Lilly had presumed that the movie was fictitious—it featured a space ship with huge holes right through the center that had no railings whatsoever. Any villainous space pilot on his way to lunch could easily fall to his doom. How could it be real? But what if portions of the film had been based on actual living creatures, the terrible Crevasse, for example.
No one else seemed appropriately terrified.
Lilly supposed that after one had battled their way through fearsome marmots and wet wipe eating bears, crevasses did not appear insurmountable.
“Yep.” Lilly choked out, hoping that Tristian wouldn’t notice the pulse pounding at her throat and the sheen of sweat that had mysteriously appeared across her forehead. Lilly tugged at the rope, it seemed secure. If a crevasse grabbed her by the leg and started dragging her under, would Tristian and the students be able to yank her back? Lilly reached back and patted her backpack where a very stinky Strudel reclined after his snow cave ordeal. At least he didn’t have to fret about giant mountain monsters. Not only was Lilly doing all the hiking, she was doing all the worrying too. Strudel really did live in luxury. Although, in this case it was the purse of luxury rather than a lap. Lilly knew for a fact that Strudel preferred laps, whether luxurious or otherwise.
Ice ax in hand, Tristian waved them forward and started up Spider Gap.
It wasn’t too bad at first. Tristian was right, the snow was soft and Lilly’s filthy exercise shoes crunched up the mountainside without too much difficulty. It helped that Tristian kicked out steps in the snow on the difficult bits. After trudging along for some time with her eyes glued to her feet, Lilly was startled by a snort behind her. She let out a tiny scream and spun. Was it a crevasse sneaking up on them from behind?
Instead of the monstrous Yeti-like creature she’d imagined, Lilly beheld a bent old man with a string of mules. The mules seemed to handle the snow just fine. Perhaps they had special glacier shoes or something. The old man tipped his hat to her as he and his animals trudged on past.
As the mules topped the rise above them, Tristian halted and pointed off to the side. He muttered something to Cloe who gave the message to Owen who whispered to Jacob, on down the line until Emily glanced over her shoulder at Lilly and repeated the message.
“He says there’s a small crevasse on our left and not to go near it.”
Lilly craned her neck, trying to glimpse a patch of matted fur or a growling face filled with fangs. Why was everyone so calm? Could the crevasse be in hibernation? Perhaps the plan was to tiptoe by without awakening it. She tiptoed.
The rest of the group clomped forward just like before. They were nearing the top of Spider Gap now and the blinding blue of the September sky was tantalizingly close at the top of the ridge.
Finally, Lilly reached the place where Tristian had mentioned the crevasse. A jagged tear in the ice and snow was the only change in scenery. Lilly peered inside for some glimpse of the illusive animal, but only a deep darkness met her gaze. The crevasse must be sleeping.
“Careful, Miss Park. Mr. Calvert said to stay back.” Emily skittered away from the edge of the tear.
“It’s all right. The crevasse must be in hibernation. We should be safe.”
Emily blinked up at her, confusion written clearly across her face.
Lilly felt the purse sway wildly and heard a plop in the snow behind her.
Emily turned away just in time.
Strudel zipped behind her unseen and lunged toward the deep opening in the ice. What was it about ice caves and dangerous dwellings that attracted her dog?
Lilly ignored these pressing questions and made a frantic leap for the fissure.
Strudel sprang out over the dark emptiness.
Lilly’s finger tips just brushed at his khaki African safari jacket. She skidded across the ice on her stomach and snatched at the fabric. One finger caught in the decorative camera decal on the side of his coat and Lilly clenched her fist tight. She yanked him back from the pit and rolled away. Right as they reached solid ground, the edge of the tear crumbled and fell into the darkness below.
“What are you thinking?” Emily stood above her, literally trembling. “He said to stay away from the crevasse not dive right on top of it!” Emily seemed…greatly agitated.
“The crevasse was sleeping and I thought I saw something about to fall into this pit thingy.” Not a lie, Lilly thought as she furtively stuffed Strudel beneath her shirt while Emily was gaping at the partially collapsed hole. The rest of the line jerked to a stop and every single person ahead turned to stare at Lilly.
“That is the crevasse!” Tristian pointed at the tear in the snow, his hand shaking and his face pale as a mug of milk.
“Oh.” Lilly glanced down at the jagged pit. “I think you’re right. It does seem quite dangerous.”
17
A Precipice And A Mathematical Solution For Young Love
“OK, everyone. We have just gained two thousand feet of elevation in about six and a half miles of hiking. Nicely done. Take off your packs and come look at this.” Tristian beckoned them toward a sheer drop that afforded a spectacular view of Phelps basin and Spider Meadows below. It also afforded a breathtaking precipice that fell all the way to the bottom of the trail. A rock cliff, straight down to the bottom.
Lilly slogged up the last tiny stretch of trail before the summit. Her legs burned, her throat ached, and her lungs wheezed and trembled. Surely nothing was worth such torture. She let the pack slide from her back, careful that Strudel’s dog purse wasn’t jostled. Tears snaked down her cheeks as the weight disappeared and the wind picked up, pushing her sweaty bangs off her forehead and cooling her skin. She turned.
She stood on top of the world.
An alpine wind snatched through her hair and a kingdom spread out below her, miles upon miles of rich pine and fir as far as she could see. The rocky crags were below her now, jutting into the sky with steady gray determination. Spider Meadow was bright as a flower in a girl’s hair, yellow grass rippling in waves and surrounded by crouching mountains.
Lilly’s chest took on a heavy aching quality and she realized she had actually stopped breathing. She had never imagined that such beauty existed and she had seen a photo of this very view on a hiking website before they’d set out. But here, on the heights, one could actually feel the view in the almost debilitating fatigue that held her body, the sweat cooling across her brow, the crisp gusts the pushed her toward the precipice, and pulled at her soul all at once.
This was why everyone carried their own pack. She, Lilly Charity Park, had accomplished this impossible task. Hiked up to the very footstool of God with all that she needed upon her own back. Lilly stood enthralled for a moment before the significance of the lofty location set in. “That cliff goes all the way down to the Spider Gap trailhead.” Lilly whispered, keeping a good ten feet back and clutching at a nearby boulder for support.
“Yep.” Tristian leaned over the cliff, apparently soaking in the splendors of the view without a concern for the horrible death that would follow should he slip.
“Therefore, you are standing six inches away from a sheer, two thousand foot drop.”
“No, I’d say it’s more like four inches.” He beckoned the children closer.
“Are you insane? Children, quickly. Step back, don’t let this madman tempt you any closer to that precipice.”
Eight of the kids glanced at her, and then walked over to view the drop with Tristian.
“Fret not, Miss Park. I will make them keep a full six inches back.” Tristian turned back to the view and Lilly watched with horror as the students stood at his side, enjoying the death defying spectacle. “Besides, this is the perfect location for our Bible lesson on the fear of the Lord.”
Lilly gaped at their ridiculous youth leader with his coffee-colored hair and insane aplomb. Fear of the Lord? Why speak on the fear of the Lord? That was Old Testament stuff and anyone with 1/8th of a brain should know that Bible lessons and two thousand foo
t cliffs did not mix.
“The Bible tells us to fear God, hundreds of times. In fact, the word ‘fear’ is used in association with God over three hundred times. What do you think this means? How do we fear God?”
Lilly felt a wash of nausea grip her stomach and turned her face away from the children clustered around Tristian and his fabulous cliff. She focused on the non-cliff portion of their surroundings. Spider Gap was rocky and sparse with a scattering of snow and very little vegetation. Far below, in Spider Meadows, Lilly had seen a few late-blooming flowers. A bright magenta variation of the Indian Paintbrush, some yellow buttercups on long stems that smelled like crushed herbs, and a few scattered daisies. But the rocky ridge had a completely different feel, untamed almost, as though the slices of stone had grown defiant over the centuries as they stood against storm and sky and had won.
Tristian’s voice drew her ear, even if Lilly kept her gaze carefully averted from the fearsome cliff. “If I were to try to climb down this cliff on a whim, I would die. Even with the proper climbing equipment and years of experience, I would probably die, or find myself in desperate need of rescue. Would it be the mountain’s fault if I fell to my doom?”
The children shook their heads.
“The mountain is mighty and it cannot be any less than what it is simply because I am uncomfortable with its greatness. I safely traverse the mountains because I fear them. I respect their power. I know that part of their beauty is the fact that they are untamed and fierce. I am a mere speck when compared with the vastness surrounding us and that is all right. I love that about the mountains. God is like that, too. Just as I must respect the rock if I am to be safe, I must fear God if I have any inkling of what He is truly like, His vast power and terrible love.”
Lilly shut out Tristian’s voice and counted the children again.
The Fear of the Lord, not exactly an appropriate lesson for twelve-year-olds, especially considering God’s New Testament Grace and the handy formulas that He laid down for everyone concerning Salvation. What about Romans 10:9—“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” It was a simple mathematical formula and all that these children really needed to know about God for now. Why confuse them with complicated Old Testament demands? One had to keep things simple and logical for this age group.
Six, seven, and eight. Eight? Lilly counted one more time.
Only eight children peered over the spine-tingling drop.
She glanced around. Where was Emily?
After a moment, she spied a splash of purple behind some rocks. Thankful to put the nine daredevils and their “fabulous view” behind her, Lilly crept over to Emily. She was careful to have at least one hand gripping a tree or sturdy bush until the drop was a good one hundred yards in the distance. Lilly opened her mouth to congratulate the girl on her wisdom concerning cliffs and dramatic drops, when she spied tear tracks collecting a sheen of dust and pollen on Emily’s face.
Lilly closed her mouth and sat on a small boulder below Emily’s hiding place. OK, foolish compliment thwarted. Now what? How could she ascertain the cause of her student’s distress? Lilly considered the many articles she had read recently on tween angst and was just forming her query when Emily burst into renewed sobs.
“I hung back all by myself, thinking he would come and talk with me. The jerk just zipped around the mountain top with his friends and didn’t even notice!” More sobbing accompanied this declaration.
But thankfully, this was something Lilly was prepared to deal with. Thank You, Lord for math! Lilly hurried to share the statistics that would ease this poor girl’s romantic woes. Thank heavens she had come along when she did. Who knows what childish comment or antiquated Old Testament argument Tristian might have used to assuage Emily’s concerns?
“Actually, less than two percent of marriages are between high school sweethearts. Imagine how slight the numbers are for Jr. High sweethearts? Statistically speaking, you are most likely to marry in your mid-twenties or thirties, after a college degree has been secured. And may I remind you that there are a host of scholarships for young ladies wishing to major in mathematics. Anyway, the rate of divorce is smallest for those who marry between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-two so you have many years before you need concern yourself with the idiocies of males.”
Emily wiped her eyes and stared at Lilly.
Oh, good, the statistics had helped, clearly—
“You are such a freak!” The girl leapt to her feet and sprinted into the rocky wilderness beyond.
Lilly froze in place as her gaze followed the girl’s frantic flight. It hadn’t worked. Why had her handy bit of mathematical assistance gone so terribly wrong? She had not quoted a verse from Leviticus or waxed eloquent about rocks and terrifying wilderness locations. Why didn’t Emily appreciate her tact and careful employment of actual numbers that could prove how invalid her current emotions truly were?
Lilly scanned her surroundings. The mountains upon which they stood were harsh and gray, scattered with patches of snow and ice, but seemed almost to reside high above life. Remote and uninhabitable. Mounds of jagged rock dotted the landscape. Small scraggly plants struggled up through the rough, windswept soil straining for the sun. She glanced beyond the ridge and took in the vast sweep of forest that marched on and on and on until a distant smudge of green actually blended into the darkening indigo of the sky. Lilly’s heart lurched and seemed to pause for a moment. That was a whole lot of forest to search.
A hissing wind flicked Lilly’s hair into her face and pushed against her back. She immediately remembered the two thousand foot drop that was so conveniently placed nearby.
Emily wouldn’t…
Adrenaline surged into her frozen limbs and Lilly launched to her feet. She stumbled after Emily, cracking her knee as she scrambled to locate the upset girl. The surrounding mountains seemed larger and sharper and more terrible with every step she took. There was just so much of this blasted wilderness! Her gaze wandered across the great swaths of forest to the horizon where a snarl of dark clouds advanced across the heavens.
Where in all this horrible nature, with its cliffs and bugs and bears and deadly crevasses, had Emily gone? And should she alert their leader concerning Emily’s flight? No. she could do this. If Lilly divided the area into a grid and prioritized according to the probability of whether the various views would appeal to a young girl of the broken-hearted variety…
Fifteen minutes later, Lilly heard Tristian’s booming voice. “Pack ’em up and roll ’em out. We need to get down the glacier before twilight. Don’t want the snow freezing to ice on us. Is everyone here?”
Lilly bit her lip and oh, so slowly walked up to their rock climbing/ski instructor/white water raft guide leader. The man she had criticized for allowing the students within six inches of a precipice and yet had somehow managed to not lose any of the eight children he had been responsible for. Lilly had talked with a single student for all of three minutes and now she was gone, alone, in an actual certified wilderness. Lilly tipped her face up until she met Tristian’s gaze, opened her mouth, and promptly burst into tears, much like the hapless tween she had so recently attempted to assist with her romantic woes.
18
The Old Abandoned Mine
Tristian made them pair off before scattering across the rocky landscape that surrounded the Spider Gap Glacier. Lilly trudged beside Natasha, who was in a high state of agitation.
The girl had pulled her ponytail out and snapped it back into place about eight or nine times and muttered about every terrifying bear story she had ever heard in her twelve short years.
Lilly clutched at her stomach and tried not to vomit. Who knew that bears would steal garbage cans, pry open locked cars, and eat eighty-seven boxes of thin mint cookies if pressed?
Emily was more mobile than a crate of cookies, but probably weighed less. Did that mean she was less likely to be co
nsumed before they found her, or more?
The soft gusts of wind that had occasionally puffed against Lilly’s skin and ruffled her hair took on a new and sinister personality. This new, stronger wind tore across the ridgeline and constantly snarled Lilly’s hair so that she could barely see through the whipping strands.
The storm yanked at the treetops below them, sending the trunks swaying back and forth so wildly that Lilly was sure the trees were just moments from snapping and crashing into a matchstick tumble of trunks. The sky darkened and when she glanced up at the sudden chill, Lilly beheld a roiling sea of gray and black hovering above, where moments before the cheerful blue of an Indian summer had reined. A raindrop struck her cheek, and then something that stung her skin.
Lilly put her hand on a rock to steady herself. Yes, there it was again. A stinging missile from above, cutting at her cheek. Then the sky broke forth and she ducked her head, pulling her parka over her neck and hunching against the rock for protection. Hail bounced across the path and gathered in cracks between the stones. It slashed at her hands and face and rattled against the fabric of her coat. At least Strudel was safe in his purse.
But where was Emily? Did she have a place to run from the storm or would they find her drenched and bruised, out in the unpredictable weather?
They stumbled across a ridge scattered with rocky scree.
Natasha squealed and pointed toward a patch of darkness that shadowed a dip in the ridge.
Lilly squinted and leaned forward. Yes, it was a cave. But what kind of cave? A bear cave, a Sasquatch cave, an adorable fluffy squirrel cave?
“You’re right, Natasha. Perhaps she has hidden herself within the depths of that…adorable fluffy squirrel cave. Better let me go first though, squirrels can be savage if they’re, um, guarding nuts, or a stockpile of trail mix pilfered from unsuspecting travelers.”
Natasha blinked and stared up at Lilly.
Lilly bit her lip, ignoring the girl’s raised eyebrow, and turned toward the cave. OK, then. Enter the creepy dwelling of a possibly savage animal and search for Emily. No problem, she’d read about this sort of thing all the time when she herself was in 6th grade. Lilly closed her eyes and imagined that she was a girl sleuth, or part of a gang of happy-go-lucky farm boys who enjoyed poetry and helping others, or perhaps she belonged to a group of teens who drove around the countryside with a very large Great Dane, solving mysteries. Yes, she could do this.
Spider Gap Page 9
