Ch. 159 Before the Mountain

Chapter 159: Before the Mountain

Tessa refused the first route we proposed.

She refused the second more quickly.

By the third, she had taken the pencil from my hand.

“That slope holds snow.”

“There isn’t much yet.”

“Enough to fall on you.”

She drew a line farther east.

“We go through the birches. Slower, but there’s shelter.”

Eliza leaned over the map.

“And if the weather turns?”

Tessa marked a small square below the ruined crossing.

“Shepherd’s hut. Sound roof. Bad door.”

Eleanor, who had joined us at the word crossing, folded her arms.

“We can mend a door.”

“Yes,” Tessa said. “After we reach it.”

I decided to let the people familiar with mountains continue.

We were not taking the entire household.

That required saying aloud more than once.

Mary would remain at Greykeep with the records.

The Castellan would continue examining the final mark.

Eliza and Melody would come with us.

So would Tessa, Eleanor, and four people chosen for their ability to walk, carry equipment, and remain sensible when cold.

Aurelia listened while the arrangements were made.

Then she looked at me.

“I will come as far as the hut.”

“And the house?”

“We will decide after seeing what can be reached safely.”

Tessa nodded.

For the first time that morning, she appeared satisfied with something we had said.

The greater difficulty concerned what we might hear.

Aurelia explained it in the south sitting room.

No dreams.

No demonstration.

She sat opposite us with her hands folded, speaking carefully.

“Something can resemble a memory without being one.”

Melody leaned against the window frame.

“Can it read everything?”

“I don’t know what this working can reach now.”

“Then we assume more than we would like,” Eliza said.

“Yes.”

I looked at the arch and star copied on the page.

“What if it calls while we’re awake?”

“Tell someone.”

“And if it tells us not to?”

Aurelia met my eyes.

“Especially then.”

We agreed to stay within sight.

If the ground made that impossible, we would turn back or change the route.

Nobody would follow a voice alone.

Nobody would keep an encounter quiet because it seemed foolish afterward.

Eleanor rubbed her hands over her knees.

“Fine. But if I hear my grandmother telling me to put on another coat, I reserve the right to agree.”

Tessa nodded.

“That would be sensible.”

The room relaxed a little.

I was grateful.

We had begun discussing ghosts as though we were already in their company.

Later, Evelyn found me in our room.

I had taken a shirt from the chest and folded it three times without putting it in the bag.

She closed the door behind her.

“Caroline?”

I looked up.

Then nodded.

My wife sat beside me.

For a while, she said nothing.

“What if it knows her voice?” I asked.

Evelyn took the shirt from my hands.

“What would you want me to do?”

“Tell me it isn’t her.”

“Even if you argue?”

“Yes.”

“Even if you’re angry?”

I looked at her.

“Yes.”

She folded the shirt properly and placed it in the bag.

“Then I will.”

I told her things I had not thought about in years.

The way Caroline knocked on a door while opening it.

Her habit of moving something I was using and then insisting she had improved its location.

How eighteen months had apparently entitled her to speak as an authority on nearly every part of my life.

Evelyn smiled at that.

“She sounds exhausting.”

“She was.”

“You miss it.”

“Very much.”

My wife rested her head against my shoulder.

After a while, I said, “She would have liked you.”

Evelyn’s hand tightened around mine.

“I would have liked to meet her.”

I looked toward the nursery door.

“Yes.”

Aurelia found us there near evening.

She had come to ask whether we needed help packing.

I almost laughed.

Then I saw her face.

She knew what we had been discussing.

Not the words.

Enough.

“I should have spoken to you sooner,” she said.

“You told us what the place does.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

She sat in the chair by the hearth.

For a moment, she looked toward the nursery.

“When it first showed me my son, I wanted so badly for him to be there that I helped it.”

I waited.

“I supplied what it lacked. Remembered his smile when it had only given me the shape of his face.”

Evelyn sat beside her.

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“I know.”

Aurelia looked at me.

“But you should know that it may not need to make a perfect likeness.”

I thought about Caroline.

The knock on the door.

The missing shirt.

All the ordinary things I had just brought back into the room.

“What stopped you?” I asked.

Aurelia looked down at her hands.

“Sometimes nothing did.”

The answer hurt.

She did not soften it.

“Other times, something was wrong. Or I heard someone calling me from somewhere else. Eventually, I learned to wait before following.”

I nodded.

She reached across and touched my wrist.

“If it hurts, that does not mean you have failed.”

I looked at her.

She held my gaze until I believed she meant it.

We left two mornings later.

The sky was clear.

Tessa regarded that as a temporary condition rather than a promise.

The twins remained with Helena, Garrick, and the nurse.

Carol objected when Evelyn passed her over.

My wife kissed her twice.

Garrick was distracted by his grandfather’s belt.

I envied him.

Aurelia stood beside the cradles for a little while.

Then she bent and kissed each child.

When she joined us downstairs, her bag was already packed.

The second pair of stockings had come too.

Northwatch smelled of smoke and cold stone.

Merrow received us in a room that had been heated thoroughly enough to persuade me that perhaps we should remain there.

He examined Tessa’s route.

Then Eliza’s provisions.

Then me.

“You’ll have decent weather for the lower road.”

“And the upper?”

He looked at Tessa.

She lifted one shoulder.

“We’ll ask it when we get there.”

Merrow seemed to accept this as a professional answer.

He gave us two local men to carry supplies as far as the hut and return with word.

One had a sister who used the summer pastures.

The other knew how to repair a door.

Eleanor approved of him immediately.

The first day’s walking was almost pleasant.

Bare branches rattled above us.

The path followed a stream whose edges had begun to freeze.

Aurelia walked between Evelyn and me.

She did not need our invitation constantly now, though she remained easier to reach when close.

At midday, she stopped beside a flat stone.

“I’m going to rest.”

Tessa looked at the sky.

“We can spare a little while.”

Aurelia smiled.

“I meant elsewhere.”

She touched our hands.

Then withdrew.

Tessa stared at the empty place.

After a moment, she looked at me.

“Does she need the blanket carried?”

“Yes.”

“Right.”

She adjusted her pack and continued up the path.

We called Aurelia back at the hut.

By then, the door had justified its reputation.

One hinge had pulled loose.

The lower boards had warped.

Wind entered with the confidence of an invited guest.

Eleanor stood before it with the local carpenter.

Between them, they expressed several opinions of the person who had last repaired it.

I fetched tools.

Melody cleared old leaves from the hearth.

Evelyn helped Tessa examine the stored wood.

Eliza walked the ground outside with the two local men.

By dusk, the door shut.

The fire burned.

The hut smelled of smoke, broth, and damp wool.

Aurelia appeared beside the hearth and looked around.

“This is rather nice.”

Eleanor snorted.

“It is now.”

There were too many of us for comfort.

There was enough room for sleep.

Eliza arranged watches.

Tessa pointed out the spring behind the hut and the stretch of ground that became slippery after dark.

Nobody argued.

We ate from bowls balanced on our knees.

For a while, conversation concerned feet.

Then socks.

Then the astonishing weight of equipment that had seemed modest on a table.

I looked at Eleanor’s pack.

She caught me.

“Those are necessary.”

“I hadn’t said anything.”

“You looked.”

Melody grinned into her broth.

The local men left in the morning with our message.

We were safely at the hut.

The lower route remained open.

We would inspect the approach and return before dark.

Tessa watched them disappear among the birches.

Then turned uphill.

“Now we see whether the mountain agrees.”

The path narrowed beyond the spring.

Snow lay in shaded hollows.

At one bend, we found the remains of the old bridge.

Two stone ends faced one another across the water.

Between them was air.

I stopped.

The timbers Greykeep had once promised would have mattered here.

Eleanor examined the nearer abutment.

“Good work.”

“Can it be repaired?”

“Yes.”

She looked across the gap.

“Though not with what I brought.”

I nodded.

For now, we followed Tessa toward the foot crossing.

We reached a shoulder of the hill before noon.

The trees thinned.

Above us, the ridge stood white against the sky.

The wayhouse lay beneath it.

Three pillars.

A fourth leaning.

A broken roof.

Even at that distance, I recognized the gallery from Tessa’s description.

Aurelia stopped beside me.

Her face had gone still.

“There,” she said.

I looked toward the open spaces between the pillars.

Nothing moved.

Then a door shut.

I heard it clearly.

Wood against a frame.

A familiar quick knock immediately afterward.

My stomach tightened.

There was no door visible in the ruin.

Evelyn turned toward me.

“Uriah?”

I realized I had taken a step.

Only one.

Enough.

“I heard something.”

“What?”

I swallowed.

“A knock.”

My wife took my hand.

Around us, everyone had stopped.

Tessa looked at the house.

“I heard nothing.”

“Neither did I,” Melody said.

Aurelia watched me.

I could not read her expression.

“I’m staying here,” I said.

It felt important to say it aloud.

We withdrew behind the shoulder of the hill.

The ruin disappeared from view.

Eliza waited until everyone was together.

“What else?”

I shook my head.

“Only the knock.”

“Anyone else?”

One of the guards had heard a man calling his childhood name.

Eleanor had smelled her grandmother’s kitchen.

She looked angry about it.

Not frightened.

Angry.

Aurelia said nothing until Evelyn asked her directly.

Then she looked toward the ridge.

“I heard him laughing.”

The wind moved across the snow.

Nobody tried to tell her that should make it easier.

Tessa crouched and marked the place on her map.

“We go back.”

I looked toward the hidden ruin.

Every part of me wanted to see it again.

That was enough to make me distrust the desire.

“Yes,” I said.

Eliza looked at me once.

Then gave the order.

We returned to the hut while the light remained good.

That evening, we described what had happened.

The point on the path.

The distance.

Who heard what.

Who had heard nothing.

Evelyn wrote while I spoke.

When she finished, she laid down the pen.

“No one went alone.”

I looked around the small room.

Wet boots stood near the hearth.

Eleanor was repairing a strap.

Aurelia sat with her blanket over her knees.

Melody had begun arguing with Tessa about how much onion belonged in the pot.

We had reached the place.

It had called.

We had come back together.

For that night, I let it be enough.

Before sleeping, I sat beside Aurelia.

She watched the fire.

After a while, she said, “It used the right laugh.”

I looked at her.

“The one he had when he knew he was doing something he shouldn’t.”

I thought of a knock against a door that was already opening.

“Yes,” I said.

We sat without speaking.

Then Evelyn came over with two cups and settled beside us.

Outside, snow began tapping softly against the repaired door.

Nobody got up to answer it.