Mac Rebeli [a fairy tale]

1: Birdwing

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. "

-R. Buckminster Fuller

One of the first rules of hiking Yosemite is to never go at it alone. Normally I wouldn't have been alone, but Behr, my Scottish Deerhound, hated flights. He was usually calm as a cloudy November morning, but the minute he boarded a flight, he shook and whined and scratched at his crate and I just couldn't do that to him.

Jace, my human companion and partner on several research papers, had gotten sick sometime between boarding and arriving at our room last night. He was back in our kitschy motel room, drinking mini sodas and binge-watching Netflix on his laptop. If he was feeling better when I got back, maybe we'd truck out to see Old Faithful. Maybe. If I drove us and bought dinner.

The air beside my cheek stirred, and in a whisper of wings a cardinal flew past. It perched on a low, distant pine bough, the deep evergreen needles hissing soft surprise at the sudden weight. Red crest rising, chest puffed, the bird's keening whistle served to warn me of the incoming summer night.

With the back of my hand, I wiped my sweaty brow and looked skyward. Orange was the color behind towering evergreens, orange laced with slivers of yellow and pink as the sun sank. If I stared hard into the darkening east, I knew I'd see the first stars.

Jace was lazy and annoying, but as my shadow disappeared and the valley's belly transitioned to purple dusk, I missed him.

Glacier Point had been our -well, now only my- destination. A couple months ago some adventurous hikers had discovered a small, unexplored cave. Supposedly they'd found diamonds. Supposedly, their discovery was worth the university sending the pair of us out to examine. Hours of following their map- more of a squiggly napkin, really, since they'd wandered the better part of the afternoon trying to find their way out, had rewarded me with a sunburn, a rusted iron ring fit for a man's finger, and a natural cave of claustrophobia-inducing narrowness, a cave entirely devoid of anything resembling diamonds. And they certainly wouldn't have been glistening loosely in a big handful, like those hikers had claimed.

A fool's errand. Damn, was I jealous of Jace for missing out on this excitement.

And damn, was I mad at myself for losing track of time.

When the sun went down, when animals confined to shady escapes from the sun's heat finally emerged, Yosemite was not tourist-friendly. It didn't matter who you were or what kind of experience you had. You did not want to hike here alone, and you did not want to hike here at night.

And in a few greying minutes, I was about to be doing both.

I wasn't stupid, though. I'd radioed the rangers of my situation, did the best I could to pass on my coordinates. They told me I'd stumbled back near the right path, that any minute now I'd see a trail that would lead me down to one of the camp sites. They told me they'd send a rescue team out, to be cautious, to keep them updated.

The length of my vision gradually dimmed to a few dark feet. Several yards away, an owl's hoot unraveled the stillness as day completed its transition into night. Cell at my hip, I was ready to call it a night, stop somewhere relatively safe, and wait for rescue. They were going to call me back. They were coming.

And then my feet crossed onto densely compacted dirt. The path.

"Thank God," I murmured, rubbing goosebumps off my arms. In the distance, embers danced toward the heavens, bright yellow sparks whose blaze winked between thick trunks and brush. Shadows flickered long and low against the firelight, turning the shadows of exposed roots into long, snaking tendrils.

At my hip the cell rang. "Have you located the trail, Miss Rebeli?"

"I'm on it. There's a campfire a short distance ahead. One of the camp's?"

"Should be. They're making s'mores and telling kid friendly ghost stories until nine. Someone will pick you up there."

"Are any ghost stories kid friendly?" I asked. None of the ones I'd ever told were.

The man on the other end of the line laughed. "You'd be surprised." Static filled the line. I had to ask him to repeat what he'd said. "You want to stay with me until you arrive?"

The voice in my ear turned to fuzz, and my phone dinged. Lost service. "Heck of a time to go," I sighed, slipping it into my pocket. Nights like these, when a cool wind blew from the north and the fire's glow made the air seem thin and purple, nights like these made me believe in magic.

But it wasn't magic whose bright green eyes settled low in the bushes up ahead, and it wasn't magic which sprang snarling from the leaf litter, tore its teeth into my calf, and dragged me screaming from the trail.