“I’m going to climb the mountain,” April announced to her friends in the school yard at lunch the next day, “I’ve got to find out what’s going on up there. Who’s coming with me?”
Thomas and Mia looked rather apprehensive at the idea, Cody nodded, and Sarah said, “I would go with you April except for one reason. My parents would never let me. They would say we are all just kids and we can’t go off climbing a mountain unless we have an adult with us.”
“Yeah, same here, my parents would say the same thing,” Cody muttered, then he looked up, “Wait a minute, I have an idea. My sister.”
“Your sister?” April said looking puzzled, “What about her?”
“She’s a senior in her final year, and a month ago she turned eighteen. That makes her an adult, and she is a fitness freak. She plays sports, runs, jogs and she hikes in the national park sometimes with her friends. She is disgustingly fit.”
“Yeah, but would she want to climb a mountain with a bunch of thirteen year olds?” Sarah asked.
“It can’t hurt to ask,” Cody replied, “Come on, let’s go and find her. She’s probably in the gym.”
The gym is exactly where they found Kaitlin practicing basketball hoops with a couple of other seniors. She was a tall girl with an athletic figure and long dark hair tied back in a ponytail.
Cody called her over to the side of the court where they all stood waiting. Kaitlin gave her younger brother an annoyed look and walked over to them.
“Haven’t I told you not to come near me when we’re at school?” she snapped at him, “I have a reputation to keep.”
“Yeah, sorry sis,” Cody said not looking the slightest bit sorry, “But we have a favour to ask you.”
He introduced his friends, then gave a shortened explanation of their proposed mountain climb, leaving out any mention of lights or ghosts.
“You want me to go with you up Mount Despair, just so you can have an adult with you? Why would you want to go up there? It’s really steep near the top.”
“We only want to go halfway, below the steep section. We’re looking for the remains of an old cabin that used to be there over a hundred years ago. We’re researching a history project.”
“Really?” Kaitlin gave her brother a suspicious look, “And if I do it, what’s in it for me?”
“I’ll owe you big time.”
“Hmm,” Kaitlin stared at Cody for several seconds, thinking it over, “All right I’ll do it. It might be fun. But not this weekend, I have a basketball game on Saturday afternoon. How about next weekend as long as the weather is ok?”
“Yes, that’d be great. Thanks sis.”
“Okay we’ll work out the details later, now get out of here before someone sees you talking to me!”
“Wow, your sister is cool,” Thomas said as they walked back outside.
“Yeah sometimes she is,” Cody replied, “Anyway that settles the ‘having an adult with us’ part. Now we just have to convince our parents to let us go. I’ll be fine. My mum and dad think the sun shines out of my annoying sister cause she is so good at everything.”
Over the next week the plans were made. Thomas and Mia would not be going, their parents had said no it was too dangerous. Sarah’s parents agreed, and so had April’s parents as they already knew Cody’s family.
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April had checked the weather forecast which predicted fine sunny weather on the weekend. As the four of them, April, Cody, Sarah and Kaitlin sat around the dining table at Cody’s house on the evening of Wednesday before the weekend of the climb, April outlined the plan.
“Kaitlin has agreed to drive us to the park in her car, so we leave on Saturday morning, park at the visitor’s carpark, then we walk to the base of the mountain which will take about an hour, then we climb up to the flat area halfway up the mountain to where the cabin once was. We’ll take sleeping bags in our backpacks along with plenty of food and water. The weather will be warm so we won’t need tents, we can sleep out in the open. Then on Sunday morning we’ll climb back down and be home by mid afternoon. Is everyone okay with this?”
Sarah and Cody nodded in agreement, but Kaitlin looked slightly puzzled. “Kids I’m sure this will be a nice little climb and camping trip, but I don’t really understand why we’re going. You already told me this cabin burned down over a hundred years ago. Do you really think you’ll find anything left of it?”
“We’re hoping to find some artifacts at the site,” April explained, “We’ll take a couple of small spades so we can dig below the surface a bit. Who knows what we might find.”
Both Cody and Sarah gave her a knowing look. They still hadn’t told Kaitlin the full story of the Bergen family saga, only that the family had disappeared in 1878 without a trace. If they had told her about the mysterious lights or about Jeff Goldman’s sighting of alleged ghosts, she might get spooked and change her mind about going.
“Okay, April,” Kaitlin agreed, “Who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky and find a valuable coin buried in the ground. By the way is there phone reception up there?”
“I’m not sure,” Cody answered, “But because we’ll be up fairly high we’ll probably be able to pick up the mobile phone tower here in town. Why is that, sis? Will you want to call your boyfriend?”
“Shut up,” she said giving him a gentle whack on the head, “I don’t have a boyfriend anyway.”
“Yeah, sure you don’t,” Cody replied with a cheeky grin, then he ducked as Kaitlin tried to whack him again.
That night as April kept her usual vigil at her bedroom window for the lights from the mountain, they never came. It was a clear night with stars in the sky so there shouldn’t be any fog on the mountain she thought. She waited and waited, finally giving up at midnight and going to bed.
The following night she waited in vain for the lights, but again they didn’t appear.
The next day was Friday, the day before the mountain climb. In the evening April watched through her window at eleven o’clock and this time she was rewarded. The lights were back, but they seemed a little different. Were they brighter than usual, and did each flash last a little longer? She wasn’t sure. She climbed into bed and drifted off to sleep with dreams of the Bergen family standing in front of their log cabin waving while in the background the sinister shadow of a large animal stalked them.
