The Liar's Guide to the Night Sky

by Brianna R. Shrum

  He looks at me.

  Jackpot.

  He says, “Of course it’s not.”

  “Then we need a plan.” I smile smugly; everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. The eye lock has clenched it. He is seeing reason.

  He furrows his brow and the moment before he speaks, I see that I was in error. “How, exactly?” he says. “How exactly do you intend to lay one? We’re surrounded on all sides by snow and rock and trees that all look the same.”

  I say, “I thought you knew this mountain.”

  “I know it like a dude knows places you go to get high. Every time I’ve been here, I’ve been stoned.”

  “So?” I say. “Pink Floyd wrote their best stuff stoned.”

  He laughs. “Ah, yes, writing trippy shit about English boarding schools. Exactly the same skill set required for topnotch cartographers.”

  “I’m just saying it didn’t completely blow your ability to think, did it?”

  Jonah has been pretty rock solid and chill, but now he’s blustering. He’s gesturing widely—not wildly, but wide enough for me to note is bordering on wild for him. “No, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know the place like the back of my hand, man. I’ve been up here enough times I might, I might recognize a valley or a peak or a weird ring of trees, enough to get us back, which is more than I can say for anyone but Jaxon so it . . . it could come in handy. But I’m not going to start spouting off shit like Turn left at that lightning-struck pine tree. Head straight at the grizzly bear.”

  I roll my eyes, smiling despite the situation. Then I hear what he said, fully process it. “I’m sorry—grizzly bear? Are there . . . are there grizzlies here?”

  “Nah,” he says. “Black bears, but you’d be surprised at how small those dudes are.”

  “Really?”

  “Like four and a half feet. You’re taller than a black bear.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Well, huh.”

  “Yup.” Jonah cocks his head, sizes me up. “Okay, you’re not much taller.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Excuse you; I’m five foot four.”

  “Tiny,” he says.

  I’m not even tiny! I wouldn’t call myself small, either, and neither does anyone else. But I guess I don’t often hang out with dudes as big as Jonah.

  Still.

  I huff.

  We’re walking again, somehow, which goes against my plans, but we’ll circle back to that. I say, “So I don’t have to worry about them then.”

  He doesn’t look back at me; he’s zoned in on the non-path of white and brush and open sky ahead. “About what?”

  “The bears.”

  “Oh, no, they’ll still totally eat you.”

  I choke.

  “It would just be more like getting killed by a raptor than a T-rex.”

  “Oh my god,” I say.

  He looks back over his shoulder. “Keep up, shortstop.”

  “If a bear comes out of these woods, I’m tripping you.”

  I still make an effort to keep step with him.

  “Relax,” he says. “Number one: bears are terrified of people. You just have to stand there, look huge, and yell. They’ll run the hell away. Unless it’s a sow. You get between a sow and her cubs, you’re asking to be eaten. So just don’t do that. Number two: they’re all hibernating anyway. It’s winter.”

  “Oh. Right.” My pulse falls back to a survivable level. “You could have led with that,” I grumble.

  “Sorry, I thought the snow made that clear. And also the December.”

  “The bear thing, jackass.”

  He’s got that insufferable (or well . . . something-able) perma-smirk on his face. “This is fun, though.”

  I groan. “Well. At least I don’t have to worry about things with sharp teeth.”

  He smiles with his.

  I almost trip.

  “Well. Not bears,” he says. “It’s the mountain lions you gotta watch for.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. They kill people out here every year.”

  “Holy shit.”

  He shrugs. “You see one of those fuckers, you stand your ground. Make yourself big. You don’t run, because you can trigger their instinct to chase you. There’s ways to protect yourself if they come at you, which I can show you if you’re—”

  “No,” I say. I don’t know why that thought is so unnerving to me, but it is, and I just desperately don’t want to deal with it right now. It seems too immediate, too real, too exposed out here in the open woods.

  The woods, even this deep in, aren’t crowded enough to feel like they provide any cover. Even in the aspen clusters, if you lost track of your dog, you could see her run for a couple hundred yards before she disappeared. It feels so wide open. Barren. Utterly, gratingly vulnerable.

  I’m afraid of mountain lions, I’m afraid of hibernating bears, god I’m afraid of large enough hawks swooping down to snatch me into the air right now; it’s too real.

  And it’s stupid.

  But the last thing my nerves can handle right now is talk of defense against a predator.

  He just says, “Okay. Well, let me know if you change your mind.”

  I say, “Okay.”

  And I follow him.

  I take in the less immediate surroundings, the rocks that jut up from the earth like giants. They’re beautiful in such a different, more terrifying way than any of the beauty in New England. They aren’t dead; they’ve never been living. Somehow that makes them more terrifying, less human, even, than the trees. The scenery here is rock.

  It is sharp.

  It is desolate.

  The rocks are red and brown and the scar of the slide crashes through everything; it’s hard to tell what lies the way it does because it’s used to it and what is split because of an act of G-d.

  I keep staring until it’s familiar. Like a focal point when you’re trying to balance on one leg. Until the mountain is what’s keeping me grounded.

  “What if . . .”

  Jonah lets out a long, audible sigh. “Mmhmm?”

  “What if we head for that peak?”

  “Why?”

  I shrug. “Something to aim for.”

  Jonah stares off at it, then squints up into the bright sky. “Well, that peak is west at least, and Old Snowy Ridge is east of New. So, I mean, okay. Makes more sense than anything else.”

  I nod and we shift direction slightly.

  Suddenly, I feel like I can fall into a rhythm. Like this isn’t just random chaos, like death isn’t a total inevitability. I feel like I’m in control of something.

  Like if we reach that peak, I could check it off in my mental bullet journal and move on to the next task.

  And that matters.

  When the snow begins to fall from the sky in quiet, cold little flakes, I keep my eyes on that peak.

  Eventually, eventually, it will get closer.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I KIND OF FEEL? Like it doesn’t?

  I say to Jonah, “I kind of feel like that mountain is not getting closer.”

  Jonah says, “Well. It better be.”

  I say, “How is it possible that it looks as far away now as it did two hours ago?”

  “I’m so hungry.”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  Jonah says, “Man, we’re being whiners. It’s not even the afternoon.”

  I laugh, but it comes out just a little cry-y.

  “You ever think about that?” he says, marching resolutely forward to the magically non-growing mountain.

  “Think about what?”

  “How just like . . . ridiculous our problems are? Like, last week I was playing Fortnite with Jax and—”

  “Jax?”

  “Shut up, yes, Jax.”

  I snicker.

  “And my screen started glitching, and I didn’t land a shot I should have and Jax lived and ganked me and I was so furious. Legit, I was composing the most strongly worded
email to customer service before I remembered that the customer service rep is probably some nineteen-year-old like me who doesn’t get paid enough for this shit and dialed it down, and then I just lividly shut off my laptop and sat there thinking about how irritated I was for five minutes. Like, how dare this happen to me.”

  “Stable.”

  “But like . . . what would a Viking have to say about that shit?”

  “What?”

  “You know, like if a Viking showed up and I was like, FUCK, Jorgenvalder. I’ve had a DAY, man, and walked him through this problem, he’d probably just pitch me into the ocean. His bad day consisted of his village burning down and some pirates raiding his ship.”

  I spit out a laugh. “I don’t think Vikings and pirates coexisted.”

  “Well, a pirate would have similar sympathies for me.”

  “Prehistoric human, help. My iPhone has not been updated for days.”

  “BIG FUCKING DEAL, MY WIFE GOT EATEN BY A MAMMOTH.”

  I’m laughing so hard, I bet my face is red. I mean, it’s cold; it was probably already red.

  I say, when I can take a breath, “You: deeply concerned that your Totino’s pizza rolls are cold on the outside but somehow lava on the inside. A dude in Pompeii: eyeing that volcano really suspiciously.”

  He’s laughing, too, that husky laugh that sounds so . . . so absurdly sexy I don’t know how it’s real. Don’t know how it’s not rehearsed.

  Don’t know how I’m even thinking about that right now.

  The snow crusts up around my shoes, and I’m so glad I didn’t wear canvas sneakers like I usually do. Even still, it’s cold. Even still, it’s a reminder that this isn’t just a hike with someone I’m not supposed to hike with.

  I almost forgot that for a half a second.

  I think maybe I could forget about it for a few seconds longer if I really wanted.

  I say, “You know, Vikings actually hated hiking.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

  “Yes. They would do practically anything to avoid climbing. They have legends of meeting with rulers in the middle of landlocked Asia—by boat—because any place worth going could obviously be reached by boat.”

  He’s not saying much, he’s just kind of . . . almost smiling, but not quite.

  I continue: “They would just sail around any place that required climbing. No matter how much longer it took.”

  “Mm,” he says.

  “So what I’m saying is, if you told Jorgenvalder that today sucked, Jorgenvalder would probably say, IT DOES SUCK, JONAH RAMIREZ. FUCK THIS MOUNTAIN. WHERE IS MY BOAT.”

  He does laugh, then. “So you’re a nerd then.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m learning things.”

  “About Vikings?”

  He smiles. After years of four-second glances and eavesdropping on him and Jaxon and Jolie and thinking about what it might be like to be near him, I still don’t know him well enough to know if the smile is totally sincere. What does sincere look like on him?

  I stop wondering about the minutiae of his face.

  He says, through that smile that’s probably at least half real, “About you.”

  My throat tightens, just the smallest bit.

  “I’m not that much of a nerd,” I say.

  “No? How do you know so much about Vikings?”

  I look prim and march forward. “Knowledge is power, Jonah.”

  “Nerd,” he says, and I’m so turned around.

  What we have here is nearly a rapport. It’s suddenly almost easy, suddenly like we haven’t been getting on each other’s last nerve all day. It’s suddenly like I’m . . . glad I’m not doing this on my own.

  I swing my backpack around and pull out a couple granola bars, then toss one to him.

  “Thanks,” he says, and I unpeel mine.

  We eat in cold, companionable silence, making our way toward the mountain peak.

  The breeze is light, thank god, and the sun rises higher in the sky so that it almost, almost feels warm. I bite into the granola bar, and only then does it become clear to me how hungry I am. There’s a pang in my stomach, and it twists— hollow and solid all at once. I can feel the sudden weakness in my limbs, the desperate gnawing under my skin.

  “Jesus,” I mutter.

  I can’t decide whether I want to devour the thing in two bites or make it last.

  I want both.

  Jonah glances over at me and chews.

  I can feel myself start to weaken, which seems so counter to what ingesting calories should be doing to me right now, but god, suddenly hiking any farther seems impossible.

  I breathe.

  I chew.

  It no longer feels like a fun extracurricular, a hike on a crisp winter’s day.

  It feels like I’m hungry.

  It feels like we’re lost.

  Jonah clears his throat. “Hey,” he says, “what do you know?”

  I glance up.

  “That peak is finally getting closer.”

  I focus on the mountain, which only an hour ago seemed impossibly far away.

  And he’s right.

  He’s right.

  We are going to make it.

  Dusk is beginning to fall when we start the real ascent. I would have sworn, based on the burn in my lungs and my muscles, the utter exhaustion every step I took, that we had started it hours ago, but I would have been wrong.

  This is the real deal.

  Suddenly, my plan seems so stupid.

  Why did we decide to climb this mountain in the first place? How is getting higher helpful at all? A vantage point, I guess.

  Or something.

  A goal—I need a goal. I need X to mark the spot and a number of steps to achieve that, or I think I would lose my mind.

  I stripped off my thin gloves an hour ago because they were wet and freezing, but now my hands are getting pink and cracked in the dry cold. I clench my fists and unclench them.

  I breathe—in through my nose, out through my mouth. In through my nose, out through my mouth.

  There is nowhere to go from here but backward or up.

  I’m lightheaded. The blood feels like it’s rushing through my veins, like it’s too fast and too thin and insubstantial. Like my heart is beating just a little too hard.

  “You okay?” says Jonah.

  “I’m fine,” I snap, like his checking on me is an insult or something. Like he’s implying I’m more out of shape than he is, which he’s not trying to do. I’m just tired and I’m hungry, and by hungry, I mean hangry.

  He says, “Sounds like it,” totally unfazed.

  “I’m just feeling a little weird,” I say. “Probably tired.”

  Jonah narrows his eyes. “Weird how?”

  “Just tired,” I say.

  “Just tired.”

  I shrug. I’m weirdly embarrassed; he’s fine, why shouldn’t I be?

  “Talk to me,” he says.

  “Sorry, talking to you isn’t exactly something I’m used to.”

  His tone is totally casual, conversational, but it’s full of authority. I don’t really know how it can be so deeply both. “Well, suck it up, princess. Talk. To me.”

  “I’m just kind of lightheaded,” I say. “My pulse is sort of freaking out, but like I said, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it; I’m probably just out of shape.”

  Jonah stops, and I stop with him. “Are you dizzy?”

  “Not really. Kind of.”

  He makes this concerned, almost growly noise in the back of his throat and reaches out for me, fingers a loop around my wrist.

  He slips them under my coat, and then my sleeves, so his cool fingers are pressed against my skin, and my breath hitches.

  He’s so focused I don’t think he notices.

  Thank god, because I am so acutely aware of the calluses on his fingertips, rough against the soft inner skin of my wrist, the intentional grip as he presses into the bones. I’m . . . shaking?
/>   He says, “Shit.”

  “What?” I look up at him, and his hand is still pressing red into my skin.

  “You’re right; your pulse is like a jackrabbit’s.”

  I swallow hard.

  “You might have altitude sickness.”

  It takes me a second to process what he’s saying, to recalibrate my brain. “Oh—wait, I might what?”

  “Aren’t you an EMT?”

  Once again, I’m defensive. I say, “Training to be one. But in Massachusetts; we don’t have altitude there, you asshole.”

  His fingers shift around my wrist, from his thumb pressing into my veins to all of them curling. It’s a little possessive, almost. Protective, or something. I can feel the rough slip of skin on skin all the way down into my stomach.

  “It . . . it can be kind of bad.”

  I keep looking at his eyes, because that scares me. And if I stay focused on the fact that there is another human here, maybe I won’t panic. At whatever the hell “kind of bad” means.

  “Okay . . .” I say.

  “We probably need to just stop.”

  My stomach twists again, but it feels very different this time. Feels like total, instant panic. I don’t want to stop. I want to reach that peak. Because then the goal is achieved, the plan has been conquered; we’ve done something today.

  If we stop here, we’ve . . . we’ve failed. And it’s my fault.

  It’s like the whole day is wasted.

  That’s not even logical, I know it’s not, even as my racing brain tells me that it doesn’t matter, it’s the most reasonable thing in the world. Tells me that it makes complete sense to lose my mind over not hitting this stupid, arbitrary goal.

  My eyes fill with tears, because I can’t stop them.

  I hate this.

  I hate this.

  I hate that my voice is ridiculously, nonsensically strangled when I say, “No. No, why? We don’t need to stop.”

  He peers at me, thumb gentling around my arm. “We should, Hallie. Altitude sickness can literally kill you.”

  “What?” My voice comes out quiet, resigned in a way I don’t want to be.

  The dizziness picks up until I think I might actually fall over. Maybe it’s altitude sickness. It’s probably just this overwhelming sense of failure! I’m probably just exhausted!

  “You’ve gone too high too fast, and you’re dehydrated and hungry, and your body doesn’t know what to do up here. I promise you, people have died from this.”