The Unexpected Visit

Chapter 17

I place the tablet down and take off the microphone. I hand them to Owen and he begins to dismantle everything. Jackson resumes control of the drone and it quickly lands and begins to calibrate it. Anna and I stare at each other and hug, glad that our parents aren't trying to kill each other anymore. They also promised not to kill each other while we are on the hike. Little do they know that the hike will not end for a pretty long time. I hear Owen telling the followers that this is their camp and that we won't be far away.

"Come on, we have to get to the campsite area before dark," Jackson says, looking a little down.

We hike for a half hour, set up the fake campsite, and drop the phones in their respective tents. We told the followers to wait until 10 am before they come and get us to return to the castle, which will give us two hours to get to the boat. The plan is to wake up at 7am to pack up the camp, promptly leaving at 8am.

"Why are we doing this again?" Owen asks for the fifth time in less than a day.

"I told you already, we're doing this to find Brooke and get her here. Then, we can somehow figure out how to get mom and dad to stop fighting. Now can we please go a little faster?" Jackson says sternly, surprising me. I've never really seen him angry.

Soon, we reach the real campsite. The boys have already created a fire pit and gathered wood to burn. Jackson said that this campsite will be a mirror to the other one; he even left a fire burning in the other fire pit. Owen takes his backpack off and digs out the matches to start the fire. Jackson lands the drone and puts it safely away in the bag Anna is holding. Anna and I go to where our tent will be, take off our bags, and start to clear the area of sticks and such things.

"How long do you think the boat ride will be? I really want to know what happened during the 7 weeks I was unconscious," I say, looking down angrily and almost breaking our tent.

"Be careful, Rebecca, you don't want to sleep in the same tent as the boys, do you? I have no idea how long the boat ride will be, perhaps Jackson knows. I think the boat that Jackson is talking about is different than the boat Dad took me on to go see you guys on the mainland. I wonder if he's talking about dad's yacht. That's not true, he always has that in the harbor, I don't know. Why don't you go ask him at the fire later? They look a little busy right now," She says, looking over at them trying to do two things at once. Why are they trying to put the tent up and stack the firewood at the same time?

Jackson was smart enough to bring hot dogs rather than something that can't be cooked over a fire with sticks. As we sit around the campfire, Anna takes out her guitar from its case, which I didn't even realize that she had, and begins to play a catchy tune. It doesn't take long for all of us to start singing. I really wish that this could last. It feels like we only just started singing and having fun when Jackson says that we should probably go to sleep; we have a long day tomorrow. I begin to wonder what things would be like if our parents had not started fighting.