Flames in the Family Tree

Part 1- Lucy's POV

We were only nine.
          We were only nine years old when our parents abandoned me and my twin brother, Drew, in a forest park right off the Interstate exit. In the backseat, Drew and I played I spy, the license plate game, concentration sixty-four, and twenty questions. That road trip was one of the best memories from my childhood, which says something considering... everything. But it was only the backseat games that were part of the memory of that day during the cold November of 2002.
          "Quiet down back there, won't you, kids!?" our mother scolded us from the front seat after our games got loud.
          "You're distracting your mother's driving," added our father, calmly and coldly. "You won't want her to get distracted and crash her car."
          I looked over at Drew, who had the most disappointed look on his face. He sunk into his car seat. "Sorry."
          I wiped the smile off my face after laughing so hard that I couldn't breathe. "Sorry, mom."
          Luckily, Drew tapped on my shoulder to cheer us up and continue our fun game of twenty questions. Our parents never said we had to stop playing. We just found a way around it without making them mad: whispering the questions and answers in each other's ears so mommy wouldn't crash the car.
          The funny thing is, we didn't even know where we were going on the spontaneous road trip. That was until mom and dad took Exit 15 to Coopers Rock right before the one to the big shopping plaza on the hill (which was a common trip our "family" made about once a month). This was unusual.
          At the exit was a winding yet beautiful road to a forest. It was fall, so the red, orange, yellow, and brown leaves were falling from the trees and lining the ditches. I thought this was going to be a fun day of exploring nature like my old favorite princesses and fairies did with their woodland creature pals in all my old favorite Disney Princess films, but boy were we wrong. As the sun set and the park was closing after our too-quick exploration, they... disappeared.
          I would have thought they realized in time that they accidentally left us behind and would call our names from far away to get back in the car. But the minutes passed with no sign of mom and dad. The minutes turned into hours after dark, after everyone exploring the park had left. Hours of crying for mommy and daddy while also, deep down, wanting someone to notice us to take us home.

We were still left in that forest park through the night with no sleep. I led Drew to the little cabin office when it got dark, where we could at least have a dry place to rest without needing to worry about the fear of bears, coyotes, and mysterious, evil men in trench coats from a white van coming to kidnap us. The cabin had two little windows like an office, both with the glass down. So we walked behind the building to see the door and another set of windows. Drew tried opening the door, but it was locked.
          "Pick the lock," I whispered.
          "No," said Drew. "What if someone heard us?"
          I looked around the area really quickly. "There's no one here."
          "But what if they're hiding in the bushes to make sure we don't break in?"
          "No one is hiding in the bushes, Drew."
          "How do you know that?"
          "I just know it would be stupid of them if they did."
          Drew took a hesitant breath in then out. "Okay, fine. Let's break in." He began to kick and punch the door then tried to get his little hands through the tiny opening. After many tries to reach the doorknob on the other side, it was of no avail.
          So then I gave it a try. It took me a minute, but I reached the knob. All I could do was feel around, but I managed to turn the knob so I could open the door. Inside, the cabin had two computers and big chairs. It was small but enough room to hold a couple of kid-size beds. But all it had were those computers, chairs, a cash register, a phone, and a few tall file cabinets. We could see slightly out the wooden plank walls, but it was good to sleep in since it was about pitch-black outside.

In the morning, the bright sunrise outside the wooden walls of the cabin got us up from lying on the big chairs all night. The skin around my eyes was still red and dry from the tears I cried, and the rest of my body had goosebumps and felt muggy from the cold outside. Drew still had his eyes shut, but his body was shaking as if he was trying to wake up from a bad dream. I had hoped this was just a bad dream and that I would wake up at home in my warm, comfy bed.
          I sat in my own self-pity for a few minutes before eventually deciding to wake up Drew. I poked him on the cheek and whispered into his ear, "Drew?"
          He quickly opened his eyes and looked at me, disappointed that I woke him. "Ugh what?"
          I didn't know what to say. So I gave him a grin with a chuckle. "Good morning."
          He faked a tired smile at me. "Morning." He then laid his head back onto the back of the chair.
          That was until a young man walked over to the cabin, which we saw from the windows. As he came closer, I saw that he was holding a set of keys. He wore a tan suit with a lot of badges on it and a hat with text on it I couldn't quite read yet. Then he came even closer and looked into the window. "PARK RANGER," read the hat.
          With no idea of time but the early rising sun as our guide, I quickly led us out of the cabin, locking the door behind us. We managed to hide from the park ranger for a short time, behind a few bushes. "Lucy?" asked my brother, still with the most heartbroken look on his face.
          "Yeah?"
          "I wanna get under a blankie with some hot chocolate and popcorn and a movie."
          A single tear fell down my face. "Me too."