The Mountains Bow Down

by Sibella Giorello

  She moved like someone afraid, like someone who feels the earth shaking under her feet.

  I panted to the turnstile.

  “Ticket?” the girl said.

  Webb watched from the open door, his clever eyes calculating. But my mother kept her face to the window, looking out at the empty sky and distant mountains. My heart beat so fast it hurt. I stepped forward, pushing on the turnstile.

  The girl said, “I need to see your ticket.”

  “That man.” I pointed at Webb. “You need to hold him.”

  “Do you have a ticket or not?” she demanded.

  “You don’t understand—”

  “No, you don’t understand. I need proof you paid to come up here. Otherwise you’re not getting in there. This isn’t some free ride.”

  The door slid shut. Above the car, the giant iron wheel shifted. The car lurched forward on the steel cable. My mother’s head was shaking, she was talking to herself, staring out the window as the shell cracked.

  And I watched the tram swing off the platform and fall into thin air.

  Chapter Twelve

  Running down the forest trail, I pulled out my cell phone and hit redial. The spruce trees bled into green waterfalls on either side, and when Geert answered, I didn’t give him the chance to say even hello.

  “I need your security team right away. Martin Webb took off.”

  “What does this mean, took off?”

  My feet ached, sharp rocks jamming into the soles of my shoes. “I can explain later. Right now I need your help.”

  “You made problems,” he said.

  “Webb demolished one of the cages up at the wildlife center, then ran.” I heard muttering, but no rebuttals. “Get your men to hold Webb at the bottom of the tram. We’re coming down the trail now.”

  Deciding his silence was some Netherlandish version of agreement, I closed the phone and extended my stride. My mind flipped through the images. My mother’s face. Webb’s smirk. The door closing.

  And Claire’s words.

  Jack thundered down the trail behind me.

  “Call the Dutchman back, ask his men to help your mom get back to the ship.”

  I couldn’t answer, because I didn’t have an answer. If Claire told her I was an FBI agent, the sudden appearance of Geert and his Ninjas wasn’t going to soothe her paranoid mind. As I sped through the switchbacks, my heart ached for my dad. He would know what to do; he could bring her back. “Everything depends on how we love her, Raleigh,” he once told me. “Everything.”

  “Forget Webb,” Jack called out. “I’ll take care of him. Tell that crazy Dutchman to help your mom.”

  But she would see them as people coming to take her away. Lock her up. Her greatest fear, my dad said, sitting me down one day. I was in the seventh grade. One day I came home from school and strange words were on our bathroom mirrors. Written in soap, the desperate pleas scared me. Someone is killing me. And Tell them to stop. But the worst was the word on my mirror. Help. “Your mother hears voices,” he told me. “Not all the time. But when she was a girl, your grandmother put her in an asylum.” Which explained why we never went to see her.

  “Raleigh—” Jack persisted.

  I shook my head and we dropped down another switchback. I could hear my own breath, on the edge of crying, and when the trail ended, I peeled out of the forest and ran downhill past the small cottages overlooking the water. I glanced at my watch, sprinting down South Franklin. Nineteen minutes had gone by since we left the summit, no way could we beat the tram.

  “The Dutchman,” Jack said, pointing.

  Geert’s bald pate gleamed outside the tram station. I searched the faces for my mother but didn’t see her.

  “You find Webb?” Jack asked Geert.

  Geert nodded his head toward the station. “He is hiding in there. But he won’t get past. My men are waiting.”

  “He can take the tram back up,” Jack said.

  “Neen.” Geert calmly twirled the white handlebar. “He can’t get the ticket.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “When we say no ticket, it is no ticket. These people want our passengers to come here.” He turned to me. “The wildlife people are looking for you. They are not happy.”

  “I didn’t touch the cage,” I insisted. But Jack pulled me aside. I kept searching the faces, the crowd streaming around us with excited chatter.

  “Go find her.”

  “Jack, I can’t leave—”

  “You can. If Claire just let the cat out of the bag, it’s dangerous. Am I right?”

  I nodded.

  “Go on.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Now give me your gun.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You can’t get it on board. The Dutchman’s here with his men. And what if your mom’s at the gangway?”

  I turned my back to the crowd, opened the fanny pack, and waited for Jack to lift his shirt. His stomach was a tan six-pack, and he shoved the flat barrel into the waistband of his pants.

  “Now run,” he said.

  I stood outside our cabin door, panting. My fingers shook as I slid the keycard into the electronic slot. Holding the brass handle, I closed my eyes and whispered the world’s briefest prayer.

  Please.

  The room was full of smoke. Clouds billowing toward the open door. I rushed inside, waving my arms and gasping. But suddenly I tasted chlorine on my lips and felt my fingertips, warm and damp. Mist. Water vapor. Not smoke.

  I waved my arms again, clearing the air, and saw her small dark figure. She stood with her back to the window, the blinds pulled tight against the sun, though the light refused to obey and leaked into the room. I moved closer. She was wearing her bathrobe, clutching the collar closed at her throat.

  “Mom?”

  I was close enough now to see her jasper eyes quivering, the green and brown colors kicking up the sands of suspicion.

  “Somebody drilled holes in the beaks,” she said. “The wings were broken. Twisted.”

  “It’s a rehabilitation center.” I spoke calmly. But it wasn’t real. I knew where this was headed. Oh, God. I knew. “They’re not experimenting on those animals. Nobody tortured them.” I couldn’t bring myself to say what she was thinking. It’s not some asylum.

  Her mouth was almost white. And hardened into a line of distrust.

  “Did you see how many animals were missing eyes?”

  “It’s a rehabilitation center,” I repeated, already tired of saying the words. Yet unable to stop. I could feel something hovering on the edge of this moment, a gate that swung back and forth, its path leading to a dark country where facts could fluctuate wildly. As I stared into her distressed eyes, my lungs seemed to tighten, struggling for air.

  “Those people are helping the animals get well.”

  She didn’t reply and I walked to the bathroom, turning off the shower. My skin was lacquered with condensation. I pulled a towel off the rack and buried my face in it, murmuring another prayer. Longer than please. But even more desperate.

  She seemed fixed in place, like a boxed doll. I forced my smile.

  “Did you know that steam from the shower can trigger the sprinkler system?” I pointed to the metal cones protruding from the ceiling. “We need to keep the bathroom door closed when we shower.”

  “I was cleaning the air.”

  I smiled harder.

  “There’s evil in the air and that’s what made that woman hang herself.”

  “Pardon?”

  She tightened her grip on the robe’s collar, shivering. “We’re too close to the North Pole, Claire says. Even the rocks are changing.”

  “Stay away from her. Don’t listen to her. She’s . . .” I was going to use the word crazy.

  “Claire’s been very nice, Raleigh. I was afraid to go in the helicopter with Aunt Charlotte and the rest of them, and she offered to stay with me.”

  “This is the same person you didn’t like
when we lived with Aunt Charlotte. Remember? You thought she was dangerous. And you were right. She’s dangerous.”

  “She told me you work for the FBI.”

  “See what I mean?” I laughed and felt something unctuous slither down my spine, settling in my soul. “Claire probably meant my friend Jack.”

  “The glacier man?”

  “Right. He works for the FBI.”

  God, please. Forgive me.

  “Does DeMott know about him?”

  I drew a deep breath, tasting the still-damp air. “I was just going to call DeMott. Would you like to say hello?”

  “Somebody else is going to die. Claire told me.”

  “She’s got it all wrong.” My heart thumped. “Somebody died. It’s over. Now we’re fine.”

  “I was looking at those birds and a voice said somebody wanted to hurt me.”

  I once had a dream, years ago, but it was still vivid in my mind. In the dream, I was my mother and every time the phone rang, or there was a knock on the door, a sudden spike of fear would paralyze me. I knew people were out to hurt me, kill me, and in every word spoken, I heard veiled threats. Paranoia wasn’t just suspicion; it was self-convinced knowledge, the knowing that can’t be swayed. And when I woke up from that dream, clammy with sweat, I’d never felt so afraid, or so tired. Now, looking at her grayish skin, I realized how selfish I’d been. I wanted to get away, to take a vacation. But for her, this trip was a steady stream of incoming threats, a strain that accumulated more of itself daily.

  “You must be so tired,” I said, feeling the weight of what I’d done.

  She looked at her bed. Our steward had pulled the covers to hotel-perfection, the pillows fluffed. When I pulled back the downfilled duvet, she hesitated.

  “It’s safe,” I said.

  Still wearing her robe, she climbed into bed. Around the edge of the curtains, sunlight pressed forward like some irrepressible secret begging to be told. I sat on the bed, taking her hand. Her fingers felt chilled, and I spoke to her as if she was a fevered child who insisted monsters lived under the bed waiting to grab her ankles.

  “The door is locked. Nobody can come in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. You have my word.”

  My word. I felt sick saying it.

  She began a trembling prayer and I closed my eyes. Still clutching her hand, I believed in what I could not see and what I could not give. When she finished, she rolled on her side, staring at the wall. I stared at her back.

  “Do they spy on people?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “The FBI.”

  “No.”

  I waited.

  But after that, there was only silence.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She went to sleep like someone falling from a cliff—swift, sudden, gone. For several minutes, I puttered around the cabin, wanting to see if noise would wake her. It didn’t and I stepped into the hallway, holding down the brass handle until the door quietly closed.

  “Baby sleeping?”

  I turned around.

  They were a handsome middle-aged couple. The woman held a finger to her lips, then whispered, “We’ll be quiet.” She glanced at the man. “We remember those days. Nothing like a sleeping baby.”

  I gave a wan smile and waited until they had gone inside their cabin before opening my phone. I felt a sudden gratitude that we were on satellite phones that worked even if we left a port.

  “Did you get Webb?” I asked Jack.

  “Yes. Did you find your mom?”

  “Yes. Where’s Webb?”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “About what?”

  “Harmon, knock it off. About working for the FBI.”

  “I told her Claire’s crazy.”

  “So you told her the truth.”

  The levity made me suddenly dizzy. I put my hand on the wall, not sure if I would laugh or cry.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  There was no point answering. Either I’d lie again or turn to Jell-O. So I changed the subject. Again. “Where are you?”

  “Coming up to the ship, then heading for the Dutchman’s office.”

  “Where’s Webb?”

  “Right here in my hands,” Jack said. “You want to see him?”

  Boxed in on one side by Geert and Jack on the other, with Ninjas following, Martin Webb shuffled through the casino. A navy blazer three sizes too large draped over his hunched shoulders. Both the coat and his posture told me Webb was cuffed, but Geert was hiding the restraints from the other passengers.

  Following the scrum, I watched Jack maneuver Webb, using the man’s elbow like a rudder, navigating him to the secret hallway. Geert handed the tall Ninja a black nylon bag—our guns, I decided—which the Ninja carried down the hall to Geert’s office, to the safe. We did not follow.

  Geert whipped the blazer off of Webb’s shoulders and pointed to the first room on the left. It was an empty office with a desk pushed to the side, the walls bare. Jack spun Webb around, then dropped him in the only chair.

  “Okay, Marty. Let’s talk.”

  Webb glared at him. “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “For starters we could discuss destruction of state and federal property. And that’s small talk.”

  “I was in a hurry.”

  “You had time to lock yourself in the bathroom down at the base house. Then flush the toilet until it clogged.”

  “You guys violated my privacy,” Webb said.

  “It’s a public restroom, Marty.”

  “The name’s Martin.”

  Geert was twirling the handlebar mustache, his cold blue eyes frozen on Webb. But the color was darkening, like the North Sea in January.

  Jack nodded at Geert. “Marty, the big guy who speaks funny English? He’s the only reason you’re not behind bars. But he can change his mind. And if he does, the Alaska cops would love to throw you in jail right now.”

  “I said I’ll pay for damages.”

  “What did you send down the toilet?” Jack asked.

  Webb smiled. “There’s a lady in the room.”

  “Glad you noticed,” Jack said. “Because if you don’t answer, that lady will kick the snot out of you.”

  Webb scowled.

  But when I stepped forward, he leaned back.

  “Let’s start over,” I said pleasantly. “Why were you sneaking into the woods?”

  “I wasn’t sneaking anywhere. I’m scouting locations.”

  Jack laughed. “C’mon, Marty, give honesty a shot.”

  But the tall Ninja appeared, standing in the doorway. With his eyes, he gave Geert some kind of signal. Geert started to follow the Ninja back down the hallway but turned around at the last moment. He smiled at Webb. It was not a nice smile.

  Webb blinked, watching Geert leave.

  Just as I’d learned two days ago at the crime scene, Webb was beginning to realize this ship was not the United States. This was not ACLU America. Not only did Geert not Mirandize him, Geert didn’t care about his rights. This was a place called Geertville, run by a Dutch dictator who wanted his floating village to remain peaceful.

  Webb dipped his chin to his shoulder, wiping off the sweat. “Where’s he going?”

  “To find a noose.”

  “What?”

  “Speaking of nooses,” Jack continued, “let’s talk about Judy Carpenter.”

  Much as I hated to admit it, my admiration for Jack was climbing. Judy Carpenter wasn’t hung in a noose—it was a tight double knot; a noose would have tightened on her, severing her head. But the only people who knew that were us and the killer.

  Webb glanced at me. Then back to Jack. “Judy? That’s what this is about—Judy?” He let out a long breath, shaking his head. “Don’t tell me, you two morons think somebody killed her. Is that it?”

  We didn’t reply.

  “Everybody knows,” he said. “They’ve known for years.”

  “Known what
?” Jack said.

  “That Milo can’t keep it in his pants. Everybody knew except Judy. When she finally figured it out, she decided to check out.”

  “Marty, if you were playing a part in a movie, I wouldn’t believe you.”

  “You didn’t know Judy. She was having a nervous breakdown.”

  I said, “She seemed calm to me.”

  “Because she had class. Judy would never let anyone know. But inside, she was dying.”

  “What’re you, her girlfriend?” Jack asked.

  Webb raised his chin, haughty. “We were very close.”

  “And what about Milo?”

  The director sneered. “What about him?”

  “He’s broken up about her death,” Jack said. “Is that an act?”

  “Are you kidding? Milo can’t act. He never could. But the idiots in Nebraska think he’s an action hero. At least they used to. These days nobody goes to his rotten films.” Feeling superior, despite the fact that he was directing one of those rotten films, Webb tried to straighten his back. But the cuffs put him back in a slouch. “However, if anything is suspicious about her death, you should look at Milo.

  His wife being dead is the biggest career boost in year—”

  The door opened. Geert filled the space. Once again he offered the director a brutally sweet smile, the white handlebars rising until they resembled fangs.

  “Leave pansy boy here,” he said. “My assistant’s gonna babysit.”

  “Hey, wait—” Webb cried.

  We stepped into the hall and the Ninja with the pencil mustache walked into the room, closing the door. Following Geert down the hall, I could hear Webb hollering. The sound diminished in the Dutchman’s office where my Glock 22 sat next to Jack’s Springfield 1911, .45 pistol. Geert headed straight to the safe and twisted the dial. It appeared stuck. “I wanted you to see why I’m taking the guns to the purser’s safe. Something went wrong with mine. The guns will be safe there.”

  “You could always just give us back the guns,” Jack suggested.

  “Ach,” Geert said. “What I need: you two with guns.”

  But I wasn’t thinking about the guns. Moving to the side, I scanned the teak safe-cabinet’s base. The carpet below was blue nylon and it looked faded in places. But those places weren’t near the porthole, and the fading seemed unlikely, particularly on a ship obsessed with perfect appearances.