Red haired girl

Chapter 6

“Ugh, we’ve been walking for two hours! Can’t we take a break?!” Bryan said. He hadn’t slept well that night and he was still feeling the aching in his feet from yesterday’s walk. Will didn’t answer. He would like to stop too, but he knew that that would only make things worse. He heard Bryan trip over a root again. Will continued walking, Bryan could get up by himself, just like the last six times.

“Hey!” Bryan yelled. Will turned around.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, surprised to see Bryan look at the ground like it was a treasure. Bryan pointed at his treasure-ground. Getting curious, Will sat down next to him.

“What’s that?” Bryan asked. Will frowned.

“I think this are tracks,” he said slowly. Bryan nodded.

“I noticed that,” he said grumpily. “But tracks of what, exactly?” Will took a closer look. The tracks were about 25 cm by 7 cm and shaped like an oval. Then Will realised what made the tracks.

“I think they’re human!” he said.

“But… we’re in the middle of the forest! We haven’t walked here, so who would it have been?” Bryan asked. Will looked at him, while Bryan was thinking deeply. He slowly raised an eyebrow.

“Now, who would have been in the middle of the forest, right before we come here to do our training exercise?” Will said sarcastically. He saw the understanding forming on Bryan’s face.

“Oh,” Bryan said, turning red. “It was Owen, wasn’t it?” Will nodded.

“I think it was him. Who else would have come here?” The boys stood to their feet again.

“Shall we follow the tracks?” Bryan asked. “Or would that be cheating?” Will smiled.

“I don’t think that’s cheating. Maybe it’s even part of the exercise!” he pointed out.

“You’re right. Let’s follow the tracks,” Bryan said. He bent over the tracks and started to follow them. Will followed Bryan, not feeling the necessity of looking down as well. After a couple of minutes, Bryan banged with his head against a giant tree. He started to scream and jump all over the place, holding his head. Will couldn’t stop himself from laughing. It looked quite funny after all.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, don’t you?” Bryan said with tears in his eyes. He sounded hurt, but angry as well and Will realised he had made a mistake when Bryan came running towards him. Will hurried to grab a branch above his head and pull himself up. Bryan saw he had made a mistake as well when he banged into the tree again. This time not with his head, but with his entire body and he fell backwards.

“Are you okay?” Will asked from a couple of meters above Bryan. It still looked funny, but he felt sorry for his companion as well.

“Ow!” Bryan cried. Will tended to get down again, but then noticed something tugged to a branch next to him.

“Look at this!” he said surprised and he pulled the piece of paper out of a small hole. Bryan muttered something Will couldn’t hear and he had the feeling he didn’t want to hear it either.

Will climbed down again and jumped from the last branch next to Bryan.

“Look,” Will said, showing Bryan the piece of paper. Forgetting his painful head, Bryan looked at the paper.

“Is that the new exercise?” he asked quietly, sounding very sad. Will nodded.

“I think it is.” He pulled Bryan up. “Sorry I laughed, but you really did look funny.”

“Yeah, well, it hurts,” Bryan muttered, glad he didn’t have to be mad at Will anymore. Even though he wouldn’t say it out lout, he actually liked Will. At least a little.

“Okay, let’s read what we have to do now,” Will muttered.

“What does it say? What does it say?” Bryan asked, wondering whether this new exercise was worth banging his head against a tree, or not.

“Look up and over,” Will said.

“What?” Bryan asked. Will noticed Bryan didn’t understand what he said.

“We have to ‘look up and over’,” Will repeated. “That’s all it says.” Bryan looked up.

“All I see is this tree,” he complained.

“That’s it!” Will said enthusiastically. He pulled himself in the tree again.

“What are you doing?” Bryan asked wearily, sounding like he thought Will was getting crazy.

“Just follow me!” Will yelled back. Bryan sighed, but started to pull himself up. Will was a couple of meters above the ground already. The branches got smaller and smaller, while Will got closer to the top of the tree. Finally, he couldn’t climb higher, but he was high enough to have a spectacular view all the way to a chain of mountains, far away.

“Wow,” Will said, while Bryan came to sit next him. “Do you see that?!” he asked enthusiastically. Bryan looked a little pale.

“At the moment, I don’t see anything, ‘cause I have closed my eyes!” he said. Will smiled. The big, brave Bryan was afraid of heights.

“Well then, open them. Look at this!” He saw Bryan open one eye a little bit and then carefully opening his other eye as well. A few minutes they both looked in astonishment at the landscape they hadn’t seen before.

            “Hey, what’s that?” Bryan asked then. Will followed his gaze and saw another piece of paper in one of the highest – and smallest – branches. Carefully, he started to climb his way up and wondered how Owen had ever managed to get up that high. He could nearly reach the piece of paper, when the branches started to make a suspicious noise, that sounded like they were about to break. Taking a risk, Will held over and grabbed the note. Unfortunately, the branch he was holding didn’t really like that and broke. Will found himself falling down, but then something – or somebody – caught him. And that somebody was, of course, Bryan.

“Don’t do that ever again!” Bryan said startled, while they climbed their way down to the safe, solid ground.

“Sorry,” was all Will managed to say. He felt triumphant over his achievement, but couldn’t stop thinking about why Owen had made this all so dangerous. He grinned at Bryan.

“Next exercise!” he said excitedly, when they reached the ground. “Let’s see.” He unfolded the piece of paper and Bryan looked over his shoulder. Will frowned.

“‘Go up to the lowest point’,” he read out lout. “I wonder what that means.” This one seemed to be much harder to decipher and Will didn’t have a clue of what it might mean.

“It sounds like the sun,” Bryan said. Will looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

“How does that sounds like the sun?” he asked, thinking Bryan was teasing him.

“Well,” was Bryan’s brilliant explanation, “the sun goes up and then it goes down, to its lowest point.” Will thought about that for a moment. It did make sense what Bryan said, and because Will couldn’t think of something better, he agreed.

“Okay, let’s say the exercise has something to do with the sun. Then we still don’t know what we have to do,” Will pointed out. For a moment, they were both silent. Will sighed.

“Let’s just continue going to the west, maybe there are some other clues further on.” Bryan nodded. He didn’t really care, and because it was Will’s idea, he could blame him if something went wrong.

            They went around the large tree, continuing there exercise. Not aware of someone hiding among the trees, watching them…