1. Yera

Chapter one

Yera

Q uiet. The forest, usually humming with sounds, has hushed. I can still hear our hiking boots striking the pounded clay path and the rush of leaves as we brush past, but not much else. No birdcalls or wind blowing through treetops—just nothing.

The heat, humidity, and effort of gaining elevation have all our faces stained with exhaustion. Just ahead of me on the path, Mariana looks back, assessing.

I can tell from her expression that she wants to kick our asses into gear, but the thought leaves her gaze as quickly as it appeared.

It's virtually impossible to keep up with her, and she knows it.

She is at least six inches taller than us and obviously a mortal descendant of Athena herself. At least, that's what I tell myself .

She halts and waits for us to catch up. I can see her take in a big breath of the heavy air and wonder if the stagnant heat is also getting to her.

My brow and cheeks are slick with sweat, and I take the purple bandana wrapped around my neck to dab at my face, taking this brief respite to catch my breath and drink some more water.

"I think a storm is coming," Mariana says, still stalled well ahead of us on the path. I instinctively sniff at the air, filtering out the earthen scent for signs of ozone or electricity.

Ava looks around. "We should go back to the camp we passed. Just in case a storm is coming. The lake is easily three more hours of hiking. We're better off setting up shelter now." She makes a decent point and shifts her direction downhill.

I've been caught in the mountains a few times, wildly unprepared, and it's an experience that breeds caution in you.

This day has drained me, embarrassingly enough. I work for the Forest Service, so spending hours, if not days, hiking in the woods is second nature. Yet my bones ache at the thought of walking three more hours.

It's about a half mile back down to the campsite. We'd barely pivoted our direction before gentle raindrops started falling from the canopy, filling the forest with rich cedar and white pine scents.

Ava, the oldest of the three of us, moves faster. Water droplets slick on her brown skin, causing goosebumps to spread. Her once pink shirt is now stained with patches of maroon where the water has marked it. I smile to myself. She is always cold. It's easily eighty degrees out still, and she's shivering.

A clearing opens up. Some small campsites stand back against a high mountain meadow teaming with late summer wildflowers surrounded by dense pine forest .

I grimace at the large tarp stretched high between three ponderosa pines. A part of me is glad there is some dry ground, but I'm pissed that campers are careless about leaving things behind.

We set up camp virtually mess-free thanks to the tarp splayed high in the trees. Our brightly colored tents are open across from one another, just out of range for campfire fly-aways.

Under the tarp cover, we string three hammocks closely together. Our little camp is complete.

The afternoon is mostly spent lounging in hammocks, snacking, and reading. We enjoy the sounds and coolness of the rain. I occasionally see the rogue bit of trail mix fly past my face when we mock one another for their book choice or just mouth off.

"I can't believe you read tentacle stuff," Mari calls over to Ava, and I see a piece of ChexMix zing by.

Ava's nose is jammed into a book with Kracken in the title and a cover that leaves little to the imagination.

"It's not my fault you have no imagination." Ava winks at both of us, and Mari rolls her eyes. "Plus, haven't you heard the phrase ‘It's always the quiet ones?'" We all erupt with laughter. She couldn't be more on point. Mari is boisterous and a bit controlling but has always been slightly squeamish regarding sexuality— the one thing Ava and I have found to tease her about successfully.

The sun sets, bringing with it more rain, which quickly becomes more severe as the minutes tick on. Wind gusts through, making trees in the distance sway and crack.

We checked for widow-makers earlier, finding all the evergreens within striking distance well-rooted and sturdy. A chill still snakes down my spine, listening to the trees call out their protest as they bow in the wind .

A large pop rings out in the quickly dimming twilight, followed by a crash of leaves and branches close enough to startle us but not close enough to worry. We bolt upright from our hammocks, and I signal to Ava and Mariana to join me in my tent. They both run over hastily, avoiding wet shrubs licking at their legs.

My friends enter the tent after me, brows furrowed. It doesn't seem like they are shaken, maybe more annoyed that our relaxing evening has been ruined.

Mariana moves to sit, but she reaches behind and pulls a silver flask from her back pocket before she does.

"Expect the unexpected," she says. I take the whisky and tip the flask back. The metal is cool on my lips, but the liquid burns down my throat and settles its heat in my stomach and chest.

Ava nods to me, and I hand the flask over to her. We pass it back and forth between the three of us for a while in silence, letting the storm bellow in the absence of our words.

"Well, I'm glad we turned around," I say, before holding the flask back to my lips.

"You can say that again. If we had pushed on, we would have been royally fucked." Mariana's heated green eyes look to both of us for agreement.

"It's only weather; it'll pass." Silence breaks out in the tent once again.

Storms are dangerous, but life is never risk-free, especially for us.

We met as young girls in a Portland foster home, living as sisters temporarily.

Until life happened, and our foster parents could no longer accommodate three growing girls.

Our lives were interconnected after that .

From age six to eighteen, we sometimes had days in the same group home or months in the same foster placement. Even though life dealt us a hard start, fate must have kept us together. There really is no other explanation for it.

Although younger than Ava and me, Mariana was wildly protective of us. Her stature and attitude are a thing of wonder. Even as a preteen, she could wield her dominant nature and ‘fuck you' attitude into something even the more nefarious adults didn't want to mess with.

We kept each other safe and vowed to escape the system. Not just the system itself but the pipeline the system will throw you into—drugs, abusive relationships, teen pregnancy, and, for an overwhelming amount, taking your own life. We supported each other and thrived together, unlike any agency or foster care could.

I went to college and parlayed my love for nature and general distaste for humans into a Wildlife Biology career with the Forest Service.

Mariana got a degree in social work and runs a non-profit group that advocates for children in foster care and group homes. She is doing what she always has—standing up for voiceless kids.

Ava is a unique story. She left the system first and became a waitress to afford an apartment. She petitioned the court and pulled us out of the home before we turned eighteen.

Our social worker didn't care as long as we maintained our grades and checked in occasionally. Mariana continued to work after we graduated from high school and went on to college. We stayed in that apartment the whole time, and she supported us.

Little did we know she was also the smartest of us all. She taught herself the basics of JavaScript over a weekend, then SQL, then Python. There wasn't a scripting language she couldn't master and wield. She settled on data, finding patterns in chaos and writing scripts to detect dataset abnormalities. She started running data queries for big companies while we were still in college, and now she's one of the most popular data scientists in the Pacific Northwest.

We all made it out, carving lives for ourselves that are fulfilling and hopeful, distancing our trauma with accomplishments and a massive amount of therapy.

We all still live in Oregon, just not in the same city anymore. My job sent me to Bend to do climate-related wildfire research. Mariana is still in Portland, where most of the state's youth homes are. Ava has houses in Portland, Bend, and Lincoln City, so we can take beach weekends together.

We take this particular trip every year, hiking in the backcountry of the Cascades, cutting our respective tethers, losing ourselves in the forest and the effort—just being together.

Lightning streaks through the sky, illuminating the tent with white explosive light. A menacing boom follows, rattling the ground and our composure.

The storm is edging toward violence, rain pounds on the tent walls, and I know now that we've lost our tarp. Another flask is out, and we are frantically passing it from person to person, attempting to eliminate some of the anxiety.

My friends seem worried in the lamplight, and I'm at a loss on how to soothe their fear.

Calling on our satellite phone is no use. The chopper can't extract in this weather, and Search and Rescue won't make it on foot in time.

"Okay, our biggest threat right now is lightning striking a tree, and the tree hitting us. However, in a dense forest, it's improbable that a tree would go on a straight path without catching on something else." They both look at me wide-eyed but understanding .

"Our next threat is water saturation. That's not a concern since we're not in a flood zone." They see exactly what I'm doing, using logic to keep myself from drowning.

All three of us developed different methods to cope with intense situations. This happens to be mine. Logic to a fault. I continue. "We aren't at high risk for hypothermia since it's summer. The temperature low is around 60, and most of our gear is waterproof." Oddly enough, my rambling seems to calm them.

A massive boom shakes the ground again, and another bright flash stains the sky. Instinctively, we all tuck our legs into our chests and bury our faces. I hear Ava's chant over the noise. "No plane has ever crashed because of turbulence. No plane has ever crashed because of turbulence." A mantra she probably repeats during bumpy flights, and I hope it's helping.

The lamp flickers, showing fear on my friend's faces before darkness engulfs us.