Distance: 11 miles (17.7 km)
Total Ascent: 562 m (1,843 ft)
5:02 am
Good morning, Dad. Sorry, I got so whiny last night. It’s a new day! I should never complain about how much my family loves me. I love them, too, and I know I would complain if there weren’t a million messages from them.
Today is easier, though I’m slightly nervous about making my way across the marshy bog before starting another mountain climb.
I should get in early tonight, which means time for a shot and a good meal at a local pub. I’ll also have more time to talk to you tonight.
I think I’m close to reading your letter.
Until tonight, B
Unfortunately, Trawsfynydd received a ton of rain overnight, making the marshy bog an even marshier bog and a bitch to trek through. Bébhinn was never more thankful that the remainder of the day was decently easy compared to what had come before and what was coming after.
Bébhinn read on several hiking websites that the fifth day, which was tomorrow, was one of the hardest sections to complete on time. She was looking forward to the challenge.
Before setting off today, she’d returned some early morning texts from her family and friends. Gray was having a semi-meltdown over a client that her mother, Josephine, had asked Gray’s help to deal with. The woman was a nightmare, but Bébhinn assured her friend that the experience was well worth the pain, and that pretty soon, Gray would be choosing her own clients.
Bran and Patrick didn’t need anything at all, except that texting her in the evening wasn’t enough for them now, apparently.
Blair texted only to give her some exciting news, explaining that she didn’t need a return text. She was just too excited to wait until Bébhinn got home. According to the botany genius, the new species of rose she’d been working on for four years showed signs of growth. Bébhinn sent a text back despite Blair saying not to, and told her how proud she was and that she couldn’t wait to see her friend’s newest baby.
Mags texted to complain about the “dud” date she’d endured the night before, swearing off men…for the hundredth time. The only response Bébhinn sent back was an eye-rolling emoji. Mags would rather lose a limb than not have men fawning over her.
Her usual success at dating might have made Bébhinn envious if she didn’t also have her share of admirers, even though she rarely accepted dates. She’d had two semi-serious boyfriends since high school, the last, Harold, she’d broken things off with after her dad…went away.
“Christ, Bébhinn,” she berated herself out loud since she hadn’t seen another hiker in miles, “if you can’t say the d word out loud, you can at least say it in your own damn head.”
Dad is dead.There, she’d said it. In her mind. Good enough.
She decided to stop for a second break where she could drop her pack and stretch, pee, relax, and eat a carb and protein-dense mini meal. She snacked on the trail but kept her true refueling for when she stopped and could relax.
The view of the sea and River Dwyryd was today’s highlight. She always paid attention to the beauty around her, but she found that hiking alone allowed her reflection time. Between journaling and hiking, she felt she was giving herself a day-long therapy session, which made her more determined for her mother to get out of her routine and explore too.
Sighing, Bébhinn unzipped her pack to retrieve fruit and nut mix when her fingers brushed against something soft anddefinitely organic. Yanking her hand back, she fully unzipped the top to peer inside.
Reaching back in, she latched onto…purple saxifrage. A bunch of five tied with grass. “What the hell?” Staring in disbelief at the bundle in her palm, she tried and failed to make their presence make sense and figure out how the flowers had gotten on or in her pack—again— without her noticing.
There had to be a logical explanation. She hadn’t gone wading like before or left her bag unattended for more than a few minutes at a time for pee breaks. And she certainly did not recall leaving her pack unzipped.
Maybe the person who’d left the last bouquet left two, and the second managed to drop in her pack with her none the wiser. It was a poor theory. She would dare anyone to come up with something better.
Clearly, an animal didn’t tie grass around the stems. It had to be a person…and then it dawned on her as if a Welsh mountain sprite had thrown her a life preserver. It had to be akin to Jeep owners ducking each other. The flower bunch was some sort of a hiker duck game.
Chuckling to herself and shaking her head, she couldn’t believe she’d let her mind get carried away. In her defense, her mother had endured her share of psychopath bullshit.
Before her folks married, the O’Faolain and O’Connor families had an obsessed tech-savvy, demented stalker following them. The man managed to shoot her mother as she was walking down a Dublin sidewalk, having followed the family to Ireland from the USA, where her parents had grown up. Not a year later, she’d been kidnapped because she’d gone on a few dates with the wrong man.
Talk about her mom lugging around an unlucky charm. That was before her mom and dad were totally together. Shit didn’t happen with Hugh O’Faolain as a watchdog.
Her dad had forbidden anyone from telling his daughter about the incidents, but Daniel and Jonathan had eavesdropped on their parents enough to find out all the horrible drama, and of course, told Bébhinn. Her dad had been livid. She smiled, remembering how the boys had hidden from their grandfather for two weeks.
Lord, how she missed how her dad could put the fear of God in a person.
Since the beans had been spilled, her mom had explained both events, which were straight-up true crime docu material. Perhaps that’s why the weird flower arrangements had sparked such a nefarious vibe. Typically, Bébhinn wasn’t one to jump straight into conspiracy theories. That was more of Mags and Gray’s style. Those two had never met a murder mystery they couldn’t obsess over.
