Gravediggers (5 page)

Kendra's eyes never leave her map and compass. Sweat forms on her upper lip.

“So, look, we may not like each other,” I begin in my calmest voice.

“Agreed,” she mumbles.

“And that's cool, whatever, we can deal with that at another time,” I say, trying not to freak her out, “but we might want to get back to the lodge.”

She's silent and then mutters, “Right.”

“So . . . which direction do we head to get to the nearest trail back to Homeroom Earth?”

She pauses, blinks hard, and then sort of looks at me, not at my eyes but maybe at, like, my chin. “I . . . don't know.”

“Well, what does it say on the map?”

“I don't know.”

“Are we traveling toward the campsite or not?”

“I don't
know
,” she snaps, and finally her eyes look into mine, and they're all big and wet and scared. “If the map and compass are correct, we should've hit the path forty minutes ago. We've been doing everything right according to my calculations; it's just that something's . . . different.” She hands me the map and uses the free hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, and mumbles, “Think, Kendra, think, where are we, where are we?”

Uh-oh. So, the one person in your group who can outthink gravity doesn't know where we are, and now
she's
being a head case, too. This isn't the end of the world, people. Maybe the map is wrong, or her compass is on the fritz, or maybe we're in a part of these mountains that hasn't been charted yet.

“Okay,” I say. “Well, maybe . . . one of us should break off, see if we can find some help and alert the authorities. Or at least get to a phone.”

“That would be ill-advised,” she says. “By the time one of us found a phone, the other two could be a long way away.” She pinches her nose so hard, it looks painful. “Do you know any tracking skills or anything like that? Like a hunter?”

“Why would I have tracking skills?”

“Because you're very”—she waves her hands around— “
outdoorsy.
”

“You're Queen Brain. Shouldn't you know how to find our way home?”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” she asks, annoyed.

PJ and I have called you that for years
, I think but don't say. “Because . . . it doesn't matter. We need to do something,” I say, because I can't think of
anything
.

“Let's go talk to PJ,” she says. “Maybe the three of us can come up with a plan.”

“Right. Just take it easy with him, okay? I don't want him to have a panic attack.”

“Understood,” she says, taking the map back from me. “How do I look?”

“Uh, fine? I don't know, smart?”

“Good.” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Let's do this.”

Kendra and I turn slowly back to the creek, where PJ sits hunched over with his feet in the water, his hands up in two L shapes to create a frame in front of him, mapping a shot (he does that a lot at home—it's a little embarrassing). Finally, Kendra says, “We need to talk to you about something.”

“There's a wall up there,” says PJ. “Look. Upper left-hand corner, between those trees.” We both crouch down next to PJ so we can see through his frame, and he's right—stretching across a little clearing in the foothills is a gray stone wall.

“Indeed,” says Kendra.

Then, it hits me. “But a wall means people, right? We should check it out!”

“Maybe we shouldn't,” says PJ, dropping his hand frame and looking down at his feet in the water. “What if we're trespassing on someone's property? This has
chainsaw
massacre
written all over it.”

“That person might have a phone,” says Kendra, standing up. She carefully hops over the creek and motions for us to follow. “It's our best option right now.”

“Best option?” says PJ worriedly. “What about the map? Are we
that
lost?”

Kendra and I share a glance, and I know I've got to take charge. “We're just trying our best to find someone else out here,” I tell him, and then hop across the creek to Kendra.

Slowly, PJ tiptoes over the creek and pulls his shoes back on. We hike toward the stone wall, me in the lead, trying to quiet down the weird feeling in my guts. It can't be that I'm scared. Me? No way. I'm a wolf. It's probably just something I ate.

Chapter Five
Kendra

A
fter a short break, we head for the stone wall. More trudging through the woods. My body aches, but my mind is too caught up in our predicament at the moment.

How did this happen, Kendra? You know
everything
about these woods; you spent hours sitting at your desk and holed up in the library, perusing survival websites and reference books, mentally tallying anything that sounded slightly important. You worked so hard on this. Homeroom Earth. The wilderness. You did all the research, and you were about to get a reward: fieldwork. Adventure. Hands-on experience.

And now, there's a wall. In every direction, all you can see are trees, mountain peaks, rocks, leaves, but nothing useful, nothing that suggests human life, other than a stone wall probably built some century or so ago by Crow Indians worried that the white men wandering through this forest were becoming too bold for their own good. And yes, maybe if you had your phone, maybe if your compass wasn't changing its mind every fifteen minutes, you could find your way out of here. But all that means is that you didn't need to do that research in the first place, Kendra, or that you didn't do enough of it. What does Dad say—it's a shoddy workman who blames his tools.

This is your fault. So, considering your complete inability to find your bearings, you have to see if this stone wall can tell you something.

My face burns hot, but my skin feels cold. Everything irritates me: the trees, the forest floor, the occasional sound of animals (always far off—we haven't seen another living creature for a while now). Nothing is worse than this, than being
unsure
, than
panicking.
Grasping at straws, hoping a random wall will be the answer.

Is this how adventure feels, like walking into a risky situation and suddenly realizing you don't know anything? Is this how Lewis and Clark felt? Magellan? If so, maybe you weren't cut out for it, Kendra. Maybe you should've stuck with the books and the internet.

“Do people live up in these mountains?” asks Ian as we walk. When no one says anything, he looks to me. “Kendra?”

“Not too many lived on the mountains themselves, but a number of Native American tribes settled in Montana. The Crow had a real presence here, but they were mostly just following the buffalo.”
Spout those facts, Kendra. They're real. You know them; you're positive of them.
“In these mountains, it was probably the Shoshone, and some Flathead. But again, people don't really live up in these mountains. It's too rugged.”

“I guess so,” says PJ. His eyes are set on the wall in the distance. There is sweat on his brow, on the collar of his shirt. For all my studiousness, I was at least prepared for this trip. Poor PJ is lost out here, and it's showing.

“Aren't there all those old stories of mountain men, though?” Ian picks up a fallen branch and swings it into a nearby tree. “Like, what's his name . . . Davy Crockett?”

“Sort of. The real mountain men were mostly in the Appalachians out east, and they weren't always those adventurous mountain hero types. Most of them are backwoods rednecks who spent too much time alone and went crazy. They would hunt everything they ate, and raise big families . . .”

Midsentence, it dawns on me that the idea of running into some crazy mountain folk is actually rather unnerving, and the expression on PJ's face is terribly sad. I immediately switch tactics: “Anyway, there probably isn't anyone around here for miles.”

“Great,” says Ian. “We're all alone. Awesome pep talk there, Kendra.”

It's true, Kendra, even if it makes you feel like choking him. You're falling behind on this.
There is a right answer here. There always is.

The bigger the wall gets, the stranger it looks, and by the time we reach it, my heart is filled with this irrational sense of, of what, what's the word . . .
dread
. The thing is dreadful. It's about three and a half feet high, made of large gray lumps of age-old stone, and it winds off about a half mile in either direction. But . . .

“Something's wrong with it,” says Ian. His face screws up, like he's smelled something bad.

“It looks sick,” says PJ.

Yes. PJ is correct. The wall looks infected. Weird bundles of twigs and leaves jut from between its stones, and ivy has bred somewhere inside its crevices and pushed out into the daylight, snaking through the stone pile in thick, hairy vines. Ants and termites move constantly over the rocks, marching in perfect lines. Someone has painted something on the wall, too, in a white chalky paste, a weird twisting shape that's sort of like a cross, haphazardly sketched by lazy hands. There's a smell to it, a sweet but sharp stench that reminds me of the eggnogs Dad makes around Christmas.

“It's rum,” I say, my mind grasping the odor. “It stinks like rum.”

“
That's
what that is,” says PJ. He glances down at the ground, blinks hard, and says, “Are these . . . I think there are coffee beans on the ground.” We all kneel down, and sure enough, there are coffee beans and peanuts strewn around the wall.

“Odd,” I hear myself say.

“Maybe,” says Ian, “but it means we're not alone out here!” He stands back up, presses a hand to the cold stones of the wall, and peels it off with a rough sticky noise. “Yeah, it could be rum,” he says. “It's pretty fresh, though. That's what matters.”

That should matter, shouldn't it, Kendra? Fresh rum means recent application, means someone's nearby. Then why does the wall send ripples of anxiety down your spine and through your ears? No facts are available as to why staring at this wall shakes you, prickles you down to your bones. So why is your rational mind failing you?

My mother, less of a wordsmith than my father but a brilliant woman nonetheless, has said something to me repeatedly over the years—
Sometimes, you need to get out of your head and go with your gut.
That's what's wrong here, in a nutshell. My gut is incredibly apprehensive about this wall and the symbol drawn on it.

Suddenly, my mind snaps to attention. All this fear and worry has distracted me from my job—record the information, study the facts, analyze. I drop to one knee, dig through my bag, and find my notebook and a pencil. As best I can, I copy down the strange lopsided symbol from the wall and scribble “Rum? Coffee? Peanuts?” next to it.

The beep behind my shoulder startles me, and when I turn to PJ, he's filming me with his tiny flip camera. For once, though, the camera doesn't seem intrusive to me, but rather a tool—something with which to record our journey.

“Could you tape this for me?” I ask him. “With something this odd, it's good to document it.”

“Sure thing,” says PJ. There's the beep of his camera, and a short bit of narration—“We're lost, and we found this stone wall. There's some kind of shape painted onto it, and it smells like rum. Let's hope that means something.” Then: “Ian, careful.”

Ian has already scaled the wall and stares petulantly back at us from on top of it, trying to play conquistador, oblivious to the damage he could be doing to a historical landmark. Typical.

“You shouldn't stand up there,” I yell at him.

“Why?” he says. “We're going to have to climb over it anyway.”

“But still,” I snap back at him. “You never think about things, you just go ahead and do them. You ought to have some respect for—”

“For a
wall
?” he moans, throwing up his hands. “What's to respect? We have to climb it! Get over yourself!”

That last crack was uncalled for, and I give him the dirtiest look I can before following him. As PJ and I climb up and leap down on the other side, the sun seems fainter, the air feels colder, and the reassuring scent of the forest is replaced with something sour and spoiled. The wall is made not just of stone, but of air, as though an invisible barrier stretches from the ground up into the sky. It's not me alone—PJ hugs himself tightly, his skinny little body shuddering as we walk onward. Even Ian, with his headstrong bluster, frowns and wipes at the soles of his shoes.

The hillside has gotten steeper since the wall, and we're all struggling to keep pace, except for Ian, whose long, skinny legs yank him easily over any rock or felled tree in our path. Every time we pass a large burrow or a thick patch of bushes, he kneels beside it and peers into it, as though he's lost something. As he crouches near a thick hollowed-out tree trunk, I hear him mumble, “Where are you, where are you . . .”

“What are you looking for?” I ask him.

He glances at me over his shoulder, then mumbles, “Nothing. Just . . . if you see anything that looks like clothing, let me know.”

“Is this about the Pine City Dancers?” asks PJ, wiping sweat from his brow. “You're still hung up on that?”

“Well . . . you have to admit, it would be pretty cool if we found them,” says Ian.

When I look at PJ, he shudders and looks around himself. “Jeremy Morris from the seventh grade told Ian that a modern dance troupe disappeared in these woods last year,” he groans. “That's why we didn't have a Homeroom Earth trip last year.”

Ah. Of course Ian has no intention of helping our situation, only hunting down a campfire story and scaring the wits out of his best friend. What a weasel. “That story's not true,” I declare.

“But what if it is?” asks Ian. “We could be heroes for finding these poor lost hikers and bringing back proof of their existence.”

“First of all,” I say, “do you think our teachers would let us go hiking in woods where there might be dead bodies?” I look at PJ and shake my head in a
What an idiot
kind of way. He smiles back. “And second, what would you tell our teachers if you
did
find them? ‘I'm sorry I disobeyed the rules and left the path, but look, here's a dead body.' Good luck, Ian.”

“You're thinking about this all wrong,” he says.

“You're not thinking about it, period,” I tell him. “Same as when you ran off into the woods.”

Ian gets a dark, mean look on his face. After a moment's silence, he says, “Well, what
are
we going to tell the teachers about what happened today? We need a story, something they'll believe.”

“PJ and I can say you ran off after a deer, and we went after you to keep you from doing something stupid,” I say. “They'll believe that.”

“Yeah, I bet you'd tell them that,” he snaps. “Anything to bring me down, huh, Queen Brain?”

“I wasn't concerned with
you
,” I tell him. “I'm thinking about PJ and me.”

“Right, but look,” says Ian, waving his hands in the air. Finally, it bursts free: “If I get the blame for this, there would be, you know, serious consequences.” I'm impressed he knows a word that big. So many syllables. “I might have to sit out of hoops this season and everything.”

“Thanks for your concern, Ian,” I say. “You couldn't think about that
before
you went barreling after that deer earlier?”

“Will you back off me, Kendra?” he snaps. “What'd I ever do to you?”

“Called me a pathetic nerd, for one,” I reply.

“God, you'll never let that one go, will you?” he says.

“Got my phone taken away from me, for another,” I tell him. “Got me and your best friend lost in the woods. That's three. Should I keep going?”

Ian turns to PJ. “Dude, help me out here. You don't want me to take the hit for us getting lost, do you?”

“Right now, I just want to get home,” says PJ, mopping sweat from his brow with his shirt.

“I'm just saying—”

“We know what you're saying, Ian,” says PJ. He won't look at Ian, but his expression of fear has turned to one of anger. “I just don't care about it right now.”

Ian stares at PJ, his eyes softening with hurt, then narrowing with rage. “Fine, whatever,” he snaps. “Throw me under the bus. Thanks a ton, man.” He turns and plods off through the woods, making as much noise as possible.

I walk next to PJ for a few minutes, and he says, softly, “It's really hard to argue with him.”

“You two don't seem like likely friends,” I observe.

He nods. “Our parents have been friends for a long time,” he says. “And he's a really good guy most of the time. He just cares a lot about what people think of him. And I . . .” He sighs. “Being friends with me doesn't help people's opinions much. No one wants to be buddies with some weird film geek.”

Maybe I'm unversed in movie fanaticism, but being an embarrassment—a freak, a loser—that rings a bell. Without understanding why, I reach out a hand and touch PJ's shoulder lightly. He looks up at me, bewildered, and then smiles. “Thanks for being on my side,” he says. “I'm not really used to it.”

This boy is your friend, somehow, Kendra. You can analyze how it happened when you get home. For now, you've got to help him. If that means helping Ian by association, then fine. Start thinking for three.

We keep walking, and the sun keeps sinking. The shadows grow longer; the breezes seem chillier. For a while, we're silent, which allows me to make a mental tally of what's in my bag. We should eat soon—low blood sugar is terrible for outdoor activities. We have the granola bars, ramen . . . and that's it. Not a great assortment of food, but it should be enough to get us through the night. With some luck, we could also find some wild berries.

Remember from your reading, Kendra—are pinecones edible? Didn't Sondra from that French camping message board say that she cooked a pinecone once?

My uneasiness doesn't go anywhere but instead gets worse and worse, dragging my mind away from the task at hand and back to the stone wall, coated in rum, marked with that weird, incomprehensible symbol. While we walk on and on, I take out my notebook and stare at the drawing I made. It's an ornate cross, dotted with circles, frosted with swirls, adorned to be both welcoming and dangerous. Something about it being painted on the rum-covered stone wall in the middle of an uninhabited mountain range makes me feel increasingly anxious. It's as though I've overlooked a serious error that will return to ruin me later on.