say, giving her the full finger-quotes thing, “and yet you didn’t remember that there’s no cell service?”
She scowls at that, then turns back to her phone. Maybe she thinks she can give it a royal command to suddenly work or something—who knows with her.
“I thought out the packs part, and I thought out the excuse part, but it’s possible the technical aspects . . . eluded me,” she says at last, and I have never wanted to throw a person off a mountain more than I want to throw her in this moment.
“The technical aspects?”
“Stop repeating everything I say!” Flora is glaring at me now, and I take a step back, hands raised.
“I know you’re not getting attitude with me,” I say. “I know that’s not a thing that’s happening, because that would be nonsensical, given that all of this is your fault.”
“‘Nonsensical,’” she snorts. “Honestly, Quint.” Then she glances around her, pulling her lower lip between her teeth.
“All right, this is not an emergency. We aren’t that far from the school, so we just have to . . . walk in that general direction until we get back to it. And we’ll probably run into some of our schoolmates, anyway, and we can give them the story about being stranded, so yes. Yes, I think this can all be salvaged—oh, dear.”
She’s looking over my shoulder, her face gone a little pale, and I freeze.
“What?” I ask, scared to look.
“Shhhh!” she instructs, waving a hand. “Just . . . keep your voice down. It’s fine.”
Her face and those wide eyes seem to say it’s very not fine, and I can feel every hair on my body standing on end. “Is it a bear?” I whisper, and she shakes her head.
“Bears have been extinct in Scotland for—”
“Hundreds of years, I know, and I do not want a history lesson right now!” I hiss, and finally, unable to take it anymore, I turn.
And Flora’s “oh, dear” makes a lot more sense.
CHAPTER 19
“Deer,” I say through numb lips. “That’s what you meant. Deer.”
Because that’s what’s behind me. A massive deer with a bunch of very pointy antlers, looking right at me.
Look, I am no stranger to wildlife. I am a Texas Girl, after all. I’ve had a rattlesnake slither across my path on a walk before, my grandfather once pointed out a coyote on the edge of his property, and I have seen more armadillos than any girl ever should.
But it’s the size of this thing that has my heart pounding and my mouth dry with fear.
“It’s not a deer,” Flora says, “it’s a stag.”
“Not really hung up on appropriate nomenclature right now,” I reply, my lips barely moving. “Mostly interested in not getting impaled.”
The stag huffs out a breath, and I tense up.
Then Flora moves into my peripheral vision, one hand outstretched.
“What are you doing?” I ask, which is hard because again, lips numb at this point with the terror and all.
“The stag is the national animal of Scotland,” she tells me, moving forward very slowly, never taking her eyes off the animal in front of us. “And since I’m a princess . . .”
If I weren’t so busy trying to will a wild animal not to kill me, I’d make a face at her. “What?” I ask. “You think this thing respects rank? Have you completely—”
“Shhhh!” she murmurs, still approaching the stag, which, I have to admit, isn’t moving and is just kind of watching her.
“There’s a reason this sort of thing happens in fairy tales,” Flora goes on, and I can see a smile start to spread across her face. “The beast clearly knows that he and I are connected by our love of this land.”
“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say. I’m dumber for having heard it.”
Flora waves her free hand at me. Her sunglasses are on top of her head now, those whisky-colored eyes narrowed as she approaches the stag. “It’s working, though, isn’t it?”
It is, I guess. The stag stays still, no more huffing breaths, and Flora straightens up a little. “There,” she says, smug. “Now all we have to do—”
Without warning, the stag charges, and Flora and I both scream, stumbling backward. She pinwheels into my arms, I clutch at her, and the next few seconds are a blur of falling, the smell of a big animal, and then, the sudden cold as we tumble into the river.
The cold is so shocking it punches my breath right out of me, and my brain