-One- Raising his beer glass to his lips, Torren thinks, there is no bottom, and in his head he dives. He sits in the corner, guitar on one knee, head hanging low to watch his fingers hover over the strings. He is careful that the instrument makes no sound, not because he is afraid the music will be bad, but because today he does not know where these stranger’s hands will take it. Like watching a puppet show, he thinks. To see his fingers move but have no control over them, though he knows that the music is his. Was his. The past tense darts swift as a bird through his mind, and he almost says the word out loud. Torren feels the bubbles rise in his throat, the prick of tears behind the eyes. He remembers how Merideth had poked fun at this when they first met, telling him he looked like a man who couldn’t handle his booze. Booze. The word sounded strange falling from her lips. Still, listening to her speak that night, he had told himself that her words were something he was willing to get used to. And then he had laughed, not because she was funny, but because she was beautiful and he hadn’t known what else to say. Later, he would forget that he had ever thought her speech strange, or even interesting. He would think, eventually, people just stopped noticing these little things, even though people changed every day. Still, there were moments when the unfamiliarity and the joy of that night would return to memory, like a flash of cold water. Like, Merideth had said, when he tried to explain the feeling, pulling out to sea and watching the lighthouse’s revolving beacon as it slowly shrinks behind you. A whisper, a sigh. The sound of chairs scraping uneven ground. At the bar he continues to stare at the strings, forming the music in his mind. But it is distorted even within him, the notes forming syllables, the melody bending itself into one drawn out sigh. “Are you going to play that thing or just look at it?” the keeper of the inn says, not unkindly, his voice echoing emptily against the barroom walls. Had it been empty to begin with? The keeper pours Torren another beer he does not want, but at least the cold feels good settling into his stomach. He swallows, nodding his thanks, but as the man nods at his instrument− Go on− Torren’s own smile is mirthful and strained. “I’m afraid the music escapes me,” he says, leaning the guitar on the wall by his chair. “Come on. Next beer’s on me.” He hears once again the scrape of wood on ground, the keeper sitting himself across the table and gulping down his beer. “Cat got your tongue?” Torren feels the room melt over him like a closing fist. Cat got your tongue? It sounded like something Merideth would say. One night, he had explained to her that he simply preferred not to speak when he felt like there was nothing to say. “That must be kind of lonely,” she had replied, placing a cool hand on the back of his neck. Not anymore, he thought, but before he could say this out loud she had kissed him and the words melted away. That was the third night she had slept in his bed. Back then, when he was still getting used to brushing against someone in the middle of the night, he would try to picture the rest of his life with or without her. The promise of all the days they would spent together stretched out before him− it was something he wanted, something that simply made sense. And yet knowing that, the reality of one of them leaving filled the gaps between what could and would be. The future is easy, he thought. The past, too. But the moments in between were what sent a man falling. He remembers, towards the end, singing these thoughts to her as she lay in bed, the cancer eating away at her like a jealous lover. She’s mine, he could hear it say. Its voice had drowned out even his own music, and to this day it was all he could hear when he played. Mine. The sound of her every labored breath. Mine. Her heartbeat, fluttering, a bird struggling to take flight. Mine. Finally, Torren looks up at the keeper’s face for the first time. It is a young face, younger than the sound of his voice, his eyes so bright they make Torren feel like the victim of some cruel joke. “I need to go,” he says. He finishes his beer and rises from his seat. “Just one song?” “I said I can’t.” He picks up his guitar, but the keeper rises as well, taking his glass to the window where heavy red curtains are drawn. Everything is dark and crimson. Torren feels the darkness and the beer weighing him down, his breath coming in labored bursts. The place feels like a vacuum. But the keeper tugs on the drawstring and like static electricity, warm sunlight charges every inch of the room. Torren blinks back tears; his lungs and head are still heavy, but as his eyes adjust he feels as though a bed of flowers is blossoming inside him. Outside, white peaks reflect sunlight into the room tenfold, the sky is crisp and blue, and rising up and up past the edge of the window frame is the mountain range beyond. His skin buzzes, made of paper. Such a strange place, this inn, he thinks, to stand so stubbornly at the foot of this mountain! A laugh escapes Torren. Just like Merideth. She was always such a stubborn thing. Torren drops his guitar now, moving toward the window. When Merideth left him, it seemed less like he could never be happy again, more that he had somehow forgotten what happiness was altogether. Her death had been like a black hole, absorbing all of what was and distorting it into what might have been. Yet now, here he is, the smile still on his lips, and suddenly he thinks, Perhaps we wouldn’t have even made it that far. Perhaps, (though he knows it is untrue) I would have been the first to leave. There was just no time for them to find out. He imagines himself growing weary of her, her needing him. Weary of the way she always said what was on her mind no matter how hurtful it could be. Often, Torren remembers, he had found himself bending to her will just to avoid another argument. His time had been so consumed by her that he could find not even a moment, it seemed, to regain his sanity. Truly, he thought, it was enough to make a man insane. Now the keeper lifts his glass at the window. He is smiling too. “Do you see that peak?” he says. “Over there, where the sun hits? My father would tell me stories of a woman who lived on that peak, the most beautiful woman, untouched by time, or weather, or earthly sorrows. Born the day man discovered his compulsion to create. He said long ago, princes and painters, knights and musicians would brave those peaks just to catch one glimpse of her face, of her golden hair. And as you know, some of the greatest artists of the past have come from this place. Ah, coincidence, probably. But it was such a lovely story that I still look out this window every day, hoping.” The keeper sighed so deeply at this that Torren was afraid he would start weeping. Instead he picks the guitar up from where it has fallen, places the smooth leather handle in Torren’s hand. “And why am I telling you this?” he said, “Perhaps I just needed an excuse to talk to someone. Perhaps I’ve gone mad. It gets lonely, you know, out here in these mountains.” He winks. “Perhaps a muse is what you need to get some music out of those bones.” Torren looks out the window one last time. He traces the outline of the mountain with his finger; his eyes widen as he presses his face against the window. “Did you see that?” “See what?” “Over there, right by the peak. I… I thought I saw something move.” “I don’t see anything,” the keeper replies. “Then again, these hands were made for scrubbing tables. I have nothing to offer Her.” -Two- Torren is on his knees. Forehead pressed to the frozen ground, he can only sense the parts of him that are on fire. His lungs, for one. His back. His shaking legs. He has climbed high enough that the trees have begun to thin, that the thinness of the air itself falls sharp on his tongue. How much longer until nightfall? He wishes only to see the stars, to feel each pinprick of light on his skin as the mountain sings him to sleep, but the loudest noise seems to be the beating of his own heart. He closes his eyes, and pictures the moon’s long journey across the sky, sees Merideth tracing its path with a pale, outstretched hand. “Do you see?” she says in his mind. It is spring, and they are in his bedroom. “It’s closer to the clock tower than it was before.” He saw. And he had told her how, as a child, he would cup the moon in his palm and pretend to feel its weight in his hand. She had told him about her family, about her mother who had left them in the middle of the night while she and her father slept. “In the morning,” she had said, “Seeing his face when he realized she had finally left for good, I swore that I would never walk out on anyone the way she did. Ever. Not like that.” Torren had taken her into his arms that night, and in his mind had sworn the same. How, in that moment, could he have known what would become of them? Of her? How could he have been so naïve? He opens his eyes now and plants one foot on the ground. Then the other. The ache in his chest makes him stronger. Hours earlier, he had walked back to the inn, armed only with his pack and his warmest coat. He had hoped the innkeeper would be there to… to what? Wish him well? Give him some sort of blessing? His guitar, strapped to his pack, had weighed heavy on his shoulders, enough that upon reaching the inn he began to doubt whether it was a good idea to take it with him. He thought the innkeeper would watch over it until he returned, but the door had been locked. The curtains, so heavy and dark, were drawn once again, and would not yield one glimpse of the inside no matter how hard Torren looked. The bar was closed. Perhaps it was fate, he thought. He had wanted his guitar with him for a reason. He had looked up at the mountain then, at the journey ahead of him. He watched as a raven swooped over the lowest trees to land on the roof of the tavern. “Say nevermore,” he said, but it simply cocked its head and stared at him, challenging, until he walked away. Now kneeling on the mountain soil, there is a flutter of movement as another raven perches itself on a tree branch above him, and cocks its head once more. “Nevermore,” he caws, and laughs again−a shaky, startled sound− the strain of it making him dizzy. “Doesn’t that joke ever get old?” the raven says. With a cry, Torren jumps back, scrambling on his hands and knees, until he falls face-first into the cold ground. He picks himself up only to stumble again, waving his arms at the wretched thing, but the bird does not follow him. “Demon!” he cries. “Foul creature!” “Pipe down,” is the bird’s reply. Still backing away −this time on his feet− Torren stares the raven down. “If you have come to test me, know that I am determined to reach that peak. Nothing you say or do will be enough to stop me!” Its answering caw is more of a cackle. Could it hear the doubt in Torren’s voice? Because he knows, and perhaps so did the raven, that the right word from its wicked beak would be enough to send him running. The bird ruffles its feathers, its body slick as an oil spill, but even as he scrambles away from the thing Torren knows it is too late to turn back. He feels the pull of the mountain peak, the weight of it settling into his bones not with hope, but resignation. The fact that this creature was here to frighten him, to scare him away− it could only mean that there truly was something worthwhile waiting for him at the peak. What else could it be? If this wicked creature is here to torment me, Torren thinks, so be it. And if it was an omen of death? Perhaps even better. “Beware,” it says. Its voice is high and warm− honey on the tongue. The sound makes Torren shudder and smirk at the same time. “I am not afraid of you.” But the raven shakes its head. “She waits in the darkness. Beware.” The creature spreads its wings and takes flight. Torren looks up at the sky but sees nothing but a vast landscape of blue and white. A cool breeze tugs at his hair, urging him forward. -Three- Inevitability is no motivator, he thinks, but fear is, and now threat of the raven’s return pushes him faster and further up the mountain. Fatigue has left his body only to be replaced by adrenaline, a desire to reach the end of his journey before he is permanently paralyzed by his own fear. He hopes that he can outrun it. But the sun sets, and as the chill of the air sinks into his bones, the entire landscape melts into one gray blur. Even his fear will not allow him to see in the dark. He finds a cave in which to rest for the night, to protect him from the wind. Closing his eyes, he can hear it now− the mountain’s heavy sigh into sleep, growing louder with the setting sun. Torren lights a fire but the warmth does nothing to disperse the chill that has settled, it seems, into his soul. He shuts his eyes tighter. He huddles close to the fire, and imagines a wolf standing at the mouth of the cave, howling at the moon, waiting for him. Eventually he believes he is able to fall asleep. But fatigue has thinned the boundaries between dreams and waking and he begins to hear voices, see shapes dart in and out of the corners of his vision. At his back he feels the cold ground, the rough cloth of his pack against his cheek, but he is also walking, traveling deeper into the cave which stretches on and on into darkness. A woman is calling his name. She whispers, Torren, Torren, and each syllable is like a hand clutching his heart, pulling him forward. Miles away, he mumbles in his sleep, turns over to his side. He sees a figure and moves closer until he is but an arm’s length away. It is a woman. Her back is to him, and she is shivering. “Such a beautiful night,” she says. She bows her head, but does not turn to look at him. “A beautiful night to be trapped in this dark, wretched place.” Her voice is made of echoes bouncing into and off each other. “Come outside,” Torren replies. But as he places a hand on her cold shoulder he realizes she is made of snow− he can feel her crumbling beneath his fingers. He backs away. “If I leave, the wind will blow me away, and the earth will forget my name. Only here is safe.” He feels pieces of her melting against the heat of his palm. “How lonely it is here. How cold.” There is something in the way she says this that makes the cave seem suddenly so small. Torren recoils from the woman but ice has grown around his feet, pinning them to the ground, and in the quickening of his breath he realizes the woman herself has not breathed at all. “Do not be afraid,” she whispers. “Show me your face,” he replies. The woman turns, and then Torren is truly frozen, for the figure that stands before him is Merideth. Paler, yes. But wasn’t paleness to be expected of a woman so freshly dead? The sour stench, the melting flesh: all that would come later, though the cancer had already so rotted her from the inside. “Don’t leave me here alone, Torren. Not again.” The words are like a knife through his heart. Even now, plagued with the mental image of her blackened bones and decaying body beneath that gauzy dress, Torren cannot deny that she is beautiful. A single tear rests on the corner of her eye, and it makes his heart ache for the beauty of her. He reaches out to it, but the steam rising from his lips makes him stop. She knew, he thinks, and as she raises her hands to him in supplication it is his turn to weep. I abandoned her and she knew. Torren can feel his mind breaking, the mountain and his own body tearing at him from all sides, but he cannot will himself to look away. The look on her face now is the same as the night he left her. It is like watching her die all over again. No, he thinks. It is worse than that. “Merideth,” he says now. “What have I done?” That look. The last look she ever gave him, like watching earth crumble in a drought. Because that was what it was, Torren knows. An absence, a lacking. He had withdrawn from her when she needed him most, out of fear, and selfishness, and what it had done was worse than anything her own body could do to her. So what if he had stayed by her side every night? So what if he had held her hand? Months before she died he was already gone, silently hating her, blaming her for all of it. He never asked to love someone so weak. He never asked to be needed. When he had looked at her, all he saw was sickness, and sadness− a problem that could not be solved, and it only made him angry. So what if they spent days together without saying a word, recoiling from each other’s touch? What use was he to her? What did it matter? That night, at the door, when he told her he would return by morning, he almost didn’t mean it. He had gone out for a walk, and then had found himself at the bar, thinking, It would be so easy to just go. The bar had a stage and an empty set to fill and Torren had played his guitar all night, songs about freedom and betrayal and sorrow and anger. This was all he needed. His freedom, and the music itself that was his muse, and together they would make it somewhere else. He had left her and he was happy. He had left and it was almost for good, and if it were only this perhaps he could forgive himself. But the thing that disgusted him most, the thing he could never forget about the moment he came home and found himself unable to wake Merideth from her sleep… that was the moment he thought she was dead. And he had been relieved. “But I came back,” he chokes out now, guilt and fear rising in his throat, because suddenly he is sure that the reason she has brought him here is to take her revenge. “You didn’t know because you were asleep, but I came back. I was there every day. I came back. I never left.” “I came back, I came back, I came back,” he repeats, over and over, until his tongue is so heavy that he can only sink to the ground and shake. He is cold, and the cave is dark and so, so small. The walls close in, around his body and in his mind. Cool hands brush the back of his neck, and he feels Merideth at his side. “I forgive you,” she says. He can feel her breath on his skin, the weight of her hand on his shoulder. “Rest here.” His finds his feet unbound, and wearily, falls on his back to the damp cave floor. His eyes blink shut. He shivers, but Merideth’s dress drapes over him like thick, warm wool. “Sleep now.” He welcomes the heaviness of limbs, the slowing of his heartbeat. Sharp pebbles scrape his cheek but in a moment, that too, will be gone. His head fills with cotton. There is no bottom, he thinks, and prepares to dive. But there is a sound, separate from his own breath or the howling of the wind, that cuts through his half-sleep like a knife, like sharp talons. It grows louder, and louder, and louder, until finally he must open his eyes and acknowledge the truth of what it is: the flapping of wings. A shriek pierces through the fragile silence of the cave, echoing off the walls, flinging Torren from sleep and onto his aching feet. His head spins, vision going black, but even in his stupor he knows that the raven has returned to torment him; its every piercing cry is like a white hot flash through his skull. His stomach turns. Merideth? Where is Merideth? “Stay away from her, demon!” he says. In the dim, ghostly light (Where was it coming from? he suddenly asks himself) he sees the raven approaching, feels the brush of wings as it flies toward and past him. “Stop!” Talons bared, it moves straight for Merideth, scratching at her arms, her eyes; her arms flail wildly, flesh and claws making brutal contact but no blood spills from her porcelain skin. She utters a cry of her own, but her face has changed; the beautiful sweet Merideth is now a pale, emaciated thing. Torren is once again frozen in place. He stares at the nightmare creature, teeth yellow and sharp beneath snarling black lips, the skin of its face pulled taught over the sharp angles of its skull. Its cries turn into snarls, then howls. The raven cries, “Run!” And he does. -Four- He finds himself jolting awake next to the fire, back where he set up camp. It is growing light outside. The flames have gone out but he can see, just barely, his pack and guitar, which he throws over his shoulder as he breaks out of the cave. Merideth’s voice still rings in his head, even louder in waking than in his dream. Screaming in anger and longing: Torren! Torren! But it is not Merideth, he remembers, breath coming in hot bursts of steam in the morning air. Just some evil, lonely creature to whom he had almost fallen victim. The wind blows heavy on his neck and ears, adding to the assault, but there is light now and with it, the peak of the mountain only a few miles from where he stands. He begins to climb, so quickly it seems the ground itself is rumbling beneath his feet. But he can still feel the creature’s voice vibrating against his skin, its cold hands on his neck; so persistent is the memory, Torren feels that if he turned it would be there next to him; its wet, black lips pressed against the curve of his ear. He shakes the thought away. But the ground quakes and groans even louder, giving voice to the demons in his head, and suddenly, like lightning, a blizzard explodes around Torren and melts his vision to white. The sharp wind cuts his face and hands with bitter cold, sinister snow clinging to his legs like quicksand, like a drowning man, and it speaks to him in chilling tones like frost that has webbed its way into his bones: You cannot leave me again. “You’re not her!” he yells, arms swinging, feet struggling for traction. He is so close. The wind carries his voice away, the snow almost blinding, but he can just make out the first sliver of sun over the horizon, the jagged cliff edge that marks his destination. You killed me. You abandoned me. You left and it broke my heart. Oh, if only that had been all. But she could never know what he had done that night, and now she would never be able to forgive him. He had been so lonely, so angry; like a string pulled taught, ready to break. And then the woman at the bar had smiled at him. Was it she who noticed him, or the other way around? Did they meet by chance, or had he been eyeing her since he stepped into the bar? When he sang on stage, she had even winked at him with her dark brown eyes, her coy smile. When he played, she would tap her index finger against her collarbone and stare him down. Did he know that night that taking her hand would lead him to her bedroom? That at her touch−her warm, hungry touch− he would become less a man and more a vessel of his own desire? The answer was yes, he knew now. Just as he had known then that he was lying to himself to believe that all of it was out of his control. He had known what he was doing, but it was only afterwards, lying naked in bed with the woman who was not Merideth, that he had finally allowed himself to feel guilty. Even that was a betrayal− a forced guilt that somehow justified the pleasure that was a result of his sin. Was it worth it Torren? A few hours of naked skin and sweaty palms over the life of your beloved? Was it enough to justify her death? Snow is falling so heavy on Torren that it is suffocating him, drowning him miles above the ocean. Steps away, a gathering of rocks rises like a breakwater out of white waves, and he half-stumbles, half-crawls towards it, hoping to find some respite from the wind. His feet scramble against the slippery rock. He makes it over the largest boulder, but his legs are trembling, his pack is heavy− he slips and falls on his side. Torren gasps, feeling the sharp edge of something cut through his coat, then his skin, all the way through the flesh of his back. Torren opens his mouth to breathe, but the pain in his lungs is overwhelming. His eyes flutter as snowfall begins to cover him like a shallow footprint on muddy ground. He wonders, vaguely, without emotion, if this was what Merideth felt when she passed. After finding her asleep that night, listening to the doctors explain that she had slipped into a coma and it would only be a matter of time… it had taken three days for her to take her final breath. A peaceful passing. She knew what was coming, had signed all the papers, and the doctors had made no move to resuscitate her. To Torren however, it had been an agonizing process, like watching a ship slowly sink to the bottom of the ocean. Had she somehow, somewhere, felt herself sinking? Had she fought? Was there a moment (or would there ever be) when she felt there was no more reason to fight? Back then he could not, would not, believe it− that that was all there was to death, to simply ceasing to exist. It wasn’t fair. What he had lost… it was immeasurable, the possibilities her death had crushed were infinite. Just like that, all they could have been, all they were had abruptly, inevitably ceased to matter. He thinks, If you are the loser, does the fight still matter? Did it matter that what they had was corrupted, rendered meaningless, by him, even before the end of Merideth’s life? What was death really, compared to the black hole, the empty pit that humans created between one another? Where was there to go but down? Darkness begins to fill his vision, enveloping him like a cloak. He would laugh, but there is no more air in his lungs, and the cold has numbed the pains of suffocation. Warmth spreads from his chest through his body. Not even the wind reaches him now, except through a thin veil of cold that is slowly dissipating. He expects to feel the dig of beak or sharp talons against his skin, but there is only silence, and a dull throb which he knows will end soon enough. If she can forgive me, he thinks. Perhaps she will be there. Waiting for me. He pictures Merideth’s smile, the soft curve of her lips. Remembers their first kiss. He thinks, not of their future, or what might have been, but her, just as she was− the reckless, stubborn, vibrant thing. The first time she slept in his bed. The smell of her hair. The last time he told her he loved her. This time, when the cry of his tormenter draws near, he welcomes it. The raven’s caw is crisp, the flap of his wings a staccato beat that mocks his slowing heartbeat. It grows and grows, and then settles as a weight on his chest. But the raven is nowhere to be seen. Instead, the creature that brushes against his cheek is soft and warm; black hooves nudge at Torren’s shoulder, rolling him over. The pain of moving is immense, but it stirs something within Torren that urges him to focus. Lungs heaving, he pushes himself to his knees. A lone stag, its sleek hide black as an oil spill, kneels before him and bids him to rise. -Five- Though the wind is just as cold, just as sharp against his raw skin, to Torren the sensation is now liberating. Now, he was speeding, flying to that high mountain peak faster than ever before, and were it not for the ache in his lungs he would be crying out with joy. Leaping, the stag cheered for him. Torren wrapped his arms tighter around its neck, breath no longer an issue, the weight of his own body no longer his to bear. The blizzard had stopped, and now the sky is a clear, crisp blue− the color of a second chance. Torren’s lungs sear with pain; he doesn’t need to look down to know that his shirt is soaked with blood, but his mind is so far beyond that now that the pain itself seems buried deep within him− underground. The strap of his pack digs into his shoulder, his ribs; still he feels nothing. He breathes deeply and steadily. Over snow and sharp mountain rock they speed, higher and higher towards the horizon. The mountain rumbles and quakes, snow rising off the ground like reaching hands, but even when sharp spears of ice emerge from the ground, reaching out to tear at his clothes, his pack and his guitar, Torren simply laughs. He laughs, and with each breath, drops of blood mark his passing, and from each drop of blood jut forth another spear of ice. Not one touches his sun-drenched skin. Not one deters the black stag, who bounds forth so quickly that even the ice, soon enough, loses its ground and is left behind. The maiden of the mountain. Nobody could say what she looked like, sounded like, what color dress she wore. But Torren knew. Torren knew this like he knew the texture of his own skin. For who else could be more beautiful, more inspiring, more deserving of himself and his own blood than Merideth? The sun beats high and hot in the sky, a beacon to guide them home. -Six- It is only when they stop that Torren realizes he has lost consciousness. He wakes, weary but so, so alive, and pushes himself off the stag’s back. It nuzzles his sweating forehead. “Thanks,” he wheezes. “I said ‘beware,’” says the stag. Torren blinks, and suddenly in its place is the raven. “Shoulda’ listened.” He cannot help himself− a laugh escapes his shriveled body. The raven spreads its wings; the glare of the warm sun pulling rainbows from its oily feathers, until, like new skin, every trace of darkness has disappeared from its glowing body. As though it were made from flames itself, a new bird stands in its place, fiery red and gold and pulsing with a heat that almost burns Torren’s skin. A phoenix rising from the ashes. It circles over him, then stops to hover over his weary head, and from its beak rises a melody so beautiful, Torren is unable to even weep. Rest now, the bird’s song says, Rest and be at peace. The creature hums its final tune, flutters, and disappears into the sunrise. He sits at the very edge of the cliff, feet swinging, undeterred by the miles of empty air beneath him. For the first time, it is silent− a true silence filled with the voices of the air and earth. No sinister spirits to drown out sound or torment him. He cannot hear his own breath, or the beating of his heart; but those things only reminded Torren of his mortality− that was a fear he had now overcome. They were no use to him or the mountain, now. From his pack he takes out a small tape recorder, and then pulls his guitar over his lap. He presses record. Out of sight, a sound like the fluttering of wings, or perhaps the rustle of a dress, settles itself next to him. Torren does not turn, but closes his eyes to form music in his mind. Music that says, rest now. His fingers hover over the strings, and the mountain stills, holding its breath as he brushes the cold metal. -------