The Trouble Series

Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

“But we’re still on a path, aren’t we?” Aiden says, looking at the ground. “So we can’t be lost.”

I shake my head. “There are rough paths all over the place. That’s why the hiking trails have different coloured arrows painted here and there, so you know which one to take. And they’re a lot more clearly defined than this one. I mean, the grass is barely flattened here, see? I doubt this is part of any of the hiking trails.” I look around once more as anxiety grows within me. “I don’t know where we are, Aiden, and even if the storm passes quickly, it’ll be getting dark soon, and there are no lights out here, and neither of us brought a phone or—”

“Hey.” Aiden takes a step closer to me and touches my arm. “Stop panicking. We’re going to be fine. Think of this as an adventure.” He looks behind us, then ahead. “The way I see it, as long as we keep going downhill, we’re heading towards home.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I try to take Aiden’s advice and stop panicking. “Unless we end up in the middle of someone else’s fields.”

“Then we’ll just keep walking until we find a house, and we’ll ask if we can use their phone.” He grins. “I know how much you love talking to people you’ve never met before.”

I groan and push him away from me. “Fine. Let’s stay on this path, then. I suppose it has to lead somewhere.”

Slippery grass and rocks hinder our progress, and raindrops pummel down with such force they sting my skin. So when we come across a stream with a number of trees growing along its edge, I take Aiden’s arm and pull him beneath the tree with the largest, leafiest overhanging branches. “Let’s just wait till the rain calms down a bit,” I say. “I feel like it’s attacking me right now.”

“Good idea.” Aiden sits on the ground, while I perch on the edge of a root. I try to ward off the chill by wrapping my arms around myself. This isn’t Durban where the air is hot and heavy no matter what time of day or night it is. Up here in the mountains, when the sun disappears, the temperature drops.

“They’re all going to be really worried about us,” I say.

“Yes. Well, I’m sure some people will be worried about us.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Meaning?”

“I have an aunt who isn’t all that fond of me.”

“But she wouldn’t want you to go missing, would she? That’s awful.”

Aiden chuckles. “No, I’m exaggerating. We just tend to clash on a lot of issues, but she probably does love me deep down.” He considers his words for a moment. “Very deep down.”

“Is that the aunt who picked you up from the airport? The one who said she’d leave you behind if you weren’t waiting for her when she got there?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“She’s … your dad’s sister?”

“Yeah.” I hope he might say something about his dad this time, but he continues with, “That’s who we’re staying with—other than the time we’re spending here. She lives in …” He pauses, clearly trying to remember the name. “Westville, I think it’s called.”

“Oh, okay. That’s about twenty minutes from where I live.”

Aiden smiles and shakes his head. “Weird, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“We end up on the same plane—twice. We end up staying only twenty minutes away from each other. And then we end up at the very same family reunion. This holiday has been full of odd coincidences.”

I shrug. “Maybe. If you believe in coincidences.”

“You don’t?”

I shake my head. “No. Not really. I don’t believe that everything is just random. That everything happens by chance. I think things happen for a reason. Also,” I add as I notice Aiden frowning at me, “Einstein agrees with me, and he was kind of a genius.”

“Oh, well if Einstein agrees with you, then you must be right,” he says with a laugh. He picks up a twig and starts scratching patterns into the dirt at his feet. “So … you’re saying it means something? These ‘coincidences’ involving you and me?”

I get the feeling I’m walking myself into an awkward situation here. “Um, I guess so.”

He drops the twig and looks at me. “What does it mean?”

DEFINITELY AWKWARD. Because now he’s staring deep into my eyes as if trying to find the meaning there, and I’m staring back trying to think of some kind of joking answer, but I can’t, and my eyes won’t look away, and all I want to say is that I don’t know but it must mean SOMETHING, right?

Aiden is the first to break eye contact. He looks out between the dripping branches, and I realise as he does so that it’s stopped raining. “That didn’t last very long, did it?” he says. The storm has moved on, leaving us with nothing more than faint flickers of lightning and the distant murmur of thunder.

I clear my throat and stand up. “That’s how it happens around here.” I walk back to the path, wet dirt crunching beneath my shoes. The clouds are drifting away, revealing a purple-grey twilight sky. “We need to get moving. It’s going to be dark soon.”

Aiden jumps to his feet. “And that’s when the monsters come out, right?”

“Hey, are you making fun of my overactive imagination?”

“Not at all. Cows can be very dangerous when caught in a bad mood. I’d better walk in front, just in case.”

We follow the barely-there path as it leads away from the stream. My wet socks squelch uncomfortably inside my shoes, and my drenched clothing sticks to my skin. I rub my hands up and down my arms, but the goosebumps aren’t going anywhere. It turns out getting caught in the rain isn’t as fun as I thought it might be. At least, not when you wind up lost in the cold at the same time.

After about ten minutes, Aiden stops and says, “Hey, look what I spotted.”

I look up, and between the trees ahead of us, I see— “The lake!”

“You see?” Aiden says. “We’re not lost. We just took a detour.”

Our detour seems to have brought us down the left side of the lake instead of the right. It’s the side with the bench and the little wooden jetty. The side that doesn’t lead to the hiking trail we started on earlier.

We step off the rough path and make for the trees, then walk around the edge of the lake. By the time we reach the other side and climb up the hill towards the farmhouse, it’s almost dark. We cross the lawn we used for the party last night and climb the veranda steps. Through the glass sliding door, I can see the lounge is full of people, most of them standing, some talking on cell phones, all with anxious expressions on their faces.

“Oh! There they are!” Nan points at us, then hurries to the sliding door and opens it. “What happened?” she asks, pulling us both into a hug even though we’re still soaking wet. She says something else, but her words are lost amidst the expressions of relief and Elize saying, “I’ll go get towels,” and Matt’s mother saying, “Call Matt and the others and tell them to come back.”

When Nan lets go of us, Aiden raises his voice and says, “Hey, sorry to worry you all. We ended up on the wrong path.”

Someone groans, a few people laugh, and Matt’s mother is suddenly beside me saying, “We were so worried about the two of you. All I could think of were those horrible stories of people getting lost in the mountains.”

Elize returns with two towels. Nan takes them from her and hands us each one, then says, “Make sure you dry up properly. We don’t want you getting sick. And now that you’re both back, we should have dinner ready in about fifteen minutes.”

“Oh! The stove!” Matt’s mother dashes off in the direction of the kitchen, and Nan hurries after her.

I pull the towel around my shoulders while everyone who was gathered in the lounge gets back to whatever they were doing before they started panicking about us. I hear the front door open, and moments later Matt appears in the lounge doorway, his brother and father behind him. “Sarah,” he says, his expression collapsing in relief. He crosses the room and wraps his arms around me, then lets go quickly once he realises just how wet I am.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean …” My voice trails off as I look up and find anger in his eyes.

“What the hell happened, Sarah?” he demands. “You never should have gone off like that on your own, especially with a storm coming. That was a seriously stupid thing to do.”

“Matt,” I say quietly, glancing about awkwardly, “I’m fine. Everything’s okay. And I wasn’t alone.”

“Oh, like getting lost with a foreigner in these mountains is any better than being on your own. What were you doing? Following the fairies in your head again? Why couldn’t you just stick to the path?”

“Hey, it wasn’t her fault,” Aiden says, taking a step towards us.

“Oh, so does that make it your—”

“Oookay.” Elize puts her arm around my shoulders and directs me towards the stairs. “You should probably have a shower so you aren’t shivering the whole way through dinner. And you too, Aiden,” she calls over her shoulder. “Although not together, obviously.” Elize laughs at what she obviously thinks is a hilarious joke while flames of embarrassment engulf my face. I quicken my pace, dragging her up the stairs with me.

We reach our bedroom, and several seconds later Aiden walks past without looking at us. Elize leans in the doorway and watches him. She sighs. “I can’t believe you got stranded in the rain with him. Jy is so gelukkig.”

I pause in my search for some dry clothes and look up at her. “You do remember you’re related to him, right?”

“But if I were you, I wouldn’t be,” she says, turning her longing gaze on me. “How unfair is it that a totally hot and perfect guy shows up and it turns out he’s my cousin?”

“Nobody’s perfect,” I say, though I think Aiden is pretty close. Or at least pretty close to being perfect for me. “I mean, he doesn’t eat fish, which means he can never enjoy the gloriousness of sushi. And there’s his over-the-top fear of heights and flying.”

“Well, you can’t exactly blame him for that, can you?” Elize says with wide eyes.

“I … can’t?”

“Of course not. Not after what happened to his dad.”

I frown. “What happened to his dad?”

“You don’t know?” Elize says, somehow managing to look horrified and gleeful at the same time.

“No, Elize, that’s why I asked.”

She closes the door and jumps onto her bed. “O my genade, it was so terrible. Well, it’s not like I remember it happening, but the story sounds terrible. Aiden’s dad was a pilot, and he was flying one of those small planes, and something went wrong when he was trying to land, and the plane just … crashed. Like nose-dive crashed. The whole thing exploded and Aiden’s dad and the three passengers were all killed.”

I stare at her, my mouth open and my hand loosely covering it. “That’s … that is horrible.”

“I know.”

My hand drops to my side. “How old was Aiden?”

“Mmm … I think he was seven.”

I shake my head as I think back to the way Aiden acted on the plane. No wonder he never wanted to get on one. I wouldn’t either if that’s how one of my parents died.

I gather my things and head to the bathroom. The hot water is deliciously warm against my cold, damp skin, but it doesn’t distract me from the story I just heard. I’m still thinking about it when I leave the bathroom, and instead of going left towards the room I share with Elize and Simone, I turn the corner of the passage, walk to the end, and knock on the door.

“Yeah,” Aiden calls out, which I take to mean ‘come in.’ I push the door open and find him sitting on the edge of a bed pulling socks on. His hair is wet, but he’s wearing dry clothes. He must have used a different bathroom instead of waiting for me to finish. “Oh, hey,” he says, looking surprised to see me standing in the doorway clutching a towel and a bag of toiletries.

“I … uh … Elize told me what happened to your dad, and … I just want to say I’m really sorry.” I feel like I need to say something else, but I’m not sure what those words are supposed to be. So I end up standing awkwardly in the doorway wondering if I should wait for Aiden to respond or simply leave.

He gets to his feet and pushes a hand through his wet hair. “I probably should have told you. Then you wouldn’t have had to wonder why I was being so weird on the plane.”

I shake my head. “I didn’t think you were being weird. I liked the fact that you weren’t all cool and confident.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You don’t think I’m cool?”

Damn that mouth of mine. I look down at the carpet as my face heats up. “I just mean that … it made it easier for me to talk to you.”

When I peek up again, he’s smiling at me. “I know,” he says. “I’m just teasing you.” He takes a deep breath. “Anyway, I’m glad Elize told you.”

“You are?”

“Yes. It’s not something I really like to talk about. I mean …” It’s his turn to look at the carpet now, but not because he’s embarrassed. It’s as if he’s looking through it, seeing something that isn’t there. “I have memories. My mum tried to shield us from it all, but we saw things. Videos on the news. Photos in the newspaper. And talking about it brings up all those images in my head.”

Crap, and now here I am talking about it!

“But I wanted you to know about it. So, yeah, I’m glad she told you.”

I smile at him as a shout from downstairs informs us that dinner is ready. “I’ll see you down there,” I say, twisting around. I head back to my room with a lighter step. I don’t know why, but it makes me happy that Aiden wanted me to know about his dad. It makes me feel kind of like … I matter to him.

I step into my bedroom—and surprise shoots through me at the sight of Matt sitting on one of the beds. He’s leaning back against the pillows, his arms crossed over his chest. “I see you’re getting to know my extended family quite well,” he says. “Or one of them, at least.”

I put my things down on top of my suitcase, then turn and face him. “You’re talking about Aiden.”

“Yes. The guy who managed to distract you so much that you got lost while coming down a perfectly visible mountain trail. The guy you were so desperate to talk to when you got out of the shower that you didn’t even stop by your room first to put your things down.”

I look down at my hands. “Elize told me what happened to his father. It sounded so … horrific. I couldn’t stop thinking about it in the shower, so I went to talk to him afterwards. I just wanted to say that I was sorry about it. Because, you know, I didn’t know before. And now I do.”

Matt purses his lips, then says, “And the mountain? What happened out there?”

“Nothing happened. I showed him the forest and the waterfall and the view, and we were talking while we were coming down, and we somehow ended up on one of those smaller side paths that criss-cross all over the place. Then it started raining, and the rain was really heavy, so we sat under a tree till the storm passed.”

“You sat under a tree during a storm?”

“Yes, we—Oh.” I guess I really was distracted. “Look, it wasn’t an isolated tree, and the lightning wasn’t, like, right there.”

Matt sighs as he climbs off the bed and comes towards me. “Sarah. You need to stop daydreaming so much and pay attention to what’s going on around you.” He rubs his hands up and down my arms. “And I’m sorry about earlier. I was just so worried about you, and when I realised you were safe, I kind of overreacted.” He leans forward and kisses my cheek, then takes my hand and leads me out of the room. As we head towards the stairs, I hear a creak in the floorboards beneath the passage carpet somewhere behind us, but when I look over my shoulder, I don’t see anyone there.