CHAPTER 39 – The Ridge and the Bear

  The trail grew steeper as the morning passed, climbing toward a narrow ridge lined with pale boulders and scraggly mountain laurel. The sky had dimmed from clear blue to a soft, uncertain gray, hinting at a possible storm later. Fleta felt the change in her legs first—the heavy, slow pull of climbing.

  Jess huffed theatrically. “Whose idea was uphill? I’d like to file a complaint.”

  Marco raised a hand. “I second the complaint.”

  Riley didn’t look back. “Take it up with the mountains.”

  Fleta smiled weakly and kept going.

  The ridge leveled out at a long, natural overlook. Trees dropped away on one side, revealing rolling layers of blue?green mountains. Jess gasped. Marco announced he was going to live here now. Riley started taking photos immediately.

  Fleta stepped toward the edge to see the view properly—

  —and stopped when she heard it.

  A rustle. A heavy, weighty kind of rustle. Not a squirrel. Not a bird.

  Something bigger.

  Riley froze mid?photo. Jess swallowed hard. Marco whispered, “Oh no.”

  A black bear stood thirty feet down the trail.

  Not enormous—but big enough. Big enough that Fleta’s breath vanished.

  The bear wasn’t looking at them. It had its head buried in a fallen log, ripping at insects or grubs with casual strength, like peeling back cardboard. Its fur rippled with every movement.

  Riley lifted a hand, calm but firm. “Nobody run.”

  Jess whispered back, “Who would run?!”

  Marco whispered, “Me. Absolutely me.”

  Riley ignored both of them. “We give it space. We talk calmly. And we back away.”

  Fleta didn’t know how to talk. Her throat was tight, her heart pounding like the dream from the night before had followed her into the daylight.

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  Riley started speaking in a steady voice. “Hey there, bear. We’re moving on. Not bothering you.”

  Jess and Marco joined in hesitantly.

  Fleta forced herself to whisper too. “We’re just walking. It’s okay.”

  The bear paused, lifted its head, and looked directly at them.

  Fleta’s knees felt like water.

  But after a long, slow moment, the bear simply turned, lumbered into the rhododendron thicket, and disappeared like a shadow slipping through green.

  Riley exhaled. “Okay. We keep moving.”

  Everyone nodded quickly. Too quickly.

  The group continued, steps a little shaky, breaths coming a little too fast. Fleta tried to steady herself, but her legs still trembled.

  The trail narrowed along a rocky bend, roots twisting across it like tangled ropes. Marco went first, then Jess, then Fleta—

  Her foot slipped.

  Just a little. Just enough.

  Her boot skidded off a wet root, ankle twisting, weight pitching forward. She gasped, arms flailing for balance.

  Riley grabbed her pack strap instantly. “Got you!”

  Fleta clung to the nearest tree trunk, heart hammering.

  “I—I’m fine,” she said automatically.

  “You’re shaken,” Riley said, not unkindly. “Take a minute.”

  Jess hurried back, wide?eyed. “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” Fleta said, though her ankle throbbed faintly. “Just scared.”

  “Slip happens,” Marco said gently. “Especially after a bear. That was a double whammy.”

  Fleta wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or both.

  Instead she sat on a nearby rock while Riley checked her ankle—not touching her skin, just watching how she moved it, how she stood on it.

  “You’re okay,” Riley said finally. “Just nerves and a little twist.”

  Fleta nodded, but the fear still clung to her like a thin, cold film.

  Riley crouched beside her. “Hey. You handled that bear exactly right. And you stopped your fall. That’s what matters.”

  Jess added, “I freak out over spiders, so you’re already doing better than me.”

  Marco nodded. “Same. If that bear had been a spider, I would’ve slipped off the mountain.”

  Fleta finally laughed—a small, startled sound, but real.

  The fear loosened.

  A breeze swept through the ridge, smelling of pine and distant rain. The trail ahead curved into darker woods, shadows gathering between the trunks. It still looked wild. Hard. Uncertain.

  But not impossible.

  Not anymore.

  Fleta stood carefully. Her ankle held. Her breathing steadied. Her heartbeat slowed.

  Riley smiled at her. “Ready?”

  Fleta looked at the trail—at the roots, the rocks, the wild uncertainty of it all.

  She tightened her pack straps.

  “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I’m ready.”

  And the four of them stepped back into the forest, into the shadows and the light, carrying the memory of danger behind them—and a little more courage than before.