We jogged down the trail for what felt like half a mile. The farther we went into the forest, the muddier the path became. And the more my feet sank into the earth, the more I doubted that James could have toddled this way.
Daniel stopped. He turned in a small circle like he'd lost his bearings.
"We should turn back." I pulled off one of my flats, and thanked my lucky stars I hadn't worn the stupid kitten heels Mom had wanted me to wear to dinner.
"This way." Daniel stepped off the narrow path into the brush. He drew in a breath and closed his eyes, as if savoring the taste. "James is this way."
"That's not possible." I flexed my foot. "He's not even two yet. There's no way he could have come this far."
Daniel stared into the dark of the woods. "On his own, no." He rocked up on the balls of his feet. "Stay," he whispered, and bolted into the thicket of trees. He was there and then gone.
"Wha ...Wait!"
But he kept moving.
And I'm apparently not very good at doing what I'm told.
"He's my brother!" I yelled, and crammed my foot into my shoe.
I could barely see Daniel as I followed. Only flashes of his back in the distance as he wove through the trees. He was like an animal, running on instinct without even looking where his feet landed. I, on the other hand, lumbered and crashed into trees that seemed to leap right in front of me. Branches cracked under my shoes, and I stumbled over rocks and roots as I tried to catch up to him.
It seemed like he'd picked up on a scent or something. Was that even possible? All I could smell with each stabbing breath were decaying leaves and pine needles. Those smells reminded me of only one thing--it was nearly winter. And if Daniel was right, Baby James was out here somewhere.
The temperature fell as the sun sank below the tall pines. Looming shadows made it even harder to pick my way through the woods. I caught my heel in the root of a large pine and toppled forward. Pain slammed up my arms as i hit the ground. I pushed myself up and brushed my hands off on my slacks, leaving a bloody smear on the fabric. i looked around. Daniel was nowhere. And another few steps would have taken me down a deep ravine. If I hadn't stumbled, I would have fallen a sharp thirty feet. Was that what had happened to Daniel, or did he veer left or right? i grabbed a branch of a nearby tree and leaned out over the steep slope. I could only see more rocks and dirt and thick ferns at the bottom.
"Daniel!" I shouted. All I got in return was my echo. Wouldn't I have heard something if Daniel had fallen? Wouldn't I be able to make out his path if he'd climbed down?
A half-moon would rise soon to replace the sun. I didn't have a flashlight, and I'd never ventured this deep into the woods before. How would I find James, or Daniel, or even my way back now? Maybe I deserved to be lost. It was my pie that had burned, and I was the one who had opened that window. It was so stuffy in the house from the two ovens going all day; Charity wouldn't have noticed that it was still open when she put the baby down for his nap.
How can I go home without James?
A howl filled the void below, echoing off the walls of the ravine. Only an animal could have made that noise. But it was like a shout of frustration. Like a wolf anxious to capture its prey. I had to find a way down. I had to find my brother before that animal did.
Parts of the ravine wall were much steeper than others--a sheer drop-off in some places, but where I was seemed like a somewhat doable incline for climbing down. I grabbed at the roots protruding in the eroded hill and climbed, with my back to the open air, over the side of the steep slope. The toe of my shoe slipped in the mud, and my chest hit the earthen wall, knocking a scream right out of me. I slid several feet before I was able to claw my hands into a tangle of roots above my head. I held on with desperate force, the roots searing like lightning in my injured hand. I tried to determine with my dangling feet how far I was from the bottom. Please be only a couple of yards. I couldn't hold on much longer.
"You're safe," Daniel shouted from somewhere below me. "Push off and let go, and I'll catch you."
"I can't," I said. His voice sounded too far away-- too far to fall. I couldn't look.
"It's just like jumping from the gate in the Garden of Angels."
I panted into my shaking arms. "I almost killed myself then, too."
"And I caught you then, too." Daniel's voice seemed closer now. "Trust me."
"Okay."
I pushed off and fell. Daniel whipped his arms around my chest, stopping me before I hit the boulder-strewn ground. He pulled me tight against him.
I couldn't breathe.
"So what part of 'stay' did you not understand?" he whispered. His warm breath brushed down my neck like caressing lingers. Heat encircled my whole body.
"Well, since I'm not a golden retriever ..."
Daniel set me down gently. I turned toward him. My legs wobbled as I moved. His blue shirt and slacks were still spotless. Only his forearms, where he caught me, were smeared with mud.
"How did you ... ?"
But then I noticed what was in his hand. Small, brown, fuzzy, and all too familiar. One of James's Curious George slippers.
"Where did you find this?" I asked, snatching it out of his hand. Strangely, the slipper was almost completely clean, not caked with mud like my shoes from wandering in the forest.
"There," Daniel said. Pointing to a heap of decaying ferns between two boulders about twenty feet from where we stood. "I thought for sure ..." Daniel backed away, looking around at the ground as if searching for some kind of trail.
"James!" I shouted, my voice echoing through the ravine like hundreds of desperate cries. "James, are you here?"
Daniel kept searching the ground. His face became rigid with frustration. I followed him as he crossed to the other side of the ravine, opposite from where I'd slid down.
He crouched, spreading a few ferns with his hands, and inhaled deeply. "I thought for sure I was on the right trail."
"Like you followed his scent?" I asked.
Daniel tilted his head slightly as if listening. He shot straight up and spun around, staring back up at the ravine wall, about a hundred feet from where we stood now.
Then I heard something, too. A faraway cry from somewhere back up on the ridge. The monkey slipper fell from my fingers. And my heart stopped beating as I watched something that looked like a little white ghost in the twilight toddle out from behind a boulder, and right toward the edge of the cliff. James!
"Gwa-cie!" he wailed with his arms outstretched to me.
"Stop!" I screamed. "James, stop!" But his little legs kept moving. "Gwa-cie, Gwa-cie!" Then Daniel was moving. Running across the ravine floor toward James--faster than I thought possible.
James took another step, slipped in the mud, and toppled over the edge.
"James!" I shrieked as he fell like a limp doll.
Daniel dropped to all fours and leaped like a mountain lion off a boulder. He sailed into the air toward James--twenty feet high, at least. I watched in paralyzed amazement as he caught James in midair and wrapped him in his arms, simultaneously twisting until his back slammed with bone-breaking force into the jagged rocks of the ravine wall. In that split second I saw a look of pain rip through Daniel's face, but he clutched Baby James closer as they ricocheted off the wall and started to fall, twisting out of control, the last twenty feet.