Kiss the Sky

by MK Schiller

  Farah shook her head. “She didn’t blame you, Tristan.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because no mother would put that on a child. This burden isn’t yours to carry.”

  “It’s my duty to him.” His voice became thicker before it trailed off. He stopped and became very still. “I’m here to fulfill my promise the only way I can. I know no one else understands my reasoning, but I don’t care.”

  “I understand it.” She reached up and took off his goggles. She wanted to touch him just then. Jealous Goddess of the Mountain be dammed. She needed to feel his skin on her fingertips. To hold him. She took off her glove and gently placed her hand on his cheek. He leaned into her palm. She wiped away his tear. “Let it go,” she whispered.

  His shoulders shook. He buried his head inside her neck. They stayed locked in the embrace for a long time. In those moments, the connection between them grew. She absorbed his anger, guilt, depression, and hopelessness. It was him in the dark place now. The emotion came in wave after turbulent wave, raw and painful.

  Then it eased. He backed away. He tilted her chin to meet his bloodshot eyes. He inhaled a deep breath. “Thank you. I feel lighter.” He took her hand and pressed it over his heart. “Right here.”

  “I wish I could make things better for you.”

  “What makes you think you don’t?” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “We should head back.”

  “Yes, we should. It’s getting dark. We need our rest.”

  They were quiet on the walk back, each lost in their thoughts. When the lights of base camp came into their sights, he took her hand to stop her.

  “You were humming that song the first time we met at the shop in Islamabad.”

  “The song?”

  “‘Landslide.’ I kept trying to place it.”

  It seemed like such an inconsequential detail. “How do you remember that?”

  “Because there is nothing about you that’s forgettable, that’s why.”

  She’d read once that falling in love with someone made you feel like you were on top of the world. Since she was quite literally at the top of the world already, she wondered what would happen to her.

  Would she just float away?

  She had no idea.

  All she knew was that tomorrow they would both kiss the sky.

  She was sure of it.

  Chapter 17

  They woke early, before the sun even made an appearance. Today was going to be a good day, Tristan thought.

  They would stand upon one of the highest places on earth. Tristan described himself as a spiritual cynic, a man who meditated but never prayed, but he thought he might just be close enough to heaven that he could catch a glimpse of Drew and his mother.

  They would have to be quick and efficient to make the journey from Camp Four to the apex and back before dark. Once the sun faded, it would be difficult to find their way in the dark, cold night. He hoped all the weeks of preparation had paid off.

  “Weather?” he asked Malcolm, who was in charge of getting the reports from their forecasting company.

  “It’s clear.”

  Edelweiss clapped his hands, the sound echoing across the serene landscape. “Well then, gentlemen…” He turned to Farah. “And lady, let us depart.”

  “You’re in good spirits,” Tristan said as they geared up.

  “I’ve done my duty to my bloodline.”

  Tristan frowned. He’d kept his distance from the Edelweiss fiasco. He would not let the man ruin this day.

  “I wasn’t planning to summit today,” Edelweiss said. “But I’m feeling quite well and Malcolm convinced me. I’m so close it would be a shame to stop now.”

  “You shouldn’t come if you have doubts,” Tristan said.

  Edelweiss fixed him with a steely gaze. “I have no doubts.”

  Edelweiss had seemed to get a second wind during this leg of the trip. He wasn’t even relying on the oxygen that much. Tristan decided not to waste his breath or energy on the man.

  Farah smiled at him. “Safe travels. I’ll see you at the top,” she said, adjusting her goggles.

  “Same to you.”

  He focused on the climb. Uphill climbing was the most difficult and labor intensive. The thin atmosphere made it difficult to draw in deep breaths. Energy was at a premium, and they could not waste it with idle chitchat. They focused on their task, each lost in their own thoughts. He scaled it, one step at a time, each rise growing more difficult, his limbs getting heavier as the air grew thinner.

  They had decided the night before they would place the most skilled climbers in the front and back to keep the line moving at a decent pace. Being the fastest, Ahmed led them with Farah behind him. Malcolm, Lino, Bjorn, and Edelweiss followed. Being the strongest, Tristan anchored them. It gave him the unique vantage to spot trouble up ahead and call an audible if needed. On the way back, they decided they would change up the order, letting Malcolm lead and Rana anchor. They used the fixed ropes Tristan and Farah had anchored into the ice to guide them.

  He thought about Bjorn’s advice and his wise words earlier in the trip. The man was right. It wasn’t the summit. It was all the beauty that surrounded him and the moments he spent with a passionate girl that he would hold in his heart. Now that he was close, though, he had to fulfill his promise to Drew. The promise he’s made to Farah too, when she allowed him to join the group. He said he would get both of them to the top. He intended to make good on the vow. The thoughts diminished as he got closer. His senses took over and his body relied on instinct. Still, he watched her, a small figure in orange high above him.

  I love her, Drew. I love her so much.

  I know, bro. Just wondered when you’d figure it out.

  Keep her safe for me.

  Will do.

  He heard Ahmed call out when he took the final steps onto the summit. Each climber joined him one by one. Most of them fell to their knees after they took the final step to the apex. Tristan didn’t turn his attention to the ground though. He looked toward the sky. He noticed Farah did the same. She had tears in her eyes.

  “We’re here,” he said, wiping her tear with his glove.

  “You promised me we’d get here, and we did. And guess what?”

  “What?”

  “The sky does kiss back,” she said. “I felt it.”

  “Yeah? Good kisser? Should I be jealous?”

  “Maybe.” Ice clung to her hair and she smiled, almost wide enough for the dimples. He knew every bone in her body rang out in pain and joy and relief. He knew this because his body was reacting the same way. The elation was something that couldn’t be described in words. They were in the place where heaven and earth met. He held her, the woman he loved. That made the moment perfect.

  Lino and Bjorn hugged. Malcolm let out an exuberant scream and actually did a whole I’m-the-king-of-the-world DiCaprio impression. Lame. Rana was solemn. Edelweiss cried. And Farah. Well, Farah did what she said she would. She tilted her head and closed her eyes. She prayed.

  Adrenaline pumped through his veins, rushing harder than the Ganges during monsoon season. They stood at the cruising altitude of a 747. Goddamn, if it wasn’t the most amazing feeling in the world.

  After the initial shock of being on top of the world, the climbers began documenting the summit with their cameras and notebooks. Farah snapped several pictures. Each of them posed on top of the mountain with the flags of their respective countries. Malcolm and Tristan held the stars and stripes between them. Farah and Ahmed held up the banner with a white crescent moon and a five-pointed star on a green field that was the Pakistani flag. Bjorn stood with the Swedish Flag and Lino with Italy’s banner. Hell, they looked like a consortium of United Nations delegates…but with less fighting.

  Tristan took his camera and angled it at her. He snap
ped shot after shot of her taking in the amazing sight without her knowledge. He wanted to remember this moment. The way her hair whipped wildly around her face, strands of it crystallized from the snow. Her cheeks had a reddish glow. The perfect O of her mouth. The triumphant smile complete with dimples. She took off her goggles. Her violet eyes shined bright and fiery. God help him, if she didn’t rival the view.

  “What did you pray for, milady?” Tristan asked.

  “Why do you call me ‘milady’?”

  “Cause it fits you.” That wasn’t the right answer, but how could he really explain something he didn’t understand himself? “Answer my question.”

  She took a few breaths before answering him. “I thanked the Goddess of the Mountain for letting us see this. I prayed she will be merciful to us on our way home.”

  She was right to pray for it. They no longer focused on climbing. They focused on surviving now.

  He was reminded of the Gilkey memorial and how many of those mountaineers perished on the descent. Many of them had stood where he was standing, but they had not made it home to tell their tales.

  Tristan adjusted her goggles back over her eyes. At these altitudes, being so close to the sun, it was possible for a person to go blind.

  “We should head back now,” Malcolm said. “We’re running behind.”

  Tristan gestured to them. “You guys get started.”

  Malcolm pointed to the skyline. “It will be dark before we know it. We’re an hour behind.”

  How had they lost a whole hour? Tristan looked at the sun, still at a high arc. “I’m right behind you.”

  Malcolm gestured to Farah. “Ready?”

  “One second,” Farah said. She held up her camera indicating she wanted to snap a few more photos.

  “I’ll start down,” Rana said.

  “I’m leading,” Malcolm responded, shaking his head. He turned toward Tristan and Farah. “Let’s go.”

  “I need a bit,” Tristan said.

  “I say we head down right now.”

  “What does it matter?” Rana asked.

  “We already decided this,” Malcolm said. “I’m lead on the descent.”

  Rana grimaced. “That is your position on the climb. I am the leader of this group.”

  “You know what I mean. We’re losing time.”

  “Just start already.” Rana sighed or maybe he took a deep breath. Tristan wasn’t sure anymore. “He’s right.” Ahmed clapped Tristan on the back. “See you soon, Sinclair.”

  Tristan hugged the man. “Thank you for getting me here.”

  “You’re welcome, brother.”

  Tristan didn’t have the appropriate words to express his gratitude. He made an oath to thank Rana properly and give him a bonus to use for his sisters’ tuition payments and dowries.

  “You’re a good man, Sinclair. I could not have chosen a better man.”

  “Same to you, brother.”

  “Let’s go,” Malcolm said as he grabbed on to the fixed rope.

  Tristan almost growled. Maybe he would have if he could have caught his breath better. “In a few minutes. I can take care of myself.”

  “Fine.” Malcolm turned to Farah.

  Tristan said, “She can take care of herself too.”

  Malcolm looked unsure, like he wanted to argue with Tristan, but his breathing had grown stiffer. In the end, he took hold of the rope and moved down. Wise choice.

  Ahmed began his descent. Edelweiss, Bjorn, and Lino followed him, each of the men bidding a short good-bye to the summit. Farah took a few more pictures before she lowered the camera. “Do you want me to stay?” she asked.

  “I have to do this on my own.”

  “Do what you came here to do, but don’t be long.” She pointed to her watch. “Tempus fugit.”

  Just when he thought she couldn’t be any smarter, she hit him with Latin.

  He took her face in his hands. This was the perfect moment to tell her how he felt, but he could barely form words, let alone the right words. If he could, he might tell her how his world was better because she was in it. Instead, he smiled and pressed his lips gently to her forehead. “I’ll see you soon.”

  She grabbed a hold of the fixed rope and followed the others down. The sunlight dimmed too quickly for his liking. He rifled through his pack, searching for the small canister he’d carried every day of this journey. Carefully, he unclasped the jar.

  He didn’t speak aloud, but said the words in his head. We made it, little brother. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you when you needed me the most, but I thank God I can fulfill your final wish. I don’t know if you can hear me, Drew, but I think you can. I feel very close to you right now.

  He turned the jar over. The dust swirled in the air before settling in the snow. “Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.” Tristan could see straight through the clouds. Nothing but mountaintops and dusky sky surrounded him. “You’re gonna have the most amazing view.”

  He repacked the empty jar and then walked to the edge. He saw the others descending at a steady pace, at least a hundred yards below him. They were making quick time. He turned and buried his crampons into the ice to begin his own descent. A combination of exhaustion and elation, the likes of which he’d never known, surged in every fiber of his being. He looked for the fixed rope.

  He blinked his eyes, searching. Where the hell was the rope?

  That’s when he heard it.

  The scream sounded distant at first, so distant he thought it was a trick of the elevation, a raspy wind echoing through the rifts. But it wasn’t. The sound was human. A man’s scream. No, scratch that. The scream of several men.

  And one other.

  Farah.

  Chapter 18

  Reflexes took over. Tristan worked his way down. He used his ice axes and crampons to lower himself. Something had gone terribly wrong. He craned his head back. He couldn’t see them. They shouldn’t be that far down he couldn’t see them. He yelled for them, calling each of their names, drawing out the syllables in Farah.

  No response.

  He descended faster, ignoring the burn in his legs and arms. The mountain was too slick and steep to rush down. He would break his neck if he fell. But he went as fast as he could without letting gravity have the upper hand. Thoughts jumbled in his head. Had a serac fallen on them? It had happened before. Surely, he would have heard it. Was it an avalanche? Did someone simply slip and take the others with them? A million possibilities occurred to him. With each prospect, his heart beat so fast he thought it might rip out of his chest. But he already knew the answer. The damn rope had come loose.

  “Farah!”

  Nothing. Not even the fucking wind responded.

  He came to an area with punctured ice and the empty holes where the screws he’d put in once stood. He turned on the headlamp on his helmet and looked below him again. He saw nothing but ice and snow and rock.

  As an experienced climber, he didn’t let panic overcome him, but he felt it on his heels, at the back of his neck, in the grip of his hands. In the painful aching dread building in his gut, so raw and intense he could not define it.

  Please God, not her.

  “Farah,” he called out, unsure if he’d actually said it aloud.

  He heard a sound, but it was too far away to be Farah. Maybe it was the Mountain Goddess laughing against the wind. Or his mind playing cruel tricks. Time was a funny thing at high elevations. It could create fake landscapes just like a desert mirage. It could have been minutes or hours or days that passed while he tried to find his group. The light grew dim.

  He called her name again.

  She sounded closer this time.

  “Is that you? What happened?”

  Nothing but a faint cry.

  Tristan descended the last few feet until he was level
with them. Farah lay on the snow at an odd angle, hanging onto her ice axes. Malcolm was a few feet lower, some rope tangled around his feet. “The screws gave out,” Malcolm said. “They all fell.”

  She was parallel to him, her head buried against the ice, her body slack, a trail of blood around her.

  The angle was difficult. If someone lost their grip, they could easily fall right off the edge. He saw her, parallel to him, her head buried against the ice, her body slack, a trail of blood around her.

  No. No. No. No.

  “Farah, look at me.”

  Then the slightest movement from her released what felt like a million pounds of tension. He struggled to grip her, the tilt of her body awkward and unsteady. “Give me your hand.”

  She lifted her head slowly, as if the weight was too much for her. She reached her hand out. He grabbed her arm and pulled her against him.

  “Where are you hurt?”

  “I’m okay,” she said, almost like a question rather than a statement.

  The hell she was. With one hand on his ice axe, he loosened her helmet and took off her goggles. He needed to assess her injuries. She had a small gash on her head. A rock must have hit her.

  “The others?” she asked.

  “We have to get lower,” he said, not knowing how to answer her question. He thought she might have a concussion.

  He looked down at Malcolm again. “Malcolm, can you move?”

  “The rope… It caught my leg. Fuck, I think it’s broken.”

  He might as well have said he died. Tristan took a deep breath. Even through the thick layers of clothing, he felt Farah shaking. Her hot tears cooled as they made contact with his cheek.

  She was thinking about the others. Mourning them. She’d heard their screams as they plunged. Maybe she’d even seen the succession of them falling, arms grasping as the darkness claimed them. She was coming unraveled.

  He leaned closed to her ear so she could hear him clearly. “Farah, I need your help. If we’re gonna make it, we have to work together. Focus on me, on where we are, and what we need to do. Can you do that for me?” Although the thoughts came fast and frenzied, somehow, he had found the energy to make his voice calm. Calm for her.