Chapter 4

Jenna confirmed with the National Park and booked a cabin through Emily's reward card from American Beaver Society. I went to an optician but was tested normal on color blind and vision. I still had no clue about the whole thing a week later when we gathered at Emily's, fully packed and ready to go. Well, we were waiting for Emily to get ready.

Lake Superior was the largest freshwater lake on earth, which means it took forever to warm up. It was already May, but snow piles were still scattering around the beach. The sky was always blue, though; and the water reflected the sapphire color.

I turned my head away from our backpacks and admired the beauty outside the big windows. Most trees were still barren from the extreme winter, except the tall and straight pines. I had studied at the University of Minnesota Duluth for almost four years now, and I could not suppress the excitement to graduate in four weeks. Don’t get me wrong— I loved Duluth, but it was time to move on. Duluth was one of the cities where it was big enough to not know everyone in town, but also small enough to drive you crazy. It was always so quiet, so peaceful, and therefore so predictable. I lost my wallet three times, and somehow it came back to me untouched every time. Not that I enjoyed being robbed or something—but the city lacked excitement and energy for a college graduate.

I let out another big sigh. Four weeks, and I was done. Professor Mandy Little was kind enough to excuse Emily, Jenna, Katie and me for a week from our classes to go on this trip with her.

The sun still hadn't made its way down the horizon. I stared at the gray house next door and realized it was almost reflecting a golden color. I had lived there for the past three years, and it had been my home. I blinked when the idea of home passed through my mind, and it felt funny. I ran away from my parents on my 18^th birthday, and at that time I left them a silly note.

Mom, dad,

Thank you for all the birthday presents, but the best present you can ever offer me is freedom. And now I want to thank you for my freedom, too.

Sincerely yours.

I never went back to their luxury resident in San Francisco, CA. My dad was secretly paying for my college tuition until I found out—and then he was openly paying for it. My mom came to visit me during holidays, and literally brought me EVERYTHING. She must think I was eating dirt and living in a cave all the time. No matter how they tried to lure me back to California—money, new car, job, sunshine—I resisted the temptations and stayed. They also tried threatening, of course—but I was already doing so well here that they were more proud of me than getting mad at me. Things just worked out, I guess.

I loved my parents and I missed them terribly when I first left home, but I had to go. There was something very wrong about them, and their giant brick house. I was suffocating every minute I was even near the house, although it was one of the biggest houses in the neighborhood. Anyway, it all seemed a long time ago. I shook the memory out of my head and walked to Emily's dining table. There was a postcard on the dining table, facing down.

“Hey Emily!” I yelled as I picked up the postcard, “You've got another postcard!” It was a picture of Lake Michigan and the skyline of Chicago. I flipped the card to the other side, and it was blank. No handwriting, no stamp, no print. BLANK. "What the..."

Emily's land phone rang, and it went to voice-mail. "Hello, this is our phone. Please leave us a message after the tone."

“Emily and her friends,” An unusual voice appeared at the other end of the phone. “Please leave the building right now.” There was no emergency in the voice; I couldn't figure out the gender of the caller. It was nothing like I've heard before. It sounded like the flow of water: light, continuous, and crisp.

Emily suddenly bolted out of her bedroom upstairs, which made me startle. She must have heard the caller because she looked just as confounded as us. “There is a black Honda Civic parked outside, the keys are in ignition,” the voice echoed around the house, “Please make the right choice.” And the stranger hanged up. I couldn’t help to look outside, and gasped in surprise: The black Honda Civic was parked right there: tinted glass, rear spoiler, and premium alloy wheels.

The car was not locked, and as the stranger on the phone said, the keys were already in ignition. Without exchanging a word, the five of us got in the car with hesitation. The day was getting dark now, and the tinted glass made the car even darker. My head was spinning fast, trying to make sense of everything that happened in the past ten minutes. We must have been followed, and watched…but why…? Before I could analyze further, Emily's house was glowing fiercely, lighting the entire sky above us. Then there was an overwhelming blast that deafened me, surrounding me with waves of terror.

Passenger airbags hit me…I felt upside down…Something inside my body was definitively broken…I let out a scream in pain and passed out.

Chapter 3

'What's that Emily?' Said Katie, 'Is that a love note from a student?' Emily had the most beautiful red hair that she always wore so carelessly. She started teaching Marine Biology this year as an undergraduate teaching assistant, and on the first day of class a group of male students approached her and slipped her a note: 'Dear Emily, you would be the most beautiful coral on a reef if you lived under the sea'. We had been making fun of her ever since.

'You say whatever you want smart mouth...Now give me the card so I don't have to run two trips! Ahhhhh!' Emily tripped on the stairs and fell. 'God I hate my life!' She struggled with the envelopes and cursed, as we chuckled and helped her getting up.

'Oh boy, you are bleeding. I will get you fixed up. Hold on.' Jenna ran back to the house.

'She really should apply to medical school. I mean, look at her!' Katie watched Jenna's back and sighed, 'What a waste that she is with us!'

I was about to stop her but Emily fired up almost immediately. 'What do you mean she is with us? Aren't we all devoted in this project?'

'Hey chill Emily! I was just sayin'...'

'Saying what? How stupid and hopeless we are?' Snapped Emily, now totally red-faced and furious, 'I think you should get your data analysis started instead of joking around, Katie.'

See, that was our problem. Usually me and Mandy didn't bother to separate them out, beccause when Jenna was back, things would be normal again. She had the personality to calm everyone around her. Besides, Emily totally looked like a 'coral on the reef' when her face turned red, and that made me smile.

'Hey guys I'm back...with your postcard!' Jenna shook her silky blonde hair, holding a pathogen kit with the brown postcard on top. She was kind of charming that way. We all knew that she gave up medical school to work with us, and I hoped she would be happy with her decision a few months down the road.

'Let's see what it says before throwing it away!' Emily nodded at the card.

'You want me to read it?' I grabbed the card from Jenna so she could take care of Emily's bleeding arm. It was the weirdest postcard I had ever seen. It was all wrinkled, but felt smooth. It also had a shiny color over the brown that I couldn't tell. I flipped the card twice to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. It was blank.

'What are you staring at?' Mandy came up to get a closer look of the card. '...Are you joking me? FREE camping trip to Isle Royale National Park? Emily, if you are not going, I am!'

'For real?' Katie withdrew the card from me, 'Congratulations you have won a free trip blah blah...Wow it looks real Emily! And it's from American Beaver Society so it must be real!'

Emily frowned. 'American Beaver Society? I have never...'

Jenna raised her head. 'You can call the National park and check with them.'

But there was nothing on the card! I checked twice! 'Wait a minute you people! You can't fool me like that! Do you really think I will believe a blank card is a free ticket to Isle Royale?'

To my surprise, everyone including the honest Mandy was stunned.

'What are you talking about Laura?' Emily asked after a long pause.

'This is not a prank...?' I hesitated.

'Of course not! You saw it by yourself right?' Mandy said in her high-pitched voice.

Chapter 2

It was a beautiful day in May last year, Lake Superior had a color of Atlantic. We just got back from a long trip in Maine, and our heads were filled with folk tales about underwater palaces and talking beavers. Well, we did dive into huge beaver wetlands and saw their little dams, but we definitely didn't see "palaces". Oh, and of course, who would believe beavers can talk? Come on, we are no experts, but at least we are biologists!

I admit we were a little bit frustrated. First we thought there could be plenty to explore in Maine. We spent half of our funding money on this trip, and we got no valueble information. Summer was a month away, and it was time to get serious and publish our paper.

'Hey...wanna come to my house and have a cup of tea?' Emilly suggestted wearily. Some college Freshmen were playing frisbee on the beach while we were staring at nowhere. We nodded without any further discussion. ('That was the first time we agreed something without arguments!' Katie pointed out happily on the way to Emily's.) I was pretty sure the truth was no one wanted to mention our research project.

Emily lived in a tiny house with three other roommates, and they were all spending the semester in Spain taking a few classes together. So Emily had the house to herself all semester. She always complained that a great biologist like her deserves a better place to 'continue her way to Nobel Prize'. But honestly we all knew it was a bad joke. I personally had a very limited vision seeing our project going anywhere. It was 3 O'clock in the afternoon, and the house already had a long, skinny shadow on the deserted lawn. I yawned. 'You should stop doing thhhaaat...' Mandy yawned and gave me an it's-all-your-fault look. I shrudded and walked in after everyone else.

There were an impressive pile of mails on the tea table.

'Looks like we have to trash the mails first!' Said Emily, hugging all the envelopes and magazines to the green recycle bin outside.

'Wait, you just dropped something!' Jenna, the quietest among us, spoke.

We turned our heads down and saw a brown, square postcard lying on Emily's rotten wooden floor.

Chapter 1

We are a group of wetland lovers. We go into wetlands around this country and pull those sample plants out. And then we take them all the way back to our little lab in Duluth, Minnesota.

About several months ago, we reset our research scheme and decided to focus on just beaver wetlands. We did run into a dead end and then, everything changed.