Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
“What does it mean?” I ask.
Jensen’s jaw tightens. “Hard to say. Could be someone’s research project. Historical reenactment. Or…”
“Or?”
He hesitates. “The Donner Party wasn’t just about survival. There were rumors…legends, really, about what happened to them. About what some of them became.”
“You mean beyond the cannibalism?” I’ve heard all the standard historical accounts through Lainey.
“The local tribes had stories. About how consuming human flesh was taboo. About how it changes a person. Not just spiritually or mentally, but physically.” His voice drops lower, almost reverent. “They said the mountains have a power…that they preserve what should be lost, transform what should remain unchanged.”
A breeze kicks up, raising goosebumps on my arms. Suddenly the alcove feels too small and dark, like a trap.
“They say there was a baby,” Jensen continues. “Josephine McAlister. Her mother, Amelia McAlister was listed as one of the deceased, but she was pregnant at the time. There was no record of the birth, according to eyewitness accounts, though that was hard to judge because the McAlisters moved away from the other families, building their cabin maybe a mile away, growing suspicious of others and God-fearing. Maybe because of the cannibalism, maybe because of in-fighting. Hard to say. But there were rumors that the baby survived. Rescuers from the valley found an infant, though the girl who gave it to them seemed too young to have carried it and wouldn’t tell them whose baby she was, only that it was Josephine, though people figured it out soon after. Before they could help her, she ran off into the woods, never to be seen again.”
While Jensen is talking, I’m suddenly brought back to my dream.
The baby against Lainey’s chest.
The ones with the same blue eyes as the horse.
“They couldn’t prove that Josephine was Amelia McAlister’s,” he goes on, “though it did seem like the girl who gave it to them could have been Nora, her niece. Either way, legend has it that the baby never grew up quite right. Was traumatized by things no baby should have remembered.”
I blink at him. “What does this baby have to do with anything?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Nothing except it’s history that was buried, history that most buffs don’t even know of. But there are records if you dig deep enough. All legends have roots in something real, Blondie. Maybe your sister was looking for it.”
I shake my head, trying to understand. “Even if Lainey learned some weird legend about a baby, she never mentioned it to me.”
“I bring it up because there are many terrible stories beyond what we know, and I think your sister was looking for something beyond the official history.” He pauses, rubbing his lips together. “Obsession can break a person. But it can also lead them to the truth.”
I blink at him. One minute he’s as stoic and logical as anything, the next it seems he believes in myths and legends.
“Is that what you know?” I ask. “You’ve heard things passed down through your family? The truth?”
“I’ve heard things that will make you piss yourself,” he says in such a hard voice that it makes my hair stand on end.
“And are you going to share these things?” I ask incredulously.
“If and when the time is right. If you’re ready to hear it.”
Okay, now I’m getting annoyed. I’m about to tell him that he’s full of shit when he turns away, scanning the alcove one more time. “We should head back. The others will be wondering where we are.”
Despite him being so damn aggravating, I’m not ready to leave this place. There is the closet I’ve felt to my sister in years, however strange and precarious as it is. “Shouldn’t we document this? Take pictures?”
“Already done.” He taps the phone in his pocket. “I got everything while you were examining the bracelet.”
Efficient. I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything less.
I take one last look at the sky pilots, their delicate purple-blue petals turning toward the sun. Lainey’s flowers. Planted where they don’t belong, thriving against the odds.
“Do you think she’s still alive?” The question escapes before I can stop it. I know how futile and foolish it is. I know the answer, deep down.
Jensen’s handsome face softens, just a fraction. “I think we need to keep following the trail.”
It’s not an answer, but I understand his reluctance to offer false hope. It was just earlier that I thought about finding her remains. Still, something about this place—the bracelet, the flowers, the strange markings—feels purposeful. Like a message left for someone to find.
As we make our way back to camp, I’m both lost in my thoughts and acutely aware of Jensen beside me, how he moves with quiet confidence through the forest, how his eyes continually scan our surroundings. The intimacy from earlier has been replaced by professional focus, and I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed.