Page 54 of The Women of Wild Hill
“I had a terrible meeting this morning,” he told her. “Thought I’d go for a walk. Somehow, I lost sight of the path. Then I got turned around and couldn’t find my way back. I’ve been out here since eleven. My name is Calum, by the way.”
“Flora,” she said. “Your meeting was at the hotel on the other side of the canyon?”
“That’s right,” he told her.
“We’re at least five miles away. You could have died out here, you know. People get lost all the time. Mostly men, to be honest. They forget to treat nature with proper reverence. She may be beautiful, but she’s also deadly.”
“Then I guess it’s a miracle that you came along to save me.” A lot of men would have made a joke of it. Calum sounded completely sincere.
They were interrupted by cries overhead. “Yes,” Flora told him as her eyes followed three desert ravens flying past as though called away. “I think it might be.”
“If you can guide me back to the hotel, I’d love to thank you with dinner and drinks. It could be my last fancy meal for a while. Asof this morning, I’m unemployed. Might as well end the day with a bang.”
“I was thinking the very same thing,” Flora told him.
Then the two of them walked back into the flames.
“SO THAT’S HOW THEY MET,”Brigid said as the vision faded. “It wasn’t what I imagined.”
“What were they doing out in the middle of nowhere?” Sibyl asked.
“That wasn’t really the middle of nowhere,” Phoebe explained. “They were in the Santa Monica Mountains. Topanga Canyon—about thirty minutes from where we grew up. Mom used to go there to commune with the local wildlife.”
“Wildlife?”
“Snakes, mostly,” Brigid said. “She could talk to them.”
“You know, I think I remember that day,” Phoebe interjected. “She was supposed to pick me up from school, but she didn’t come home until the following morning.”
“Weren’t you worried something had happened to her?” Sibyl asked.
“Of course not, newbie,” Brigid scoffed. “Flora did that shit all the time. She knew how to take care of herself. And if she’d been dead, I’d have seen it.”
“That system didn’t work out so well in the end, did it?” Phoebe muttered.
“And whose fault is that?” Brigid demanded, her hackles going up at once.
“Are you actually suggesting—”
“Enough!” Sibyl shouted. The two older women fell silent and Sibyl seemed pleasantly surprised by her newly acquired power. “So Grandma was a player.”
Brigid snorted. “Yeah, you could say that.”
A new vision began to take form.
“Shit.” Brigid shielded her eyes. “I really don’t want to watch Mom and Geddes getting it on.”
As the scene became clearer, they could see Flora and Calum sitting at a dining table on a patio outside a luxurious hotel, both of them completely clothed.
“SO WHAT WERE YOU DOINGout in the canyon this afternoon?” Calum asked.
“Same thing you were,” Flora told him. “Trying to get my head together. Figure out what my next step will be.”
“Did you get fired, too?”
Flora laughed. “In a way, I guess. I spent my whole life thinking I was destined for something important. A few years ago, I found out I was wrong. I’m ashamed to admit that I still haven’t managed to forge a new path yet. I have two girls, and I love them more than anything. But they’ll be grown soon, and they won’t need me anymore. When I look ahead, all I see for myself is a dead end.”
Calum nodded. “I know the feeling.”
