This is a story based on true events right out of my own life. When it feels like there's no hope, sometimes you've just gotta follow the highway...
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Seven o’clock had arrived The temperature was above the boiling point, and the heat wouldn’t give way even as the sun set .
Two sisters were packed nice and tight in a tiny festiva as Celeste, the younger sister and driver made for the highway.
“Where are we going Celeste? Grand maybe, it‘s the closest?” Billie, the oldest sister asked with a yawn.
Celeste decided to say nothing, not even that they weren’t going to Grand. She kept staring at a brochure in her lap, reading: Nowhere Lake: there’s nowhere better, and beneath it a map, to make sure she was on track. She had planned this event a year ago, and wanted everything to go right. This was the weekend her and her sister would see eye to eye again. This was the weekend that her sister would remember a very long, very tight friendship that was on the verge of crumbling. Unfortunately all would not go as planned for Celeste and she knew that the minute a sign came into her view.
Hope Lake was not where they were going. Celeste couldn’t understand how she had missed her turn off. She had planned the weekend at Nowhere Lake. She couldn’t have already passed it. She stared at the brochure again, reading the directions but she had gone in the right direction. Why wasn’t she at Nowhere Lake?”
“Hope Lake is fine.”
Celeste felt a pang of annoyance. “It‘s not the right one.”
“who cares,” Billie said.
Celeste shot a glare at her. “I care.”
Billie switched on the radio. Muffled voices reverberated out of the ten year old speakers.
“Missing since-- Mitchell-- Tom-- if you see--”
“What’s wrong with the radio?” Billie asked, trying to tune the station in. Static finally won out.
Another sign passed by in a blur, but the words glowed paranormally against the green background.
“Did you hear that, it was kinda sad,” Billie asked.
Celeste had been concentrating on the road, not on her sister’s voice. “No, I‘m trying to figure this out. What was sad?”
“This trip?” Billie meant to joke, but the joke soured beneath the tension that mounted in the car.
“Those two guys that are missing.”
“What guys?” Celeste asked, still obviously not interested, which Billie must’ve picked up on so she said nothing more about it. The next sign to materialize on the side of the highway was blue with brilliantly white letters.
Celeste paused and glanced behind her. The highway was empty. It all looked so strange. “I don’t see a gate. Where are we?”
“Hope Lake, check out the sign,” Billie replied in a know-it-all tone.
Celeste nodded, a bit dazed. “I know, but-- this is wrong. This lake just came out of nowhere. ”
Trees towered like a giant canope over Celeste’s car, and she pocketed the brochure to get a better look at her surroundings. Maybe she was wrong about this lake. It looked like it could be perfect for their weekend. Unfamiliar birds sang unfamiliar songs while a couple deer grazed lazily within the trees. Celeste was completely taken in by the sights and had momentarily forgotten how she had stumbled into it until Billie let out a cry.
“Celeste!”
Celeste slammed on the brake and blinked when someone raced across her path, unaware that they had almost gotten hit by a noisy vehicle.
“Oh my god” she whispered, feeling the fear well in her chest like bad congestion.
The stranger came to a stop and looked up as a deer caught in the headlights. He locked eyes with Celeste and she could see it all in those icy blue depths. She could see the pain, the grief, the misery, and the regret. He was lost. They were lost.
“Help me,” he mouthed.
Celeste looked away afraid that if she kept her eyes on him, his entire soul would open to her like a floodgate. “Oh my god,” she gasped and shut her eyes, stress building. She opened them to find her sister, staring at her. “We have to find the park office. That’s what we have to do,” she told her as though she was under some kind of trance.
Billie nodded with the same look on her face that Celeste had. After silent contemplation, Billie finally spoke. “What was wrong with that guy?”
Celeste turned her head just enough to catch a glimpse of the stranger scampering away into the trees, like a spooked deer. Celeste took her foot off the brake and the car rolled forward then there was a splutter and a loud clunk. Celeste gazed at her gas tank where the needle was falling from it’s spot at full. She couldn’t believe it, the car had stalled on a road she wasn’t familiar with, in a park she was now sure was haunted.
“Okay, please tell me that this car is just being funny and we aren’t permanently stuck in crazy zone,” Billie said in a voice that was just starting to take on a tone of panic.
“I filled the tank, I even had the car checked out before this trip.”
“I told you to take it to Danny.”
“I don’t need your boyfriend’s help, Billie, okay? I got dad to check it.”
“Danny is a professional.”
Both sisters went silent when a crack of thunder shook the sky above. Giant black clouds were racing by. “I’ve never seen clouds move that fast, ” gasped Billie
“It’s going to be a bad storm,” Celeste mumbled.
“I think we should wait till the storm passes before we trek it to the park office,” Billie suggested, following the threatening clouds with her eyes.
“We don’t know how long the storm is going to last, and I’d really like to go while there’s still some day light left.”
“The way those clouds are coming in, the daylight will be gone in a matter of minutes. We should wait.”
“The storm shouldn’t be here for at least an hour. I bet we’ll find the office before then.”
“The longer we wait here, the more time we waste,” Celeste said in a hurried voice as a confirmation that her idea was definitely better. “Do you really wanna go when it’s so pitch black you can’t see your hand in front of your face?” Billie rolled her eyes in a way that Celeste hated since it meant that her sister didn’t agree with her ideas-- again.
Celeste opened her door and stepped onto the paved road. Again her eyes were hoisted back to the sky. The clouds were moving fast as though in a race with her. “Bring a jacket.”
Billie went to the trunk of the car and pulled out two jackets. Celeste accepted hers gratefully and jumped when thunder cracked above her a second time, rocking the clouds.
“Come on,” she ordered and practically jogged down the road just to keep a little ahead of the coming storm. The girls moved silently, each taking a frightened look at the clouds every few moments. Celeste glanced back to see that her car was nearly out of view. The clouds rocked again, louder this time.
“This was a stupid idea,” Billie mumbled.
Celeste felt her legs grow stiff. “What?” she gasped.
Billie stopped on the road, and thunder cracked once again. “This whole thing. This trip. I never wanted to do this. I have a life.”
A drop of rain tapped Celeste’s nose, but she didn’t feel it for the lava that was now boiling in her blood. “We had this planned for a year,” Celeste stormed. The rain started to come down. “Don’t you remember the pact we made or did that slip your mind when you left?” Celeste’s words were coming in spurts as she tried to fight off the tears. “I remember the two of us, sitting in a circle, talking about this trip, planning this trip.”
Billie threw her head back, her way of showing how childish she thought this argument was. “Why do you want to do this? The tension in the car was enough to prove you‘re as unhappy about this trip as I am.”
“Why are you so willing to abandon it?” Celeste cried. The rain came down in sheets at this point and lightning forked the sky. Tears and rain mingled on Celeste’s cheeks.
“This isn’t about the trip, Celeste--”
“You abandoned me,” Celeste choked, trying to grind the tears from her eyes.
“I didn‘t abandon you. I grew up, and you didn‘t,” Billie shot. Celeste stumbled back as though she had been slapped. The pain in her heart was overwhelming. Billie was becoming a blur through the thick curtain of rain. She blinked unsure if she was being blinded by her tears or the rain.
“Billie?”
Soon, Celeste couldn’t see her, and fear gripped her like an icy vice. “Billie!” She called, and her heart slammed upwards into her throat. She glanced down, but could barely see through the darkness. A slightly distorted reflection stared up at her from the rain washed road. “Help me!” She cried, but the howling wind swallowed the sound of her voice. Even the voice in her head that acted as a conscience once in awhile had been silenced. All she could hear now was the rain, hissing like a giant and dangerous snake. I need to get back to the car, she thought instantly.
She shut her eyes, and imagined the road where she stood. Slowly, she pivoted so that she would be facing in the direction of where she had parked her car. She opened her eyes. Still she may as well have been walking blind. A figure emerged in front of her eyes, and she jolted from the shock. She knew the figure. It was the stranger she had almost hit before her car decided to stall. He was soaked through, and his black hair looked glued to the side of his face. She raced at him, but he turned and galloped away as though her sudden move had frightened him.
“Wait,” she called, catching branches in her hair as she ran. “Hey, wait, please! You need help? I’ll help you. I’ll help you, but you have to stop.”
The rain continued to come down in torrents and Celeste followed the stranger through the trees, all the while, screaming that he stop and acknowledge her. “I can help you,” she cried again. “If you stop--” The words faltered on her lips as she fell back to catch her breath. She had nearly gone over the giant boulder now blocking her way. The stranger, however didn’t stop, but kept right on going, climbing over the giant boulder even as the rain shone like ice on the surface.
“Follow him,” Celeste demanded herself out loud since she couldn’t pause to hear herself think above the howl of the wind that had picked up all around her, whipping the rain at her like tiny stones. She grabbed the slippery edges of the boulder and had to drag herself up onto it with her arms till she was kneeling there, hands still pressed to the surface. What lay before her was awe inspiring. It was nature’s staircase made of granite, climbing into a valley of trees which grew sparse with the height. She climbed with caution, trying not to let the sight take her breath away even as the storm grew steadily worse. The higher she climbed the more soaked she became from her face down into her shoes. The rain felt like ice, but she fought it and kept going with her head tilted down. The staircase grew slippery and even at times dangerous, but still she never turned around.
She could hear her heart now pounding in her ear and she climbed not only to reach the stranger, but to find something, she knew had abandoned her from the beginning-- hope. She was almost there, one more stair, and she’d find it, and him, but the stair was slippery, more so then each of the others before it, and with a little more of a careless step, her foot slipped. She was going to fall. She would tumble to the bottom of the staircase and lay there in a heap of broken bones. She could feel her body resign to this when she was grabbed by an unusually warm hand.
“One more,” came the voice of the stranger above her. She could see his eyes through the pitch black like they were ones of a cat. He assisted her to the top of the stairs and the view had the power to steal her breath. Hope Lake stretched out as eternal as an ocean and reflected the black sky down to the tiny silver specks that danced on it’s smooth surface. Behind them, she could still hear the rain. “Thank you,” she breathed, and had to turn her head to see that the stranger stood on a rocky ledge overlooking the lake. There was tension in his muscles as though he was planning on leaping off into the depths below.
“How did you get here?” The stranger asked without looking at her.
“Truthfully? I don’t know. I was just driving and this place sort of just--”
The stranger turned suddenly. “Came out of nowhere,” he finished for her.
She nodded, wishing that he would come off the dangerous ledge. “Uh-- yeah-- Did you--”
“Two years ago and it’s been raining ever since,” he replied.
“Except for here,” she said, hoping she could draw him from the ledge with conversation.
“Strange.”
“Maybe it’s hope-- just a ray, but still.”
“Could be why it’s called Hope Lake,” the stranger said with a slight smirk.”
Celeste felt a little laugh escape her. “Oh, you joke? I didn’t think you had it in you.”
The stranger turned to the lake again, and his voice became sombre. “I didn’t.”
Celeste decided then that she wasn’t going to let him jump so she climbed over more rocks till she came to a small crevice where a dense amount of grass grew. She sat and slid down slowly till her feet touched the grass. “Am I stuck here for the next two years, doomed to search for my sisters in a constant rain storm?”
The stranger turned around, a look of panic on his wet face. “What are you doing?”
“What?” Celeste laughed.
“It’s dangerous over here.”
Celeste straightened, and stared intently at him. “Why are you here, then?”
“I’m hopeless,” he admitted then sighed, “What can I tell you? I guess life ends here.”
“How ironic that we’re being punished by a place called Hope Lake.”
The stranger said nothing, but walked away from her to draw nearer to the edge of the ledge. “There’s others, probably just as confused as we are, wondering what the hell it was they did to be brought here.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I just wanted to renew friendship with my sister,” Celeste murmured. “She made it perfectly clear that that’s not going to happen though.”
The stranger spun on Celeste, his eyes flashing. “What?”
Celeste looked up, taken completely off guard. “I’m looking for my sister.”
“Did you leave her?” He demanded to know. “Did you abandon her?”
Celeste backed up. “No! Not on purpose, anyway. Why?”
“You’ve lost her, just like--” he faltered.
“I did not abandon her, okay? She abandoned me. A year ago I had a room mate, and a best friend, and now-- “
“You’re alone,” the stranger finished.
“I’ve gotta go,” Celeste gasped, feeling the tears build in her eyes.
“You’ll never find her,” the stranger said, and Celeste could see pain, grief, misery, and regret just as she had the first time she saw him, except this time it was like looking into a mirror. She had given up just as he had, but it wasn’t as they sat in the car, arguing over even the little things, it wasn’t even when Billie declared that she had grown up, it was the very moment a year ago when Billie moved in with her new much younger boyfriend. It was in that moment that Celeste had lost her sister. She turned to gaze out into the pitch black rainy night. “I didn’t want to lose her,” she whispered, feeling the words vibrate through her. “I don’t want our fight to be the last thing I remember.” She spun to face the stranger. “I don’t want to be hopeless-- like you.” With that, she left him there to start climbing down the staircase. Once she had gotten to the giant boulder, she climbed onto it and screamed through the rain. “Billie! Billie!” She slipped down off the boulder to land in a puddle. Nothing mattered now not even the bitter prospect of having to search for her sister in wet socks.
She gazed up at the sky with it’s threatening clouds of hopelessness. “You can’t stop me, you know. I thought you could, but you can’t. I’m going to find Billie no matter how hard the rain falls or how dark this park gets. I’m not hopeless, and I’m not giving up.” Her words fell like a spell, and to her utter astonishment the clouds began to break up. The ray of hope she had seen on the cliff was beginning to spread. She felt a smile lift the corners of her mouth, and a laugh escaped her throat. As the rain cleared she caught a glimpse of a light, shining through the trees. She followed it to find the park office, and ran to the doors that were swung open as though to greet her. She stepped through and her breath caught in her throat. Standing at the desk, as wet as her, was Billie. Billie turned, holding a brochure up. “Hey-- this is Nowhere Lake,” she announced, waving the brochure now.
Celeste laughed and ran at her sister, hugging her tight around the neck. “I’m sorry,” she choked into Billie’s shoulder. “I’m happy for you. I’m happy that you made a decision I’m still afraid to make.”
“Celeste--” Billie whimpered. “I didn’t mean to abandon you.”
“I have to grow up.”
“It takes time. You were always giving me advice, making the right decisions for me, and this time-- I can be the big sister and tell you that there is nothing to be afraid of.” “Isn’t there?”
“Well-- yeah, but that’s where I come in.”
Celeste smiled and backed away. “Good cause I think I’m going to need you.” The man Billie had been talking to behind the counter came around. He was wearing a tweed jacket and black slacks. There was a mysterious sort of smile in his eyes as he watched Celeste and Billie. Celeste turned to him, wet brochure in hand now. “Is this Nowhere Lake?” She asked him.
“No, this is Hope Lake,” he answered, the smile intact.
“See, you advertise Nowhere Lake and all your signs say Hope Lake. Why?”
“This is a difficult place to find and because of that the outside world dubs us as Nowhere Lake, this is because--”
“You come out of nowhere,” Celeste finished for him.
“Yes, exactly,” the ranger said with a nod.
“Hasn’t anyone seen the signs?” Billie asked, coming up beside Celeste.
The ranger’s face lit with warmth and understanding. He was staring at Celeste, and she could feel his warmth as he spoke. He knew what she had gone through that night. “Simply said, no one truly finds hope unless they are looking for it. Were you looking for hope tonight?”
Celeste looked over at Billie. “Yes.”
“And now that you’ve found it, will you be staying or leaving?” the ranger asked.
Celeste and Billie shared a mutual smile. “We’ll be staying the weekend.”
Both sisters left with their brochures and a park pass, talking as though all their arguments had never happened. They were friends again. They came to the road that was now drying. Celeste came to a stop, a hand on her mouth. “Oh my god,” she gasped, turning to Billie. “Those two missing boys-- they were brothers. I think I met one of them.”
“What?” Billie laughed.
“He was hopeless like me. He had given up like me. He can’t-- look I have to find him. He needs to know that his brother is waiting for him.”
“Celeste,” Billie called, and Celeste found to her amazement that she had broken into a run back through the trees.
“What are you doing?” Billie cried.
Celeste stopped behind a tree. Standing only a foot away were two boys, both hugging. “Celeste,” Billie called again and came up behind her sister. “What’s going on,” she whispered, having spotted the two boys. Celeste smiled and leaned against the tree.
“They’re not missing anymore.” She smiled. “They just needed to find some hope.”
Billie laughed and dragged her sister away by her arm. “Time to have the weekend of a lifetime. Are you ready for that?”
“It might be scary.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Billie said with a grin, and they turned to head back to the road.
tell which lile beter this first or second please email picture_girl21@hotmail.com
