Chapter 43
They set out across the wet beach in silence. Dawn was washed gray, waves rolling blankly onto shore.
Maggie’s shoulders felt disconcertingly empty—she longed for the weight of food, shelter, water carried in her pack. They had nothing but the clothes on their backs.
She’d grown used to her friends’ gaits weighted beneath heavy packs.
Liz looked strangely exposed without the map hanging at her neck and with her technical backpack gone.
Joni walked beside her, hands hanging heavy, gaze down, goose bumps specking her bare legs.
Her bandanna still held a damp pile of hair, which had slipped to one side, throwing her off balance.
But it was Helena who seemed most adrift.
Her hiking trousers were caked in mud. Streaks of it ran across her face.
No trace of makeup. Hair matted and kinked. She looked exhausted, too pale.
Maggie stepped over a pile of seaweed carried in by the storm, flies lifting briefly to investigate her muddy purple leggings before resettling further along the beach.
She thought about how they’d wasted the fish that Vilhelm had left at their last camp. A hollow sensation was already spreading through her middle; she wished they’d been able to eat a proper meal last night.
When they reached the north end of the bay, they came to a standstill at the foot of Blafjell. She raised her head until her neck couldn’t flex any further.
Her gaze mapped a wall of black, jagged rock.
Its twin peaks rose into the morning clouds like a two-headed beast. Connecting the peaks was a narrow, sheer-sided ridge.
The scratched path of their trail, visible at the bottom, looked narrow and steep, and was quickly lost to the folding layers of rock.
A cold, uneasy sensation spread through her insides.
She turned, looking back, staring at the collapsed slope of the mountain they’d left behind.
Hundreds of tons of earth and rock had fallen in a crush of debris.
It had been her idea to camp there, refusing to walk a step further.
It was her fault they were out here with no gear, that Helena’s mother’s ashes were lost, that they were about to attempt a mountain summit with no supplies.
As she faced the looming presence of Blafjell, fear rode high in her chest. She wanted to turn, run. Make all of this disappear. She wasn’t fit enough. Strong enough. Brave enough.
But there was no choice, except to climb. She had to do this.
She eyed the first faded red T-marker painted on a huge boulder. She stepped forward, placing her palm beside it, as if touching a holy object, asking for safe passage. Crescents of dirt were packed beneath her nails, and a bloody scratch ran across the back of her hand.
Joni came silently to her shoulder and laid her hand flat beside Maggie’s.
Then Liz and Helena joined them, placing their palms on the boulder.
They were silent. Four hands pressed to stone.
Maggie looked steadily at each of them, eye to eye.
Right there, their hands on the trail marker, she felt something strong and fierce being fired in the kiln of her heart: they could do this.
Maggie would climb this mountain. She would keep her friends safe. She would hike back to her daughter.
—
They were too exhausted to speak, slogging ever upward, legs like deadweights. An hour passed. Then another, and another.
Maggie was desperate to rest, but what was the point? The mountain would still be waiting for them. If they stopped, it only meant they would have to start again.
Up here, the air felt cooler, a sharpening wind licking the rock face and cooling the sweat on her back. “It’s so cold,” she said.
“For every hundred feet you climb, the temperature drops by a degree,” Liz explained.
Joni looked alarmed. She was the only one in the group wearing shorts. “So by the time we reach the summit, it’ll be ten degrees cooler than on the beach?”
Liz nodded.
Ahead of them, Helena stumbled, her toe snagging against rock. She tipped forward, landing hard on all fours. Maggie rushed to her side, taking her elbow and helping her up. “You okay?”
“Just light-headed. I’m fine.”
“There’s a waterfall up there,” Maggie said, pointing. “Let’s take a break.”
A sheer section of rock face ran white with rushing water. It streamed close to the rock, pouring over the ferns that grew in the cracks.
They picked their way off the trail, negotiating the loose scree, which worked its way over the tops of her hiking boots, adding a gritty layer to her socks.
The rush of the waterfall filled her ears as she moved nearer. She cupped her hands—but the strength of the flow pounded against her palms, splashing icy water into her face.
She tried again, finding a lighter section of the flow and managing to catch just enough in her hands to slurp. The water tasted of slate and earth, with a mineral bite, but she drank gratefully, filling her belly.
“Here,” she said, drawing Helena over. “Drink.”
Helena did as instructed. She sipped a little, then sluiced the rest over her face, cleaning the mud from her temple and cheeks, dampening the dark hollows beneath her eyes.
Liz was sitting apart from the others, shoulders slumped. It worried Maggie to see her pep and energy gone, her face pale, eyes dull. “Anyone got anything useful in their pockets?” she asked, turning out her own and laying a pack of tissues on a table-like rock along with her headlamp.
Joni stretched forward and placed down her phone and half a packet of chewing gum.
Next, Helena took out her torch, then rooted around and discovered a lipstick.
She eyed it for a moment, then twisted the tube and applied it, making a smooth sweep of her lips.
Her eyes briefly fluttered closed, and Maggie imagined the scent of it transporting her away from the rocky mountainside.
Her shoulders seemed to draw back a little as she opened her eyes and lifted her chin.
“She’s back,” Maggie said with a wink.
Helena managed a smile.
“Maggie, what have you got?” Liz asked.
She patted down her jacket, hoping to discover a mystery snack in one of the numerous hidden pockets—but all she found was a small heart-shaped shell, a hair band, and Karin’s bracelet.
She ran a fingertip lightly across the silver letters, its presence feeling important somehow. “Do you think,” she said quietly, voicing a thought that had been troubling her, “that Karin found the cocaine in the caves? Maybe she was involved in it somehow?”
The others looked at her.
“Maybe that’s why she disappeared . . .”
The rush of the waterfall was the only sound.
She wanted one of her friends to say, Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous! But no one spoke.
A scattering noise caused them all to look up. Tiny stones rolled down the mountain face some distance from them. It was like a waterfall of rock—little stones skittering and bouncing down the steep side, gathering others as they fell.
Maggie froze, waiting for more earth to loosen, begin rumbling. For the mountainside to waver and tremble beneath her feet, to feel the first slide as the ground shifted.
But there was nothing more. The tiny rocks settled. Stilled.
No one passed comment. They all knew how precarious the terrain was. How careful they needed to be.
Maggie pushed to her feet and continued to climb.