Lily's Mountain

by Hannah Moderow

  “Thank you,” I mumble.

  “Let me know if you need anything while you’re here, and I’ll stop by the campground this evening to check in.”

  “Thank you so much,” Sophie says in her adult voice, and I just nod. How can Sophie pretend that life is normal right now? When she’s not being dramatic, sometimes she can be so cool and calm, like a paper doll that talks.

  “You need help with your packs?” Ranger Collins asks, eyeing me all hunched over.

  “Nope. I’m all set,” I say, and I stand up taller.

  “Have a nice afternoon, then,” she says, and Sophie and I make our way to the campsites.

  Sophie hunts for a perfect camping spot while I fill up water bottles for dinner and stash our food in the bear locker. I’m surprised that Sophie wants to help pitch the tent this time. Maybe she feels how close we are to Dad. Or maybe she’s moving into her summer ptarmigan feathers.

  It might have only been spring when Dad left for the mountain, but it’s full summer when the mosquitoes are out like this. A swarm of them follows me. Zzz. In my ear. Zzz. On my neck. Through my bandanna. “Ouch!” I say, and Sophie swats at them too. Sophie squirts bug spray on me, but it doesn’t help. The mosquitoes zig and zag. They buzz and swarm. And it’s not exactly clear where they’re going, but they’re biting, biting, biting.

  One hour and forty-three dead mosquitoes later, Sophie and I carry our Top Ramen early dinner down to Wonder Lake. We have to walk while we eat, or the mosquitoes will feast on us.

  “You glad to be here?” I ask, trying to make small talk until I figure out how to tell Sophie about the plan.

  “Sure,” she says, “except for the bugs.” Whap! She kills two of them on her right hand. “But I hope the mountain comes out for us tomorrow,” she says.

  We both know that when the mountain comes out, she’s huge and beautiful here at Wonder Lake.

  “The mountain needs to do a lot more than ‘come out’ for us,” I say.

  “What?” Sophie asks, and I know that I need to tell her.

  I need to tell her now.

  “Sophie, there’s this adventure I have in mind,” I say. I slurp ramen noodles quickly, burning my tongue but not caring. “I think we need to hike out to the mountain.”

  Sophie stops in her sneakers, not caring about the mosquitoes that hover immediately in her face.

  “Please tell me you’re kidding,” she says, eyes wide. A mosquito lands on her forehead and she doesn’t bother swatting it away.

  “Nope,” I say. “Serious.”

  I motion Sophie to keep moving to the bench next to Wonder Lake. There will be fewer mosquitoes by the lake because of the breeze.

  “It’ll take days to get to the mountain,” Sophie says.

  “No way. It’s only twenty miles or so.”

  “Twenty miles of danger,” she says, sitting down on the bench. “And we promised Mom we’d stay at the campground.”

  “But I have Dad’s expert map,” I say, “so we can follow his route.”

  “Follow his route to where?” Sophie asks. “To find his grave?”

  Her words are icy. It’s hard to shake off that word—​grave. It’s as bad as dead to me.

  Sophie’s quiet as stone, and I’m convinced she’s about to say no, that she’s not going anywhere. Instead she shakes her head and asks, “What exactly are you planning to do when you get there?”

  “I’ll either find Dad, or I’ll find his stash of peaches and brandy,” I say.

  “What stash?” Sophie asks.

  I pull the journal from my pocket. Sophie needs to read it for herself if she’s going to agree to the trip. I hand her the journal, and it feels like I’m asking my fairy godmother to grant me one wish.

  One big mountain of a wish.

  The bench we’re sitting on is wet, and it soaks through the butt of my pants. Sophie flips through the pages, smiling at the good parts, like the line that says, I miss my girls. Wish they could have seen the view from the summit. When Sophie gets to the end, there are two mosquitoes on her left cheek. She must feel them, but she lets them bite.

  “Lily?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “You really think Dad’s alive?”

  “I do,” I say.

  “I’m not going to hope that hard,” Sophie says, “but I think Dad might want us to finish the trip for him, since he couldn’t finish it for himself, you know.”

  “So you’ll do it? Come out to McGonagall Pass to the foot of the mountain?” I ask.

  “Let me see the map again,” she says. I hand it over, and she traces the route with her pointer finger. Down the McKinley Bar Trail, across the river, up Turtle Hill, and out to McGonagall Pass. “Yes, I’ve heard of all of these places from Dad,” she says. Seeing Sophie trace Dad’s route from star to star makes everything feel real and possible and exciting.

  That’s when we hear the trumpeting.

  Two white birds swoop down and make a splooosh when they land on Wonder Lake and skid clumsily to a halt. Trumpeter swans. They reach their necks up tall toward the sky, and then together they slip their long necks beneath the surface of the lake, tail feathers lifted to the sky.

  “You know that they mate for life?” Sophie asks, eyeing the swans.

  “Hmm,” I say, because I didn’t know that, but I wish that I had.

  “It’s not like high school, where people hop from one to another,” Sophie says.

  “Is Clint your swan?” I ask, and I can’t believe I’m asking it. We never talk about Clint.

  “Of course not,” Sophie says. She flicks away a few mosquitoes.

  “Why not?”

  “He’s just, well, Clint’s just so good-looking,” Sophie says, grinning.

  “Oh,” I say, not sure how good-looking can be worth all that trouble.

  “Do you think Mom and Dad were trumpeter swans?” Sophie asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, but I don’t like the way she’s talking about Mom and Dad in the past tense.

  “I think they were,” Sophie says, holding the feather charm between her right thumb and index finger.

  “You do?”

  “Yes.” I haven’t heard Sophie so sure about anything in a while. She’s being the older sister right now. The one I always used to go to for help.

  “But then why was Mom upset with him before he left?” I ask.

  “She was worried she’d lose him to the mountain,” Sophie says.

  “We can fix that,” I say. “We can bring her swan home.”

  “Lily, there are some things you can’t change, no matter how hard you try.” Sophie sips the last ramen broth from her mug. She sounds a lot like Mom, all practical and sensible.

  I shake my head, not taking that for an answer. “So?” I ask, when I can’t stand the silence anymore.

  “So what?” Sophie says, but she knows what I’m asking.

  “Will you come with me to Dad’s mountain?”

  “You’re crazy, Lily,” she says, “but I’ll go.”

  I’ll go. These are the words of my wish granted. The words of Sophie chasing adventure. She might not think Dad’s out there anymore, but her willingness to come with me is all I need. It’s enough.

  “Ranger talk in ten minutes,” a man yells from the dirt path above the lake. This must be the new guy that Ranger Collins told us about.

  “Thanks,” I yell back. “You want to go?” I ask Sophie.

  “No. I’m ready for a nap,” she says.

  “Nap?”

  “Yes. I need to curl up and sleep for a while.” Sophie’s rapidly slipping into hibernation mode.

  “We need to leave for the mountain tonight,” I say. Now that Sophie’s agreed to go, I’m antsy to set off as quickly as possible.

  “Where will we camp?” Sophie asks.

  “We’re going to have to move fast and just nap when the sun goes down.”

  “Very funny,” Sophie says. She knows that the sun never really goes down a
t this time of year. “You aren’t planning to let us sleep?”

  “We won’t have time,” I say. “Mom expects us back in three days—​or else.”

  Sophie raises her right eyebrow.

  “Don’t worry, Sophie. I’ll pack a lot of food,” I promise. “Scout’s honor.”

  “I need to sleep for at least three hours before we start out,” Sophie says. “Plus, we can’t leave when all the other campers are watching us. They’ll be suspicious. And Ranger Collins will catch us before we even set foot on the trail if we’re carrying all our gear.”

  Sophie’s right that we’ll need to sneak out, but I don’t want to wait until tomorrow.

  “Soph, you take a nap while I go to the talk. I’ll join you in the tent in a little while. We’ll leave for the mountain late tonight after everyone has gone to bed.”

  What’s a few more hours?

  “Hold on a little longer, Dad,” I whisper, as I make my way to the ranger talk.

  I love ranger talks. At least, I used to love them. After Mom’s famous camping dinners, the four of us always went together. It didn’t matter if the topic was bears or park history or animal tracks. We went, and we always sat together on one long log bench.

  Dad went for inspiration. Mom went for information. Sophie for people watching. And I just loved all of it: the gathering, sitting, and sharing stories.

  When I arrive at the outdoor amphitheater, there are a few other people, each in couples or family arrangements. I didn’t realize what together meant until just now, walking up to the ranger talk alone.

  I’m tempted to turn around and leave, but I have a few hours to kill, and there’s no way I’ll be able to nap at a time like this!

  I sit down on a bench all alone.

  “Good evening,” says the ranger who’s not Ranger Collins. He wears a tan brimmed hat and smiles a Smokey Bear smile. “I’ll wait one more minute in case others are joining us.” He looks over to me on my empty bench.

  I turn around, pretending to look for my family. I know they’re not coming, but I hope the ranger doesn’t know. Maybe he’ll forget I’m by myself once he starts talking.

  “Welcome to Wonder Lake,” he says. “Tonight I’m going to talk about the mountain.”

  The mountain is so big in my mind that it’s hard to listen to someone else talk about her. Do these tourists even know what mountain he is referring to?

  The ranger points behind him. “If the mountain were out tonight, that’s where it would be.” Why does he call the mountain it? I’m positive that Denali is a she.

  Then he asks, “Can anybody tell me how tall the mountain is?”

  I raise my hand, instinctively. That’s what I do when I know an answer.

  He points to me, the only raised hand in the group.

  “Twenty-thousand three hundred and ten feet,” I say. That’s nothing. Every Alaska girl knows that, or she should.

  “You’re smart,” he says, but I don’t feel smart when he asks the next question. “What is your name?”

  “Lily,” I say, and I immediately wish I hadn’t said it. No more anonymous.

  The ranger stares at me for a long—​too long—​moment, and then he turns and says, “Thank you, Lily.” I can tell by his look that he knows. He knows, or thinks he knows, that I’m the missing climber’s Lily.

  My right eye twitches. Why did I open my big mouth?

  I settle onto the bench, but I’m not even a little bit calm. I pull out my gummy bears.

  Green bear.

  “The first man to summit the mountain was Walter Harper,” he says, but I don’t imagine Walter. I imagine Dad with his frosty bearded grin.

  Yellow bear.

  The ranger’s voice is smooth and easy to listen to, but I don’t really hear him. Instead I’m thinking about those trumpeter swans, and the miracle of Sophie agreeing to go out to the mountain. Even if she’s going for different reasons than I am, it’s still huge.

  White bear.

  “During a typical summer,” the ranger says, “there are casualties on the mountain.” His words interrupt like a punch. Casualty? What kind of word is that? It sounds more like a crossword-puzzle word than a word that means the same thing as dead.

  Red bear.

  “Common hazards are frostbite, hypothermia, falling, and crevasses . . .”

  Crevasse is the only word I hear now. It’s another word that’s better in a crossword than in real life. Ice hole. Gaping ice trench. Trap.

  Two red bears.

  “The summit is the tallest point in North America.”

  Three green bears.

  “The mountain is thought to be a sacred place.”

  Five yellow bears.

  I’m shaking all over, swatting at mosquitoes, and my eyes continue to twitch, twitch, twitch. All this mountain talk makes me jumpy, like the mosquitoes are swarming my insides.

  At the end the ranger asks, “Does anybody know someone who has climbed the mountain?”

  My hand shoots up. Dad. My dad climbed the mountain many times. The other campers stare at me from their benches, and I wish again that I hadn’t raised my hand.

  The ranger looks at me, and I think he is about to ask me who, and I don’t want to answer. Instead he smiles and says, “That is an incredible feat,” and the way he says it makes me sure that he knows—​that I’m the missing climber’s kid.

  Why have you given up on him too? I almost ask, but I keep those words inside me, swarming.

  I can’t sit still anymore.

  I stand and run up the dirt path away from the amphitheater. I race past the bear locker and beyond the outhouses and tent sites. A few wide-eyed campers flit apart, somehow knowing to get out of my way.

  I keep at a full gallop until I get to our berry patch. Ours. Dad’s and mine. It’s above everything, secluded. I leap from the road into the squishy tundra. Then I bend over and breathe in deep. Wet tundra and lichens.

  No blueberries. It’s too early for ripe berries.

  I lie down on the tundra with bugs buzzing and my head spinning. I put my face into a blueberry bush, just to see if I can bring back the smell. Nope.

  Dad calls blueberries a religion of their own. “Here’s another chapel of the holy blueberry,” he says every time he finds a good patch.

  Sitting in the berryless tundra brings back the day, years ago, when Dad and I ate ourselves sick with berries.

  Sophie and Mom had wanted to go on a “real hike” that day, and I was spitting mad that that they wouldn’t let me come. I could keep up with them just fine.

  “Lily, let them go,” Dad said. “We’ll have more fun without them.”

  And we did.

  Dad and I sat in the berry patch and filled four water bottles.

  I can’t remember the exact stories Dad told, but I remember him reciting part of that Robert Service poem again.

  Let us probe the silent places,

  let us seek what luck betides us;

  Let us journey to a lonely land I know.

  I didn’t always remember the first line, but I’d chime in for the second: Let us journey to a lonely land I know. I also remember that Dad didn’t bother to pick the berry leaves out of each handful.

  “Don’t we need to get the leaves out?” I asked him.

  “Life is too short to pick the leaves out of the berries,” he said. “Grizzlies don’t pick out the leaves, so neither do we.”

  I remember Dad’s blueberry grin and the way he believed, with complete certainty, that life was too short for dawdling around.

  No more dawdling for me either.

  I sit up in the tundra and brush off the mossy green and twiggy branches.

  It’s time to get packing. Sophie might want to sleep, but I need to get ready.

  When I get back, Sophie’s sitting at the picnic table in front of our tent. The cookstove hums with a bright flame, and Sophie sits across the table from that familiar tan wide-brimmed hat.

  Ranger Collins.


  I really don’t want to talk to her. I’m afraid she’ll figure out our plan and she’ll stop us. So I’m standing at the end of the tundra path, staring, trying to decide where I can run this time, when Sophie settles the matter. “Lily. Come over here,” she says, and just like that, I’m stuck. I can’t run now.

  I walk slowly toward them.

  “I need some sleep,” I say rudely when I reach the table, hoping the ranger will take her cue to leave.

  “Hold on,” Sophie says. “Did you know that Ranger Collins saw Dad?”

  I can hardly keep my feet on the path. I nod. All I know is that she thinks Dad’s dead.

  “It’s good to see you both,” the ranger says. “Charley’s girls.”

  Her words are like a punch. I wish I could feel like one of Charley’s girls now, instead of a girl held hostage by a park ranger.

  “What are you planning to do while you’re here?” Ranger Collins asks, a quick change of subject.

  Gulp. “Oh. We’re going to take some long, long hikes,” I say. I glare at Sophie to remind her not to spoil our plan.

  “Yes, long hikes and just hang out with the mosquitoes. That’s about it,” Sophie says. Sophie’s good at grown-up lying. She sounds calm, like a trouble-free adult.

  Not like me.

  Franticness wells up inside me. Twitching eyes. Gurgling belly. Shivering that won’t stop. Swatting at mosquitoes.

  “I’m hiking out to the McKinley River Bar tomorrow,” Ranger Collins says. “Do you two want to come? There are good views of the mountain from there.”

  Sophie’s about to answer, but I interrupt her.

  “Umm. No,” I say. “I think we’ll just keep to ourselves.”

  Ranger Collins looks to Sophie for a second opinion.

  “Yes, I think we’ll stay put,” Sophie says. “It’s been a long week.” That’s the ultimate understatement. “But if we get a burst of energy, maybe we’ll see you out there.”

  I’m relieved that Sophie’s playing it cool cat. She doesn’t want to ruin our secret either. But I’m not relieved that the ranger is going out to the river tomorrow too—​on the same path we’re planning to take to get to the mountain.