Page 42 of Glimmer in the Darkness

Meanwhile, though, here she was, on this mountain she’d sworn she’d never return to. As she gazed around at the wilderness, it was hard to imagine that she’d ever had a different life. Seattle seemed a world away from this secluded place, the counseling center where she worked almost like a different dimension. That dingy basement space with its plastic, straight-backed chairs, the water-ringed wooden table covered with coffee and soda and snacks the girls devoured as if they hadn’t eaten in months. They’d sip their drinks and munch their store-bought cookies and tell stories that didn’t belong there, didn’t belong anywhere, stories of abuse so bad at home that life on the street was better. At least on the street, it wasn’t fathers and brothers and mothers and sisters who did the abusing. And then there were the other stories, the girls who’d left home chasing drugs or guys or freedom, absolutely confident that what they found in the world would be better than what they had at home. They were the hardest to reach. They were the ones who had to admit that they’d been wrong, not wronged.

All the girls were unique, all wounded, all special. And all of them needed somebody to hold their hands and tell them that they mattered, that they were okay. All of them needed somebody to help them find their way home. Often, home wasn’t where they’d come from, but it could always be where they were headed.

Cassidy had found her new home in Seattle. She’d found her place to belong in the family of God. It was her life’s goal to help others find Him, find home as well.

Now, that home felt as elusive as the place they were searching for on this mountain. It was as if that counseling center back in Seattle no longer existed. Or maybe it never had. Maybe the little room she rented was a figment of her imagination. She smiled at that thought. If she were going to conjure a place in her mind’s eye, it would be nicer than the dingy studio apartment where she’d lived since college.

But it wouldn’t be on a mountainside. Nope, this rugged wilderness world was not for her. She followed James through areas so thick with undergrowth that they’d hardly been able to forge a path. As they climbed higher, the trees were sparser, the undergrowth easier to avoid. The sun had long since fallen to the opposite side of the mountain, and the air was cooling. Not that she was cold. Trudging mostly uphill kept her warm enough.

Finally, James paused in a small, flat clearing. “Let’s camp here for the night.”

“Oh, thank God.” Only when he turned to her, concern etched in the lines on his forehead, did she realize she’d said the words aloud.

“You should have told me you needed to stop sooner.”

“I didn’t want to stop.” She took off the backpack for the first time in hours, enjoying the lightness, the cool air against her damp T-shirt. She sat on a fallen tree on the edge of the pine-needle carpet. “Before we started today, I thought I was in shape.”

He took off his own backpack and dug inside. “I’ll set up the tent.” He took out a blue silicone bag and laid it on the ground. “The Jetboil is in your backpack. Could you get it out?”

She had no idea what that was but opened her pack dutifully, figuring it would be obvious. She pulled out a black contraption that looked like an insulated cup mounted on top of a tiny propane tank. That had to be it.

“What am I making?”

“Open the bag”—he nodded at it from where he’d already begun unpacking the tent—“and pick whatever you want.”

She found instant noodles, rice, and oatmeal, not to mention tea bags and coffee. Also, bagged tuna fish, little squeeze-packets of mayonnaise, peanut butter, and single-serving jellies.

She knew there was another bag of food in his pack—he’d gotten the granola bars from it—and searched for it now, finding pita bread, nuts, dried fruit, and hummus.

“You brought the whole store,” she said.

“Bad habit. Even though I figure we’ll only be up here a night or two, I packed all the food I could fit.”

“I could have carried some.”

“There was no need.”

She boiled the water and, using collapsible silicone bowls she’d found in her pack, fixed the noodles. It would go well with the tuna, and they needed the protein and carbs. Plus, if they found Ella, when they found Ella, she could have the bars and peanut butter and jelly.

Before Cassidy finished preparing dinner, James had the tent up and his sleeping bag laid out on the ground beside it.

“Why are you getting that dirty?” she asked. “Doesn’t the sleeping bag go inside the tent?”

“You’ll sleep inside. I’ll sleep out.”

“Oh.”

“Seems… wiser, don’t you think?”

The unspoken suggestion that something might happen between them raised her heart rate. It meant he found her at least a little bit attractive. Her hope wasn’t futile.

“It’s your tent,” she said. “I should—”

“I like sleeping under the stars.”

She looked up and only saw the canopy of trees.

“You know what I mean.”