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Max did as I instructed, and I laid on my stomach, so I could stretch my arms as far as I could. Below us, the water churned furiously, and the mist sprayed in my eyes. Garrison’s free hand was flailing wildly, and I grabbed onto it with both of mine.

“I got him!” I shouted. “Max, pull me back!”

“I’m trying!” Max yelled, and I could feel him pulling on my legs, trying to slide me back down the trail.

“Oh, shit, she’s slipping!” Castor shouted in dismay.

“Don’t let me go!” Samara cried.

“I won’t!” Castor promised her, but I wasn’t so sure that he would be able to keep it.

The path was too narrow for anyone else to get around to help us, and Max’s grip on me and Lillian’s grip on Castor was enough to keep the two of us from going over with Samara and Garrison, but not much more. Everyone’s hands were slick from the mist, and Samara and Garrison’s bags were overloaded and weighing them down. Castor and I just didn’t have enough working in our favor to be able to pull up two grown adults over the edge of that sheer drop.

“Remy, save my little girl,” Garrison said, looking up at me with tears glistening in his eyes. “Let go of me, so that you can pull her up.”

“Dad, no!” Samara protested, but I could see Castor struggling to keep his grip on her.

Garrison let go of my hand, but I still hung on.

“Make sure she makes it to Emberwood, please,” he asked me.

“I will,” I told him, and his hand started to slip outof mine, so I let it.

“No, Daddy!Hang on!” Samara screamed, but when I reached for her hand, she took mine, gripping it tightly.

Garrison hadn’t fallen yet, because his watch was still hooked on her bag. He reached up with his free hand and undid the clasp. Within a second, his hand slipped free, and he plummeted downward. He bounced off the edge of the cliff with a wetthwock, and then disappeared in the dark water below.

As soon as he’d slipped free, I had felt the weight lighten. With both Castor and I working together to pull up only Samara, it didn’t take long for us to get her safely up onto the trail again.

Samara was wailing by then, crying for her dad, and Castor held her close to him.

I leaned back against the stone wall and exhaled roughly.

“Are you okay?” Max asked me.

“Yeah,” I said, and I put my arm around him, because I could.

18

Stella

There were still hours left of light when we reached the top of the waterfall, but we would go no further today. About halfway, the burning pain in my thighs had turned into a cold numbness, and the stunning view often pitched to the side with my dizziness.

But I had made it to the top, with my walking stick and Max and Boden. Even with all my aches and pains – and they were numerous and severe – I still had not suffered as much as Samara.

She had eventually gotten moving again, after crying for a very long time. After that, she had lapsed into an eerie, vacant silence, but she kept on going.

Castor was taking care of her, and when we reached the top, he brought her over to rest in the cool shade of a tree. I sat down on a flat rock right near the path simply because I didn’t want to walk any farther. I leaned against my walking stick and tried not to think about anything at all.

Everyone took a break, because we all desperately needed it. Instead of the usual chatting or disagreements, we hardly spoke.

“We need to find somewhere to camp out for the night,” Lillian said, the first to break the long silence. “Those of you that need to continue your respite, you should do so, but the rest of us need to get firewood and find somewhere that we aren’t so exposed.”

“There’s trees and a rocky outcropping over there,”Remy said, motioning to the cluster just off to the west of where she sat.

So, she, Boden, Serg, Lillian, and Castor went off in search of a safe haven for the night. That left me, the nearly catatonic Samara, and the sickly Polly, along with Max who stayed back to help us.

“Are you okay?” Max asked me softly. “Do you want something to eat? You haven’t had much today.”