She said it lightly, but I noticed her forehead crease a little. “Sam, really?” I asked. “He doesn’t seem like the nagging type.”
“He’s the one who found this site,” Lidia said. “He insisted on investigating a residual haunting because there’s no risk for me. These ghosts can’t interact because they’re not real ghosts, they’re just recordings. An echo.”
“Huh.”
“I agreed because this waterfall does have an interesting story,” Lidia went on. “But I set up the Buenos Aires investigation. Jess and Sam weren’t too happy with my choice.”
“It’s a church, right?” I asked.
“Right. But the story is actually in the catacombs under the church. They’re haunted by a nun.” Lidia grinned at me. “A nun who was supposedly possessed by a demon over a century ago.”
“Awesome!” I exclaimed. “Kind of like Return to the Asylum. Although I guess I can see why they’re worried about you, after what happened with Red Leer.”
Lidia sighed. “I know. But I’m thirty-two years old. I’ve been ghost hunting pretty much since I was seven, when my brother and I first heard all the stories about how our town’s lighthouse was haunted. I understand everyone’s concern, but I can take care of myself.” Taking off her sunglasses, she squinted ahead. “Looks like we’re heading off the path.”
Hugo led the way down a much narrower path into the trees, Dad and Jess right behind him. Roland followed, then Sam and Oscar. Brenda smiled at Lidia and me as she waited for us to pass her so she could bring up the rear.
This path was a fairly steep decline, but the thick roots and weeds made it more strenuous than going uphill. No one spoke much, although Roland kept whistling the theme song from The Addams Family until Jess begged him to stop.
“Blame Kat,” he called over his shoulder. “Her shirt got it stuck in my head.”
“W-W-W-D?” said Brenda from behind me, reading the back of my shirt. “What does it mean?”
I turned so she could see the front. “What Would Wednesday Do . . . ow!”
“Careful!” She grabbed my arm to steady me as I kicked away the bramble that had scratched my calf. After that, I focused harder on the climb down. Twenty minutes later, the distant sound of a waterfall reached my ears, quickly growing to a roar. I pulled the Elapse from my pocket and flipped it on as Brenda helped us over the last few rocks.
“Nice.” I stood on the last rock, snapping several photos of the falls. Water gushed from an opening at the top of a fairly short cliff into a large, crystal-clear pool. Through the mist, I could just make out a small cave behind the falls. The surrounding banks were wide enough to set up camp before the ground turned steep, like a circle of mini cliffs enclosing the area. I could see a few other paths snaking out and up among the massive trees that grew out of the rocky yellow-brown earth. Overhead, long, twisty branches thick with bright green, leathery leaves reached out to one another over the pool, leaving just a bit of open sky.
Oscar kicked off his shoes and scrambled down the rocks toward the pool. “Hang on!” Lidia called after him. “Let’s get this on video.”
I made a face, staying on my rock as everyone else made their way to the banks. Jess and Mi Jin pulled their cameras out as soon as they reached the bottom. Oscar waded knee deep into the pool, followed by Roland.
“How is the water?” called Hugo, who was helping Dad set up one of the tents.
“Freezing!” Oscar was already backing out. “Too cold to swim.”
“Not if you do it the right way.” Hugo grinned, pointing. “Like Brenda.”
Everyone looked up to see Brenda standing on a ledge near the waterfall, about halfway up the cliff. She waved before cannonballing into the pool below. Roland stood stock still as the resulting splash covered him. “Thank you for that,” he said solemnly when Brenda surfaced, and she laughed.
“Sem problema.”
Several minutes passed while Jess and Mi Jin got footage of everyone else setting up the tents, organizing supplies, and taking turns jumping off the cliff. I was getting some great shots, although with every minute that passed, the pool looked more and more tempting. I was hot and dirty from the hike, and the water was so inviting . . . but coming down off my rock meant being on camera. On television. I didn’t want to cannonball on TV. I didn’t want to do anything on TV. If I was already getting criticism about how I looked from trolls on my blog, what would happen when my face was on television?
“Get over it,” I told myself, irritated. Oscar was right; this wasn’t like me at all. Ignoring the way my stomach had started to churn, I grabbed my bag and climbed off the rock. After tucking my Elapse safely inside, I left the bag near the tent Dad and Hugo had finished setting up and followed Oscar, who was heading back up the steep path to the ledge for what was probably his fifth or sixth jump. When we reached it, he turned to me with a grand gesture.
“Ladies first.”
“Obriga-da,” I said, walking to the edge. The ledge seemed a lot higher from up here. Dad waved to me, and I waved back, grateful Jess was occupied filming Roland and Hugo competing to see who could stand under the waterfall the longest.
“How cold is it, really?” I asked Oscar over my shoulder.
He pushed his sopping-wet bangs out of his eyes. “Cold. Really cold.”
“But, like, on a scale of North Pole when the reindeer are frozen solid to Pluto after an asteroid knocks it out of the sun’s orbit.”
“Hmm.” Oscar tapped his chin. “I’d say probably Antarctica, on a glacier, during an ice battle between Elsa and the Abominable Snowman.”
“Cool,” I said, nodding.
