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  Rethman Sisters’ Adventures

  Kaylie M. Dameron

  © 2020 Kaylie M. Dameron

  Map to Treasure

  Rethman Sisters’ Adventures

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Elm Hill, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Elm Hill and Thomas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

  Elm Hill titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020900278

  ISBN 978-1-400331147 (Paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-400331154 (eBook)

  Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook

  Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

  To Jennalee, my younger sister, who gave me encouragement and support for this book throughout the process

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1. Mad Bear

  Chapter 2. Into the Woods

  Chapter 3. Diana Cox

  Chapter 4. Friend Get-Together

  Chapter 5. Cross Country Begins

  Chapter 6. The Race

  Chapter 7. Missing!

  Chapter 8. Finding the Evidence

  Chapter 9. The Light in the Woods

  Chapter 10. A New Trail

  Chapter 11. Captured

  Chapter 12. Complications

  Chapter 13. Strangers

  Chapter 14. Interrogations

  Chapter 15. Searching

  Chapter 16. The Letter

  Chapter 17. Escaping

  Chapter 18. Helen Kren Spotted

  Chapter 19. Back Home

  Chapter 20. Secrets Unfolded

  Chapter 21. The Note

  Chapter 22. Map to Treasure

  CHAPTER 1

  Mad Bear

  Elise Rethman woke up with a start. She checked her clock and jumped out of bed. It was 8:30.

  Why didn’t someone wake me up? She wondered. Glancing at her older sister Arianna’s bed, she found it empty. Strange, she thought. Arianna loves sleeping in. The light streamed in through the window as she quickly dressed and brushed her wavy red hair. Passing the calendar on her wall, she looked up at it and was reminded that the date was June 14 , 2001.

  Hurrying downstairs, she found the kitchen deserted and a note on the countertop.

  “Great,” she said aloud after reading it, “Mom and Dad are gone with Adara, Austy, and Arianna, and I have to be babysat by Lexie.” Elise slumped into a chair.

  The back screen door creaked open as her fifteen-year-old sister Lexie walked in with the horse food bucket.

  “Well?” Lexie asked, setting the bucket down. She had seen the look of distaste on her sister’s face.

  “Uh, yeah, you are babysitting me? The note said that we also have to clean and that I have to stay in and help you instead of riding Blossom.”

  “Look, Elise, everyone went to the Simpsons’ for a while and will be back after lunch. Mom said you had to help me clean. Your horse can wait. I already fed her and the other horses, so you can eat breakfast and hop right into your cleaning. And I’m not babysitting you. I’m just ‘watching’ you.”

  “Same thing,” Elise grumbled as she poured her Cheerios into a bowl she had just taken out of the cabinet. Her twelve-year-old brain stretched in concentration. Then she whined, “I don’t see how the other three got to be the lucky ones today and not have to clean.”

  “Mom and Dad are talking with the Simpsons about one of our sick cows—what to do with it, I guess—and the other three went because they have friends there. Even though you think they’re lucky, they’ll have to clean their chore room when they get home, or tomorrow, since we’re all going to the volleyball match tonight. And they were invited to stay for lunch at the Simpsons’. Mom said that we can eat sandwiches for our lunch,” Lexie finished.

  Elise chewed her cereal. “I guess the sooner we finish our rooms, the better, huh?”

  “Exactly.” Lexie pulled her waist-length shiny black hair into a ponytail and then picked up a cleaning bucket and supplies. “I’m starting now. I’ve already eaten. You best hurry.” Lexie scurried off to do her chores as her sister sat looking out the window toward the pasture. The trees were becoming very green now since it was June. The fresh-smelling grass was growing in richer and darker because of all the recent rain.

  Elise’s palomino horse “Blossom” pranced about in the open pasture along with Ranger and Midnight, the family horses. Elise fixed her gaze back on her food. She did not want to clean today. But she knew that as long as Lexie was around, things would be done just as her parents said because Lexie liked to please them. Elise yawned and stretched, put her bowl in the sink, and dragged her feet to the living room, which was the room she had to clean for the month. Grabbing all the cleaning supplies out of the cabinet, she set to work on her horrid task.

  An hour later, Elise called to her sister, who was busy doing all kinds of miscellaneous things around the house, “I’m done, Lexie!” She hurriedly put the cleaning supplies away and emerged from the room. Elise was quite impressed with herself to be finished, and a smile crept across her face as she strode into the room Lexie was cleaning.

  “Good! Now you can do your bedroom.”

  Elise’s smile vanished. “But, but…”

  “Go on, Elise, don’t you want to make Dad and Mom happy?” Lexie called from the other room.

  “Nobody will care what my room looks like,” she protested.

  “Then you can make your bed halfway decent. That’s the least you can do.” Lexie rinsed out her towel and continued mopping.

  Elise dragged her feet up the stairs to her room. She slopped on her sheets and fixed her crooked pillow on her bed. After that, she hurried back down the stairs.

  “Done, Lexie! I’m going out riding!” she said hurriedly as she grabbed a jacket off the hook by the door and scurried out of the house before her sister could say anything. “Ah, freedom!” she sighed happily as she ran to the back where the horses were trotting around in the pasture.

  She hates work, Lexie said to herself as Elise disappeared out the door. “Well, I think the house looks nice enough.” She picked up her cleaning supplies. “I’m gonna go read for a little while.” She dashed up the steps to the bedroom that she shared with Austy. Grabbing her book off the dresser, Lexie opened the book and began to read. She slipped into the mystery of the story and fully absorbed the pages.

  Around twelve, as Lexie laid peacefully on the bed reading her book, an angry roar split the silence and sent her jumping off the bed. Panicking, she ran to the window and was just in time to see Elise and Blossom emerge from the edge of the woods with a huge bear tearing after the two. Lexie gasped and ran to get her dad’s gun!

  ……

 
Elise had gotten her riding tack for Blossom and saddled the beautiful horse. When she was ready, she mounted and galloped out of the pasture and straight into the woods. She and Blossom both loved trail riding. They did this almost every day! Blossom and she trotted along down the trails. She sniffed in the woodsy smell and breathed the fresh scent of flowers as she bounced on Blossom’s back in rhythm to the horse’s trotting. She loved riding, especially on their hilly terrain. Elise’s great-grandmother was the one who had really built the love for horses inside Elise. Elise had a picture of her and her great-grandmother on a horse when she was a baby. Her great-grandmother always rode horses, even into her mid-seventies. She had gotten dementia when she was seventy-eight. Then the horse riding for her had stopped. She would forget who everyone was and then would suddenly remember names now and then. When she was in her eighties, she had passed away. Elise had been nine, and she still remembered a lot about her great-grandmother, especially their similar love for horses.

  Every time she thought about her great-grandmother, Elise touched the necklace around her neck. Before the old woman had died, she had given Elise a necklace with a key on it. It was a small pretty key, and Elise treasured it because it had come from her great-grandmother.

  She could feel the small key hitting up and down against her chest as she rode along.

  Elise urged Blossom gently to pick up the speed, and they galloped down the trail as the birds sang their midmorning song. A little later the rider and horse reached the tree house.

  Elise slid off Blossom’s back and tied the reins around an overhanging tree branch. Then she scrambled up the swinging rope ladder and into the tree house. She loved surveying the woods from this high up. She looked out the open window of the tree house. Looking up, she could see the Smokey Mountains, as they were called, around them. The green trees sloped up the sides and made the mountains look even prettier. Elise smiled down at her horse. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it, Blossom?” The horse whinnied and stamped its hoof. Elise laughed. Suddenly she froze. An angry growl wrenched the air.

  A huge bear, probably on the verge of hunger, lumbered out of the bushes about a hundred feet away. It stopped when it saw Blossom; then it licked its chops and rushed toward the horse. Blossom saw it and reared up, kicking her hooves toward the sky. Elise gasped. She knew she would have to act fast. She nearly slid down the rope ladder, the rough rope cutting and scraping her hands, causing her to yelp in pain. If she wanted her precious horse to live, she’d have to hurry!

  Blossom broke the reins off the branch, just as Elise jumped off the ladder onto her back. The two sped off down the trail as fast as Blossom could run, the bear tearing after them, right behind.

  “Come on, Blossom! Faster! Please!” Elise urged into the frightened horse’s ears. Foam dripped from Blossom’s withers and mouth, but at Elise’s pleading voice, the horse surged ahead. Soon they burst out of the woods with a flying leap and came running around the pasture, the bear only a short distance behind. Sweat dripped from Elise’s forehead as Blossom galloped. Would the bear overtake them if she tried to dismount at the house? And would it attack Blossom? She decided to run the horse down the lane and onto the road, where hopefully the bear wouldn’t follow. Maybe she’d be able to race to the Simpsons’ house only a couple miles away and alert her parents there. As she passed her house, however, her sister Lexie appeared with the gun. Lexie knew that if she didn’t aim right, the gun could hit Elise or Blossom.

  “Elise!” Lexie was shaking. Elise knew that she’d have to duck or the bullet might get her and not the bear. She made Blossom do a sharp turn out of the way.

  Bam! The gun went off and Blossom reared. The bear stopped suddenly, flinging its head right and left with terrified eyes. Sniffing the air, it rushed off back into the woods. Two more shots followed the terrified creature as it retreated. Blossom reared again, terrified at the gunshots, and Elise fell back onto the ground, with a scream. Lexie rushed over to her, put the gun on “safety,” helped her sister up, and brushed her off. Elise rubbed her back, watching the woods where the bear had fled. The chickens were squawking madly in their pen. Blossom was still in a frenzy, snorting and sweating profusely.

  “I was so scared,” Elise admitted, her whole body shaking uncontrollably as she hugged her sister.

  “I know. So was I. When I saw what was happening, I hurried and got Dad’s gun and aimed, hoping to get the bear and not you. I didn’t kill it, but as you know, loud noises scare off bears,” Lexie smiled. Her heart was beating like mad, and both girls were shaking.

  “I’ve never been that close to a bear before. I’ve never even seen one come down out of the mountains.”

  Lexie nodded, “We are in North Carolina. So there are going to be bears around us, even if we haven’t seen them out of the mountains before. Since it’s spring, though, you never know what’ll happen. There might not have been much food for it to eat up there.”

  “Or maybe it was rabid,” Elise shuddered.

  “If it had rabies then it would have kept charging you even after I shot off the gun. I could tell it didn’t have the sickness. Now, Elise, you need to calm Blossom down and take her to her stall and give her some treats and water. She deserves it. I’m going in to make some lunch. I’ll call Mom and tell her about the bear. We should probably stay inside for the rest of the day once you’re finished with Blossom.”

  Elise nodded and started leading her horse back to the stable. Lexie headed back to the house with her dad’s .22 gun held in her shaking hands.

  “That bear will probably come back now that it knows that we have horses and chickens,” Lexie mumbled to herself as she entered the house.

  Elise replayed the event in her mind as she watered Blossom and brushed her down. Wow. Lexie’s a hero, shooting at the bear like she did. Wait till I tell Mom and Dad, she thought.

  By the time Lexie had made lunch and set the table for two, Elise had come back inside. She washed and bandaged her scraped-up hands at the kitchen sink and sat down to eat. Her red hair was streaked with brown from the mud that Blossom had kicked up on the trail.

  The girls began to munch silently on their sandwiches and on some fruit from a bowl on the table.

  “I’m terrified to go back outside ever again,” Elise said.

  “Me too,” Lexie agreed. “But we never were before, so why should we be scared of the bears around here now? That was a very unusual thing for a bear to do.”

  Elise shrugged.

  After they had finished eating, Lexie said, “All right, let’s clean up the kitchen. You wash and I’ll dry.”

  “Okay.” Elise liked washing the dishes better than drying them.

  They began the kitchen chores.

  “Let’s listen to music while we do this,” Lexie suggested. She brought in the CD player and they turned to a radio station. They liked to listen to music a lot. As a song they liked lifted into the air, the two girls set to work on the dishes.

  “Are you excited for tonight?” Lexie asked Elise a little later as she dried a pan.

  “What’s tonight?”

  “Adara and Austy’s volleyball match, silly!”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Yes, I’m excited. They’re facing the homeschooled Canton team, aren’t they?”

  “Yep. I heard that’s one of the best teams around!” Lexie remarked.

  “Well, Austy and Adara’s team will smash them. You wait and see,” Elise replied confidently as she vigorously scrubbed a dish.

  Lexie laughed, “I’ll see. There’s only one game left after this. Then co-op volleyball will be over. Adara and Austy’s team is doing pretty good this year. I can’t believe that Adara is going to be a senior this fall.”

  Adara was the oldest in the Rethman family, and she had played volleyball for her co-op since eighth grade. Elise was excited to compete in seventh grade cross country this year. Arianna was doing it too, so both would be able to run in middle school together. Lexie was in high schoo
l cross country. She was going to be a sophomore.

  Lexie said, “Dishes are done, so you sweep and I’ll wipe off the table.”

  “Who said that you got to pick who does what?” Elise argued.

  “Well, which one would you rather do?” Lexie put her hands on her hips.

  “Uh, the table,” Elise said.

  “Of course you would rather do that. I already had to do a hard chore.” She threw Elise a wet towel, “Okay get to work.”

  “Yes, master,” Elise grumbled.

  Ten minutes later the door opened and a familiar loud voice proclaimed, “Y’all, we’re home!” sixteen-year-old tomboy Austy, who shared her sister Elise’s red hair, strode into the house with everyone else following right behind.

  Elise rushed over to tell them about the bear incident; before she could, her mom said, “Hey, I need help putting the groceries away.”

  “Oh, you got groceries, too?” Lexie asked.

  “Yeah, just a few snacks for the volleyball game tonight,” said Mrs. Rethman.

  “Oh, okay.” Lexie took a bag and began putting stuff away.

  “So what was this call about a bear your mother told me about?” Mr. Rethman asked, a bit worried.

  The three other girls stopped what they were doing to face Lexie and Elise, openmouthed. They hadn’t heard what had happened. Lexie had only relayed the incident to her mom on the phone.

  “Okay,” Lexie said. And while they put away the groceries, she and Elise mentioned every detail.

  “Oh, man,” Adara said when the two had finished their story.

  “Golly, were you scared?” Austy asked.

  “What do you mean ‘was I scared?’ Of course I was! Who wouldn’t be?” Lexie declared. Elise agreed.

  “I don’t want this happening again,” their dad said. “This is a serious matter. If it happens again when I’m not home and you have to use the gun because it’s a life-or-death matter, then you can use it. It’s only for emergencies. We’ll need to create a safety plan in case something like this happens again.”