The Ascent(57)

2



THEN NIGHT FELL. WE ERECTED OUR TENT AT THE

site of the stone arch, intent on crossing it early the next morning. The wind was fierce, hardly blocked by the looming spires of stone and the pyramid-shaped monolith, and the temperature was unforgiving. Weakened from the cold and the continual treks through the mountainous passes, we huddled inside the tent.

A hot meal was prepared, and we ate heartily. Only Hollinger didn’t touch the food. Between helpings, I sidled up next to Hollinger and knocked my shoulder against his. That seemed to snap him briefly from his daze. He offered me a meager smile, then pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them.

“Here,” I said, handing him a cup of coffee.

“Thanks.”

“How’s your head?”

He fingered the bandage at his temple. “It’s okay.”

“How’d that helmet come off so easy?”

“Don’t know. Don’t recall much about the fall.” He spoke with the detachment of a car crash victim.

“You doing all right?”

“I have a bad feeling.”

“About the climb tomorrow?”

“About the whole thing, mate.” Hollinger turned and stared at me. His eyes were full and black, moist like the eyes of a deer. “I’ve been seeing things. Things that play with my head. Ever since you and Andrew left to take Shotsky back to base camp.”

A shiver traced down my spine. “What things?”

“My head’s playing funny games. I can’t think straight.”

“It’s the altitude,” I said, trying to comfort him. “It’s messing with my head, too.”

“No, it’s not. It’s … I don’t know … Something’s not right …”

I squeezed his shoulder and told him everything would be fine.

But later that night, with everyone asleep in the tent, I found it impossible to shut my eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking of Hollinger’s words—My head’s playing funny games. I can’t think straight—and I wondered how much longer it would be until we reached the Canyon of Souls. Andrew seemed so confident we would make it there, despite all the other teams that had attempted to do so in the past and failed.

Unable to sleep, I gathered my piton and hammer, and just as I’d been doing the past two nights, I crawled out of the tent, located the perfect stone, and began to sculpt it. Throughout the past few nights of our journey, I’d left a trail of partially finished statues lining the path to this very spot, each of them a reproduction of the woman I’d lost in a flaming car wreck in Italy with a man—a linguistics professor—named David Moore.

The night air froze the marrow in my bones. I chipped away at my chosen stone with numb hands, a fair distance from our camp so as not to disturb the others while they slept. The moon hung fat and yellow behind the nearest peak, illuminating the snow and causing it to radiate with a dull luminescence.

—Turn back.

I couldn’t tell if I’d actually heard her voice or if it had been only in my head. Nonetheless, I spun around and stared at the passage between the jagged rocks, the snow flooded with shadow. No one was there.

“Hannah?”

—Turn back, Tim. Please.

Of all the things I could do—I uttered a weak, little laugh. Surely I was hallucinating. “My head’s playing funny games,” Hollinger had said. “I can’t think straight.” Sure enough, sure enough …

—Tim. She stepped out into the moonlight, her body naked and pale and glistening with condensation, so real she left footprints in the snow.

“Jesus, Hannah …”

It felt as though my heart had stopped pumping. My blood ran cold as ice water. As I watched, she seemed to flicker from existence like bad reception on a television set.

“Don’t go,” I pleaded. “Hannah, please …”

—Turn back, she said, her voice ringing in the center of my brain.

Something cold and wet trickled over my lips. I touched two fingers to the wetness. They came away black with blood. A nosebleed.

Hannah turned and walked away from me down the sloping, snowy pass.

I begged her to stop, but she didn’t. So I pursued, dropping my piton and hammer in the snow, the nylon hood of my flimsy anorak flapping in the freezing wind. She disappeared around a bend in the pass, hidden by giant fingers of rock, but I followed her footprints like a bloodhound on the scent. On the other side of the bend, I saw her silvery form climbing one of the stone towers. She climbed with ease, as if her body had been specifically designed to do so. I called to her, but she didn’t stop or look back at me.

My desire to touch her—to reach out and feel her—was suddenly overwhelming. The next thing I knew, I was scaling the stone tower after her, my movements much less steady, my speed no match for hers. Each time I looked up, she was farther and farther ahead of me.

Loose rocks broke free under my footing and tumbled in a small avalanche down the face of the tower. One hand lost its grip on the ledge, and I swung outward, my feet flailing briefly in the air, while I held tight to the handhold with one hand. My fingernails digging into the stone, I swung my other hand around and grabbed the ledge as my legs pedaled for a foothold. My heart restarted in my chest. Glancing up, I saw Hannah’s fish white body already mounting the summit.