Page 12 of Fight Or Flight

Natalie looked out the bay window at the thick snowflakes falling, then back at Elizabeth. “But—”

“Please,” Elizabeth said.

“Okay.”

After a beat, she backed out of the room and closed the doors behind her, but didn’t leave. She was way too curious. She recognized Robert right away, even though he’d never spoken a single word to her in her life. He’d visited her mother enoughover the years for her to piece together who he was. When she was thirteen, she asked her mother whether he was, in fact, her biological father and got confirmation. When she had found out from the Mapleton High gossip mill that Robert was not only married to someone else, but that he also had a daughter with her and another daughter from a different mistress, Natalie became furious with her mother. She never imagined her mother would knowingly sleep with a married man, and continue to do so for years and years. As much as she tried to stop it from tainting her memories of her mother, it had.

Natalie pressed her ear against the door and listened. She could only make out Elizabeth’s voice.

“That’s enough!” Elizabeth shouted.

Natalie could hear a high-pitched, garbled voice reply.

“No, Anne, I’m not asking her to leave.”

Natalie had backed away from the door at that point.

Anne was Robert’s wife, and from what Natalie could tell, she was a very sweet woman. She cringed at what Anne was going through. Natalie knew she didn’t belong in Mapleton, but she hadn’t considered that her presence there would harm anyone. Especially the innocent person who Natalie’s mother had victimized by not ending things with Robert when she found out he was married.

Not only that, but she hated that she was putting Elizabeth in an awkward situation after the kindness she had shown.

At that point, Natalie did what Elizabeth suggested and set off toward the waterfall. She’d walked out the front door and down the front steps when she saw Anne’s car. Anne had rolled the back window down, and a small strawberry-blond head with two curly pigtails and two giant eyes peered out just over the edge of the frame.

That had to be Emily, her half sister.

Well, one of them at least.

Natalie left then, ran around the side of the house, past the rose bushes, and through the gardens. She spent several hours at the waterfall in the freezing cold and thought about what she was going to do. She didn’t want to cause trouble for anyone and didn’t want to stay in Mapleton anyway, so she decided she would leave town as soon as she finished the semester. Several universities had offered her acceptances, but she knew then that she wouldn’t accept any of them.

What she wanted, more than anything else in the world, was to just be free.

Another scratching noise snapped her attention back. She walked toward the coffee table to get the urn while watching the fireplace, just in case a mouse darted out at her. When she picked it up, a small notecard dropped from behind it that read: “My office. Friday, 10 a.m.”

Natalie dropped the card on the coffee table and walked out of the parlour, sliding the doors closed to trap all the memories inside. She’d leave in a couple of days and try to never think about Robert or Anne or Emily ever again.

She hefted the stone urn up onto her hip and wrapped an arm around it.

“Come on, Elizabeth. Let’s get you where you want to be.”

Natalie walked through the terraced gardens that covered the sloped grounds from the house on the hill to the edge of the woods. Ten years ago, the gardens were Elizabeth’s pride and joy. She’d had a crew come in every week to maintain them. A prominent garden design magazine had even once featured them as a cover story.

Now, they were a weedy, crumbling mess.

To the right of the gardens was an orchard, filled with apple, peach, and cherry trees, and in need of a good mowing. To the left was a large victory garden that sat barren. Beyond that were fields. In front of her was an entrance to the woods that Mother Nature had entirely reclaimed.

Natalie pushed her way through, stepping carefully so the bare sides of her sandalled feet wouldn’t get stabbed by twigs and branches. Weeds, grass, and bushes had grown over the once well-trodden path. Natalie knew the general direction of the waterfall, but without the path, it would be tricky. She forged ahead, listening through the sounds of birds chirping and leaves rustling for the sound of rushing water to guide her.

After about four minutes of walking, she finally made it to the river. Once there, she knew to turn right and follow it along to where it started at the base of Monroe Falls. A hundred metres later, the enormous old willow tree came into sight. Its long, wispy fronds swayed from the branches and dipped into the pool of frothy water below.

She walked around the tree, then stopped and took in the view of the only good thing about Mapleton: her waterfall.

The spring melt from the escarpment made the water flow fast. It rushed down a twenty-metre drop, with three tiers of rock impeding its fall. Behind the waterfall was a backdrop of rock, bushes, flowers, and enormous trees.

She took a deep breath, then let it out. There was something so secluded and magical about the place, it was almost a meditative experience. She could breathe deeply here, away from the rest of the world.

She’d first seen the waterfall in the winter, when the water was frozen solid in place, instead of flowing. Elizabeth had guided her there a few weeks after she’d moved in. It was there, sitting on a blanket and sipping hot chocolate, that Elizabethhad confirmed that the rumours she heard at school were true. Natalie had two half sisters, Emily and Chelsea.

Natalie went back to the waterfall every week thereafter to see how it would melt and transform. Over time, she went more and more often, whenever she felt the world was asking too much. She’d even bring her mother’s photo albums with her, as if she could share the magical place with her.

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