Crossroads with Half the Information

by Topaz Hauyn

  Marion needed the blue snow flowers, growing on top of the highest mountain for the antidote she was known for. Like her mother and grandmother had needed them and been known for before her. She had lost both to the mountains, and if she wasn’t careful, her daughter, only three years old, would lose her mother the same way.

  The bag was tightly bound on her back to not have a chance of catching any way. She wore the warmest garments that could be found in their village.

  Usually nobody needed warm clothes anymore, thanks to the global warming. Only she needed them to climb the mountain, which, miraculously, was still covered with snow, while rarely any other mountain around the world wore white hats.

  It wouldn’t be a long climb.

  If she walked at a brisk pace, always minding the ground, so it wasn’t as brisk as it would be on the earth ground back in her village, she would reach the last part mid-morning. From there she had to climb to reach the top at lunch and hurry to be back down before dawn. Prying and hoping the hooks would still be there.

  Marion pushed a strand of her black hair behind her ear and marched forward.

  One hand, wrapped into woven plant fibers, running along the snow covered wall of the mountain. A way to stay near the wall and not accidentally hitting it. Always feeling for snow which was loose and a threat to fall and block the path. Or worse, pull her down along with its fall.

  Marion didn’t like the semi-darkness down here. If she could, she would stop climbing. But the antidote was an important trade good for her village. With the money it earned her, she could buy enough food, to feed not only her and her daughter but all the children living there.

  All six of them.

  The snow scrunched under her shoes.

  The sun rays moved closer to her over the white surface. The temperature was low enough to hurt her checks and bite her nose. Even her eyelashes ached from the cold.

  Marion kept walking all morning, until she reached the spot, where the path ended. A narrow rock plateau, protruding out of the mountain. Old stories, told by the oldest people in the evenings, said, that decades ago there had been people visiting their village, paying the men to guide them up the mountain. Not to find the blue flower.

  No.

  Only to look around and boast with having been up there.

  An unnerving feeling crept over her arms, up her shoulders. She shuddered.

  Most stories told, talked about people vanishing on the top of the mountain. Some assumed they fell off the top and died, others whispered gods did pick them up into their ranks.

  Marion preferred the first explanation.

  She had found the dead, broken body of her mother and knew her mother had found those of her grandmother. No supernatural power at work. Just bad luck and a sudden storm or a step into the wrong direction.

  She looked up into the blue sky murmuring low and wishing the blessing of any deity that might exist and guard the mountain, for her tour today.

  Marion didn’t believe in deities. But asking for their support couldn’t be an error.

  She took a long breath and wanted to continue walking the last steps to the place where she started climbing.

  She didn’t walk forward.

  Instead, after hovering one foot mid-air for a moment, she put it back down. A bit to the side to stabilize herself more. Just in case the shadow wanted to attack. Not that it mattered. She didn’t have a chance to survive a battle up here.

  Shout out lout and you could start an avalanche. Stomp and do the same. Misstep and you fall.

  Marion watched, against the sunlight, how the black shape came closer. Slow and without hesitation. It looked a bit like a human, walking on two legs, but the upper body was somewhat like a rectangle.

  She shuddered. Not from the cold that still bite her into her nose. Her legs wobbled.

  She had to survive.

  For her daughter.

  Since the father left the village a year ago, to find luck elsewhere, she had nobody left who would look after her girl.

  Her heart beat hard.

  The snow crunched under the step of the other being.

  The air tasted cold and icy. No wind was around giving her a scent.

  Marion stepped back one step. Then another. Then she was at the end of the protruding rock plateau. Any further, and she had to watch the narrow path. There she couldn’t walk backwards.

  “What are you?”, Marion asked with a low voice, yet loud enough it could be heard by the other being.

  “Stop and introduce herself”, she requested.

  She was breathing fast. Would the other being stop and listen? Did it speak her language? Should she repeat herself in one of the less common, local dialects? But which one? She didn’t speak all of them.

  The other being stopped, right after stepping onto the protruding platform. It sighted heavily, bent forward and put something rectangular down.

  “God. Bill! Don’t do that again to me”, said the other person.

  Without the thing the upper half looked more like a human being. “I pay you to guide me, not to leave me alone and scare me to death, when I come back to the sleeping place.”

  Marion stared. Her mouth half open, despite the cold. Her tongue hurt from the cold.

  She closed her mouth. What was this woman talking about? She wasn’t called Bill.

  Wait.

  Marion blinked.

  She was paying someone called Bill to guide her? Was she one of those missing people from the past?

  No way!

  “I’m Marion”, said Marion. “Who are you?”

  Surely it was another woman from one of the villages in these mountains. Maybe some of the younger ones who found it funny to scare others and fool around.

  She put her hands on her hips.

  She wasn’t a woman people could fool around with.

  “Lilianna. Nice to meet you”, said Lilianna.

  The sun was still behind her. Marion couldn’t see the face of Lilianna.

  “Did you see Sid or Bill?”, asked Lilianna. “They are my tour guides. They waited shortly under the top of the mountain, because they said it’s cursed or something. But they weren’t there, when I climbed back down.”

  Lilianna.

  Marion knew that name. It was one of those names who got missing on the mountain. One of the names they never used for naming the children, because it was considered bad luck, being named after one of those.

  “Okay. Stop messing around with me”, said Marion. “Which village are you from? Your dialect is off. I’m not in the mood to fool around.”

  “I’m from Rome”, said Lilianna, “not from a village around.”

  She didn’t sound like she was making a joke. But Rome didn’t exist anymore. It was under sea level now. After the North Pole melted completely and most of the South Pole.

  Marion’s heart beat faster. This couldn’t be. Time travel wasn’t possible. Nobody of the missing ones had ever shown up again, and there had been more before that woman who got lost. And after.

  “This is 2245 A.C.”, said Marion. “Rome doesn’t exist anymore. Are you sure you don’t try to fool me?”

  She watched the other woman. The dialect didn’t fit and the names, Sid and Bill, didn’t either. And she had seen enough strange things in her life. Like the blue flower that only grew on top of this mountain. In the snow. It was impossible and despite that, it was there.

  Marion looked up at the sun. She didn’t have the whole day to discuss. She needed to get going.

  “You know what? If you want, you can wait here. I’m going up to get the flowers I need”, said Marion. “When I come back, I can take you down to the village with me.”

  The other woman didn’t answer, but stepped aside.

  Marion walked past her.

  “You are collecting the blue forget-me-not on the top?”, asked Lilianna from behind her.

  Marion nodded and kept walking. But before she walked around the next bent, she looked back over he
r shoulder. The woman was still there. She looked after her. The sun reflected from her blond hair like it did from the snow crystals.

  Marion had never seen blond hair in her life. Everyone around, in all the villages she knew, had black hair, like herself.

  Lilianna sat on her backpack, leaned against the cold, icy wall behind her.

  The woman, who had introduced herself as Marion, had vanished around the bent she herself had walked down minutes before. A woman with black hair like her guides, but no real winter gear. She wore shoes out of branches and leaves and her clothes looked similar. Rough woven fabric, wrapped around her body multiple times.

  Did she fall off the path and was now in another world? Maybe the afterlife? Or did she hallucinate?

  Really. No one who was sane would climb the mountains to harvest blue flowers just wrapped into some rough clothes and no real shoes.

  Wait.

  Marion wanted to harvest the blue flower?

  So, at least, she hadn’t imagined that forget-me-not. Or, her hallucination started right there, on top of the mountain.

  Where were her guides?

  Marion had said she didn’t know people of that name and offered to show her the way back down. It had sounded like she planned on climbing down today. All the way. Which was stupid. It took them three days of hiking the snow paths to reach this spot. She couldn’t really mean all the way down.

  Lilianna considered her options.

  She could follow the woman back up. But she was tired.

  She could unpack her tent and stay overnight. It had worked last night, it would work another night. But she didn’t know the way. To her, everything was the same white snow. To her guides, especially Sid, there had been a difference. One he had tried to show her. In vain. She hadn’t comprehended his explanation.

  Thus, she had to accept the offer and follow the woman.

  Aside from her bizarre clothes, she seemed nice and helpful enough.

  The sun moved. First it touched her face, and she covered her eyes with the sunglasses she brought. Then it continued wandering across the sky.

  How long would Marion need to pluck the single forget-me-not from the top? What if she needed help?

  Lilianna remembered the rusty hooks.

  No matter how tired her feet were, she would return and see, if the badly equipped woman needed help.

  She picked up her backpack and put it on her back, fastening the chest and hip bands to avoid it moving around. She took in a long breath. The air seemed to be colder now, with the sun slowly moving and the shadows of the mountains falling on her path.

  Lilianna made the few steps to the end of the rock platform she stood on. The snowy path laid ahead of her.

  At that moment, Marion appeared from around the bent. She smiled and walked briskly towards her.

  “God. You’re alive and back”, said Lilianna. She felt her heart returning to its normal pace. She hadn’t realized it had beaten faster till now.

  “Sure, why not?”, asked Marion. “I climb those mountains for years. Come on, lets walk.”

  Lilianna turned and walked back to the middle of the platform.

  Marion walked past her and continued walking, without looking back.

  “Shouldn’t we better camp here for the night?”, asked Lilianna.

  Marion just shook her head.

  Lilianna sighted. She had already decided to trust that strange woman, but the first step felt like walking through a pool of jelly. Hard and holding her back. The second step was easier and some time later she could follow Marion easily. So long, as she didn’t try to understand the woman.

  The mountains looked different than they had, on her way up.

  Was it the light that was different? Or was it the woman she was following, who changed it for her?

  “Are you sure, you didn’t meet my guides?”, asked Lilianna for the third or fourth time.

  “Sure”, said Marion. “Wait till we’re down, then we can talk. The gods hate noise in their realms.”

  The same answer she already got.

  Gods, realms, what a crazy description for the mountains. They were rocks covered with snow. No gods. And the noise consisted of sound waves which moved the snowflakes, until enough were moved to slide down.

  A nagging thought in Lilianna’s mind kept her occupied. She didn’t recognize the mountains around here. Either she was walking down a different path, or someone played a mind trick with her. She couldn’t believe she might be dead, because then she wouldn’t feel the cold anymore. Right?

  And suddenly, it wasn’t as cold anymore.

  She blinked.

  The light was more like a twilight, and she couldn’t be sure of what she saw, but it wasn’t snow.

  There was a brown place ahead of her. Warmth was coming from the place and all around it, like it was a central place or something. Around stood houses. Houses which were set into the branches of narrow trees and all had rope ladders leading up to the entrances.

  Lilianna looked around. She half expected to see a fire and some natives, but the spot was empty. Except for Marion, who turned around and put down one layer of cloth, she wore.

  “Welcome to my village”, said Marion. “You can stay with me tonight. I just have to go and get my daughter.”

  Lilianna gaped at her, not knowing what to say.

  There surely hadn’t been a village that high. The next village was two more days down the mountain. Neither was there an even spot or trees. The treeline was also two days down.

  She must be dreaming.

  Lilianna opened her jacked. She was sweating. She pinched herself in her neck. It hurt. She didn’t sleep.

  Marion returned, with a child on her hip. She picked up the fabric and waved her to follow.

  Lilianna fought not to lose sight of her. The light was fading quickly and the brown surface and the trees became the same color.

  The warmth of her girl against her hip grounded Marion.

  She was back. Safe and sound. She was happy. She even got enough of the blue flowers to make two times the amount of antidote she needed to sell. Therefore, she could pass on the next trip and stay safe at home, playing with her child, looking after the plants, growing and storing food.

  Only the stranger was something she had to deal with. But Lilianna didn’t look like she was trouble. More like she was lost. And given the stories, she was lost. A traveler from the past, thrown into a future she didn’t know.

  Given the clothes and things she wore, she came from a very different time. None of the stories Marion could recall ever mentioned clothing. Thus, she had assumed, the people in the past had worn the same things she did. Undyed plant fibers, woven to fabric at home, or traded with other goods, like seeds to grow food. She didn’t even know how to name those flashy colors of Lilianna’s jacket and trousers. They were bright and like the sky. Blue at noon, red at dawn. But not quite the same shade. Her footwear was equally weird, and she was glad the woman could walk in it. She couldn’t imagine how that might work.

  Maybe she could find out?

  “Climb up sweetie”, said Marion to her daughter and put her onto the first rung of their rope ladder. “Can you climb up?”, asked Marion and turned to Lilianna who was a shadow with some bright glowing lines running all over her.

  Marion stepped back and held up her hands.

  Was Lilianna a deity, for she glowed like that? Should she have had more faith in the gods around here? She had always spoken the ritual prayers. But never with her heart involved.

  “Please, don’t punish me”, begged Marion. Her heart beat faster. “I promise I’ll do the ceremonies properly from now on.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her chest, dropping the precious harvest of the blue flowers in the process. Yet, she didn’t dare to bend and pick them up. Not with the glowing person right in front of her.

  “Marion. I’m Lilianna. The lost climber”, said Lilianna. “What are you talking about?”

  “You gl
ow like a deity”, whispered Marion.

  Lilianna laughed but stifled it immediately.

  “It’s the light of the Moon reflecting on my jacket”, said Lilianna pointing up.

  Marion knew the Moon was up. She used his light to find her ways. But never before did the Moon put light on somebody’s clothes.

  Wary, if she made the right decision to believe Lilianna, she nodded.

  “Be my guest, climb up the ladder”, said Marion.

  When Lilianna started to climb, Marion knelt down to pick up her harvest. Luckily her girl didn’t start shouting for her. She probably cowered against the wall of her home and waited for her to come. Surely she was afraid as well.

  Lilianna climbed up on the swinging rope ladder. That wasn’t as easy as it had been, when she had had a tree house with a similar ladder as a child. One, she wasn’t a child anymore, second, she carried a heavy backpack and wore thick winter gear. Winter gear she sweated a great deal in. It was way too warm here to keep wearing it, and she looked forward to dropping it in the tree house.

  There was a child up there looking at her with huge eyes. The dim Moon light reflected in the white of her eyes. Otherwise, Lilianna wouldn’t have seen the child.

  It was so little and living on that mountain.

  She couldn’t wrap her mind around that. A child up high in the mountains and no snow around.

  At least the child convinced her that this wasn’t a dream but reality. She couldn’t remember seeing children around since she grew out of that age herself. Therefore, her fantasy probably couldn’t make up one now.

  Lilianna grabbed branches to pull herself onto the floor of the house. The branches groaned, but they didn’t break. For security’s sake, she crawled forward and sat up when she didn’t feel the emptiness of the air beyond her shoes anymore.

  She heard rustling behind her. Probably Marion climbing up as well.

  Lilianna put her backpack down and laid it next to her. She completely unzipped her jacked, pulled it off and put it on top of her backpack. Then she pulled the suspenders of her climbing trousers down and opened the button and zipper to allow for more cooling around her belly and back. She bent forward and unlaced her boots.