 XV. Sadedali 5:00 AM Dawn light filtered through the translucent tent material to illuminate the interior. Reine groaned and rolled over, trying to block out the light. Tuesday squeaked in protest. She cracked an eye open and was about to tell Tuesday to be quiet when she noticed the empty space beside her. She gasped in surprise and sat up. “Xanthia! Where is she?” Tuesday gave a sleepy confused meow. She scrambled out of her sleeping bag, nearly stumbling on her own feet as she unzipped the tent and lumbered outside. The sky was still quite dark although the gray of dawn was already permeating. The woods surrounding the rocky incline was also dark and unmoving. The air was cold. Reine stamped her feet in an attempt to get warm but realized instead of rock, her feet were kicking against a thin layer of powdered snow. Reine exhaled loudly and saw her breath as a white vapor. Vexed at getting sidetracked, she finally tramped toward the larger tent. She unzipped the entrance and peered inside, slowly making out three large lumps. Finally awakened, Tuesday followed Reine to the other tent and curiously peered in too. Unerringly, he wandered toward Marcus, who sneezed in his sleep as the cat tickled his nose with his tail. “Hello?” she called out softly. Hadrian snorted in mid-snore and mumbled something like “Too early darling. Go back to sleep.” Tuesday twitched his tail again making Marcus sneeze one more. He finally sat up, awakened. He blinked his eyes and focused on the dark figure at the entrance of the tent. “If you want to join me, you’ll have to wait until next time when we get our own tent. Right now it’s too crowded.” “I’m not here to join you,” Reine replied smiling. “No matter how tempting it may be. Is Xanthia here?” He scowled, setting Tuesday aside. Instead, the cat jumped onto Hadrian and proceeded to stare at the sleeping man until he awoke. “Why on earth would Xanthia be here? There’s hardly enough room for three people as it is. Maybe she’s in the outhouse.” “She can’t be in the outhouse. Her sleeping bag is gone.” “What?” “Huh?” Hadrian finally sat up, rubbing his eyes. Tuesday meowed. “Get your own breakfast, pipsqueak, I’m frying the bacon when I’m good and ready.” “What do you want me to do?” Marcus said after the initial shock wore off. He unzipped his sleeping bag and shrugged on his coat and boots as he joined her outside. “Have you already looked around the surrounding area?” “No. I was hoping you guys would help. It would take less time to do it.” “We’ll let the others sleep. It’s still pretty early in the morning. I’m sure she hasn’t gone far. You can take that end and I’ll be over here. Check the outhouse just in case anyway.” Reine tramped over to the outhouse and banged on the door. “Xanthia! Are you in there?” There was no answer. The handle was unlocked so she pushed it open, peering in. No one. Shutting the door to the outhouse again, she headed off in the direction of the forest. Why on earth would Xanthia be wandering out here, in the cold and in her pajamas? Wasn’t she afraid of the cold anyway? This was ridiculous. She was the calling for the astrologer as if she was a lost puppy. “Xanthia!” She could hear similar shouts from the opposite direction where Marcus was searching. Frowning, she kicked the snow, sending little sprays of white flying at her feet. Xanthia must have left much earlier. She could not see any footprints except for her own. She peered behind likely trees and hollows. The last she had remembered seeing Xanthia was in the middle of the night when she had come back from the outhouse. Then, the astrologer had still been snug in her sleeping bag in the tent when she had gone out. And then the astrologer had gone out to the outhouse herself. “Xanthia!” Still nothing. The snowed in forest was like a large insulated wall that made sound travel extremely poorly. Her voice sounded like she was shouting through a thick gag. The astrologer had left no trace of herself. And if she did, the snow had covered everything up. “Damn snow.” What if aliens had come in the middle of the night and abducted her? Reine shook her head. She was getting fanciful now. But at the rate everything was happening, she would not have been surprised if Xanthia had fallen into a deep hole on her way back from the outhouse. The problem would be locating the hole. The snow covered everything and it was still a bit dark. Everything looked gray and the same. “Xanthia! Where are you?” The other problem was that Xanthia’s sleeping bag was missing. Her backpack was still at the tent though so through reasoning, she could not have wandered far. After scouring the edges of that part of the forest, Reine gave a frustrated sigh. If the astrologer ever showed up, she had a lot of explaining to do. “Anything?” Marcus said, heading towards her. She shook her head. “I didn’t see anything. I think it’s best to tell the others and get going. Doesn’t the Baron have a radio or something with him? He could radio for help.” “Good idea.” The both of them tramped back up the rocky incline, waking Hadrian who was already half awake, attempting to shove the persistent and hungry Tuesday from off his face. “Reine,” he whined. “Get your cat off me.” “Tuesday, come here. You’re never going to get your breakfast that way.” The cat pricked up his ears at Reine’s voice and then sauntered off of Hadrian as if he had wanted to do that all along. “All right, out with it. I heard snatches of something about Xanthia,” said Hadrian as he reluctantly shoved the sleeping bag off. “I suppose she was the reason that both of you are up early?” Marcus nodded. “She’s missing. We looked everywhere and couldn’t find a thing.” “She might be out taking a little nature walk.” “No. I don’t think so.” Hadrian rolled his eyes. “Great. Baron? Baron? Are you awake?” “I am now,” came a voice from the depths of the other sleeping bag. “What is it? It’s a rather ungodly hour in the morning.” “The astrologer is missing.” Reine coughed. “You don’t suppose you have a radio or cellphone with you? We really should call for help.” “Good God!” The Baron finally sat up, blinking. “What do you need a cellphone for?” “Xanthia’s missing.” “Didn’t you check the outhouse?” “The last I saw her was last night, around one in the morning. She was going to the outhouse. But when I checked just now, she’s not there. She’s not out taking a nature walk,” at that she sent a glare in Hadrian’s direction. “And her sleeping bag is gone. But her backpack is still here. It looks like she sort of left in a hurry.” The Baron brooded. “That is not like her. You don’t suppose she decided to go out camping on her own, do you? She’s always arguing with that cousin of hers. Maybe she wanted to prove that she could do the camping thing on her own.” “That’s a completely ridiculous idea,” said Hadrian, “but considering that the woman is an astrologer who wants to believe in magic tricks, it’s probably not out of the realm of possibility that that’s exactly what she did.” “I charged my cellphone right before we left on this little trip,” said the Baron, “in case some emergency came about like someone accidentally tripping and spraining their ankle, but this, this takes the cake. I think I’ll strangle the woman once she’s found. We’ll have to get back out to the edge of the island to get reception. We’ll have to pack everything and head on out there. This trip has been a bust.” Tuesday meowed, disappointed that there would be no breakfast. “Sorry Tuesday,” said Reine as she picked up the cat after she put on her own backpack. “We’ll get you a big brunch as soon as we return back to the house. If it’s any consolation, that astrologer is making us miss our breakfasts too.” The four of them hiked back down the stony incline and through the small trail that was now much more difficult to follow because of the snow back to the lakeshore. As they neared the pier, Marcus was the first to spot a dark lump on the pier next to the motorboat. The lump did not move. Instinctively knowing something was amiss, they hurried to the pier and found that the bundle was indeed the astrologer. She was scrunched up in a ball, her eyes closed, her skin very pale. Bits of snow clung to her hair. The astrologer’s turban had disappeared. Reine found a pulse, but it was weak, thready, and erratic. “Thank God she’s still alive.” The Baron punched in numbers on his cellphone anyway to call his wife. “Good morning, darling. Yes, I know what time it is. But we’ve got an emergency. I need you to call a doctor.” Hadrian and Marcus moved the astrologer’s body to the motorboat as the Baron finished his conversation with his wife and jumped into the boat to untie the rigging. The lake itself was a calm pool, the waves so weak that they hardly lapped against the island shore. Because the air was so cold and the lake much warmer because it did not have as much time to cool, steam rose from the dark waters so that one could hardly make out the distant shore. The Baron seemed to know what he was doing though so the others sat back as he revved the motor and guided the boat from out of the pier. Reine took out her own sleeping bag, unzipping it to make it a blanket and covered it over the astrologer, hoping that it was keeping her warm. As the boat sped towards the mainland shore, the sun decided to break through the tree tops. The light scattered through the fog and mist creating a yellow veil that continued to hide their destination, the mansion on the hill. © 2002, S. Y. Affolee |