“I can try.”
Grandma took off, JD running alongside her. Kelly trailed behind, doing as Grandma said, and found she could move much quicker. She looked around for the man in the overalls, but only saw foliage.
Kelly smiled, relaxing a little. The summer breeze smelled like pine trees and wild flowers, and she enjoyed the stretch and pull in her hamstrings and quads. It was a brief run, barely even a warm-up, before Kelly caught up to Grandma on a crest.
“Hey,” Kelly said. “JD let you walk him.”
Grandma wasn’t even out of breath. “Can you hear it now?”
“What?”
“Listen.”
Kelly heard it. A hissing, splashing sound.
“The waterfall?”
Grandma nodded. “Which direction is it in?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Close your eyes. Open your ears.”
Kelly shut her eyes and listened. The sound seemed to be coming from no particular direction.
“Try turning around. Tune out everything else.”
Kelly shifted slightly. She spun in a slow circle, eventually locking in on the direction of the water. When she opened her eyes, she was grinning.
“It’s this way,” Kelly said, bounding off into the woods.
She jogged down a hill, around a bend, and then to a clearing, skidding to a stop because the ground simply ended. Kelly felt her stomach sink, staring down off the side of a sheer cliff. She wasn’t good with heights, and even though she could swim three hundred laps in the school pool she was terrified of diving boards. Standing on ledges just wasn’t her thing.
Then she saw the waterfall.
It was gigantic, at least fifty feet high. The vertigo made her back up two steps.
“Lovely,” Grandma said.
Kelly hadn’t even heard the old woman come up beside her.
“I don’t really like heights.”
“Your eyes can make you afraid of things you shouldn’t be afraid of. Are you standing on solid ground?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think you should trust more, your eyes, or the solid ground?”
“The ground.”
“So trust the ground and let your eyes enjoy the view.”
Kelly trusted the ground and stared at the waterfall. A fine mist hovered overhead and made a double rainbow in the rays of the setting sun. It was prettier than a postcard, and not so scary anymore.
“Is this what Vietnam looked like?” Kelly asked. Then she immediately regretted it. According to Mom, Grandma never talked about the war. Kelly knew she was there for four years as a combat nurse, but that was all.
“Parts of it. Parts if it were so beautiful it hurt.”
“Is that where you learned that kung fu stuff?”
“It’s karate. And no, I learned that after my tour ended. Let’s go back, see how Letti is doing with that tire. Can you find the way?”
“I dunno. I don’t think so.”
“Try it. Maybe you’ll surprise yourself. If you get confused, see if you can spot any of our footprints. The ground is soft and we made quite a few.”
Grandma’s eyes were serious, but kind.
“How come you never smile?” Kelly asked. She watched Grandma’s eyes get hard again, and regretted the question.
“It happened during the war,” Grandma said. “They shot my smile off.”
Then Grandma winked.
Kelly grinned, took a final, unsteady glance at the waterfall, then bounded back into the woods. Nothing looked particularly familiar, but she managed to spot a footprint so she knew she was on the right track, even though the footprint seemed rather large. Then she recognized a big tree she’d passed earlier, and she altered her course, picking up speed and growing more confident.
Abruptly, something snagged her shoulder, pulling her off her feet. Kelly landed on her butt, hard, and someone covered her mouth before she could yell out.
“Shh.” Grandma was kneeling next to her, her hand over Kelly’s face. “Stay calm.”
Kelly didn’t understand what was happening, and she was about to protest, when she noticed JD. The dog was crouching down, ready to pounce, his teeth bared. All the hair on the dog’s neck stood out like spikes. Kelly followed the animal’s gaze and saw—
—trees. Nothing but trees.
Then something moved. Ever so slightly, but enough for Kelly to distinguish the body from the surrounding foliage.
It was a man, hiding behind a giant oak. The one in the overalls she’d seen earlier. He was incredibly tall, wearing a plaid shirt and a baseball cap. There was something wrong—something horribly wrong—with his face. And his eyes...
The man stared right at Kelly, and she’d never been more frightened in her life.
JD barked, making Kelly jerk in surprise.
“Hello,” Grandma said to the stranger. “We were looking at the waterfall. I hope we’re not trespassing on your property. If so, we’re sorry.”
Grandma didn’t sound sorry. She sounded tough as a barrel of hammers.
The man continued to stare. He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink.
“We’ll be on our way.”
JD barked again, then began to growl.
“Easy, boy. We don’t want you biting any more strangers.”
JD had never bit anyone. But Kelly understood why Grandma said that; it might scare the man off.
But the man didn’t look scared. He simply shifted from one leg to the other, revealing something he was holding in his hand.
“Let’s go,” Grandma whispered. “Fast.”
Kelly didn’t have to be told twice. The two of them sprinted, JD alongside, down the hill in a zigzag pattern. Kelly kept expecting to hear a gunshot, and could almost feel a cold area between her shoulder blades where she was sure the bullet would hit. Mom had what she called a varmint gun, a small .22 she used to scare off the raccoons who liked to get into the garbage cans. Kelly knew the damage that could do.
This man’s gun was a lot bigger.
Not soon enough, they broke through the tree line and were back on the road. Kelly looked left, then right, and couldn’t see their car.
“This way,” Grandma said. “Over the crest.”
Grandma’s strides were long, and Kelly matched her. On the asphalt she had a lot more confidence, the hard road under her feet solid and familiar. She sprinted ahead, feeling her muscles stretch, JD easily matching pace as he galloped alongside. The hill was a gradual incline, tough on the shins, and after two hundred meters her breath came faster.
