In any case, this scene takes place right after the prologue from a couple of weeks ago.
Evangeline Covington couldn't remember the last time she'd had such a wicked hangover. She groaned, but didn't feel up to opening her eyes yet. It wasn't like they'd had that much to drink last night, two bottles of wine between the three of them - she must be getting old.
She felt damp. There was something digging into her back and the distinct smell of greenery in the air. She had a sneaking suspicion of where she was. Cracking her eyes open slightly, she slammed them tightly shut again, her suspicions confirmed. They hadn't made it back to the cabin last night - she'd slept outside.
"Fi? Taylor? You guys awake?" Even the sound of her own voice made her wince.
There was no answer. With another groan she rolled to her side so the sun wasn't in her face and tried opening her eyes again.
Frowning, she stared at the bright red flower in front of her nose. She didn't remember there being flowers blooming in the woods, especially not such exotic looking ones. Feeling a slight chill, she levered herself into a sitting position and took a good look around.
"What the hell?"
Hangover forgotten, Eva got to her feet and stared around in disbelief. This was not the woods full of pine trees surrounding the cabin on the lake. In fact, this wasn't a forest at all, it was more like a jungle.
Several different varieties of palm and other exotic trees towered upwards, hung with trailing vines. The undergrowth seemed to be filled with broad-leafed shrubs and ferns. An endless variety of colorful blossoms rioted around her.
Eva staggered, reaching out to steady herself by holding on to the trunk of a palm.
"Where am I?" she whispered.
More importantly, how did she get here? The last thing she remembered was sitting around the camp fire with Fiona and Taylor. They were drinking wine and made a toast to friendship. Then she'd spotted the evening star and . . .
"Esmeralda!"
She remembered hearing the old woman's voice, something about making a wish. They'd treated it like a joke and decided to wish for their perfect mate.
All her life Eva had loved adventure stories, especially ones set in exotic locations. Her favorites were by the old romantic fantasy writers - H. Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. A. Merritt - with their tales of lost cities set in the jungles of the world. In her deepest fantasies, ones she'd never shared with even Fiona or Taylor, she'd dreamed of being swept away by her very own jungle lord.
"This is crazy!" she said firmly. "Hello? Anyone?"
People didn't just wish for something like that and have it happen. Someone was playing a joke on her. A very bad, practical joke. There must have been something in the wine that knocked her out so someone, or a couple of someones, could transport her to the nearest zoo and leave her in the middle of the African exhibit.
Eva leaned against the palm tree for support. Which was just as likely as being transported to an actual jungle. What else had Esmeralda told them?
"I'm a fairy godmother, but no one believes in magic anymore, more's the pity."
"Magic," Eva repeated, trying the word on for size. Esmeralda was right. People didn't believe in magic any more. Maybe if they did she wouldn't have such a hard time believing in it now.
A cool breeze swept through the jungle and she shivered, her damp clothing amplifying the chill. The tops of the trees were starting to wave and when she looked up she caught a glimpse of dark clouds building.
"This is so not fair!"
She needed shelter from the oncoming storm and fast, judging by the smell of rain in the air. With any luck she could curl up and go to sleep, awakening to find this was nothing more than an alcohol induced, very vivid, dream.
"Focus Eva, shelter first and then worry about everything else."
But shelter where? She looked around once more but nothing seemed promising. If this were a story she'd be able to just shimmy up one of the trees to see if there were a house or town nearby. Heck, at this point she'd even take a thatched native hut, shelter was shelter. But this wasn't a story. There was no way she'd be able to climb one of those smooth barked trees and in any case, the sun that had awoken her was being devoured by fast moving dark clouds.
There was a path in front of her - it must lead to somewhere - and she began to jog along it. The storm was coming parallel to it; she didn't even know whether the path was north/south or east/west. She just prayed it would lead to shelter.
Eva felt very tiny as tried to keep the path in sight - everything was so big here! The trees, the ferns, the flowers, she had no idea things grew so big in the jungle. Or maybe this was a rainforest. To her chagrin, she really didn't know what the difference was.
The palm trees thinned out a bit, giving way to a wider assortment of trees, most hung with vines. They were bigger than anything she'd ever seen before and even bigger were some kind of rough barked trees with enormous roots that humped out of the ground around them.
The wind was whipping the brush around her into a frenzy and it grew darker still. Eva could barely see where she was going, unaware that she'd left the meagre trail. Stumbling over one of the massive roots, she lay where she'd fallen, trying to catch her breath, and then crawled forward into the darker patch of blackness near the trunk.
She found herself in a hollow in the tree, large enough that she could curl up in it easily just as the first fat drops of rain began pelting down. There was a carpet of dead leaves beneath her, and debris that she was just as happy she couldn't make out in the dark. Obviously some kind of animal had used this hidey hole in the past - she counted herself lucky that she hadn't run into whatever it was.
The rain poured down steadily, but without any accompanying thunder and lightning. She was safe and dry inside the hollow tree, though a trifle chilled. The sweater she'd brought down to the campfire was presumably still draped on the back of her chair and though her jeans were adequate protection for her lower half, the sleeveless silk blouse, while a beautiful shade of red did very little to keep her upper half warm.
Eva wrapped her hands around her knees, shivering in the dark. Reality settled in like a heavy weight around her shoulders. She'd been left in the middle of nowhere with no food, no water, and no idea which way civilization was. This wasn't an adventure, it was a nightmare.
Soothed by the sound of the rain, mentally and emotionally exhausted, Eva slept.
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