Finding Maisie

Finding Maisie: Chapter 24

Finding Maisie

Chapter 24

Callum helped me stand up. It was time to move now, I had cried for long enough. I would have to leave my dad now and look for Maisie. I looked at him one last time and allowed myself one last feeling of sadness before trying to empty myself completely. It was time to finish this whole thing once and for all.

'Come on, Callum. We still have a lot to do,' I said.

He looked at me sadly and I hated that. It just reminded me of everything I had to be sad about.

'And be careful. There'll be more traps and stuff,' I said.

'Of course,' Callum replied. 'Let's go.'

Both Callum and I kept walking. We would have to be careful running through it as the mud seemed more slippery over here than at the cabin.

'I say we run again,' I informed Callum. 'We should stand apart, not so that we can't see each other but so we can look in opposite directions. We don't want to miss anything.'

Callum nodded and I moved a few feet away from him. We started jogging, gradually getting faster. I kept my eyes alert as I looked around me. I could see Callum doing the same. There was nothing around me apart from the trees. Maisie had to be somewhere near us, hadn't she? Joshua proved to me that we were going in the right direction. The abductor wouldn't lead us on a wild goose chase, not now. He said he created the treasure hunt for fun and something told me that Callum and I dying quietly far away from Maisie and our.. well just Callum's dad now, didn't seem like much fun to Colin. Maisie had to be somewhere around here, otherwise there wouldn't be the big end battle that I'm sure the abductor wanted. All we had to do was find her and that was harder than it sounded.

I saw in the corner of my eye Callum begin to slip. I was about to stop running when he disappeared. It was like the ground had just swallowed him. One second he was there and the next he had vanished. Panic surged through me.

I raced over to where Callum had disappeared from and, as I got closer, I realised how he had magically gone. The ground seemed to drop and move downwards into what seemed to be a valley in the woods. Callum must have seen the edge and the drop down, tried to stop but ended up slipping on the mud.

He must have fallen off the edge.

When I reached the same edge and looked down into the valley my heart sunk. The drop down was almost vertically steep and was long, very long. I could see the tops of trees at the bottom which meant Callum would have had to have passed the trees branches to get to the ground. That meant he would have been hit many times.

As I looked down I couldn't see any movement under the trees. Where was Callum? If he was okay then he would be moving around, trying to get back up here, but there was nothing moving under there. Could he be.. No he couldn't be.. Surely Callum couldn't be dead? No, that was impossible. I couldn't imagine Callum being dead, not having him here with me. So it wasn't possible. He must have just had the wind knocked out of him. The drop was steep and big, he needed time to recover. Callum wasn't dead, he couldn't be. So why did I feel like crying? Why did I feel like giving up? I told myself to stop acting stupid. Kneeling here looking over the edge would not help me find Callum. I had to be productive.

'Callum!' I yelled. 'Callum where are you?!'

There wasn't a reply, 'Please Callum, answer me! CALLUM!'

'Oh dear,' spoke the all too now familiar and intimidating voice of my Uncle Colin.

I turned around to look at him. He seemed awfully proud of himself. For what? He didn't push Callum into the crevasse so why was he acting like he did?