me, who rode horses and teased her brother, the real Hailey — but with another, hidden level beneath? Did the full moon reveal Hailey’s second level the same way winter revealed the hidden waterfall?

I glanced over at Hailey quietly looking up at the falls. I wasn’t sure if I would ever find out the truth about my new friend.