He went on to repeat much of what I had already read in the brochure, the history of the center’s founding, how it had been running the last fifty years, and had equipped countless young adults with essential survival skills as well as memories that would last a lifetime.
“There has never been a more exciting time to visit Murkbeech. As many of you know, we recently renovated the hostel and our equipment, as well as planned many new adventure activities that you will have the opportunity to participate in during your trip.” He rubbed his hands together. “So, if nobody has any questions, we will get right to the good stuff! You only have two weeks with us and we’re going to ensure that you make the most of every single day. No slackers here, right?” Although he received some less-than-enthusiastic looks from the young adults surrounding him, he grinned as he looked around and continued, “Tomorrow, we will head to Durrow Island. I’m sure that many of you spotted it through the bus window on our way here. We will be leaving early. Breakfast is at 8 AM and everyone must be ready to walk out the door by 9:30 AM—and make sure you wear your swimsuits beneath your clothes. We’ll be heading to the center’s private port, on this side of the island, where we’ll take a boat.”
“When will we go horseback riding?” one of the younger girls called out.
“Toward the end of the trip,” the man replied. “Relaxing stuff like horseback riding, canoeing, etc, will be saved for the end. You need to earn it first!”
“What exactly will we be doing tomorrow?” a boy a few seats in front of us asked.
“We’ll be embarking on a trek across Durrow Island… That’s all I’ll say for now. It’ll be a surprise!”
Two more male staff entered the room carrying a massive black bag. They planted it in front of Peter and unzipped it. It was filled with white cloth bags.
“Here we have some equipment that you’ll need to bring with you. I want to ask you to form a line around the room so we can hand these out one by one.”
Everyone was given their own white bag. We returned to our sofa to examine their contents. Each bag contained a Swiss army knife, a lighter, a flashlight, and a ball of sturdy string, as well as a bunch of other bits and pieces.
“Pack what we’ve given you in your hiking backpacks, along with enough clothing for five days,” Peter said.
“What about food?” another boy asked.
“Don’t worry about that, dear,” Suzanne said. “We’ll take care of it.”
“Are there toilets on that island?” one of the four snooty girls asked.
At this, all of the guides chuckled. “No,” Charlie said. “You’ll be roughing it.”
His statement was met with a mixed response, both laughter and disgust. I just made a mental note to bring toilet paper…
“You have the rest of the evening off to explore the hostel and the grounds. Just don’t venture past the fences without permission. We’ll meet again for dinner—the dining room is through that door.” He pointed to a door at the back of the sitting room, from which an aromatic smell was already emanating. “And after you’ve eaten, there will be a little surprise.”
Everyone stood up and began leaving the room. Most headed back to the dorms, while others made their way out of the main entrance. It had stopped raining, and the sky seemed to have cleared up.
The four of us returned to our rooms to grab some warm clothes before meeting again by the entrance. We ventured outside into the cool evening and gazed around. The horizon glowed orange from the descending sun. I breathed in the crisp sea air as I zipped up my jacket and wrapped a scarf around my neck.
We crossed the gravelly parking area and entered the hilly grassland that surrounded the hostel. We trudged to the nearest hill within the boundary of the wooden fence that ran in a wide circle around the building, and gazed out at the view of the choppy sea and Durrow Island beyond.
“Look, there are the horses,” Julian pointed out. East of the island were a couple of large stables. Horses roamed a grazing area attached to it. A few people had gathered around to pet the animals and feed them grass.
We wandered around the grounds a little longer, away from everyone else, until the sun had disappeared. There were no lights at all in this area other than those emanating from the building. It was almost time for dinner anyway so we headed back. We made our way straight to the dining room, like most of the others who’d been outside. It was a long white-walled room with steel tables and fluorescent lighting. There was a canteen at one end where members of staff were already laying out food.
By the time everyone had assembled and we were given permission to start helping ourselves, my stomach was rumbling. After piling up my plate, I dug into the meal until I couldn’t take another bite. Leaning back in my chair, I watched Ruby, Julian and Benedict finishing their meal. They must have been hungry too because they finished shortly after I did.
As people began standing to leave, Peter requested we wait for a while in the sitting room for a “surprise”. We sat down on the same sofa we had occupied earlier and watched the fire crackling in the hearth.
After the dining room had emptied, a short plump woman with large round spectacles and a mop of wild curly hair entered the sitting room. She was wearing navy blue corduroy pants and a floral-patterned shirt. She walked to the rocking chair in front of the fire and slid into it.
“Good evening.” She spoke up, looking around the room. Her Scottish accent was no less thick than Gillian’s. “I am Mrs. McKenzie, owner of Murkbeech Adventures, and before you go to sleep tonight—as is the tradition for all new arrivals on our island—I would like to tell you a welcome story…”
Someone dimmed the lights, leaving only the crackling fire to illuminate the room. The firelight reflected in Mrs. McKenzie’s spectacles as she began to recount a spooky story. She wouldn’t tell us whether it was true or not, but it was a tale about a young woman who had committed suicide on Durrow Island almost a century ago. She had been living on the mainland before receiving news that her sailor husband had perished on an expedition. The very night she was informed about his death, she took a boat and sailed across the perilous waters to the deserted Durrow Island, where she tied a noose around her neck and hanged herself from the tallest tree. According to Mrs. McKenzie, to this day, you could sometimes hear the bough creaking, as if a heavy weight were pulling it down, and an anguished cry mingling with the howls of the wind…
Her story ended with the slamming of a door, causing several of the younger teens to scream. It was a sound effect courtesy of Peter, who stood silhouetted in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Well, time for bed!” Mrs. McKenzie shrilled. “Durrow Island awaits you in the morning…”
Peter turned the lights back on as people began to leave the sitting room. Standing up, I yawned and stretched out. My hand brushed against someone accidentally. I quickly withdrew, before realizing that it was Wes whom I had brushed against.
“Sorry,” I breathed, for what would be the second time that day.
Wes flashed me a smile. “Sleep tight, Hazel,” he said, before disappearing out of the room.
Hazel
I hoped that Mrs. McKenzie’s story wouldn’t prevent my brother from sleeping that night. As grown-up as he liked to think he was, he was still a kid in my eyes. At home, he still slept with a nightlight. At least he was sharing a dorm with Julian, who could be like an older brother.
I wasn’t afraid of ghosts, given all that I knew about them. Heck, my uncle (and great-uncle) had been a ghost once. There wasn’t a lot that could scare me, considering that I lived on an island filled with creatures that went bump in the night…
I couldn’t deny, though, that I found Mrs. McKenzie’s story creepy. It didn’t help that I was sleeping in a strange place. I never slept well the first time I arrived in a new location and this night was no exception. I tossed and turned in my bed for an hour trying to fall asleep and in the end, my hand ended up slipping into my bag and retriev
ing my e-reader. I relapsed into my guilty habit.
I must’ve read until I was unconscious with exhaustion, because when I woke up, it was to find my e-reader lying against my chest, the tall light by my bedside still switched on. The morning sun streamed through the curtains.
The four girls we shared the dorm with were still asleep, but it seemed that Ruby was awake. I felt her shifting on the bottom bunk.
“How did you sleep?” I whispered, rubbing my eyes.
“Not too well,” Ruby replied, her voice deep and thick.
I checked my watch. Realizing that I had forgotten to adjust the time zone, I looked at the clock above the door. It was already seven forty-five. Breakfast was served in fifteen minutes.
As Ruby and I gathered a fresh set of clothes and our swimwear, I suggested that we wake the girls. We approached them reluctantly and shook their bed frames.
“Hey,” I said. “Time to wake up.”
They slowly rose to consciousness, grumbling. Ruby and I headed to the bathrooms to take a shower and dress. They were packed, as was to be expected. By the time we returned, the girls were already clothed for the day. Apparently they’d decided to skip washing this morning.
Breakfast was a simple affair. There wasn’t a lot to choose from, just porridge, cereals, and fresh fruit. I was still feeling stuffed from the night before, but I wasn’t sure what kind of food we would be eating over the next few days when we roamed Durrow Island, so I stocked up as much as I could.
Benedict and Julian looked sleepy as they joined Ruby and me at our table.
I didn’t need to ask how their night had been. Not great, like us.
“Good morning,” Suzanne said, striding to the canteen and addressing everybody. She was looking dull and unsmiling compared to yesterday. “I have a request for you all to please leave your phones in your dormitories. Bringing any sort of modern equipment with you will simply detract from your time here and work against what we’re trying to get you to experience.”
Her words were met with a negative response. For most people, having their phones pried from them was like having to part with a kidney. People had become so dependent on phones these days. I couldn’t say I was. I didn’t like being dependent on any particular object or device… except my little e-reader.
After breakfast, we returned to the dorms and packed up our bags. Removing my phone from my backpack, I recorded a special voicemail for my parents in case they called, explaining where we were and why I wasn’t taking the phone with me. Ruby did the same for her parents.
Then we made our way to the sitting room and waited for everyone else to gather around.
As we sat, I couldn’t help but notice our four roomates sidle over to Wes and his group—Wes was looking particularly handsome with mussed hair and a slightly dazed, sleepy look in his eyes.
The girls started engaging in what was clearly flirting with the guys, one of the girls talking to Wes directly. Apparently, at some point between yesterday and today, they had managed to establish a rapport.
Not that I cared. At all.
Swallowing, I shifted my focus to the door, waiting not so patiently for the guides to arrive and escort us to Murkbeech Adventures’ private port.
They didn’t keep us waiting long. Everyone was pretty punctual and soon we were leaving the hostel and hiking across the grassland toward the boundary fence.
The port wasn’t far away, if it could even be called a port. It was just a small wooden jetty where a single boat was moored. Another open-air boat. Sea Breeze was its name.
The guides, who were carrying backpacks larger and heavier than the rest of us, piled in first and started the boat, while we boarded.
We took seats and watched as we moved away from the jetty and into the waters, which were choppier than I had expected them to be on such a fine day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, so very different from the weather the day before. Hopefully, the good weather would hold up for as long as we were on the island. There would be plenty of other obstacles to contend with without worrying about rain.
The girls continued to suck up to Wes and his crew throughout the journey. Not that I was looking their way… Particularly.
I focused on Durrow Island, gradually looming closer and closer.
It was hard to estimate how big it was—not terribly big, but big enough to get lost in.
True to the spirit of this adventure course, Julian confirmed that he had left behind his game console when I asked him. That was pretty good of him and Benedict both. They might’ve left their phones behind, but I’d been expecting them to still bring their toy for whatever downtime we had. I supposed it would run out of batteries pretty quickly anyway and there was no electricity on the island.
The four of us were the first to debark as the boat pulled into a tiny dock. We leapt to the ground and stared back at Murkbeech Island, now a vague outline in the distance.
Everybody looked pretty nervous as they gazed around at our new destination, or what we could see of it so far. White cliffs, sludgy grassland and pebbly beaches.
Once everybody was out of the boat, the guides led us away from the shore and onto the mainland. We followed a narrow trail through the puddle-filled grass until the ground began to ascend and I realized that they were leading us up to one of the cliffs. It wasn’t long before everybody was panting. The sun started to feel unpleasantly warm. I tore off my jacket and tied it around my waist while fanning myself with my hands.
That was when I realized I’d forgotten to pack sunblock. Crap. On asking Julian, Ruby and Benedict, they had forgotten too. I burnt easily in the sun, even in the morning. By the end of the day, if the sun kept up its intensity, my face would be as red as a tomato.
I continued to peel off my layers the higher we climbed; after my jacket I removed my sweater, and then my shirt, until I was just wearing a tank top. Even still, my back felt sweaty, so I rolled it up, letting the breeze touch my midriff.
My face got a bit warmer still as one of the girls sped up to walk beside Wes.
Then I spotted a tube of sunblock in his hands. He was applying it to his face and the back of his neck.
“Hey, Wes,” I called out, suddenly experiencing a surge of unexpected boldness. He turned as I reached him, his eyes falling briefly to my bare midriff before returning to my face.
I ignored the way the brunette girl was sizing me up as I pointed to the sunblock and asked Wes, “Could my friends and I borrow some of that?”
“Sure,” he said, handing me the bottle.
I remained walking by his side as I squeezed out some of the lotion into my right hand and began applying it to my face, arms, midriff, and any other part of my skin that was exposed to the sun.
Then I handed it to Ruby.
“The sun bothers you?” Wes asked. He must have noticed how much discomfort I was in. Nobody else reacted quite as strongly as I did, not even my three Shade companions. “That must be a bummer in California.”
I laughed dryly.
Julian, who was the last to use the sunblock, handed it back to Wes, thanking him.
The brunette slipped back and rejoined her friends with a slight scowl on her face after seeing all of Wes’s focus switched to me. None of us had much breath to talk though for the next few hours as we continued scaling the mountain.
When we finally reached the top, I had a stitch in my side and my calf muscles ached. We took a break for water and a light snack of a granola bar as we admired the view from the cliff top. I had to say that it was worth the climb. Truly stunning. We were able to see the extent of Murkbeech from this height; I could just about make out some details, too—the hostel toward the west coast, and the tiny village and port on the east side.
Benedict slumped down on the grass, using his clunky backpack for support as he leaned backward.
“Ugh,” he grumbled. “I wish I was a supernatural.”
I eyed him sharply, while a girl to our left giggled, a girl I’d barely notic
ed until now. She was a bright-faced girl with a short black bob complete with low-hanging bangs that almost covered her light blue eyes. She looked no older than fourteen.
Benedict’s eyes shot toward her… and then he blushed.
Now it was my turn to grin. Oh, this is precious.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Carrie,” she replied.
“Cool,” I said. “I’m Hazel, and this is my brother Benedict. How old are you?”
“Fourteen in September.”
Even cooler.
“That’s awesome,” I said. “Benedict was hoping to make a friend closer to his own age on this trip.”
The blush in Benedict’s cheeks intensified. He cast me a mortified look.
I turned my back on the two of them and faced Ruby… only to find her in conversation with one of Wes’s friends.
“Okay, folks! Let’s keep moving!” Suzanne called.
Benedict was already standing up and hurrying to Julian’s side, apparently too shy to hold a conversation with Carrie, in spite of her friendliness.
We began descending the mountain in a different direction—south, and deeper into the center of the island. Descending was a lot more fun than ascending. In addition to having gravity as our aide, this side of the mountain was shady. Soon I was rolling down my tank top and putting on my shirt again.
We spent the next few hours roaming through mostly flatland, though it was punctuated with water holes, which didn’t make for easy walking.
Once 2 p.m. arrived, I was more than ready for lunch. I was still worried about exactly what we were going to be doing for food, but Gillian, still in a cheery mood, explained. (Peter was still in a quiet mood, which was odd given that he had been the most enthusiastic among the guides when we first arrived.) Gillian said that she and her fellow guides were carrying enough long-life food for all of us for the next three days, but after that we were going to have to rely on scavenging our own food for meals. They would train us how to find everything that was edible on this island, along with how to prepare and cook it. Water, however, we would have to start locating by tomorrow morning, because it was impractical to carry such a large amount for all of us, especially due to the rate at which we were drinking with all this sun and exercise.