The Ascent(73)

Across the floor, Petras snorted and rolled over in his sleep, startling me.

I continued running my hand along the surface of the pylon, pausing only when I noticed what appeared to be the faint impression of a boot heel in the thin crust of snow. Above, the icicle-fanged ledge looked dangerous and foreboding, the narrow little ice cave against the wall hardly negotiable. But still …

Like a gymnast preparing to mount a pommel horse, I placed my hands against the bulk of the pylon and, lifting one leg over, pulled myself up. I didn’t budge, didn’t make a sound … although my overactive imagination heard the snapping of Chad’s bones, grinding them into powder. Don’t think about it, I told myself. Stop thinking about it.

I lifted my other leg and planted both feet flat against the pylon’s surface. I attempted to dig my fingernails into the ice, but it was no good. I slid one boot up the length of the incline, but the moment I put all my weight down on it in order to raise my other leg, I started to slide back down.

“Shit.”

I hopped down, rubbing my cold palms together. Pulverized stones and gravel lined the mouth of the cave. I collected two handfuls and carried them back to the pylon, showering the surface with grit for traction.

A second attempt at climbing the pylon proved successful; I managed to crawl all the way to the top, where the jagged teeth of broken ice protruded from its base and where the pylon lay against the ledge of the ice wall. Using the crisscrossing spires of ice as handholds, I lifted myself onto the ledge and noticed a number of the icicles had been busted away from the opening of the ice cave. There were more boot prints in the snow here as well.

Crouching, I peered into the narrow opening in the chamber wall. It was a tight squeeze for a man of average girth. Petras, I surmised, would have much difficulty crawling through. But I was much slimmer than John Petras. On my hands and knees, I crawled forward and poked my head into the ice cave.

I expected to find a womblike niche punched in the snow … but what it turned out to be was a winding wormhole that gradually went up through the center of the mountain. The snow inside was ribbed and made for easy handholds. I climbed through the throat of the snow tunnel, pausing in the crook of its turn to see just how far up it went. It was impossible to tell due to a second bend farther in the tunnel, but I thought I saw faint daylight reflected along the wall.

I continued climbing while the wormhole continued to tighten around me. The impossibility of this tunnel’s existence was not lost on me: this was a man-made structure, as things this perfectly symmetrical do not exist in the natural world—and a recently man-made structure at that. Where had it come from? Who’d been here before us to dig it?

Halfway up, I got stuck. Arms pinned in front of my face like those of a praying mantis, I found I couldn’t budge, couldn’t struggle and work myself free. My breath made the air stale. Suddenly I was dying in the dark, lost and alone in a cave somewhere in the Midwest.

If I closed my eyes, I was certain I’d smell the moss and dampness of rank soil and stagnant pools of fungal cave water. If I closed my eyes—

8



— I COULD CONVINCE MYSELF IT WAS ALL A NIGHT-

mare. But when I opened them again, I was alone in our bed, the achy shades of twilight blues and purples filtering through the bedroom windows.

Downstairs, I heard the front door squeal open.

“Hey,” I said, appearing at the bottom of the stairs.

“Jesus, Tim,” Hannah said. “You scared the hell out of me. Why aren’t you at the studio?”

It had been three days since the incident at David Moore’s house and three days since I’d last seen or spoken to my wife. Standing before me now, she looked better than I thought she had any right to look.

“You cut your hair,” I said. “It’s so short. I like it.”

She turned away from me, a hand going to her mouth. “I didn’t want to do this with you here.”

“Do what? You said we’d talk.”

“I know what I said.”

“So let’s talk.”

“We can’t.”

“We never talk, Hannah.”

“I can’t do this.”

“So why’d you come back?”

She had her floral suitcase with her; the reason was apparent.

“We had our time to talk,” she said. “We had our time to try and fix things. But some things can’t be fixed.”

“No,” I said. “That’s not true.”

“You’re a good man and a talented artist. You care about what you do. I love that about you, but I need someone who puts me first.

You don’t do that. I’ve never felt like you’ve put me first.”

“Don’t say that. It’s not true. You’ve always been first. Always.”

“You say it, but you don’t show it. You say it, but then you get drunk, and you forget about me and what’s important to me. Your art makes you drink, and your drinking makes you put me in second place.” She shook her head, tears rolling down her face. Her hair did look beautiful. “I’m tired of being second place.”

“Hannah—”

“No.” She carried her suitcase toward the front door. “Never mind. I don’t need to pack anything. I shouldn’t have come here.”