For Part 1, click here
Harriet raced after Evan, barely noticing the branches whipping across her face and arms. In fact, if it wasn't for Vicky's muffled but repeated complaints coming from behind her, Harriet doubted she would have noticed at all. All she noticed was Evan's crunching footfalls had stopped a bit ago, which meant one of two things: either he had stopped at the stream, or he somehow managed to disguise his footfalls.
Skidding to a stop at the water's edge, Harriet looked frantically back and forth. There was no sign of Evan. The stream wasn't very wide; Harriet was fairly confident she could jump it with a running start, but it was flowing fairly fast. It didn't appear deep, but sight wasn't necessarily a reliable witness with water that was travelling this fast.
Vicky, her exposed arm red from not only the branches they hadn't managed to dodge but also on her wrist where she had been dragged bodily through the woods, shivered while looking up and down the banks. "What's going on, Miss Stanf--"
"Harriet."
Vicky's eyes went wide. "I... I can't called you that, Miss Stanford."
"Yes you can. At least for now. We've got to continue running through the woods, and something might happen. I'm more likely to hear you if you call me Harriet than Miss Stanford, and you can yell Harriet faster if you're hurt. Now be quiet for a moment, so I can listen for Evan."
Vicky swallowed loudly and nodded. Harriet was suddenly hit by a pang of guilt. She was probably making more out of this than she should have; Evan only recently ran away, and for some reason Harriet had a feeling that he knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going. But she couldn't stop; the mere possibility of losing a child in woods filled her with equal parts of fear and anger.
She shook her head to clear the cobwebs from her mind. Getting lost back in that train of thought could only make things worse. She listened closely to the sounds around her. One by one, she blocked out the background noise: the bugs chirping, the stream trickling, Vicky's labored breathing...
There it was: heavy steps splashing downstream. It sounded like someone running through the water.
Odd, Harriet thought. She's heard of people running through a stream to avoid dogs or something else tracking them, but it normally doesn't help if someone is following on your heels. The only thing it'd do is slow him down. What was he doing?
She looked over to the younger girl, at her red wrist and arm, and stopped herself from grabbing her once again. "Ok, Vicky, stay close." She nodded once quickly. They took off along the stream's edge; thankfully, Vicky kept active in enough sports and activities to be able to prevent falling too far behind.
Evan's footfalls started sounding distant. Trying to run through ankle-deep water should have slowed him down, but somehow she was losing ground. She shook her head and slowed down, putting her hands on her hips to fight a stitch that started to form in her side. Vicky stopped short behind her, bending over and putting her hands on her knees, gasping for breath. Harriet took her water flask from her hip and handed it to her; Vicky muttered a thanks between breaths and gulped a bit down.
Harriet took a step towards the stream. How was the boy not tired? Unlike Vicky, he wasn't involved in any sports or hobbies. In fact, he seemed to do what he could to avoid anything associated with "extracurricular" or "exercise." Still, he wasn't over-weight, nor was he one of the naturally pencil-thin kids. Maybe these trips he took to woodlands were just the tip of the iceberg; perhaps it was the school he avoided, and not the exercise.
Suddenly, there it was again: Evan's splashing footfalls. She leaned towards the stream. Were they closer?
The stitch left her side finally. Vicky was no longer gasping for air. She came to stand beside her teacher, handing back her water bottle. "Is that him?" she said, leaning towards the water. "He sounds close."
Harriet nodded. Well, if he was getting farther ahead by running the stream...
"C'mon," Harriet said as she stepped into the stream and started jogging with the water. Vicky hesitated, looking down at her new shoes and expensive jeans. The hesitation didn't last long; as soon as she seemed to realize that her teacher was gaining distance, she took her first few tentative steps into the cool, ankle-deep running water, gasped, and started running to catch up with her teacher.
"Don't do that!" she exclaimed as she came closer to her teacher.
"We've got to catch up with him, Vicky," she stated, looking over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, but we've got to keep moving."
"That doesn't mean you should just disappear like that! I thought I lost track of you for a moment!"
Harriet blinked at her. Disappear? What does that mean?
"Where are we, anyway? I don't didn't see anything like this from the shore..."
Harriet looked up and came to a sudden stop. The banks of the stream simply disappeared on either side. Thick rocks were on either side, but other than that it was open sky. Harriet looked back behind her and saw the same thing in either direction. The stream was still flowing quickly, but they seemed to be standing on the only area where there wasn't open sky.
She walked over the edge and looked down. The cliff face was impossible to see without leaning over, a risk she wasn't willing to take; it almost looked like they were floating in the sky. She could see land down below, but it was impossibly far. It was like she was standing on the edge of the roof of a sky-scraper; she had to be about thirty stories up.
"What is going on?" she whispered under her breath.
Vicky started to take a few cautious steps towards her, but Harriet put up her hand, stopping her. "What is it?"
Harriet shook her head. No point in making her worry yet. "I'm not sure." She heard Evan's splashing steps once again, even closer than before. "Let's just keep going; he's not far now."
The Precipitous Bar, he had said. Well, if it's to be taken literally, Harriet thought to herself, then we're definitely heading the right direction.
To Be Continued
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