Chapter 13: 13. Back to Civilization

Due to the condition of the road we ended up driving below the posted speed limit, so it was going to take us a little longer than we first thought to get to Amqui. I wasn't going to complain though, even holding our speed under sixty kilometres an hour we were still covering more than twenty times the distance than if we were on foot.

A little over a half hour after we left Petit-Sault we drove through our first small town, and both Soneya and I were surprised and maybe a little worried when we found obvious earthquake damage that far away from the park.

None of it was severe, we didn't see any collapsed buildings, but it seemed like almost every building had some broken windows, and we spotted a couple toppled chimneys. Not to mention, the road we were driving on still had more than its fair share of fresh cracks and gaps in the asphalt.

Apart from exchanging some worried looks neither of us said anything. There wasn't really anything to say. I couldn't help wondering how far the damage spread, but we'd find that out soon enough.

Lia remained silent too, she sat perched on my lap with her nose to the passenger window. Occasionally she'd react to something outside, either by tensing her muscles or wagging her tail. Honestly it was really cute, and I couldn't help be reminded of folks taking their pet dogs in the car and how excited their dogs would get about the experience.

A little over an hour after setting out in the car all three of us jumped slightly when my phone started buzzing and pinging. I fished it out of my hoodie pocket and discovered it had found a signal, and now it was going a little crazy with alerts and notifications for all my missed messages and voicemails and so on.

Then all those were covered up by one of those big 'emergency alerts' that you can't turn off. It was dated from Wednesday the twenty-second, today was Friday the twenty-fourth. And it warned that there was an emergency in Gaspésie National Park and consequently the park was closed. All hikers and campers were ordered to leave the park immediately.

"Well this is a few days late," I commented. "And completely useless, considering anyone in the park doesn't have access to technology."

Soneya rolled her eyes, "It feels like a week ago, but we only just met on Wednesday right? Just before dawn Wednesday morning? So they probably didn't know about phones not working when they sent that. They obviously didn't know tech wouldn't work when they sent those helicopters."

"Yeah," I sighed.

I hadn't exactly forgotten about that, but I'd put it out of my mind. I didn't want to think about having to leave my car behind, and I really didn't want to think about seeing those three helicopters crash.

After dismissing the emergency alert I started looking through all my notifications. There was one text from my friend Derek from Tuesday afternoon, which was before everything went crazy. He wanted to know if I was around or if I'd actually gone all the way to Gaspésie by myself. Then from around eight Tuesday night it's like my phone blew up. Or it would have, had it been on and in range of a cell tower and not completely deactivated by a mysterious magical mountain.

There were missed calls, voicemail alerts, and text messages from my parents. Their texts were asking if I was ok, and they mentioned finding out about the earthquakes from the TV news. There was another text from Derek from Wednesday morning, that was basically the same as my parents' texts. He wanted to know if I was ok, he said he actually felt a little tremor Tuesday night all the way over in Toronto but didn't find out how serious the situation was till Wednesday morning.

In all I had two dozen missed calls, a dozen new voicemails, and almost fifty texts and private messages. Most were from my parents and they all said the same thing. They were worried about me and wanted me to get in touch with them as soon as I could, to let them know I was safe.

"Huh," I commented as I scrolled through all the notifications. "The quake was big enough to make the national news. One of my friends claims he even felt it back in Toronto, which seems a little unlikely to me. I mean, granted the damage spread further than I'd have guessed but it's not like the peninsula fell into the sea or anything."

Soneya shook her head, "Not surprised it made the news. Are you going to call your folks then? I know that was one of the top things on your list last night."

"Yeah," I switched to the phone app, but my thumb hesitated over my mom's icon. After a few seconds I went back to the messaging app instead as I sighed, "I'll text them. They won't recognize my voice now."

Another thought crossed my mind and I pulled down the passenger sun visor. Sure enough there was a little vanity mirror up there, and I got my first look at my new face.

"Oh wow," I whispered to myself.

I couldn't even put words to how I suddenly felt. Like there was joy for sure, I never dreamed I might be that cute someday. But there was also some renewed anxiety, because I looked so different. I was a stranger, and my parents weren't going to know me.

It took me another minute or two before I pushed the visor back up. I tapped out a brief message to my folks, that I was ok and trying to get back home. I kept things vague though, and basically just left it at that. No ETA, no details. Just ok and coming home as soon as I could.

"Hey Tori?" Soneya asked. "Can you pull up a map app on there? Get me some directions to Amqui? I don't know which way to turn here."

I looked up and realized we were stopped at the side of the road in another small town. Up ahead the road we were on ended, with signage pointing left and right. And was signs of earthquake damage here too. More cracked asphalt, more broken windows.

"Yeah of course," I replied. It took the phone's GPS a minute or so to figure out where we were, but shortly after that we were moving again, following the nav directions.

We'd only just started moving again when we were all startled by my phone's ringtone. My mom's number came up on the call display, but I just stared at it as my emotions churned. As much as I wanted to hear her voice I wasn't ready to try and explain who I was or how I'd changed. So I forced myself to ignore it, I let the call go to voicemail.

A minute later I got a new text from her as well. It was pretty much what I'd expected, she was happy I was ok, she wanted to talk to me, asked me to call as soon as I could, and wanted to know when I'd be home. I didn't reply to the text since I'd already told her as much as I could. Instead I looked out the windows with Lia in between checking our progress on the map app.

About thirty minutes later we made a turn, came around a bend, and suddenly we found ourselves in Amqui. It almost felt unreal in a way, like it had been such a distant goal at first I had a hard time believing we'd made it.

Worryingly the earthquake damage was visible even here. We had to be more than a hundred kilometres from the epicentre and there were cracks in the road and the occasional broken window. As we entered the town we passed the local hospital, and all three of us spotted a half dozen army vehicles parked out front.

Apart from that we hadn't actually seen any military activity once we left the park. And the whole drive there'd been relatively few other cars on the road up until now.

"So we're here, what's the plan?" I asked as I looked around.

It actually looked like any typical town. People were going about their business, there was traffic on the roads, it was just a normal Friday afternoon.

The wolfgirl replied, "First we're going to get my car, so we aren't driving around in a stolen vehicle. We'll leave that guy's keys and wallet and everything else in the glove box when we ditch this."

She paused as she glanced at the time, "It's half past two. We could just keep going, head up to the highway and set out for Toronto? If we take turns so we don't have to stop, we could be at your place by morning."

"I guess," I replied, but she could tell I wasn't sold on that plan. "I was hoping we could stop here for a while though. We need clothes right? And I don't know about you, but I'd really like a good night's sleep in a bed, not to mention a shower. Plus some proper food in a restaurant would be really nice too."

You are reading story Mountains of Magic at novel35.com

Soneya smiled, "I might have been hoping you'd say that. So we'll grab my car, get ourselves some clothes that fit, then see if we can't get a hotel room. We can make it an early night, then plan to be up at five or six tomorrow morning. Grab breakfast then hit the road, and with luck we'll be at your place tomorrow night."

"Yeah," I grinned. "We don't need to go crazy with the shopping, but maybe a couple changes of clothes so we're set for a few days, and some shoes would be nice."

The road we were on took us over a river then we turned right. We drove less than half a kilometre north before pulling off into a parking lot next to a pretty white and red building.

"It's the local train station," the wolfgirl explained. "They have long term parking here."

A moment later we came to a stop at one end of the lot. An older-model red Jeep SUV with Pennsylvania license plates was parked next to us on the left, and in front of us were the railroad tracks.

"Let's make this quick," the wolfgirl stated. "I don't want to hang around the stolen vehicle acting suspicious."

I grimaced, "Folks are going to stare regardless. I mean, wolfgirl foxgirl and fox, we're going to attract attention no matter what we do."

She sighed, "I know. Anyways, let's just do this."

The pick-up keys, the guy's wallet, and even the map pages he printed out were all stuffed into the glove box. Then the three of us got out and closed the doors behind us. Soneya leaned over and pulled my pack out of the back of the pick-up, and she grabbed the rolled-up blanket too when I realized my reduced stature meant I couldn't actually reach it.

Then we turned around and she unlocked the doors of her jeep. The pack and blanket went into the cargo area at the back, while me and Lia climbed into the passenger seat and Soneya took her place behind the wheel. Once again the two of us needed a few moments to get our tails sorted out, then she started the car.

"So clothes next?" I asked.

Alpine nodded as we pulled back out onto the street. We were heading south again, but only briefly. There was a small big-box mall barely a couple hundred meters from the station.

As we found a place to park I looked at the cute fox sitting on my lap and asked, "Ok next question. What do we do about Lia? We can't exactly bring her into any stores. Or restaurants. Or a hotel."

"Why not?" our small sister asked as she twisted around to look at me.

"Sorry Lia," I grimaced. "People have all kinds of rules about animals being welcome or not."

Soneya frowned as she killed the ignition, "I don't want to leave her alone in the car. Honestly I don't want any of us to be on our own just yet. Not till we know how folks are going to react when they see us."

Lia looked at me then Soneya before announcing, "I will be fine. I will hide so the humans can't see me, then I can accompany you both."

After a few seconds our pack leader nodded, "Ok then. That just leaves my and Tori's ears and tails for people to stare at. As long as they don't do anything more than stare we'll be fine."

We both hesitated another fifteen or twenty seconds before we emerged from her Jeep. There was a discount chain outlet where we could probably find everything we needed. Soneya and I headed that way with Lia walking between us. Folks were already staring as we crossed the parking-lot but I tried not to feel too self-conscious. We walked into the store, grabbed a couple shopping baskets, then set off straight for the women's clothing section.

Soneya paused again briefly before following me, which reminded me this was going to be another new experience for her. And to be fair it wasn't that long ago it was new for me too. I'd bought girls clothes online for a while but I didn't start shopping in person in the ladies section till I was completely out and comfortable.

She followed my lead though, I grabbed a three-pack of small cotton panties and she picked up a pack of large. We each grabbed a package of socks. I hadn't needed a bra before, but I knew how they worked. Unfortunately I hadn't thought to get our measurements in advance and I didn't have enough experience to guess. So for now I picked up a pack of cheap stretchy sports-bras that I figured would fit me, and pointed out a pack that I thought would work for Soneya.

I also grabbed myself a comfy-looking nightshirt, and Soneya hesitated a few moments before getting a larger one for herself too.

We didn't spend a lot of time picking out out clothes. We both grabbed some stretch-jeans after estimating the sizes, and the wolfgirl also picked up a pair of shorts while I got some leggings. We both got a couple t-shirts, and after seeing her pick up a new hoodie I decided to get myself a new one as well.

When it came to footwear we both realized at once we'd forgotten to put on shoes before coming into the shop, but nobody said anything. Maybe they were staring at our tails and didn't notice the bare feet. I didn't know what size I was but Soneya could guess hers, based on how my boots felt when she was wearing them. I went with trial and error before finding what fit.

After picking up a few other essentials we made our way to the checkout. The cashier gave us both a very funny look, she stared at our ears and our tails, but she didn't give us a hard time. We didn't have any trouble paying either, my bank card worked fine. The wolfgirl used her credit card, but the cashier didn't look at the name on it and neither did I.

"Hotel next," Soneya said as we headed back out to the car. "We'll get a room, then we can shower and change into clean clothes. Then we'll see about food, find a restaurant or something."

"Sounds good," I smiled.

We pulled back out onto the road heading north again. We passed the train station once more, and a couple restaurants and a bar or two, then we found the hotel. The place looked busy, there were lots of cars in the lot and a few people around. It reminded me this was Friday, and suddenly I worried we might not find a room.

Soneya parked the car, then before we emerged she opened the glove box and retrieved her phone. She also had the same concern I did about the hotel, suggesting "Let's see if we can get a room before we haul everything out of the car."

"Good plan," I nodded.

We emerged from her jeep and walked towards the lobby entrance together, with Lia in between us. As we approached the doors a couple young guys exited. They both did a bit of a double-take at me and Soneya, staring at our ears and tails. At the same time my wolfgirl friend seemed to freeze as she stared back at them. I actually had to give her a nudge to get her moving again.

The three of us entered the lobby then Soneya stopped again and turned to look at me. I was a bit surprised to see she looked uneasy, almost a little spooked as she said in a half-whisper, "Those guys we just passed, they're my friends. Michael and Shane, the guys I was hiking with."

She shook her head slightly and added in a soft voice, "They looked right at me as they walked past, but they didn't even recognize me..."