I pull the last bag of gummy bears from my pocket, and the bears lead me up the glacier. It’s a trance, these bears combined with this snow and ice. I eat one bear every ten steps, and the stepping is slow business. Like walking on my school ice rink, except it’s a sloped rink. I scooch my boots along the slick ground and grip my toes to my insoles to keep balance. The crampons make a creaky sound on the ice—spooky.
Progress is unsteady. Some sections are glare ice, while others are punchy, wet snow. I’m unsure of how each step will be. I don’t look up the slope. I focus only on the shifting ice and snow beneath my crampons, trying to keep my foothold.
Red bear. Ten steps. Green bear. Ten more steps. Yellow bear. The bears pile up in my stomach, and they cartwheel inside me. The glacier looks almost like water now—water swirling. That’s what happens when you stare at snow and ice too long.
It’s weird. This glacier is nothing like my nightmare. It’s beautiful. Too beautiful to swallow up Dad.
But it’s also massive.
The slope steepens, and that’s when worry creeps in. There are crevasses here. Gaping holes, like the one that supposedly swallowed Dad. I’m not sure if you can always see them coming, or if they just gulp you up forever. Dad never taught me about crevasses, except I know that a rope can save you if you’re in one. But you need a climbing partner to rope to, and Sophie’s not here.
What keeps me moving is a flash of red tape ahead. The red tape is tied onto a couple of bamboo wands used as trail markers. It’s only a few yards now.
Is it Dad’s stash?
A sign?
I try to speed up my walking, but each step is steeper and more treacherous than the one before. When I can’t stand up anymore, I kneel on the ice and grip it with my hands and toe tips. I crawl—inch by inch—up the glacier. Crawling brings back the nightmare, except crawling is hardly even possible on ice. It’s more like slow scooching.
Finally, using the grip of the crampons, I manage to stand up and walk the last few steps to the red tape.
When I arrive, the crossed wands don’t seem to mark anything at first. It’s just red tape tied to two bamboo sticks.
But then I see words. There’s a message scribbled in black ink on the red tape: DANGER! Crevasse ahead.
Could this be the one?
There’s no way to tell, but when I look in front of me at the gaping ice hole, I immediately see that it’s a trap. The hole is massive and bottomless, with sheer ice on all sides.
Only a miracle could help someone out of this cavern.
I want to inch closer to the crevasse, to see if there’s any sign of Dad down in it, but I can almost hear him whisper, “Don’t make someone else’s mistakes.” No. I can’t crawl toward an open crevasse unroped.
I sit cross-legged on the ice and read the message on the red tape again.
DANGER! Crevasse ahead.
I hold the red tape up to the mountain light and realize there’s more writing on the flip side. Someone scribbled these words:
Rest in peace, dear Charley.
“Dad!” I yell. “Dad!”
Silence.
Silence as empty as my bag of gummy bears. Silence as deep as the ice in front of me. I stare at the crevasse and take in the colors of the ice. When the white and gray and green and blue mix together and make me dizzy, I close my eyes and just breathe in and out, in and out.
“Dad,” I whisper, one last time with my eyes shut, but I don’t expect him to answer.
I know then that the silence will be long.
There’s no way Dad crawled hundreds of feet up and out of this ice. The nightmare had made it seem possible, but seeing it now—the endless ice trap—I know there’s no way.
This is his spot—his last one on earth.
I breathe in deeply, but there’s not enough air to fill me. This is it.
When I open my eyes, I look above the crevasse to the trail coming down the mountain. I wonder what Dad’s last steps felt like. Alone. Did his steps feel lonely?
Or was he just enjoying one of his favorite mountain days?
Did Dad’s last step feel like his last step on earth, or his first step of a new adventure? Did he know when he was falling that it was his last mountain moment? Did he think of me?
I can’t believe I’m letting myself think of Dad no longer stepping his way through life. But peering into the glacier is more real than the phone call. More real than the green bean casserole. More real than the river. Real because I know it for myself—step by step—that sometimes the mountain really does win.
I don’t inch my way any closer to the crevasse, but I lean forward until my lips touch the cold glacier ice. When I kiss that ice, I feel it—mountain sense—and just how close I am to Dad.
It’s not like his bear hug or a game of Scrabble. It’s not like a gummy bear feast or canoe race or crossword puzzle in the morning. But I feel him—Dad—like he’s perched on my shoulder on this mountain, keeping me stitched to the ice.
A cold breeze picks up, and it blows my dirty hair into my eyes. I pull my lucky raven feather from my vest pocket and smooth its crumpled threads. Then I tuck it into the knot of red tape.
I love you, Dad. Love, Lily, I write on the red tape, using Dad’s Sharpie.
It doesn’t look quite right until I add Sophie’s name too.
Then I pull a few forget-me-nots from my flower book. I set the pressed flowers on the ice, and I hope Dad feels my tiny gift.
When I peer back down the glacier, I realize how far I’ve come. The ice path is shimmery, slippery, and haunting. The brightness of it—the sun reflected on ice—is blinding.
And my butt is wet from sitting cross-legged on ice.
It’s time to get up and go, but it’s hard to move. To get up and walk away from all that hope. All that mountain sense. All that Dad.
But I do get up, because Sophie’s back on the pass and she doesn’t know about Dad.
After a few steps backtracking, I realize that walking down ice is much trickier than walking up it.
I’m creeping down the glacier with Dad’s screechy crampons, but it doesn’t last long. Suddenly I’m slithering and sliding.
“Help!” I yell, and I hear it twice because voices echo on ice.
“Help!” I shout again. My head is below my feet, and I’m cartwheeling. The landscape is choppy—chunks of sky and ice and mountain all blurring.
It’s the same as the river. The tipping and toppling.
I hit my head—and my right rib crunches—before skidding to a halt. The impact knocks the breath out of me.
“Youch,” I say to the mountain air.
I’m not sure what I hit, but I’m still alive. Even if the jagged rocks make it hard to breathe, hard to think, and hard to move. I’m still here.
Face-down on the ice.
I lie still until the ice melts into my dirty long johns. The cold grips me, and it feels good, like a full-body ice pack.
When I turn over, the sky is still blue above me. I’m still here.
Dad’s still gone.
I scramble up the rocky slope to McGonagall Pass and collapse at the top. With every in-breath comes a sharp pain in my side. I put pressure on my rib cage, and breathing gets easier.
Anger builds inside me, and I can’t fend it off. I make fists with each hand and pound them into the tundra: Why, why, why did Dad have to slither his way into a crevasse? Why couldn’t he have roped up . . . or crawled out . . . or just stayed home?
Then he’d still be alive.
“Lily,” Sophie says, running toward me. “What were you thinking, climbing up there?” She looks absolutely furious, with wide eyes and flushed cheeks.
“I had to go find him,” I say.
“Great, and get yourself killed too?” she asks, and the panic in her voice is real.
“Yes, but I didn’t,” I say. “That’s the important part. I’m still here.”
“Y
ou better be,” Sophie says, and I see the hurt in her eyes, and that’s when I see what she’s holding: a bucket. Dad’s stash!
She kneels in front of me and dumps the contents of the bucket onto the tundra. I know right away that it’s Dad’s stash because Charley is written in Sharpie ink on both sides. The bucket is gnawed on, battered by teeth and claw marks—maybe by the grizzly that charged us? Or what about that wolf?
As promised by Dad’s journal, there are two cans of peaches and a bottle of brandy inside. Sophie holds up the bottle of brandy to the sky like she might find clues or at least Dad’s handprints. Then she picks up the two cans of peaches, one in each hand.
There’s something else, too: a small drawstring bag.
I know what’s in it without opening it.
Scrabble tiles.
Of course. Dad wanted to play Scrabble as soon as he got off the mountain. He never carried the board; he always built words straight onto the tundra.
Sophie loses it when she sees the tiles. Tears stream down her cheeks, and she doesn’t bother wiping them away. She curls in on herself, knees up to her chest, and she’s crying so hard that her pant legs are sopping. Dad’s the word guy, and here is his unplayed game.
“Sophie, I found Dad’s spot,” I say.
“What spot?” she asks, but she doesn’t lift her head from her sopping knees.
“You know, the spot, on the glacier,” I say, pointing up the ice.
Sophie shakes her head and refuses to look there.
“Now I know,” I say.
“Know what?” Sophie asks.
“He’s not alive,” I say, “and it’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay, but at least I know.”
“What makes you sure?” Sophie asks.
“I found the crevasse—the place where Dad disappeared,” I say. “It’s huge. There’s no way Dad crawled hundreds of feet to get out.”
“Did you see him down in there?” Sophie asks. “How are you sure?” I see the pain—all that pain—of her not knowing with my same certainty. She must have kept a tiny thread of hope inside her.
“Trust me, Soph. He’s really gone,” I say, and I hate being the one to clip that last thread. That’s what everyone else has been doing to me until now.
I pick up the drawstring bag and hand it to Sophie. “A game of Scrabble?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, “and let’s break open the peaches, too.”
We play Scrabble on the flattest patch of tundra we can find. It’s midnight, but there’s still dusky light. We build words right onto the tundra. At first it’s weird to play Scrabble without Dad. But it’s so much better than sitting around and thinking. And we’re flat out of candy now, so at least Scrabble tiles push away my need for gummy bears.
We play for a long time—slowly and methodically like Dad always did. Between turns, Sophie and I gobble peaches. They are even tastier than I imagined.
When we get to the last few letters, I scatter them on the tundra for Dad. He would know just how to use the final letters to finish—and win—the game.
Seeing the words on the tundra makes me feel close to him.
“This trip hasn’t been only bad,” Sophie says, “except for the almost-dying parts.”
“We still have a long way home,” I say.
“Yeah, but on the bright side, we have another can of peaches,” Sophie says.
“And a full bottle of brandy,” I add, unscrewing the lid.
I take a swig. Ack. It’s bitter.
Yuck!
I swallow, and then I feel it, the warmth inside my body. The warm part must be what Dad liked so much. The warm part helps me forget about the jagged rocks clawing through my rib cage.
I hand the bottle over to Sophie. She takes a short swig, and she must feel the warmth too.
“We’re living like queens,” she says, and it’s true. Queens of Dad’s mountain.
Sophie smiles, the first real smile I’ve seen in ages. She puts the cap back on the bottle and sets the brandy beside the letters we used—for Dad.
Dear Dad,
I’m here at the base of the mountain. We found your stash and celebrated for you. Don’t worry . . . we only tasted the brandy. We even played Scrabble. I’ll pick up your journal from here. You never know, maybe I’ll even climb your mountain someday—with Sophie. Time to go back to Mom.
Love, Lily
My hand shakes when I ink Love, Lily. Then I close Dad’s journal and lie back against the damp tundra. A good feeling warms my insides. Being here at the mountain is something. No Dad. No miracles. No more food. But there’s something about coming all this way that’s good.
A reverie. That’s what Dad calls it. Dreamy mountain sense.
It doesn’t last long. Soon the reverie fades, and a new list of questions buzzes around in my mind like mosquitoes: What will Mom say when she finds out that we came here? Does Ranger Collins know what we’ve done? How will I ever tell Jenny or go to school or think about Moses again?
“I’m starved,” Sophie says. “Can you get the food from our pack?”
Double drats. Sophie doesn’t know that I ate all of it. What was I thinking? She agreed to come all the way out here, and then I eat all the food, and we’re days from home.
“Eat some of these,” I say, handing her the second can of peaches.
“No more peaches,” Sophie says.
“It’s all we’ve got,” I say.
Sophie squints at me, but she’s too tired to ask more questions.
I’m shivery and damp and too tired to fall asleep. The pain in my chest is constant.
I crawl over to our backpack and grab our one wet sleeping bag and the rain tarp. It’s going to be a cold night. I give Sophie the sleeping bag, and then I wrap myself up in the tarp like a burrito.
I wake up shivering. Shivering hard. With every tremor in my body comes a sharp pain to my rib cage. I focus hard on each breath and try to remember what’s happened. Dad’s gone—really gone. I’m hurt and I ate all of our food, and Sophie doesn’t know this yet.
It doesn’t take much waking up to know we’re in a lot of trouble now, and we’re nearly twenty miles from home, with rivers to cross and no food to fuel the journey.
Sophie has the wet sleeping bag all to herself.
I’m cold, but not too cold to know that we need to act quickly.
Cold. Wet. Hungry. Injured. These are all recipes for a wilderness disaster.
I fold up the tarp.
It’s time to go home. For me. For Sophie. For Mom.
Especially for Dad.
I wrap Dad’s rescue rope snug around my rib cage and then knot it off so it stays in place. Phew. I can breathe easier now with the pressure.
If only I could warm up.
I start a jumping jack. “Yow,” I say. Pain needles its way through my rib cage. The rope might help stop my pain, but jumping jacks are too much.
“Never let a cold person go to sleep in the woods,” Dad always said. “Hypothermia will let you slip away into forever sleep.”
I didn’t come all this way to die. And what about Sophie?
“Wake up, wake up,” I say, and my chest hurts when I say it.
No reply.
“Sophie,” I say again, and my heart races. What if she just slipped into forever sleep?
I sit up, clutching my ribs. “Sophie,” I say one last time.
“Yeah?” She rolls over to face me.
“Time to get up—now,” I say.
“I need more sleep,” she says. “What are you doing?”
“Getting ready to go,” I say, and I feel the rush of it in me—to finish the trip right.
Dad might have messed up when he decided not to use the rope. He might have been reckless the one time when it mattered most. But I know as sure as the mountain is beautiful that he’d want us to make it home safely now—for him and for Mom.
He would be mad as a wolverine if we gave up.
�
��Lily,” a voice calls out, and I jump back.
“Hello,” the voice calls again. I scan the tundra. Two humans walk toward us at the top of the pass. This voice stuns me out of my mountain world.
Then I see the hats. Ranger hats.
My head pounds and my stomach growls, but my rib and chest don’t hurt as much. Not with the pressure of the rope.
“Is that you?” says the voice, and it’s a woman, and she’s close now.
I wave back.
She’s close enough that I see it’s Ranger Collins. She’s peering up at me like I’m an apparition. Another ranger—the man ranger from the talk—stands beside her, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Sophie, get up. Get up!” I say, shaking her mummy sleeping bag beside me.
“Huh?” Sophie asks.
“Wake up—the rangers are here.” It can’t be good that two park rangers walked all the way out here.
“You’re delusional,” Sophie says, and I agree: it sounds delusional.
“Not this time,” I say. “This is for real.”
Sophie sits up, shivering and slouched.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Ranger Collins says, and I see the worry lines across her face.
“Why did you come all this way?” I ask, because what else do I say to her.
“I found your backpack washed up on the river bar,” she says.
“So you thought we were dead?”
“I did at first,” she says. “Then I used binoculars and spotted the two of you on the far side of the river, headed toward Turtle Hill.”
“Did you call our mom?” Sophie asks.
“Yes, I had to call her,” the ranger says.
“Did she freak out?” I ask.
“No. I just left a message on her phone.”
“We’re going to be grounded forever,” Sophie says, and it’s true.
“How did you know we’d be here at McGonagall?” I ask.
“Where else would you go? This is your dad’s place.”
Ranger Collins gets it. She knows exactly why we’re right here, right now.
She kneels on the tundra. “What’s the deal with the rope?” she asks, eyeing my makeshift rib brace.
Lily's Mountain Page 9
