by Diana Renn
Aunt Jackie beamed as she thanked everyone. But Mom watched her with a concerned expression. As soon as everyone finished their drinks, she steered Aunt Jackie toward the path as if she were suddenly breakable. “Now let’s get you out of this heat,” she said.
“Take this,” Ingrid said, handing Aunt Jackie a walking stick. “You might notice your balance is off now that you’re pregnant. I remember feeling that way with my first.”
“I feel fine,” Aunt Jackie protested. “Well, mostly. All the books I’m reading talk about this surge of energy you’re supposed to get in the second trimester. I’m looking forward to that.”
“I just want you on safer ground,” Mom insisted, frowning. “What if you fell? Here. Take my arm.”
“And let me carry that for you,” said Sage, taking the now-empty golden urn.
“Thank you,” said Aunt Jackie with a grateful smile at Sage.
Sage hesitated a moment, cradling the urn in her arms almost as if it were a newborn child. She looked from the urn to Aunt Jackie with an expression full of emotion that I couldn’t read. I wondered if she was thinking about her brother and her own fragmented family.
Then, in the next moment, her expression was cheerful again. Sage’s moods were like the birds Nils and Ingrid were always looking for: a flash of bright feathers, a rustle of movement. Before you could fully register what you’d glimpsed, it was gone.
Single file except for Mom and Aunt Jackie, we all headed down the narrow dirt path that led back to the stone staircase.
This time Sage and I trailed behind everyone else. Sage walked in front of me, slowly, holding the urn in both hands as if it were a precious artifact instead of a teaching tool.
“You’ll have to rescue me in Istanbul next week,” I said. “I want to help my aunt, of course, but I can’t be stuck in a hotel all the time.”
“Of course! Which hotel?”
“Hotel Mavi Konak. It’s in Old Istanbul.”
“Ah. The Blue House. I can remember that name.”
“It’s not really blue.” I’d seen a postcard once; the hotel was a cream-colored building. “She has business cards with her. You should take one. Hey. Speaking of business.” I smiled as an idea hit me. “My aunt might need an au pair, so she can keep working after the baby comes. What if you came back to Turkey and worked for her?”
Sage paused mid-step. She turned and looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Wow. You think? That’s genius! Maybe I could ask her.”
“I don’t know if she could pay very much, though.”
“Even room and board would be great.”
“Yeah, maybe you could find some kind of work on the side. That paid money. Like translation. Or teaching English,” I offered.
“Right. Right.” Sage turned around again and walked faster now, as if fueled by the thought. “I think you’re on to something, Zan. I’m getting all kinds of ideas.”
“You could work at the hotel at night,” I suggested. “Or you could give local tours to guests, since you know so much about Turkish history.”
“Yes! Perfect! That’d be—”
Suddenly she tripped on a crumbling stone step. She pitched forward and fell off the steps to the narrow border of ground on the right side of them. She skidded for a few feet, her hands scrabbling at the ground in an attempt to stop the downward slide. The urn flew out of her hands and sailed over the cliffside, where it tumbled over and over, glinting gold in the sunlight, toward an outcropping of rock, and out of my sight.
13
I rushed to help Sage up. “Are you okay?” I asked. Breathless and unable to speak, she only nodded. Her hands were skinned, bleeding a little, but she seemed more startled than injured.
“Oh my God. Where’s the urn?” she gasped, looking all around her.
“It fell over the cliffside.”
We both ran a few feet back, to the place where she’d tripped, and peered over the edge of the cliff. It was a sheer drop, broken up only by a triangle-shaped precipice covered with brambly bushes. Beneath that precipice was another nearly sheer drop of cliff wall, then a pile of jagged boulders. Beyond that was the sea.
I felt sick and dizzy all at once. Partly because the urn was gone, and partly because I couldn’t help thinking of Uncle Berk falling to his death. For the first time, I really thought about it: what it must have felt like for him to lose his footing, whether or not he had been pushed. The terror of sliding and not knowing when or if you would stop.
The terror of stopping.
The silence, after.
Mom and Aunt Jackie backtracked up the hill and joined us.
That’s when Sage started to shake. Her eyes glistened as she explained what had happened. “I’m so, so sorry!” she finished.
“It’s okay. It was an accident,” said Aunt Jackie, reaching out and rubbing Sage’s arm. “It could have been so much worse. You could have gone over the edge of the cliff. I don’t understand why they can’t put a railing up along this staircase.”
“But I wasn’t paying attention. I shouldn’t have been carrying something so important.” Sage wiped away tears, leaving a streak of dirt across her face. “I’m going to go look for it. Right now.” She took a step off the stairs. A small avalanche of pebbles skittered down.
“No, don’t,” I said, pulling her back from the edge.
“Zan’s right. It’s too dangerous,” said Aunt Jackie. “Maybe it made it all the way to the bottom of this part of the hillside. We can look around there, near the trailhead.”
“Do you think it’s intact?” Mom asked doubtfully.
“It’s gold-plated, not solid gold,” Aunt Jackie reminded us. “It won’t get too dented. There’s a chance the handles could break off. But we’re breakable, all of us, so let’s not take any unnecessary risks. We’ll stick to the path for now.”
We descended the rest of the stone staircase. The hill became a little less steep, and at a bench beneath the shade of a tree, just off the path, we caught up with Fiona and Alice, who were taking a water break.
Sage rushed up to them. “I tripped and dropped an urn that Jackie used for the ceremony,” she said. “It fell over the edge of the cliff way up there near the tombs, and fell in this direction, I think. Did you see it?”
“No, my dear,” said Alice. “I’m afraid my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”
“I did see something,” said Fiona. “Thought it might have been a bird swooping down at first, a hawk or something, but it was shiny. Maybe it was the urn.” She pointed to the triangle-shaped outcropping of rock jutting out of the middle of the hillside, the outcropping I’d noticed from higher up on the path. “It might have ended up there. That was the direction. But the sun was in my eyes. I’m not sure if it landed there or if it glanced off and went further down the cliff or in another direction altogether. Or even into the sea.”
Nils and Ingrid joined us, too, and then Milton and Maeve. Each of them said they’d seen a shiny object in flight. “I saw it go that way,” said Nils, pointing to the left of the base of the outcropping.
“I’m pretty sure it went that way,” Ingrid insisted, pointing to the right.
“A shame about that urn,” Milton said, turning to Aunt Jackie. “I’m sorry for you, dearie.”
“At least it wasn’t too valuable,” said Ingrid.
“Look. The whole ceremony was supposed to be about letting go. So I guess that’s what I’ve done. Let go.” Aunt Jackie laughed wryly. Then she gazed up at the cliffside again, with a hopeful expression, as if the urn might suddenly materialize.
“How can you say it wasn’t too valuable? It had sentimental value,” Maeve chided Ingrid. “It was a connection to Jackie’s late husband. We must search for it. Immediately. Before the heat does us all in.” She mopped her glistening face with a handkerchief.
“My Maeve doesn’t
let things go without a fuss,” Milton muttered to Nils. “You ought to see the state of our house. Had to travel halfway around the world to get away from the clutter.”
I glared at him. He didn’t need to put Maeve down like that. Besides, it was a good idea. “There are a lot of us,” I said. “We can cover more ground if we split up and look.”
“Exactly,” said Maeve. “Divide and conquer!”
“I suppose we could,” said Aunt Jackie. “It’s not quite so steep here. Better to look up at the cliffside than to try to creep down it from the top. We could split up and walk in different directions and scan the cliffsides. It might have gotten caught in a bush or stopped by a rock. If you see anything shiny, sing out.”
“What is this we?” Mom asked. “You’re not going hiking around off the trail in this heat. You stay here in the shade. We’ve got this.”
Nils brandished his walking stick. “Ingrid and I will hike over to the left of that precipice, in case it went over.”
“If you’re all going left, Milton and I will look around the right side of the hill, at the base of the precipice,” said Maeve.
“I’ll look by the trailhead,” Fiona volunteered.
“I’ll join you,” said Mom, walking over to the Lobsters. “Girls, you come, too.”
“Zan and I can check out the front part of the precipice, where it sticks out,” said Sage, pointing. “Doesn’t it look like the front of a boat?”
Mom shook her head. “It looks too hard to get there. You have to climb over all those boulders at the base of it, and there’s all those scratchy-looking bushes.”
I rolled my eyes. “Mom. It’s like bouldering. I can go over those no problem.”
“And who knows, it might even have landed in those bushes,” Sage added.
Mom sighed. “All right. But be careful, girls. Give a shout if you find anything. We’ll just be on the other side of the precipice.”
We all set off toward it together, leaving Aunt Jackie and Alice on the shady bench. Then we split up and walked in our different directions. Sage and I made our way up the steepest part of the hill, grasping the prickly bushes to help pull ourselves up, and then we scrambled over the boulders. I kept my eyes on the ground, hoping to see a glint of gold peeking between the rocks. But I didn’t.
The boulders stopped about halfway up the precipice, leaving us at the base of a nearly vertical rock wall that rose about twenty feet straight up.
“I feel like the urn is up there,” Sage said, her eyes shining with excitement. “I can see, behind the steps where I tripped, because there’s that twisty tree growing out of a tomb. Looks like there’s some bushes up on top of this ledge. It could have landed in one.”
“Then we have to get up there.”
“But how? If we go back to the steps where I tripped and follow how it fell, we could slip and slide all the way down this hill. It’s way too dangerous.”
“You’re right, we can’t get to the ledge from above. But I can go up from here.” I tried to read the wall as if I were at the gym. Of course, at Burlington Boulders, everything was controlled: walls were sculpted by engineers; holds were manufactured from plastic, strategically attached, and routes set for a specific level of difficulty. The wall in front of me offered no such guidance or assurance. But there were some rock features jutting out here and there. I’d gotten to the advanced levels on top-rope climbs. I’d done climbs where holds were spaced far apart, or not directly on top of one another. Could this bouldering problem be so different? I put my foot up and reached out with one hand, when suddenly it hit me: This was totally different. With a wall height of twenty feet or so, this would be less like bouldering and more like free soloing. I’d be climbing twenty feet up with no safety rope, and a hard landing on jagged boulders if I fell.
“Zan, it’s not worth it,” said Sage. “If you fall, you could end up getting hurt. Or worse!”
“If it doesn’t feel safe, I’ll retreat,” I promised. I shook out my hands and tied my hair back in a ponytail with an elastic band from my wrist. I fought back a wave of nervous energy and tried to steady my thoughts. I knew I had good instincts; my climbing instructors had told me as much. I took risks, but not needless ones. And I had a good sense of my body and what it could do. Climbing walls was kind of like working puzzles, which I used to love as a kid. It was just a series of problems to solve. Also, I’d watched videos of some famous climbers online. The one thing that always struck me was the look of calm confidence on their faces. If I could just avoid feeling fear, I would be okay.
I reached up for my first hold. I put my right foot on an outcropping, wishing I had my rock shoes instead of sandals. The flexible rubber soles weren’t so bad—I could feel the rock through them—but I could tell my toes were going to get really scraped up. I reached for another hold, with my left hand. Push up, pull up. Push up, pull up. I could hear my climbing instructors’ words in my head as I ascended, coaching me along, helping me spot the best holds. I made sure not to rely too much on my fingers, using my core strength instead.
This was real climbing! Just me and the rock. I had to listen only to myself, my inner voice, and trust my feet.
A soft breeze caressed my skin. Hope filled me. Aunt Jackie’s urn could be up on that precipice. I might save the day! That would feel so much better than wrecking the day and disappointing people. I couldn’t wait to see the looks on Mom’s and Aunt Jackie’s faces when I presented them with the found urn.
“Oh my God, Zan! You’re amazing!” I heard Sage call. Her voice sounded far away, but it energized me. Feeling her eyes on me and enlivened by her admiration, I put more power into my limbs and sped up.
Push up, pull up. Now I was four feet . . . no, three feet . . . from reaching the top. Where I faced an interesting problem: how to haul myself up over the lip of the outcropping of rock. A gnarly tree root protruded from the sheer rock face a few feet away. If I leaned diagonally to the left, I could probably almost grab it. Yes! Now if I just reached a little farther, swung out my leg, and—
“Zan!” A shriek startled me. My left hand lost its hold. Stone that turned out not to be stone but a clod of dirt crumbled beneath my hand. Panting hard, throat dry, I scrabbled for a fresh handhold just as my left foot slipped.
“Sage? What happened? Did you see something?” I called down.
The shriek came again. And it wasn’t Sage—it was Mom. Gripping a secure rock edge, I looked down and saw her scrambling over the boulders at the base of the cliff wall, toward Sage. She’d left Milton and Maeve. “Alexandra Glazer! What the hell do you think you’re doing! Get down from there!” she shouted.
“I’m fine, Mom!” I called down. “I know what I’m doing!” What a nightmare. In front of Sage, Mom was acting like I was a misbehaving toddler.
“What? No! Absolutely no! This is a terrible decision! You will come down right this moment! Nothing is worth this kind of risk! Do you hear me? Zan!”
“Hey, you’d better come on down, Zan,” called Sage. “Your mom is freaking out.”
The fire I’d felt in my belly a moment ago, that pure energy, turned to black dust. I scaled back down the wall, feeling for the holds that had taken me up.
“I was so close,” I grumbled after I jumped the last three feet to the ground. “If the urn got caught in those bushes up there, we’ll never know it now.”
Mom glared at me. “Back to the boat. Now.”
“But oh my God, that was awesome, watching you climb,” Sage whispered, out of Mom’s earshot as Mom stomped back toward the path. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
I told her about Burlington Boulders as we descended the hill toward the harbor. It felt good to have done something that made Sage take notice of me. But I walked with empty hands and a heavy heart. I hadn’t saved the day at all. I hadn’t found the urn.
We gathered at the boat again, sw
eaty, exhausted, and empty-handed. Mom gave me an earful about my unsafe climb. Milton and Maeve said they’d seen no sign of the urn, and were giving up before they got heatstroke. Nils and Ingrid had no luck combing the rocky hillside either, nor did Fiona at the trailhead.
We all agreed the urn had most likely fallen into the ocean and already been swept out to sea. Aunt Jackie said everyone should just stop thinking about it. Still, I gazed up at the precipice with longing, hoping to glimpse the urn and prove I’d been on the right track. And yearning to be climbing again.
The Lycian Tours representative showed up soon after with news that seemed to cheer everyone up: the company would award them partial reimbursements for the guest speaker who had never appeared. Feeling celebratory, everyone went into Fethiye to use the restaurant vouchers. Sage came to eat with Mom, Aunt Jackie, and me. “The boat is getting just a little too close,” Mom confessed as we waved good-bye to the others and headed off for a café on the edge of the town. “Lovely people, but I think we could all use a little breathing room after this morning.”
When we all met up again back on the boat, Orhan told us that the afternoon excursion was ready for us: a guided tour of some nearby archaeological ruins.
Mom signed us up for the excursion. Inspired, others on the boat signed up, too. “Safety in numbers, eh?” muttered Milton. “You figure they can’t rip us all off at once, or drag us all to a carpet shop, right?” He inspected some long scratches that ran up and down his hairy arms.
Orhan immediately retrieved a first aid kit from under a bench and found some cream for Milton.
“We noticed the police and the coast guard are out and about,” said Maeve, helping Milton slather on the cream. “They’re all over this town.”
“Yeah, Zan and I saw police, too, from the top of the cliff this morning,” Sage said.
“We returned to the boat after lunch before you did, and there were three police officers here, along with a coast guard official. It was quite exciting,” Alice chimed in. “Orhan says they’re looking at passenger manifests and passport copies, just like they were in Marmaris. They haven’t caught those smugglers, evidently.”