Novel

The Return of Blackneck (Unfinished Sequel)

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away… The king of the kingdom has died. His son is the only one left to take his place, but he doesn’t want to be king. Everything is about to topple over into itself— and nothing is going to be able to save it.

It’s officially the first winter of the year 1132— the first snow has come upon us. Though, I wish that I could go back to a winter ago. My father, has died. It’s been three days since the date of his death— December 19th. Some say that it was by chance, and others say that it was a conspiracy to overthrow the throne. There are a group of people who even blame me for his death. They claim that I poisoned him, so that I could become king— so that I could rule the land.

All I’ll say is that I don’t find this kingdom worth ruling without my father being the one who rules it.

One might believe that I’d be overjoyed to be the next in line for the throne— to be the one who will take his father’s place. They’d be wrong. I’m overcome by grief. I haven’t felt quite so alone and desolate in ages. The world around me has become a dark and horrid place. All beauty has been sucked from it. All that remains are the bare bones.

I’m not quite sure why, but I feel as if the world has reared its head and finally revealed how ugly it is. Everybody is looking to me for excuses and explanations about what has happened. There are riots in the streets. There are cries of rebellion down even the halls of my own castle. There are whisperings of the end being nigh…

I don’t know what to think. I don’t even know if I should think— perhaps I should give up the throne to some other worthier heir. I don’t even want the throne. Everybody looks up to me, expecting me to be the answer to all of their problems. Though, I’m not. I never will be. If they’re going to find an answer to their problems, they’ll be finding it somewhere else.

Perhaps the largest reason for me thinking that I can’t solve their problems is because I can’t even solve my own. I’ve been looking for a way to bring my father back from the grave. I’ve come across a rumor that across a lake further down the mountain, there’s a person who has the ability to cure anything. Some call the person a “he”, and others call it a “she.” Sometimes they apparently even shift location to other parts of the mountain. I’ll admit that there aren’t many definite things surrounding these rumors. In fact, there are plenty of people that are calling me inane, and a complete fool for thinking such a thing could help my father. Even a few of my advisors, who have their own personal interests more at heart than my own, claim that such thoughts would only lead to dangerous sorcery, and self-destruction.

Once more, I don’t know what to think of this. If I were to be honest with myself, I don’t know what to think of anything. I’m so lost. Now that my father is gone, everything has transformed into something new and different. I used to have the belief that new things were positive things. However, I’m no longer so confident in that.

I’m willing to do anything to make things back to the way they were. I might be wrong in trying to do this— but I feel that it’s the only way to bring myself to where I need to be.

Sorcery or not, I’m going to seek out a way to restore my father. I won’t rest until I’ve found the answer. I won’t rest until everything is brought back to how it once was— how it should be. If it takes sacrificing a part of myself and my kingdom, then so be it. The most integral part has already been lost to us— the most integral part has been lost to me.

A girl shivered, under a blanket. Her hair, once coal black, had been turned a ghostly white from a thick padding of snow. Her lips were coated a sickly blue, matching her eyes. Not that one would’ve been able to tell that they matched her eyes— her eyelids were frozen shut.

The rest of her face hadn’t fared better from the cold. Her nose, usually pug-shaped, had been morphed by the wintry air to look like an icicle. Her teeth chattered, to the point that she sounded like a rattle. Her ears were the only thing on her body that wasn’t turned white from snow— they’d instead been reddened to the point of them looking like oversized holly berries.

Only the crackling fireplace beside her matched the intensity of her ears.

Still— her reddened ears couldn’t make up for the rest of her. The very sight could bring a chill down somebody’s spine. She couldn’t have looked colder if she’d dived to the bottom of a frozen lake.

“How many times do I have to tell you— stop diving into frozen lakes!” an old man said.

His face was worn and leathery, and all of his hair was but a wisp. Though, age hadn’t worn down all of his features. Some bits— like a pointed nose, a rounded chin, and a thin mouth— remained prominent, hovering over his face like a bee does over a flower that has withered away.

“Just like last time Joshua, it was an accident,” the girl said, managing to open her eyes.

“Susan— you want me to believe that you accidentally walked out onto a frozen lake, for the second time in the past month?”

“It was different this time. I was chasing after a dog that went loose.”

“Why did you veer off so far that you were chasing the dog over there in the first place? If your friends hadn’t warned me about what happened, you could’ve died!”

“Maybe— but it’s not as if there are many other places to go in this village.”

“I’d keep arguing with you— but I’ll let you win. You want to believe that there aren’t many places for you to go? Then, you’re going stay in the house for the rest of the day— no exceptions.”

Susan gave a scowl, and then a smug grin.

“Feeling as cold as I am, I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Joshua walked away, muttering something about “ungrateful children.”

“And no books,” he added, as the creaking of an opening door resounded. “I’m starting to think that they’re putting a bad influence on you!”

Susan moaned— but she didn’t even attempt combating the punishment. His word was always a final one.

Earlier that day, she’d been exploring the world outside the village. She’d known that it was winter, and she’d known that wolves ran ramped in those parts. However, none of that mattered at the time. It still didn’t matter.

There was something to the world outside the boundaries of the village. It was wild. It was untamed. Despite the dead frigidness of winter, it was full of a life that wasn’t anywhere else. An overturned boulder looked like it could’ve been a castle. A towering tree could’ve been the leg of a giant. The shadows that spread across the sunlit snow, wriggling as the clouds passed by, could’ve had a soul of their own.

Although the mountain that stood in the western horizon capped it all. The sight of that alone, with its rolling purple cliffs, and its white plumage that appeared to be like a dove’s feather, made the trip fully worth it.

Sometimes, Susan whispered to it. It almost seemed to speak to her. She knew, of course, that it couldn’t. Though, whenever the wind whisked into her ears after she’d explained her troubles to it, all of her reasoning was whisked out.

The truth of the matter was, there had been no dog on the lake when she’d fallen in. According everybody else who had been around the lake with her, there hadn’t been anything on the lake. If they hadn’t known her so well, they would’ve said the same thing about the first time she walked onto the lake, as well.

Although, Susan’s eyes didn’t agree with everybody else’s. While theirs saw nothing, Susan’s saw a silhouette. Each time she’d gone there, there’d been some sort of figure standing on the other side. It might’ve just been a trick of the sun, or perhaps just a hallucination derived from the chilling temperatures. Susan had ignored those possibilities each time. When she saw the silhouette outstretch an arm, and seem to beckon for her to come closer, Susan followed.

Each time, she felt a surge of energy— in a sense, as she walked across the thin sheet of ice, she walked across water. Pride filling through her chest, there was a moment when she thought that there was nothing that could stop her stride.

“I was meant to do this… The silhouette— I’m being led to it for a reason,” she thought.

Though, the ice didn’t seem to agree. Each time Susan crossed the lake and thought this, the lake snarled back and cracked underneath her feet. Each time the lake snarled and cracked, Susan looked down, and saw a milky reflection of the sun and the clouds. Each time Susan saw this reflection she felt as if she’d been transported into some other world.

Then, she was transported into another world.

The ice snapped beneath her feet, and she fell into a portal— a portal to a cold, dark and icy place. The world behind was full of muffled screams. Though, they were far away now. Everything was too cold and biting to focus on them— far too cold.

Back in front of the fireplace, Susan stared at a cobweb that had been weaved near there. However, she didn’t see a cobweb. Instead, it combined with the crackling of the fireplace to blur into the image of the cracking, icy lake.

A freeze ripped down into her bones, and she felt as if she might not be able to climb back out of it. She let out a cry for help, but all that left her mouth were bubbles. Her nostrils and ears filled with scalding ice. Her tongue finally tasted the breath of breathlessness. Her eyes caught sight of sightlessness.

All pride that she felt before coming onto the lake had been sucked from her lungs.

Susan shivered, and returned to the warmth of her blanket. The cobweb was once more just a cobweb. The fire was once more a source of warmth, rather than chilling cold.

“Just a bad memory,” she said. “I’ll never go back there again.”

Half of her statement was a lie. She’d be back. An instinct tugged at her, telling her that she needed to go back— that there was no other option. There was no other option.

“What was that silhouette?” she asked herself. “What did it want from me?”

Not being able to stand the unanswered question any longer, she left the fireplace and went throughout the well-treaded house. The wooden floors, once well-sanded and smooth as a pebble from the side of a brook, were now weathered and full of splinters. These days, Susan always took care to wear shoes when walking through it.

It certainly wasn’t the largest house in the village. It had only one floor, and five rooms— two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living area, and a room where Susan’s Joshua kept a large storage of books. Most of these rooms all shared the same splinters, the same wobbly furniture, the same crumbling walls, and the same sloping ceilings— all except one.

Susan’s feet took her to the book storage room— the one place in the house was set apart from the others. It always seemed to be meticulously kept, and cleaned. The room was the house’s closest grasp at perfection. Every floorboard seemed to be meticulously sanded down, every book was meticulously dusted, and every furnishing was amongst the sturdiest in the house.

Susan soon found herself standing in front of its entrance, staring at the glint made on it by some nearby candlelight. Her hand grasped the well-known door handle, and pushed it open. Here, she felt at home. Here, she had her “happy place”— as Joshua would call it.

“The only life worth living is your own,” he would often say. “That’s how you know you’ve found your happy place— when you can go there, and feel like it’s solely your own life that you’re living. Your life— not anybody else’s. It’s when you can go somewhere and feel independent of the troubles of the world.”

Right then, as she walked into the room, with its musty scent of books, nothing else that had happened prior mattered. She forgot what Joshua had said about her not being allowed to read. She forgot about falling into the ice. She forgot about the distant silhouette. All that she could remember were the days that she’d spent reading at Joshua’s side, when she was younger. She wasn’t willing to leave that memory. She didn’t want to be anywhere else. The room was her home, and she felt as if there was nowhere else in the world that was better to be.

“I figured that you’d come in here soon enough,” Joshua said, peering over from out of under one of his books. He was seated in his favorite chair— a bright red one, which came with a cushion. Susan could only think of a few days where she hadn’t seen him sit there, with a book in hand. “But, I’m afraid that you’re going to have to deal with the fact that you’re not allowed in here for the time being.”

Susan then felt the leaden weight of her Joshua’s word come back upon her. He’d rarely ever grounded her— though, Susan also knew that she’d rarely ever done anything to upset or disappoint him.

Susan wanted to shout— she wanted to prove her right to this spot in the house.

“Don’t shout,” she thought to herself. “I can’t let out my anger… I’ve rarely ever clashed with Joshua, and I’m not going to start now.”

“I— I,” she said with a strain.

“I’m going to my room,” she finally said.

She left the library with a feeling of regret.

“Why didn’t I say that I understood, instead of that I was leaving?” she muttered under her breath. “Why didn’t he say anything in return?”

With a swoop of anger, she swung her door fast to shut it— but not before catching it.

“I can’t let my anger get the best of me,” she said to herself.

Though, those words were steadily becoming harder and harder to follow.

It used to be so much easier. We used to talk more. It used to be easier to talk with him. But now— now he’s starting to seem so distant. He rarely ever gets up from his books… He always sits in that chair nowadays… There have been some days when he hasn’t even gotten up to help make dinner. What changed him?

She looked at a chair from in the corner of her room. She and Joshua had once sat there and read together in the evenings— sometimes for an hour. She felt another wave of frustration rip into her mind.

It’s so much harder now… What changed us?

Susan then thought about how her evening ventures into the snow had progressively become longer. Then, she remembered how she’d become more and more distant herself, oftentimes staying in her room from sunrise to sundown.

What changed me?

Her memory trailed to when she was eight years younger, and at the age of six. She’d gone out into the snow to play with Joshua. Although, after wiping a snowball that he’d thrown into her face from her eyes, she noticed that he was gone. She ran around, calling and looking for him for, what seemed then to have been half an hour, and what seemed now to have been five minutes. Then, Joshua jumped up from out of the snow.

Susan gave a squeal of shock, which then turned into delight. They both shared a laugh, as the snow steadily melted off of their faces.

Eight years later again, back under her covers, Susan fell asleep to this happy memory.

Although, in her sleep it transformed, and shifted. It became like an innocent caterpillar that goes into a cocoon to transform into a hideous moth.

In her dream, Susan was once again looking for her uncle in the snow. Although, this time she truly couldn’t find him. She’d left him. He’d left her. They were forever separated by and endless sheet of white.

*

It’s been two weeks since I last wrote in my diary. Since then, the kingdom has begun to settle, and I’ve started to be recognized as king. A coronation is already being planned. The people who were once talking about rebellion are now parading through the streets declaring tidings of joy. I’m afraid that I have a hard time listening to them.

All that I feel is a strong sorrow. Maybe I’m falling too far into grief, and maybe I’m being too sentimental. Yet, I think this is wrong. I think this is all wrong.

I complained two weeks ago about my people claiming that I was some monster that needed to be cut down, and that I had murdered my father. I was sickened by their thoughts of rebellion. However, what I’m even more sickened by is that I’m now going to have to replace my father as king— and it feels like it’s happening far too soon. We haven’t even had an official funeral for my father yet, and my coronation is already being talked about.

There’s also the bit of me that believes I can still bring my father back, and that there’s hope for this kingdom to be renewed to its former glory. Some might call me a pessimist for believing that I’m not good enough to lead this kingdom— but I truly think that there’s not a person under the sun who could replace my father.

I’ve already dispatched a man to go on horse and find the supposed healer who can cure anything. I have a feeling that he’ll come back empty-handed, but I’m not without hope. Even if he doesn’t find the healer, I know of other ways to look for them. There are passages about these mountains— craggy places of rock and dirt that have fallen from high cliffs. Some say that these are where the healer makes their home. And, with everything surrounding this mystery healer, I wouldn’t be shocked if that’s the truth. There have been stranger things said about this mountain… Far stranger things.

Although, that’s enough for now. One of my servants just sent me word that a tailor is coming to make me new robes. As I said before, I’m disgusted by the very thought of this coronation. However, if my plan goes well, everybody will understand, and apologize for all of their trespasses against me. Everybody will wish that they had never acted out against the memory of their true king.

All will be made right.

It had only been five days since Susan fell in the lake, but she still found herself coming back to it. There was a drive in her gut that told her she needed to know what the silhouette had been doing there the past two times she saw it. She felt that she couldn’t be satisfied without knowing.

“Why do you constantly take us here?” one of Susan’s friends asked— a boy with bushy hair, a mouth that was bigger than for his own good, and a nose that stuck out like a reed. “Do you like jumping into ice cold water? Do you want to keep making a fool of yourself?”

“I don’t know Tim… Do you like constantly being the shortest one of the group?”

A girl with short hair and a mouth as thin as Tim’s mouth was wide jumped in Susan’s path.

“He has a point. What’s on that lake that keeps bringing you back?

Susan gave a sigh of annoyance.

“I saw something there, alright Isabella?”

The trio were once walking outside the village’s main borders, and into a mostly empty area. Dirt and footprints ceased to be seen as they came onto land that had barely been traveled by people, other than themselves. A smell was in the air— it was fresh, and it was free of the odors that came with animals and people. It had an almost liberating property to it.

“We can’t keep coming out here every day just because you ‘saw something’,” Tim said, with a mocking tone. “There’s only so many times that I can trick my parents into leaving before they start to figure out what I’m actually doing. We’re all supposed to be learning our trades.”

“Go do that then,” Susan said, unwaveringly. “I’m coming out here, whether you guys are following or not.”

“You’re still following after that imaginary talking shadow— aren’t you?” Isabella pried.

“I don’t understand why you both have such a hard time believing me on this— I saw something out there. And, I saw it twice. You can try ignoring me, but I know what I saw was real…”

“I’ve heard people say things like that hundreds of time,” Tim said. “That’s the sort of thing that creates all of the fake legends that swirl around for years— and they all come about over nothing more than a twig, or a fluttering leaf. Whatever you saw out there probably didn’t matter…”

Susan looked at Tim in annoyance.

“You believe me, right?” Susan asked, gesturing to Isabella.

“Susan, these sort of things are just a trick of the eyes. To be frank, this is all being blown out of proportion. Why don’t we leave the lake alone for today? I thought that the whole point of leaving the village borders was to go to places that we haven’t gone before. After going to the same place every day, I start to wonder what the point is.”

Susan folded her arms, and remained standing where she was.

“This is too important,” she said. “If you’re leaving, I’m still going.”

“Fine then,” Tim said, walking off.

Isabella followed, her footsteps breaking through the snow and her ties with Susan’s route. At first, Susan grinned at their exit, thinking that she’d called their bluff. However, as they continued to move further off, her unwavering position suddenly began to shift. Her eyes tracked their distance. Her feet moved restlessly, under the snow.

By the time a minute had elapsed, Susan was racing after them.

Tim turned his head over his shoulder, and caught sight of Susan’s racing feet.

“I knew that she’d break,” he said. It seemed that he’d intended for these words to be kept to himself, but they flew across the plane of snow and tore through everybody’s ears.

“You couldn’t keep your mouth shut if your life depended on it, could you Tim?” Susan asked, with irritation.

“You’re one to talk— you clearly didn’t have the will to go out on you own.”

Tim laughed, despite nobody else sharing his sense of humor.

“I didn’t think that you’d actually leave,” Susan said, holding back a smile and refusing to encourage Tim’s laughter.

“I think that was made clear when you came running after us only after a minute of walking had passed,” Isabella said. “It looked ridiculous.”

It was at this point when their wills snapped, and they all broke into laughter.

“Where are we headed?” Susan finally said, with a tiredly wheezing in an attempt to recover.

“I heard about an interesting place near here,” Isabella said. “It’s around the underside of the mountain— there are giant boulders that remain from an avalanche. From what I’ve gathered, a few animals roam over in that area, and make their homes there. Who knows— we might find a few things while we’re over there. We’ve found several treasures doing this sort of thing before.”

When Isabella said, “treasures,” she was referring to several abandoned trinkets. Most of these were assorted pieces of junk, such as an abandoned glass vial, the remains of a tattered map, pieces of an old tent, and a piece of rope.

“And where did you hear about that— from the old geezer, Jon, who you’re always hanging around?” Tim asked, mockingly.

Isabella’s face went red from embarrassment.

“No, of course not,” she said.

“You’re clearly lying through your teeth.”

“Maybe you’re just too afraid to go near the mountain…”

The pair both stopped, and stared at one another. Even Susan had nothing to add. Majestic as the mountain might’ve seemed, there were terrible stories surrounding it. Most people within the village called it haunted. While such stories were typically only swallowed up by gossips, that particular tale was one that continued to remain prominent. People oftentimes spoke of strange creatures and voices that came from at the mountain’s foot. Some even swore that there wasn’t a single person who’d tried trekking the mountain who’d come back to state otherwise.

“Fine,” Tim said, trying to prove his bravery. “Let’s go. I see the mountain every day, and it has yet to do me any harm. I’m not scared of it.”

These words burned their ears right as they leaped off of his tongue. Something about them left a knot in each of their stomachs. The tall, unchartered mound of rock had always held a benevolent presence. Speaking about it in the passive way that Tim had felt wrong— even disgraceful.

Still, Tim had a way of making his loudmouthed outbursts leave some sort of imprint. Now that he’d spoken, the word was final. Nobody had the callous to back out of it.

“I was told that attempting mountain climbers would plant pine seeds over all of their pathways, so that they would be able to tell which direction they were going in,” Isabella said, as they began walking toward the mountain’s image, which was obscured by a fresh sprinkling of snow. “It could be another tall tale concerning this mountain, but we might as well give it a try.”

Winding like a vine around a tree, the path to the underside of the mountain was an ambiguous and tortuous one, moving amongst steep inclines, cliffs built from erosion, and spires of rocks that seemed to rip out of the ground. Several feet of snow had coated over most of this pathway, making it so that every step they took felt as if it was resisting against the earth itself. It would sometimes cause them to trip, and then fall to the ground. A face covered in snow was an unpleasant predicament all on its own, but the deep snow became an especially pervasive problem when Tim tripped, and started toppling down into the snow and nearer to an eroded cliff like a loose rolling pin.

They managed to stop him from taking a drop off the edge and falling to his undoing, but this didn’t seem to be a strong enough signifier for them to stop their journey. Maybe it was because of their promises to themselves, or maybe it was because of the priggish stubbornness that had led them to start their journey in the first place, but nothing seemed to phase them. There was a point when the hungry howling of a wolf harried through the clouds, with such a strength that they ripped apart and changed shape. There was another when a screeching of an owl swooped overhead, and the very sound of its claws sharpening left a scratch down each of their backs. None of it made a difference. Their will was as hard as the ice was cold.

Their stubbornness didn’t give in until the sun began to lower behind the thick clouds for the evening, and the snow’s brightness began to wane. By that point, the mounds of rock had already come in sight, and their minds had broken from their chains, leaping into a spirit of imagination.

“I told you that this trip would be worth it,” Isabella gloated, as her voice reverberated off the rocks and the sloping sides of the mountain. “And you all thought that I was crazy.”

Tim wasn’t so impressed. He gave a huff, and remained irreverent.

“You’re the one who brought us here on only Jon’s word— what else were we supposed to think?”

Normally, this would’ve led to a verbal brawl between the two, but curiosity managed to shove these habits to the back of their minds.

“Just take a look at the scope of these,” Susan said, standing in front of one of the fallen boulders.

She was so close to it that she could press her hand up against it. However, her eyes weren’t focused on the boulder, which was right in front of her. Instead, she was focused on what she couldn’t see. No matter where she turned her head, the boulder’s breadth— it stretched so wide that she couldn’t see passed it from her position.

From Tim and Isabella’s distant view, the boulder was no smaller. In fact, it seemed larger. Compared to Susan, the boulder was already its own mountain. In the space that it would’ve taken to make a dozen of Susan, only a fourth of the boulder would’ve been made up.

Despite this being a boggling sight, the formation of the multiple boulders took precedence over their size. They were all stacked in a neat pyramid that built its way up to an overhanging mountain cliff.

“How did this get down here? Giants?” Tim asked, in his over-loud voice.

Nobody else was paying attention. Isabella was busy trying to count the number of boulders— she could only make it to thirty, before tripping up and wondering which boulder she’d already counted. Meanwhile, Susan was looking for an entrance into the boulder mounds— though, whenever she found a place where a gap might’ve been, she found it sealed up with mounds of mud and smaller rocks. At first, she thought that it must’ve been crafted by animals. However, upon closer inspection she noticed that some of the mud sealing would have marks that were similar to handprints imbedded in them.

Who would’ve done such a thing?

Walking back to from whence she’d started, with an unsatisfied frown, she planted herself next to Tim. He had his own defeated look, and appeared somewhat daunted by the sight of the mountain. Susan supposed that it might’ve been due to her and Isabella’s mockery of him. However, she caught his neck craning to focus on the mountaintop, and remembered his fear of it.

“I dare you to try climbing one of those boulders,” she whispered, into his ear.

She wasn’t quite sure where these words had come from. At first, she wanted to believe that it was from a part of herself that wanted to coax Tim out of his fear. Though, then she caught Tim’s look of terror at hearing her dare— and Susan felt a swell of pride. She didn’t know where the pride had come from— at least, that’s what she told herself for a moment. However, she soon found that she couldn’t keep the lie up.

As Tim walked up to the boulder, and began struggling against its sides, she found herself chuckling at his plight. A sense of guilt streamed into her stomach at the revelation. Yet, her mind found a way to combat it. It brought back each of Tim’s snarky comments, as well as how he’d been the one who’d incited the series of events that led them to this terrifying mound. It was simply retribution.

Where is this coming from? she wondered, becoming sickened by an internal, frothy mixture of joy and self-disgust.

All of these thoughts lasted but a second. She quickly tucked them away when she realized that it was all amounted from a simple dare. However, as Tim sat at the top of the boulder, giving Susan a smug and angry stare— as his eyes seemed to scowl at her, and ask her why she’d tested his fears, built up from generations of deaths surrounding the mountain— as the boulders groaned and rolled at Isabella’s exclamation of, “Forty-seven! There are forty seven boulders— as Tim slipped down his boulder, and the rest of the boulders slipped with him— Susan realized how powerful the dare had really been. She realized that, even something as seemingly innocent as a game could ignite a series of unfortunate events.

The rocks cracked and rumbled along the ground, making the soft snow, which should’ve deafened their roars, seem nonexistent. Although, Susan’s focus was hardly on them. It was even hardly on Tim, although it should’ve been. It was on the high cliff, where she’d seen Tim’s eyes go round with fear. It was on a silhouette that stood there— beckoning for her to follow it.

It’s only been three days since I’ve last written to this diary— and yet, so much has happened that I can hardly believe that only a few days have passed. I hardly know where to begin.

It can perhaps be argued that it all started off three days ago, when I was first introduced to a new servant. All of my advisors claimed that he was the man that I needed to help me get through my new coronation. Although upon first setting eyes on him I knew that he was going to be trouble.

Nobody quite knew where he’d come from— some of my advisors claimed that he’d traveled from another kingdom, whilst others stated that he’d always been serving in my castle, and he’d merely been overlooked by my sight. There were even a few of my advisors who claimed that he was a good friend of my father’s— however, I made sure to send those advisors outside of my castle.

What I could clearly discern, just by the sight of the man, was that he was a vile and sickly creature. His clothes were an inky black, made of a material that reminded me of molding leaves. His face lacked color, he stank of fish, he had fidgety mannerisms that brought me great displeasure, and he had eyes that never seemed to shut or open. His eyelids were positioned in such a way that it was hard to tell when he was blinking.

I would like to say that his presence gave me a chill down my spine— however, it didn’t even allow me the relief of that. Rather, whenever I was around him I’d feel the room begin to grow hot and stuffy. I felt as if I was being suffocated and that I could hardly breathe.

He seemed just as uncomfortable around me as I did with him. Whenever I looked him in the eye, he would look away. It was if he was harboring some guilt, to the point that he couldn’t bear the sight of me. I half-wondered if we really had met, and he had been friends with my father.

That was the strangest aspect of being around this man. Whenever I was around him, my mind would go foggy and my lips would go numb. I would try to speak, but I found that I couldn’t— I tried to remember why I’d called him into my chambers, but the memory escaped me. In the fogginess of my mind, it seemed that anything and everything was going on at once. I could hardly even remember what the advisor was supposed to look like— it was as if he’d found a way to crawl into my mind and pluck such a memory out.

The advisors name was Lumpkin. Emener Lumpkin. However, he didn’t seem to like when I called him that— he far preferred for me to use the term “advisor.”

The reason for this advisors being placed above all the others is that it was believed Lumpkin would help, “bring me to my senses.” Whispers were flowing down the halls that I’d become a student of sorcery. All of this was complete nonsense— but, I respected their attempts to help prevent it.

What I didn’t respect was the result of their attempts. Lumpkin had nothing that he could offer me, save a few uncomfortable stares, and a sullen spirit. He wasn’t even capable of giving me advice, as my advisors had said he would. Instead, he only gave me incoherent grunts, and a few obvious warnings.

I tried to concede with my advisors wishes, and to allow Lumpkin to continue his efforts— however useless— in trying to help me. In spite of this, I eventually cracked and failed to be able to handle the man. After two days of enduring his nonsense, I spoke with one of my advisors about Lumpkin’s disappointing performance. Then, like all terrible servants, Lumpkin was thrown out of the castle. I made sure to advise all of my guards to keep him away.

Perhaps that’s where I made the mistake. In hindsight, I now see that Lumpkin was no ordinary man. I now understand why he’d acted so odd. I only wish that I’d known that before I threw him out— a realization that’s only come to me earlier today.

My real troubles began this morning, when I was reminded of the horseman that I’d dispatched to search for piles of boulders at the foot of the mountain, where a wizard might’ve been. Although, I was probably reminded in the worst way possible.

My guards had been busy that morning, letting in parades of people who needed to prepare my castle for the coronation. I don’t blame them for their error— they let a horse into the castle, without my permission. Perhaps they thought that there couldn’t have been any harm in doing such a thing— perhaps they were at ease, and comfortable in their own skills. However, perhaps they were also wrong.

The beast came into my castle’s courtyard, and began terrorizing the people in it. I was amongst those in the courtyard, and saw the monster with my own eyes— it was in hysterics. Its eyes were bloodshot, it foamed at the mouth, and, wherever it looked, one would feel as if the animal was judging them. I recognized it as the very horse I’d placed the dispatched rider on.

The very horse that I’d expected to bring me good news was instead giving me threats.

I stared at the creature stonily— but it wasn’t willing to return the gaze. Instead, it charged at me without taking any hesitation.

Should’ve ducked, or dove out of the way. I should’ve done something to protect myself— the soon-to-be king of an entire kingdom. Although, I instead embraced the monster’s raving. I stayed where I was, as if accepting the fate that it had chosen for me. It hasn’t been until now that I’ve realized why I stood there, letting it come at me— it was because I wanted it to. It was because I didn’t want to be king.

Thankfully, one of my knights had chosen a different fate for me. He ran the horse down— and then out of the castle.

Several of my guards followed after him, chasing the horse all the way outside of the castle gates. In fact, they chased the horse all the way down the mountain. I wish that I’d seen it for myself— it must’ve been quite the spectacle. However, even with the close call against my life, my business within my castle courtyards hadn’t ended.

Later this evening, after the chase was long ended, I was informed by one of the guards who’d been part of the chase that the wild horse had died. He told me that it smashed its head up against a boulder, right next to a rotting tree full of rotting leaves.

He told me that the horse left behind a slight dent in the rock simply from its sheer power. One of its teeth were even lodged within it. I don’t doubt that the horse’s imprint will be there far longer than my own life.

Normally, hearing that a horse that attempted to kill me had died wouldn’t have disturbed me. However, as the guard walked off, and a rotting leaf fell from his shoulder, I was reminded of one man— Lumpkin.

I’ve begun to suspect that there was more to him than it once seemed. Despite the horse having died, I have the uncomfortable feeling that my problems are nowhere near ceasing.

After the avalanche, innocent play had suddenly gained a grim membrane. Isabella and Susan managed to pull Tim out of amongst the rocks, but it was clear that things would no longer be the same. Tim was smothered in bruises and dust that the stones had gifted him. When forced to stand up by his friend’s combined heave, it was discovered that he had been rendered limp— every attempt at standing was succeeded by a harsh moan, and a demoralizing thump. A seemingly simple act had broken him.

Isabella and Susan tugged him through the snow and back toward the village. However, seem impossible. Their muscles cried out from exhaustion, and turned more malleable to the influence of Tim’s weight by the minute. A new downpour of snow caked their faces, obscured their sight, and caused a numbness to cut through their skin. Daylight had waned, with only a slight blue tint in the horizon to guide their eyes. However, Tim’s moans didn’t wane with the daylight— rather, the moans grew.

Finally, Susan succumbed to the contagious suffering that was plaguing them all, and stumbled into the snow.

“I can’t go any further,” she said, uttering the words with only half of her facilities in focus.

A simple act had broken all of them.

“Can’t isn’t an option,” Isabella said. “We have to keep going. Tim isn’t going to make it through the night like this.”

Another moan was heard. Except, it didn’t come from any of their mouths— it resounded from the ground beneath them. They were standing on a thin, corroded cliff, and it was beginning to break away from beneath them.

There was no need for another word to be spoken between them. The mere thought of tumbling into an abyss had driven the vigor back into their bones and forced a sense of perseverance. Their feet dragged from the edge of the cliff just as it began falling into itself.

Despite her instinctive act, Susan’s lungs felt smothered and hot, as if they’d been touched with a hot iron. Strain was starting to get the best of strength. However, she didn’t allow that to weigh down her steps. She pulled against it. Her muscles embraced the exhaustion, even with it threatening to steal her very consciousness.

The whinnying horse was heard off in the distance. Fear blasted its way into Susan’s chest. Then, smoke from a torch wafted into their noses. Susan couldn’t see the soft glow of a torch behind the immense sheet of snowfall, but she could sense it. It wasn’t far from her grasp. She knew that it was but a flame. Though, to her, it meant safety.

“Susan? Timothy? Isabella?” a voice cried out.

Susan and the rest responded with the loudest shouts that their frozen mouths could muster. Their voices rang out with a greater synchronization than the tweeting of birds in the morning.

The whinnying of the horse came closer, before being followed by the sight of a black stallion. At least, it seemed black when put up against the snow, and the darkness of the falling night. Several more whinnies followed, and the one horse was joined by several others.

Atop the steeds were their parents, and Joshua. While they all had expressions of relief when first catching sight of their children, they soon devolved into expressions of deep disappointment. The deepest of them was on Joshua’s face. Just by looking at him, Susan felt an extreme guilt well up inside of her.

“What happened to Timothy?” he asked.

For anybody else around Susan, it might’ve been hard to decipher the intention in his lifeless voice, and expression. However, Susan caught on rather quickly— she recognized the fury hidden behind his slight inflections, which gave a message as cold as the weather around them.

Susan had seen Joshua angry before. She wasn’t quite sure from where, but had foggy glimpses of stealing pastries, screaming to the point that her face turned purple, and breaking a delicate object made of glass that had been put in reach of her younger, grubbier fingers. They were all childhood memories— fading things that came and passed, leaving behind the same amount of rippling that a stone does in a river. It wasn’t anywhere near the overbearing splash that this was.

When Joshua was angry, he didn’t shout. He didn’t cry. He didn’t scowl. Not a word would leave his mouth. Instead, he would look at somebody with a blank expression, searching for some sort of explanation for what had angered him. He had a way of conveying his anger through saying and doing nothing at all.

As she looked into his face, searching for the words to appease it, she felt her mind go blank. She had nothing to say. Her tongue suddenly felt like a wad of sandpaper, and her lips felt as though they’d been sealed with glue. It was as if all the eyes on earth had turned to stare at her in disgust. Although, it was only one pair of eyes that were looking at her this way. Joshua’s eyes.

In spite of this, Susan couldn’t help but feel that there was no distinction between the two.

“He fell under an avalanche of rocks,” Isabella explained, continuing to drag Tim toward the horse.

Susan had stopped dragging with her. Under the gaze of Joshua, she couldn’t help but feel frozen.

“And where was this?” Joshua asked, not taking his eyes off of Susan.

For a moment, everything seemed to stand still, and wait for Susan to give an answer. Even the snowflakes had decided to pause from their freefall.

“Under the mountain,” said Tim with a haggard cough. He spit out his words with such a rapidity that Susan nearly thought they’d been trying to run away from him. “Piles of rocks there. Never should’ve gone.”

“What were you doing under the mountain? In this village, we have few rules— but, among those few rules, nobody is supposed to go exploring around the mountain. Too many have gone there to die.”

The words had come from one of the parents, in the form of a thick scolding. However, Susan had tuned them out before they went any further. Their voices faded away in the wind, blowing among things as insignificant as winter’s white powder.

Susan didn’t need to hear anybody else’s words, as it was. The only words that mattered to her were Joshua’s— and his stern gaze, which had yet to yield, were words enough.

Memories swirled out of Susan’s head, and amongst the snow. She watched them as they showed her the dozens of cautioning that Joshua had given her throughout her life about going around the mountain. He’d often said that it was a place riddled with dangers and fatal drops. He’d even informed her about the hauntings that were claimed to have taken place upon it.

Usually, Joshua was against supporting the rumors, and said that all they led to were decaying towns and missed opportunities. However, when it came to the rumors of the mountain, he discussed them with an unwavering solemnity. Most of the time when Susan looked back on those stories he’d told her and assumed that he’d always been pulling her leg. Though, it had never seemed that way— especially since Joshua rarely allowed his mouth to utter anything outside of full truths.

As Susan jumped onto the back of the horse and let Joshua ride her back home, she could hear his unspoken words whistling into her ears.

“Why did you disobey my ruling, Susan?”

She couldn’t answer him. Even if she’d asked this question to herself, she wouldn’t have been able to come up with a true answer. All she had was a sheet of excuses.

Why didn’t I just stay in the village, like I’ve been being told all my life? Why did I think I could keep going out without his permission, and not face the consequences?

A sense of self-disgust crept into the places that had once been proud to be solving new mysteries and trekking places that hadn’t been trekked before.

If I could go back before this had all started, I would’ve done this differently. This would all be different… None of these mistakes would’ve happened.

Though, her sense of hope and potential redemption quickly deteriorated.

They’re hollow words… “If I could go back in time,” is a phrase that everybody uses after making a regretful mistake. No matter how many times I repeat what I did, it would’ve had the same outcome… What I’ve done is something that I’m never going to be able to go back on— and that’s something that I’m going to have to learn to live with…

She sighed as more snow blew into her face and the village, with its steadily glowing torchlights, greeted her back home. It was home, and no matter how many times she abandoned it, she could always rely on it being there to greet her.

After listening to the horse trod over the slushy paths through the town, they finally had to dismount it and give it back to a stable where Joshua had borrowed it from. As they walked back through the maze of old log-houses, passing by old, friendly faces, Susan felt Joshua’s upset spirit drag farther on her soul.

“Do you know how long I looked for you today?” Joshua asked, breaking the silence that he’d maintained for the past hour.

“A lot?” Susan asked, meekly.

She knew that nothing she could say to alter the cloud of dissatisfaction that had settled over Joshua’s face.

“It was about three hours into morning, and you hadn’t come down to help me with my trade by repairing the mayor’s books. I’d been lenient with you for the past few days, so I decided to look for you. Yet, nobody had seen you all morning. Nobody saw you by noontime, either. It was afternoon by the time I had to borrow a horse from Bert’s overpriced horse stable— I’m going to have to find some way to pay him back— and I had to form a search party with Timothy and Isabella’s parents. I was outside of the village limits for hours, just looking for you. This is the third time in two weeks, Susan. How many times are you going to risk your life until you’re willing to stop? Not only is this becoming costly to our way of living, but it’s also becoming a threat to your safety.”

Susan wanted to speak, but had nothing to say. She simply gave a dejected look down the well-trodden path, and nodded. In the time that Joshua had spoken to her, they’d made it to the slumping entrance of their house. It smelled of mushroom, and a damp mold. Though, all that Susan could smell was the stink of horse emanating off of Joshua’s upset figure.

“I understand your wish to be independent. But you’ve been running from your responsibilities for too long. Independence isn’t a right, Susan… It’s earned. And, if you’re going to keep getting closer to the top of that mountain, then I’m going to have to take your ability to do so. For the next week, you’re grounded from coming out. You’re going to stay in the house with me for most of the time, and help me catch up with the book repairs that you’ve caused me to miss.”

As Joshua opened the door, and let Susan in, Susan knew that she was walking into the end of her free adventures.

The week passed by as dully as a leaf does when a breeze steadily makes it pass by a rock. For the first two days, Susan spent her time sewing book bindings, musing about what their strange covers might mean. Some of them had straightforward titles, such as, “One-Hundred Ways to Cook a Chicken”. Though, others had more mysterious titles, such as, “The Wind’s Will”. Sometimes, she would be compelled to read the pages behind these strange titles, and figure out what was harbored within them. However, whenever she tried to open these covers, she’d feel Joshua pull her hand away.

“These are other people’s books,” he would tell her. “We don’t read them.”

This seemed to be a rule that he’d created for her, more than himself. Susan would sometimes walk into the house’s library at night, to find Joshua sitting at a chair with one of the odd books. Though, since she was blockaded from the library as well, he’d oftentimes just drive her away with a few words.

It came to pass on the third day that Susan had gained some of Joshua’s trust. So, he’d decided to go out to give some of his mended books back to their owners, leaving Susan behind. In the wake of his exit, he’d locked up the library, taken a good portion of the mended books with him, and locked up the rest of the books that needed mending up. That is, he locked up the rest of them, save for a select few that he’d decided to leave for Susan to repair.

On his way out, he gave Susan a hearty goodbye, bid her a good day, and then shut the door with a soft click. Before he’d left, Susan gave him a short hug. In a way, it acted as an unspoken peace offering between the two. It was just a simple act— but, in a way, it was far more than that. It said that, despite the rough events that had wedged between them, it hadn’t been enough to entirely change things. All

the while, Susan waited patiently, searching for the exact moment that he’d leave. Once he had, she began searching the house for where Joshua might’ve hidden the books, and where a key might be to unlock them. She knew that Joshua didn’t have a key, because she’d checked his pockets for one when she’d hugged him, and she knew that the books were hidden in the library, because it was the only place in the house that she was unable to access.

However, that was the main problem— she wasn’t able to access the library. She wished that she knew the secret behind opening it, but the truth of the matter was that she hadn’t been around to see Joshua unlock the library door. All answers to unlocking it were elusive. While she thought that it might’ve been openable by a key, she wasn’t quite sure.

She knew that she had responsibilities to complete— the books that she was assigned to repair were only going to become needier of her hand’s careful touch. However, once at the library’s front door, she found that her questions weren’t any less powerful. She tried everything that she could think of– turning the knob in hopes of it coming loose, attempting to pick it with a nail that she’d loosened from a wobbly floorboard, and even going so far as to kick it. Nothing worked.

Slumping down to the floor, she let herself lapse into deep thought. It seemed that the door was impossible to open.

Then, she remembered something from a story that Joshua would read to her when she was little— it had something about a key being hidden beneath floorboards.

Without hesitation, Susan tore up the floorboard that had been loose. To her shock, a key lay below it, shining like a golden star. She looked at it in wonder, took it up, and then placed it within the doorknob. Unlocking the door, the library’s golden light spilled onto her, and she beheld the countless rows of bookshelves that Joshua had pored over for his entire life. It seemed that the sun had broken out from behind its oversized curtains of clouds and decided to place a bit of itself inside the room. The place glowed with a sensation that she’d never experienced before.

Walking amongst the columns of dust-covered accounts and tales, she searched for any of the oddly titled books. It wasn’t long before her efforts had succeeded, and she discovered one of the books laying atop Joshua’s desk. It read, “An Exploration into Shadows and Shallows”. On first glance, she knew that it had been the book she wanted. Its green and gold cover carried a mistiness to it— the same mistiness that she’d see whenever going outside in the snow. At every angle she looked at it, its faint light bounced into her eyes, making her feel both elated and unworthy at the same time. Her instinct told her to leave the book at its place, and to exit the library as if she’d never been there— there was no reason to do anything that would give her future regret. In spite of this, her impulse told her to seize it, and begin reading it as fast as she could.

She wasn’t quite sure why, but it seemed that her impulse had been winning out far more than her reasoning lately. She found herself ripping the book from the table, relocking the library door, placing the key back under the floorboard, and heading to her room to read. It didn’t matter that there were piles of books calling for her to repair them. It didn’t matter to her that there was a faith that Joshua had invested in her, and she was breaking it. It didn’t matter to her that she was breaking a significant promise to herself— that if she was put into the position where she would betray Joshua again, she wouldn’t take it.

Although, perhaps the concept that she hadn’t cared was a lie that she’d told herself. Because, as she sat in bed to read the words written upon the book’s white pages, all she could see was black. It was the blackness of her treachery. The ink spoke to her. Though, the way was far more twisted and odd than she’d expected it to be. Whenever she saw the word “shadow,” she didn’t see the image of the beckoning silhouette— instead, she saw an image of herself. Whenever she saw the word, “shallows,” all she saw was the shallowness of herself.

She’d believed that she didn’t care about what she was doing— however, it was only because she had to repeat those words to herself, in a ceaseless sequence.

It wasn’t until she saw the book beginning to account the appearances of mysterious shadows throughout the village— shadows that were said to appear on the mountainside, before tragic events— that her guilt began to reside, and her focus shifted to the world inside the pages. The contains of the book were answering a question of hers that went far deeper than whether or not she was being loyal to Joshua. Despite her knowing that the sacrifice was costly, she’d known its cost all along. That’s why she’d been willing to break nearly every rule that Joshua had set in place. The answer to her mystery might’ve been a costly one— but Susan suddenly realized that the cost was easily worth the answer.

I’m tired of having sleepless nights, where slumber escapes me simply due to the restlessness caused by not having the answers. I need to know. I need to understand what’s been going on.

Turning the pages of the book, which smelt of mildew and a crustiness that could’ve only been achieved by years of age, she discovered that the book had originated from within her own village, and only described accounts that were specific to it. She then progressed into parts that explained the rumored origins of the said shadow. There were passages that spoke of the thing being some sort of ghost, or remnant of people long passed. Another account spoke of it having originated from within the mountain, growing in there like a flower grows from the ground. There were others that described the shadow as potentially being a lone hermit, that beckoned village wanderers to follow it into the mountain, where it would take their food and valuables.

There were other rumors over where it was easiest to find. Some sections described the shadow having an affinity for shallow areas of lakes and rivers. Other sections said that the shadow preferred to take base on the foot of the mountain. Still, others said that the shadow had no home, and that it went wherever a wanderer that had been dubbed as its victim did.

What Susan found most interesting were the sections that described ways to rid oneself of appearances of the shadow. There were certain parts that described how to drive the shadow away by reciting certain incantations. Others described how to drive the shadow away with certain types of sticks. Still, others described a way of driving the shadow off with certain remedies.

None of these passages were quite what Susan had wanted, and she soon found herself traveling down an unending spiral of searching for the exact words she needed to find her answers. Though, there weren’t any. No matter how many pages she turned, she couldn’t find a cohesive word for as to why the shadow did what it did. No matter how many places she looked, she couldn’t fund an area that spoke of how the shadow did what it did. No matter how many places she went, she couldn’t find anything decisive for as to how the shadow came to be, and why it would target somebody such as herself.

There must be somewhere where my answers are, she thought, flying through each page, tearing through them in a merciless pace.

They weren’t anywhere. No matter where she went, and no matter how much effort she put in looking for them, it seemed that all answers were nonexistent.

“This book is useless,” she said.

However, she didn’t toss the book to the side, or get up to put it back. She found herself glued to its image, and she couldn’t take her eyes off of it. Inside, Susan felt as if no power on earth could’ve removed her from it. It almost seemed as if there were some sort of enchantment to it that kept her from pulling her eyes away. No matter how much she tried pulling her focus elsewhere, she was compelled to keep turning the pages to look for her answer. Her fingers received several paper-cuts, and she felt her eyes begin to water due to her restraining them from blinking. Though, she couldn’t help but ignore these urges. There was something inside that needed to know everything.

Too much has already been paid for me to give up now, she thought.

There was a part of her that felt the same eerie feeling when looking at the page that she had whenever looking upon the silhouette. It was a feeling that made her resistant to any of her senses, and all-encompassed by the sight of the element before her eyes. Nothing else had any weight over her. Nothing else held any sort of power. She was completely consumed by the sight.

Suddenly, she came to a part that gave her a sense of clarity— it put her mind to rest, and she instantly felt a part of her strained mind relieved from the extreme pressures that had been boring up against it. It was as if the boulder that had been sitting within here brain had been turned into something as light as a feather.

There are few things that are certain about it— but it’s commonly known that it thrives amongst the land that is the mountain. The shadow is a being that dwells on tricking others, and bringing misery upon those who trespass against it. It seems to be driven by some internal force, which makes it have some sort of omnipotence over anybody who dares explore its domain.

Why is its domain so sacred to it? Why is it so driven to make those who don’t respect it suffer? There are many who believe that it’s because the shadow itself is urged to keep the mountain a mystery. That’s why the shadow remains unknown and ambiguous— because ambiguity is the very thing that it’s constantly driven to defend.

Susan’s eyes inflated, and she suddenly felt a strong sense of satisfaction. The hassling that she’d put her mind, eyes, and hands through were now all worth it. She still didn’t know for sure if the passage that she’d just read was accurate, and she didn’t know what she would do with it. Although, a part of the unrelenting wondering that had been going on inside of her had finally been relieved. Susan had a feeling that the constant betrayals against Joshua’s rulings would finally be able to cease.

Susan continued to study the page, absorbing every letter that had been imprinted upon it. In having satisfied obsession, she now wanted to insure that it didn’t continue. There was a piece of her that recognized that she was allowing herself to delve slightly deeper into a pattern of constant obsessiveness— however, her obsessive aspect ignored this, and continued to read on. She needed to know that it knew everything. She needed to know that there wasn’t a single thing that she’d missed.

Her obsessive studying was suddenly broken when she heard the jiggling of a doorknob. Following this, she heard a phrase that she’d hoped she wouldn’t hear for several more hours— a phrase that brought an unmatched terror into her marrow.

“Susan, I’m home!”

In an instant, she when charging out of her room, making sure to hide the book under her covers.

“Joshua?” she said, letting her voice bounce through the halls. “What brought you here?”

“I finished returning the newly-repaired books. You didn’t think that I’d spend a whole day out there when we have tons of books to repair, did you?”

He was still a room away from the kitchen. So, as he talked, Susan started shoving her unrepaired books into the cabinets, with a pounding heart.

“Don’t be ridiculous… What made you think that I’d believe something as outlandish as that?” she said with a laugh.

“Good. So, how have the repairs been going on those books that I gave you?”

“Very well,” Susan lied, running through the kitchen and to the hall. “I’m pleased with how they’re coming along.”

“That’s great. How many of them have you gotten done?”

It was at this point that Susan felt a burst of nervousness rip through her.

“How many have I gotten done?” she repeated.

Joshua and Susan were standing eye to eye now, in front of the front door. Joshua was busy putting his shoes away, but he didn’t let that stop him from pausing and making eye contact with her.

“Yes,” he said. “What’s with the pause?”

“I— I forgot,” Susan said. “I was so wrapped up in preparing them that I didn’t take time to count them.”

Susan crossed her fingers, and hoped that this lie would somehow get passed Joshua’s wary ears. Strangely, it seemed that they did. Joshua didn’t do so much as raise the usually inquisitive eyebrow. It seemed that his focus had been directed elsewhere. Right as Susan gave her explanation, she watched his eye flick over to the library door– particularly in the vicinity of the piece of wood that Susan had plied from the floor, and grabbed her key from.

“I need to go check on something,” he said, with a slight nervousness. “In the meantime, you can go count the books that you’ve repaired for me. As long as this doesn’t take as long as I think it will, I should be back there in a minute to check on your work.”

Normally, Susan would be distracted by the chaos in what Joshua had just suggested. In telling her to admit to her number of books, she’d either have to continue her lie before it was found out, or let Joshua find it out— her only hope was that Joshua’s “checking” would require a lot less effort than he made it out to be.

Though, Susan wasn’t distracted by it. In fact, she’d put the trivial matter to the back of her mind. She couldn’t help but find herself caught up by Joshua’s abnormal conduct. He’d seemed to be overeager to rid himself of Susan. And, while such and eagerness might’ve been easy to pass off as caused by him not wanting Susan to see how he pulled the key out from under the floorboard, Susan couldn’t help but notice that there was more to his eagerness than just that. There was also a look of slight fear that had leaped across Joshua’s face— a look of fear that she’d never seen him bear before. Once again, there was a chance that it was still unrelated.

Maybe the slightly unnerved gaze might’ve just been caused by him thinking that she’d found the key. Though, Susan couldn’t help but feel that he wouldn’t have reacted so vulnerably to something as mundane and simple as that.

Perhaps he’d had a bad day while out in the village, or perhaps his odd look had only come across his face by mere coincidence. The possibility of him not wanting Susan to see the inside of his library hung in the air as well.

These possibilities, as much as Susan tried to put more weight onto them, were easy for her to neglect and toss aside. None of them came across as likely to her. Something different was glazed over him this time. There was an air of desperation that he carried in his gait.

“Go on,” he said.

It was almost haggard. However, Susan didn’t dare try to test it. Walking back to her stuffed away books, she was forced back into her grave situation of having to decide what she’d tell Joshua.

The decision didn’t take long for her to make. Soon enough, Susan was hastily reweaving the spines of her books, doing a half-baked job at trying to conceal her lies. She knew that Joshua would catch the neglect of her duties the moment that he walked back in the room. However, somewhere deep down inside of her, that was what she wanted. The detached and unfocused gaze that Joshua had held in front of the library door was both sad and uncomfortable to look at. She couldn’t help but wonder what was going on inside of him, and what could’ve made the man, who seemingly feared nothing, have his breath stop short— especially when the thing that seemed to have made his breath stop short was the sight of a loose nail.

She wasn’t left to wonder for too long. After about ten minutes in of pondering and shoving spines back together, Joshua walked in. Susan had been caught off guard by his entrance, and she felt her heart skip a beat. However, Joshua seemed to take no mind to the matter, and walked over to the corner of the room with a relative ignorance. His eyes were still distant, as if peering off at something far away, and his body was still. He stood behind Susan’s chair, and Susan tried following his gaze. However, she found that it took her to nowhere.

There was an unnaturalness to it— the room was only a few feet wide, and yet the purpose behind his melancholy spirit had to be miles.

“I counted the books out,” Susan said, shoving the books into a pile at her side. “I managed to repair seven of them.”

She was still weaving one of the spines of the book together as she said this, waiting for him to interject upon her obvious lies. For a while, he didn’t say a word. It wasn’t until Susan asked, “Did you hear me” that he seemed to snap back awake and become aware of everything.

“Did you say that you only repaired seven books?” he asked, looking at the eight books in front of his eyes— Susan had made sure to miscount them at first, to see if he was paying attention enough to notice. He hadn’t— at least, not until now.

Susan nodded in response.

“And you only managed to get them this repaired?”

Susan nodded again.

Joshua shook his head, flustered.

“Either you’re somehow far more inefficient when I disappear than when I’m here, or you’re lying to me. Which is it? What were you doing when I was gone?”

His own version of fury— the somewhat monotonous ringing of his voice, and the flatness of his expression— had tripled in size. All traces of his past fear and detachment were seemingly nonexistent. He now acted as if they’d never happened.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” Susan lied. “What makes you think that I’m lying to you?”

“Stop playing dumb… Just because I was distracted earlier doesn’t mean I can’t see the obvious now.”

“I repaired some of the books while you were gone. Wasn’t that the agreement?”

Joshua stopped talking for a moment, and even gave something that was close to a grin.

“You figured out how to get in the library, didn’t you?” he asked.

Susan shook her head no, and explained that she had no idea how to get in— but it was no use. She could tell by Joshua’s resolute and firm gaze that he wasn’t interested in hearing what she had to say. He already knew the truth.

“Go to your room and bring me the book you stole,” he said, with his words leaving a rash upon Susan’s mind as if they were sandpaper. His tone wasn’t harsh or abrasive— but, his easy diffusing of her lie had come across just as abrasive as any harsh scolding would’ve.

“I don’t have any books in my room,” Susan said, continuing the lie.

At this point, she wasn’t quite sure why she was still lying. Joshua knew that she’d stolen the book, and he could probably even see through her vast fibs. Though, there was a stubbornness inside of her— an iron will that refused to let Joshua take the book away from her. There was a majesty to the book— a majesty to everything that surrounded it. The very thought of having to let it go entangled the fabric of her mind, as if it had been caught in a spider’s web.

“Give it up Susan,” Joshua said. “Whether or not you hid the book in your room, I know that you hid it somewhere— and I’m going to find it. You might as well admit yourself to be guilty now, rather than later. You’re just making things harder on yourself— the longer that you take to tell me the truth, the longer your eventual punishment will be.”

Terrible as this notion was, Susan stood her ground. Her heart hammered, her eyes fluttered with a nervousness, and she could feel her face go hot from fear. In spite of this all, there was an impeccable will inside of her. Self-destructive as it was, it wasn’t willing to abandon its cause. It had become far too invested into it. Even as it dug itself deeper into potential catastrophe, it remained unwilling to give up.

Joshua left the room without another word. As Susan struggled with her internal stubbornness, and wondered if its decision to remain resolute had been the best plan of action, he’d left the room to put an end to all of the chaos. Although, she hardly noticed that he left. His presence still remained, as a suffocating mist. It strangled Susan, leaving her in a fog of a sickening regret.

Ten minutes managed to remove this regret enough to where Susan followed Joshua in her room, and watched him as he searched for the book

“I told you, I don’t have it,” Susan said, as she watched Joshua look under her bed and covers for it.

“Are you going to stick with that statement, Susan?” Joshua asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“Why don’t you trust me? Yes, I’m sticking with it, because it’s the truth.”

Right after those words had left Susan’s mouth a bitter taste formed on her tongue. Joshua slipped a book from out of under his clothes— and it was all over.

“I can’t believe that you’re willing to keep a complete lie like that going...” Joshua said, walking to the bedroom’s door. “I trust you, Susan. And, when you tell me lies like this, that trust starts to deteriorate. What made you think that it was ok to take this book? More importantly, what made it matter so much to you that you were willing to lie to me for that long?”

Susan didn’t give much more than a shrug as an answer.

“I’m extending your punishment for another week,” Joshua stated plainly. “I told you not to mess with these books, and you didn’t listen.”

“It was just a book!”

Joshua opened his mouth to give a rebuttal, but had to hesitate for a moment. For a moment, it was as if he himself didn’t know the reason behind his actions.

“It’s the principle of it,” he finally said.

Though, Susan wasn’t so sure that this was the truth. Joshua once again had an uneasiness while holding the book. His anger was beyond the book— it had latched onto something else that was hidden from her view.

Her suspicions were proven out when he said, “How much of the book did you read?”

“I didn’t have the chance to read it,” Susan said, continuing her lie. “I was so busy trying to find a way into your library, and then trying to hurriedly fix the books that you were back before I could even try opening it.”

Susan looked at him, trying to appeal to his better nature, but he no longer looked convinced in her words. It was as if something between them had finally broke— the bridge that had allowed them to speak without harboring a sense of distrust, had dissipated.

Joshua left the room to put the book in the library, and Susan watched with a sense of sorrow. Although, she found that she didn’t feel it as much toward Joshua, like she would’ve expected. Instead, her sorrow was directed at the book. As it disappeared out of her room, and down the hall, she knew that her chance of uncovering the silhouette’s secrets went with it.

The next few days overflowed with tedium and tiring effort. Susan was constantly kept busy with cleaning the house, and making up for the books that she’d neglected. However, she soon found that Joshua made sure that she more than made up for what she missed— there was a stretch of three days when she hardly had the time to take a break to eat, let along work. Her conversations with Joshua had also been minimized, to the point that they were near nonexistent. He’d give Susan the minimum of orders, and then left her to clean up after her mess. It was all a very strenuous ordeal, and Susan found by the end of it that she was on the brink of rebelling against orders. Thankfully, this only occurred by the end of it, and no repercussions came out of her impulse.

“You’ve done a great amount of work,” Joshua said, after he’d come out of the library with his own pile of repaired books.

He leaned over to count all of Susan’s books, and gave an approving nod.

“Five dozen in three days,” he said, with a grin. “That’s a new record for you.”

“Still doesn’t beat your record. A hundred and fifteen books in three days— I can’t even imagine.”

Susan swiped her hand across her forehead to exaggerate her exhaustion. Joshua chuckled in response, and then slammed his books onto the table.

“Make that one hundred and seventeen,” he said, with such a self-pride that he might as well have been patting himself on the back. “This pile that I brought in here is only a fraction of the books I repaired…”

Susan gaped at the sight. Joshua had only brought in three books, and they were all big enough for him to express an apparent strain while carrying them in. The thought of there being over a hundred more was beyond daunting.

At this point, she was just waiting for Joshua to say the words that were inevitably coming.

“I’ve given Bert word that I need him to haul all of these books to my customers in his horse drawn carriage. He’s expecting them to be set out on our porch by sundown. Could you help me out and carry some of these books with me?”

Within the course of ten minutes, Joshua had strategized a way to get those words out, and Susan was wheezing as piles of books drained her breath away. Each of the books felt like miniature boulders, and her fingers felt as if they were crushing beneath their weight. Even Joshua, who she’d become accustomed to seeing as having everything under control, appeared to be struggling by their tenth load.

Ten more loads proved them weaker still.

By the time all of the books had been loaded for the carriage to pick up, Susan’s muscles had been reduced to something that was undiscernible from the slushy snow beneath her feet. At that point, making sure that all the books were set out, or that they’d been set out in time no longer mattered. Neither her, nor Joshua, bothered to check. Once they’d placed the last book onto the porch, all that mattered was that it was the last book— and they didn’t care to check and see if there were any others.

Exhaustion had beat them down to the point that the very thought of looking for more was hard to bear.

“I think that we’re going to call it for the night,” Joshua said, with a smirk. “Why don’t we go inside and make ourselves some of that nice warm soup that we’ve left cooking in there all day.”

At the time, nothing sounded better to Susan. Though, once the soup had traveled down her throat and into her stomach, that thought was quickly replaced with the converse. In spite of their hard work, it seemed that their reward was a lukewarm broth that had obtained a somewhat slimy texture. It wasn’t appealing in any way.

“I should’ve checked the fire more throughout the day,” Joshua said. “If I’d done that, we wouldn’t have had to deal with this.”

He managed to get out a laugh in spite of his words’ sullen composure, but the weight of the bad meal and the bad taste in their mouths kept much else from coming out.

There was another reason why things kept quiet— Susan had a question that she wanted to ask. Though, the work of the past few days and the strain that had grown between her and Joshua kept her from asking it.

After the third scoop of her food, and the third attempt of swallowing it down, she finally realized that asking the question would be far easier to focus on than eating her food.

“What do you think about the myths concerning the mountain?” she finally asked, giving her best attempt at being nonchalant.

Joshua saw through all of the holes in her act as instantly as he was able to see holes in the binding of a book. He gave a slight scowl and a squint of an eye to Susan in return.

Finally, he set down his spoon and flatly said, “Nonsense. It’s utter nonsense. What makes you think otherwise?”

“Nothing… It’s just— I couldn’t help but get curious, with all of the rumors that are constantly swirling about.”

Joshua passively spit some of his food back into his bowl, and pushed it aside.

“You’ll find that the reason rumors constantly ‘swirl about’ in the mountain is because a single person is constantly spreading them. The snow is blown about by only one force— the wind. Rumors are only blown about by one force too— gossips. The sooner you get that into your head, the sooner you realize the truth.”

Susan felt a bit of her morale torn away by this statement— but, for some reason, it didn’t tear her apart in the way that it seemed Joshua had been expecting. She remained still. Her thoughts didn’t whither. In fact, they persisted. There was something about the particular rumors that she’d seen— something about how personal they’d become— that she couldn’t quite pass them off as mere rumors.

All it took was a mere glance at Joshua, and she read confusion from upon it. The expression of confusion was slight— as always with Joshua, it was ambiguous and hard to map out. Whenever he felt anything, he seemed to try his best to veil it. Though, the confusion was undeniably there.

“I know that they’re just rumors,” Susan said, “but rumors can’t be wrong all of the time— right?”

“What are you getting at?”

Joshua’s brow raised. It was a very hard movement to catch— just half a centimeter of an adjustment. However, it was undeniably there. Just by viewing it, Susan could tell that he was assessing everything, and allowing no moment of leniency. Nothing got by from under his inspective mind.

Susan had learned from experience that the only way to deflect such inspection was to change the movement of the subject.

“Do you remember those fairytales that you told me when I was little? The ones with dragons, weird quests, and—.”

“Yes, I remember them very clearly.”

For some reason, Joshua’s face had gone red and had bent toward the ground.

“There were so many of them— and they were all very alike,” Susan continued. “I just came to the conclusion that maybe there’s more to them than just fairytales. I know that you think that I might be being nonsensical and ridiculous— and, you’d be right in that. But, do you honestly think that all of those stories were wrong? They all focused on a similar setting, and a similar place… I just find it hard to believe that they’re all completely fake.”

“Just because it’s hard to believe that something isn’t real, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t… The reason that most fairytales are similar is that they derive from one another. Unicorns and Leprechauns are all subject to the confines of the imagination. It may be true that the stories in books all have a link into reality. Though, that link is oftentimes only there because it’s hard to conceive of something that is nonexistent… And so, we infer beings from elements of the nature that surrounds us.”

“Then why are you so terrified of me going onto the mountain, if you think that the mystical rumors surrounding it are nonexistent?”

His question gave Joshua a moments pause.

“The reason that rumors surround the mountain is to scare younger children away,” Joshua finally said. “It was never real, Susan. I hope that’s not what you’ve been looking for during your journeys to the mountain’s foot. If so, you’ll be sorrowfully disappointed in what you find…”

It was now Susan’s turn for her face to go red. She could feel a sinking guild in her chest for having believed in the silhouette— for still having that belief. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she couldn’t deny what she’d sensed and seen at the foot of the mountain.

“What do you know about odd silhouettes near the mountain,” Susan asked.

Joshua fingered the side of his bowl.

“How much of that book did you read?” he asked, with concern filling out the edges of his voice.

“None of it. I already told you that I hadn’t read any of it. What would make you think that—.”

“Stop lying to me. There’s no need to keep hiding… I already know that you wouldn’t have stolen a book without taking the time to try reading some of it.”

“It was only a few pages,” Susan said, giving up some ground.

“How many pages? What were in them? Most importantly— what brought you to look in it?”

Susan knew that she was cornered, and that there was no use trying to fight out of it. Joshua had craftily put her in a position where honesty was the only available option.

“About fifty pages,” she admitted, trying to pull out any guilt.

She watched Joshua’s face flare— at least, in the closest possible way of him flaring— though there was also a sort of fear in his gaze.

“Fifteen pages?” he asked, as if he’d misheard her.

Both Susan and him knew that he hadn’t misheard. Her words had been clear as the snow was white. The real reason that Joshua had acted as if he’d misheard was the true mystery.

“I thought I told you not to read any of those books,” Joshua said, in his placid fury. “The things that were in them— they weren’t for you to read. They weren’t your books. They weren’t your property…”

Once again, Susan quickly caught on that he was distracting from the true reason that he was upset. Joshua couldn’t have cared less about whether or not she’d read the books that she repaired. It was true that she’d been punished for reading the silhouette book. Although, this was mostly due to her prior punishment, and the punishment was already in the past. In addition, Joshua often read the books that needed repair— he wasn’t the sort of person who was particularly susceptible to hypocrisy.

The most telling element that Joshua didn’t mean what he said was how long it had taken for him to say it. If Joshua had been so upset with her having read the book, then it would’ve been the first thing he’d complained about. Though, it seemed to Susan that his complaint had been an afterthought. To her, the real thing he was saying wasn’t that the book wasn’t hers to read, but that he hadn’t wanted her to read it.

But… Why didn’t he want me to read it? Susan wondered.

“I didn’t think that anything bad would come out of reading it… I was curious, and that book happened to focus on a subject matter that I was interested in… The thought that reading it was infringing on another’s property had never crossed my mind.”

“It never crossed your mind when you went out of your way to search for the key to my library? It never crossed your mind, despite all of my forewarnings against it? And also— how did it happen to have subject matter that you were interested in?”

Reluctance dripped in Susan’s every breath— but it didn’t matter. The words that she’d kept locked off from Joshua started coming out of her mouth.

“In my visits to the mountain, I’ve seen a few strange things— odd shadows that seem to be beckoning for me to come closer. I know that sounds ridiculous, just like a lot of other thing that I’ve said today… But, that doesn’t make it feel any less real.”

“That doesn’t make your actions any less unfounded either. How many times have I told you to avoid going under the mountain? How many times have I had to tell you that it’s a dangerous place and that you can’t go there? If you’d just listened to me, then we wouldn’t be having these problems…”

“I was just curious. The last time I went out was the only time that I’ve been that close to the mountain…”

“And look at where curiosity brought you. I know that living in this village isn’t the easiest. And, I’m aware that it’s hard to cope with the claustrophobia of our winters… But that doesn’t justify completely doing away with everything that I told you to do.”

“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. If I’d known that reading the book mattered that much to you, I wouldn’t have bothered with it.”

At hearing Susan’s words, Joshua suddenly stopped his tirade of scolding and came to a halt. His face reminded Susan of a knot of rope that she’d once made by accident. In a sense, Joshua had become tied up in himself.

Susan held no animosity toward his position— but, she didn’t feel her usual curiosity either. She felt herself in an odd in between of wondering what he was hiding and feeling anger in the fact that he was hiding something from her.

Joshua bent his head deep into the table, before pulling it back up.

“I’m sorry as well,” he said. “There was no need for me to keep hammering in the fact that you shouldn’t have read that book— especially since we’ve already covered that ground almost a week ago. I understand your natural curiosity. I once felt the same as you, when I was younger. It’s partially my fault that you feel such a sensation, since I read you grandiose stories about the mountain when you were younger. Though, you can trust me on this— there’s nothing under or on that mountain that’s worthwhile, and you’ll come back from your search with a sense of regret. If I’m not mistaken, you already have…”

He looked into Susan’s eyes, and Susan looked back into his. It was a moment of staring at each other— perhaps a second or two— though, it was the longest moment that Susan had ever felt. Joshua’s eyes had a scathing quality to them— their very look was all that he needed to express himself. While that often came as a positive, tonight Susan couldn’t imagine how she could’ve ever seen it as such. All that she could feel was his disappointment— his wish for things to have been easier, and different. And, when looking back into his eyes, Susan couldn’t help but feel taken adrift by his infectious look. She too had wanted things to be simpler and easier to judge.

But, it just can’t ever be that way again, Susan thought, wistfully.

The scratching groan of wood against wood erupted as Joshua pushed his chair back and stood up from his place at the table. His eyes finally turned from Susan’s, relieving her of the somewhat unendurable discomfort that she’d been trying to reckon with. Then, Joshua picked up his bowl of mush and began to walk off.

“I should’ve checked the fire more…” he said, placing the bowl into a basin.

His figure eventually disappeared into a dark corridor, and Susan could eventually hear the distinct closing and shutting of the familiar library door. As this happened, a sort of revelation came to Susan’s mind. The unendurable discomfort hadn’t ended after the awkward stare had. Rather, there was a feeling in her that discomfort was only just beginning for her.

**

Repetition had become something that Susan had repeatedly shown a grudge toward. Though, the consistent onslaught of the next few weeks knocked her into a position where she had to submit to repetition’s power. I seemed that she could no longer escape cycles that were going on around her. For the remainder of her punishment, she found herself stuck repairing books while trying to read them without Joshua catching notice. Afterwards, she’d cook, clean, knit clothes back together, and, if she’d been lucky enough to get all of those jobs done before the day ended, sanding down the splinters on certain wooden furniture.

In a way, the exhaustion she felt was no longer perceived as exhaustion. It had just become a given— something that she no longer saw as an option. At that point, the only point had become getting to the end, and making it to the other side. She could hardly stand the fact that she felt as if she were hardly getting anywhere, and that it was as if every moment that she worked, she was working toward something that appeared purposeless. However, the end goal, and the power of pattern had put her in a place where she no longer resisted it as strongly.

Conversation with Joshua had come at an all-time low, as usual, and there wasn’t much to give her solace, other than her own thoughts and the warming fireplace. However, that too became something that she was compliant with, and all of her rebelliousness had leaked out of her.

As with nearly everything, there was a clear positive that came out of this— Susan had reached a position where the punishment didn’t faze her. She could deal with it without feeling any apparent strain, and her feeling had grown numb. Though, there was a terrifying element to the numbness— she felt as if a part of her soul had been drained in the process of it. The draining was slight and subtle, but it was undeniably there. All of its effects were easy to observe.

She no longer took interest in whether or not the shadow existed, or even whether or not the mountain was dangerous. Her eyes started to see her imagination as a sort of prison, from which she’d been bound. If she hadn’t gone so far as to explore the shadow in the first place, she believed that she wouldn’t have had so many issues with it.

So, the shadow faded, and all dangers subsided. To a degree, this gave her a relief of the strain that had been built between her and Joshua. The one thing that she failed to notice was how the subtraction of her fantasy had made little to no difference. Joshua was still distant, only speaking to give orders.

Although, declaring that there wasn’t a single difference would be a slight exaggeration— the one difference was that Susan had become as bland and lifeless on the inside just as much as the snowy world outside of her had.

Changeless repetition continued, with each one fading into the next, and them seemingly becoming endless. However, the end did come. After a little over a week of all this, with Susan’s spirit somewhat broken and nothing of consequence having taken place, she’d reached the last day of her punishment.

Despite having built up her past series of dull days by telling herself that the last day was coming, once the last day came to pass she no longer felt such an eager excitement. Instead, she felt a remaining bad aftertaste of dry blandness remaining in her mouth, and sucking her back into her normal schedule of the day. It came to be that she treated that day no different from any of the other days, having expected not much more from Joshua than what he’d already been doing with her.

She’d been wrong in thinking this.

After finishing her daily repair of twenty books, Joshua came to her work table. On the usual day, he came with a straight-face and a list of orders. Although, today he came with a sort of smile— and when he opened his mouth to give his order, it wasn’t the kind that Susan had been expecting at al.

“I’m extremely pleased with the way that you’ve worked for the past week,” he said. “And so, I’m having you go out a day early.”

Susan gave a grin— among the few that she’d had in several weeks.

“Don’t think that you’re going to get out of work,” Joshua said, giving his closest thing to a grin in return. “I’m going to have you take my usual place for the day, and have you return some of these books to their owners. I’m sure that you can easily handle it— right?”

Susan nodded— even if she’d had no idea as to how to take the route, she would’ve lied anyway, just so that she could escape the vacuum of a house that she felt trapped in

“Good,” Joshua said. “There aren’t any houses on the outskirts of town this time around, so you shouldn’t have any need to wander too far off— and, if you do happen to have wandered far off, and somebody finds you there, I’m going to make sure that your punishment is extended.”

Joshua tried saying these words in the most threatening way that he could muster— though, Susan easily saw through the act. If truth be told, even the timidest of people wouldn’t have felt threatened by his words, in spite of their content. Whenever Joshua spoke, even with the intention of inciting fear, he had a soft overtone to his voice. He couldn’t have been any less intimidating if he’d been a mewing cat, playing with a ball of yarn.

“Also,” he continued, desperately struggling to pound in the idea that this early taste of freedom wasn’t one to take lightly, “I want you to take the normal route. If you have houses that are more west, go to those first. They’re close to the mountain, and are the most dangerous to be around if the weather suddenly gets bad, so you’ll want to have those pinned down first thing. I know that the houses further west are worse off, and are no means our most important customers— but integrity is something that I strongly condone, and we can’t just—.”

It was at this point that Susan tuned out. Joshua was usually one to keep quiet and say little— though, when he came upon a subject that he felt deeply for, he had the tendency of tumbling into a pit of over-talkativeness and rambling.

“Do you understand?” he finally asked.

Although not hearing most of what he’d said, Susan nodded anyway. Thankfully, she was lucky enough to get Joshua on a good ramble, and he didn’t bother to ask her to reiterate what he’d said.

“Will I be going to Flanders’?” Susan asked, trying to change the subject before it might turn its subject onto her.

“Yes,” Joshua said.

In spite of Joshua’s laborious monologue, this one word was all that Susan really bothered to listen to. She hastily grabbed the pile of books that Joshua had set out for her to return, and left the house.

The reason that she’d been so excited at hearing of Flanders was for his eccentric personality and identity. While on the thinner end of his lifespan, he had a vigor to him. He’d throw enormous gatherings at his house, and make sure that everybody would participate in an excellent romp. His giant-sized sociable presence, and irresistible charisma were a flaky aura that followed him wherever he went. It was often said that he could just look at a person and make them feel an extreme sense of joy and fulfillment.

It seemed that every week he had some sort of party going on. There were some claims that Flanders had held a party every week for the past fifty years— and there was no evidence to the contrary concerning that notion. Flanders’ house was built entirely of stone because of the parties— it had used to be entirely made of wood, but people consistently entering and exiting his house had put such a strain upon it that he needed to replace all of the broken wood pieces with stone. At this point, the house was nearly a completely different structure from what it had been when it was first built. Additionally, while they couldn’t be seen from under the snowy coat of winter, hundreds of muddy footprints covered his yard, to the point that it was full of visible holes and ruts.

Some of his parties were so extreme that the night would be flooded with the busy whinnies of loose horses, the smell of smoke from his massive bonfires, and the screams and shouts of parties. There were claims that, during certain parties, the stars would be knocked out of the sky, and try trailing down to join them. Other than a few children, and people who harbored a bit of a grudge, everybody in town had gone to at least one of his parties. Even people outside of the town had gone to his parties. He was the sort of person who everybody liked to be around— the sort of person who liked everybody to be around.

Susan skimmed through the houses that Joshua had sent her through without so much as a second thought. Each stop appeared as a mere obstacle that she could easily surpass. At a few of them, she didn’t even bother to knock and open their doors— she’d leave their books on their damp snowy porch, and then run off to the next house. Nearly all of her energy was oriented towards Flanders that day. Her focus on each task apart from him was fleeting. It was as if every house were just a clover amongst a field of clovers. In spite of it being one among thousands, the only one that held any significance out of them was the four-leaf clover.

As she finished her last house, and made her way down the snow-covered village-trail to Flanders’, she suddenly remembered a person who’d never bothered to attend one of his parties, and who had a grudge towards Flanders— Joshua.

Though Flanders was considered to be the most prominent out of all the individuals in town, and though he seemed to provide work for nearly everybody, Joshua constantly spoke of a bitter taste that the utterance of Flanders name brought to his mouth.

Joshua had often denounced Flanders’ consistent need to make raucous in the town, and make a joke out of people who made a hard earned living. Susan never quite understood Joshua’s grudge, but was aware of his dislike towards Flanders’ ideal of making everything into some sort of joyride. Joshua held the standards of living honestly, and working hard to reach prestige. Flanders was the polar opposite of Joshua in every way in this regard.

Nobody was certain as to how Flanders’ made his money, but there were plenty of suspicions that he made it through dishonest trades, trickery, or even outright thievery. Whenever Susan came across the man, with his magnetic personality, she could hardly believe that these claims could even be possible. She’d once traded a few words with him, and he’d offered some of the best compliments to her that she’d ever heard. While she knew that he was very superficial, she also knew that not everything that came out of his mouth could’ve been a lie— there was too much a soft sweetness to his voice to believe otherwise.

Most people held the same belief as Susan, and any accusation of Flanders being dishonest was always declared to be false. It was the unpopular opinion to think down on him.

Joshua held the unpopular opinion, and constantly pushed his beliefs down onto Susan. Susan had often asked him why this was, but Joshua never gave an answer. He only provided his usual pattern of giving opinions without reason, and directing his thoughts through his straight facial expression, rather than words or body motions. There wasn’t any definite way for her to tell if what Joshua had said had any justification to them or not— he rarely adopted a belief without reason, but she rarely ever got any reason from him either.

All of this buildup had played a major part in why she’d held so much anticipation in her meeting with Flanders. In a way, he held not only a charismatic air about him, but a mythical air as well. Just like the mountain, he held a strange mystery to him— and he posed as a hole in Joshua’s often seemingly impenetrable armor.

Despite their differences, there was one thing that Joshua and Flanders had in common. They both had an extreme infatuation and love towards books. Susan remembered stretches of months when Joshua would cycle through piles of books of Flanders’ that needed repairing. All of the books would typically have enormous gauges put in them, as if Flanders had purposely maimed them. Though the purposeful maiming of the books was apparent, this was one of the few habits of Flanders’ that Joshua cared relatively little about. In fact, he would express a sense of respect toward Flanders’ vast collection, and allow his own presuppositions to dry out.

It was by Flanders that Susan had also been convinced that the man couldn’t have been everything that Joshua claimed he was— Flanders’ taste in books was too varied and intriguing to pass off as such. To her, passing Flanders off as a time-waster was like viewing a cocoon and instantly passing it off as a moth rather than a butterfly. Only careful judgment and the process of time would be able to prove whether it was one way or the other.

With these thoughts in mind, she reached the door of Flanders’ house. The building was just as majestic as she’d remembered it, with it being adorned in a smooth stone that reminded her of the stories of castles she’d often heard. It didn’t have tall spires, a drawbridge, or an enormous scale, but it was far greater than the castle to her. Unlike the castle, this house was right in front of her eyes.

The house was very simplistic, with it only having the necessities, such as holes for windows, a chimney for an indoor fireplace, and nothing more. Bothering with the trifles in superfluous designs and ornaments wasn’t something that it was willing to waste its time on. Though, it did have a welcoming atmosphere to it— maybe it was the design, the open size, or the knowledge that many had enjoyed the company in this building. Susan didn’t bother wondering— when she saw the house, she saw the image of Flanders that she’d conjured up in her mind. There didn’t seem to be a single flaw about it— save an odd boulder with a massive dent in its side. She knew that, whatever this house held, it could’ve only been greater than what she’d viewed on the outside.

She knocked on the door, using a golden knocker that had been installed onto it. A minute passed, and there wasn’t an answer. So, she grasped the knocker again and prepared to slam it onto the door again. However, this time the door had opened before she could finish the act. Susan found herself stumbling forward. The hand of somebody else caught her before she could clumsily hit the ground. Looking up, she saw a man’s face— the face of Flanders.

He didn’t need to introduce himself, or say a single word when she looked up to him. Words were unneeded in his presence. He had a distinct look to him— wrinkles all around the mouth and eyes, you not a single one crossing his rosy cheeks. His hair had mostly faded out, doubtlessly due to time’s tests. His stature was far less fine-tuned than expected from a man with his social status as well— it seemed that age had slumped him lower than his expected height.

Yet, he still had managed to obtain and maintain a youthful joy and look in his eyes. As Susan looked at him she saw his mouth curve into a smile— and she couldn’t help but smile back. His power of joy was infectious, and he made Susan feel as if she possessed the same charismatic energy that he did. It was akin to looking at a painting. The very sight of one would oftentimes have the power of making one feel as if they themselves could become a painter.

“And what are you here for?” Flanders said, retaining his grin. There was almost an unnaturalness to it, and as he displayed and waved his arms about, Susan experienced an odd mixture of awe and trepidation going on within her.

She’d been so distracted by Flanders’ captivating spirit that she found that she’d refrained from answering his question. Even with his incomparable happiness, she could see Flanders’ face beginning to lose a bit of his magnitude as she kept him waiting.

“I—,” she began, but Flanders interrupted her before she could finish.

All of her books were swiped from her hand, with Flanders giving an uproarious shout of pleasure.

“You must be Joshua’s adopted apprentice,” he said, grabbing Susan’s hand and shaking it about as if her hand had been some sort of tree branch, and he was a young child waving it about.

Susan cringed at hearing his latter words, but found a way to look past them when Flanders’ magnetic abilities pulled her back in. Even in his rude interruptions, and fumbling introductions, he had an unabashed spirit about him. He had a way of not allowing his flaws to let him stumble, and this somehow covered up all of his mistakes and flaws from sight.

“So, how are you today?” he asked with a toothy grin. Then he grabbed Susan by the shoulder and opened his door wide open, to the point that Susan could see the entirety of his entrance hall.

Susan prepared to nod, but was once again trampled by Flanders’ speech.

“Good, yes? That’s good!”

He began leading Susan into his house, with the front porch morphing into the interior of his house. As this happened, Flanders leafed through his newly-repaired books with an unmatchable grin on his face.

“Astounding!” he said. “What excellent craftsmanship. Why, I haven’t seen anybody repair books so well— not even the people outside of this town. I used to think Joshua ridiculous for stuffing himself in the somewhat limiting niche of book repairs. But, now that I look at how well of a job he does, I see just how necessary people like him are! He’s amazing!”

He let out a laugh.

“Actually, I repaired those books,” Susan said, with heat flowing through her chest and up to her head.

In the wintry cold that surrounded her, heat was normally a thing that she gladly welcomed— but, this heat was one of clammy and uncomfortable proportions. She now clearly understood what Joshua meant whenever he said, “A spineless book is a broken book— but, I’ve found that books with good spines are always the stiffest of the bunch… How is it that such a positive thing is also a negative thing?”

Susan realized that Flanders symbolized both the uncomfortable and comfortable in socialization.

Perhaps that’s why his character sometimes has such a polarizing view, Susan thought.

“You repaired these books?!” Flanders said, with his eyes widening in an unnatural sort of wonder.

Susan had never seen a look quite like it on the face of anybody else— it had the wide-eyed innocence of a child, but was clearly influenced by the age of this man. Susan couldn’t help but feel as if Flanders was merely pandering to her, and putting on a show as if he thought her to be a young child— but, Flanders’ natural good-naturedness and hospitability diminished the potency of these feelings.

Susan told him yes, but it was clear to her that this wasn’t the end of their conversation. At hearing her answer, his eyes widened even more. His head turned about side to side, as if looking to see if anybody else was watching. His exaggerated responses had a freshness to them, despite the discomfort that tailed them.

“You have a talent, young ma’am,” he declared, playing with his vocal chords so as to give himself a presence of authority.

Susan grinned. In spite of Joshua having told her that he wanted her back early, she had hoped that Flanders would strike up a conversation. There was an element to him that was both mysterious and enchanting— she’d deeply wanted to explore it, and it seemed that she was finally getting the chance to. It didn’t matter that Joshua had told her otherwise. All that mattered to her was taking the chance, and looking deeper into something new.

In a way, Flanders represented the very same thing that the mountain had to her. Joshua’s secrets. A part of her felt that, if she looked into the things that Joshua forbade her from deep enough, she might find the answers to Joshua’s secrets— the secrets hidden within his odd quietness that she’d come to constantly associate him with.

“Why, I think you’ll eventually eclipse your teacher, Joshua,” he said, recovering from the shock of discovering that Susan had repaired the books. “These books had been torn to shreds during one of my parties— I can hardly believe that you managed to bring them back, as if they’d never been damaged in the first place.”

Then, he placed his hand on Susan’s shoulder.

“It’s unusual for women to run their own businesses— it’s not the way of the land. But I tell you, this is a skill that you can’t allow yourself to lose. You could run an entire business doing this.”

Susan gave a quick thank you— although his comments were done in kindness, she was once again taken aback by them. She felt that his words dug a bit too deep, and they made her feel odd— out of place. While she knew Flanders had good intent, she couldn’t imagine having to rely on repairing books for the rest of her life. She’d only been doing it for six years, and it was already becoming a tiresome and tedious job.

“Say— would you like to have a look around my library. I figure that a book repairer such as yourself might be interested in seeing my varied collection.”

“Yes.”

All it took was that single word, and Flanders led her down a hall, and through their destination’s doorway. To Susan’s surprise, the house’s design was much like her own. In spite of Flanders’ vast wealth, he wasn’t one to embellish it. The house didn’t have the exorbitant size that she’d expected, and the walkways were very simplistic and raw. The walls rarely adorned anything, apart from a few solitary markings, which had no doubt been put there by rowdy guests.

The library was just as unglamorous. It was certainly bigger, better lit, and better maintained than Joshua’s, with not a bit of dust coating the bookshelves. The bookshelves themselves were also very impressive, with them all being built of an expensive wood. Though, overall, Susan found it to be very mundane and uninteresting— especially with the infamous identity of Flanders put into consideration.

“What do you think of it?” Flanders asked, with a proud swoop of his arm. The library was clearly a gem to him— Susan could tell just by the twinkling of his eyes. However, no matter how hard Susan looked upon the library of books, that’s all she was able to see— books.

The primary reason for this was that Susan was so exposed to the sight of many books. While books were a sign of wealth and intelligence, it had become slightly dull to her. In a way, it had become similar to a knife. While a knife might start out sharp and brilliant, it becomes extremely dull as it’s overused over time.

“It’s very impressive,” Susan lied. “How did you get all of them?”

Flanders beamed.

“I was hoping you would ask that question. While my collection might seem rather large, and look as if it would’ve taken me traveling from several corners of the known land around us to garner, it’s actually quite simpler than that. I’m a man of trading, so I’ve gotten a few books from that. And, as a man of parties, I retrieved books from that as well. It was really just a few here, and a few there. It slowly grew in size, until it reached the size of this enormous mound. Really, it was quite a simple thing. I hadn’t put much thought into it until very recently.

“This is also why I’ve constantly employed Joshua to repair these books. I’ve found that, a lot of the time, the books are only given to me because they’re either damaged, or near unrepairable. Surprisingly, your master is a miracle worker. He’s managed to fix things that I thought weren’t savable. I would’ve used half of these books for kindling if it hadn’t been for him. Joshua is worth every coin I put into him— he’s come a long way, and there needs to be more people like him.”

All of reality seemed to pause for Susan at the phrase, “he’s come a long way.” Something in Susan’s mind altered at that moment. It was reminiscent to when one realizes that every mound of snow on the ground is made up of thousands of snowflakes. A new complexity ripped into Susan’s mind— thoughts that she never considered came scrambling in, and she saw hundreds of different details falling into position. All of Joshua’s odd and unexplainable behaviors instantaneously became mundane and explainable.

He’s been hiding something from me, after all, Susan thought, with her eyes and brow squinting in unison. The very notion was so hard to believe that she had to squint her eyes to believe what she was seeing. His complacent facial expression and tone were always concealing something from me.

“I’m really happy to hear that you like our work,” Susan said, trying her best to crawl into the cracks of Flanders’ kindness. “But, what do you mean by ‘he’s come a long way’? Is there something about Joshua that I’m missing here?”

For the first time during her entire visit, she saw Flanders reveal a part of himself that was less than electric. In fact, she could’ve sworn that she saw some sort of dread leak into his eyes.

“No— just a slip of the tongue,” he said, before lapsing into an incoherent mutter, and laughing his statement off.

“Sorry— it was an abrupt change of subject,” Susan said, trying her best to say this without revealing that she’d caught Flanders’ unusual behavior. “It’s just— sometimes I think that there aren’t enough answers in this town. Maybe I’m being unreasonably curious, but the town’s small size makes it hard for me to avoid bringing these uncomfortable questions up.”

Flanders nodded understandably.

“I don’t place any blame onto you,” he said. “I suppose that it’s a tendency for children your age to begin putting things into question. It’s a part of the natural order of things. However, I advise that you don’t go any deeper than you’ve already gone.”

He said these words with an eerie seriousness that Susan hadn’t expected to come out of him. It seemed that all of the lights in the room started flickering and darkening in response to what he’d said.

Although, he then let out a laugh that attempted to erase all of this seriousness.

“Who knows what shenanigans it will bring,” he said, acting as if this tacked-on statement had been part of his initial warning.

Susan wasn’t convinced in the slightest. However, trying to conceal her growing discomfort, she laughed along with him.

Flanders wasn’t convinced in the slightest.

This is becoming a cycle of lies and falsehoods… I came here to get answers, not questions. I never thought that I’d come out of here thinking that Flanders is less forward than Joshua…

“Well, it was nice talking to you,” Susan said, subtly gesturing to the door.

Susan was about to explain herself, but Flanders hastily interjected.

“Don’t go yet— there’s still so much that I need to show you.”

He gave an almost pleading look to her, as if he was desperate to have her company. Then, he gestured to the hundreds of books that were crammed into the shelf behind him.

Suddenly, Susan no longer saw the majesty within Flanders that she’d originally thought to be there. In its place, she saw something that was desperate— conniving even. All of the magical, youthful glow hat had once rested upon Flanders face had been stripped bare. The stripes of age were all that remained.

“It’s just— I don’t know how much time that I have. I don’t want to waste it all here, and go back to a disappointed Joshua.”

If Flanders had heard her, he’d done an amazing job at making it seem as if he hadn’t. His eyes hadn’t diverted from his shelves of books. He filed through all of them, knocking each one down as if they were a domino.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Susan asked, preparing to repeat her words.

Flanders once again ignored her— however, this time he didn’t put any effort into pretending as if he wasn’t.

“Mines of Ether, Bridges of Emerald, The Epic of Bray a Wolf…” Flanders said, listing off the book titles with such a rapidity that it was hard to tell what he was even saying.

“I don’t want to sound rude, but I really have to go,” Susan said.

If it had been anybody else, she would’ve followed through on this statement. Although, Flanders clearly wasn’t interested in her leaving, and Susan knew that Flanders was too valuable of a customer for her to risk offending him. Not only that, but she still had a lingering interest in Flanders that had remained, even in spite of his odd behavior and resistance in giving her clear answers.

“You know, I actually haven’t read half of these books,” Flanders said, carefully articulating each word he spoke, as if they all had an immeasurable weight to them. “It’s really odd, whenever I put a large amount of thought into it. I’ve inserted a vast amount of wealth into this collection— even if I didn’t put that much work into it. But, I can’t help but feel that I’ve done it for nothing. It’s just a lot of wasted space. That is— I thought it was a lot of wasted space until now. I figure that you’re the only person in town who will be willing to take a look at these books, and appreciate them for what they’re really are.”

Susan struggled to keep her face from construing into a confused expression.

“I know that this might seem extremely odd,” said Flanders, “but, after years of hosting parties in this house, I’ve come to realize how lonely the life of an eccentric character, such as myself, really is. It has become straining to keep up the illusion, and even more straining to find somebody who’s willing to appreciate the things that I appreciate.”

Susan had no response to him— his words were so extraordinarily odd and out of nowhere that she didn’t know what to make of them.

“If there’s any book in here that catches your eye, it’s yours,” Flanders finally said, with his mouth lighting up. However, when Susan watched his eyes, she saw how sullen they’d become.

At first, Susan was still confused about Flanders’ behavior. Though, she then saw the advantage to his offer— any book in the library could be hers. While there was no explanation to Flanders’ strangeness, it had been eclipsed by the context of his offer.

“I can take any book from this library?”

“Yes!” Flanders exclaimed, almost too eagerly. He pulled out a few books from a shelf to get his point across.

He was almost too eager in doing this. It was as if he were trying to get rid of them.

“Do you have ‘An Exploration into Shadows and Shallows’?” she asked.

There was no doubt in her mind that the answer was yes. Though, this lack of doubt didn’t change the fact that she felt as if Flanders wasn’t willing to give her the true answer. The book was odder than anything about Flanders— and that was saying a lot. If Flanders had bothered to give any attention to the book, she was certain that it would’ve been the prize jewel of his collection— it wasn’t comparable with anything else that he possessed.

In a way, her very asking of the book’s title was a way for her to test Flanders’ loyalty to his word.

She was right in assuming so. At hearing Susan’s words, Flanders’ face started to look as if it were being pulled in all directions. His gaze of desperation altered into one of reluctance. His very gaze appeared to be full of some sort of stinginess. Whatever connection he had to the book, it had been even Stronger than Susan had expected.

“Where did you hear about that book?” he asked, as quick as his old lips would allow him. He tried playing his words off as if he were confused in what Susan was asking. However, he was a terrible actor, and Susan could clearly tell that he was withholding something from her. And, it seemed that he thought that she was withholding something from him.

I shouldn’t be surprised, Susan thought. Joshua has always told me that the signature nature of liars is that they suspect everybody else to be a liar.

“I heard about the book when Joshua was repairing it for you,” Susan said. “It was one of the more intriguing titles that had passed through our house...”

Flanders nodded, and muttered something inaudibly. Then he said, “It must have been somebody else’s book. It sounds interesting, as you claim it to be... But, it’s not a book that I possess. Why don’t you look for other books?”

Susan said yes, and began searching through his shelves. However, she kept a close eye out for the book that she’d asked Flanders about.

After nearly ten minutes of looking through the clutter of books, she came to an unwanted realization. If Flanders had truly thought the book to be valuable, he wouldn’t have kept it amongst his collection of assorted books.

As Susan dug deeper into his collection, she began to wonder if he had been telling the truth when he said that he didn’t have the book, after all. Settling to the unwanted circumstances, Susan finally grabbed the next best book that caught her eye.

“Whispers of the Mountain’s Wisps…” Susan said, grabbing a book with a superfluous golden binding, and an image of a mountain embellished onto its cover.

“How did that get in there?” Flanders said with a raised voice, ripping the book out of Susan’s hands.

He stumbled backward after doing this, and looked at Susan with an almost feral expression. However, this feral angriness went away as quickly as Flanders had snatched the book out of Susan’s hand. Susan half-wondered if Flanders’ angry glare had been nothing but a conjuring of her imagination, because as soon as she’d seen his angriness it turned into Flanders’ usual happiness.

“Sorry about that,” he said with a chuckle, letting his hand roll over the books leathery texture.

Then, he put the book back into Susan’s hands, with such a delicacy that he might as well have been handing over a feather. It was apparent that he was trying to make up for his rash jumpiness.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a visitor that I’ve had to apologize to as much as I have had to apologize to you,” he said laughing again. “This was one of those books that I’d prefer not to give away. It has a sort of sentimentality to it…”

He paused, and his ravenous gaze ran over his face again. It was subtle, but it had undeniably been there.

“But, a promise is a promise, and I told you that you could have any book that you like,” he finished. “Enjoy the book. It’s among the few that I’ve read, and it has very interesting passages concerning the lore about our town mountain. It’s definitely an interesting read.”

Susan thanked him, and then walked down the hall and to his front door. As she opened it, she heard Flanders’ older footsteps pound after her. Turning around, she found that Flanders had followed her to the door. She gave a quizzical look, but merely gave a goodbye— Flanders strangely forgot to give a goodbye in return. It was as if he’d followed her to the door not to give her a goodbye, but the book that she’d brought with her.

There was one thing he did to acknowledge her presence, though— he gave her a glare. Susan didn’t know what to make of it, and left before she could.

This has been one of the strangest visits that I’ve had in a long while, Susan thought to herself. Joshua is going to be furious when he finds out just how long I spent here…

*

“What have you been doing?” Joshua asked, after Susan had opened the door.

Quickly, Susan tried hiding the book that Flanders had given her up her clothes. Her heart thudded like a boulder does as it rolls down a mountain, and she felt as though she were going to impact the ground— the grounding— any minute now.

“I was just— just really busy with some of your customers today,” Susan explained, throwing her shoes to the side, and scanning for a better place to hide her book. She could already hear Joshua’s footsteps coming down the hallway and felt a terrible dread at the thought that he might come at any moment. Her time was running short.

“That sounds nice… You didn’t bother any of them for too long, did you?”

Joshua’s voice sounded so clear that she could tell it was almost in the same room as her. Beads of sweat and melted snow began to cascade down Susan’s face. Finally, she snatched the coat off of her body, held the book in her left hand, and then draped her coat over the book.

She then leaned onto the wall to her right, trying her hardest to seem natural.

“No… Well, I mean, I guess it depends on your definition of the phrase ‘too long’.”

Joshua laughed— something that he’d only do if he thought somebody had said something hilarious.

“It looks like I’ll have to write up a ton of new apology letters,” he said, entering the same room as Susan. “So, what were you busy talking about? Who did you talk to?”

Feeling sheered of any other choice, she said, “Books, mainly… Flanders was particularly impressed with my repair job.”

As she’d expected, she watched all sense of joy and pleasurableness be wiped off of Joshua’s face, as if it had been a slate, and somebody had rubbed it with an eraser. All that remained was a cold blackness. She was simply waiting for the new meaning to be scribbled onto it.

“You spoke with Flanders?” he asked, clearly trying to pace around his anger.

“Yes… He was pretty nice, actually. I know what you’re complaining about when you say that he’s too much of a partyer. He doesn’t seem to know when to stop talking… But, it never really matters much, because he’s so hospitable, and so good at talking.”

Joshua nodded, with a skeptical look remaining on his face.

“And, you only talked about books?” he asked. “Nothing else came up in the conversation outside of that— correct?”

Once again, Susan was faced with the choice of lying or telling the truth. To her, telling the lie was becoming more tempting by the day, especially when it seemed that lies were a trade that everybody was giving out in this town. However, she also knew the guilt and issues that came with the lie— it chipped off a sense of a much-required honesty. It whittled away trust— not only the trust for herself, but her own trust towards others.

“Yes— that’s all we talked about. That is, other than a few other things concerning his house, and history with his books.”

Joshua nodded again. This time, he didn’t look skeptical. Instead, he was simply unbelieving. Susan knew that he’d caught her lying. Though, Susan also knew that the lie she told was only a few degrees off from the truth— she really had talked to Flanders about only a few subjects, and they really had only concerned his house and his books. The only thing that she’d omitted was the fact that she’d tried steering the conversation elsewhere a few times— but, these attempts at steering the conversation away had always ended in failure.

“Did you know that he hasn’t read most of his books?” Susan asked. “He probably has about a thousand of them— he might have even more. But, he said that he’s hardly touched any of them… He doesn’t even know most of their names.”

Joshua didn’t respond to her comments.

He probably caught onto the fact that I was trying to steer the conversation in a different direction, she thought. Not that I should be surprised— I can never seem to make that work… But, I’m going to have to if I want to avoid this continuous interrogation.

“I don’t know… Maybe it’s just me who thinks that strange,” Susan said. “I just couldn’t imagine not bothering to read hardly any of the books in our personal library…”

“Yes, Flanders is good at ignoring things that are right in front of his face,” Joshua said. “I tend to think that a lot of his ignorance to his books has to do with the fact that he doesn’t really care about them. To him, they’re just another space that can be filled on his shelves, and another pretty object that he can impress people with. It’s just like his parties, and everything he owns…”

Susan was taken aback by Joshua’s continuous attacks on Flanders. She’d never heard Joshua sling around so many insults concerning anybody— not even concerning Flanders.

“Why do you hate Flanders so much?” Susan finally asked, after Joshua began to cool down from his heatedness.

Joshua stopped, and leaned on the same wall Susan was. Then, he looked down at Susan’s coat with an almost knowing smile.

“You’re telling me the truth when you say that you and Flanders’ didn’t discuss anything outside of books?” Joshua asked.

Susan answered yes— her stubbornness had once again caught traction, and closed up her willingness to answer anything but affirmatives.

“Then, you have no reason to know anything outside of that,” Joshua said, walking down the hall. “Why would I be willing to tell you something when Flanders wasn’t…”

Is it just me, Susan wondered, or are front doors making people act very strange today?

*

Closed doors are making people act very strange today… Including myself.

After the mess that was the invasion of the horse, my guards have turned more overprotective than ever. I haven’t been let outside for weeks.

In a way, this is a positive thing. I no longer fear the mysteriousness that had come with the odd advisor I’d been paired with, and the coronation has been pushed back. This gives me more time to plan, and strategize solutions. However, with this positivity, there’s also an element to everything that drags at me. Nobody will allow me the freedom to venture outside of my palace. And, even if they did, I’ve become aware that my entire kingdom is starting to turn against me. Unsurprisingly, seeing their future king be attacked was quite demoralizing to them all.

Trades have been halted, workers are declaring that they won’t return to work until I’m overthrown, some of my guards are whispering about turning against me, and even the grave of my father, which I can see from the window of my room, has faded into a grungy gray.

My father’s grave is what hurts me the most. I can’t let him down. Despite everything that’s going on, it’s only a slight weight compared to the weight of the earth that encompasses my father’s coffin. I might be at risk for becoming food to the conniving people, but my father— he’s at risk of becoming food to the worms. The longer he stays under, without me finding a solution, the longer I fail him.

I don’t know what to do, nor do I know if I’m doing the right thing. Although I’m glad that the wizardly advisor of mine mysteriously disappeared, I feel that my only chance at resolving my issues will be in finding him again, and asking him questions. I might be insane in thinking this, but, it’s like my father would often tell me— “If you were to look close enough, everybody is a little insane. They all care about something, striving after it with an irrational intensity— and, most of the time, everybody fails to get a grasp of what they strive after. Insanity is merely an illusion. There are times when an illusion is a harmful thing. Though, there are others when illusions are a thing of beauty, and wonder. While both illusions and insanity might be looked upon with bitterness, the truth about them is that they change the way that one responds to the world around them. It’s the response insanity incites that you must be cautious of.”

At the time, I wholly ignored him whenever he said that. It was one of those repetitive speeches that I thought was overly flamboyant and self-congratulatory. Though, I now think that he was more right than I’ll ever be willing to admit.

I haven’t even begun to discuss the other things that have taken place since the horse smashed its face into the rock. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t want to discuss it— it was a rather uncomfortable moment for me.

After my guards had taken care of the horse, and everybody who the horse had injured and damaged, they returned to tell me about everything that had happened— I’ve already written about all of this. Thought what happened afterwards is something that I have yet to write about.

It happened that I found a strange jewel sitting on the floor of my palace. It was left behind in the courtyard, presumably from when everybody left the party.

Normally I wouldn’t care about such a thing. In fact, I initially thought that it was the most trivial action of my day when I picked up the jewel. Though, then I inspected it, and I found discovered something far more disconcerting than I ever could’ve expected.

The jewel was an emerald, which sparkled green when I turned it in the light. It had an unnaturally profound beauty to it— it was like holding a miniature star, a mountain, or an entire ocean, all at once— all in the palm of my hand.

I stared at it for a while— I’m not sure how long it was, but it was long enough for the sky to go from sunset to pitch darkness. However, I didn’t see any of this. All that I saw was the emerald. That, and vivid images that appeared in my mind.

It happened that the vivid images that appeared in my mind gave me glimpses of the mountain— strange fires, and flakes of ice at the same time. Continuing to see the images, I came to a stunning realization that I would’ve preferred to avoid— my wizardly advisor had owned this emerald. And, while it was most certainly a magic gem, I supported the fact that this gem was giving me visions into the mountain’s secret depths. Every tunnel— every cavern— all of them combined into one, to make an unerring map of the mountain. It was a beautiful thing— and I felt as if I needed to spend every second staring at it, and to allow myself no exception. I was glued to it. Its beauty and detail had such undeniable breadth and beauty that I couldn’t help but feel its power intimidate me. It was among one of the most prevalently glorious things that I’d ever experienced.

There was a part of me that suspected that there must’ve been some evil force, or some revolting charm that was controlling the will of this magic gem. I suspected that every second I spent with it might’ve been a second whittled away from the clock of my life. There was even a part of me that held the belief that my discovery of this gem had been preplanned, and that the disappearance of my wizardly advisor had been so that my discovery couldn’t be traced back to him. He might’ve planted this object in order to trick me into following his path, and falling into some sort of wickedly contrived trap of his. Though, I couldn’t help but ignore all of these facts, and pass them off as nothing more than unfounded superstition.

A charm resided atop the gem— it was so powerful and benevolent, that it didn’t matter what costs came with experiencing it, All I knew is that I wanted to hold it in my hand and keep it under my control.

It was after this when I did something that I now look back on and regret. I saw a trail through the mountain, as I held the emerald. It led through numerous mines, and into the heart of the mountain. As I looked upon it, I had a knowing in my heart telling me that I had to chart down the sight.

So, I sent for one of my scribes, and they came to me as I held the emerald. Then, I took their pen, and jotted down everything that I saw. I worked at such an inhuman pace, that even my scribe was shocked by the speed in which my hands moved— he claimed that he himself was incapable of such, and he asked me if something was wrong. I consistently answered with a no, up until I’d finished with the map. It was at that point that I realized what a mistake I’d made— I’d allowed the gem to control my actions. Without hesitation, I smashed the gem to the ground and then walked off.

Though, not before giving my scribe order to place my map in a book. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to getting rid of the map.

Little did I know what a mess it would bring. I’m now tempted to follow the map, and to allow it to lead me through the mountain. I’ve gone back around the circle, and returned to the position where I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if there’s anything that I should do.

*

Susan’s punishment subsided, and so did her overbearing amount of work. While her duty to repair books persisted, their dominance began to whither out. Having taken care of most of Flanders’ latest maimed books, Joshua’s customers had begun to fade out. There was a stretch of days when Joshua didn’t have any business at all.

In this time, Susan returned to her friends. Tim still held a bit of a grudge toward her, and his injuries hadn’t fully healed. There weren’t many more gatherings or exploring either— that had apparently stopped occurring in her absence, due to Tim’s injuries. Though, other than that, everything had returned to normal, and it was as if there hadn’t been a lapse in her appearance at all.

Having all of this return to her, Susan felt a bit off center. It gave her an unnatural feeling to have bounced from days of work to a mere few hours, and there was something strange in not having to answer to Joshua’s stern, cold face anymore. In fact, it wasn’t just strange. It came to the point where she felt upset, and guilty.

She wasn’t sure why, but there was a part of her that felt unworthy of having been made free of Joshua’s labor. A portion of her felt that she was to blame for the lack of Joshua’s work. There was a portion of her that was fully aware of all the things wrong with this notion— the lack of work shouldn’t have had anything to do with her, and was a separate thing entirely. Yet, that didn’t help shake the feeling.

Whenever she entered her home, Joshua was sitting on the rocker chair in the library, staring into empty space. This was unusual, even for Joshua. It seemed that, in spite of his lengthy career that had gone on without any issues, there had been a sudden drop in customers. And, this had resulted in a sudden drop of Joshua’s conversation skills.

Susan tried to distract herself from this as much as she could by staying outside, away from Joshua, as much as she could. Yet, his depressing mood was somewhat infectious, and it came to the point where it began to leak into her daily life and sap her of some of her joy and mental focus. There were some instances when she was even made unable to concentrate due to the overwhelming presence of these feelings.

Her book that she’d gotten from Flanders had also been neglected because of this feeling. It had a mystical quality to it that Susan didn’t want to dare test— especially in the midst of Joshua. She couldn’t help but feel that her meeting with Flanders had effected Joshua in some extremely negative way. Wanting to know why, she looked for any clues that she could find. Though, the only link between Flanders and how the meeting could’ve affected Joshua, was that Flanders had given Susan the book. And, she had a feeling that Joshua suspected her possession of the book.

Finally, after a week of this going on, she brought herself to asking Joshua for the meaning behind his idiosyncratic behavior.

When she found him, he was in the library as usual. The faint, warm light of candle flames dribbled onto the wooden floor, and she watched it create a sort of warm and humid mist that seemed to encase everything. In a sense, it created its own miniature world that separated itself from the bitterness outside of it. Even the scent of mustiness, mixed with wax, was pleasing to smell.

Though, just as the room’s atmosphere was apart from the outside, Joshua’s atmosphere was apart from the room. When Susan looked at him, she saw something gloomy and damp— it reminded her of the rain that came just after a storm’s end, dripping to the ground and steadily muddying everything it touched. Joshua didn’t frown, but he didn’t move either. Everything he did seemed to be an attempt to do as close to nothing as was possible.

“Why aren’t there any books coming in?” Susan asked, trying to indirectly steer the conversation to her will.

Joshua paused, and then stirred in his chair. Susan steadily watched the layers of idleness peel off of him, just like dried dirt steadily falls off of a muddied object. It took a full minute of this before he finally began to give his answer.

“Why aren’t you coming in every day? The answer to both questions is that it’s just not the season for it… There’s too much going on outside right now, and the cozy house behind my closed doors has fallen to the back of everything.”

Susan nodded, trying to act understanding. Though, if she’d been honest, she couldn’t understand a bit of Joshua’s explanation. There was no doubt in her mind that Joshua, as usual, was concealing something from her. She wasn’t sure what— but she did know that, whatever it was, Joshua wasn’t going to give easy answers.

“Is that why you’ve been stuck in the house all this time?” Susan asked.

“I’ve been stuck in this house all this time because I’ve been stuck in the house,” Joshua answered plainly, keeping his answer as vague as he could.

“You know that there’s more reason to it than that.”

“There’s more reason to everything than what it seems, Susan… But, that doesn’t mean that it should matter to you. Even if you knew the reason why I’ve been stuck in here, that wouldn’t give you the answers you want… The only way into a person’s actions is by their thoughts. And, out of everything people have designed, we still haven’t gotten smart enough to where we’re able to perfectly communicate them…”

“Just because I can’t read your thoughts doesn’t mean that you can’t tell me what’s going on.”

“You’re too young to understand… Besides— a person lives more in their thoughts than anything else. Nobody can live somebody else’s life, Susan. Nobody can read somebody else’s thoughts…”

“Life is a lot more than sitting in a chair, though. You’ve been like this for a week.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Joshua said, suddenly. “I’ve come to realize that life is very similar to growing an apple tree. You spend time maintaining it, doing your best to control its health, and trying to make it better than the rest. Though, once it’s done, you see just how little control you really had over it— you see how insignificant it is, once compared to the hundreds of thousands of other trees that pepper the earth…”

Susan watched Joshua begin to relapse back into his state of idleness.

“That’s not true,” she said. “What are you even trying to get at?”

“Just leave me alone, and in peace…” Joshua said. “I’m tired.”

Then he closed his eyes. Susan left, and closed the door.

*

“I just don’t understand it,” Susan said.

She picked up a rock, and tossed it as far as she could into the direction of the mountain.

“He never talks to me, but then gets upset when I don’t talk to him… But, whenever I talk to him, he gets upset about that too…”

Lifting a dozen more rocks in her two hands, Susan flung them in every direction. They didn’t go as far this time, and the indents that they made in the snow were far less prominent. Though, that didn’t change the fact that Susan’s level of fury was reaching its peak. If she’d been any more vehement, the snow around her would’ve begun to melt.

“I think that you’re probably taking things far too personally,” Isabella said, putting her hand on Susan’s shoulder. Susan pushed it away, and walked deeper through the expanse of snow.

The mountain’s purple peak made its way through a coating of falling snow, and a flat plane, made up of nothing but white, surrounded them. The town was nothing but a speck off in Susan’s peripheral vision, and it seemed as if the entire world had gone away, with all of its bondages and tedious requirements being distant.

“I would just ignore him,” Tim said, rolling a clump of snow into a ball. “It sounds to me like he couldn’t care less if you talked to him or not, so why don’t you give him what he wants?”

“You don’t think that I tried that?” Susan asked, annoyed. “I had to endure his silence for a week. Do you know how hard that can be? It’s like constantly walking by a mess, and refusing to clean it up. Eventually, it just gets bigger and bigger, and it almost feels like it starts to pull at you. It begins to drive you partially insane…”

Tim just shoved his hands in his pockets, and offered a blank face.

“You just don’t understand what it’s like to feel something constantly nag at you. Even without Joshua ever saying a word, it’s as if he never stops.”

Tim let out a wry chuckle.

“Considering that you didn’t stop nagging at me until I would follow you guys here; I think that I know full well what it’s like to have somebody nag at you.”

“He’s just bitter that you had to bring him back here…” Isabella said.

“I wouldn’t even be wasting my time here if my arm wasn’t broken,” Tim retorted bitterly. “Because of this, I’m not able to play any of the games that everybody else is.”

Susan and Isabella ignored his dull jabs. The real reason that he hadn’t ceased to join them was that he was extremely weak, and unable to do things that the other boys were able to. If Susan and Isabella were to have been fully honest, one of the main reasons that they even bothered to keep Tim around was out of a sort of pity for him.

“I just don’t know if I’m doing the right thing or the wrong thing,” Susan said. “ To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing at all. It’s strange… I feel so angry inside… But, I don’t know what I’m angry at.”

“It’s called growing up,” Tim said.

Strangely, this time his words didn’t come out so harsh.

“You know, I’m not even supposed to be out here with you guys,” he continued, with a strange retreat in his previously angry breaths. “I was ordered not to come out of the village— I’m not allowed to go passed a new amount of restrictions. And yet— you guys were able to convince me otherwise. No— that’s not even it. I was able to convince myself to come out here. In spite of my broken arm, and other injuries, I feel freest when I’m acting as if they’re not there. I get a strange joy out of pretending that my problems and harsh restrictions in reality don’t exist…”

Susan and Isabella were both left dumbstruck, and didn’t have a word to say. For the longest time, the only noise that passed between them was the soft falling of the snow. There was a hypnotizing element to it— though they were all far off from where they were supposed to be, and though they were breaking every rule that had been placed over them, they didn’t feel as if they’d begun hanging over the edge of a cliff and were on the verge of tumbling down. The mountain was far off in the distance, making an imposing glower. The sun in the sky had turned away from them, and the clouds were pulled in front of it so as to hide it from view. Wind ran through their throats and lungs, threatening to continue biting them. Though, the only thing that these bits of nature did to affect them was the fact that it didn’t affect them. All of its threats began to appear menial and in vain. A sense of awe encapsulated everything— the elegant and vibrant colors, the unending complexity, the intricacies, the minute details, and the strange but glowing combination of it all at once had a voice.

It spoke to Susan in the deepest possible way. Everything that had bothered her suddenly turned to flaking bits of dust, and suddenly the immense gravity of nature had gained a foothold. Amongst everything, what she’d once thought to be everything looked like a pebble. Unique as her own little universe was, it was just a snowflake floating upon a pile of snowflakes.

Maybe I won’t be able to find the answers, she thought, but, at least I’ll always have this immense tapestry to comfort me.

“You know what,” Tim finally said, doing his best to toss a stick with his broken arm. “Let’s just forget about this following orders nonsense altogether. Who cares what happens to us out here? It’s a whole lot better than being stuck in the village, constantly wondering what the world outside is like.”

Susan nodded, but didn’t fully agree. While she knew that, in the grand scheme of things, her decision wouldn’t really matter, she couldn’t shake the feeling of something missing that had welled up in her soul. She didn’t just feel an anger. Rather, she now realized that the anger was stemming from something far deeper than what she’d initially thought.

“Let’s not,” Isabella said, trying her best to laugh what Tim had said off. “What good will that do for us, in the long run?”

A brush of wind went by, tickly Susan’s nostrils and ruffling her hair. Then, she turned over and found that a large chunk of snow had found its way onto Isabella’s face.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I think that I’ve spent enough time out here,” she said, with frustration lining every syllable that she uttered. “I’m ready to head home.”

She had a shiver at the end of each word, and her hands were pale and shaky. A thick powder had found a way to douse an entire side of her body. The very sight of her was enough to make somebody feel freezing.

Before Isabella spoke, Susan’s hands had been out in the open, hanging on opposite shoulders, trying to warm herself up. Though, they’d since moved into Susan’s sleeves and coats.

“Are either of you going to help me head back?” Isabella asked, with a slight tremor. “I’m freezing— I want to go home!”

Tim was kneeled over, busy drawing lines in the snow. He didn’t even bother to look up when Isabella spoke.

“You can head home,” Tim said, “but we’re not going back to the village with you— not yet. We’re only just beginning here.”

Isabella looked like she was preparing to walk off, but her feet merely shuffled in the ground. The holes in the snow, which her legs were planted in, grew larger and more prominent. Though, rather than this coming off as intimidating, the lengthening of the hole’s size only seemed to strengthen the stance of Susan and Tim.

“I don’t like this,” Isabella said, with a slight whine. “The only reason I agreed to coming out of the village limits was so that we could talk, and let Susan calm down after her straining past few weeks… But, the whole reason that she had a straining past few weeks was because we came out here. If we start straying too far, we’re going to have a complete repeat of that whole scenario! Don’t you guys remember last time we stayed out here, and strayed too far? It was a complete mess! Besides— I think that we’ve been breaking enough rules lately. Don’t you think that our luck is going to start running out?”

Tim only let out a scoff in response.

“For the first half of this day, I was the one who was bitter and timid about coming out here,” he said,” and now you’re going to turn around and encourage me to be timid and scared again? If there’s anything that I’ve learned from being scared to venture out here, it’s that it doesn’t fruit in anything. I spent most of today afraid, and irritated— and it wasn’t until I stepped outside of that shell that I finally felt fulfilled and at peace with the rest of the world.”

“Spare me of the sugar-coated lies,” Isabella said. “I’m not in the mood to play games with you. I want to go home, curl up next to the fire, and—.”

“And you can do that. Also, last time I checked, weren’t you the one who last pushed me to follow your directions and come out here? Weren’t you the one who acted like going with Susan was a genius idea?”

Susan’s head was pounding— both from the chilling cold, and the heated argument. Expecting Isabella to make a retort, Susan braced her eardrums from another series of shouts. Though the shouts never came.

“What do you have planned?” Isabella asked, to Susan’s shock.

Isabella was still dragging her feet— both literally, and metaphorically— but, surprisingly, it wasn’t as prominent as it had been.

“You’re actually taking us seriously?” Tim said.

Normally, such a question would’ve been followed by Tim’s sarcastic and slightly arrogant laugh. Though, this time he was fully serious— there wasn’t a hint of humor in any of the words that he spoke.

“You’re right, to a degree, I guess,” Isabella continued, reluctantly. “I’ve been kept in my house all winter, and it had gotten hard to stay in line… But, what happens if one of us gets hurt again? Nobody is going to be able to save us, since nobody thinks that we’ll be willing to come back out. If you’re under a pile of rocks again, Tim, how do you expect to be safe?”

Tim was left without anything to say. Susan actually watched a striking expression of fear jump onto him— something that she’d come to know he liked to hide from them. The very thought that going back exploring could be so troublesome was perhaps the most troubling thing that had come out of their entire conversation.

“Then, we’ll have to pull him back out,” Susan answered.

I can’t not keep looking for answers, she found herself thinking at the back of her mind. Joshua might be encouraging me to give up the search— as well as everybody else around me. Though, if there’s anything that I’ve begun to learn, it’s that giving up a search for answers out of fear is just as terrible as not searching for answers at all… I’m never going to be able to find truth unless I can convince them that we’ll be safe the entire way through.

To Susan’s dismay, neither of her friends looked convinced. In fact, the very suggestion that the events of their last mishap might repeat themselves, and that they’d have nothing to change that form happening, was probably the most demoralizing thing that could’ve been said.

“We’re just going to have to try to be careful,” Tim said, more to himself than anybody else. “I know that it might be arrogant and self-important to say this, but I’m going to anyway— we’re too resilient for the forces of nature to stop us from exploring it. My arm might be busted, but then, why should that stop me? Why should that stop any of us? We shouldn’t give up on curiosity just because terror and fear is licking at us…”

If it hadn’t been for the fact that they were frozen solid, Susan would’ve clapped at Tim’s speech.

“So then, let’s make a full circle, and return to Isabella’s original question,” Susan said. “Where are we going?”

“I have it all mapped out,” Tim said. “At least— I have it mapped out in the best possible way that I can… I’m not actually sure how the foot of the mountain’s layout really looks like, but I’ve made a few educated guesses and placed it into the lines that I’ve graphed onto the snow.”

Susan bent down, and took a close look at all of it. Though, she was disappointed to find that none of it was very clear, nor precise. In fact, most of it looked like it had been brushed away by the wind.

“There’s no possible way that we’re going to be able to use that to guide us through the snow,” Susan said.

“I agree,” said Isabella. “It was already hard enough to convince me that exploring the mountain was a good idea…. And now you’re expecting me to take this mess of a map seriously? I’m sorry, but I can only see us getting into serious trouble from this…”

Anger swept onto Tim’s face.

“And what else are we supposed to do? This is the very best that we have to work with…”

“Well, then we’re going to have to find something better,” Isabella put, simply. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t follow this loose of a guide. I feel like it’s just going to end in us being completely lost, wounded, and disjointed… Plus how are we going to be able to bring this map around with us? Most of all, even if we did bring it with us, what would it matter? It’s just a bunch of scratches you put in the snow…”

“Once again, can you do better?”

“I can,” Susan finally announced. She then pulled Flanders’ book from out of under her coat. “Remember how I was telling you about this boo that Flanders gave me? It’s a map of the mountain…”

Isabella and Tim nodded, but still looked utterly confused.

“A map of the mountain?” Isabella repeated. “How would somebody even be able to make something like that if nobody has ever charted the mountain?”

Susan shrugged her shoulders.

“I know just about as well as you,” she said. “All that I know for certain is that Flanders had it on hand, and that he gave it to me… he never went into the specifics of how this book might’ve been written, or even who he got it from. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t know the answer himself.”

Isabella didn’t look so convinced, and she opened her mouth to ask a question. Though, Tim had pushed her aside before she could ask it.

“So, you’re saying that Flanders’ owned this book?” he asked, clearly impressed. “That settles it then! Flanders has the biggest and finest collection of books in the town! We’ll be fine.”

“Well, I actually think that Joshua has a better collection of books,” Susan almost caught herself saying. However, she stopped herself when she realized that she was about to destroy her own case.

“But, Susan just admitted that Flanders doesn’t even know that much about the book,” Isabella said. “WE could be walking into a complete mess!”

“Or, this could be genius,” Tim said. “Think about it— there must be tons of hidden crevices that this map has.”

At saying this, Tim snatched the book from Susan’s arms. It didn’t take long before he was leafing through it with a rapid speed— and a grin came onto his face not long after.

“Just like I thought,” he said. “This is probably the most advanced map that I’ve ever seen.”

“What’s in it?” Susan asked.

“You haven’t even bothered reading it?” Isabella asked, looking more worried than ever.

“Of course not,” Susan said, trying to maintain a sense of confidence. Although, she felt just as wavering as Isabella did. Just by taking a quick glance of the map, she was able to see Tim’s point— it was far more advanced than any other map she’d seen. It was covered in webs of tunnels through the mountain, landmarks, grids, and even graphs. While this should’ve been comforting, it only came across as intimidating. Susan had never dared trek so deep through the mountain as the map described. And, even if she had, she’d never tackled a map so complex as this one. It seemed that even a slight miscalculation, or misreading, in some places, would be capable of sending them down a ravine, into a pit of bats, or under an avalanche.

All of the sudden, I’m starting to lean towards Isabella’s standing, she thought.

Though, she didn’t dare say this. Nothing under the sun would’ve been able to convince her to say that she was wrong. She’d already sided with Tim, and was dead set on figuring out what the silhouette might be— in a way, this was one of her only chances at finding answers to either of these questions. She was unwilling to sacrifice that chance.

“Don’t you see the risks?” Isabella asked, at a final attempt to appeal to their senses.

“Risks are everywhere,” Tim said. “But, I feel like we have the least amount of risks that we could possibly have.”

These words acted as a mark upon them. It didn’t matter what could’ve been said after that— hey could’ve come across the greatest proof in the world that this was a bad idea. Tim’s words were enough to tell them that everything would be alright, in spite of the numerous odds against this.

The wind blew harshly, but their feet carried them against it, in spite of this. There was some sort of drive within their hearts.Susan felt a strange urge to keep going, despite the uncertain and unwanted climate that encased them.

“I think that we’re going to deal with a large storm soon,” Isabella said. “Are you sure that we don’t want to head back?”

She’d been complaining like this for an hour— Susan knew this, because she’d counted the number of times that the wind blew into her face, which measured as about a chunk of snow a minute. Though, there was something potent to Isabella’s words this time around. Susan could swear that she could smell the distasteful circumstances in the air. The climate whipped about her, stinging her nose, and choking her throat.

Susan had become accustomed to these sorts of conditions. It was a rare winter day when she didn’t feel this way. Yet, there was something unique to this particular gust of wind. With its coldness, it also carried a sort of warmness. It didn’t just burn Susan due to its cold, but also due to its immense heat. It was entirely unnatural.

At first, she thought that this was all in her head, and of her own imagination. But, then she looked over to her comrades and found that they had similarly distressed looks on their faces. Whatever this force of nature was, it was licking at all of them. And it seemed that it was unwilling to stop resisting them.

For some reason, none of this stopped them. They didn’t even feel compelled to stop. There was a point where Susan’s feet felt leaden, and she had the urge to give up and lie down in the bed of snow. Though, she had an internal element of herself that entirely refused this proposition. She found herself thinking of it in a taboo, and evil light. It left a bitter taste in her mouth.

I can’t do it, she thought. It’s so odd… When I try doing the right thing, I find myself being resisted against, as if it’s the wrong thing. Though, when I try doing the wrong thing, I find myself thinking that it’s the right thing. I just can’t comprehend how this could be possible. Is there something inherent to us all that forces us to think of the wrong thing in a favorable light? Or, is it merely a chance— a roll of the dice— that makes us think of negative things in such a way as this?

Maybe it’s my inherent love for doing what I know is wrong— going against the grain of what Joshua orders me to do— that Joshua is upset with. Maybe that’s also what has made me upset with Joshua. Perhaps my problems in this world have nothing to do with what’s outside of myself, but what’s inside of myself. Perhaps it all has to do with an instinct.

The real question that I must ask myself is this— should I follow my instinct, or shouldn’t I? I’ve begun to discover that both options have favorable outcomes. And yet— they also have their negatives. It’s like judging between light and darkness. Except, I can’t tell what’s the light, and I can’t tell what’s the darkness…

“Hey Susan, check this out!”

She came out of her trance, and found herself standing at the foot of the mountain, in front of the pond— the very same pond where this had all began.

“Over here!”

It was Tim’s voice that was calling out to her. Only, it didn’t seem like Tim’s voice anymore. It was so distant, and far off. Susan could’ve sworn that it even had an ethereal element to it.

A part of this had to do with the fact that she was standing in the spot where she’d thought something magical to have occurred. Though, she couldn’t help but feel that there was something more to it than just this. When she looked over her place on the pond, and over into the snow covered landscape. She started to feel as if she were far off from any other influences— as if she were entirely apart from everything else, and that she’d been connected to something unique. In this moment, she almost believed that the magic that she’d thought to have experienced might’ve been real.

“What are you doing over there? Get over here! You can’t miss this!”

The voice was coming from Isabella this time. Yet, once again, Susan could hardly tell. The only way that she’d been able to discern this was by judging a slight variation in the vibrations of the air. It had been so subtle, that it could’ve been extremely easy to miss.

There’s a lot of things that I could be missing, Susan suddenly thought. I’ve never felt like this anywhere else, except here on the foot of this pond. However, I don’t know why…

She looked around herself to see if the silhouette would appear out of the darkness— to see if there was something that might help explain the way she felt. However, there was no explanation— nothing to compensate for the strangeness that seemed to encompass her.

Suddenly, she started seeing lucid visions— there wasn’t a silhouette anymore, but something other. There was screaming, and she could hear somebody calling her name. She tried to decipher the rest of what they were saying, but the figures calling out to her remained obscured by the limitations of déjà vu and memory

“What’s taking you so long?”

It was Tim again.

At this point, Susan felt her head begin to throb, and herself crash back into reality. The vision faded, slipping from her mind. By the time it was gone, it felt like a lost dream— yet, she found that it still left a bigger imprint than a dream would.

Back on earth, she found her frozenness disappear, and she was back where she was supposed to be— stuck in the snow, being tempted to walk across the pond again. This time, she walked around the pond, and ran towards her friends.

They were about a hundred yards away— at the very moment she found this out, she realized that she’d been in a trance for far longer than she’d thought. Susan found herself running out of breath as she came near to them.

“Why did you guys just leave me,” she asked once she was next to Tim.

He didn’t answer, and neither did Isabella. They both looked awestruck— nearly as awestruck as she’d been in the presence of the pond.

“Are either of you going to answer me?” she asked.

There was no immediate answer, so she followed their gaze— and that’s when she saw it. Up ahead of them, there was an enormous cave. It was about twice the size of Susan’s own house— but it didn’t look anywhere near as constructed or orderly. In fact, it appeared no different from an enormous gash.

However, Susan still couldn’t see what had gotten them to stop in their tracks. That is, she couldn’t see anything until her eyes went above the cave entrance and to the top of the cave. There was an enormous boulder overhanging it. It was as if it was daring them to try entering the cave— asking them to test their bravery on it. Susan knew that it would be too big of a risk to try entering the cave— and yet, she still found herself feeling as if it might be the right thing to do.

“It’s right here— just like on the map,” Tim said. Though, he almost sounded disappointed. “But— the map didn’t say anything about that enormous rock…”

“Maybe it’s because it’s not a real threat,” Susan said, attempting to rationalize with the notion of going into the cave— it didn’t even work on herself.

“Are you crazy?” Isabella asked, driving Susan’s uncertainty in further. “If we try walking under there, then we’ll get crushed. I think that this is where we should stop. I know that I said this earlier, but I really think that this is true now— we’ve pushed our luck and I don’t think we should push it much further.”

At first, Susan was going to give a hasty retort. Though, then she realized that Isabella was right. There wasn’t really a way that she could see them going inside the cave without risking getting crushed. And, even if they did, there was the risk of them not being able to get back out.

What really convinced her and stopped her line of thinking, though, was when she looked into the darkness of the cave. For a flicker of a second. She could’ve sworn that she saw the silhouette.

“Yeah— let’s go back,” Susan said.

For some reason, her word found a way to be the final one.

*

Dear journal,

Things have jumped far from what they once were when I first touched the jewel and received the map. While I might’ve thought that my country was in shambles, it hardly compares to the madness that is now at my feet. The kingdom has become riddled with a plague, and there are all sorts of heinous crimes being committed. Our farm-owners are doing no better, with their store-houses now running low on food due to an infestation of bugs and rodents. In the meantime, all of our trades with neighboring kingdoms have ceased, and we’re now mired in a position of no trades or profits.

Ah, prophets— they cause such messes. That strange advisor warned me about might come out of denying him. He warned me that everything would come to a halt if I didn’t take all of his words with utmost respect. Little did I know how much it really mattered— how much that I’d be regretting it in the future.

In my defense, I’ve dealt with my fair share of lying advisors in the past. They usually claim all sorts of things in order to keep their position, but nothing ever comes of it. It’s a rare day when an advisor’s absence will cause mass-hysteria.

I only wish that I could’ve been able to take the advisor’s words far more seriously… My father always did warn me that the way you heed a person’s words can often be a great ruler for how great of a ruler you’ll be.

I can’t say that I wasn’t warned— however, I still never expected something quite like this. If my father were to have been in charge of this kingdom still, he would’ve never allowed such madness. He would’ve made sure to have brought it to a close long before there was a chance of this insanity occurring.

In the insanity, I’ve been looking all over for some sort of prevention to repetitions of the problem at hand. I’ve gone from speaking to every advisor, to asking for help from neighboring kingdoms, to even talking to my father’s grave. The only one that seemed to make a difference was the latter option— but I’m certain that any difference I observed was all in my head. It seems that there’s no clear option to my strange plight.

This was when I came to the decision that the map I had written down would be my solution. I had my scribe sent after it, and then reread the map. It was clearly the answer— I’m not sure why I hadn’t seen it sooner. There were so many passageways throughout the mountain, each one leading to where the wizard’s location was. If it was still in the same position, that is.

That was something that upset me deeply. The way that I’d designed everything was so that it had all cornered me into a spot from which there was no sort of escape. The necklace, which had informed me of the wizard’s location, was now all burned up. I had no way of using it as a guide anymore.

Though, at the same time, the map that I’d written out was the very best thing that I had available. I informed my scribe of this, and he had me a horse prepared within the hour. I was shocked by his speed in doing so, but then I remembered the motivation that ran my castle— anything that might put me in harm’s way seemed favorable to them, since they viewed me as a terrible king. Unlike my father, I’d given them no reason to respect me. In fact, everything had begun falling apart under my rule.

“I can only hope that this mission will change their view of me,” I found myself saying.

I was ill-minded. Nothing can change the will of fate.

I’ll say this much to you— after following the map, I’ve learned in perhaps the hardest way that the mountain is a thing that should not be tested. I once thought that it was an inanimate object that could easily be taken advantage of an explored. I thought that the gold mines going through there were something that we had a right to. Nothing could be further of the truth.

In my journey to the mountain, I’ve been perjured of my pointlessly perfect perception of the passages into the mount. The place is riddled with nasty turns and corners. Just the very thought of it makes me squeamish inside… I truly doubt that you’d be able to make it through there, should you try braving the juntoes journey.

I decided to follow the map through the mountain depths, but that only helped me to a small extent. It soon came to be that my attempts at exploration started to lead me astray, and my body was cut against the rocks and jagged bits of jewels and gold. Something that I can be grateful for is the fact that I had brought a guide with me, so that I could be directed through the narrow straits that the mountain’s innards provided me. But, I was clearly arrogant in thinking that this was all the guidance that I needed.

Whether it be the will of the strange sorcerer or the mountain itself, I don’t know. However, it seemed that the place had a mind of its own. Whenever I felt at peace, it seemed that it would bring out an obstacle to make me feel weak again. Whenever I felt assurance, it made sure to strip me of all those feelings. The only thing that I had remaining in myself was a sense of pride— that was something that could never be taken away from me, no matter how hard the mountain tried.

Throughout my entire life, I’ve become accustomed to dark passageways— castles are fool of tricky, hidden passageways, and hardly lit halls. Though, the mountain made my castle look like child’s play. Every portion of it was slathered in an assorted variety of dangers, and my own mind was sent into a spiral at just the thought of having to be able to avoid them all.

By the end of this first journey through the mountain, I’ve been left with more bruises and injuries than any self-respecting king should ever wish to bear. To a degree, I’ve begun to see myself as the butt of all jokes when it comes to being a king. In nearly every circumstance, I prove myself to be a failure on every level. When I don’t then I watch everything else fall around me and fail me.

It’s a strange thing. In my travel through the mountain, I found that every time things seemed to be getting easier, life would find a way to bar down on me and make things become harder. Whether it be a slight creak of the rocks, a bump into a large stone, or the terrible screeching of bats, I was constantly running into something that left me with my heart pounding terribly in my chest, and my body throbbing from various degrees of pain.

Some might call me a weak man for this, but I’m largely incapable of pursuing the wizard through the mountain. As much as I’d like to tell myself otherwise, I’m weak and frail. This entire day of walking has drained me to the point that I feel as if I’ve endured many degrees of torture. I’m aware that most of this is all inside my head, but that doesn’t change the fact that I constantly feel as if I’m pursuing for a way to escape the pain. My weakness may be entirely conjured— though, even if that’s so, my conjuring has made it so that I have no other option but to endure its effects.

Does that then make me weak-minded, as well as weak in strength? Or, does that make me only weak-minded? Or, am I merely hiding behind my own mountain— a mountain of denial— trying to tell myself that things are other than what they actually are.

I don’t know. I can’t ever know. That’s one thing that I know for sure.

The mind is just like this labyrinth that I journey through— complex, burdensome, and impossible to truly understand. I can go through it for a little while— though, I eventually find myself left exhausted, and utterly drained by doing so. The very concept of braving the depths of the mind is just as hard as trying to brave the depths of the mountain.

That’s something that I never considered– maybe I’m dealing with everything at the same time— the trials of my brain, and my body.

No— not only my body. Also, my spirit. I’ve been driven in a thousand different directions, and it’s not entirely something that I can control. I feel as if something is tugging at me. As if something is— watching me. At first, I thought that it was the ghost of my father. After all— my mind is constantly on him, and I’m certain that he’s waiting for me to relieve him from the grave. However, if it is my father, he’s amazing at keeping quiet. I haven’t heard a word from him. All that I’ve gotten is an uncomfortable feeling that there was a presence of something lurking behind me, watching me as if I were some sort of animal in a pen.

My only clear explanation to this is that my spirit doesn’t feel entirely right about the journey— that it fears that there’s something wrong in what I’m doing, and so it’s trying to strike terror in my heart– it’s trying to drive me away from my goal.

If this is the case, it doesn’t entirely make sense to me— although, I understand that what I’m doing is dangerous. Even if I manage to raise my father from the dead, the price to all magic is known to be a high one. Even now, with my limited experience with magic, I’ve begun to learn that it has wrought chaos that was once unimaginable to me.

If I continue down this path, I know, without any doubt, that it’s one from which I ‘ll never be able to return. And, if that’s so, will I regret it? I hope not— I hope with all my heart that all goes as planned— that somehow, there’s something beyond the scope of my vision— that there’s a hope for me and my father that I’ve been ignoring. I don’t want to continue pulling through the darkness as if it were a vacuum, and I were the only speck of dust that’s remaining. I no longer want to feel alone– as if there’s nothing else to grip onto, and that I’m trapped— trapped to swim through endlessness, and hope that, somewhere, there’s an end.

To distract myself from all of these overwhelming feelings, I’ve tried relieving my burdens onto my partner. To be honest, I think that he despises me for all of my mournful thoughts. He rarely ever speaks to me— and when he does, it usually concerns rest and food.

In other words, the only time that he ever speaks is so that he can get relief— relief from both me and the journey.

I actually find these circumstances to be overwhelmingly hilarious. Despite me paying him pounds of gold to join me, and to go on a sort of quest, he acts as if he’s being disservice— burdened. And, I almost feel that he is.

This doesn’t really make any sense, however, when one inspects the scenario deep enough. I’ve treated him far better than most masters would be willing to. In fact, I would be surprised if there was anybody in the kingdom that paid such large sums of money that I have. This goes to show me that money and wealth isn’t everything— that what I’m doing probably is right.

After all— if you’re unwilling to do something, then it seems that, no matter how much is paid to you, you will always work begrudgingly. Thus, the reverse must be true— right?

I don’t know… I say that far too often, but it’s probably the only statement that I can say with utter certainty. I’m no philosopher, and everything that I’ve ever known has been handed down to me with ease. The work and sweat of labor is invisible to me. The work and sweat that comes with knowledge is also invisible. I feel that I’m set apart from everybody else— but, it’s in the worst place possible. I;’m too unintelligent to speak with the wise that hover around me. Though, I’m also far too wealthy to ever be able to speak with the poor. I have a language of my own that I speak— and, I begin to see that it’s a language nobody else knows ow to speak. I’m forever wondering how I’m going to be able to relate with everybody… However, this is just a way to keep myself from saying that I am constantly wondering if anybody will ever bother to see if I can communicate with them. Because, I can’t. I don’t have the ability. I don’t have the ability to do anything, know anything, or see anything.

The mountain has taught me all of this. Though, that’s not the strongest thing that it’s taught me. Not at all.

What it’s taught me the most is that, when I yell loud enough, my echoes have more depth than anything that I said. Even the emptiness is more full than me.

I need to find a way out of the emptiness. I go into the shadows, constantly questioning. However, that’s the only way I’ll be able to get answers– that’s the only way I’ll be able to get fresh questions.

*

Susan’s heart was pounding and her chest was beating. Darkness filled everywhere, and her only direction was the snow and the sound of footsteps bounding after her. They were terrible footsteps, with the gravity of a boulder. She could feel the cold emanating from off of her pursuers— furry beasts with a cry that was like no other.

I need to figure out a way to escape these wolves, she thought.

Though, even as she thought this the spray of snow flung into her face, making her burn and slow down. The snow underneath her feet was no more of a help. While it might’ve been her only sense of direction, it was also a wall between her and freedom from her pursuers. As long as the snow was beneath her feet, she was limited by it. Her speed was unable to grow due to the tiredness that the snow provided her.

Why did I ever try running away, she thought with regret. Though, she didn’t bother trying to answer this question. She didn’t want to. While she knew that she’d placed herself in a mess, there was no way out but by running— and so, she was unwilling to give up on the running until she felt that the act of fleeing had finally lost its point, and that the wolves had subdued her.

In the blackness of night, the things that had led up to the fleeing had become very distant and foggy— it was almost as if it were all but a dream– a flake of snow that would melt as soon as it touched her skin. However, she knew that the goosebumps on her skin didn’t only come from the cold, but also from her extreme internal fear.

She’d finally decided to run away from Joshua after another battle that had been wrought between them. It had turned out that she’d returned home too late, once again, and that Joshua had finally had it with her trying to escape outside of village limits. Susan tried explaining herself to him, but it didn’t matter— he was too upset to hear any of it.

For once, he seemed very angry and hot-headed. Susan had seen Joshua angry many times before— his spurts of disappointment and anger had begun to become more pervasive and reoccurring than usual— however, never like this. His entire face had gone red and he went so far as to yell. Joshua never yelled.

Susan tried explaining herself to him but it came to a point when she realized that he wasn’t open to hearing any of them, and that her efforts were futile. What happened next was entirely random— it came out of a spurt of anger and desperation that she’d never really felt before. Her feet carried her out of the house, and they kept on carrying her. They didn’t stop when she was out of the yard, nor when she was out on the village paths. She didn’t even stop when she had surpassed the border of the village.

Even now, she could hear the voice of Joshua calling after her, beckoning for her to stop. She couldn’t help but feel her stomach line with regret— and yet, she didn’t give into it. She couldn’t she knew that she’d pushed too far, and that there was no other option but to keep running forward, ever expanding her boundaries.

A howl filled the air, warning her of her pursuer’s might. She knew that there was no hope for her to escape their wild chase. There was only surrender. Whether the surrender be willing or involuntary, the wolves didn’t care. Both Susan and the wolves knew just how fragile and soft the human feet and mind really are— there was a limited amount of time that they could run, before it came to a point where they could run no longer.

Time continued to slip by, and Susan’s breath slipped with it. She could now feel the wolves’ breath rippling down her back, and threatening to knock her into the ground. Meanwhile, the ground’s chilling texture threatened to subdue her as well— the cold was becoming too much for her body, and she could already feel herself becoming weak due to the strain.

This is all too stressful, she thought. Why can’t everything just be easy? Why does it all have to be so hard to maneuver through?

There was no answer to her question. All that she got in response was the tearing of the wind through her ears, and more howls. Both of these combined to make her ears endure a pain that she thought largely impossible.

The whole mess of the wolves chasing her had occurred not too long after she’d left the village borders. It seemed that the wolves must have caught her scent and begun chasing after her. Before now, Susan had thought the wolves to be mostly mythic creatures. She’d heard stories of the things that they’d done to other people, and even seen firsthand what they were capable of. However, the howl of the wolves and the howl of the wind had always been largely indistinguishable to her. The beasts had always managed to find a way to make themselves remain discreet and hidden. She used to view this as proof that the wolves were nonexistent— or, at the very least, a non-threat. However, with the wolves chasing her down, she no longer had any way of pushing the threat away. The truth had found a way to lunge itself onto her.

The truth always has a way of doing that. Whether one agrees with it or not, it eventually finds a way to affect everyone— and no matter how hard one runs, they’ll never be able to outrun such truths. Its reign is inevitable.

Susan sped up her run, making her legs break into a sprint. However, her surge of energy only lasted so long. Within moments of speeding up, she found herself feeling more winded than ever. Winter had found a way to wear her down to her most basic elements, covering her with sweat and dirt. She felt deprived of all chances to escape such feelings of exhaustion, but she didn’t allow herself to let it knock her into the ground. There was a will within her— one that was unwilling to give in. Even the wolves could smell it, and their pursuing legs sped up to accommodate for it. Susan had chosen not to surrender to the will of the wolves, but to take her own path— to run as fast as she could, until exhaustion forced her to stop altogether.

“I’m not going to give in!” she said groaning.

For a moment, she couldn’t quite tell who she was referring to— herself, or the wolves. In a way, it seemed to be both— as well as far more. The situation between herself and Joshua was also something that she directed her words at. As much as she wished to deny it, there was something about the argument that had affected her way of looking at things. She no longer felt confident in her stability. It seemed that the world around her was confirming that feeling, for it had sent the wolves out to attack her, and make her feel weak— to make her feel victim to the forces of the world.

Susan racked her mind for another solution to her problem. She knew that there was no way that she’d be able to outrun the wolves forever. The main reason that she’d even lasted so long as she did was because she’d led the wolves through winding trails of the mountain. If she’d happened to guide them through a more open place where they wouldn’t have been at risk of falling off of a cliff, she was certain that the wolves would’ve overtaken her by now.

Feet pounding heavily, one of her steps finally caused her to slip on a patch of sloshy snow. She nearly fell onto her back, becoming victim to either the cliff or the wolves. Yet, she managed to catch herself before this terrible worst-case scenario managed to play itself out.

Being careful not to allow her feet to slip again, her mind returned to the subject of evading the wolves. It was at this moment that her mind came to a jolting conclusion.

“The cliff… That must be my answer…” she thought.

This was before she realized that she was being run by adrenaline, and that the wolves were far too coordinated to fall into the cliff of their own accord.

I’m just dreaming, she thought. Nobody has been chased by wolves and lived to tell the tale… Or else, I would’ve been convinced of their existence until now. If only I could’ve known about the wolves beforehand… If only I’d been informed of a way to escape their clutches, before everything had spiraled down to this.

She halted her thoughts here, realizing that she didn’t have any time to wallow in self-pity.

I can spend my time in contemplation once I’ve become a feast for the wolves…

Her eyes began looking an all sides of her, carefully studying for any sort of answer to her problem at hand. Her vision was extremely limited, with the night’s darkness making sure to conceal all details from her sight. However, there were a few things that managed to escape this tidy cloak— sometimes she managed to see a branch that was reflecting the moon’s light. In another instance, she caught a bush in her path, and managed to jump over it.

It was at this instance where Susan was able to knock one of the wolves off the cliff. Whether it had been from poor eyesight or the speed of the chase, the wolf wasn’t able to hurdle the bush in time— thus going into a rocky plummet.

Subsequently, Susan tried replicating this moment of success. She knocked one of the wolves off the cliff by grasping a heavy tree branch, and making it swing backward into one of the wolves. Another time, she kicked at a rock on the side of the winding cliff, causing a landslide. This pattern continued, and she managed to knock away several wolves in this procedure. However, she eventually came to a point where this wouldn’t even work. The thin trail that she was on began to widen, and she soon saw that she was coming into an open plain of snow— one where she would surely be subdued by the will of the wolves.

“Think!” she continued to yell to herself, in a frivolous chant.

If the chant had any effect on the wolves, it certainly wasn’t one that was visible to her. One of them leaped into her air, preparing to claw at her face. With a swift sweep to the side, she managed to avoid this— but, it was only one of the many attacks that she had to face. She found herself having to intercept many other attacks, and weariness heaped onto her with a greater forced than any of the wolves ever could’ve. She was coy with her movements, making sure to stay as far away out of the moonlight as she could— however, this wasn’t something that she was able to keep up for very long either. The wolves began to catch onto her game, exploring the same dark parts that she was hiding within. Without being able to see any of the wolves, she became just as at risk of being attacked as she would’ve if she’d decided to try and run in the moonlight.

Beads of sweat started slipping down her forehead— she knew that her scent was becoming stronger every moment that she sat in the snow. However, she refused to move a muscle. As much as she was terrified, and as close as the wolves were getting to her, she couldn’t help but feel as if she had no other option but to stay. The circle of wolves had become too dense, and her own abilities were far too small.

I know that I told myself that I wouldn’t give in or surrender… but I’m just too tired. I can’t go on. There’s no other option… The wolves had won, and I can’t do anything about it… I’m just going to have to accept things as they are. If I try to avoid this, I’m just going to shorten what little that might remain of my life.

Susan was aware that this view was one of utter pessimism. Although, it seemed that there was no other option but to sit, and let the stink of the wolves’ breath come closer.

There was a sudden crack in the air. She looked up into the sky, and could’ve sworn that she saw a part of it divide into two. There was some sort of figure that flew through the air— it seemed to have the grace of a bird, but the powerful speed of a horse. She listened for it, and found that she could hear a swoosh in the air, and that she could smell an odd scent— it was a mixture of the smell of spring flowers, autumn leaves, summer dandelions, and winter snowfall. It went into her body, filling her with a surge of energy. Then, she looked at the wolves. Their eyes shrunk, and their fur stood on end. Even their breath had been weakened, with her now feeling a chill in the place of where their hot breath had once been.

There was another crack, and Susan watched the snow beneath her tremble. However, she herself felt no effects of the trembling at all. In fact, the small patch of snow that she was standing on seemed largely unaffected, with it appearing to have no blemish whatsoever.

The wolves howled in a whining pain that made them seem far less intimidating than they once had. She could already hear their feet carrying them off, and the snow crunching, with an immense speed. She was shocked that their tails didn’t get forgotten in their extreme haste.

Susan would’ve asked what it was that had caused such a turn of fates, however, she already felt that she knew what had happened— something inside of herself spoked to her, giving her the answers that she’d always known were there.

“Who are you?” she asked.

She could’ve sworn that the mysterious silhouette descended in front of her, because she watched the moon and stars become blocked out by its shadow. However, it didn’t bother speaking to her— it remained quiet, as if it had never heard a word before— as if it was nonexistent.

“You’re willing to save me, but unwilling to speak to me?” she said again, hoping to get some sort of response. None came to her.

Susan kicked a chunk of snow in the direction of where she thought that she saw the silhouette. However, it fell to the ground with a common plunk, as if nothing had occurred at all.

“Can you talk?” she asked.

The question, just like all the others, remained unanswered. However, she didn’t let that get to her.

“You were the one who drove away the wolves. I know that you are… When I first met you, I thought that all you were was trouble. However, now that I’m speaking with you, I’m starting to suspect that you’re far more than just that. Maybe you’re both a help and a hindrance— maybe it’s the act of chasing after you that’s the hindrance. Whatever it is, you’re going to speak to me, whether you like it or not. I know that you can affect far more than you’re letting on. And, I know that I’m not crazy.”

She felt a brush of wind up come up against her skin. It wasn’t quite cold. In fact, it had a sort of heat to it. However, it wasn’t hot either. It was a strange mixture of both. It made her feel different things as well— happiness, sadness. Tiredness, and alertness. Strength and weakness. Sight and blindness.

“I can’t describe it…” Susan said. “But, you’ve suddenly made me feel— feel unfortunately fortunate? Happily upset? Chillingly warm? I can’t tell if you touched me with a breeze, with a breath, or with a strong gust…”

As she expected, she didn’t hear any response. Although, she didn’t need one anymore. There was a sort of charm to feeling alone with the wind— the mixture of being with it, but not being with it, gave her a sort of internal freedom. There was something to the solitude that gave her a sense of liberty that wasn’t elsewhere. The light that was coming out of the darkness was one that she couldn’t quite deny herself of. It all had a contrary majesty to it— a beauty that was self-evident. While she couldn’t view it, all wishes to view it had dissipated from her.

Suddenly, the silhouette rushed passed her. Except, she felt as if it had rushed through her at the same time. In fact, it was an odd mixture of both, just as everything else concerning the silhouette seemed to be. She could’ve sworn that she could feel both the past and the future at the same time of the shadow going through her.

Once it had gone by, she shook her head in amazement. The way that she’d felt was so strange and otherworldly that she felt oddly repaired of something that she hadn’t known to be broken. Her eyes went back to where she thought that the shadow had been and found that the moon and stars were back out, pouring onto the spot of the silhouette. There was a word there, engraved into the snow— remember.

Oh I will, she thought to herself. I will do a lot more than just that…

*

I used to think that the abyss was the only problem that I’d face— that my thoughts and my journey were the only things that I’d have to think on. Not so. It turns out that we’ve come no closer to the wizard. We’ve passed the fixed location on the map, and found the space to be completely vacant.

However, that’s not to say that the mountain itself is vacant. You’d be wrong to think such incredulous nonsense. The mountain is alive; so how could it be that there’s nothing living inside it? It can’t be. That’s why I’ve starting hearing things as I lay down to go to bed… There are creeping things in the night. Eyes surround me, but my own eyes can never catch them— they’re too adjusted to studying the poor souls that dare to come in here— too prepared to pick us off, just for looking around.

Even my guide, who claims to have been prepared for all sorts of things, appears to be terrified by the surrounding circumstances. He’s told me that there are rumors of creatures that dwell with in here. He told me that he’s known people to come in the mountain, only to never return again. Suddenly, the silence that he’s constantly been sharing with me makes sense. It’s not that he doesn’t like speaking with me— although, that might be a large part of it. It’s that he doesn’t trust the mountain.

“The place has ears…” he said. “It frowns on those who walk through it without any sort of respect or fear. It’s been shown to give its wrath upon those who don’t know its paths, and those who disrespect its fragile ground.”

This sort of talk used to be something that I’d pass of with a laugh, and then distract myself from. I’d always thought such tales to be the work of people who are trying to spread doubt and fear— anarchy. However, the surrounding mountain had proven to me that there was nothing that could be trusted… My father’s death had left me a mess behind. And, as I began to clean it up, I started to see all of the other little messes that he’d never cleaned up himself…

“Maybe my father wasn’t capable of stopping everything, after all,” I said, with a laugh.

“You’re not wrong…” said my guide. “He did very little when it came to improving the small corners of the kingdom. While he might’ve been able to clean up the outside, and make all of the aesthetics look nice and pretty, he’ never dealt with the majority of the problems that dwell beneath his shallow surface. Rather, most of the problems in this kingdom come from your father, and his constant neglect of these parts… If you manage to keep your station as king, without finding yourself killed at the hands of a bloodthirsty traitor first, make sure that you don’t forget about these parts of your kingdom. Or else, they’re never going away. They’ll always be there to haunt, and slink about— steadily poisoning what good remains in your kingdom.”

I listened to him, but my ears didn’t believe the words.

“My father was a good man,” I said. “He wouldn’t have left big messes If he knew that they’d end up becoming bigger trouble later on.”

The guide laughed so hard that I found myself feeling disturbingly uncomfortable.

“You really believe that your father was such a great man, don’t you?” he asked. “Well, what about all of the dragons that he let fly around these parts. They’re always looking for gold, but your father— he never made sure to stop them. In fact, he let them come and take all the gold that they liked. They steadily crawled down under the belly of the mountain, steadily infesting it. And, what about all of the dwarves? He let them become steadily overworked, and underpaid. He never cared about any of us, Henry… I doubt that he ever even cared about you…”

All of these words stung me at the heart. But, I couldn’t help but want more… I needed to know how much of what he was saying was true. There was something inside of me that had driven me to this place— and it wanted to know more. It wanted to understand everything.

“Ha! You believe in dragons?” I said. However, I said so half-heartedly. If I were to have been honest to myself, I would’ve admitted that the entire reason I had laughed at him was because I wanted to test what his answer might be— what his response was. I wanted to test if he was telling the truth.

He looked at me and laughed. It was in that moment when I realized that what he was saying to me held some truth to it— that it wasn’t all lies that he’d simply conjured up.

“You don’t believe in them?” my guide said, incredulously. “Haven’t you payed attention to all of the gold that goes missing every year? How about the burnt streaks down the side of the mountain? Forest fires? The rumbling that comes during storms, clearly being the dragon cries? Proof of them is everywhere and in everything… You’ve simply been denying them…”

For some reason, I found myself feeling more unconvinced than I ‘d felt when he’d started the conversation.

“That can all be attributed to other factors,” I said. “Just because it seems unexplainable, it doesn’t mean that the dragons are guilty. I’ve never seen a dragon once in my life.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” he said, scowling at me. “You haven’t seen much of anything. As far as I can tell, you’ve never even ventured outside of the kingdom’s borders. No— if you truly wish to understand what’s going on, then you’ll have to admit that you don’t understand what’s going on— that the impossibilities very well may be possibilities. Otherwise, the world will go out of its way to prove you wrong…”

“This has taken a morbid turn,” I said, trying to make the conversation become light again “Just because my father neglected many parts of the kingdom, it doesn’t mean that he let invisible dragons come inside of it… Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?”

“You’re denying the fact that dragons could exist… Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? Have you ever gotten the feeling that something is following us through these caves?”

Reluctantly, I nodded in agreement. Then, I jerked my head around my shoulder and back, for safe measure. I might’ve not have been sucked in by the superstitions, but I still had great fear inside of myself.

“People get it all the time in these caves… Especially people who carry a lot of gold, and disregard the possibilities of creatures living within this place… Dragons are very greedy and selfish creatures, who are always lurking about in search of their first chance to strike. That’s why you constantly have to keep your guard up, and never let yourself fall out of the world of superstition. Or else, the world of superstition will thrust the ugly truths of the world upon you. You’ll be forced no other option… You believe in magic, right? After all, that’s why you plan on raising your father from the dead— an utter impossibility. What makes you think that you’re so invulnerable to outside forces acting upon that potential magic? Why do you think that you’re the only one that’s capable of venturing through these mountains, undetected? There are far stranger things than the wizard, Henry… And, you don’t want to test them…”

I didn’t believe a word that my guide was saying anymore, but I decided to keep the conversation going. Perhaps this was an error on my part, but I was far too interested in what he had to say. He had a view entirely different from my own, and he clearly knew things that I wasn’t aware of.

“How did you happen to gain all of this knowledge?” I asked. “Do you come from somewhere foreign? Or, have you gone through the mountain enough times to learn all of this?”

“Both,” he said, putting the words down rather harshly. “You can’t know as much as I do without going to many places and seeing many things. I’ve gone to many of your neighboring kingdoms, and seen them falling into most of the same problems that your own has… This one though— it has an odd spirit about it. I can’t quite explain it, but I feel as if this place has a life to it that I can’t find anywhere else. Maybe I’ m just a lucid dreamer, who like to believe in nonsense… But I’ll tell you what, if you explore this place deep enough, you’ll be surprised at the things you might find…”

The conversation went on for far longer than that, but I feel that this is where it truly ended— where I felt a note of closure. There’s something in this mountain— something in this entire kingdom— that is extremely deep and mysterious. I’m never going to give up until I’ve found the answer to what that might be. I need to know. And so, I won’ stop until I do know…

*

As Susan came into the village, she had an uplifted spirit within herself. Though, she soon started to see that something seemed amiss. She couldn’t quite tell what it was, but the people in the streets didn’t smile towards her like she’d come to expect. The lamps on each side of the road had begun to dim, and the snow on the paths had gone from white to a dingy grey. It was as if a dark shadow had come over the town, and painted it into a skewed image of what it once was. A pretty house had been turned into a crude, misshapen, dagger. A post had become an oversized claw. A stone had turned into a hurdle, waiting to trip her.

As somebody who was never afraid of the dark, she was surprised to find herself feeling terrified. It was as if something had come within her, and changed her person entirely— making her think thoughts that were completely foreign to how she actually thought.

Knowing that there was an absence of something, she ran towards the only place where she knew comfort to be— home. Despite having made a scene with Joshua, he was the only person who she’d ever known to be able to console her from these thoughts of terror and fear. There was something to the dark atmosphere that surrounded her— an element that left her with a complete feeling of shock and fear.

The spindly path thinned as she drew herself closer to her house. However, for some reason she felt no closer to it. Grimness had taken ahold of her. Her legs became leaden, and nearly felt as if they’d been paralyzed. Her eyes stung, making her vision smudge like a penned letter in water. Everything began to seem wonky and out of joint.

How she could’ve gone from a feeling of complete tranquility to one of horror, she didn’t know. Though, her mind immediately directed toward the silhouette. Even in the pleasurable encounter with it, there had been something wrong. As she came closer to her doorstep, and found each step she took to be harder than the last, she couldn’t help but feel as if the shadow had something to do with it, making herself and the world around her far darker.

Once her hand grasped the rusted iron knob of the entrance door, she instantly turned it and broke into her house. However, when she opened it, there wasn’t the warm and fuzzy candlelight to greet her. She didn’t hear Joshua’s voice, or watch him come bounding down the hall. The whole place felt like a vacuum, abhorrent of any energy.

It was at this moment that it occurred to Susan what she’d felt so oddly out of breath about, and put on edge by. The closer that she came up to her house, the more that she saw how vacant it was— the more she saw that it lacked the usual, casual light that came seeping out of its windows. Her home had gained an identity to her— a place of coziness. It was when she saw how tired it had become that she realized something was wrong— even if this recognition had been entirely unconscious, she now saw how powerful it had been.

But, If Joshua isn’t here, then where is he?

The answer to this wasn’t one that she needed an answer for— just by thinking it, she knew the apparent fact. Joshua had gone out to search for her. He’d gone out into the snowy wilderness, hoping to find her.

Thoughts have an odd way of flipping people over, as easily as it might be to flip a coin. Once again, Susan felt adrenaline rushing through her blood, and her eyes were dripping with suppressed tears. Hardly thinking, she burst out the front door, and let her feet carry her out to where Joshua might’ve gone. However, there were no footprints left. Snowfall had decided to come down heavily while she was inside the house, and everything had already become obscured.

For a while, she ran back towards the borders of the town. She wasn’t quite sure why, She felt that, if she were just able to find Joshua’s figure lining the horizon of the snowy plain, she might be able to catch up with him and show him that there was ano need to risk his life— that everything could be back to normal again, and that there was no threat of peril. However, it wasn’t long before she realized that there was no chance of Joshua being rescued that way. Just as she reached the border of town, reality crushed her. Even if she were to go where Joshua was, the chances of them being able to return to the village, through the dark, were slim. She’d already seen the worst of the snow, with many of the wolves having chased her. Alongside the blizzard, the only chance of her being able to save Joshua would be by pure miracle.

Her pounding feet stop slapping against the lathering snow, and she found her breath begin to decline from weighty puffs to shallow hyperventilation.

“There’s no way to help him…” she repeated to herself several times, before looking back into the village.

An idea came into her mind— an unintelligent idea, but it was the best idea that was available.

Swiftly squeezing her way through, in between the hundreds of cottages in the village, she consistently directed herself towards one building— a building that was always lit up like a miniature sun, and was about as quiet as a den of wolves.

Flanders’ house.

All it took was a knock— then a quick shove of the door open, and pushing through a large crowd of people. She wasn’t sure how she’d mustered the courage to do such things, but love is a force that can cause people to make even the most blustering of mistakes for some people. Her thoughts weren’t centered on herself, but on Joshua. In that moment, nothing else mattered but him. All other concerns, fears, and worries had been pushed away in order to make sure that what she felt was most important was carried out.

She found Flanders standing at the center of the crowd. When she found him, she saw a dumbfounded look on his face. Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting anybody to burst into his party uninvited. However, when he caught sight of Susan’s face, his tone immediately shifted.

“I’m going to need to take a break and have a chat with her,” he said, temporarily shutting down the party. “Don’t worry— I’ll return to host again very soon. Don’t stop in my absence.”

The room filled with whispers, but, like Susan, none of this mattered to him. All of his cares had shifted to accommodate for the thing that seemed to be troubling Susan. Everything else had suddenly lost all of its precedence.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, pulling Susan away into his library.

“Joshua has gone missing…”

Torches filled the night sky, painting it with a gray smoke. Even the moon was blotted out by their marching lights, and the snow strayed from them, melting in their presence. There were hundreds of them, and, wherever they went, they looked like a streaking fiery worm, wriggling all throughout the tiny village.

There wasn’t a place where searching voices didn’t reach, or a hole where their questioning parades didn’t poke their heads through. There was a single trodden patch of ground that hadn’t been studied— and they were still looking, with a ceaseless diligence.

Susan was among these torch bearers, and was now beginning to follow them into the wilderness. She was shocked out how great of a pack Flanders had mustered. The mass of the village had stretched in to the hundreds, and, with all of them combined, they started to look as populous and organized as an ant colony. It seemed that there were far more people in the village who cared about Joshua than she’d originally thought.

However, she also felt her heart fluttering in the massiveness it all. All around her, there were people. They cared for Joshua, and were willing to go to any extent to help him. They’d all come to Flanders for a party— and what they received was a search mission. To a degree, Susan felt responsible for all of this. If it hadn’t been for her, there wouldn’t have been a search party. Joshua wouldn’t have gone missing. The wolves wouldn’t have been preparing for a chance at a meal.

She didn’t used to understand how guilt could be so crushing. However, she felt this understanding now, more than she’d ever felt in the past. Her stomach became curled into herself, and her entire body became stiff.

There was only one way that she was able to channel her guilt from out of herself, and project it into the world. Flanders was grasping her side, unflinchingly. With his arm locked in hers, she felt a strong sense of freedom and relief— a sense that everything would be alright, no matter how hard things started to become.

“Flanders— do you think that we’ll be able to find Joshua?” Susan asked. Her thoughts were very worried and scrambled—but, she found that the very act of speaking her own mind had released some of the pressure that had been building up inside of her. Her words came off far smoother than she might’ve expected.

“I think that, if there’s a way to find him, we’ll find it…” Flanders said, stirring a confidence up within her. “In all of my days, I haven’t found a single thing that I haven’t been able to obtain. Just look at my house for proof of that. If there’s anybody in this village who won’t give up until they get what they want, it’s me.”

At first, Susan couldn’t see his face— just the shadow that the torch emblazoned upon his face. However, the longer that she looked upon him, the more that his head began to turn in her direction. It was as if her eyes directed her thoughts into his thoughts, and compelled him to lock his own eyes into hers. Finally, his eyes did. They became as clear as the night was dim, and their rounded shapes were lit up like gleaming pearls in the face of the torch. Though, while it might’ve just been because of the cold, and the torch’s red coloring, Susan thought that she saw a reddened embarrassment within Flanders’ face. In fact, she could’ve sworn that she even saw a sort of regret and guilt— a wish that, he too, had done something differently.

More melted snowflakes dripped into their torches, slowly dampening their light and their grip. While most of the search-party saw this as an ill-sign, Susan found it more disturbing than that. At each death of the snowflake, she saw Joshua coming one step closer to his own death. The snowflakes returning to the elements signified how easy it might be for Joshua to return to the elements— for him to return to the elements, and disappear from her, forever.

Herself and Flanders were soaked to the skin, and a rash had formed on Susan’s elbows and shoulders, due to them rubbing against her coarsely frozen cloth. When she looked to Flanders, he appeared no better. His graying hair had begun to blead a black, inky liquid— no doubt caused by him dying his hair. His eyes had lost their piercing ability, being covered in ice, and a blackened ring of tiredness. His limbs appeared to be the most uncomfortable aspect of him, with them moving at the speed of a tortoise, and gluing to chunks of the ground’s snow.

All warmth had been sucked from him— sucked from all of them. The delight that she’d once felt was now replaced with a barren despondency. Hope had become a flower. Though, flowers never sprout in the wintertime. Everybody knows that, by the time winter comes, flowers are but a dream.

“Flanders,” Susan asked, “how did you come to know Joshua? I used to think that you and him that had bad blood between each other. But, all of this— you couldn’t have done that for somebody you don’t know.”

“I do a lot of things for people I don’t know,” Flanders said, mysteriously. His tone immediately changed to something much more mundane. “After all, I gave you my books, before I knew much about you. I still don’t know much about you. I’m a man who doesn’t care who you are, as long as you can have a good time. I’m a man of party— not a man of petty.”

Susan laughed. She wasn’t quite sure why— what Flanders had said wasn’t particularly funny. However, it seemed that the surrounding atmosphere had made his words funny. In the harshness of the cold, anything warm— even if it was cold, and just warm in comparison to the current cold— was enough to make her feel a sense of joy.

“But, you did know Joshua…” she said, reflecting upon the words that she’d remembered Joshua saying. “He knew you, too. He wasn’t very respectful of you— but, I know that you two had once held something between yourselves.”

Flanders stirred uncomfortably.

“Yes,” he said. “But, whether or not we once held a friendship doesn’t determine whether or not I knew who he became. He was good at binding books— but, I didn’t know much more about him than that…”

Susan laughed again.

“I guess he didn’t know much about you, either,” she said. “He never was able to give me a reason for why he didn’t like you…”

“Let’s not use the word was, just yet,” Flanders said, trying to be reassuring. “We might still have a chance at finding Joshua.” Flanders paused to give Susan a pat on the back with his meaty hand. “But yes— Joshua is a very unique man. Sometimes he seems to be a scoundrel, and at others, he seems to be quite amiable. His personality can be very contorted, in this way— there’s never a clear way for me to tell who he really is. Though, I don’t want you to fault the old man for these things. I respect him, despite this. He— he’s very unique. If we find him, you should ask him about some of the adventures that he had when he was younger. I find them to be very— enlightening.”

Susan grinned at the thought of Joshua once being able to go on wild adventures. However, what grabbed her focus more was Flanders’ claim that Joshua was a criminal of sorts. He made sure to say such as a passing statement— however, Susan caught it instantaneously, and recognized a spice of begrudging in it. She tried to pass it off herself, but it wouldn’t go away. There was something that Flanders wasn’t telling her, and she was unsure if she were willing to keep pushing, and find out exactly what it was.

She was only able to distract herself by focusing her mind on another statement of his.

If we find him.

At first, this statement gave her a feeling of levity. Her own heart had begun to feel that there was no chance of finding Joshua. When Flanders said that there was still a chance, her dreams rocketed upwards. Though, there came a point when the torches had lost their brilliance, the stars had faded behind the clouds and smoke, and when their footsteps pounded into the snow slower than they had at the start of the search. It became clear to Susan that the sludge of the procession would only become murkier. Already, the spirit of unitedness that had put the search into action had been transformed into a spirit of desperation.

The words, after we find him, continued to repeat in Susan’s head. She heard them as they came to the spot where she’d been chased by the wolves. She heard them as the entire search-party became infected with moans and yawns. She heard them when her eyelids began to fall into each-other, and sleep tried taking her mind by force. She heard the words crescendo as their feet traveled back to the village, crunching through their premade footsteps.

She now realized why Flanders had worded the phrase, if we find him, in the way that he had. It was because he never was certain that they’d find Joshua in the first place. He’d merely implanted the words to instill a false positivity within her— a positivity that she should’ve known was naught.

He was wrong, Susan thought. In believing that we might find Joshua, I’ve only crashed, and realized that the crash would’ve bene much softer if I could’ve been prepared for it…

Bitterness flooded her. It didn’t leave, even when she was placed under Flanders’ roof, and in Flanders’ guest-bed.

“Joshua is gone for good…” she whispered to herself in a sudden disparity. “And, it was out of my own mistakes…”

There was a long debate that she enacted amongst her thoughts, though it didn’t matter. There was nothing in her head that could convince her of her decisions having been the correct ones. The more that she thought about it, the more that she felt guilty. Even in going out to search for Joshua, she knew that she’ slightly failed him.

Eventually, the circle of guilt pressed her so deep that she could no longer traverse it. Sleep had pulled her from it.

*

A steaming hot breakfast went down Susan’s throat. She felt as it tried to soothe her, and cast away the internal worries. She didn’t let it.

She was provided with a warm fire, comfortable clothes, full access to Flanders’ library, jewelry, and access to more than enough warm food. None of it mattered, not even in the slightest. The more that she looked at it all, the more unendurable that the surroundings became. She felt completely lost, and entirely alone. None of the provided possessions came close to replacing Joshua.

Flanders bumbling tried to make up for the absence of Joshua by giving her books to repair, and awkwardly attempting at conversation. The only thing that Susan got out of it was the knowledge that, in spite of all of Flanders’ parties, he was terrible at igniting a conversation.

The hours drained out of her, but they felt like weeks. It was excruciating for her to think that Joshua might be out there, lost, and having risked his life, all for her. This thought had been repeating itself constantly— she’d thought that it would leave after her night’s sleep, but it had found a way to persist and grow bigger than ever. She wanted somebody to share her feelings with, but Flanders was among the last people that she would tell about this. As nice of a man as he seemed to be, he was entirely against Joshua— no matter how much he tried to veil his dislike of Joshua, Susan knew that it was there. It had come to the point where it was laughable whenever Flanders attempted to hide it. If she told her feelings to Flanders, she knew that He’d find a way to push them aside, and blame Joshua for his own absence.

“He should’ve known better than to go out last night,” he said. “He should’ve had the same sense that you did, and come to me to rally a search-party.”

While she knew that he meant well, these were some of the last things she wanted to acknowledge. She wanted to remember Joshua with compassion, not spite. Yet, that was the very thing Flanders was thrusting upon her.

Eventually, Susan couldn’t stand the place anymore, and forced her way outside, so that she could find her friends.

At least, finding her friends is what she told Flanders that she planned to do. However, the further out that she went from Flanders home, the more that she realized she had nothing planned at all. Rather, she was just running about, aimlessly looking for a solace that she couldn’t capture. She didn’t want to talk with anybody at all, yet still wanted to speak her mind to everybody that she could. These contradicting ideals eventually drove her to run back to the border of the town.

“It’s all my fault,” she found herself saying. “It’s all Joshua’s fault. It’s all the wolves fault!”

She kept kicking at the snow, pulling herself closer to the border that had gained an increasing pull on her. At this point, the border of trees that marked the town’s end had entirely lost its fearful nature, and had instead become a friend of sorts, to which that she held a great respect and admiration. While she knew that it could strike fear into other’s hearts, to her it now represented the epitome of freedom.

As she tore through the trees, a thought tore through her head.

“It’s all of the silhouette’s fault!” she screamed, letting her words volley at the sky.

Somehow, these words propelled her further, making her sprint at a pace she hadn’t known herself capable of. Except, the sprint didn’t stop. She found that it kept carrying her, until she was past the barrier, and amongst the cliffs that lead to the mountain’s foot. Not even this stopped her, and she found herself continuing to run forward with the speed of a lion.

The ground beneath her cracked and crunched, threateningly. The sky above rumbled, warning of a storm. None of this mattered. Her feet were carrying her somewhere, and she wasn’t going to let the clouds, or the ground, or any other force of nature halt her.

In her sprint of solitude, she felt a terror that there might be something after her— that the silhouette could be behind her, watching her every move and making her slow down— become steadily exhausted. However, she gave this proposition no leeway, and continued forward. She wasn’t able to look behind herself and check for a pursuer, or else she might risk stopping, and crashing into a hurdle of some sort at her immense speed.

The mountain grew ever closer, and she could feel something rising in her chest. It was as if she had some sort of internal compass, guiding her towards the direction of the mountain— telling her where to go. She even felt as if she knew the mountain, in some strange but deep way. Every element of the environment that surrounded her spoke to her— it had a message to tell, and she listened, steadily learning new things about it. The birds tweeted, make a frigid, chilling noise— no doubt due to the cold around them. The ground was covered in wolf paw prints— but, they only seemed to appear under the coverings of trees, where warmth was hidden.

Despite this, a warm breeze traveled through her hair. Her mind was conflicted by all of this contradiction. However, she remembered how the silhouette had come with warmth, and how it had helped her last time she was in need.

At this point, she became inconclusive in what she thought, as well as how she felt about the scenario. It seemed to her that there was no explanation for what was going on, and that she’d simply have to take everything upon faith.

Once again, she let her feet carry her through the confusing map of randomness, until she found that they would carry her no further. She let her vision, which had become blurred from running, adjust. Then, she looked up, and found the mouth of a cave staring into her— the very same cave that she and her friends had become acquainted with.

My friends, she thought.

The cave was speaking to her, telling her to go inside of it, and explore its deep passageways. Yet, it also offered a foreboding warning— the more that she looked at it, the more that she felt alone. She realized how much safer that she would’ve been with her friends to guide her.

Why did I leave my friends…? Why didn’t I go and get them, like I told Flanders that I would do?

She then gained the worry that Flanders would be out looking for her, and soon find that she was missing. However, she no longer cared. Even with her fears of going inside of the cave alone, she felt like that option provided far more liberty than any other option. In the save, she’d find a freedom that she hadn’t been able to find anywhere else. She didn’t know how she knew this, but her heart had a rigidness within it that told her so. The facts didn’t matter— the strangeness surrounding her didn’t matter.

She pulled out her matchbox, tore a dry branch off of a nearby tree, and then tied a wet rag around the bottom half of the branch as a handle. Finally, she used her matchbox to light the branch, making it into a torch.

Once this task was finished, her map of the mountain’s interior pulled itself out of her pocket, and leap into her hands.

She walked into the tunnel, and let the blackness enclose around her. Fear no longer swayed her. The darkness might as well have been the personification of assurance.

*

Caves are probably one of the crudest places to explore. They’re full of bats, rats, and all other sorts of creatures. Every turn within them could result in one injuring themselves, or making themselves further lost than they were before. There’s rarely a time when one knows where they’re going in a cave. When they do, it typically means that they’ve hardly scratched the surface of where the cave’s secrets might lie. Safety and assurance is something that caves, and their darkness, abhor.

Susan wasn’t quite certain of what had compelled her to search through the cave. At the beginning, she’d thought it to be a supernatural force guiding her closer to Joshua. Though, the farther that she went into the belly of the cave, the more she realized just how clueless and small that she was compared to the rest of it. All of her assurance had disappeared, and all that remained was an odd sense of uncertainty— uncertainty that she’d previously thought herself immune to.

While she’d once thought that the feeling of something following her was irrational, she now found it to be more compelling of a thought than ever. During every movement that she made, she felt as if there might’ve been something hiding behind the noise of her movement. The darkness started to appear like a cloak that could cover up whomever or whatever might be staring after her. Then, she started to even fear the darkness. It had become entirely probable to her that the silhouette might’ve been watching after her, and making sure that she never stepped out of line— preparing to strike, should she make an action that worked against its will.

A shiver went down her spine, but she ignored it, passing it off as a symptom of the cold.

Joshua always did that, she reminisced. It didn’t matter what he might’ve been experiencing— he always conceded, no matter how formidable the surrounding situations might be, that he was never afraid— and that nothing could make him experience fear.

With him back in her mind, she continued to search— however inconsequential that her search might be.

Her torch remained as luminescent as ever, making sure to light the way wherever she went. It provided but a bubble of clarity— beyond that bubble, she was unable to determine anything. However, it was at least a bubble, and she found it to be more satisfactory than anything else around her.

The caverns proved mostly empty, besides the occasional scurrying rat, screeching bat, and skeleton of dead animals. At one point, she thought that she might’ve heard a wolf’s howl, but eventually passed it off as the mere echo of her footsteps.

Eventually, she came to a corner in the mountain where she was sure that Joshua hadn’t reached. With every other possibility eliminated, she was forced to determine that there was nothing to be found in the cavern—everything that she’d thought was there must’ve been in her head including her hunch.

“It was but a figment of my imagination,” she said, sullenly.

As she traveled back through the cave, she found that she did feel slightly better than she had in Flanders’ house. Even with her immense guilt, something about going into the mountain, and defying what was expected of her, had made her feel as if she’d partially made up for the disappearance of Joshua.

“At least I tried looking for him on my own,” she said. “At least I looked for him when everybody else has given up on him.”

Though, even as she said this, a new burden came onto her. She didn’t notice it, but she gained a new responsibility— a responsibility to keep looking for Joshua, until every possibility had been cleared up. Except, there wouldn’t ever be an elimination of all possibilities. While she could hardly recognize that the thought had linked with her, she knew that the notion would be an endless one— that she’d perpetually be caught in a crusade to find Joshua, even when it seemed that there was no longer a reason to look for him.

“I’m not going to Joshua’s funeral,” she said, as she neared the exit of the cave. “I’m not going to let anything that has happened change me, or how I remember Joshua… Nothing can ever change that.”

At first, she felt as if she were talking to herself, Though, then she recognized that she felt as if she had somebody listening to her, the entire time that she spoke. Even as she left the cave, and felt herself become apart from it, she felt as if she were still being listened to.

“Where are you hiding?” she suddenly shouted out to where she thought the silhouette was. “I know that you’re out there! I know that you saved me, but you didn’t save Joshua! Why is that? Why are you willing to save me, but not him!?”

There was no answer, and, for a while, Susan thought that she was just talking to herself, and that she might’ve been insane. There was a long stretch of time when she waited for the shadow to come out. Finally, she gave up, and walked away.

“You will talk one day…” Susan said. “And, until that day, I’m not going to stop talking to you.”

With that, she left the cave in her wake. This time, she didn’t run.

*

“What were you thinking?” Flanders asked, trying to stay as calm as possible. “Joshua just became lost out there. You couldn’t have possibly thought that you had a better chance of surviving than him— did you?”

“I didn’t go that far out of the village borders,” Susan said, trying to push the complaints aside. “It’s nto like I went all the way to the mountain or anything.”

Even as Susan said this, Flanders remained fiery and indignant.

“You could’ve died out there— we can’t have tons of people going missing, Susan. It’s too deep in the winter to be risking your life amongst the wolves.”

Susan was compelled to tell Flanders about her own occurrence with the wolves, but stopped herself when she realized that, even if he believed it, it wouldn’t help her case.

“I was just looking for Joshua…” Susan said.

“And, why did Joshua go missing? It was because he was out there looking for you. Nobody can do things out there by themselves Sarah doing things on your own is rarely ever the answer. This village is too small, and the dangers surrounding it are too wide, for you to be trying to traverse places of which you have no understanding.”

At saying this, Flanders’ eyes went down to Susan’s waist where the shape of her book was. Susan knew what he was thinking— he regretted ever giving the book to her.

“I understand that you don’t think I was supposed to go out there,” Susan said. “But I had a hunch. I had some sort of feeling in my gut. You’ve heard the stories surrounding the mountain. Don’t you believe that there might’ve been some force compelling me to go into the mountain. Maybe I was being lead to Joshua.”

“Or, maybe it was all in your head,” Flanders said. Then, he laughed. “Look at me— the voice of the party— now becoming the voice of reason. I don’t mean to put a damper on your feeling of exploration, and wishes to look outside of the box. Though, I want you to think for a moment… Is there any actual proof of there being magic on the mountain? Such is the stuff of legends. Not for a second do I believe that the mountain once hosted dragons, castles, dwarves, and the like. It’s all nonsense, Susan. While most of the villagers might tell you otherwise, I want you to be aware of how unlikely your claims are, and how much you’re risking your life out there.”

Susan took a close look at Flanders, and realized something. He looked hardly different from Joshua at all, and seemed no different either. It was almost as if they were the same person. While Flanders hid behind his partying persona, he was the same quiet, philosophical person that Joshua was— he barely gave a moment for fun in any of his words or notions.

“Are you suggesting that I don’t keep looking for Joshua, even when I feel that I might have a lead?” Susan asked.

“No… I’m just saying that you can’t follow hunches. Trust me, they never lead anywhere. You might think that they have truth to them, but they’re always disappointing.”

Susan’s head hung to the floor, and then looked at the room of Flanders’ which surrounded her. She found it baffling how elegant, and yet how dull it all looked. Even in its cozy warmth, it had a calculated, mechanical design to it, which she felt suck all of the life and thought out of everything. A part of her felt trapped within it— as if the place was the only place in which she could find safety, and that the world outside was far too dangerous to risk exposing herself to.

“I can’t stay in this cove forever,” she said, trying to quell her defiance as much as she could. “You can’t hold me back from what I feel is right. I know that Joshua is out there, waiting for me to come and find him. I’m going to find him, whether you like it or not.”

“That’s fine. But, you at least need to bring a search party with you, so that you can have safety. In fact, we have another search party scheduled for tonight. Like I told you last night— I’m not the kind of person who will give up on something once it seems to be hopeless. I’ll keep looking for Joshua, until I feel that we’ve looked everywhere, and that there’s nowhere else for us to look.

“It’s just— I don’t want you to go with Joshua too. You’re the last remnant of him. Once you go, the last part of him goes… Maybe I’m being belligerent here Susan. I honestly couldn’t tell you if I was, so that probably acts as proof in favor of such. However, I just don’t think that going out on your own, without even informing anybody, is a good idea.”

Susan nodded, but she was nodding off to sleep more than anything else. She no longer cared about what Flanders said. The thought that she’d have to give up chasing after Joshua sounded absurd to her. Out of Flanders’ window, she could see night slowly closing in on the world. As she saw this, she knew that time was running out, and that every moment she spent with Flanders was a moment that was being taken away from the efforts to save Joshua.

“I won’t do it again,” Susan said reluctantly. As she said this, she felt as if the words had been emblazoned onto her, now marking her forever— to go against them would be to go against her own word. Though, she felt entirely willing to go against her own word as well, leaving her entirely confused. She wasn’t sure if she was going to keep her word, or instead turn her word into a lie.

“I need to go see my friends…” she said, this time telling the truth.

Flanders opened his mouth to object, but paused before he said anything. Then, he said, “I’ll come with you, to make sure that you’re going to the right place. I can’t have you going out into the darkness again.”

As he did this, Susan gained the uncomfortable vibe that it would be like this from now on— constant monitoring, and an utter lack of freedom. However, she complied with him, seeing that she had no other option.

The sunset had begun turning to twilight by the time she reached her friends’ house— she’d decided to go to Isabella’s, guessing that Tim would be there as well. He always seemed to be at Isabella’s house, hiding from various chores and responsibilities.

There was something to the winter night in the village… Every time she went out during one, she felt her senses and awareness increase to extreme levels. The crunch of the snow seemed to increase tenfold. She could smell the dirt mix into the dirt, altering it into a filthy mixture. Her pace seemed to pick up as well, with her oftentimes leaving her companions in the dust during their walks in the darkness.

“I’ll come back here for you when I’m ready to start the search party…” Flanders said, patting her on the back and leaving.

He whistled as he walked off, with a newfound joy that he hadn’t had during their walk. Shockingly, Susan found herself crumble inside as she looked at the door to Isabella’s house. At first, she couldn’t tell what it was. Though, she soon realized— she’d never come to her friends with a weight like she now had. Nothing had been all that serious between them, like it was becoming now. She’d never needed them for assurance, and now she did. Although, she had a fear that they might not be enough to satisfy her internal conflicts for her, like she hoped they would.

Despite all of this, the wind was far too cold to endure forever. Eventually, time, and chilliness won out, forcing her frozen fingers to rap against the front door. The door swung open to reveal Isabella’s mother, subsequently followed by Isabella’s father, and a parade of Isabella’s siblings. Somewhere at the end of this parade, she knew there was Isabella and Timothy— she could faintly hear their voices amongst the cloud of greetings. However, the mass of people prohibited her from getting any further than that.

“Quiet down, all of you!” Isabella’s mother shouted above the roar of greetings. Then, much softer, she embarrassedly added, “We just came up from the dinner table. We weren’t expecting you, so we didn’t prepare any food. Though, we do have an extra seat for you, if you’d like to sit down with us.”

Susan, of course, complied, and followed after them into the dining room. Saying no to Isabella’s mother wasn’t an option. She was too sweet of a person to justify saying no to— and, when the idea of saying no did arise, her hidden roughness would always come out to remind one why saying no was such a bad idea. In a sense, Susan saw her as somebody who filled the role of mother that she’d never had.

At the table, hardly any of the meal was left, and everything looked pretty scarce. However, when she took a seat next to timothy and Isabella, she saw just how abundant everything was. The abundance wasn’t within the food, but in the conversation— the connection between them all. It was odd, but she felt that the place had a more joyful element to it than any of Flanders’s parties contained. When she was amongst them, and their conversations, she felt as if she’d been underwater for a long time, and had finally resurfaced to see the light of day. Everything seemed far more peaceful and meaningful. There was a sudden recognition within herself of why Joshua must’ve disliked Flanders so much. It wasn’t because of the type of man he was, but the type of life he led— the life of a person who constantly and consistently pretended to represent happiness, and a type of joy between people, but only embraced a spirit of materialism— a spirit that only focused on the outward, rather than the inward.

Jokes flung in and out of the table, good discussion was had, and great questions were raised. Not once during her entire sitting did she feel uncomfortable or out of place. None of them even made reference to the disappearance of Joshua, or her stay with Flanders. It was almost as if they could read her mind, and that they knew what topics to stay away from.

Eventually, the conversation died down, and she took her friends to Isabella’s room to chat.

“Don’t stay up there for too long,” Isabella’s mother called after them, “I still need you to do the dishes!”

Behind the shut doors of Isabella’s room, the questions immediately started pouring on.

“How did Joshua go missing?”

“What made him think that it was ok to go out in the snow?”

“Did you run away again?”

“How did you get the search party going?”

“What were you thinking the entire time?”

“Are you alright?”

Eventually, Susan followed after Isabella’s mother’s tactic, and used a shout to silence all of the noise.

“I can’t answer these all at once,” she said. “I’m just going to have to tell you everything from the beginning.”

By satisfied the look on her friends’ faces, she could tell that this had been their strategy all along. Susan followed this precedent set by their faces, and told them the entire story of what had happened, only leaving out the part concerning the silhouette.

“I was there when the search party started, as well as Isabella,” Timothy said, proudly. “But I can’t say that we found any sign of Joshua… Not that this means much, since we couldn’t find a sign of you at the time, either.”

He looked out the window, and to the murky shape that the mountain had turned into during nightfall.

“Are you sure that you felt like he was in there?” Isabella asked, skeptically. “I don’t know why… But, it just seems strange.”

Susan didn’t entertain the skepticism for a second.

“Flanders said the same thing to me... I don’t think anybody is going to believe it, except for you guys. That’s why you’re the first people I came to— because I knew that you’d be the only ones to believe it. Here’s the thing— I need somebody to believe it with me. I can’t be alone in this. You guys remember the cave, don’t you? The place was weird! A thousand things could be hiding inside of there! Why couldn’t one of them be Joshua?”

“It sounds completely crazy to me…” Timothy said, “…but, if you really feel that we need to, I guess that we can give it a shot…”

Susan smiled, but the smile was exclusive to her. The other two seemed entirely unconvinced and uninterested in everything that was being said from her.

“How are you feeling?” Isabella asked, raising this question for the second time in their conversation.

“Right now, I’m fine,” Susan said. Although, even as she said the words, she knew they sounded utterly faked— like a piece of cloth that had been knitted lazily, but passed off as fine garments.

“I know that Joshua being gone must be unbearable,” Isabella continued.

Timothy scooted back into a corner, and awkwardly said nothing. As Susan spoke, he stared at the ceiling.

“Did you both plan this?” Susan asked. “What’s with all of the touchy questions?”

Isabella looked taken aback, but her eyes remained locked with Susan’s.

“I just want to help you,” Isabella said. “We didn’t plan any of this. I don’t know why you’re thinking the worst of us… Isn’t that right, Tim?”

Tim nodded uneasily. “Yes, definitely not planned. I don’t know what anybody is talking about.”

Though, the entire time, his eyes stayed trapped in the ceiling.

Susan didn’t say a word, nor could she think of one to say. She felt as if her friends’ lies had left her with no other option but to sit and think. Outside the window of the room, Susan watched as heavy snowflakes pressed against the window, and the wind threw itself heavily upon it. It seemed that nature had decided to use all of its forces to make the window break apart. Though, the window didn’t break, or waver.

“It’s storming pretty strongly out there,” Susan remarked.

“You haven’t answered our questions, Susan,” Isabella said. “What’s going on? Are you alright with Flanders? Do you need help dealing with the disappearance of Joshua? You don’t need to bottle it all up inside… I know that you think your experience on the mountain was something magical, but I’m concerned that’s not all you’re telling us… I think that you cared more about Joshua than you let on.”

Susan finally shattered.

“I can’t do it…” she said, more to herself, than anything else. “I’m completely confused, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, or where to go. I want to look for Joshua, but I know that there’s no way I’ll be able to find him. Even if I am, I know that it won’t make a difference in the slightest. There’s nothing that can make a difference, because it’s all my fault— it’s all entirely my fault…”

She wanted to go further, and let out more of herself— though, she found that she was only moments away from letting out a cascade of tears. Even her words, which she thought would be therapeutic, had become another hindrance to her.

“None of this is your fault, Susan,” Isabella said, patting her on the back.

“Even if it was,” Tim said, “it’s not like it’s something that you couldn’t fix.”

Both of their words were half-hearted in Susan’s eyes— they didn’t actually have much to say or offer. Though, for some reason, she felt a change inside of herself after hearing them.

“From what I can tell, being stuck with Flanders is pretty terrible,” Tim continued. “But, at least it isn’t Bart that you’re stuck with. Trust me on this— Bart isn’t the type of person that you’d want to be stuck with.”

A laugh flooded the room, drowning out the wailing weather from outside.

“I’ve just felt so guilty,” Susan continued. “I feel like, if I hadn’t run out of my house and headed for the wilderness, none of this would’ve happened…”

“That’s not something you should hold over yourself,” Isabella warned. “You can’t blame everything on yourself…”

“That’s the same as blaming a cow for spoiled milk,” Tim said.

More laughs came out, and the room became a sort of sanctuary, closed off from the troubling winds of the outside. The world had suddenly become smaller, making their world become far bigger.

In this moment of clamorous unison, Susan wondered if she should tell them all about her experience with the silhouette, and the way that it had saved her from the wolves. Though, she eventually went with the reasoning that she’d used when she first told them her story— they wouldn’t believe her, even if she told them. There was nothing that could convince them of such a strange event happening, and she knew it.

Amidst her conversation with her friends, and her newfound reassurance, she found that there was something else that wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t just the guilt— it was also a feeling of abandonment. When the sunset had turned to pitch black, and the pitch black had eventually turned to sunrise, she realized what it was— Flanders had never bothered to come back for her. And, even if he’d intended to come back for her, Joshua had never come back for her either.

The pat on the back that Flanders had left her with now felt more hollow than ever before.

*

Have you ever tasted sunlight…? No, of course not. How about darkness? Perhaps you haven’t. In fact, I’ll bet that you haven’t. Though, as for myself— I have.

Before you go calling me insane, I must remark that you could very well be right— I’ve been stuck in a cave with my guide, Hemlock, for a week. This might just be a hallucination of mine, or some sleight of the senses… Yet, that doesn’t change the fact that my senses have convinced me of this phenomenon having an incredible significance.

Hemlock and I were traversing through the caves, as one does, whilst I mourned over my father. Rightfully so, Hemlock ignored my whimpering and continued through the caves as if I weren’t even there. Though, this is where things become interesting. Hemlock stopped following the map that I’d written in the book, and instead went off of his own instinct in his anger.

By doing so, he brought us into a cave, which lit up with flames the moment that we walked in. On every wall, there were torches, bursting with an extreme energy. As I stared at them, I felt a part of myself disappear into them. It was as if the torches had the ability to snatch up a bit of my soul.

As this happened, I saw several gargoyles sprout from the ground and ceiling, until they merged together into the shape of a pillar. At first, I thought that all of this lucid imagery was of my own mind’s design. However, then I looked to Hemlock and saw that he was experiencing the same insanity that I was— his eyes looked about as wide as my fist. Not that my fist is much to scoff at…

Anyhow, the room suddenly lit up with all sorts of colors, turning into something that looked similar to a giant rainbow. Then— nothing. The entire room turned black. I felt an enormous scrape tear down my stomach and arms. A girlish scream of terrible proportions sprung into the air. I’m not quite sure who’s It was— it may have been my own, though I find that doubtful.

Whomever the sound was emitted from, I greatly thank and credit them for it. For, at the very moment of their scream, the lights came back on. It was for but a split second, and the lights returned me to the wretched chasm of stretching black, immediately afterwards. Though, in that solitary moment, I saw a being that would make the hearts of even the bravest of people turn to a mush. If only you could’ve seen it— it was a sight that might’ve made your legs turn to dust.

Now that I’ve spent a sufficient time preparing you, I now must inform you of what the thing actually was— it was a sort of wraith, having taken on the form of a massive silhouette. It was the very definition of terrifying, with it appearing to be capable of growing to the size of anything it wished. In the glimpse that I saw of it, I found it to be a very disturbing sight. It had a pulsating, formless figure, and spiky bits flowing all throughout it. In a sense, it was similar to bodies of water such as rivers or streams, except, instead of eventually pouring into some sort of basin, it poured into itself— it was some sort of perpetual motion machine, if one could believe in such a thing.

Having returned to the darkness, I was forced to consider a thought that was extremely disconcerting— the darkness wasn’t a natural one, but a darkness that was being maintained by the silhouette. A far more disturbing thought followed after this one— the darkness, wasn’t just maintained by the silhouette. The darkness was the silhouette.

I felt my whole body begin to weaken at the thought of this, so I began to grope and punch against where I thought the silhouette might’ve been. It was no use, and it perhaps made the situation even worse. As I did this, I felt the air be ripped from my lungs, and my head begin to dizzy. It became clear to me that I’d reached a point where there was little to no options, and I was being forced to be the victim of such. I’m sure that it’s easy to criticize me now, since you’re not part of the situation. Though, for me, in that moment, I felt as if I were entirely stuck, and that nothing I could do would make a difference.

Then, something just short of a miracle happen. There was the sound of a torch lighting, and I could see a slight orb of it amidst the immense darkness. A clang resounded, and then the scent of something burning and becoming charred filled my nostrils. For a moment, I felt trapped again.

Then, I watched the wraith light up right in front of my eyes, into a cold blue flame. As this happened, the room around me came in and out of clarity as well. I couldn’t quite tell if I was supposed to rejoice, or to feel sorry for the poor creature for suffering such a plight. Though, whatever I was supposed to, or not supposed to, feel, I felt it, along with far more. Somehow, the monster had been vanquished— and, such didn’t have to be acquired by magic, or any sort of mystical means. At least, none that I was aware of.

Hemlock’s face shone by the torch, smiling at me. It was one of the very same torches that had been on the wall.

“Thank goodness that you found this!” I said.

He laughed.

“You can thank me for a lot more than that,” he said. “Are you done with your constant complaining yet?”

I, of course, told him no. Though, I knew deep down that I didn’t really mean it. I could never mean such a thing. Somewhere, lodged within me, I had a requirement to find the truth, and cast away the darkness. And, my best approach to that was looking into the darkness, even if it meant for the darkness to consume me.

As we walked from the cave, trying to go our fastest to escape it, Hemlock asked me a question that both discomforted me and gave me something to think on, at the same time.

“Why are you doing any of this?” he asked me. “What’s the point in it all?”

Most people might have the answer for what they’re doing. I’d assume that you do as well. Though, when I really put my thought in, I realized that I didn’t quite know why I was doing any of this. My father was utterly gone; from what I could tell. At the end of the day, there was no way to tell if my journey would be worth it. Despite the love for my father, I began to question if my quest was as rational as I’d initially thought. If it was, then it was certainly becoming harder for me to see it.

Even if magic worked, and was capable of raising my father from the grave, I was starting to see just how untrustworthy it was. The wraith had proven to me that there was no solidity in anything— that, even magic could be dismantled by rather conventional means.

“I have a question for you,” I asked. “Why do you bother with me? You don’t care about the payment, if our words can mean anything… And, you don’t care about the recognition either, since you think that this is all a joke? What drives you?”

“Nothing drives me… Well, maybe I’m too noble in saying that. The money does drive me. The journey drives me. The sense of exploration and seeing the unknown drives me… I believe that I’ve seen every corner of this mountain, but, if today is any proof, there are still things that I haven’t seen. Suddenly, I’m incredibly interested in the concept of raising the dead back to life. I doubt that it’s possible, or even that it’s worthwhile. Yet, I’m willing to see this through, and keep my mind open. Who knows— I might just end up being incredibly surprised with what I might find.”

I smiled, even though I knew that he couldn’t see it in the darkness of the caves.

“Then, that’s my reason too…” I said.

As hollow as my words might’ve sounded, I had put my entire mind and soul into it. I’d suddenly realized how wrong I’d been to think that I could do this to save my father. I needed to keep my mind elsewhere, and my thoughts in a new direction. In a direction towards discovery, and exploration, not senseless wondering, and wishful thinking. I knew, beyond all knowing, that I’d finally figured out what I was supposed to do and where I was supposed to go. I was finally on the right track— and, the right track was not knowing what track you’re taking.

*

“For the last time… I made a horrible mistake, and I’m sorry.

It was Flanders who was talking. Ever since the night before, Susan hadn’t let up about how he’d abandoned her, and neglected to start the search party. Ever since then, he couldn’t stop apologizing.

“I know that you’re sorry,” Susan said. “I understand why you forgot.”

In actuality, she still couldn’t understand why Flanders could’ve forgotten. Joshua would’ve never been able to forget. He’d always follow through, no matter how tough that might’ve been for him at times.

“I got sidetracked,” Flanders explained, fumblingly, “I was so buy and caught up in what I was doing, that you completely slipped my mind.”

A horse whinnied, and pounded its hooves into the snow. Susan shuddered, but then remembered that she was in the enclosed safety of the carriage car. Not even the snow that flung from the Horse’s rushed movements could affect her.

“Hopefully this can make up for what I did last night,” Flanders said, employing weakness and fragility into his vocal chords.

“It should definitely help me with a few things,” Susan admitted.

Notes of snow played everywhere, turning the air murky, and Susan’s ears red. Susan’s home peeped over a white hilltop, as groggily as a squirrel might peep out of its hole in a tree. In the odd sunlight that struggled from out of the clouds, the windows of the home blackened and whitened, as if it were blinking awake.

“There you are,” Flanders said, stopping the carriage to let Susan into her yard.

Susan jumped into it, and knocked her elbow against a pole. The pain stung her, being multiplied by the brittle weather. Her eyes turned to the pole. In that moment, her pain far exceeded what she even thought it could be. The pole that she’d bumped was the sign for Joshua’s shop— Joshua’s book repairs.

Susan felt her face heat up, but pushed back the emotions that might’ve swayed her. The sign continued to nudge at her. Though, even when she reached the door of her home, she didn’t let it have any effect on her. Her mind had finally traveled elsewhere.

Even inside the house, she didn’t see the house. All that she saw was Joshua. It wasn’t until she was in the library that these visions finally let up. She was searching for a book of hers and Joshua’s that they’d both read together. A specific book, that meant a lot to her. Her fingers thumbed through every single book, before it finally reached a bright read one, with a golden spine. On the cover of it, there was the silhouette of a mountain.

“The Secret of Blackneck,” she said, with a grin.

The book had been one that Joshua had written and read to her as a child— it was one of her favorite fairytales. She wasn’t sure what it was about it, but she always felt as if she were transported to another world whenever she read it.

Her memories flashed back to when she was a little child, lying in her bed as Joshua read the book to her. At the time, she’d thought that there was nothing that could replace it. Of course, she eventually came to know other books, and see this one as something that wasn’t particularly special. Though, there was still something odd to it— a uniqueness that she couldn’t seem to find anywhere else that she looked.

“The uniqueness was never in the book itself,” she said, in the solitude of the room. “It was in the person that I’d read it with.”

While she didn’t feel that it was the proper place to put such a special book, she had to put it in the pouch with her mountain map. As she did so, she couldn’t help but look back at the pouch with the same sentimentality that she’d looked at the book with— Joshua had also given the pouch to her— said that he’d used it on his journeys, and that it was hers now.

When she looked at the library as a whole, she felt like there was something special to all of it. In every single book, she could see Joshua’s mark— something that he’d touched, changed, repaired, or read. It was all a part of him. When Susan looked at the books, she felt as if she could see Joshua reading all of them. It all mattered to her in a way that she’d never thought it would.

“I’m never going to forget any of this…” she said. “Never…”

There was a moment of silence that she offered the library, before finally leaving. She was aware that the practice was ridiculous. However, there was a sacredness to everything in there. Just the mere change of it altered it from how Joshua had left it.

Back outside of the house, Flanders was still waiting in the carriage. He smiled at her cheerily, and looked as if he were ready to do anything.

As Susan sat next to him, he said, “How did it go? Do you feel better now?”

“Yes.”

Flanders’ eyes turned down to the pouch that Susan was carrying.

“I see that you have an extra book in there? What is it?”

Susan slipped it out.

“It’s just an old book that Joshua would ready to me. He—.”

“He wrote that book,” Flanders interrupted. He looked far more uncomfortable than when the conversation had started. His hands were rubbing together, and his feet were tapping on the floor of the carriage at a rapid speed. He tried to play it off as if it were caused by the cold. Though, Susan could see that it was caused by nervousness.

“I know,” Susan said. “It’s odd that he never got around to writing another one. It’s a very good fairytale.”

“Right…” Flanders said, methodically. “I suppose that it’s a decent book…”

Susan could tell by the fear in Flanders’ eyes that he was holding something back. Though, this was among the mysteries that she didn’t want to hear an explanation for.

“I just read it for sentimentality, from time to time,” Susan said. “It makes me feel something that most other books can’t do for me. It’s special in that way.”

Flanders coughed in agreement. Susan saw that he looked sick, suddenly— as if he were coming down with a cold.

“Joshua lent it to me once,” he said. “I liked it— I probably not anywhere near as attached to it as you might be, but it was a decent book— a bit overt in its references to our folklore, and its clunky writing style, but good enough.

“He used to tell me that he planned on printing more of them, with the money that he made in his book-binding business… He never did get around to it.”

“He never got around to a lot of things that he planned on doing,” Susan said, using all of her willpower not to come across as snide.

She must’ve failed at this, because Flanders frowned at her with an upset glare.

Realizing that the book reeked with foul conversation, Susan tried changing the course of the conversation.

“I think that I’m going to Isabella’s house again, tonight,” she said. “I liked it there. I think I prefer sleeping at her house than yours.”

This diversion backfired, and Flanders only looked more provoked than he already had.

“You’re not going to be sleeping under anybody else’s roof until we find out where you’re staying,” Flanders shouted, as a gust of wind started yanking at his hat and clothes. “Isabella’s house is packed full— I highly doubt that they have enough room to consistently keep you there.”

Susan wanted to object, but found there was nothing she could object to. All of Flanders’ points were both valid, and unarguable.

“It worked out last night,” Susan said, trying her best to muster up an excuse.

“And look what came out of last night…”

At this point, it seemed like nothing could convince Flanders, or put him out of his bad mood.

“Flanders— did you like Joshua?” Susan asked.

“We were acquaintances and nothing more…” Flanders said. “But, I do care for the man. That’s why I plan on sending out another search party after him, tonight.”

“Then, why don’t you seem to ever want to talk about him? In every conversation about him, you try changing the subject.”

“Maybe it’s because I have my reservations towards Joshua…” Flanders said. “I don’t want to soil his memory, but he wasn’t a perfect man. As a child nearing the rebellious stage, I’m sure that you’ve already begun to see that. He might’ve been good in his craft, and a good, kind person at times… but, he could also be a bit misleading…”

Flanders’ mouth closed, before swinging open again.

“That’s all I’ll ever have to say on the subject…”

Susan didn’t bother to test these words.

*

Nighttime isn’t like most other times of the day. It’s cold— harsh. It’s full of dangers, and hidden things that are willing to jump out at you. It’s only light that can ever combat the night— and, even that is susceptible to perishing in the midst of night.

In spite of this, something that always is capable of keeping night’s powers at bay is the comfort of a home— the walls of civilization that manage to keep all dangers from overcoming it.

Susan slept through these comforts, feeling that there wasn’t much to fear— that is, not much to fear other than the fact that Joshua wasn’t being searched for likle Flanders had told her. Though, there was something beyond that that she couldn’t see. She could only smell it.

Flanders house had a very unbecoming smell to it— due to all of the people that came in and out of it, the house was a soup of smells— both good and bad. However, this smell was one that Susan wouldn’t have expected.

Smoke.

It weakened her lungs, to the point where she felt it choke her and force her to cough. Her eyes, even in their closed position, became watery and puffy. A heat encased her, and she had to pull her blanket off to keep herself from waking up due to the warmth.

Though, this was but a simple fix. It quickly happened that the heat surrounding her and the smell of smoke was too much to keep her mind from waking up. It was a force that she couldn’t shove away. Rather, it was a force that shoved her own will away, and caused her to submit to forces that she would’ve rather been able to ignore.

Her eyes opened, and she ran out of the guest room and down the hall. Normally, she would’ve shouted about the smoke, so as to alert everybody in case there was a fire. Her own house had nearly caught on fire in a past winter, when Joshua had gotten so tired that he’d forgotten to smother the fireplace. The only reason that the house had been saved was by Susan waking up, and warning Joshua of it.

Although, Susan now was acting upon a curiosity that overrode any of her other desires. It seemed to her that there was no other way to ensure knowledge without making sure she saw the source of the fire herself. She had a feeling that, whatever the fire had been caused by, it had been purposeful. The night before, there hadn’t been fires of any kind. Flanders and her had gotten home late, and his servants had turned off all of the fires for him— those were the orders that they always abided by.

Susan had found it particularly odd that night because Flanders had said that there was something he was busy with— something that he needed to do that night, and that he didn’t have time to put it off until the next day. Yet, in spite of him staying in the downstairs as Susan herself went upstairs, the lights stayed off the entire night. Flanders never had his servants turn them back on.

There was no telling why, but this entire event stuck out strongly in Susan’s mind. There was a unique fire in Flanders eyes— a devious cunning that she’d only ever seen in people who were looking out to cause harm. She knew that this wasn’t Flanders at all. Yet, she couldn’t deny what she’d thought she’d seen. It was too obvious for her to deny.

As she walked down the halls and through the senseless maze of smoke, she was forced to remember what a mess Flanders’ house really was. In every corner, there seemed to be something new that she’d missed— something left to discover, something left to evaluate, and something left to think on. There was almost never any clarity when walking through it, even with its sparse amount of rooms. It was as if, in spite of the house’s small amount of rooms, it had formulated a way to trick people no matter how much they tried to get it down.

Susan felt a slight guilt that she wasn’t telling anybody about what she was looking for, or offering any warning. She knew that, if she were the people around herself in this situation, she would want to be informed immediately, so as to make sure that she was safe. However, her own urges had gotten the better of her internal will.

Downstairs, the smoke became thicker than icy water. Every place she looked, her eyes became filled with a cloudy gray. In this moment, she knew without a doubt that something wasn’t right.

Realizing that there would be no way for her to tell or see what the cause of the flames might’ve been, she started calling out in warning as loud as she could. Then, once she felt that she’d given enough sufficient warning, she began to swim through the smoke— through the smoke, and to the aid of whoever or whatever might’ve been trapped within it.

“Is anybody there?” she asked, as she passed through the ashen covered entrance of the library.

At this point, it didn’t matter to her if anybody was there or not. She knew that, if anybody was there, they were already beyond saving. In front of her eyes, there was a massive flame. It towered over her, making her body tremble in terror. The flames were so blindingly bright that she felt as if she were looking into the sun— that she was only mere feet away from touching it.

She inched closer, looking all over to see if there were any books that she’d be able to spare. Though, she soon saw that there were none. Everything was completely incinerated. Even as her hope began to peak, the fire roared and thrusted her back— ending all chances that she’d once thought to be there.

Seeing that the ceiling was on the verge of collapse, and that the entire library was becoming unstable, she ran from it and towards the exit. While she’d come to the library in a fervor of bravery, she now felt complete terror throughout herself.

“Help me!”

Susan wanted to keep running, and to ignore the voice. Her entire mind was pulling her away from the flames, and the burning room. Although, her heart said otherwise. There was somebody in the room that needed help, and she knew that she couldn’t just leave them there. There was a sense of moral responsibility in her that yanked at her. Like a piece of metal being drawn to a magnet, Susan was drawn to help.

Running into the flame-engulfed room, with a rush of energy, she found herself feeling more bravery than she’d experienced in a long while. All of her thoughts had gone away, and all that she could feel was her pure emotion, compelling her to act.

Once amongst the flames, she quickly found that she wasn’t in as favorable of a position that she had hoped to be. The room had gotten far more burned up in her time away from it, and she could see that she hardly had a chance of escaping the room.

Why did I bring myself in here? She thought. I already knew that I wouldn’t be able to pull myself out of here if I came in. Not only that, but, whoever is in here, they’re probably already out of reach.

The exit of the room groaned, and then collapsed into itself. There was no longer any other option out. Susan was trapped, and she felt as helpless as bread in an oven.

“Where are you?!” she asked, looking for the missing person by using all of her senses and abilities. If they were in the room, they offered no answer— and, they allowed Susan to go deeper and deeper into a feeling of dread— a feeling of confusion.

“If you’re in here, I need you to tell me now!”

Suddenly, she heard somebody start to cough very loudly. Then, there was a crash and smash. In the spur of the moment, she’d become temporarily blind— the whole world was starting to fuzz out of contact with her. However, when she allowed herself to see again, she found that an entire bookcase had toppled over, squelching a mass of flames. There was somebody atop it, burnt and singed. Their clothes were entirely covered in charcoal, and the only thing that was keeping them from being burned into flames themselves was the fact that they looked to be soaked to the skin. All of their clothes were covered in water, as well as the bookcase.

If it hadn’t been for the rush in everything, Susan’s brow would’ve raised as she looked at them and their blackened figure— it gave the impression that everything had been planned beforehand.

“How can I help you?” Susan said, coming closer to them. There was a wall of flames between her and the burnt person, and, judging by their looks, she had doubt that they’d have the ability to make it through the flames by jumping.

“Leave me here,” they said, through their dust-filled throat. “Get out. Find a way to save yourself.”

For a moment, Susan didn’t recognize the voice. The flames had drowned out most of its unique inflections, and the smoke had whittled down the rest However, when she paid closer attention, she caught exactly who it had been— Flanders. He was stuck amongst the flames, trapped like a lost animal.

“Flanders— how did you get stuck there!?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, all that Susan got in return was allow and sickly moan. Then, he rolled over, making a loud thump as he did so. At first, Susan felt compelled to give scorn towards him. Though, then she saw what he’d thrust onto the ground, and felt a jolt of terror.

It was her book— the Secret of Blackneck. He’d taken it with him, into the flames.

“I don’t know what to do!” Susan found herself saying, as she came to the verge of panicking. She hadn’t felt this way before— not with the wolves, or even amidst the silhouette. Not even when she’d discovered that Joshua was missing. There was something far more personal, and close in this encounter— something that made her insides shrivel up, and her entire mind begin to swirl in an uncontrollable terror. She felt as if she couldn’t control what was going on internally, and that she was subject to the hole of her mind.

In this instant, she regretted not warning anybody, and allowing her love of curiosity to get the better of her— allowing her cumbersome number of emotions to get the best of her.

“I’m sorry— I’m not in my right mind right now! Please— do you have any ideas on how to get out of here? I’ll take anything! Give me anything!” Susan said, still struggling through her murky panic.

The smoke wafted into her nose, making her feel as if all of her air had been reduced to the size of a drinking straw. Her head began to bend backward to keep in touch with all of her surroundings, and her muscles had become so tense that she hardly felt as if she’d be able to overcome everything that she was dealing with. In her mind, the surroundings had begun to win. The battle was ending, even with her not having thrown a single blow. It had been lost due to the caving in of her mind— due to the fact that she’d pushed her boundaries to the limit, and that she felt as if she could push no further.

“I said, save yourself!” Flanders said, sounding more haggard than ever. He pushed her book further into the fire— it looked as if he were purposely trying to burn it.

Thinking fast, Susan grabbed a thick bar of lumber that was hanging from the burnt ceiling, and pushed it over the wall of fire, and to Flanders. The fire quelled in the area that she’d put the lumber, for a moment. Though, Susan knew that this was but a temporary fix. She could already feel the intensity of the situation now, barring down on her with an incomparable size and scope.

“Get across, now!” Susan said, desperately. She didn’t know what else to do, but plead. In her eyes, it was actually all that she could do. It seemed to her that there was nothing else that she could do. The entire world had appeared to turn against her, and she had to act in solitude— get them out with all that she knew, and was capable of. She was aware that she wasn’t capable of much— those she was also aware that, if Flanders didn’t cooperate, they’d never get out alive. So, that was all that she was going to do— strive to get Flanders to cooperate, and hope that her striving would pay off.

“I can’t— not now,” Flanders said, with his words coming in between heavy breaths now. He could no longer form a full sentence, nor did he seem interested in doing so. It appeared to Susan that Flanders had come to the point where he no longer cared about what was going on around him. His eyes were instead focused on the red book— focused on pushing it further into the embers, and turning its corners into ash.

Whether it had been caused by the smoke, or the flames, Susan no longer cared. She could clearly see that there was nothing that could get through Flanders’ skull. Something had happened to him— his eyes had become glazed over, and it seemed that everywhere he looked, he was no longer looking at anywhere at all— rather, it seemed that he was seeing things that weren’t there. It looked to be that he was in his own world. Nothing else mattered.

“Everything matters, though,” Susan thought, “and, if he’s not going to recognize that in the hour that’s most pivotal to him, then I feel that there’s nothing left for me to do but to break his own wishes— break his own wishes, and throw myself into the fire to save him. There’s no other option. There never was.”

After saying this, Susan did her best to balance herself as she walked across the narrow pathway to Flanders. Then, she snatched the burning book up as swift as her ashen-covered body could, throwing it over the flames and to the other side of the room, where the flames were smothered and gotten rid of.

“Flanders, we need to go— now!”

Just as she said this, the room quaked, no doubt warning them of its coming collapse. Flanders didn’t appear to be cognoscente of any of this, but he did see the book across from him— and, whether it have been out of a slight insanity, or an unmatched miracle, he started chasing after the book, and going to the other side.

The flames had already begun lapping at the piece of lumber, trying to reconquer their territory. Thankfully, both he and Susan managed to make it across before that could happen.

“What’s with you and the book— you act as if you have a special sort of bond with it,” Susan said, jokingly. Her words didn’t bear the levity that she would’ve hoped they would, but she persisted. “What’s the worst that can happen, if you don’t burn it.”

While her words didn’t come off with the wit or the laughter that she would’ve hoped it would, she idd manage to reengage Flanders.

“That book— I don’t want to burn it,” Flanders said, clearly playing Sarah for a fool. “What would’ve made you think that? It’s the only book in this library that hasn’t been burnt.”

Susan wanted to say, “It’s also the only book that wasn’t in this library when I went to sleep tonight.” She wanted to say, “It’s also the only book that you seem to have read in this library…” She also wanted to say, “It’s the only book that I saw you purposefully trying to burn.”

However, she neglected to say all of this, along with more things that she felt compelled to say. She realized that the situation around them was far too dire for them to be focusing on trivial matters. And so, she didn’t bother to keep pushing her personal thoughts and opinions on what she thought was going on.

“Never mind that,” she said. “We need to figure out a way to get out of here.”

She took one quick glance at Flanders, and clearly saw that he was thinking the utter opposite of her. He had a terror in his eyes. He didn’t want to leave the flaming library. In fact, he looked disturbingly more comfortable amongst them than Sarah thought he should’ve been.

“Come on Flanders,” Susan said. “You know this place better than me, and I just helped save your life. I’m sure that you can come up with something.”

Flanders didn’t say a word. In fact, the same stupid look started coming back over his face.

“Flanders, this isn’t a game!” Susan shouted, feeling more anger rising up within her than she’d ever felt before. “Don’t you think that it’s time you started acting upon the reality of what’s going on? Our lives are in danger, and you’re not even saying a word for yourself.”

Finally, Flanders said, “I don’t know how you can expect me to get us out of here. It’s not as if I’ve ever been in a fire before. Not only that, but it’s not as if I’ve built a special escape exit to this room. This entire house is, I’m afraid, subject to the will of the flames. Even if we escaped this room, I fear that we have little hope of getting much further beyond it. I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I feel that we’re doomed…”

Susan ignored Flanders ramblings from here on out. She could hear him continuing to sputter his nonsense out to her, but his voice became distant— loud as it was, and as biting as it might’ve been, it had been reduced to the same position that she’d placed the flames in— a deadly nuisance, but not one that couldn’t be avoided.

Her eyes swam from ever part of the room, making a careful and calculated assessment of everything around her. There wasn’t an element that she left unobserved— a rotting, burning piece of lumber in her right-hand corner, the flames lapping up the exit door, the wall filling up with a heat, warning her of larger flames on the other side.

There was so much more that she had to recognize, too— the warning screams and shouts of everybody around her, the calls and cries for her, and Flanders, the sounds of people from outside the room’s window, rushing to the rescue.

Yes— the window. It was in the back corner of the room, back where the burning bookshelves were, but a good distance away from where Flanders had initially been. She could already see the words of escape now, sucking her from her current plight. Everything around her already started to seem like a dream— but an obstacle that had decided to get in the way of her attempt at sanctification from it. The shards of glass on the floor, sparkling and crackling amongst the flames, represented the new hope that had rested within her— in the breaking of her hopelessness, she’d gained shards of hope. As cutting and as risky as it might’ve been for her to accept them, she realized that it was her only chance at escaping everything that was trying to swallow her whole— her only chance at finding a way out of the mess at hand.

“Flanders, we need to find a way to get through that broken window!”

Flanders didn’t say a word, as head become expected out of him in Susan

S mind. Though, he did point to another stick of lumber that was hanging from a nearby ceiling. Susan looked at it, and could already taste the freedom and liberation that might come from using it.

“Some on Flanders!” she said, pulling down the planks of wood handing from the ceiling, with the best of her ability. “If we don’t pull these down, and use them to muffle the flames, then I’m not sure what we’re going to do…”

Even as she said this, the words, “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” clung with her stronger than anything else. Strangely, she didn’t allow that to be a barrier to her. Rather, she used these thoughts to augment her efforts. In recognizing that her exercises were futile, and that there appeared to be no way out, other than death, she sought a way to avoid such desperation. It was her only option— her only choice. Otherwise, she’d have to burn, willingly.

“I can’t do it,” Flanders said, now pointing at the book Susan had stolen from him. “I need that book. I need you to give it to me1”

“This isn’t the time to be focusing on books. I would’ve thought that, by now, you would’ve been the one to recognize that. Think for once, Flanders. We’ve put in so much work at this point to make sure that we get out of here alive. Do you honestly think that I haven’t planned this all, thoroughly? Don’t you think that I’ve put all my efforts into considering the scenario at hand? Flanders, this is are only option right now— work, or die. You either help me, or we burn!”

Even as Susan said this, she worked to get as many pieces of lumber down as she could. She knew that they’d be eaten up by the flames in mere minutes, and that her plan would never work. However, she continued to expose the ceiling’s rafters, hoping beyond all reason that it would somehow work out.

Meanwhile, her attention was diverted with Flanders’ disturbing detachment to everything. Strangely, even in Susan’s attempts at moralization, Flanders appeared to be entirely blind. It was as if it didn’t matter what words were said to him anymore. All that seemed to get through to him were shouts, and the reddened book.

Susan did all that she could to get Flanders’ attention. This time around, she tossed the book out the window, with the smoke.

“You want the book so badly?” Susan said, cruelly. “Then, you need to help me— help us. We’re not getting anywhere through your ramblings.”

Susan started using the pieces of lumber that she’d managed to get down to start knocking away more planks of lumber. As she did this, she found that Flanders finally became willing to join her in this exercise.

Maybe he was stirred by my speech to him, she thought to herself. However, even as she thought this, she recognized how absurd it was. Flanders had clearly been influenced by the disappearance of the book. It started to look to her that the book was the only way to motivate him, and to hget him to act levelheaded. It was as if the book had cast some sort of enchantment over him, making him oblivious to his surroundings.

However, Susan’s ponderings over what might’ve caused Flanders apparent insanity ended when she caught herself beginning to experience her own delirious thoughts. As she looked into the smoke, she started to see faces— one of a kindly woman, and another of a kindly man. Another image passed through— this time, a clear replica of the silhouette. At first, she couldn’t tell if the silhouette were actually there, or if it were a figment of her imagination. However, when she turned to look at Flanders, and then looked back to where she’d thought to have seen the silhouette, she realized that it had all been some sort of trance that she’d been caught up in— nothing more than a daydream.

Seeing that she too was becoming subject to the adverse circumstances, her focus then turned from Flanders and back to her escape. As the planks came down from the rafters, and they amassed more pieces of lumber than they could’ve possibly needed, Susan saw the utter fragility of their plan— like most of her plans, it was poorly formulated, and easy to be broken.

The flames were now more furious than ever, with them having doubled in size, and begun to contest even the ceiling. Most of the pieces of lumber bore little chance of making any difference at all. As Susan put more and more critical thinking into her strategy, her mind became keenly aware that everything she’d thought of was simply going to fail. There was no chance of the planks making it through, without burning up. None of it added up, nor made any sort of logical sense. They really were trapped, as Flanders had suggested. Even in trying to escape, they were now at the point where that option might also cause them to suffer from devastating pain and adverse effects.

“And, we’re stuck again,” Susan said to Flanders. Though, this time using her mouth felt as if she were trying to speak through a block of wood. Her words came off clumsily, and their fluency had been whittled down to nearly nothing. In her every attempt to think past her own sluggish thoughts, she found herself becoming even more sluggish. The smoke was getting everywhere now— in her hair, up her nose, sticking to her skin, and making her sweat feel like an entrapment, rather than a relief.

“We need to find another way out,” she continued, trying to get her thoughts across.

However, this too came out of her mouth in a fumbling fashion. She could barely even remember what she’d said after she’d said it. Suddenly, she started to notice how light her entire body felt. All of the weight had been removed from it. In fact, she could no longer sense weight, or hardship. She found herself stomping her foot on the floor beneath herself, trying to break away more planks of wood, and discovering that her pounding no longer felt like pounding— all of the restrictions that she’d normally felt had subsided, and she was simply left with her internal attempts at removing herself of the battel with the flames. Her external awareness of everything had dwindled to near zero.

Then, she heard Flanders begin to speak, and she found herself pulled back to reality— however slight this pulling may have been.

“The rafters,” Flanders continued to repeat.

Susan couldn’t tell how long he’d been repeating these words— he could’ve started the first time that she’d heard him, or she could’ve been so removed from her senses that she’d become utterly incognizant of what was going on around her. Whichever it was, she had the feeling that, he too was unable to make any quick or solid statements. Rather, everything he said seemed to be tainted by tiredness, and leaden in a sense of exhaustion. Every syllable he uttered came slow to Susan’s ear. She could practically feel the complete slothfulness and defeat that had overtaken him. In fact, she was starting to suspect that it was infectious, because she too felt it within herself. It were as if every thought of theirs had been captivated and detained, and they were now looking for a way to retrieve them— at least, that was how Sarah felt, and how she thought Flanders Felt.

“Flanders… I don’t understand,” Susan said, making sure to repeat herself as well. She could hear the roar of the flames behind them, and she realized just how limiting it may have been to them— there was nothing that they could say that wouldn’t be intercepted by their intimidator. They’d become subject to circumstance, and were now scooting by on mere chance to make sure that they weren’t utterly destroyed and beaten— to make sure that they survived. “Be clearer… What do you mean by, ‘the rafters’?”

For a moment, all that Flanders could provide was pointing. Though, when he saw that this wasn’t sufficient, he picked up one of the planks, and started banging it at the ceiling. More planks fell down, and he tiredly used those planks to break down more planks from the ceiling. Susan felt terrible fror standing idly as Flanders did this— she felt as if there were more that she should’ve been doing, in order to assist Flanders in his attempts to escape. After all— she was well aware that mere moments earlier, she’d been the one who was complaining towards Flanders for not putting in his own effort. Although, she soon saw that there was no possible way that she could’ve helped. Flanders provided her no words, no signs, or any other sort of clue that may have made her aware of how she too might’ve been able to offer her own fair share.

Eventually, she caught on to what Flanders was doing— he eventually used his longest plank to knock down the remaining planks in the ceiling— thus, all of the knocked down pieces of wood had provided a trail of rafters in the ceiling, all the way to the window.

“The rafters,” Flanders said again, wheezing. Susan could clearly tell that knocking down all of the remaining planks had taken most of the energy out of him. “We need… We need…”

Susan completely understood at this point, even without the help of Flanders’ words. The rafters offered a way for them to travel to the window, by swinging from each rafter by arm to arm. In that way, they didn’t have to worry about the flames below, or having to rely on a flimsy balancing act on a bridge, in order to make their way out of the house.

Immediately, Susan started stacking the planks of wood on top of each other, forming a sort of ladder for herself to climb up. Flanders Quickly caught on, and started doing the same. Once the ladder had reached a certain height, it started to no longer look like a mundane ladder, but instead a tool of salvation.

“Flanders, we’re both going to need to climb this upward!” Susan said firmly, grasping each wrung that had been made in the odd structuring of the planks. “Don’t waste your energy— pace yourself. We can’t have ourselves falling into the flames.”

Even as she said these words, she felt that they held more meaning to herself than they would’ve to Flanders. As she looked to the window, she saw the fresh air— she saw the clean lighting. She saw a lack of smothering claustrophobia. She badly wanted out there— she wanted to be free of the heat, and to return to a place where she knew that she would feel at rest. In spite of how much she hated the cold, she knew that she’d be greeting it as a friend once she was amongst it again. Although, she also recognized that her eagerness may become her downfall, should she allow her actions to ride upon it.

As she looked into the flames, she felt her face begun to melt into it, and become a part of it. She felt herself tumble deeper into something that she couldn’t quite understand, but felt a great terror for. In this looking into the flames, she saw that she needed to move away from them as quick as she could, or else they’d move into her. However, she also knew that she couldn’t move quickly, and that the flames had stolen all of the swiftness that had once resided within her. In this way, she felt a worry that she might never be made whole again.

Her fingers and knuckles grapes against one of the wooden rafters. They were hot to the touch. Yet, in the midst of all the other flames, they actually felt cool, and almost relieving to hold. Her feet felt the planks wobble beneath her. She knew that they were becoming impatient of her efforts, and were now willing to collapse at any minute. However, Susan denied them of the ability to strike fear into her heart. Instead, she only grasped harder at the rafter, and then had her other hand grasp it as well.

As she did so, she felt a wish to break out into laughter, and to embrace the success that she’d just earned. Though, she also knew that she had to hold it in. In holding the joy in, her grasp weakened, and she had a sickening pit of fear fall into her gut. An odd, unnatural mixture had taken root, and she no longer felt as if she were under control. Rather, her emotions had decided to move around in an unruly manner, acting as out of sorts as a pack of wolves might’ve.

“Just grab at the other rafter,” Flanders said, doing as best as he could to be encouraging, even with his haggard voice.

Susan complied, and moved her right hand from the rafter, using it to try and grab the other rafter. Although, her hand missed by a good deal, and she felt herself start to tumble towards the ground. It wasn’t until she realized that the tumbling was but a part of her imagination, and that she was being driven by fear rather than an accurate assessment of her surroundings that she managed to regain the reins of her surroundings. She pulled her arm back up to the rafter once again, and managed to grab it. This grabbing just barely sufficed. Though, sufficed It did, and she used her grasp to then gain another grasp. And, then another. This succession repeated until she finally reached the window, where all that she had to do was swing her way through— she saw that she’d have to find a way to dodge through the open expanse, and to avoid getting cut along the remaining glass shards, but none of this seemed to be a threat to her anymore. She now saw everything, even the biggest of barriers, as but a small wall, getting in the way of her attempts at succession.

Realizing that she was now faced with a great risk, she looked behind herself for reassurance— and then found that Flanders was far behind, only just beginning to make his travel upon the rafters. It looked like he was caught in a big struggle, but, once again, Susan saw that there was nothing she could do to help him. He was stuck in his own struggle— a struggle that was an island to everything else that was going on around him.

“Come on, Flanders!” Susan shouted. “You can do it!”

In this moment, she saw the real reason that Flanders had reassured her. In a similar way to how her reassuring toward Flanders had really been reassuring aimed toward herself, Flanders’ reassuring to her had really been reassuring to himself. In seeing that she could make it across the rafters, Susan saw that she’d convinced Flanders how he could make it across the rafters— thus, making it across the journey that would save his life.

“You can do it!” Susan said. Though, even as she said this, she watched Flanders’ finger slip. Then, it was his hand. Suddenly, he was only hanging on by one arm, and Susan could clearly see that he had no way of convincing himself how to escape his plight. He’d become far too weak to escape what he’d fallen into.

At this moment, Susan saw as rush of smoke go passed him, she couldn’t determine if it had been her own imagination, or a miraculous phenomenon, but it looked as if the smoke had strengthened Flanders, and lifted him up. Indeed, he even was able to regain his left arms’ grasp onto the rafters.

Susan felt her own arms start to slacken, and her own muscles begin to weaken. Though, as Flanders came closer, none of this had any weight over her anymore. She felt a relief that she realized couldn’t be matched.

It wasn’t until she felt Flanders behind her, and could practically feel his shallow breaths brushing up against her back, that she finally started to swing towards the open window. As she did so, she quickly realized how much she was risking— she could see the freedom of nature, calling out to her from the outside of the window. However, she could also see the flames below her feet, and the blisters above, which were forming on her hands. If her strength failed her, and she fell into the fire in the midst of her attempts to swing to sanctification from the fire, she knew that she’d be doomed– and that there was nothing that would be able to protect her from the fleetingness of her existence. She’d become rubble– and more rubble would eventually fall on top of her, leaving her with nothing that she could call her own— leaving nobody with any way to tell where she’d died, and what had become of her. Her remains would be as indistinguishable as two lumps of mud.

“Flanders, keep your eyes on me,” she said, letting her voice crackle with the fire. “That way, even if I fall, there was somebody to watch me do so— somebody, in my last hour, who cared about the outcome of my swing.”

Her asking was a double-edged sword— as well as the “yes” that came out of Flanders’ mouth. While she knew that there was a heroicness to being able to make it across the cavernous flames, and into the open moonlight that greeted her, and that there was a comfort in knowing that there would be somebody to care about whether or not she fell, she also knew that there was a cost. If she failed to make it across— if she allowed herself to slip and plummet— Flanders would slip and plummet with her. He needed Susan to give him the same courage that he’d been willing to give to her. Not only that, but, if Susan fell into the flames on his watch, he’d have nobody to watch him when he fell— he’d have nobody to encourage him to move forward.

All of the stress grappled onto her, threatening to pull her into the flames— to make her a meal to something that had already tried to make a meal out of her. Although, she still swung. It had an angelic rhythm to it— a sort of song, that made her heart flutter every time she moved. Back and forth she went, making sure to not lose a single inch of the bar. The movements were smooth and fluid, having the same eloquence that a bird does, when it takes flight.

Then, Susan found herself being launched from out of the window, and into the pure grassy world outside. Her breathing came easy, her body felt relief, and the cold (like she’d suspected) gave her a greater feeling of renewal than it had ever given her before.

She took a moment to absorb everything around her to the fullest, and see the world in a new light. Instantly, it all appeared to be more elegant than she’d ever seen it before. All around her, she could hear happy shouts, desperate cries, eager urges, and vapid screams. She tuned it all out, focusing on what was around her. She could feel again— she no longer was as helpless and trapped as she’d once been. This eradicated anything that she’d been dealing with, and made her feel disgust when her thoughts turned back to the house that she’d just escaped from. Pulling herself back inside, even to help somebody get free was too terrifying for her to even ponder on.

Then, Flanders’ voice cried out to her. She turned around, and watched him swinging towards her— towards the window— towards his own freedom. In this moment, she instantly remembered why this all should’ve mattered to her, and why nothing that she felt inside of herself held any more weight than her previous stress had had upon her. The people inside the building needed help— encouragement— rescue. Most of all, they needed the same chance that she and Flanders had needed, so that they could get out and pave their way to a lack of reliance on the flames.

“Just like I said earlier— you can do it, Flanders!” Susan shouted, as uproariously as she could. She saw a grin form on Flanders face, and he swung with all of his might— flying through the window, and landing in the same snow that she had. In this moment, she knew for certain that this was the right thing to do— that all of her previously cowardly thoughts were ones that she couldn’t account for.

“You just stay here, lying in the snow,” Susan said to him, making sure to snatch up the red book before she went. “You’ve been through a lot tonight, and you need your rest— don’t let the flames worry you. I’ll be back in a moment.”

As she left, she had the feeling that Flanders didn’t even quite understand her. No doubt, the fire had completely plagued his mind, ridding him of most comprehension. As Susan went deeper into the smoke, and near the front entrance of Flanders’ house, she never once saw his figure move from its place in the snow. It merely remained there, taking up all of the snow’s cooling abilities.

“Goodbye Flanders,” she whispered to herself, not quite knowing why. Though, she knew why. After what they’d both been through, she could sense a distinctive change. There was no way that either of them could be the same person anymore. The fire had casted and molded them into something entirely unique to what they once were.

And so, Susan added two last words.

“Goodbye Susan…”

*

Flanders’ house had been burned down that night. Three people had gone with it. The entire town mourned at the loss, and the snow of winter gained an ashen layer to it. Howeber, there was an even stranger event that had occurred on the same night— Susan’s house had burned down too.

While nobody had been nearby to be affected by it, Susan still felt as if, when the house burned down a person had died with it. In a sense, a person really had. Joshua was now lost to her, in the ash of the house. Ther was nothing left of him, save the book that he wrote— and even then, the book had been tainted by Flanders’ touch. Entire [pages had been torn out, while others were burnt and charred. It simply wasn’t the same anymore. In a way, whenSusan looked at the book, she no longer saw Joshua but herself. After all— both herself and the book had been dear possessions of Joshua, that he’d loved and cherished above most others. With Joshua gone, however. It felt as if part of the book had left too— as if part of herself had left.

“Do you know how it might’ve happened?” Timothy asked Susan.

Susan was in Isabella’s house. The place now had a warm and fuzzy light to it, with ever candle and lamp emitting a soft, warm glow. In a way, this terrified her— reminded her of the flames that had been so hungry for her, only days prior. However, it also reminded her of how weak and temporal the flames really were– that they couldn’t touch her.

Susan pulled herself together, and prevented herself from shuddering as she gave Timothy her answer.

“No, I have no idea,” she said. “I woke up in the middle of the night— I’m sure that you heard this as I recounted the story to your parents. I know that you were eavesdropping…”

Isabella and Timothy’s face went red. But he and Isabella, of course, did their best to not admit to anything.

“It was necessary,” Timothy said, once they’d finally run out of ways to act as if they were innocent of Susan’s claims. However, in admitting to this, he only exposed how much he was doing a crude and terrible job at defending himself. “Besides— it isn’t like we listened in on you on purpose. It was all a mistake, and by chance— honest. This house is too small to keep words hidden.”

Susan repressed a laugh, knowing that this was utterly false. Perhaps most rooms in the house did a terrible job at protecting them from spying ears and eyes. Though, there was something to Isabella’s room, in particular. There was a knowing, amongst all three of them, that the place had a bit of sanctity to it. Nothing could get past its thick, wooden walls. Nothing could get in, either. That is– not unless they chose to will such.

“Despite you not knowing, you must have some idea of how it happened,” Isabella said.

“That’s ridiculous. This isn’t time to interrogate me on this— if I had what I needed to know, then I’d tell you. If there’s any answers to our questions, then it would be lying in the rubble.”

Susan said this with a bitter hesitance. She had a feeling that there weren’t any clues in the rubble— that all potential answers were lost to their minds, and their grasp. If it was there, then it would take a collective search than anything they themselves could amass.

“I think Flanders did it,” Tim said, matter-of-factly. He let a smug look wash over his face, and a cool breeze fight harder against his back as he made his poster straighter. “My father always said that he never trusted the man— always said that there was a cowardly element to Flanders that he didn’t like. My father hates cowards— especially rich ones. He thinks that they’re susceptible to playing out more crimes and hiding them, better than anybody else in this town.”

“Nobody cares about what your father thinks about this,” Isabella said, with a roll of her eyes. “He practically contests Bert as the village idiot. And, last time I checked people who work in the alchemy department aren’t the most trustworthy of people….”

“He only dabbles in alchemy,” Timothy muttered under his breath. Yet, whenever Timothy muttered, the whole room knew that this was equivalent to him admitting defeat.

“You know— that isn’t the worst suggestion,” Susan said— partially to appease the argument that she knew was brewing between Tim and Isabella, and partially because she’d thought the same things herself. “he’d acted odd the day before this all happened… I went to my house, to get a book that’d been special between e and Joshua. He acted strange about it, and then, later that night, I found him amidst the flames— with the very same book of mine. However, I just don’t know if I can go as far as to blame everything on him. Not only does it seem to be a very harsh and rash judgement to make, but I also have a hard time believing it. It’s just— Flanders didn’t seem like the sort of person that would purposefully burn his own house down— let alone go to the trouble to burn my house down. And, from what I’ve been able to get out of him, in our recent conversations, he’s unwilling to talk about anything that happened— he seems disturbed with the fire, just like myself. We must admit, he’s always been a very odd person in this village— it’s not a stretch of the imagination to think that, maybe he had nothing to do with the fire, and we’re simply pinning unjust accusations onto him…”

Timothy guffawed.

“You want me to believe that Flanders— the strangest member of our town— had nothing to do with the burning of his own house? Had nothing to do with the burning of your house? All despite the fact that he had previously gone to both places, in that same day?”

“I’ll admit that it’s strange—but, I just don’t know… Even with all of his strange behavior, I think that he’s probably innocent.”

“Was there anything else weird, that he did?” Isabella asked.

Susan bit her lip— she didn’t want to have to talk about the things that had happened within the fire. Every time she was forced to think back on it, she could feel the sparks scraping on her neck’s skin, and the smoke choking her lungs. However, she knew that she had no reason to hide the information from her friends— it was only going to make the conversation harder to slog through.

“When I found him in the flames, in the downstairs library, he was holding the book— I already told you about this. But, something that I didn’t tell you guys is that he had the book hanging over the fire— he was steadily trying to burn it. That’s why this book has so many burn marks on it now. I don’t know why he’d picked this particular book, out of the hundreds in his library, to try burning. I don’t even know why he didn’t bother tossing it into the fire, and letting it burn to a crisp in a n instant. However, I get the feeling that these are answers that I’m just never going to get. I get the feeling that the fire, and smoke, was making Flanders act in delusional way— making him see delusions that weren’t really there, and completely cutting him off from reality.”

“It was him,” Isabella said, turning to look at Tim, and nodded her head in agreement. Susan was shocked— not only because this was a rare moment where Isabella and Tim agreed on something, but because Isabella had suddenly become so certain. “It doesn’t make any sense, unless it was all because of him— why else would he have the book in his hands, unless he’d stolen it from you? Even if he was acting out of a delusion, he must’ve had some amount of clarity going through his mind, before he stole your book. From what I can tell, he had the intent to burn your book— but, in the process of burning it, he realized what a mistake he was making— and then, the smoke clouded his judgement to the point where he just began acting in utter randomness.”

“And, why would he want to burn my book?”

“I don’t now— Flanders is a reclusive book hoarder. That’s why he hosts parties nearly every night— to hide his obsession. Maybe he’s a normal person, somewhere inside of him. But, I think that you’re giving him a bit too much credit when you act like he’s a rational person… When’s the last time when he made a promise to you, and he went through with it? When’s the last time that you saw him make a promise to himself, and he went through with it? It seems to me that he’s indecisive, and partially insane— this is why he burned it… He thought it was a good idea, for some weird reason— probably because he wanted to forget about his relations with Joshua. Though, when he tried going through with it, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it— then, the smoke compounded on his problem.”

“You’re saying that he purposely burned his own house— just over a book? Flanders is one of the most bemusing people that I’ve ever met. But, even I know that he wouldn’t go to that extreme, unless he witnessed something extreme. None of it really adds up, when you think about it all as a whole. I was in the burning building with him— me and him both wanted to get out of there. We both felt fear for our own mortality. We both worked together, as hard as we could, to make sure that we’d make it outside of the fire. I just can’t believe that, the man who partially saved my life, is the same man who tried to doom it. Doesn’t that sound slightly contradictory, and odd, to you guys?”

At this point, she saw both of her friends fall into the same dumbfounded state that she’d been in just a moment ago— confused, and without answers. It was dawning on them, just like it’s dawned on her, that nothing was quite adding up.

“Even the circumstances behind it all, don’t make sense,” Susan said, “The fire would’ve had to have been started on purpose. But, all situational evidence points to it having been done on accident… How can that be?”

More dumbfounded stares. More of the sound of quiet, heavy breathing, trying to think its way out of the mess of confusion.

“Maybe there’s an explanation that we’re not seeing right now,” Isabella whispered, now realizing that she’d been wrong— however, she didn’t admit to just how wrong she was.

No— she still seemed right, in most ways. It was merely the aesthetics of her guess where everything began to fall apart. There was an explanation that made all of their theories work— Susan knew it. It was just a matter of time before it came to them.

“We just need to go there, and find proof for our case,” Tim said. “I know that it’s there— all we have to do is go there and look. That will answer all of our questions.”

As clean and as nice that seemed, Susan had already cleared this thought from her mind— any evidence for anything that had happened would have to be extraordinary. There was no way that they’d be able to clear away the constant questions that were going through their minds, without having to clear away some of their reason as well. Whatever the answer might’ve been, it wasn’t one that could make sense.

“Tim, we’re not going to find our answers in the rubble…” Susan said. “If there are any answers, they’re all going to be hidden from us. After all— everything else has been hidden from us about Flanders. Especially from me. Joshua barely told me anything about Flanders…”

“I heard that there are very odd things about Flanders, that go beyond the simplistic viewpoints of him. He isn’t just weird in how he acts. The man is also weird in what he does and says.”

“What are you referring to?”

“He’s gone on odd quests into the mountains before, supposedly… I mean, maybe I was misinformed. Though, you guys have to admit that it’s at least the slightest bit odd that there would even be rumors about Flanders going to a mountain. After all, if Bert lied to me about it, then he’d know that everybody would get on him about the fact that Flanders’ has rarely been seen leaving his own house, let alone trekking into the wilderness, unguided…”

Isabella chortled.

“You just admitted that you heard this story from Bert. He’s infamous for all of his tall tales! But, I will say this much— in the rare times that Flanders does leave the house, it always seems to be focused on trying to go to a different town, and make some sort of trade. He almost always leaves the village, to go somewhere. And, he mysteriously always comes back with more wealth than he had before. Perhaps, in whatever sort of trading he’s doing, he’s incredibly skilled at it. Although, I get the feeling that he’s full of it, and that he really has a far darker occupation then he leads most of us to believe… You should just listen to some of the conversations my parents have about him. In proportion to the wealth in this town, there’s no legitimate explanation for how Flanders’ us able to hold as many parties as he is able to. It’s so weird and unexplainable that it’s almost supernatural…”

Susan was once again flabbergasted— she couldn’t believe that Isabella was agreeing with Timothy on so many topics concerning Flanders. However, this wasn’t even the most shocking par. It was the fact that they’d known all of these things about Flanders, all along— and they hadn’t even bothered to tell her about them.

“So, you’ve known that Flanders might be a cheat, all this time, and you never even warned me?” Susan asked.

“He was probably Joshua’s biggest employer,” Isabella replied. “WE didn’t really want to tarnish his name— especially after you lost Joshua. You were already distrusting of so many things, that adding one more thing for you to distrust was only going to make things worse for you. We didn’t want you to worry.”

Susan knew that this was a stock excuse, but she managed to let it roll off of herself. It made sense, in its own strange way— they had to tell her the truth, even if it meant hurting her. But, at the same time, she also knew that she’d been hurting— perhaps it was in this that they had good reason for their decision.

“Well, it would’ve been a good help for me to know that you thought this about Flanders,” she said. “Because I’ve been thinking a lot of the same things myself. You see, he’s an extremely controlling person. He’s actually been making it harder for me to come here, and talk with you guys. His excuse has been that he doesn’t want me to go wandering off, after Joshua— which is a good excuse. But, at the same time, Joshua was never that controlling… He’d let me go out time to time, even when I was punished. And, when something terrible happened to me, he’d never hold my mistakes against me. Rather, I instead was let off the hook, and he’d only monitor me a bit closer— he’d never go so far as to put bars on everything, like Flanders takes habit of doing.”

Tim nodded

“Like I said before, the guy is crazy— crazier than even you. He has all sorts of bad habits and weird beliefs that I can’t even count them all out. He clearly has issues, and I’m beginning to think that he might even have a lot of bad intentions. Susan, I wouldn’t even be surprised if, the reason that he never sent out another search party for Joshua, is because he never wanted Joshua to be found. I could be wrong in this, but let’s face it— the man was selfish, strange, and contradictory. Flanders is simply not the sort of person who deserves any amount of respect. He’s an undignified fop.”

Susan laughed, but only out of nervousness. She hated the idea that Flanders was the cruel, overbearing person that he was being painted out to be, and that she herself saw him as. On the night when he’d helped her with Joshua, he’d come to be seen as a sort of hero. The thought that all of it was fake, and that he’d only done it out of some invisible, ulterior motive was disgusting and sad for her to think about. Flanders had been, to a degree, even a figure that she’d thought might be able to stand in the place of Joshua.

“I don’t know if he’s going to be this same sort of person anymore,” Susan said, her voice becoming meek. “After getting through three flames, and all of that trauma, I saw a part of him change— I’m not sure what I actually saw change, but I know that I saw tit. It was visible, as hard to believe as that might be. I just knew, as I looked at him after the house burned down, that he was a different person…”

Susan wanted to go on, and describe how she felt that, she too, had become a different person. However, she found herself hesitant to do so.

“What was it like?” Tim asked. “After you escaped the fire, of course— I don’t want you to talk about anything that might be uncomfortable to you…”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Susan said. “The fire was pretty terrible, but magnificent at the same time, once I escaped it. When I looked at it, from the outside, I no longer felt fear. I felt a sense of dread for the people who I knew were still trapped within it. However, I never felt the same sort of fear that I felt when I was inside of the fire. It was sort of a unique sensation. Once I knew that I was apart from the fire, and that I had no reason to fear it, I, in a sense began to feel a sort of reverence for it…. I know that it sounds odd, but it’s the honest truth.”

They both looked at her with wide eyes, and confused glances between each other.

“My parents said that they went there as soon as possible,” Isabella said. “They told me that they saw you coming back out of the house, with a person holding your hand. You went back into the fire, to save somebody… I know that it must’ve felt like the right thing to do…. But, that doesn’t change the fact that it still sounds shocking to me. Why would you go back in there, after going through all of that trouble to escape the fire? Wouldn’t you have felt incredibly terrified.

“Oh, I did feel terrified,” Susan said. “There’s no denying that. When I went back into the fire, I felt as if I were being swallowed whole by it again. I don’t know… There was something to it, when I was looking at the fire from the outside. It must’ve partially been because I was so set apart from it, but it almost had an enchanting element to it. I hypnotized me— made me feel as if I were a part of it. When I walked closer to it— closer to the screams and cries of help— I felt so good about it. It wasn’t just a self-righteous pride, or a selfless tremor in the chest. It was more than that— it was an otherworldly sense of empowerment… I don’t know… I’m trailing off a bait too much, really. It wasn’t even that important. What was important is what I did. Though, I can’t help but feel as if what I felt is more important than what I did. Is that selfish, or selfless?”

Susan didn’t get her answer. Upon finishing her long sermon, she found that her friends were looking at her in a way that she’d never seen them look at her before. I t wasn’t quite befuddlement, respect, and aghast stare, or a sympathetic frown, or an entertained grin. Instead, it was a near impossible mix of all three.

“I don’t know what to say…” Tim said, more with his eyes than his mouth.

“I guess that going in to save anybody could be considered selfless… But, I don’t really know,” Isabella. “It’s a question that only you can answer.”

“That’s what I’ve been feeling with a lot of questions,” Susan said. “But, I don’t want that to be the constant answer anymore… I want a way for me to be able to find out answers, without having to rely on guesswork, and assumption…”

“That might be where you’re making a big mistake,” Tim said. “Maybe you need to have to guess in some areas… Maybe that’s the only way for you to truly find the necessary answers.”

Susan shook her head.

“If that’s true, then I don’t know what to do… Let’s just say that I’m at a complete loss.

*

Let’s just say that I’m at a complete loss…

I know that this might come across as nonsensical, diary. Though, I know that it’s true, deep down. I’m beginning to feel that the entire heart of the mountain is full of magic. My guide, Hemlock, has declared similar things. It seems that, at every corner, we have encountered something disturbing, or disconcerting. First, it was the pattering of feet, on the cold stone. Next, it was the brush of a strange warmth on my back, in the midst of a cold. I thought that I heard hymns being sung at one point, and shouts of partying at another. I felt as if, for a moment, I could even see back into the castle that I’d left behind— as if I’d gained some sort of strange, telepathic ability, an d I was able to sense the entire world around me.

Hemlock never gave me any details into the specifics of what he was personally experiencing— he said that it was too detailed, and concerning for him to share with me. I’m not sure what this means— I[‘m guessing that he must’ve had a vision where there was a lack of wealth,, but I’m not sure. That’s about the best explanation I can conjure up, though.

Anyhow, whatever the explanation may be for Hemlock’s own experiences, I suspect that they’re just as egregious as my own experiences. Though, I can’t help but wonder where our own dreams and visions actually take origin from. I’d like to believe that they’re merely rooted in the miraculous, and that this must mean we’re coming closer to the ultimate end that I’ve plotted out for my journey— the end in which I’d be able to save my father, and raise him aback from the dead. Although, I’m beginning to suspect that it’s nothing of the sort. To be honest, I’m beginning to suspect a lot of things.

There’s a good chance that we’ve become utterly delusional. There’s no basis upon any of these things can be explained. More importantly, I’ve never heard of anybody, similar to us, ever coming out of the mountain with their minds intact. It seems to me that most of them suffer from tremendously horrible sicknesses in the brain, and can never again fully perceive reality.

It’s my deepest concern that this fate may also befall me. Yet, I suppose that I can only move one from my errors, and hope that I’ll eventually reach my goal. Perhaps what I’m seeing and hearing are all but tricks of the mind. Though, I also know that there’s no way to rationalize the strange room that me and Hemlock had been trapped within. It simply doesn’t make any sense.

I have experienced one vision that’s also incredibly hard to make any sense of— that is, if it was a vision. However, I’m now inclined to believe that it might have been real.

I was sleeping. It might’ve been night, and it might’ve been day. There’s no real way for me to tell, due to all of the deep journeying into the mountain. At this point, I have ample concern that we might not be able to find our way back out, and into the world from whence we came. Though, I digress.

I woke up to something reminiscent of a roar. Except, it was a lot more haggard than a roar. And, it had a lisp to it. I opened my eyes and looked around me, but I could see nothing. This was a normal feature of the caves, that I’d become used to. Though, there was something that was out of place. The lamp that we’d been using to light up the caves had been left on, when I’d gone to sleep. I’d been on night watch duty, and allowed myself to lose my guard. The flames in the lantern rarely ever went out, without one of us turning it off first— I’d spent good money having people design the best lanterns for me.

The only thing that I was able to sense was a smoke, grasping my lungs, and choking most of the life out of them. I writhed, and struggled. Then, I heard a voice. I might’ve been dreaming all of this, but it felt too lucid and real for me to have dreamt up.

Out of the smoke, which had smothered everything, I saw two gleaming sparks. The sparks were then subsequently accompanied by two jets of flame. The flame disappeared, and then the sparks disappeared. However, I knew that the sparks were still there. In the jets of flame, the sparks revealed themselves to be eyes— and, the sound of clinking metal informed me that the two eyes were coming closer to me.

Despite the eyes being accompanied by the flames, their owner had a chilling air about them. I felt something metal brush up against my groggy skin, and my entire body suddenly felt as if it had been frozen to the core.

“Who’s there!? Who are you!?” I shouted, struggling to keep myself from sounding meek.

Next to me, I felt Hemlock stir, and squirm. However, my shouts didn’t wake him.

“Of all the times I need him awake, it had to be now when he stayed asleep,” I muttered to myself.

“Who am I?” I heard a voice answer to me.

For a moment, I thought that it must’ve been coming from out of Hemlock’s mouth. I had no legitimate reason for believing this, or a basis in the real world that I could stand upon. In fact, I was stilling staring upon Hemlock’s face when the voice had said this to me. However, this didn’t change the fact that I deeply wanted to believe that the words had come out of Hemlock’s mouth. AS it turned out, the voice had a monstoorus composition— one that struck a horrendous terror into my heart, and make my gut, not only sink, but shrivel. A pit had been dug within me, and I was too scared to even bother climbing out of it— for, I felt that, in spite of how much the pit hurt, what lay outside of the pit was far worse.

Still, my instinct of delusion had to fade away when the voice continued, and I could no longer deny that its vehement, tremoring lisp was breathing down upon me.

“Yes— who are you!?” I said, taking instant authority. I suddenly wished that my voice had obtained the authority of my father’s, rather than the whispiness of my mother’s.

The beast laughed.

“You dare act againssst me? The ruler of thisss mountain? Do you know to whom you’re ssspeaking?”

“I could ask you the very same question,” I said, tugging my rich garments, and making my body reach its highest stature. I knew, deep inside, that I was inciting fear into whatever being might’ve stood beyond the smoke— I knew that my presence was one for me to take bride in, and that thi voice was merely adopting an undeserved arrogance to combat me. “I am the king of the mountain— the ruler who dwells within the castle above. You might think me to be inferior to whatever powers you might be hiding behind that smoke. Though, remember— I didn’t become ruler, without reason. I know what I’m doing, and I’m far stronger than you might like to believe.”

The voice laughed, with an incredulity.

“You actually think that being born a prince gives you sssuch a great authority— a ssspecial position in thisss world— don’t you?” the voice asked, with its same sly chuckle, and growingly revolting lisp. “Pleassse— entertain me. I’d love to hear you continue on, in your deluded power fantasssiesss… You sssee— I hold the lording sscepter, over thisss sssad excussse for a sssanctified and sssophistacated sssociety… My sssuperior ssskillsss, which will sswiftly sssmother your own, have the capability to quickly put you in your proper place.”

My ears stung at every time it uttered the letter, “s”. It seemed to know how terrible it was, too. Because, every time it had the chance to utter the letter, it made sure to linger on it for as long as possible.

“I appreciate the challenge to my authority,” I said, trying to sound as brave and encroaching as I could. “I’m sure that it’s been awhile since you’ve had a duel, in this hermit-like abode that you’ve positioned yourself in. I know, from experience, just how hard it is to trek in this mountain…”

“How sssweet of a sssuggestion for you to ssscribe to me… And I thought that sssovereign ssupervisors, sssuch as yourssself, were sssubject to having others ssscribe things for them… Sssadly, I’m much to sssocialable to sssubmit to sssilly sssugestions towards sssuperficial ssskirmishes… I easily prefer the concept of battles over sssense and sssagicity, rather than ssstrength…”

“I’d be willing to do so, if you weren’t so keen on constantly using the letter, ‘s’, every time you speak. It makes conversation with you much harder to endure.”

“I’m sssincerely, sssorry… I do hope to ssstop sssingeing your eardrums, with my sssuper unbearable ssspeech defect… Though, I’m afraid that thisss defect of mine runsss very sssteeply down my ssstock… Sssimilar to how your prevalent ssselfishness and ssself-importance runs in your own family… You might be sssusceptible to the belief that you’re worthy of your ssseat in your sssupreme sssanctuary, because your father passed it down to you. Yet, I’m here to sssay that you’re just an inherent of ssserendipity… Your sssuperior ssseed isss but a fantasy. If your father hadn’t been cut off, by the sssword of a ssserpent sssimilar to myself, then you would ssstill be maintaining a sssliver of a position…”

I was confused as I tried following the voice’s riddles, and overlong speech. However, I soon began to catch on with what it was saying, and I was infuriated.

“Are you suggesting that my father was assassinated? And, by somebody like you, nonetheless?”

“I never sssaid that. That’sss a sssteep assertion. How would I, a random wanderer of thisss cave, know sssuch personal things about you?”

I was close to shouting, and letting the person know how angry I really was. I was prepared to dive into the smoke myself, and make sure that I’d given them my best attack. Although, I knew that it would be giving them just what they wanted— I couldn’t see where they were in the dark, and to act upon guessing would be to allow myself to be at the will of them, rather than at control of the situation.

The voice then laughed.

“Mind ssslides are my favorite kind of ssslides… If I can get sssomebody to go down one, then I alwaysss feel sssatisfaction. After all— nobody can ssscale their way back up, from a mind ssslide…”

“What are you blathering about?” I said, shouting. “You don’t make any sense!”

“You don’t make any sssense…” the voice declared. “You act as if you know the truth of what’s going on— as if you can weave your way through this dark and confusing tunnel. However, sssuch is folly to presume, I’m afraid…”

At this point, I was incredibly lost— I had no idea what to make out of anything the voice was saying, and I was disturbed by it, to the core. I had no idea… No idea…

My head began rocking back and forth, and I had to shake it awake in order to keep myself from nodding off to sleep.

“You’re not going to do that,” I found myself saying, under my breath. I meant it with a fervent anger, too— I was furious, both with myself, and my weakness. This dragon was clearly trying to play with my emotion, wits, and mind— and I was allowing it to gain the upper hand.

“I’m not going to do what?” the voice asked. This time, its cool and collected manner had drained from it. Its voice had turned to a hiss, and I could no longer hear the oppressive lisp within it. It was no longer trying to torment me with its voice. Rather, I think that, somehow in some strange way, I’d tormented it with my words. Somehow, I’d made it feel weak— as if I had the upper hand, rather than it being the other way around. “Do you really think that, if you had the power to ssstop me, that you could? I am far more involved of the affairs that go about this mountain than you’re aware of. I’m the worm that rules all worms. I’m the beast, of which has presided over all beasts. There are some people who call me ma monster— and, they’re not entirely wrong. Though, I’m worse than a monster. I’m a behemoth. And, I ‘d appreciate it if you’d sssee me as one… Or else...”

The voice paused at the words, “or else.” For a moment, I thought that everything it was saying was merely a way for it to blow smoke. From what I could tell, the threats were all veiled attempts at trying to make me lose my footing and foundation, which I’d done an amazing job at harnessing, from within my mind. They were— whatever they were— trying to make me feel as if I were the victim of it, rather than it being the victim of me. I’d already begun to see through it, and I was disgusted with it— it was attempting to make me feel entirely powerless. But, as it did so, it was the powerless one.

I paid attention to its every vocal cord— how it made sure to maintain a sweet and crisp voice, even in its anger. I could hear the strain— the near impossible attempt at trying to be something that it wasn’t.

Then, I came to the idea of making the voice aware of my thoughts. I knew that, if I continued to spew my words, it wouldn’t matter how many twists and turns it tried to pull me through. I’d be able to gain the upper hand, and pull them through the twists and turns instead.

“And, what is this, ‘or else’ that you’ve decided to tell me about? It seems to me that you’re the person who likes to use words, but is very poor at constructing any sort of substance to accompany them with. Yes— you’re just a monster, who likes to toss around idle threats. You might think yourself to be clever— the only thing that can win at the game of wits. Though, this is something that you’ve never considered— maybe, somebody will one day deny you of your game of wits. And then, you’ll have lost.”

The voice gave a sly laugh. In fact, it wasn’t even quite a laugh— it was more like the clicking of a blade, up against another piece of metal— a revolting screech and groan, that could’ve busted my eardrums if I hadn’t been an inherent of extremely potent amounts of royal blood.

“What are you laughing at? It’s true! You have nothing to you that can threaten me! You’re a joke, and I’m easily superior to you. You might think that you know so much about the mountain— that you’re some wise sage, speaking to an imbecile… But—.”

“But I’m right. Besides— nobody can deny a game of wits. To do so is only to deny the inevitable. And, let’sss face it. If one denies the inevitable, then they’ll merely be the ones to face fate in the hardest sense out of all of us. There’s no possible way to avoid what’s coming for you. After all— what’s coming for you isn’t something that somebody can make a choice on. If it was, then the entire world would be full of people who are constantly rising and falling— an influx of chaos. We can’t control what becomes of us. Rather, only somebody with incredible influence and intellect can play the cards of fate that way.”

I knew that I was stumped. However, I also felt as if I had to continue making conversation with this voice, so that they’d slip up and reveal something about themselves. It was the only way that I could gain the advantage that they currently had over me.

“fine then… Somebody, someday, is going to beat you at your game of wits. And, you’re not going to have any way of escaping it. Instead, you’ll be at the will of them They will beat you, and you will scurry away in humiliation.”

I could tell that, at saying this, I had struck a nerve within the beast. Immediately, the voice went quiet, and halted from its constant hissing— something that it had refused to do the entire time. It only lasted a moment, and it was killed within an instant, when the dragon had come up with something to say in response. However, I knew that I’d shifted something within him— made him feel something that he’d been avoiding to feel.

“Nothing can beat me,” the voice said, “Because, I know everything about them before I even speak to them. I know everything… about everybody…”

“Then, prepare for the day when that won’t help you.”

The voice snarled, amidst the darkness. It sounded as if it were in pain— as if my words had somehow come out and grasped it, injuring it. Surprisingly, I didn’t hear any witty remarks in retort, this time. Nor did I hear the voice hiss. This awes the second time that I’d brought it to a standstill, and I knew that I was on the verge of ridding myself of it. At least, that’s what I though within the deepest pits of my mind. However, I begin to suspect that this was all a dream— all an illusion that my mind had crafted for myself, so that I could have a scenario where I came out as the indisputable victor, and where I appeared to be the shining hero.

Whether or not this was true, the voice remained quiet for far longer than it had been ever before. Finally, it said.

“There’s no way in which I can be beaten… There’s no way in which my advantages can be turned to disadvantages. I don’t think that you quite understand the breadth in which my wit and genius truly goes. I’m far more omnipresent in all of the affairs of the mountain than you might assume anybody to be. There simply can’t nor will there ever be, somebody who matches my intellect, and my near all-encompassing knowledge. Will there one day be a time in which I feel stunted, and that I can go no further in the increase of my sills? Possibly… But, nothing can ever outsmart me. I’m afraid that everything that can be outsmarted already has been outsmarted. I come from a long line of creatures that have fought each other, and died, over the wealth of gold that is hidden within these mountains. Don’t think for a moment that I don’t have anything planned out. Any map that you can devise won’t match the cunning map in my head. Any though that you can have is a thought that I’ve already considered, and devised a way to exploit. I’d love to watch you make me fumble— throw me to the ground. Though, if you can’t do so, then you’ve only proven your own proclamations of my future defeat wrong.”

I prepared to say something in response. I felt dumbfounded by the fact that I’d been left in a position where I could only be speechless. However, then again, I was always terrible with words. And, this voice— even with its speech impediment, it was still incredibly slick in every word that it said, and its articulation of words was still one that I knew I’d never be able to match. I almost felt embarrassed, knowing that I’d have to come up with a way to follow up every word that it had said, and try to formulate a retort. I knew that all of my words would fail me— there was no possible way for me to shoot the voice’s words down, because they were simply too overbearing, and powerful. My mind had been brought to a point where it was so worn down that it could no longer fight with intellect. I truly feel that I’d hid a barrier, and that my tact was no longer any match.

“Well, at least you have a challenge,” I finally said. “After all, you’re speaking to a man of royal heritage, I’m sure that you’ve become very frustrated and stumped tonight, because of that.”

“Ha! You think that you’re a challenge just because your father was royalty? I hope that you were being sarcastic… I’ve waged war with my mouth against nearly all kinds of things, in all manners. II have yet to fall flat in my efforts. I’m not the most intelligent of this world, I’m afraid… there are some that, if confronted with me, would be able to wipe me off the face of the earth with ease. Although, there’s one thing that I do have over them— I’m savvy enough to have made sure that I’ll never need to confront them. I choose my opponents, and my opponents are always ones that I can easily manipulate… I’ve never met a day in which I lived in fear of being beaten by somebody who is inferior to me, because I only ever allow those who are inferior to me to know little of me. An opponent can never harm you if they don’t even know of your existence…

“Your father was nothing ssspecial. I can easily attest to that… From Everything I’ve observed, he was just as much a coward as any other person who sits in a high position. He had no courage to him… he merely led your kingdom as if it were his chattel, never stopping to consider that he might’ve been looking at things the wrong way. Rather than putting his people, and the protection of them, first, he put himself above everybody else. He was a terrible person, to be certain, and I simply can’t see how one could be proud of sharing his lineage…”

“That’s not true!” I now shooed, aghast. The conversation had taken a turn for the worst, and I no longer felt as if I had any hand in anything. I’d clearly been put to a standstill— not that I already hadn’t. It had simply taken me this long to recognize the truth of the situation.

“You don’t have any hold over me!” I continued, making my shouts louder and more prominent than ever. “I know what you’re playing at— you’re trying to make me feel scared, and weak. But, I’m not going to fall for it. I know the truth of the situation. My father was a great man, and you’re only trying to make me lose confidence in him!”

“On the contrary— I’m trying to tell you the truth, and your father was a horrid man. If he were any good, he would’ve made sure to rid the kingdom of me.”

The voice’s sparks for eyes then began to move closer to me, from out of the black. At first, I thought it was just in my head. There was an entrancing element to the fiery orbs, and I was half convinced that the sight of them growing, and propelling toward me, was but an illusion that my mind cooked up, during my distraction. The dragon had certainly put me in a place where I’d begun to doubt myself, and my senses, in nearly every way that I could. However, the eyes became as large as the moon, and I eventually couldn’t reconcile with the idea that it was all in my head. Rather, I had to submit to the obvious, however horrid it might’ve been. The eyes were coming closer to me— and, they were far larger than I ever would’ve liked. So large, that I knew they could’ve only been from that of an enormous beast.

Suddenly, the place where the two constant jets of smoke were pouring out of came into my view— it was two metal holes, atop a crude plane of metal shingles. Though, I soon realized that I was mistaken— the metal shingles were in fact scales— and the holes were nostrils.

The eyes were too close now for me to deny what I was staring at— I was looking into the face of a—

“Dragon!” I shouted.

“I use this line often, but I mean it more sincerely now than ever— you’re far dafter than I initially presumed…” The dragon said, practically biting at me as he spoke his words. “Of course I’m a dragon— wait, my apologies. I’m not a dragon, but an overgrown lizard.”

The dragon’s humor was shrewd, to be sure— not that I could appreciate its humor in its presence. I tried my best to get a clear view of all of it, so that I could fully understand what I was looking at. However, my observations came up blank. I quickly realized that I was wasting my time, and that the dragon had made sure to completely cover itself in an inky darkness, so that I couldn’t clearly make sense of it all.

“Wha— why— how…?” I continued, flabbergasted. I admit that I perhaps came across as too weak and feeble— definitely something that the dragon seemed to despise, and lack respect for. However, this didn’t stop me from continuing on in my shock. In truth, there was no way for me to fully reconcile with what I was seeing, except through shock. It’s only fair to be understandable toward this predicament that I was amidst.

“how? Why?” the dragon asked, in a demeaning tone. “You ask me these questions as if I’m the one to blame for my existence… I never give away the answers to mysteries for free.”

“You revealed what you are— isn’t that an answer to a mystery?” I asked.

The dragon smirked— it was the kind of smile that made me wish I had been eaten by the beast. As its mouth moved, all of its scales cracked and scraped with it— the very act of it smiling made such a raucous that my ears pained to hear it. Though, that didn’t even match the pain that my eyes were in, while looking at it.

“Oh— you already knew that I was a monster,” the dragon declared. “I did nothing, but terrify you by showing that you were more right than you could’ve possibly imagined.”

At this point, I didn’t know how to respond, or think. If I were to be frank, I don’t think that there is a reasonable way that I could’ve responded. I clearly had made a terrible move in making myself out to be royalty, in my conversation with the dragon— it now had a clear and reasonable motivation to eat me— and, there didn’t seem to be any moves that I could make that were wise ones.

“Well, if you’re going to reveal your face to me, you might as well reveal your name,” I said.

Meanwhile, I was actually trying to weasel out as much information that I could— not that I think the dragon hadn’t already caught on.

“Ah yes…” the dragon said. “The old name question… You humans have such a petty, sentimental mentality towards names— don’t you? To be honest, I don’t care for names. They give too much of a label. Everything that I do will now be categorized by my name. If every individual were to be honest with themselves, they would recognize that the practice of names is an absurd one… Every living thing changes far too much throughout its lifespan to be limited by a single title. I would argue that I’m not the same dragon that I was yesterday, let alone the same dragon that I was ten years ago— or, a century ago, for that matter.”

As the dragon said this, I heard its voice become increasingly volatile, and hostile. In fact, it seemed that its very breath had a deadly heat to it.

“Hmm… I appreciate the concept,” I said, “It’s certainly a lot to think on. But, I think it best to give you a name. One that suits you.”

Smoke started filling the air— so much so that my lungs felt as if they were on the verge of collapsing, and my brain began to feel completely deprived of all thought.

“Go on…” The dragon said. Its smile was mostly faded, by there was still a sinister crack in the corner of the monster’s lips— one that allowed me no forgiveness for the being. I knew that the suffering I was experiencing was a suffering that was wrought upon me through a barbaric and childish vengeance– one that, in spite of all the dragon’s years, it hadn’t outgrown.

I guess that, even dragons don’t know how to rid themselves of petty grudges.

“Smoke…” I found myself choking, towards Hemlock. He still hadn’t awoken, throughout the entire conversation. Though, as my thoughts became more and more sluggish, and my consciousness began to fall away with a greater rapidity, I started to see exactly why Hemlock hadn’t awoken.

The smoke had a sleep-inducing element to it.

“Sssmoke…” I heard the dragon say, with a disgusting relish. “I like that name.”

It was the last thing I heard, before finally becoming subject to Smoke’s spell…

*

The mountain weather tasted nicer than usual. The spray of snow didn’t bite too hard, the winds were mostly tame, the clouds were forgiving towards the sun, and the ground had ceased to threaten collapse, or landslide.

Susan clasped a wet, weathered stick in her hand, occasionally using it to help pull her up the steep mountainside. Of course, there wasn’t actually any reason for her to be clasping the staff in her hand. It was a sort of comfort to her— a thing that she held in her hand for leisure. The stick itself provided no support. It was soggy from being buried under the snow, from which Susan rescued it. It was thin, and rotting, no doubt due to age. It was only the thought of the branch that actually provided her support— the thought that, even if she tripped and fell, the stick might be able to catch her.

“I simply can’t see how this is supposed to work…” Tim said, in a nasally voice. Since the night before, he’d come down with a cold. One might’ve thought that this would’ve driven him away from scaling the mountain with Isabella and Susan. Although, he’d managed to make it into an excuse— he’d been supposed to work with his parents throughout the entire day, but he’d managed to put a bag of pillows under his sheets, and escape the house through that attempted deception.

“And I simply can’t see why you bothered coming out with us, then…” Susan said. “For the last time— I think that there’s something up with the mountain. I’ve seen strange shadows here, had odd experiences, and have the overcoming intuition that Joshua might be here, somewhere… Like I told you before— if you don’t like climbing the mountain,, and you’re queasy with the idea of going ot explore the inside of caves, that’s fine. You can go back home, while we try and figure things out. But, if you want to be of any use to us at all, then sticking here is proabably the best way to go for you. It’s definitely the only thing that makes sense, to me…”

Tim didn’t seem convinced, but quieted himself.

Susan knew that she’d been lucky with getting her friends out of the village on a day with such amiable weather. After all of the bad history between them and the mountain, this seemed to be a stroke of sheer luck— should the weather on the mountain have been bad, Susan had a feeling that she might not have been able to convince her friends to make such a dangerous expedition up into the mountain.

To a degree, she concurred with Tim’s statements. All of them did. At this point, Susan had become close friends with the mountain, and everything had started to feel played out, and repetitive. All reason to go into the mountain, and explore, had lost most of their past weight. After all— she’d gone exploring many times before, and turned up with virtually nothing. If there were any good answers to her constant barrage of questions, she had a strong feeling that they wouldn’t come to her any time soon— and, most certainly not on the mountain, since the mountain had yet to prove itself of anything.

However, the fact that the mountain had failed to prove itself was a double-edged sword. Despite most of them being widely recognized as rumors, and folklore, Susan had the strong inclination towards believing in all of the mysteries surrounding the mountain. The fact that there were so much abounding professions of magic surrounding it had led there to feel as if there were good reason to go up to it, and continue searching— even if nothing happened to turn up, throughout all of her searching.

“I just wish that this cold would end…” Isabella said.

Susan grinned.

“Not me… I love the cold. I know that you might think me crazy for saying that. Though, I’m afraid that it’s true. The cold is something that I love, because it makes warmth feel so much more alleviating. It reminds me just how much the warmth really matters… I know that this might sound ridiculous— but, there’s a sort of beauty to winter, and the snow in the village. I know that our village isn’t much, and that we rarely get anything done inside of it— and, I know that we don’t have much influence. However, I don’t really care. When I look at the village, covered in snow, I see something more than just a village… I see a window into myself, and what the snowy village has forged me into. Similarly, the mountain stands to show me what I wish to become…”

“I wish to become a person who’s warm, and comfortable, rather than a walking icicle… Is that too much to ask?” Time said, sarcastically, as he wiped his runny nose with his sleeve. He quickly began giving off a series of coughs straight afterward.

“The more I think about it, you really should’ve stayed home Tim,” Isabella said. “Not only are you sick— but, if your parents find out that you’re gone from home, they’ll be worried sick…”

“Oh well…” Tim said. “I’m sure that they’ll do well without me, in spite of that. While I don’t want to be out here, covered in snow and battling a potential fever, I don’t want to be at home stuck lying in a bed all day either— and I definitely don’t want to be subject of constant labor while feeling like this.”

Susan smirked.

“Yes, I suppose that I can agree with where you’re coming from,” she said. “Personally, I probably wouldn’t want to be alone in abed all day either, if I was in your position. Still though— just because you’re suffering, it doesn’t mean that we all have to suffer with you...”

“Misery breeds company,” Tim said. “Maybe I came with you guys just so that I wouldn’t be alone like this…”

“Just make sure that you don’t make me catch what you have,” Isabella said, in extreme irritation. “If there’s anything that I hate the most about winter, it’s how easy it is to get sick.”

Susan only nodded in agreement.

“But, I think that we’re beginning to lose focus on what’s important here,” Susan said. “This mountain is something that we can’t take our eyes off of— remember how tricky the place is. It’s not a place that looks kindly upon cordial conversation. Rather, it doesn’t care that we’re conversing. It will attack an unwary traveler, unbiased towards their predisposition. Yes— we can’t take our focus off the mountain.”

Susan’s face tingled in the cold weather. Her feet, which had been riding perilously close to the edge of mountain cliffs, had gone extremely numb. Her hands had too— except, unlike her feet, they desperately looked for a warmth that hid from them. No matter how hard she tried, the cold seemed to overrun every part of her body. However, this wasn’t entirely a bad thing. In fact, Susan felt a sense of ease, and unity with the environment around her, as she walked through the mountain boroughs. Normally, this might make somebody think that she was mad. Yet, Susan could only see the brilliance in everything, despite her pain. In a sense, she could feel Joshua as she felt the cold beat down upon her. She could remember all of the fun that she once had with him in the snow— when she was younger.

Youth has a mystical element to it. While most can’t remember good portions of their youth, there always seems to be bits and pieces that are left behind— things that come into the brain, and mold you— shape you. They make one think of themselves in beautiful ways, as well as see who they were built into who they are. Childhood memories are the stuff that seem to make a person. However insignificant, a memory that stick with somebody always seems to have a word to say on who that personas.

Although, just as often, there are the childhood memories that don’t seem to mean anything— the ones that glue to the back of one’s mind with no particular reason at all. Even if they can be pretty sights, at times, it becomes hard to decipher meaning out of them. Mainly, it’s because there’s seldom any meaning to them to begin with. Memories are odd that way— there’s no real telling which one’s matter, and which ones don’t. Typically, it’s the declaration that a memory doesn’t matter that’s harder to make.

Susan’s memory of playing in the snow fell somewhere in between. She couldn’t remember any great revelation, or lesson taught to her, amidst that snow. She didn’t really remember much of what she was thinking— or even much of how she was feeling. The entire memory was incredibly foggy, and sparse in details. However, there was one element that seemed to surpass all of the limits of bad memory— an unmatchable joy, which she could only see as a true representation of her childhood. A gem that couldn’t quite be matched.

“Susan, it’s been a while since you’ve said anything,” Tim said. “We’re pretty high in the mountain now— and, I’m admittedly getting tired. Do you know where we’re going? Because, if you don’t, then I really need to stop and rest. I feel like my legs can’t carry me any farther…”

Susan turned around to look at Tim. His lips were blue, his ears were a burning red, and the rest of him had been turned frail against the cruel winter winds.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Susan said, now feeling a mixture of shock and sympathy. “You look terrible. You need to go back home.”

Susan looked above, and saw the clouds— they’d suddenly become black and foreboding, with the dark and brooding atmosphere about them that she might find in a nightmare. She could feel it in her knees— it made her quake, and gain the wish to take flight with the rushing that a jackal might make. Yet, it had also grounded her feet in their place, as if they’d become oversized chunks of ice.

“I did tell you,” Tim said. “I told Isabella too, but she didn’t really care… Didn’t you hear us talking over the past fifteen minutes? Or, have our voices turned to mere wind to you? Honestly— I can’t believe that you didn’t hear me, after all that. It’s this sort of thing that really makes me wonder about you, Susan…”

Susan felt her face become red hot, but tried to keep herself calm and collected.

Did I really miss all of that discussion? She found herself thinking. How can I get so lost in my own thoughts? It just doesn’t make sense…. It didn’t even feel like ten minutes…

AS she looked at her friends, she could see that they hadn’t been kindly to each other either. Just by the look on Isabella’s face, she knew that Isabella had been guilty of berating Tim over his complaints– it was clearly their nature to do so, especially without her own interference. And, Tim’s swelling nose, and puffy eyes told her that he was feeling far sicker than she could’ve possibly suspected. She now felt more self-anger than she’d felt in a long time…

“I’m sorry Tim— we can go back. We just have to beat this storm,” Susan said.

Though, even as she said this, she began to doubt herself. No different from a typical evening on the mountain, the storm was just as formidable and foreboding as usually— and, they’d spent too much time upon the mountain, and trekked way too far, to ahave any hope of avoiding it.

“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do,” Susan suddenly said, as she watched clumps of snow come from up out of the ground, and whirl around her head. She head to duck, and bury her head toward the ground, in order to avoid it all.

“We just need to keep going into the cyclone, back to the village…” Isabella said. “It’s better that, than staying within the storm where we’ll surely beobliterated, and threatened… We’ll be no better here, than we will be down there. We might as well take the risk, and keep going downward. It’s the only way that Tim will be safe.

“Susan knew that this was true— but she couldn’t help but feel incredibly wrong at the prospect. She knew that, if she were to go back down the mountain, she would succumb to her typical story of abandoning her goal, only to try climbing back up the moutntian, and repeating the cycle all over again. Despite her worry for Tim, she felt terrible at the idea of ending and abandoning the vvery thing that she knew was right, and needed. There was something inside of her that simply despised the idea of giving up— giving in— and falling into the same cycle that she’d continuously tried pulling herself out of.

“I can’t do it,” Susan said. “You’re going to have to take Tim down, back to the village, without me. I need to stay in the mountain, and go into the cave that I’ve gained an intuition within. The place seems full of wondrous splendor— I can’t deny the fact that, when I look at the place, I feel alive in a dsort of way. I feel as if I’m coming closer to finding Joshua, and reuniting my family— bringing everything back to how it once was. I just can’t abandon that intuition. It’s rooted to deep within me…”

“Just give it up, Sarah!”

Susan could barely see Isabella, but knew that the words had come from her— there was no mistaking the strained sound in her voice for anybody else…”

“I can’t give it up,” Sarah said, with a choke. “How can you even suggest that?!”

“Joshua isn’t coming back…” Isabella said. “We all know that it’s true— even you do… We all care about Joshua deeply… but, the whole reason that we went on this mountain trek was to see if there was any evidence for what might’ve happened with Flanders— to see if there was anything strange in the area. There isn’t anything strange. This entire place is exactly the same as the hundreds of other times that we’ve gone into this area. And, to be honest, I no longer feel like making this trip is worth it anymore. The more I think on it, the more I realize just how much of a mistake we made in coming there. Tim is hanging on by a thread, and so is your mind. Come on, Susan— wake up to the facts. If there was any way for us to make it out of here, without risking our lives, then we’d come up to the mountain far more often. But, I think that’s why you constantly come up here— because it’s so risky. I think that, in the risk, and in all of the threats of danger, you gain a sort of feeling of mysticism around it— you feel as if everything is larger than life. But, here’s the thing with all of that… Eventually, you have to stop taking risks, and realize that you’re putting your life on the line every time that you come here, and threaten the mountain’s superiority over the village… I don’t like to do this sort of thing Susan. But, I’m telling you right now— you need to give up your fantasy, and face the facts. There’s no way that Joshua is coming back. The sooner you get that into your head, the better— it’s the only way that I’m going to be able to take Timothy back to the village safely…”

The wind began to blow even more furiously, and Susan started to see what a mistake that she’d made. Her guilt became all-encompassing, and her chest throbbed at the mere thought of how delusional she’d allowed herself to be. All of the mysteries on the mountains— all of the beliefs that she’d seen things, felt things, and experienced things– it had all been a hoax of her mind. A fantasy, pumped up to make her believe that she was far greater than she actually was. She now saw just how stupid that thought really was…

Her hair threatened to blow away with the gusts, and her eyes swam about in fear, with them becoming as cold as icicles. All of the mountain weather seemed to have turned against her— in fact, it seemed that all forces of nature had decided to turn against her, and that she was a mere victim, caught amongst a lashing out of its anger.

“I wish… That I’d never come here…” Tim moaned. His voice was mostly drowned out by the ferocious wind, but Susan could still hear it penetrate through. There was something so elegant and provoking to the sound of the storm, and all of the wind. Though, Susan had been reminded just how deadly of a monster it could really be to them.

“Go on,” Susan shouted to them. “Head down to the village. I can’t leave the mountain, but I can’t force you to stay here either. The only way that Tim is going to be safe is if he’s brought back somewhere warm and dry. I don’t even know why I let him come. Go on— save yourselves, and don’t bother coming back for me! I’ll be fine here!” Though, even as she said this, she watched as the storm loomed over her friends. Its wintry mouth began to sweep under their feet, and engulf every bit of their scope of vision. No matter how far Susan’s eyes searched the snow was covering the landscape— it seemed that the storm had smeared across everywhere, and that it was only attempting to gain further ground.

The initial thought that she’d had when traveling up the mountain, when she’d looked upon the weather in deep satisfaction, had been deeply uprooted. She felt as the entire storm began to take away all of her sense of courage, and peace. She was left with a coldness within herself— and, all of the beauty that she’d previously seen within the snow was now replaced with a dark pit, which harbored in her gut with the hollowness of a rotted piece of wood.

Her friends tried tumbling down the mountain, but it was clear that the option was one that would lead them astray. There was no way that they’d be able to make it to the village. Even though most of the storm had clouded her vision, her intuition was still able to see past it— and, she was able to sense that there was no hope beyond the snow. Rather, the snow had smothered all of it.

“Never mind,” Susan said, charging towards where the mountain was. She could see a faint glimpse of where a cave might’ve been— it was but a silhouette, but, as it shone into her eyes, she felt a sense of awe and alleviation. She knew as she looked at it that it would be a place where they’d finally be able to be rescued.

“Guys, the cave is up here.

She pulled out her map-book, to reassure herself. Of course, there was no way to tell where she was amidst the flinging bits of snow— no, she had to base all of her decisions upon intuition. Thankfully, she didn’t waste her time bothering with them. She knew that she didn’t have any. The wind called out to her, barking that all of her time to guess and think was up— she’d have to act, and Susan was doing just that.

“We can’t waste any more time!” she shouted. “The snow is coming closer to us, and if we dawdle, we’ll be swallowed whole!”

She wasn’t able to tell if they could hear her, or if they listened to her advice. She didn’t bother to look, or listen. She couldn’t— everything had been dulled out by the sharpening storm. It had made sure to make all of her senses near impossible for her to measure.

As she neared the cave, she felt the wind pull at her, slowing her down as if she were a piece of metal, and the storm were a magnet. An awful fear whipped up her insides, and she worried what might happen if she wasn’t able to make it into the cave, and if the snow proved itself to be the victor. Eventually, she could no longer let these thoughts have any hold over her mind, and she pushed herself forward with a sort of drive that could only come out of pure motivation— reasoning and logic had been completely removed from her every action. She’d found that it had been too much of a hindrance to her, and that she had too little time to give it any adherence.

Breathing heavily, she saw the opening of the cave come closer to her. It was still curtained behind a transparent but belligerent flood of wind, though she could still see it clear as day— even if the cave had been but a speck in the sight of her eyes, she still would’ve been able to envision it with a crystal-clear clarity. Her mind was so focused on the cave, that her mental image of it was already more than enough to give her full motivation.

She felt as the snow ceased, and a blackness wrapped around her like a comforting cloak. She looked behind herself, to see if her friends were anywhere to be found. Though, when she looked, all that she could find was a furious, ever-changing smear of dark gray, and a faint glimpse of light amidst the whole of it.

“Did you make it? Are you here? How’s Tim doing?”

Her words echoed amidst the darkness, bouncing around as if they were smooth pebbles being skipped across the surface of a pond.

She cringed. The pond had frozen over now. And, no new rocks were tossed at it, in order to break the pond’s shell of ice. No answer.

There would never be an answer, because her friends weren’t there to answer her. They were lost, and she was finally alone— trapped. Stranded. And, her only option was to go deeper into the cave.

She looked deeper into its mouth, and felt all of the dangers that might be held within it threaten her. Her heart pounded with the nervous terror that a squirrel or small bird might at the sight of a approaching human…

Deep into the mountain, she knew that there were secrets beyond what she could conceive. She was sure of it just by the amount of ominous senses that she felt when looking into tit– if the ominous feelings didn’t come from a sort of sorcery, then she was certain that she didn’t know what sorcery was. She badly wanted to seek out this magic, and gain full understanding of it— mastery of it. Though, she also wanted to be able to feel a sense of safety, and security. She didn’t want to have to explore the dangers of the cave alone.

She wanted her friends.

Deep inside of Susan, there was an imbedded fear of the dark— of groping deep into places uncharted, and having to look through it with nothing but her wit to protect and guard her. Such an experience was the sort of thing that made up Susan’s nightmares, and kept her awake when she tried to sleep at night. She wasn’t sure what quite had made her fear the darkness so much— somewhere, in the reserves of her mind, she knew that there was one of those memories. It was the sort of foundational memory, that had built her into the person that she was. However, unlike the needless memory between herself and Joshua, this memory had utterly slipped from her mind. She reached out to grasp it, and to taste its fullness again— but it alluded her grasp.

“It seems that the important memories like to slip away, while the small ones stick around, and take up space…” Susan thought to herself.

She looked back into the cave, and knew these words to be a paramount of truth. Though, she also felt her words echo around her— speak back to her, and almost taunt her. As the words did this, she felt a sort of insecurity within herself— an instability of her mental faculties. The more that she thought on what she’d said, the more that she realized there was a haunting truth in the words.

What was most important to her would always be forgotten…

It was in this moment, when she realized that, if she never found Joshua again, he would be gone from her— forever. Eventually, her memory of him— all that she knew of him— would lapse. And, all that she’d be left with would be a faint skull of the person that he really was.

Susan let out a deep sigh. It barely made a nose, amidst the roaring wind outside, and the words of hers that were still echoing around. Yet, this didn’t make any sort of frustration against her. In fact, this all made Susan feel rather at peace.

In knowing that everything would be alright, and taken care of, she gained a sense of reassurance— even in the face of the coming storm, she felt that everything would work out in the end. She felt the cold grip around her again, and give her the same strange comforts that she still couldn’t quite grasp or understand.

“I know that I shouldn’t feel at peace…” Susan said. “But, I do… Why is it?”

She couldn’t give herself an answer. She knew that she never would. The true answer was, there wasn’t an answer. Her thoughts were unique to herself, just like every storm was unique— just like how every snowflake that fell upon the ground was unique.

There was never anything that was quite identical… Susan suddenly realized that with a sort of glee. Even as she began to forget Joshua, she knew that she herself would eventually change— her reliance upon him would eventually subside, and she would learn to live in a world without him. There was a terrifying— horrifying, in fact— element to this all. Though, she knew that it was the truth. She knew that she would learn to get over the problems that currently seemed all encumbering— and, she suddenly realized that a part of herself was alright with that. She suddenly realized that it was alright for a part of herself to feel alright.

Her eyes shut tightly, and she fell into a sleep that she’d grown all too familiar too. It was an old friend, that she knew nearly every bit about. And yet, as she fell asleep, she found that her sleep was unlike any other sleep that she’d had before.

That was alright.

That was her snowflake.

*

It was day again— at least, that was what the brightness leaking through the cave, and into her eyes told her. It was still storming horribly outside the cave, and she found that she was laying amongst a thick layer of snow. In fact, it was only the spot that she was sleeping on that wasn’t full of snow– her spot had all melted, and she found that she was lying down in the midst of a massive puddle...

“Well,” she said. “It would’ve been nice if I noticed this while I was sleeping.”

Though, she knew that she’d been partially aware of it in her sleep— even if it wasn’t enough to wake her. Her dreams of swimming within the frozen lake— falling deep under it, after her attempt to chase the silhouette— reminded her that her dreams had been warning her all along. She was simply too stupid of slumber to notice it.

She tried her best to dry herself off on a dry cave wall, at the far back from the blistering blizzard that was taking place outside of the cave. She felt a bit of regret while doing so— she remembered her friends, and how they must’ve been suffering within a similar storm— how she’d left them, and how they might’ve been worried sick for her. Yet, she wasn’t compelled at all to go looking for her friends. In fact, she had a sort of motivation to stay hidden within the caves, where they might constantly wish to look for her— where they would always be too afraid to look. A part of her knew that, if her friends weren’t able to find her, then that would mean there was still hope that Joshua was hidden from sight— that he could be found somewhere that she’d missed. This was, of course, something purely bred from optimism. However, Susan still clung to it with fullest sincerity. Deep inside of herself, she didn’t want to let go of Joshua— even if she knew that, at some point, she’d eventually have to.

For the second time within the cave, she cringed. The cold had been unkind to her, as she was sleeping, unlike what it had promised. At every movement she made, he could feel it brazenly rubbing against her skin, making her feel as if she had burns all over her body. She wanted to take off her clothes, and remove the burns— but, she hadn’t bothered to pack another pair, thinking it to be inconsequential. The truth of the matter was, there was no way for her to remove the discomfort that was beginning to encompass her— she was on her own, and without any chance at solace…

“Well, this has been a fun journey…” she said to herself, opening up a satchel that she’d brought with her. “First I go up to the mountain, and get caught in a storm— then I lose my friends. And, now I’m soaking wet.”

Her throat felt sore as she said this, and she quickly realized that being cold and wet wasn’t her only problem.

“Just my luck… I catch what Tim had… I should’ve known that he shouldn’t have come with us.”

Rather than saying these words with anger, she still had a sense of fear within herself. She was still increasingly concerned that Tim was in danger, amongst the blizzard— completely lost amongst the snow, and clinging dearly to his last breaths of life. These thoughts were ones that Susan couldn’t quite accommodate for. If she were to have been honest with herself, these were some of the greatest fears that she faced within herself— the thought that, in trying to save Joshua, she only led more of her friends astray. Including herself.

There was a splash of water at the back of her neck. Her head turned to stare at the ceiling above herself, and find that there were massive pieces of rock, which were threateningly pointed down at her— all it would’ve taken was a strong quake, or a sort of landslide, for her to have been completely buried under them.

“Let’s hope that none of my friends incite and avalanche…” she said to herself, with a chuckle. Though, her chuckle was utterly sealed in nervousness. Deep down, she knew just how dangerous it really was.

How everything was supposed to be, she didn’t know… She didn’t really know anything, except the danger of her situation. She felt the danger lick at her, and make her ears burn a bright red. It went through her bones, and into her spine, climbing all the way up to her throbbing head. There wasn’t an aspect to her that wasn’t affected by this oncoming sense of danger— a sense that, no matter where she went or what she didn’t. She’d be under the threat of nature, and its propensity toward collapsing in one itself. Susan quickly realized that she was but within a cavity, amongst many cavities within the mountain, and that she was exploring a bit, of many bits. her section of mountain was a small. One.

She shook her head at her massive fear. She recognized that it was unnecessary, and that it wouldn’t get her anywhere. Wherever she looked, danger lurked— and, all that she was capable of doing was the recognition of it. Beyond that, she was at a loss.

Her eyes turned back to her satchel, which was soaked to the core, just like her clothes had been. The contents of it were all but ruined— she’d initially packed dried up fruit, stale bread, and vegetables. But, it had all been turned to a mixture of slime and snow. There was no longer any sense of freshness, or preservatives to it. All of the salt and spice had been completely removed, in favor of a coating of wet sludge.

“Well, this is just great…” Susan said to herself, with a scowl. “I went through hours of labor to get here, only to find that I’m stuck with a complete mess… There’s no food, no water… Nothing that I need!”

She was on the verge of letting her emotions drive her, when she saw something poke out of the top of the bag— it was her matchbox, and her map. Then, a gust of wind blew at her— it was strange, but it pulled her hair in the direction of the tunnel through the caves— the very place that she’d planned to explore.

“The very place that I need to explore…” Susan said to herself. “Why didn’t I think of it sooner. If I’m going to be getting anything done, it’s going to be in the caves. There’s nowhere else for me to go— nothing else for me to do.”

She bent over, and began fiddling with her matchbox. However, the moment that she tried doing so, she found that it was completely soaked, and useless. Whenever she tried striking a match upon it, it would come up dead— not a single flame would light, and she found that she was at a complete loss. There was no way for her to start of fire. The snow had won, and allowed her no other option but to trek into the darkness, unguided by sight. That, or she’d be forced to stay subject to the cold’s harshness. Neither option looked upon her in any sort of sympathy, nor did she look upon the options in sympathy.

Grabbing her map book, and satchel, she decided that she was going to go into the mountain unaided— she would simply have to rely on memory to make it back to her cove.

“It shouldn’t matter,” she thought to herself. “There are probably tons of ways to navigate through this mountain, all of which will probably get me where I need to go. There’s no need for me to worry— I’ll get what I want in no time.”

She, of course, knew that she was lying to herself.

She remembered the book that she’ d read as a kid— the red book that Joshua had read to her, when she was younger. One of her fondest memories, when she thought about it, were the accounts of the mountain— just how grand and vast it was, despite all of the murkiness that dominated throughout it all. It gave her a sense of awe and wonder, which she now knew was incredibly rare and unique.

“Why is it that it’s always the rare things that I remember?” Susan thought to herself. “Maybe it isn’t what I remember that’s rare, but my memories… The most precious things that stick with me are few. Over time, I tend to toss out what I don’t feel matters— leave it behind, in favor of things that I feel make more sense. It’s time that I begin to see things in a better light, and look at this mountain with a greater appreciation. However, it’s also time that I recognize how experiences aren’t as rare, or unique as I might to think they are– everything that I see will probably be similar to something seen before…”

With those thoughts, she let the darkness of the cave completely swallow her, this time. While she’d only let it taste her before, this time she was willing to take every risk— to see every facet of the mountain, for what it really was. She didn’t want to hide anymore. She didn’t want to wonder. It was finally time for her to explore. And, she knew that the exploration was one that would affect her deep inside, whether or not it had the results that she wanted— there was simply something guiding her from within, that let her know.

*

I’ve finally spoken with the wizard. Even as I write this down, I can hardly believe it. I might’ve thought that this never would’ve happened. In fact, I till question whether or not this really happened, even though I know that it has.

Normally, I would think that this was all just a dream of mine— I really would. After my strange dream about the dragon, which still bothers me, I couldn’t tell what was true and what was fiction. It really threw me off balance for quite a while. However, I know that this encounter with the wizard is real.

I’m sure that an argument can be made that one can never be certain about anything— that every thought we have is one of uncertainty, and that there’s nothing upon where we can truly base our foundations of life. Though, I still think that it’s true… I know that I’m ridiculous in thinking this. But, I’m actually certain that this thing is real— that I’ve tasted it, and experienced it.

At this point, I’m probably being viewed as if I were mad. And, that view isn’t entirely wrong. I was mad to come here, I was made to think that I could resurrect my father, and I was probably mad to think that a dream about a dragon might’ve been real. Though, none of this is very convincing to me. I still feel completely sane, and nothing within myself has led me to feeling insecure about my situation…

This is probably the point in my diary where I will begin to question myself. AS I write this down, I come nearer to the spots in my narrative that seem too fantastical and extraordinary, even for me to believe that they happened. But, they did. I know that they did, with all of my heart. I can feel it inside of myself— driving me, and pulling me forward. It has given me a sort of confidence. So, I’m not going to distrust myself. I’m going to share my story– and, I’m going to take it seriously.

It was after I woke up my guide, Hemlock, for his turn to take his night-guard post. Normally, he would wake up with quite a fuss, and I’d have to listen him drone on about how good of a dream that he was having— how I shouldn’t have woken him up— before he would ever let me go back to sleep.

Though, tonight he kept me from going back to sleep f a different reason. Every time that I tried closing my eyes, and drawing myself into a deep slumber, he’d shake at my sides, and yell into my ears. Just like anybody else would’ve reacted in such a situation, I started to feel an overwhelming sense of anger. I’d dealt with enough nights of him complaining, and I could hardly bare to hear him go on even more. I’m not sure why, but it deeply annoyed me. I felt as if, even as I tried pulling my own weight, he was unwilling to pull his own. I knew that he was doing his own work during the night watch— and, as far as I could tell, he was doing it without falling asleep, like I was. But, when one is tired, and trying to go to sleep themselves, their judgement begins to fall away— they begin to think things that are completely untrue, and baseless.

“You have to get up!” Hemlock kept saying. “You won’t believe it! Hurry! Get up!”

I thought that he was lying, and trying to get me to take his night watch— so, I tried my best to keep my eyes shut, and pretend that he wasn’t talking to me. Thankfully, I eventually couldn’t do this any longer. Hemlock is a good guide, in that way. Even with all of his complaining, and his consistent lack of encouragement, I feel like he’s willing to go the extra mile to make sure that he’s serving our mission in the best possible way.

I groggily opened my eyes, and looked around the room. It was at this point when I realized exactly why Hemlock had been so pressing and urgent in trying to keep me awake. I immediately felt waves of embarrassment and humiliation wash over me— even a sort of guilt.

In front of us, by some manner of ordinance that still escapes me, there was a golden door, made of a craftsmanship that I have yet to see matched. Off of it radiated a golden light, and a sort of dust— at first, I thought the dust was just dirt. Yet, I began to realize that it was actually something far stranger— they were pure orbs of light, almost like sparks. Except, they didn’t fade. Rather, they floated just like snowflakes. And, in my hand, they melted like snowflakes too. Similar to the warm wind that I’d consistently felt amidst the cold, these were a warm version of snowflakes. Only, these were far harder to believe, or understand, however. A warm snowflake isn’t quite like a warm gust of wind. After all— I’ve experienced warm wind before. These golden flakes were something entirely different, and more outlandish than I could’ve ever possibly hoped to understand.

“Hemlock,” I said, “What is this?”

He of course didn’t have an answer. In fact, he didn’t even have anything to say. Despite him having woken me up, he now appeared to be in a sort of trance. As we both looked up to the door, I felt a surge of a strange power flow into me. I’d felt similar things tin the past. But, there was something quite unique this time around. I felt alleviated of all of my past thoughts. My tiredness had been completely wiped away, along with the rest of my bad feelings. I felt as if I’d been made anew in every possible way. The world around me no longer mattered. All that mattered to me was getting things done— making things that were wrong turn right again. Nothing else really held a stead in my heart. My entire quest had been stamped out, in favor of the urging that came from this door.

“My entire mission…” I thought. “It’s been torn away so easily… all too easily.”

I can’t say that I was wrong. In spite of all the things that I’d done, and all of my efforts, my original mission was completely gone from me. I now felt as if I were pressing towards something entirely new and unique, and that nothing I’d planned before mattered anymore… Somewhere deep inside of myself, where the trance couldn’t reach me, I felt upset, and even slightly angered by all of this. I’d lost my goals so easily— all that it had taken was slight temptation, and I’d been able to abandon it with a sort of glee. Not only did this not feel natural, and it came across as slightly wrong. But, it also made me wonder how easy it would be for me to abandon everything else that I’d planned. How could I have any faith in myself if all it took to shake my will was a golden door?

I quickly forgot all of this as I watched the door begin to open. There seemed to be some sort of enchantment upon it, which completely took hold of all the mind’s impulses— even memories— so that all I would do is focus upon it, rather than focus upon anything else.

Along the side of the door, there were thousands of little gears. I listened as locks on the golden door steadily began to open, clicking open with crisp snaps, which reminded me of the days when I was in the palace, listening to the clicking of my people’s feet against the marble floors.

The wider that the door opened, the more that I felt all of this take control over me. And yet, it was also washing away at a rapid pace. Like the tides of an ocean’s waters, it went back and forth, receding only to return again.

A point came where the door was so widely opened that the receding and returning disappeared altogether, and all that I could see was the beauty of the insides of the room streaming into my eyes. I watched as dozens of rays of light came out from within it. I couldn’t even see the inside of the door— all that I could see was a blinding light. Though, the blinding light was all that I really needed. Nothing else cut it, within my mind. All that mattered was that I saw light again. And, in the constant darkness of the cave, that was all that I could’ve wished for.

I’ll no longer have to wonder if I’m dreaming, when dragons lurk… I thought. In fact, I won’t even need to wonder if dragons lurk about. I’m finally at a place where I can hide from all of the threats of the mountain for a little while— a place where I can let all of those fears wash of my back, and merely focus on the things that matter… bringing my father back, and figuring out the mystery of this mountains’ magic.

At this moment, I had no idea that I’d stumbled upon the wizard’s abode, nor did I know that I’d practically finished my journey. In fact, each of these truths weren’t even suspicions in my mind— I’d half given up on the thought of any hope by this point, and was just scooting along so that I could find sort of meaning in the journey— something that I could come back from, and be proud of.

There was something to the door, and everything about it, though— it gave me a sense of levity that I’d never felt before. While I didn’t think that it was from a wizard, or, frankly anything else that I knew about, I had the overpowering sense that it was some sort of grand magic. This single thought pulled me along, in spite of everything telling me not to. The enchantment, while powerful, no longer had a hold. Deep inside of myself, I’d realized that I’d found somewhere where I felt meaning. And, this gave me a deep sense of confidence.

“Let’s go inside,” I finally said to Hemlock. Maybe it had all been my head, but my tongue had been utterly limp until up to this point. Thankfully, by some miracle, I’d managed to overcome this limitation.

I looked over to Hemlock, but he still appeared to be in his daze. In fact, he appeared worse off then I originally had been. There was something to the entrance that had completely stripped him of all his formerly proud and honorable demeanor. He’d been reduced to a gaping fool.

“Come on now, Hemlock… You can’t just sit there, like a deranged clown. We need to keep going— keep exploring. We’ve finally reached somewhere with light! We can actually explore and see this place, unlike all of the other places that we’ve gone and explored.”

I stood there, and waited for some sort of response out of Hemlock. However, it became clear that he wasn’t going to break out of whatever had taken him over. SO, I grabbed him by the wrist and began pulling him through the door— through he door and into the light.

“Like it or not,” I said, “I’m not going in there without you.”

My eyes were still momentarily blinded, and I could hardly make out my surroundings. It was all far too blurry to comprehend, and I felt as if I was walking into some sort of heaven that I wasn’t supposed to be walking amongst— as if I’d begun to trespass in a place that previously was thought to be impossible to trespass.

Hemlock’s feet stopped dragging, signaling to me that his trance had finally come to an end. Instead, he sped up his pace, took his hand out of my grip, and began to walk in front of me.

“You might have been the one who saved me from a trance,” he said, “But, that doesn’t mean you instantly become the guide.”

With that, I let him take me through the room, and amongst its blurry features I steadily began to recognize that it was made out of extreme amounts of gold, and that it contained hundreds of rich objects— harps, paintings, and extensive piles of diamonds— however, there were still parts that I couldn’t understand. I began walking upon a surface that seemed liquid and solid at the same time. At one step, it would splash, and, at another, it would feel as hard as rock. I looked to see if Hemlock was confused, and listened to see if he too was stepping in the liquid— but, his feet never made a single splash. The splashing liquid floor might as well have all been in my head.

The source of light was also something that alluded me. Everything was so bright that it was a struggle for me to keep my eyes open. Locating where the source of light might’ve been was an even harder task for me to do.

“Hemlock, how can you see so clearly in here?” I asked. “I can hardly make out anything!”

“it’s all in the eyes,” he said. “You need to keep them wide open, and incredibly alert. That’s the only way that you’ll be able to take out anything. However, to be honest, there’s still barely anything that I can understand there. I can only see well enough to guide us through these halls, without crashing us into walls… It looks to me like we’ve stumbled into some sort of Cave palace. What’s odd is that I can’t tell how it’s so large. We walked and stopped to check the other side of the cavern wall, before was slept in front of it and had this door spawned… There shouldn’t be enough room for it to get this big…”

I nodded in agreement. However, it was at this moment that I feared I was walking within a dream, and merely letting everything that I did be controlled by my sleepy head. It very well could’ve been that this was just my mind’s great heaven. Light was something that I deeply wanted. It wouldn’t have surprised me if I discovered that I was just tricking myself into thinking that I’d reached a heaven, when I was really dreaming it all up. Sleep was something that I’d learned to be among the greatest betrayers of reality.

“this sort of thing almost makes me wonder if any of this is actually real, or if it’s all just in my head…” I said.

“I concur…” Hemlock said. “It all appears too good to be true. I can’t help but think the same things as you. However, I know that this couldn’t be from my mind. This place is too vast, and foreign for me to have ever thought this up in my head. Trust me— this simply isn’t the sort of place that I’d waste my time dreaming about, even if I’m desperately wanting of light, wealth, rest, and clarity…”

I’m not quite sure why or how, but Hemlock’s explanation was enough to convince me that everything was but a dream. There really wasn’t any other way that I could explain everything to myself. To me, the only true logical explanation really was the concept that it was all just a dream. But, when /I realized that this wasn’t the sort of thing that I could dream up, the only option left was that it had all been caused by something outside of my understanding— magic.

“Welcome, intruders of the mountain,” a loud voice said, breaking into both of our ears. Suddenly, me and Hemlock knew that we’d been right. And, being right suddenly didn’t have the thrill or satisfaction to it that we might’ve hoped for it to have had. In fact, it was replaced with a sort of feeble embarrassment. In the face of the booming voice, we must’ve appeared weak. And, in our blindness, I also knew that we’d have no way to battle whatever threat that had decided to fall upon us. WE were tuck in a pit in nearly every way that we chose to go. And, I realized that it was all resting ion my terrible choices, and mistakes.

“What is it that has brought you here? You’ve been wandering through these caves for a week, deeply searching for something. And, you’ve only stumbled upon a dragon, and a tavern trap that I’d designed for you both, which you narrowly escaped… I’ve met many people who have come thorough this mountain, and none appear to be deserving of it. However, you do. You’ve avoided every trap that I’ve set up for you, and more. Such takes a cunning that hasn’t been matched by anybody else— a cunning that I’ve constantly been looking for. How have you two done it? What is within you both that has allowed you to accomplish such feats of genius? You should be raving mad by now!”

“I’m of royal blood,” I said. “I’m not weakened by what will weaken most. My luck spreads so far out, that nothing I can do can be done in error. I’m afraid that I’m a genius… It’s a blessing but also a curse. It’s the reason that I’ve been able to survive this torture chamber of a mountain.”

There was a warm chuckle within the voice. In fact, I felt a warm wind blow into my face after Id’ finished talking. There was something comforting to the wind— a homely friendliness that I had yet to find from anywhere else.

“Yes… a royal genius…” the voice said. “I don’t believe that such a thing exists. And, from what I’ve observed, your guide has helped you survive a lot more traps and dangers than you might like to acknowledge. However, there’s a lot more going on in this place than I might like to acknowledge to. It seems to me that you’re no genius. Instead, you’re somebody that feigns it. But, you do feign it convincingly, and I do applaud you for that.”

I felt the heat of embarrassment settle over my face, but tried my best to pretend that it wasn’t there.

“Why don’t you stop talking from a distance, and show yourself?” I asked, trying my best to sound peaceable, and under control. Inside myself, I felt like running out of the room, and back into the darkness of the mountain where I could no longer be judged or tested— back into the kingdom, where all of my problems appeared to be so much easier to solve and tackle.

“I’m already here,” the voice said. “In fact, I’m right in front of you both. You’re just blind to me— no doubt due to the fact that you’ve constantly been stuck groping amongst the darkness for a way out. However, I’ll help you with that problem.”

I heard the snapping of a finger, and then everything became clear. In front of me, I saw the wizard, standing tall— dressed in a flowing white robe, and having a cone-shaped pointed hat upon his head. He also had a flowing beard, and eyes that shone like bright moons. Suddenly, the palace surrounding him also appeared far more beautiful. The floor was actually a mixture of golden tiles, as well as tiles that were actually holes filled with water. There were diamonds melted into pillars, and the floor and walls were all made of a soft gold.

“It’s all so elegant,” I said, looking into the wizard’s wizened face.

I was utterly stunned. I’d been spending day after day, tirelessly searching for this man. And, he was finally in my face, looking upon me. I was looking upon him. There was something to it that was satisfying beyond all measure. It just couldn’t compare to any other feeling that had ever come to me. I felt something that I’d never thought to be possible to feel.

It could only be described as magic. Though, I feel that describing it as such might be doing it an injustice.

“Yes… Elegant…” The wizard said, with a sense of disgust. “Personally, I find that it’s far more evoking of power, than beauty. That’s what I worship more than beauty— knowledge and power. Don’t you see the geometry in everything that I’ve designed? The intelligent architecture? The symmetry? The formulas used to create everything in a precision that cannot be matched? It’s all built in such a way that nothing else can truly compare to it. Don’t you understand that? Or, are you entirely ignorant o wisdom…”

“No, I understand,” I lied.

What I was truly thinking was that I wished that I’d brought one of my mathematicians with me. They would’ve been the only sort of person who would’ve been able to understand the wizard’s eccentricities when it came to his palace.

“Good… Anyhow, Let’s get back to our discussion. While sight is a gift from above, it’s also a trivial and distracting thing…. So, let’s talk about exactly why you’re here. I heard from the talks within the kingdom that you’re planning to revive your father from the dead. I find this mission to sound truly noble, if a bit immature and infantile in design. Do you wish for me to help you?”

“Yes! Yes!” I said, suddenly. “I’ve spent my entire journey looking for you! I received a map, and everything…”

The wizard looked upon me, mysteriously. I looked at him, at the same time, too. Immediately, I recognized the wizard’s eyes. They were the same eyes that had been within my strange advisor, with his horrid emerald. The same advisor who had provided me with a map to the mountain.

What disturbed me most about this was that the wizard wasn’t acknowledging me as if we’d ever met before, nor acting as if he knew me. Instead, he treated me like I was a foreign stranger-as if I were just some wanderer, that had stumbled upon his cave by chance. I didn’t fully understand why or how he could’ve done so, especially after having met me before. When I looked at him, it became obvious who he was— so his attempts at trying to pretend otherwise only came across as creepy, and subtly disturbing.

“Why don’t you just admit that you were my advisor?” I asked him. “Why are you hiding the obvious from me…? I can see it all in your eyes. There’s no reason to keep holding the mystery,” I said. “The mystery is dead now. I can see right through the veil. So, why keep the veil on.

The wizard looked at me, with an anger.

“I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to,” he said. “Though, if I’ve ever met you before, maybe I wouldn’t even know it. I take on many forms, you see. This palace, here, is but one of many abodes that I’ve taken for myself. I spawn wherever I’m needed, and do whatever I need to do. I’m not something g that can be controlled or understood. Not even by myself. So, I’d prefer to not have any blame placed upon me, and instead would like to be given some appreciation for all of the things that I have provided you of— light, a place of protection, and a place of rest. I’m a force of nature, I’m afraid. I can’t be contained, or stopped. And, any attempt to do so will only contain or stop you. So, I’d appreciate it if you gave up your trivial accusations, and shouts of anger, and instead look upon me like the friend that I am…”

“You’re no friend…” I seethed. “You’re not anything. You’re just a lie. You’re just trying to fool me into thinking things that aren’t really true. And, it’s time that you gave it all up, and started looking at the world in a far clearer way. That’s the only way you’re ever going to accomplish anything, I’m afraid.”

He didn’t yell, or scoff at me, like I might’ve expected him to. In fact, he changed his face of superiority, and morphed it into one of sympathy.

“Yes…” he said. “I remember what it’s like to feel human. The frailty and weakness of it— the idea that everything might be a threat, and that there’s no possible way you can understand or overcome anything. There’s a lot to the world that can’t be understood, and even more that can’t be overcome. But, as a human, you feel that you can’t understand or overcome any of it. And, you really can’t… Mortality is the greatest vice, which ultimately stunts you from ever reaching the pinnacle of experience, and understanding. If only there were a way to overcome it… However, at the same time, I also am glad that there isn’t a way for you to overcome it. Because, without it, you wouldn’t be here, talking to me. We would all be in different places. The whole world would be different. The whole world wouldn’t even need magic, or learning, or anything that the world has… That’s the price that comes with understanding. Because, once you begin to understand things, you start to see that you can’t understand anything— and, that there’s no reason in doing anything, because there is nothing to understand…”

There was a morbidity to the wizard’s speech, but he laughed after saying it all the same. It was as if it all was a joke to him, and that he didn’t really care about the effect that his words had. To a degree, his words didn’t have an effect on me. They felt hollow, and empty— mostly nonsense. Though, there was also a part of the wizard that exposed a humanity. It was a humanity that I couldn’t ignore, and I felt strongly touched by— even amidst the fact that there were few things I could do, or that the wizard was really saying,

“What do you mean when you say that you remember being human?” I asked. “Are you a force of nature, or are you a human like you appear? I don’t understand…”

“I don’t understand either,” the wizard said— or, at least, what appeared to be a wizard. “Maybe there isn’t an answer to your question. I don’t have any clear memories in either direction. Those words must’ve just been a slip of my tongue.”

The wizard’s eyes darted back and forth, in a clear nervousness. However, something else that was clear was that the wizard wasn’t interested in answering any of my questions. Rather, it was far more interested in scolding me for small mistakes, and giving me orders for things that it clearly could’ve done one its own.

“Well, fine then…” I said. “But, I’m sure that you still want to know about the answer to your question— the question about whether or not we need your help, and what we need your help with. So, I’ll answer that question for you— we need your help to raise my father back from the dead. AS I’m sure you know, he recently died. My goal is to resurrect him, and the only way to do that, as far as I’m aware, is by your forms of magic. Can you help me do this, or am I going to be left on my own in this?”

“Oh, I can help you…” the wizard said, “but what you ask for isn’t something that I can actually do. You wish to help the world through my powers, and think that they can solve any problem. But, death is something that I’m incapable of hurdling. I’m afraid that it simply isn’t something that is so easy to hurdle, while it might initially seem to be. Magic has its limits, and death is one of them. Once something is dead, they’ve passed outside the hands of magic. At that point, it will require a magic of dark qualities to fully return them from the grave. And, that’s simply something that I’m not interested in undertaking.”

“Why not?” I asked. “If magic is capable of taking care of life, then what makes it dark magic? Isn’t all magic the same?”

“All magic is the same in the way that it must be done by a wizard, and that it requires a sort of price… But, dark magic requires the price of another human’s life. I’ve been tempted to dive into dark magic before, but it’s just so extreme… It’s not something that I feel that I should be doing.”

I looked into the wizard’s face, with my greatest face of superiority being worn upon my cvisage.

“You are going to use the dark magic, if it means saving my father’s life,” I said. “Don’t you understand just how important he is to me?”

“Yes, but…” the wizard said, with a squeamish awkwardness, “Dark magic requires somebody to die. Surely, as a noble prince, , you wouldn’t bother killing anybody just to revive your father!”

“I will do just that,” I said. “And, I will do much more…”

“But who,” The wizard asked. “If you’re going to do such a wretched thing to somebody, who will be the one to suffer it.”

I felt a strong discomfort at this point, when I realized that I had no real option. I looked over to Hemlock, who looked even more terrified than myself. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he was already too scared of the wizard, I’m sure that he would’ve turned and battled me over my decision. Thankfully though, he was afraid of the wizard, and I did have an upper hand over the situation.

“Me,” I said. “Now, start using your dark magic, or I’ll use it myself.

The wizard didn’t say a word in combat. In fact, it seems to agree with my decision. Personally, I felt slightly disgusted with the idea, myself. But, I also knew that it seemed to be my only option. For that, I was willing to do anything.

*

Susan was in the deep darkness for who knew how long. Within it, she couldn’t measure time. In fact, she could hardly tell where she was going. In spite of thoroughly searching on the map for where her location might be, she was hopelessly lost, due to the fact that she hadn’t tracked her position outside of the mountain first— the fact that she couldn’t track her position, at risk of death.

She felt a terror try to crawl into her, and as if supernatural forces here moving around her without her awareness. Though, she also knew that searching through the mountain was her only option, and that she wasn’t willing to try any other method. She’d inserted deep thought into everything that was going on around herself, and realized something that she’d long been trying to avoid— there was no way to get herself out of the mountain, without eventually regretting it. There was no way to go through the mountain, without regretting it. In spite of hating her traveling through the mountain, and in spite of the fact that she hated every minute of it, she also knew that it was completely necessary.

She thought back to how easier it might’ve been if she could’ve been able to carry a torch with her, and see all of her surroundings. Thankfully, however, she’d plotted everywhere that she’d gone on a piece of paper in her map. By using the burnt bit of one of her torches, she used the ash to write down an accurate trail of her travels.

There were sounds of moaning and groaning in the mountain wherever she went. In fact, she could hear avalanches occurring from above herself, and storms raging on with a great severity. She was still on the lower portion in the mountain, and in spite of all the distance that she’d made through it, she began to see just how much more distance she’d still need to cover. There were simply too many things for her to think on— too many things, which all held great and dire consequences. So, she didn’t bother pushing herself to go even deeper into the mountain than she already had. Rather, she kept on her steady path.

Though, the avalanches and storms raging above herself continued, and the short line on her map kept taunting her. She started to see just how many hours that she’d spent, and just how much of all of it had gone to waste. She started to realize just how much in danger that she really was— and how hard that it would be for her to get to anywhere, on her own.

Maybe I can’t get anywhere, she thought to herself. Maybe this is going to be a lot harder than it might seem to be.

Then, the roaring from outside of the mountain grew larger still. She had a sudden wish to run off, and return to her initial safe place that she’d come from. However, she had another wish too— a wish that, whatever the noise was, it really was an avalanche. Because, she was starting to recognize that it couldn’t have been an avalanche it all, or a storm, for that matter. It was coming closer to her, the longer that she thought on it. Moreover, she felt her worries steadily grip her harder. She was now so terrified that she didn’t know what to do.

Her eyes danced everywhere that she could, and she moved around in circles with all of the power vested within herself— she didn’t stop looking for the source of the noise until she felt that it couldn’t be found. However, even then she felt unsatisfied. She had no real sight. And, the only thing that she did have— hearing— was telling her that the threat was far too close for her to ignore.

She kept on feeling the need to run, but now knew that she couldn’t run— she no longer had that power within herself nor any power for that matter. She was trapped in her place— lost to the fact that she was so worried when the rumbling sound would strike, and take her by whatever force of nature it acted upon.

“What are you!?” she shouted to it. “If you’re going to attack and threaten me, why don’t you come and face me!”

It was at this moment, when the words slipped off of her tongue, that all of her senses finally left her— she was, at that point, lost to the world and reality. The moment before she’d went, she felt tehe vibrations of the rumbling strongly overtake her. Though, once they were gone, all that hs knew was that she was gone with it. Then, she knew nothing.

*

“Hello,” a voice said.

Susan looked around in a fright, before she finally reasoned that the voice was in her head.

“I must’ve hit a rock or something, and knocked myself out cold,” she said to herself. “the last thing that I remember is running through this cave, nonstop… After that, nothing… That stupid avalanche. It’s all of its fault.”

She paused to listen to her surroundings, and see if there were any hint of anything— any life. Any direction. Any sign that she was awake, and not caught within a dream.

It was only the latter that she was able to determine. Just by being able to question whether or not she was in a dream instantly wiped her suspicions away. However, there was still the remaining sliver of doubt in everything else.

Susan tried to move from her bed in the ground. It was at this point when she realized that there was far more going on than she’d initially thought. AS she tried pulling her arms up from the ground, and making her feet gain a grip on the ground, she found that she couldn’t move them. No matter how hard she tried, she found that she was stuck on the ground— something was binding her, and keeping her from moving. For a moment, she was worried that she might’ve been paralyzed, in a sleep. But, she was quickly reminded otherwise by the stinging pain that remained in her body, and on her wrists, from her attempts to break free from her bondages.

Fighting against the bondages at full force, she felt it steadily rub against her skin, and burn her. She wished to keep going anyway, but quickly realized that she couldn’t without risking an abundance of gouges in her skin. She knew that she was defeated— that she had nowhere to go.

“Let me out!” Susan finally said, resorting to the conclusion that she had no other choice. As she looked about, from any sign of anybody around her, she realized that she had a blindfold on her face. She hadn’t noticed it at the start, but it was becoming all too clear now— the initial chafing against her ears and forehead, along with the pressure around her eyes, had all come from a blindfold.

There was something else that she noticed. Her clothes felt completely dry, and all of her body no longer felt the terribly sickening chafing that had been a symptom of her wet clothes. There was a warmth around her too. Wherever she was, she was in a far better place from where she once had been. In fact, she felt rather comfortable— if there could’ve been a way for her to remove the bondages around her wrists and ankles, it probably would’ve been an ideal situation.

“Is anybody there?” Susan asked again. “I know that somebody is out there— there’s no use hiding from me! somebody stuck me here, and I’m going to find out who it was— your cowardice won’t get you anywhere!”

Eventually, after continuing on with her shouts for quite a while longer, she finally resolved that she was not making any headway, and that she’d have to change her approach if she could hope to take any effect. So, she kept her ears as open as she could, and studied for the slightest noises. This was all that she had that she could truest— it was all that eventually gave her any information.

At first, she could only hear slight sounds, like whistling of the wind. Though, it steadily became more and more clear, until her ears adjusted so that she was able to hear it all in its fullness.

“There you go again!” she heard a voice whisper, in anger. “You just had to wake up the prisoner! Thankfully, it’s going back to sleep now. But, do you know how hard this is going to be if you go pulling a stunt like that again!?”

“I was just joking…” said another voice, which was a lot softer, and had much more of a shakiness to it. “I thought that our sleeping potion would’ve kept her asleep for a lot longer than it did…”

“Well, we didn’t mix it right. Somebody forgot to mix in the extra reeds. Besides, we didn’t capture her on time either. If we had gotten her an hour later, and waited to set off the boulders— something we should’ve easily been able to do, if you hadn’t been so stupid—then we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, and we would’ve already had the fire burning at its highest temperature by now…”

“I’m sorry again… How many times do I have to tell you?”

“Until we’re eating, and this entire mess is all over with. I’ve had to deal with enough days without food at this point, and I’m not going to go on for another day. I’m sick of having to eat up the scraps of lost, malnourished wolves, who clearly have disease crawling all throughout them… You know, a dwarf like me shouldn’t have to be hunting for food. We should already have plenty of that, and simply have the time to do all that we wish in the mountain— like mining, and crafting... Don’t you remember mining, Romeos?”

“Yes, of course I remember… Stop treating me like I’m stupid. I just don’t know if this is all worth being so angry about.”

“Oh, it is. You’ve also lost us human feasting before, about three years ago… It was to that old coot, Bert— don’t you remember him. You just had to get in a conversation with him, and let him get the upper hand… Do you know how much easier things would’ve been if you’d just ignored him?”

“Yes, I know… You’ve told me that a dozen times before… I honestly don’t want to hear anymore of it.”

“Well, you’re going to have to hear it until you probe that you learned your lesson!”

The voices went on like this— bickering each other and circles, slowly raising the volume of their voices as they did. The longer that they progressed, the more and more they exposed about themselves. Susan was also abole to identify them better, too.

I remember reading something like this in a story once… Susan thought. I just have to find a way to outwit them.

However, no matter how much she thought about a way to escape, she couldn’t ignore the fact that they had her trying to be roasted over a fire— the fact that she had no other way out, except into the fire.

“Well, it appears that there are a lot of things that I could do...” Susan said. “and, most of them would result in me falling into the fire below me. So, how am I supposed to break free with only my mind, and wit?”

She tried running into the direction of where she’d heard the dwarfs bickering amongst each other. There was a part of her that wanted to talk to them. But then, she knew that it would result in nothing. There were simply too many risks.

She scowled to herself.

In every way, I’ve let myself be outwitted. I now have no way out of here… If I’d just been more careful and calculated in my steps through this mountain, I would’ve been able to avoid all of this... but no, I just had to trick myself into going deeper into the mountain without rest. And, now I’m dwarf food.

She felt the sudden terrifying visions of what might happen If she were to have become a victim of the dwarves. She also wondered about Joshua, and how he might’ve been able to evade his way through a wilderness like this. But, she knew that there was nothing that she could actually do for him— not while she was tied up. And so, she elected to ignored her fears in favor of making a difference.

Eventually, after minutes of long, hard thought, she finally came to the part of herm mind’s path of wondering where she recognized there was no other way out, but by speaking. They were, of course, trying to cook her— but, the longer that she went without acting, the more that she’d be cooked— until, the fire became so hot that she’d no longer have a window of acting within anymore.

She also had the other option of attempting to run away. But, even if she managed to escape, she’d have no sense of direction— especially not a sense of direction that matched these two.

She realized that, if she spoke to the dwarves, she might anger them to the point that they put her back to sleep. But, since she was hovering over the fire, she doubted that they’d be able to reach her. Moreover, there was also the hope that her voice would elicit some sort of help to come to her. And, of course, there was always the chance that the dwarves might change their minds, and decide to give her help on their own accord— not that this was something she found to be particularly engrossing of an idea.

“Somebody, help me!” she said, wincing in regret as she did so. She knew that, as she said these words, all of her other options slipped away.

After that, she tried repeating these words as much as she possibly could. She was unwilling to take the risk of having no way out, and becoming the victims of these nasty dwarfs. This was her only way— her only hope at escape now. And, she knew that she’d have to use it up to all of her advantage.

“I told you too tie her mouth in a gag!” one of the dwarfs said— the meaner of the two, from what Susan could tell. “This is what happens when you don’t follow all of the instructions! Now we’re stuck having to talk with our meal again!”

“I’m sorry…” the other dwarf said.

“Well, you say that an awful lot.”

After this their voices stopped. But, Susan didn’t stop her voice. She knew that, the longer she kept going, the longer her chance at life became.

“You’re honestly going to keep shouting at the top of your longs?” she heard on of the dwarfs say. “Please, stop.”

There were sounds of something leaping off the ground, only to fall back down again. Clearly, the dwarf was trying to jump up to her. Most likely to gag, rather than to strike a deal. But, Susan was willing to act on her own strengths and advantages as much as she could.

“Are you supposed to be a frog, or something?” she asked, with a sarcasm. “I wasn’t aware that you were so eager to eat me… but, I honestly don’t think that I’m the sort of thing frogs like you will find appetizing. I heard that you prefer pests— don’t you? I think that would suit you far better than a girl, all tied up. Also, I heard that the wolves were really good this time of year. All you’ll have to do is go outside, and go meet some of them.”

The dwarf growled.

“Romeos, what did I tell you about talking? Now look! The girl knows that we’re dwarfs, and that we’re planning on eating her!”

“I’m sorry sir… I don’t even remember talking about these things!”

“Quiet! Now I’m going to have to figure out what I’m supposed to do with her, and it’s all your fault. She’s too far up from the fire to start cooking anytime soon, and you annoyingly lost the potion that I gave you…”

“It was an accident,” Romeos said.

“Yes, well, you have a lot of those. And now, we’re both paying for it.”

Susan decide to break into the conversation.

“Well, you can at least try helping me out of here, right?”