The Search
Leif runs hard, boots slamming into the earth, binoculars gripped in his fist. His gaze is pinned to the two women lurching toward the lodge.
Out front, the younger woman runs with her coat knotted at her waist, hair flying around her. Sweat patches darken her top. When she spots Leif, the rhythm of her run crumbles, relief slackening her muscles.
Leif recognizes her. A young German woman. Eighteen perhaps. The woman behind is her mother. The two of them set out yesterday. They were doing an overnight hike, he seemed to recall. They’d had dinner at the lodge the night before they left, their expressions serious as they studied their map.
“What’s happened?” he shouts, closing the gap between them.
The young woman stalls to a halt, breathing hard. She bends forward, hands on her knees, chest heaving. Her forehead glistens with sweat.
Her mother staggers to her side, cheeks deep red.
Both mother and daughter turn, raising their hands toward Blafjell.
His gaze lifts, squinting into the hazy light. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to see. Other people? Smoke trailing from its crown? But from here, the mountain rises tall and square and desolate.
The daughter speaks first. “A woman—” she says, breaking off.
Her mother drags in a breath. “Fallen.”
Leif feels his pulse in his throat.
“We shouted! But too far!” the mother says. “We were on the lower path! Long distance from her.”
“We could not climb that section of the mountain—”
“We tried to call mountain rescue—”
“—but no signal,” the daughter finishes.
“We run here to get help.”
Leif’s chest squeezes tight. “Is the woman . . . alive?”
Mother and daughter look at one another.
Cold fear slices across his body.
Perhaps the mother imagines her daughter’s fate playing out on that mountaintop, as her eyes film instantly with tears. Then she turns to Leif. Her voice is quieter now, the panic fading as something darker settles. “We do not know. She was not moving.”