Prologue~Ch. 1~Ch. 2~Ch. 3~Ch. 4~Ch. 5~Ch. 6~Ch. 7~Ch. 8~Ch. 9~Ch. 10~
Ch. 11~Ch. 12~
It was the endless pounding of the surf that woke her. Jessica tried to roll over and groaned as she came up against something hard and unyielding. Every muscle complained of misuse. She felt sick and her head hurt; sitting up didn’t help at all.
“Holy Saint Christopher!” Jessica struggled to her feet, aches and pains temporarily forgotten. Mouth open, all she could do was stare. “I can’t believe he actually did it,” she whispered.
She closed her eyes and tried to will the park to reappear, unable to believe Howard had succeeded in teleporting her. It didn’t work. In front of her was a wide expanse of shimmering water while behind her rose towering cliffs of dark, grey stone. The sun was shining directly over head.
“Where the hell am I?”
The rocky shoreline was not unusual for the Georgian Bay area, but there was an unfamiliar tang in the air and the water was a startling blue, not the more familiar angry grey of late August. And it was probably just her imagination, but the sun was just a little too bright, a little too big.
She shivered as a bird screed overhead, a lonely sound over the noise of the water. There was not so much as a radio signal tower in sight to indicate some kind of civilization, just miles of desolate shoreline, arcing away in a wide bay. There wasn’t even any traffic on the water.
“Now what do I do?” Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes.
It was probably going to be a while before Howard recovered enough to start looking for her. How long had it taken for him to recover from the violet incident, a couple of days? It could be weeks before he recovered from this! Would Howard even know where he’d sent her?
Looking around, she shivered again. She certainly didn’t want to be caught out in this wilderness when night fell. The cliffs were too sheer for climbing. That left only one option – walking.
“Oh, damn! Jennifer is going to kill me!”
Jessica suddenly realized she was still dressed in her costume from the play, from plumed hat right down to the suede boots. Just what every woman stranded on the beach should be wearing, she thought. She cursed Howard under her breath as she picked her way along the shore.
“He just couldn’t wait for me to change my clothes, could he? If anything happens to this outfit, I’m going to kill him. After he pays for the replacement.”
An hour later found her perched on a boulder. She had the jacket over her arm and was fanning herself with the hat.
“This is ridiculous,” she muttered. “It hasn’t been this hot all summer.” She’d kill for an ice cold beer right about now. “I wonder how sick I’d get from drinking that water?”
She’d still seen no sign of civilization, not even any boats out on the water. The bay looked so wet and inviting, not an oil slick in sight.
Jessica frowned. Was it her imagination, or had the shoreline shrunk over the last hour? It seemed strange that the waves were so high when there was hardly a breeze.
She shrugged and slid off the rock. Probably just her mind playing tricks on her. Now, how was she going to get a drink without getting her boots wet?
Another fifteen minutes of walking brought her to a section of beach where large flat slabs lay like giant steeping stones. The water ebbed and flowed between them. It seemed clean enough.
Jessica knelt down as close as she dared to one of the little channels and used her hands as a cup. She coughed and sputtered and couldn’t spit the water out again fast enough.
“The coast,” she choked, “I’m on a seacoast! There are no seacoasts around here!”
She stayed crouched where she was, trying desperately to absorb the implications. Her head started to ache in earnest. The water glittered in the sunlight, aggravating her thirst. The plume from her hat dipped in front of her face. Jessica counted to ten.
“I am going to kill Howard.”
She’d be impressed with his magical skills later. Right now she needed a sense of purpose to keep her going and killing Howard suited her just fine. She started walking again. It seemed pointless, but it was better than doing nothing at all. She tried not to dwell on the fact that she could be hundreds of miles from civilization, days away from rescue.
“Damn,” she kicked at a stone and stubbed her toe. “I could be anywhere, like a piece of flotsam washed up by the tide.”
The beach was definitely getting narrower. Jessica hesitated. What if she ran out of beach on the other side of the point she was walking towards. She looked back the way she’d come and felt a cold chill of fear. The beach wasn’t just tapering inwards, the whole thing was shrinking.
“Oh my God, tide! The tide’s coming in!”
Ste stared up at the cliffs. The tideline was there, well above her head. She stumbled along the shore, seeking some possible way of climbing the cliff.
“Come on, Jessica. Don’t panic. Panic will kill you quicker than anything else. If you can climb the escarpment you can climb this cliff.” But the Niagara Escarpment was nothing like this. It was set in the woods, with natural hand holds and trees to help climbers. This cliff was smooth and unrelenting.
By the time she’d followed the shore to the point jutting out into the bay the beach had shrunk to less than three feet wide. The far side of the point showed nothing encouraging. Jessica stared up at the cliff and swallowed hard. She could do it, she just had to have confidence in herself. It was only the first handhold that was hard.
She took off her boots and rolled them up in the jacket, tying them in place with the sleeves. There was just enough give left in the sleeves to tie the whole thing to the back of her belt. It was an unwieldy mess, but it would make for easier climbing. The hat would just have to fend for itself, she decided, and left it on her head.
A pile of boulders nestled in the curve of the point seemed like a good place to start. The cliffs were in shade now, but far from being a relief it made it harder for Jessica to see. She pressed herself against the rock and reached up, feeling with her finger tips.
She thanked Ellen in her heart for insisting on pooling their money on a rowing machine instead of a stationery bike. The bike wouldn’t have built up any muscle in her arms the way the rowing machine had. She had the feeling that before this was over, she’d need every ounce of muscle she could muster.
2 comments:
I knew something like that was going to happen ... but yet, it's not really sure, what exactly had happend! I'm sooo looking forward to reading more! You know, how curious I am! *g* Shame on you, that I have to wait another week!
Oh, and I would love to know Howard's reaction on her disappearance...
Hmmm. I hadn't planned on including Howard's reaction, but it's something to keep in mind when I start editing.
Post a Comment