Jolie heard the vehicle come to a stop on the gravel-graded shoulder. A few seconds later it pulled up in front of her and stopped again with a flash of its tailights.

The license plate read: Gdlvr1. It didn't hurt to advertise a skill, but Jolie doubted the acronym was true.

A boy dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and a black leather jacket, climbed out of the truck. He wore a wide grin on his face that radiated life was good. "I saw your sign. Where you headed?"

A few people had seen her sign. A woman rolling down the highway in a motorized wheelchair was bound to cause a stir. The only problem was the drivers' that had passed Jolie had bothered to swerve.

God didn't make it easy for cripples. Childproof caps on medicine bottles. Latches on cupboards. A quicker, messier, option that required the ability to raise a barrel to a temple, and enough resolve to squeeze a trigger and not give a shit which unlucky fuck found her brains splattered on a wall.

In a way her solution was considerate, although Pastor Montes probably wouldn't agree. According to him the accident was her chance to demonstrate inner strength. "Persevere."

"Pasquanna Lake. Know it?"

"Yep. Went a lot when I was little." His easygoing walk matched his grin."It's opposite my direction, but it's only a couple miles. I'll take you to the lookout."

Perfect. "That'll work," Jolie said.

His gaze drifted to Jolie's wheelchair.

"Something wrong?"

"I...I've never picked up a-"

"A cripple."

"I was going to say "girl"."

"Congrats on a double first. I'm a cripple, who's also a 'girl'."

"So, how..."

"I can't raise my arms above my head. When you lift pull me in tight, and watch out for my bags."

"What kinda bags?"

"Not grocery. One for number one. One-"

"For number two. Got it." He bent to pick her up and then paused, seemingly usure how to go about lifting her out of her wheelchair.

"Kid, I'm already broken. You can't hurt what can't be fixed. Toss me in your truck. Throw this contraption in the back."

Jolie gave him a C for his amatuer gimp lifting skills, a D for his wobble across the gravel, and an F for the crud Journey song on the radio--but only because she'd stopped believing in miracles long after being sentenced to life in a gimp-chair without parole.

The boy settled into the driver's seat and wedged the shifter into gear. "Kinda late to be going to Pasquanna."

"It's peaceful at night," Jolie said.

"If you say so, but it isn't right leavin' you alone, in the dark. Say, you have somebody that'll bring you home?"

Jolie leaned her head back. "Two somebodys."

"They meetin' you there, or pickin' you up?"

"Maybe...Both. I'd like to think. Don't really know."

"Its just...You don't have a coat, and it rained last night and-"

"Kid, do me a favor and change the station."

The boy reached over, fiddled with the radio knob, and the four-on-the floor disco beat of the Bee Gees thumped out of the speakers. "Its kinda catchy," he said as he bobbed his head. "She sure can hit some high notes."

Jolie couldn't help but laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"My son said the same thing. Once."

Tyler had never admitted he'd liked her "moldy oldies", but sometimes at a stoplight, with the car windows rolled up, all the way up, she'd caught him tapping his foot out of the corner of her eye.

"It's a guy," Jolie said.

"Seriously! For real! Nah-uh."

"Cross my heart and hope to..."

The boy's grin grew wider. "Keep on carrying on," he finished.

He rolled through a yield sign at a t-junction, and the music faded into static as the truck ziggzagged up a stretch of winding road.

Pasquanna's overlook was a semi-circular turnout on a flat section of ridge. Trampled grass and a trio of wooden benches ringed the cliff's edge. Not the safest setup for a toddler, but for a cripple knockin' on heaven's door it didn't get any easier. Jolie would've jumped for joy, if her legs would have let her.

His second gimp-girl lifting attempt was as confident as his smile. "Pretty view, but it's kinda chilly. You sure you wanna stay?" he asked.

Somewhere out in the world a mother shot beaming bolts of pride from her fingertips over the job she'd done raising this boy. He was exactly the way she imagined Tyler would have been, if he had lived. Jolie nodded her head against his shoulder. "I'm sure, Kid."

He placed her in her wheelchair and shrugged himself out of his jacket.

"Kid, I can't-"

"You might need it," he said, and laid it with the Aerosmith angel wings emblem face up across her knees. "In case you change your mind, Jolie."

Jolie's head snapped up. She mashed the wheelchair's joystick with her clawed hand to turn the contraption around. The chair lurched forward and then jerked to the left in short, spastic bursts. Move, damn it. Move!

"Hey, Kid! Kid! How did you-"

The jacket slipped off her knees and got caught on a wheel. It was dragged forward, sucked down into a patch of mud. The gears hummed and soggy soil sprayed out from behind the wheels in wet chunks. Son-of-a-bitch!

God didn't make it easy for cripples. It sucked, but that's how it was.

Jolie heard the vehicle come to a stop on the gravel-graded shoulder. A few seconds later it pulled up in front of her and stopped again with a flash of its tailights.

The license plate read: Gdlvr1. It didn't hurt to advertise a skill, but Jolie doubted the acronym was true.

A boy dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and a black leather jacket, climbed out of the truck. He wore a wide grin on his face that radiated life was good. "I saw your sign. Where you headed?"

A few people had seen her sign. A woman rolling down the highway in a motorized wheelchair was bound to cause a stir. The only problem was the drivers' that had passed Jolie had bothered to swerve.

God didn't make it easy for cripples. Childproof caps on medicine bottles. Latches on cupboards. A quicker, messier, option that required the ability to raise a barrel to a temple, and enough resolve to squeeze a trigger and not give a shit which unlucky fuck found her brains splattered on a wall.

In a way her solution was considerate, although Pastor Montes probably wouldn't agree. According to him the accident was her chance to demonstrate inner strength. "Persevere."

"Pasquanna Lake. Know it?"

"Yep. Went a lot when I was little." His easygoing walk matched his grin."It's opposite my direction, but it's only a couple miles. I'll take you to the lookout."

Perfect. "That'll work," Jolie said.

His gaze drifted to Jolie's wheelchair.

"Something wrong?"

"I...I've never picked up a-"

"A cripple."

"I was going to say "girl"."

"Congrats on a double first. I'm a cripple, who's also a 'girl'."

"So, how..."

"I can't raise my arms above my head. When you lift pull me in tight, and watch out for my bags."

"What kinda bags?"

"Not grocery. One for number one. One-"

"For number two. Got it." He bent to pick her up and then paused, seemingly usure how to go about lifting her out of her wheelchair.

"Kid, I'm already broken. You can't hurt what can't be fixed. Toss me in your truck. Throw this contraption in the back."

Jolie gave him a C for his amatuer gimp lifting skills, a D for his wobble across the gravel, and an F for the crud Journey song on the radio--but only because she'd stopped believing in miracles long after being sentenced to life in a gimp-chair without parole.

The boy settled into the driver's seat and wedged the shifter into gear. "Kinda late to be going to Pasquanna."

"It's peaceful at night," Jolie said.

"If you say so, but it isn't right leavin' you alone, in the dark. Say, you have somebody that'll bring you home?"

Jolie leaned her head back. "Two somebodys."

"They meetin' you there, or pickin' you up?"

"Maybe...Both. I'd like to think. Don't really know."

"Its just...You don't have a coat, and it rained last night and-"

"Kid, do me a favor and change the station."

The boy reached over, fiddled with the radio knob, and the four-on-the floor disco beat of the Bee Gees thumped out of the speakers. "Its kinda catchy," he said as he bobbed his head. "She sure can hit some high notes."

Jolie couldn't help but laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"My son said the same thing. Once."

Tyler had never admitted he'd liked her "moldy oldies", but sometimes at a stoplight, with the car windows rolled up, all the way up, she'd caught him tapping his foot out of the corner of her eye.

"It's a guy," Jolie said.

"Seriously! For real! Nah-uh."

"Cross my heart and hope to..."

The boy's grin grew wider. "Keep on carrying on," he finished.

He rolled through a yield sign at a t-junction, and the music faded into static as the truck ziggzagged up a stretch of winding road.

Pasquanna's overlook was a semi-circular turnout on a flat section of ridge. Trampled grass and a trio of wooden benches ringed the cliff's edge. Not the safest setup for a toddler, but for a cripple knockin' on heaven's door it didn't get any easier. Jolie would've jumped for joy, if her legs would have let her.

His second gimp-girl lifting attempt was as confident as his smile. "Pretty view, but it's kinda chilly. You sure you wanna stay?" he asked.

Somewhere out in the world a mother shot beaming bolts of pride from her fingertips over the job she'd done raising this boy. He was exactly the way she imagined Tyler would have been, if he had lived. Jolie nodded her head against his shoulder. "I'm sure, Kid."

He placed her in her wheelchair and shrugged himself out of his jacket.

"Kid, I can't-"

"You might need it," he said, and laid it with the Aerosmith angel wings emblem face up across her knees. "In case you change your mind, Jolie."

Jolie's head snapped up. She mashed the wheelchair's joystick with her clawed hand to turn the contraption around. The chair lurched forward and then jerked to the left in short, spastic bursts. Move, damn it. Move!

"Hey, Kid! Kid! How did you-"

The jacket slipped off her knees and got caught on a wheel. It was dragged forward, sucked down into a patch of mud. The gears hummed and soggy soil sprayed out from behind the wheels in wet chunks. Son-of-a-bitch!

God didn't make it easy for cripples. It sucked, but that's how it was.

Chapter One

The plane had been held hostage by the storm, stuck in a holding pattern above the city while the ground crews cleared snow and ice from the runways.

The captain's voice came over the speakers. He announced they'd finally been cleared to land, to the applause of several passengers seated near the center aisle, and the warmth in the pressurized cabin dropped as the 747 made its decent into Salt Lake City International Airport.

Nokomura Oda secured his tray table and deftly slipped his arms back into his wool Burberry coat.

The plane rumbled to a halt at the end of the runway and taxied up to the terminal gate.

Nokomura reached beneath the seat in front of him and retrieved his leather satchel. He waited for the other passengers to unbuckle their seat belts and grab their luggage out of the overhead compartments. He was the last to exit the plane.

He followed the group of passengers through the nearly empty concourse, opting to make his way to baggage claim at his own pace instead of utilizing the moving walkway.

To a native Californian, and fair weather aficionado, the cold air that greeted him when he stepped outside was both jarring and hellishly intolerable, instantly numbing the tips of his exposed ears and fingers.

The snow, much like the initial rush of sorrow that'd overwhelmed him when he'd learned of Kenji's death, was foreign to him. It tumbled out of the gray clouds with the torrential ferocity of a summer monsoon rain.

Nokomura tucked his chin down into the collar of coat and walked across the street to the rental car center.

Was the timing right? Had he made the right decision? The weather seemed to disagree, but he held hope the charitable spirit and tidings expressed during the holidays might soften the man he'd repeatedly tried to convince. Grief, he'd discovered, had stripped him of his pride, robbed him of his sleep, and filled him with a reservoir of obdurate determination to change Brock Logan's resolute "No" into a "Yes".

Logan had already told Nokomura what he wanted, what he needed to rid himself of the aching pain sutured to his broken heart, couldn't be accomplished. He'd been firm about the impossibility, had bluntly told Nokomura his request was "As stupid as holding a yodeling contest in an avalanche zone", and suggested Nokomura find some other means to accept Kenji's death and move on.

Nokomura wanted to believe Logan. The man was the expert, a mountaineering god among mortal men. If a legend, whose fame had been carved out of a series of reckless feats and death defying escapes, said the impossible couldn't be achieved, what chance was there for a man like Nokomura, who knew nothing about climbing, to persuade Logan to commit to a seemingly unfeasible task.

He had to try, for Kenji's sake, as much as his own. Maybe Logan would listen. Legends didn’t become legends without overcoming challenges mounted with unfavorable odds. Maybe he wouldn't, but before the night was over Brock Logan would have to look Nokomura Oda in the eyes, as one father to another, one time before he refused.

###

Chapter Two

In eight years the Seven Summits Recreational Facility and Laser Tag Galleria had gone from conception to planning, planning to construction, construction to fulfillment, and now that the novelty had worn off, dead.

Brock Logan stared at the pile of scrap papers on his desk. The dartboard was the answer. It seemed as fair, given his shit aim, as elimination rounds of eenie-meenie-minie-mo or plucking unlucky names out of his baseball cap.

He unscrewed the lid on his flask and tilted the flask to his lips.

Tonight’s losers earned pink slips, handshakes, and job recommendations. Not that the Russell twins needed them. Brock doubted the golden arches food chain would give a Mcdamn if the boys were diligent and punctual, as long as they were quick at stuffing gut bombs into paper sacks.

The newspaper coupons and radio promos had provided temporary boosts to the facility's revenues when they were first introduced.

Bag all seven summits in under three hours and score eight holes of indoor miniature golf. Buy one admission wristband and get a second wristband free for two rounds of glow-in-the-dark laser tag.

The Bounce House passes, coupons good for one two-hour trampoline session, redeemable on the third Wednesday of every month, for each A earned on a report card, had been a bust. It’d cost Brock more to keep the lights on in the building than he’d banked selling marked up nachos and candy bars to the kids.

One by one Brock thumbtacked the strips of paper onto the dartboard. There were ten names in all; seven high school seniors that comprised the remaining majority of his staff, Ben Lively, the full time janitor and maintenance technician, Laura, receptionist and party planner extraordinaire, and Dolores, a formerly homeless woman who used to spend her winters camped out in the tool shed behind the back dumpsters.

Dolores. He could always count on her for a false alarm bill and a drive down to the facility in the middle of the night. The smartest decision he’d ever made, management wise, was giving Dolores the pass code to the alarm system and hiring her on as night security. Brock hadn’t flirted with a DUI since.

He’d miss them, all of them, in a way that made him wish he’d never met them, hired them, and gotten to know them.

Danny was a rock star with the first timers and grade school climbers, patient and encouraging, and generous with his lopsided smiles. He wanted to pursue a career in law enforcement after graduation, but if you asked Brock, which no one did, Danny belonged in a classroom, molding fertile minds.

Laura manned the front desk and, although Brock was ashamed to admit it because the passion to keep the doors open should have come from him, she had been responsible for the advertising campaigns that had, up until now, kept this dream alive.

Tina. Eric. The Russell twins.

Brock scooped up a handful of darts, stepped back several paces, selected the dart with the straightest shaft and held it up to his line of sight.

Slight lean forward. Brock squeezed an eyelid shut. Gentle snap of the-

“Brock, you gotta minute?”

The dart sailed wide of the dartboard. The tip struck wall. Paint, one. Some employees...still employed.

“Sure, Ben. C’mon in.”

###

Chapter Three

Ben dressed in layers. Winter. Spring. Summer. Fall. Old Man Winter had dropped a foot of snow on the Salt Lake Valley in the last twenty-four hours and Ben had answered the cold front and snow flurries with two button-down flannel shirts and his heavy outer coat. It was a small wonder the man could move in December, but move he did, with the soft footfalls of a ninja.

Brock slipped the darts into the front pocket of his shirt and jutted his chin at one of lawn chairs parked in front of his desk. “Have a seat. What’s on your mind?”

Lively set his mop in the industrial yellow bucket that had become as much a part of his uniform as his gray, grease-stained undershirts and faded blue Dockers. He propped the mop handle against the office door and plucked a dirty rag from his waistband. He ran the cloth over his fingers and then under his runny nose.

"Slow today...” Lively’s gaze drifted from his rag to the dartboard, over to Brock and back down to his rag.

Brock nodded. “Why don’t you head on out.”

“I didn’t mean-I wasn’t after-“

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it, Ben. I get the jiff. It’s one o’clock on a Christmas Eve and you’d rather be at home, guzzling eggnog and watching It’s A Wonderful Life with the Mrs. and the kids. You go on, I’ll lock up.”

Lively stared at the dartboard and palmed his rag nervously back and forth. “You sure, Brock? I hate leavin’ you in a bind.”

“Sure I’m sure,” Brock said, as he leaned over his desk. He dug through a thin stack of envelopes until he found the one with Lively’s name on it. He snatched the envelope out of the pile and handed it to Ben. “Listen, I-a...I wanted to...” Brock gulped to clear the lump in his throat. “I wish I could’ve had the check cut sooner, but the last few weeks have been...rough.”

Ben stuffed the envelope in the pocket of his outer coat and tucked his rag back into his waistband. “It’s prob’ly a good thing. Carrie don’t know the meaning of the word ‘budget’ during the holidays. The boys’ve got plenty of new shit to break sittin’ under the tree.”

Brock pursed his lips. “If you hurry you might still be able to cash it. Plenty of daylight till the banks close.”

“We’ll be fine, Brock.”

“Good to know. C’mon, I’ll walk you out.”

Brock flipped the light switches off as they made their way down the hall, and as he did it occurred to him he'd become 'that guy', the penny pincher who'd rather stumble around in the dark, and work themselves into an early pair of trifocals, than spend a few bucks on electricity to power a row of lights.

They stopped in front of the supply room. Ben dumped the water in the bucket into a stainless steel sink and then set the mop inside the sink. He picked up a few stray bottles of cleaning fluid off the floor and added them to the empty spaces on a supply rack, turning the labels on the bottles outward as he placed them on the shelves.

Lively had never been much of a talker, which made the silence less awkward, but Brock still felt the way he did on his last day of high school; taking that final walk out the front doors of the building, knowing deep down, despite assurances of continued friendship, the classmates he'd shared three years of his life with were, in reality, exiting his life.

There was a sense he should say something else to Lively, anything, even if it were as simple as promising he'd call Ben straight away if things miraculously turned themselves around, but when he opened his mouth to speak the words clogged in his throat, like a thick clump of hair in a stopped-up drain.

He'd already apologized for the tardy paycheck. What more was there? "Sorry I ruined your Christmas. Been nice knowin' ya. Happy job hunting." Ben was a smart guy, he'd seen the dartboard, and the names on the scraps of paper thumb tacked to it. It didn't take a card carrying Mensa member to put two and two together and figure out this was the afternoon they'd shake hands, hopefully with no hard feelings on Lively's end, and go their separate ways. 

###

Chapter Four

The facility's closing walk through normally took thirty minutes to complete. Normal being relative to how many of the outlined steps were accidentally forgotten or purposely ignored by Brock's staff.

Brock knew how long a walk-a-round should take. He knew because he'd done it, repeatedly, the year Seven Summits was built, and the economics of piloting a business off the ground had forced Brock to perform the nightly closing rituals. Captain. Co-pilot. Stewardess. His sphincter-tight budget had given Brock little choice but to assume a variety of roles.

There were nights he’d strapped on a utility belt and added the title of Handyman to his expanded repertoire. He’d hang window screens, lay carpet and linoleum, install light fixtures, or simply stare at spreadsheets on his laptop and crave for his head to be crushed by a large block of concrete to rid himself of the migraines that accompanied juggling an endless buffet of jobs.

Other nights he'd lock the doors after the assembly crew left. He'd hop up on the newly installed concession counter, sit and stare into the darkness, and soak it all in; the pride he felt, the atmosphere he’d created, the legacy he’d leave for Keith. Here, in this building, he'd never abandoned chasing mountains. Here, the mountains had come to him.

Catholics had their strands of rosary beads. Tibetan monks had their soothing chants. Old men had their canes. Brock dipped his hand into his pocket and touched his flask. He'd filled it three times and it was due for number four. He wondered if Ben would notice if he hung back a few steps, lag behind just long enough to nab a quick, but much needed, drink.

A man with a portable stash of alcohol didn't tote around a flask for the opportunities to show off the design etched into its silver case. Brock drank inside the building. Lively knew it. Hell, they probably all knew it, and not a one of them had said anything, except for the afternoon, about a year ago, when Lively had come into Brock’s office and plunked down a half empty bottle of Jack Daniel's on Brock’s desk.

Ben had found the bottle wedged between the sculpted faux-rocks that decorated the miniature golf course’s water feature, and primary ball magnet, Blackbeard’s Bay.

“Might want to keep an eye on some of your employees,” Lively’d said, with more authority in his voice than Brock had heard before. “Lots of liability in a place where folks bring their young-ins and turn ’em loose. Be a real shame if something bad happened and it all came back to haunt you.”

Ben had stood and stared at Brock with a disapproving look that had reminded Brock of the one his mother had on her face the first, and last, time she’d caught him dragging hits off a cigarette. She hadn’t raised her voice, hadn’t lectured him until she was hoarse, she’d simply stood there staring at him like Lively, with her hands on her hips and a tight-lipped frown, and after several moments had said, “You know better.”

While Brock wasn't as ashamed of himself for caching a bottle of whiskey as he was when he'd failed to live up to his mother's expectations, it still wasn't easy having his behavior scrutinized by a man he'd come to know, not just as some guy he paid to tinker with malfunctioning equipment, mop up soda spills, and sprinkle sawdust over puddles of Bounce House puke, but as a friend.

The hidden whiskey situation had been a fucked up, embarrassing mess. No ifs, ands, or doubts about it. Ben had called him out, and rightly so, for the rocks-for-brains maneuver that could’ve cost Brock, at the least, a lawsuit had the alcohol been ingested by one of Seven Summits younger climbing enthusiasts.

Brock had mumbled something about being “Sorry”, instantly sobered with the awareness his actions could’ve caused someone harm, yet devoid of the remorse he should have felt, but didn’t.

In fact, the entire time Lively had stood there, staring at Brock with his squinty-eyed, gunslinger scowl, the only things Brock could think about was how Lively had helped him avoid one hell of an insurance car crash and how many other bottles were stashed in hidey-spots throughout the whole damn building.

“Look, Brock-“

“I’ll take care of it.”

“I ain’t much for chit-chat, but...but the Mrs. says I’m a pretty good listener. Maybe, if you want, I can sit here for a while. Give you a chance to speak your mind about stuff that might be bothering you.”

“Ben-“

“Anything you like. Weather. Roadsters. Dolores.”

“Don’t get me started. That woman is going to turn me into an insomniac.”

“Alright, you pick. Anything at all.”

“I said I’d take care of it.”

“Brock, I’m real sorry, everyone’s real sorry about Keith. I can’t even pretend to understand why the good Lord saw fit to take your son the way he did.”

“We could sit here and trade apologies until our jaws fell off, but batting them back and forth won’t change the reasons we’re saying them. I get what you’re trying to do, and I thank you for it, but I’d rather not go where I’ve already been.

“I can’t promise to take it easy on the alcohol, so I’m not gonna throw it out there. I will promise you’ll never find another bottle...maybe...hell, maybe I’ll invest in a flask.”

“You could stop drinkin’, Brock.”

Could. That part of the conversation had been oddly offensive. He “could” do a lot of things, like stop wearing his “lucky” baseball cap or go back to Miller’s Pointe and shovel cow shit to earn a living.

“Could” implied a choice, and who was Lively to tell him the choices Brock had made to blur the lines between what was and what might have been were wrong.

Lively ducked into an employee restroom. He held the door ajar with the weight of his shoulder as he lifted a trash bag out of a garbage can.

Brock ran his tongue across his lips. Once, while he isn’t looking.God, help me. I’m not numb enough to face... Her.

###

Chapter Five

The behemoth Bitch waited, around the next corner and through the push bar double doors that led into the climbing arena.

She was the Rolls Royce of rock wall fabrication, four stories of welded steel superstructure and Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete constructed into the shape of a three-sided pyramid. The largest peak out of a chain of seven erected inside the building that had lent Seven Summits their collectively known name: Kilimanjaro. Denali. Elbrus. Aconagaua. Carstensz. Pyramid. Vinson.

In the center of the climbing arena stood the replicated mother of all mountains, a refrigeration cooled beast that had once put Brock’s venue on the cover of every climbing magazine in the country. The mountain Japanese tourists ducked into the building to snap their selfies in front of, in-between their guided tours of the grounds surrounding the Mormon Temple, hikes up the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon and walks along the mucky shore of The Great Salt Lake.

The Nepalese called her Sagarmatha, “The forehead in the sky”. Tibetans called her Chomolungma, often translated into “Goddess Mother of the Universe”. Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General in India at the time he and his team discovered Peak XVs mammoth height, anointed her with the surname of the triangulation mathematician who’d preceded him.

The dictionary defined her as: something regarded as the most difficult or challenging of its kind, and Brock would attest on the venerated bones of a saint to that.

She was a geological freak, nature’s largest and deadliest slot machine, and there were plenty of gamblers willing to bet their brain cells, their limbs, hell, their lives, for a chance to stand on her summit and inherit the view of an Olympian god.

Lively cruised around the last corner and slowed his stride to match Brock’s as they approached the double doors.

Brock couldn’t see her, not yet, but the Bitch was out there. Her ice-crusted middle finger was raised, ready to cram it like a jagged icicle up his ass. Served him right for falling in love with her, for falling asleep as a kid with the powerful and majestic images her aliases invoked floating around in his head. Sagarmatha. Chomolungma. Everest.

Confronting the cunt always reminded him of cleaning out an old drawer stuffed full of junk and finding a faded Poloroid of an ex. There was a brief recollection of fondness and then, as swiftly and as surely as Salmonella brought on watery shits, the fondness receded into a savage burst of anger and a tangible, almost indescribable, sense of panic and dread.

Brock’s momentum ground to a halt. He released his grip on his flask and stopped in the middle of the hall.

“When we goin’? You said we’d go when I was ready. I’m ready.”

Keith. Smack dab in front of the double doors, with his hands jammed in his hoodie's pockets, waiting for Brock to reply.

The torrent hit him hard, fading Keith and the double doors into a blur, collapsing the rapidly shrinking walls in around him. His stomach flopped in his belly, like a pancake being flipped. Brock doubled over and pressed his palms to his jeans. His damn legs wouldn’t budge. It seemed as though he’d run a mile and he couldn’t quite catch his breath. He dug his fingernails into his jeans. Tiny droplets of perspiration beaded on his forehead and trickled down his cheeks.

Soul-sucking, malicious, vindictive, sneaky, dream-crushing, ball-breaking, slag-heaped, royal fucking bitc-

“Brock?” Lively grabbed hold of Brock and held him upright.

“It’s alright.” Brock nodded between gasps. “I’m alright.”

“Let me secure the front, take the keys around the side. Leave ’em by the roll-up.”

Ben’s empathy reeked of pity, pity stank like charity and accepting charity was a loonnnng fucking way from smelling like respect. Lively had been the dinghy attached to his capsized ship for far too long. It was time to cut him loose.

Brock gritted his teeth and wormed himself out of Lively’s embrace. A quick peek at the double doors assured him Keith's specter no longer blocked their exit. “You don’t need to do that.”

“And seven years ago you didn’t need to give a parolee a job. Could’ve given it to anyone, but you gave it to me.”

Suck it up. Delaying it isn’t changing it.Can’t put the snow back on top of a mountain after an avalanche. Brock stood up straight. He removed his “lucky” baseball cap and ran his shaky fingers through his closely cropped hair. He wiped the sweat on his forehead on his sleeve and slid his cap back into place. “Don’t you have a check to cash?” Somewhere to be. Family to be with. He glanced at the doors again, both saddened and relieved Keith's spectre was gone.

Ben fiddled with a detachable key ring on his belt. “It ain’t no trouble, Broc-”

“I’ll be fine. Get oughta here.”

Ben unhooked the key ring and pressed the keys into Brock’s palm, sealing their hands together. “Listen, Carrie’s got the works cookin’ tomorrow. Ham. Potatoes. Big batch of them sugar cookies you like. My boys would love to see you. Why don’t you come on by the house?”

Brock squeezed Ben’s hand once before letting go. “I’ll think about it.”

There it was. The final hurrah. Seven years of working with someone, sharing glimpses of someone else’s life, extinguished with the quickest walkthrough in Seven Summits history, a handshake, and a lie. Brock’s stomach flopped again.

He wanted to ask him to stay, wanted to tell Lively there had to be some way to make it happen. Somehow they’d manage to work things out.

Better still, what he wanted right now, more than a drink, more than the cargo bed of an eighteen wheeler stacked front to back with hundred dollar bills to pull up outside the front doors, was to climb aboard the dinghy that’d been anchored beside him, aim it for a sunny horizon and disappear over the edge of the world. Free of the Bitch. Free of the bill collectors. Free of the insistent voice that crept into his thoughts late at night, a voice who assured him there was a place called Peace, and he’d find it at the top of his bedroom closet in a shoebox labeled: Gun.

Ben zipped his outer coat and flipped the collar up. He pulled out a knit beanie and jammed it down over his ears. He leaned into the push bars, hesitated, and slowly swung around.

“Merry Christmas, Brock.”

“Ben...” Can’t put the snow back on top of the mountain. “Same to you.”

It would’ve been a helluva a lot easier to point himself in the opposite direction, cower in the darkness of his office and drink himself into next week. What did it really matter now? Lively was the last tie that'd held him accountable to try and pull himself together and be a better man, and the Bitch had already won.

Brock hurried through the double doors before they closed. He shadowed Lively into the climbing arena, watched him float past the concession stand, mend around the summits and the ticket counter, and drift out the front doors.

Get to the church.

The thought propelled him up the slope, urging him onward.

Keith stumbled. His body pitched forward and his feet skidded sideways, shooting a spray of loose soil into a draft of wind. He pawed at a ledge, searching for a handhold.

Bloodied fingers tore into the earth like a pickaxe. His hands quickly coiled around an outcrop of wild grass, the plant’s firmly bedded roots as reassuring as a length of strong rope.

Keith threw his weight against the mountain and hugged its broad stability to his outstretched limbs.

The sound of church bells resonated across the valley with a frenzied clang that matched the frantic thump of his heartbeat.

Get to the church.

He heaved a gulp of air into his lungs and shoved one hand in front of the other, wedging his fingers into the gaps between scattered slabs of toppled stone, grasping at patches of matted weeds, as he hauled himself inch by inch up the slope.

It’d seemed such a simple task, a stipulation easy to achieve. He should have known the only freebie Celestial Getaways offered in their no frills, no perks, vacation package was a final, demoralizing catch.

From a distance the height of the hill had been deceptive. An effortless climb and a swift jog across open ground and he was home free. Finished. His obligation fulfilled.

It was only after he began his ascent that Keith discovered the hill had magically abracadabra-ed itself into a cragged peak, its breeze battered facade crusted with crumbled ridges and wind grooved crevices.

His watch began to beep, the repetitious blips and flashing red lights pulsed in sync with the stoke of the bells. Sundown.

He tilted his head back and watched as the sun ebbed lower, slowly sinking behind a tree-lined horizon and a rapidly gathering swell of black clouds.

Get to the church.

You can still make it.

Try was not an option. It was a shit chute engraved with his soul’s name, plunged straight down into damnation if he failed.

The summit loomed above. Close, so very close.

Keith scrambled upward. Determined. His arms and legs moved in rhythmic unison, without thought, without pause. The hurried grab and release thrust of his hands and scuffle of his feet dislodged chunks of earth and kicked up a spindrift that clung to the air in a dusty mist around his head.

He hauled a leg up and over the lip of the last ledge and clawed his way onto the top of a flat plateau.

A white church sat perched upon the precipice of a ridge, overlooking a field of wildflowers. Its wooden doors were parted, begging him to cross over the soul redeeming threshold.

The blinding, bright light streamed through the stained glass windows faded fast with the wan of sunlight. The clang of the bells drifted further apart, with full stops rested between the peeled chimes, echoing the last drawn out breaths of a dying man.

Get to the church.

Keith pushed himself to his feet, and ran.

Tidings From An Old Friend

The letter arrived late, as often happened in the Autumn when the gentle, soothing warmth of September was driven into hibernation by October’s brisk breezes and sudden, sometimes sleeted, downpours of rain.

The deliverer of the letter apologized, quite profusely, as he stood at the threshold, with his coat collar turned up, teeth chattering despite his long jacket, mopping his wet brow with a scrunched tatter of soiled rag.

Common courtesy required I take pity on the poor man, so I invited him in to settle himself by the fire in the drawing room until the rain stopped. He refused, as I’d expected, but thanked me for my charity. Frankly speaking, his refusal was a relief. The messenger’s breath reeked of an overindulgence of spirits. His sopping clothes stank of wet mutt or cat, something olfactory offensive not even the wind could sweep from the air, as it did the fallen leaves nested in the corners of my porch steps.

I tipped him three shillings for his efforts, though they were not timely, in appreciation for the man’s fortitude to venture about in such circumstances.

He was even more pleased with my generosity than he was with my charity; his eyes grew wide and he stammered several times “Thank you, Sir” and “God bless you, Sir” as he pocketed the coins and backed himself down the steps, nearly tripping over his feet.

I nodded my reply and closed the door, eager to return to my comfortable chair beside the hearth and devote myself to my unfinished glass of brandy. I suspected there’d be need of more brandy after I’d read the letter, for the rain-blotted script on the envelope assured me the contents were penned by none other than my oldest and closest friend, and confidant, Charles Wharley.

Constance, Wharley’s wife, a delicate blossom I’d loved long before Charles had claimed her heart, had been ill. The last several weeks had been tenuous for my wilting flower. Her small, lithe body strained into utter exhaustion with her impending motherhood. That vibrant glow so common in women in such a similar state had, for some reason or another, abandoned her, and its absence had left her lethargic, without appetite, and bedridden.

Charles, not knowing the depth of my love for the woman he also loved, but instead drawing on our friendship to give him the strength he needed to bear the burden of Constance’s illness, had resolved to keep me appraised of her deteriorating condition.

I turned the envelope over several times, building my nerve to open it and accept whatever words were contained within. If it were serious, truly Constance’s final hours, I reasoned, Wharley surely would have sent a telegram to harken me to his estate.

I gently inserted the tip of a letter opener beneath the envelope’s sealed flap and, with shaking hands, removed a thin sheet of paper that had been folded in thirds.

I quickly scanned the neatly penned lines and discovered, with a sigh of relief, the letter was not the presage of black mourning suits and mounds of white lilies I’d feared.

Dear John,

Come to Wharley Manor. There is something I must show you. Something you must see.

Send a telegram announcing your arrival time at the station and I shall send a carriage to collect you.

Ever your friend,

Charles Wharley

Curious. There was no mention of Constance or her unborn child; their unborn child I reminded myself, topics so prevalent in our weekly communication we’d spoken of little else in the course of our faithful correspondence. No smatter of ramblings asking guidance in what my friend should do, how he would carry on if Constance should pass. It was simply an unfathomably short letter, absent the required information one might need to understand the encompassing reason for his seemingly urgent request. However its import was intriguing, despite its lack of clarity.

I read the letter again. Wharley’s words, or lack of words on the subject of Constance’s declining health, nourished my faith in her recovery. Perhaps, through some miracle or through my friend’s careful and thoughtful ministrations, the malady that had seized a hold of her vitality had finally relinquished its grip. I prayed this was so, and that the letter in some measure assured me of this.

It was too late in the eve to begin hurried preparations for a journey, eager though I was to find out Wharley’s purpose in summoning me. There were the matters of packing my portmanteau, the instructions I’d need to convey to the staff under my leadership at the asylum and, most important of all, the inquest I was required to attend the following morning. The soonest I could depart was the next eve.

I rang for a servant, and dispatched the poor fellow out into the downpour to deliver my reply to the telegraph office:

Charles,

Received your letter. Must say I’m intrigued ???

Have professional matters to attend tomorrow morning, but you have my assurance I shall be on tomorrow night’s train.

Always your friend,

John Banning

P.S. Constance ???

An actor's playground.

An author's soul, leeched through a pen.

Bane of women.

Crossed, sometimes double.

Time and conga, moving backward and chaining forward.

Places to start and end.

“You'll never find it. 'Round and 'round you'll go, exploring paths you've wandered before. Searching, always searching. And when you think you've discovered it, and you've reached the journey's end, your eternal march will start over...again, and again, and again.”

Bold words, infected with the malice and prophesized doom Curse Weavers were prone to invoke when threatened to reveal their knowledge or be put to the torch.

They'd encountered several of her ilk lurking in the swamps of Tendradril, and Idris had been impressed by none. The stump between his legs hadn't shriveled. His arms hadn't fallen off.

“Take her tongue, Idris,” Garren urged.

Idris brushed Garren's hand from his shoulder and approached the tree where she was lashed, hoping this Curse Weaver valued her life more than her words.

For two seasons they had already searched, a hundred increasingly frustrated and weary men, hacking their way through sun-melded vines and drooping, long-leafed fronds. It was a tiresome routine, one Idris was eager to abandon, but like all old places the swamp guarded its secrets well, and the spring Idris had been charged to find had refused to surrender itself.

“Do you know where it is? Can you lead us to it? Will you help guide us through the swamp? Do so, and I vow in the name of my king you'll be set free. None shall take your life, or your tongue.”

The Curse Weaver's body shook when she laughed. “Unyielding as the light, forever as the eves, the bearers of the sleeping king shall not leave this place.”

The flames ringed the dried reeds pushed up against the tree, growing bolder, roaring higher. The rising columns of smoke as gray as the wild mange of hair matted to her shoulders.

When the fire latched onto her mottled skin, Idris was somehow pleased he hadn't let Garren convince him to hack out her tongue. He wanted to hear her scream, screech vulgar damnations, inflict curse upon curse, if only to prove her threats were meaningless. She was nothing, except food for hungry flames.

“Idris!” Garren pleaded. “Silence her!”

“The fire will silence her.”

“Put an arrow in this boggish bitch before-”

“And waste a perfectly good arrow. No.”

It was then Garren pointed to the sullen group of men gathered around the tree, and by the fire's light Idris saw in their faces how the creature's declaration of perpetual wandering had afffected them.

From this moment on, every leaf that wouldn't bend, every blade that went dull, every time one of them turned his ankle the wrong way, they'd blame the Curse Weaver, and thereby blame Idris because he'd ignored Garren and had, out of desperation, allowed her to speak.

He didn't know whether to pity the superstitious lot or ridicule them as a band of faith-blinded fools. They'd been turning in circles long before they'd snared the Weaver, chasing after a myth, held hostage to an oath they'd sworn to a dying king.

Pity, Idris decided, would be a prudent choice. They had to forge forward, and it was not for him to decide which beliefs they should cast aside and which they should hold close to their hearts.

Idris nodded to Garren, and Garren whistled for one of the archers to ready his bow.

“Have them collect the ashes when the fire dies and put them in a one of the empty water casks. Weight it with stones and have it staked into the deepest part of the river. Then have the men break camp.”

“The landlayer hasn't finished drawing this clearing on his map,” Garren said.

“Fuck his maps,” Idris said, as he turned and walked away. “We march at dawn.”

“Step forward, Flavius. Only schemers lurk in shadows.”

“Do I have the look of a schemer?”

“Truthfully...No. You have a look of hesitance. Indecision. A child charged with some disagreeable chore. Come. Join me. Tell me what task keeps you from your bed.”

“I could ask you the same. Sitting here, in the Julia, staring at shadows on the walls.”

“The Senate House is as fitting a place as any for a Senator of Rome.”

“It isn’t safe for a man in your position to venture out into the streets at night.”

“I’d wager the citizens attacked in the Forum two days past would argue it’s not much safer during the day. Riotous heathens! Dissidents and mobs love a good siege almost as much as they love public executions of tyrannical despots.”

“All the more reason you should’ve stayed in your domus.”

“Have you come to rescue me from my solitude? Protect me from plebs and slaves grown as mongrel as the Visigoth wolves camped outside our city gates?”

“Claudius sent me to find you.“

“Someone I used to trust to help me see reason?”

“Someone you used to trust to ignite common sense.”

“Claudius doesn’t need my permission to open the gates. His slaves have arms. They have ears. By his commands they’ll obey.”

“Claudius may control the crowds, his slaves, but it’s you who’s the favor of the soldiers that defend Aurelian’s walls. There’s not a patrician in the city that would endorse a slaughter to rally a mob against your forces. Not even Claudius.”

“His actions speak otherwise. He’s been quite public in his denouncement of my lack of judgment, my refusals to seek terms of surrender.”

“Personal offenses aside, the man’s motives are sound. Some might even call them wise. He only wants what’s best for Rome.”

“What Claudius wants for Rome and what Claudius wants for himself are entirely two different things. Nothing would give him greater pleasure than for historians to record me as the man who delivered the blow that felled this fine city. Why? Because it absolves him, Emperor Honorius, the armies that abandoned us. Squarely places the enslavement of Roman children, the rape of Roman women, the massacre of Roman men, on my shoulders.”

“We are starving! Dying! By the hundreds each day.”

“This is a siege not a festival! Deprivation is meant to be inhospitable. Intolerable. Expected to exact certain tolls.”

“And what is the price of these tolls? Our treasury is bankrupt. Our granaries are empty. The temples filled with grieving mothers, fathers. Meat mongers sell the flesh of dead gladiators by the pound. The air that clings to this misery ripe with the stench of bodies left to rot in the streets. Have we not suffered enough? Paid enough? If these hardships be the price of Roman pride than by the Christians and by the Pagans we shall pay no more!”

“I see your lips move, but hear Claudius’s voice when the words come out.”

“Order your troops to lay down their arms and open the city gates. Put an end to this hellish existence.”

“Suppose I relented. My soldiers abandon their duties. The gates are opened. Alaric’s army pours in. What happens then? Alaric’s men have waited nearly two years. They’ve been assured a banquet. What tolls do you think ravenous men exact when the cow they’ve been promised is a bird that’s been picked clean? Tell me, if such a humiliating defeat rested on your shoulders would you be so eager to hasten such brutality, watch a thousand years of power and tradition crumble into cinder and dust?”

“Rome’s foundation is strong. She will rise from the rubble, mightier than before. More glorious than She’s ever been!”

“When this new, mightier Rome is built have the engineers construct banners. Drape them high atop the buildings. Announce to every barbarian tribe with a grievance against the Empire Rome is weak. Easily plundered. Throw open those gates and they’ll be no end to foreign invasions. Conquerors. The Light In The West will be extinguished, doused into the wisp of a memory.”

“You sound like an oracle, confident in your bleak prophesies while condemning us to death. If by sword or by starvation we are all marked men I would rather die with a blade in my hand, and the sun on my face, than lie down in the darkness of this despair as a martyr to the splendors of Rome’s past!”

“Bravo, Flavius! Well done! You’ve a gift for passionate speech. Your delivery is superb! You should’ve been an orator. Better still, a politician. Were I less obstinate in my opinions you would’ve almost had me convinced.”

“I’m not here for an evaluation of my persuasive skills. This isn’t about asking your permission. I’m offering you a chance to join the opposition formed against you. Order the gates opened or-”

“Are you threatening me? Am I to take your meaning as an ultimatum?”

“The matter’s been decided.”

“It has? By whom?”

“Claudius hasn’t the bread, or gold, to bribe your soldiers but he’s more than enough influence to purchase your life.”

“And to think, here I was, staring at shadows on the Julia’s walls, weighing the cost of my decisions against the losses Rome will suffer if Alaric achieves victory. Perhaps I should’ve been calculating the treasonous nature of the barbarians I call countrymen who dwell inside the city gates. Sculptor to messenger, your father would’ve been pleased. Very well, you’ve delivered your message. Run back to that imbecile and deliver one for me. Tell Claudius to gather this so called opposition and meet me in front of the Salarian Gate. If he can take it, he can have it.”

“Is this your final answer? Romans butchering Romans? A bloodbath caused by one man’s allegiance to his own stubbornness.”

“Treasonous Romans! Call them what they are, exactly what you are!”

“What stubborn men call treason desperate men call seizing an opportunity to live.”

“Desperate men do foolish things. Things they regret when faced with consequences. Now, I’ve given you my answer. Hurry back. Run along. I’m bored with your sniveling, and Claudius’s pathetic attempts at manipulating. He picked a poor choice to bring me an ultimatum. I’d have more to fear from an infected toe!”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

“Am I? I’m doubtful.”

“Claudius made his demand. You’ve made your choice. Two men are at an impasse, each the other’s obstacle, one must be removed.”

“You’re no more an assassin than I am a thespian. Your heart is large, your stomach weak. The very idea you’d harm me is absurd. Do you intend to chisel me to death? Bash clay into my skull? A dagger would be more appropriate. Have you brought one? Is it hidden in the folds of your robes? Shall I turn around, present you my back? No, of course not. You can’t even look me in the eyes as you threaten my life, yet you’re so prepared to...What was it? Die-”

“Die with a blade in my hand.”

“Which will happen sooner than starvation if you align yourself with Claudius.”

“The gates or your head. That was my task. I’ve given Claudius my word. My word is my bond.”

“Is your word stronger than our bond? You’d murder the man that raised you?”

“Would you rather it were a stranger? A man with a small heart and a strong stomach who’ll grin as he hacks you into pieces and laugh as he parades your head through the streets on a pole? My dagger is sharp. My hands are steady. I’ll deliver a quick death.”

“I’d rather it weren’t my grandson.”

“Then pretend you don’t know me, and I you.”

“Get out! Go, while I’m still fond of you. Go, while I’m able to dismiss your treason as confusion. Go, because it will take more than bold statements to kill me. It’ll take hatred and lack of conscience. Neither of which you possess.”

“It’s a funny thing-”

“I see nothing comical in betrayal.”

“I thought I came to convince you.”

“Take your hands off me!”

“Romans die standing.”

“I want you to remember that!”

“Look away. Close your eyes.”

“Remember it when you’re begging barbarian butchers from your knees!”

“But perhaps...perhaps all I needed was to convince myself. Embrace the bitter hatred a year and a half of suffering breeds within a man’s soul.”

“Flavius!“

“Maybe that’s the reason I hesitated...”

“Flav-“

“Watched you as you stared at shadows dance across the Julia’s walls.”

“A long time ago, when faes flitted through the forests and leprechauns stashed their gold in hollow trees-"

Joruhm groaned. "This part's boring. Can't we skip to the end?"

Jalen giggled. He rolled onto his back and his outstretched legs crossed over onto Joruhm's side of the bed. "Tell us about the demon horses!"

"Don't you want to know how Sorrow's Eve began?" their father said.

"Nobody gives a cow's udder about faes," Joruhm said.

"What's a fae?" Jalen asked.

Joruhm elbowed Jalen's ribs. "Don't be dumb. Scooch over, you're hogging the whole bed."

"If one little boy doesn't mind his tongue-"

"I'd rather have no story,” Joruhm said. “The festival's over. The Veiled Lady isn't real. She's never once visited Hobbins Glenn. Every year mama cries fake tears because she wears an onion around her neck, you put on a shroud, and we throw our stupid, little-"

"Hey!" Jalen shouted.

"Stupid, little statues on a bonfire, say some dumb prayer, and hope we're the ones The Lady picks."

"Who told you The Lady isn't real?" their father said.

Joruhm shrugged.

Joruhm's father laid a hand on Joruhm's chest. "The Lady's as real as the beat of your heart, the warmth from my hand. She won't come if you don't believe. If you misbehave."

"Is that why she never came for you?" Joruhm asked.

"I believe," Jalen said.

Their father smiled. He tousled Jalen's hair. "Would you like to hear the rest of my story?"

I wish she were real. I'd let her demon horses eat me! At least then I won't have ears.

"Tell us, Papa!" Jalen squeeled.

"Alright, Jalen. Close your eyes...Hmmm...Where was I?"

"There was some dumb woman who lived in a mansion beside a brook that channeled into the sea," Joruhm said.

"Joruhm."

"Sorry."

Their father cleared his throat. "The woman had twelve sons-"

"Were any of them twins?" Jalen asked.

"No twins. Just twelve boys, more vigor in their blood than wits in their head."

This's gonna take forever.

"The children loved their mother and she loved them, and for many years the family was blessed. The woman's husband had his money. The woman had her beauty. The children had their health. One and all were happy.

"Many years went by. The woman's husband died, and one by one her eldest sons grew into men, and they each ventured off to seek their fame and fortunes.

"One by one they returned. Some with frayed nooses around their necks, some with bones bent like broken twigs. Twelve became ten, ten became six, until only two children were left."

"What killed them?" Jalen asked.

"Same things that'll kill any man. Boastful bragging. War. Greed. Things, by The Lady's grace, you won't need to understand."

Joruhm sighed. "Her grief was so great she stitched together a mourning dress and veil made from the scraps of their bloody, torn clothes."

"Hey!” Jalen squeeled. “What about the black tear stains on her face? Her blue eyes turning red? The sheep shears she used to cut off all of her hair?"

Jorhum pinched Jalen beneath the blankets. "Who cares about sheep shears, idiot? What's important is that she was sad. Sad enough to spend every day the same as the next, every night the same as before, praying on her knees inside the chapel where she'd laid her sons to rest."

"Papa, make him tell it right, or not at all!"

Their father picked up the rushlight's saucer. "There'll be no coffin this Sorrow's Eve," he mumbled, as he blew out the candle and headed off to bed.

"I wanted to hear about the horses."

There was a sobby, boo-hoo quiver in Jalen's voice.

Oh no.

"If I finish the story, you promise not to cry?"

Joruhm felt Jalen's head nod against his shoulder. "If you tell it like Papa."

"I'm only telling the end."

"Deal."

"One night, the woman fell asleep in the church.

"She was awakened by a whisper.

"The whisper asked the woman why she was sad. Why she couldn't be happy.

"The woman told the whisper she missed her children.

"In an instant, a flurry of wind swept through the church. The candles' flames soared up to the ceiling and ten sillouhettes were cast upon the walls.

"One shadow swung from a gallows. One laid on a rack, its arms stretched as thin as a cobweb above his head. One danced in a bed of fiery coals.

"The whisper told the woman that as her sons grew into men the loss of their innocence had multiplied their sins.

"The woman vowed, there and then, she'd spare her remaining children, and the other children in the world, from the tortures she saw inflicted on the shadows.

"She marched her last sons to the sea, and held their heads beneath the waves until their feet lay still and their hands went limp.

"Every year, on the anniversary of their deaths, The Veiled Lady's funeral carriage rattles over the hills and she delivers coffins to all the deserving girls and boys. The end."

"Hey! You forgot the horses and-"

"Go to sleep."

"You think she'll ever bring coffins to Hobbins Glenn?"

Joruhm yawned. "If she does... I hope your name's on the lid."

A Nouveau riche American, whose face Herbert knew, but whose name escaped recollection, leaned up against the listing rail. A Bostonian, no doubt, based on the distinctive slur of his vowels. The brash boom of the man's voice and the choice of his words both hearty in expression and opinion, and as bitter as a German Lager.

"What are the odds? Hundreds of miles of ocean. Near perfect weather. Record speed. Forty-six thousand tons of the best in human engineering, and you'd think this floating palace was cobbled together with sixpenny nails and biscuit tins instead of plates of riveted steel. The Titanic, sunk by a hunk of ice. About as preposterous as Atlantis rising up and out of the water and ascending into Heaven before our very eyes."

Herbert palmed his father's watch.

Two hours ago he'd been drowsy and relaxed, contemplating the inevitable confrontation with his matchmaking mother, catching up on correspondence, and enjoying a nightcap in his room.

The vibration had quivered the floorboards beneath his slippered feet. The constant, almost soothing, whir of the Titanic's colossal, steam powered, single turbine and twin reciprocating engines strained by a series of faint, light taps and gentle bumps grinded along her hull.

Herbert had paused, the moistened flap of an envelope rested on his tongue. His spoon had rattled on its saucer. A wispy-warm, amber-tinted mix of brandy and Earl Grey tremored into tiny ripples inside his teacup.

He'd lain the envelope on the desk, fumbled for his fob, and watched thirty seconds tick off the clock before the shimmying sensation and scraping sound seemed to slide backward and fade away altogether.

If his father’s Wall Street gains and losses had taught him anything it was that fortunes were banked, and squandered, in less time than it’d taken for the shuddering to cease and the engines to ease back into the normal rythm of their audible throb. Half a minute out of the ordinary was a lifetime for a ship.

Herbert had tugged his trousers over his silk pajama bottoms. The day had been sunny and cool, but the evening air bone chilling and brisk, bolstered by an incoming cold front. He'd opted for an extra pair of socks and the heavier of his two woolen coats.

Dressed, certainly not to impress, but suitably unscandalous, he'd made a quick dash into the hall and out onto the main deck to satisfy his curiosity and dismiss any lingering, unsettling notions before he retired to bed.

The Atlantic was flat, its countenance was calm. The sea's smooth, glassy surface polished with a glistened sheen and dotted with pinpoints of light that twinkled brighter than the stars scattered across the black velvet of the moonless sky.

A small group of men had already assembled on the starboard side of the ship, stalwart members of the night owl crowd. These gentlemen were still attired in their dinner best, brandy and cigars in hand, and were engaged in a discussion over the height of an object they had seen that had drawn them from the smoking lounge.

“I'm telling you it was at least ninety feet tall."

"First it's fifty, then it's seventy-five, now it's ninety. Make up your collective minds, or I shall be inclined to disregard your estimations as a load of bull-scented falsies."

“I didn't see anything.”

“Neither did the lookouts, else we wouldn’t have hit it.”

For several moments there'd been a rather jovial debate about who among them had a grandmother with a keener sense of visual accuity than the men deployed in the crow's nest under contract to the White Star Line.

But, that the vessel had run across a glacial mass was a point on which each man, Herbert included, wholeheartedly agreed. The evidence of just such a collision was strewn across the planks in fist-sized chunks of fractured ice that had fallen onto the deck to mark the object's passing.

A rolling rumble echoed deep within the bowels of the ship.

Herbert coiled the fob around a belt loop and secured it with a double knot.

The Bostonian was right. An iceberg. What were the odds?