Chapter 11 #2
“Moments from now,” she says, gesturing down the mountain, “each of you will ski toward the last-years at the bottom of this slope. You will find one of them waiting, just for you. From then on, you’ll be coupled.
Your mentors will advise you as you make your first films and throughout this first, most challenging term at Acheron. ”
Whispers travel down the line. What if we can’t ski? Is it random who we match with? Will they be holding a sign with our name?
“All you need to know,” the director says, her eyes searching the nervous group, “is that none of you deserve them.”
Dez squints at the program director, unimpressed by her belittling words, and yet uneasy. What is this about?
“Each of them,” Moriah says, “is infinitely more experienced, more capable, and more impressive than the lot of you combined. So may I suggest you proceed with gratitude?”
“Excuse me, Director Moriah,” Paul Rowan asks beside Dez, “but how are we to know which mentor we’re assigned to?”
Moriah stares at him, as if the question is so facile it has stumped her. “Trust your intuition,” she finally says. “It will guide you where you’re meant to go.”
“So, it’s random,” someone mutters down the line.
Ragged wind bats Dez’s hair against her face. She shivers from the cold and out of fear of what she’s about to have to do. She will definitely fall on her ass and probably break something before she comes anywhere near finding this mentor she doesn’t deserve.
“If you’re scared,” Moriah barks at them, “good! That’s precisely why we’re up here. Fear is the conduit to intuition. You’ll have to get out of your head and into your body to find the right mentor.”
At least Dez is doing something right: she’s terrified.
Moriah steps back, speaking into a wireless white microphone she pulls out of her ski suit. “Now, turn around and face the slope!”
Carefully, the students turn to find a massive cloud has blown in while Moriah was threatening them, filling the slope with dark gray mist. Where before, the bottom of the slope was terrifyingly distant, now it’s entirely obscured by a hazy, snow-laden fog. Dez can’t see ten feet in front of her.
Surely they’re going to call this off, delay until the fog passes.
“When I say go, you ski,” Moriah says. “After you find your mentors, they will accompany you to this evening’s introduction to the Vault.”
Finally, what Dez has been waiting for. She’s eager to see the place where they’ll work, but she’s got to get through this strange, dangerous ritual first.
“One more thing,” Moriah says, looking up and down the line. “Every mentor has their own style of leadership. Some of you will click. Some of you will not. Regardless, there will be no reassignments. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” the first-years around Dez say.
No, Dez thinks as she looks down the terrifying slope.
“Last-years,” Dr. Moriah speaks through her microphone, her voice rippling down the mountain through the PA speakers, “light your torches.”
All at once, down the slope, where the mountain disappears, dozens of distant yellow flames appear through the fog. Somewhere on the other side of it, the last-years must be waiting, facing up-mountain, each grasping an undulating torch.
Dr. Moriah says simply: “Go.”
Dez looks left and right, asking her fellow first-years with her eyes what they should do.
“Go!” Moriah roars. “Fly to your destiny!”
A first-year who clearly knows how to ski is the first to leave. She pushes off with her poles and whizzes into the mist in a smoke-like flurry of snow. A handful of other strong skiers follow. More tentatively, Simon pushes off and promptly lands face down on the hill.
“Lesson one,” Director Moriah says into the microphone, “fall safely, preferably on your ass.”
Mortified, Simon struggles upright, teeters left, lunges right, and falls again, this time worryingly close to the sheer edge of the mountain.
“Lesson two,” Moriah says, “keep your balance.”
“Simon!” Dez calls out. “Be careful!”
“Why are you still here?” the director snarls at Dez.
For a moment, she thinks Moriah means why is Dez at the school, in general, which isn’t a terrible question. But when Dez looks around and notices that she’s the only first-year who hasn’t yet tried to ski, she realizes what Moriah means.
“This slope is too hard for beginners,” she says.
“‘The fear of the Lord tendeth to life,’” Dr. Moriah hisses, the white cobra around her neck drawing very close to Dez. “Go.”
“We’re going to kill ourselves—” Dez protests.
But before she can finish her sentence, Moriah shoves Dez in the middle of her back, sending her face-first into the snow below.
What looked soft and puffy from above, Dez now realizes is actually hard and icy.
She can’t imagine ever being able to stand in skis on this, much less control her movements, much less navigate dense fog.
Two white skis come to a stop beside Dez’s ice-covered cheek. She looks up and sees Moriah glaring down at her.
“Get up,” she says.
“I can’t,” Dez says.
The woman stabs Dez sharply with a ski pole. “I said, get up!”
Dez tries to gather herself. With great effort, she makes it to her knees.
“For God’s sake,” Moriah says, and jerks Dez roughly to her feet. Then she turns her back to Dez and says, “Hold on to me.”
Having no other choice, Dez puts her hands on Dr. Moriah’s shoulders, her fingers up against the cobra’s scaly skin. Then, without warning, the director pushes off.
She moves like Patrick Swayze reincarnated as a bullet train—all muscle, all power, hips quick from side to side, her skis kicking snow up into the air all around them—until together they enter into the dense cloud, and suddenly Moriah ducks out from under Dez’s grip, swerves to the side, and is gone …
And Dez is hurtling down alone, through fog so thick she can barely see her skis.
Fear grips her. Her breath vanishes. Her velocity increases, and then somehow, instinctively, she’s narrowing the tips of her skis to form a V.
Now she edges them out so they’re parallel again, her knees bent a little, ski poles tucked under her arms.
What the hell? Dez is skiing.
The world inside the cloud is soft and calm. The wind whips through her hair. She hurtles down and finally comes out on the other side of the cloud into a star-strung, clear black sky. She fills her lungs with air.
She’s amazed by her dexterity, amazed by the mountain and the night sky. And even more amazed when, below her, she sees them:
Every first-year—Simon included—is now carving elegant eights into the snow, paired off with a corresponding last-year.
They’re skiing as couples, swaying together under a constellation of LED stars.
The torches have been extinguished and stowed away, replaced by an indescribable energy between mentor and protégé.
V-ing her skis to slow down and watch, Dez thinks it’s like some kind of school dance for adults.
She sees Alice Quinn from the bar and Yael drifting together very slowly down the hill.
She sees Simon coupled with Jet, holding gloved hands as they fly in tandem from a ramp, flip once in the air, and land effortlessly.
But where is …
There. Leaning against a pine tree, alone behind a newly coupled pair.
It’s Rafe.
Of course.
He’s the only one still holding his torch, and he’s looking straight at her.
He smiles, beckoning her with one finger. But she’s already skiing his way, naturally, as if it had been her plan all along to wind up right in front of him.
Was it random? Was it instinct? Were they just the last two filmmakers left? Dez doesn’t know what lies ahead of her with Rafe, but for the moment, she’s willing to be amazed by that, too.
“Congrats on scoring the hottest mentor,” he says. “Now the real fun begins.”