Page 137 of The Pyramid of Bones
The five of them caught fish and cooked them over the fire. They played poker and gin rummy till sunset. In the dark, they formed a smores assembly line. Michael toasted marshmallows on a stick, cooked to order, options ranging from lightly browned to charred. Sarah held a graham cracker in each hand, and Lincoln placed a piece of chocolate on the bottom cracker. Sarah sandwiched the gooey mallow between the crackers and slid it off the stick. They devoured smores until the chocolate supply ran out.
Late in the night, the northern lights appeared. Walt nudged Michael and Sarah from their slumber. They all stood and gazed at magic.
Green wafts smothered the horizon. It looked impossible. Ribbons pinned loosely on one end, allowed to flutter, then released to tremble and drift on solar breezes. Purple rivulets dribbled out from unseen sources. Dusky oranges and midnight blues embellished the impossibility before them, like flowers blooming in colors they cannot bloom in, in ground they cannot grow in. Instead of cracking open light to bleed across the day’s sky, the artisan dropped the pigments into his pipe and puffed out clouds of incandescence. A nice way to unwind after a long day and dream up the next morning’s masterpiece.
The lake’s mimicry placed the show in two theaters. Michael and Sarah sat near the edge of the plateau and looked down on the simmering green broth. It was a witch’s stew – its potency obvious but purpose obscure. Maybe it was an elixir that granted its imbibers bliss. Maybe it could start or end a plague. Maybe it could summon the devil himself.
Michael excused himself to pee. He hiked a little up the ridge they came down to reach the plateau. When done, he noticed a small ledge a little further up. He wanted a better vantage, where he could see more of the lake, along with the sky.
Michael stood a few feet from the edge. The heavens matched the earth. He could see his party below and estimated the drop at about 15 feet. Walt, Sarah, Sam, and Lincoln glowed like pixies in absinthe air.
Where do we go when the earth starts shaking,
and the storm pulses your brain
to the click-clack of your teeth?
Well, just for a moment,
your soul blasts from your body like light exploded from stars,
long enough for your sizzling mind
to wonder if it will ever return
or float off on a one-way to ticket to torture or bliss or some other plane,
before it returns like a deep, sudden inhale.
Shield
The bullets were gone. So was the medicine.
“I’m too small,” my daughter complained. “I can’t go. I’m just a girl.”
“Your mind is a rifle,” I said, my skin clammy. “Your skin, a shield. Your bones, armor.”
“What good are mind and skin and bones 'gainst a bear that wants meat? ’Gainst snow that snatches warmth with a touch? ’Gainst men who crave both flesh and warmth?
“Books made you think you’re civilized. You’re not. You’re a girl, a human, a beast. As much as the bear with its strength and claws and teeth. The eagle’s flight, vision, talons, and beak. The cat with its stealth. The frog, lover of water and earth, and its tongue, and its leaps. All beasts have their powers, but none as powerful as yours, my girl. Your wits conquer all. They make you more vicious than any other creature.”
“I’ve never gone to town alone,” she said. “A full day’s walk in knee-deep snow. A night alone in the forest....The light dies so early in winter. And the night lasts so long.”
I awkwardly unwound the dressing on my thigh to explain. The pus bubbled a gross green around the wound, a clear message. Help, or I would not live long.
“My love,” I said. “I would not ask this, but at present, I see no options. Though I won't make you, and I won't lie to you. There is danger in the journey. But I wouldn't ask this, if you were not who you are. The young woman you’ve become. You are fierce, sweet pea, like a winter storm. You are a force of nature. Had you a different disposition, with a weak piece to you, I would not let you go.”
She looked at me, fiery and resolute, tempered by my words. My God, I could see her mother so clearly.
She nodded.
“At the wharf there's a place called ‘The Galley,’ owned by a man named Stones. He will give you food and water, and help you procure the medicine I need. Have him come back with you, with more supplies than you can carry. Ask for him by name and tell him I’m your father. As a test of identity, ask him what got caught in our netting off the coast of Greenland?”
“What’s he s’posed to say?”
“A baby seal. White as clouds. We pulled it up and let it out. Fed it some fish and let it play around the deck awhile, then slipped it back in the water. It weren't old enough yet to be wary. Not like you.”
My daughter packed wares, dressed thick, and met dawn in stride.
Stones was a good man. He’d look after her.