Chapter 143: 'This cave is very deep'

ROSE

‘What is it?’ Rum asked, offering his hand.

I took it and shrugged. ‘I thought I saw something.’

And Rum halted. ‘What is it? What did you see?’

I described it to him and he turned to the pond and smiled at it. Then, he looked at me again and said, ‘I know a place we can use as our hideout. Come on.’

*****

A cave, located out of the sight of the pond, somewhere above the middle of the mountain—a quarter of height from the peak.

I thought the cave would be empty, but there were traces of its last occupants—stones arranged in the circle of what appears to be a campfire, long sticks carved like skewers, woollen covers, and thick patches of dried grass.

Rum was moving around with ease searching while I stood in one spot absorbing my new environment.

The air was as cooling as the air conditioned space inside B.A.D. but it carried the freshness of the snow at the peck of the mountain and the clear water of the pond.

Gathering the front seams of the robe around my neck, I ignor