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I know I am not to blame.
Am I not to blame?
In the Race, there are no friends. In the Race, there is no family.
I have known this my whole life. It was cemented the day my parents left me on my own.
I thought I was strong enough to follow that missive they gave me so long ago.
But I wasn’t.
Max was my friend.
Max was my family.
And because I was not a good friend to her, I was not a good family member to her, I let her go. And she died.
Maybe my gut is right. This is my fault.
I look around the small, level ground of rocks we still stand on, unsure what to do now. My eyes land on my dust-covered boots, rooted to the same spot they were when Max left.
We need to continue looking for the elevator. If we don’t find it, Max died because I could not let a myth from my past go.
The sun continues to beat down on the back of my neck. I tap my fingers along my thighs, counting quietly to myself. When I was small, my father would do it for me, using counting to help me align my breathing with my brain.
When the thunderstorm in my brain pulls out, I drop my hands loosely by my side and finally step toward Tulip.
I pull the Witch’s Ladder from my pocket, wrapping it loosely around my fist. My body comes alive with the touch, the Ladder calming the storm of grief that thrashes against my walls. The hum that climbs my limbs is familiar and soothing, and I briefly wish for the shadow snakes to come and wrap around my arms for comfort. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, I point towards the slowly sloping path up the mountain. “We go this way.”
And so we go, leaving Max’s body on the ground below us to become one with the earth.
After several long minutes of walking in silence, the Ladder warms, almost burning my skin. I quickly drop it on the dirt where I stand with a yelp. Tulip whirls towards me, panic and paranoia lacing her face. “Lola, what’s wrong?”
I shake the pain from my hand and glance at my skin. It’s dirty but not red from the heat. “The Ladder … it burned me.” Her eyes brighten, “We must be close then, right?” Hope fills my chest. I cast my eyes across the sparse landscape, looking for anything amiss. The forest lay below us, shadows and branches holding our grief and the bodies of those we love.
“What is an elevator?” Tulip suddenly asks.
I pause. “I don’t think I know.”
We stare at each other, mirroring expressions of incredulity on our faces. At once, we both burst into hysterical laughter. We have not had the chance to even begin to process our grief, and it is bubbling up in laughter, an inappropriate emotion that somehow feels right. “We’re looking for it and don’t even know what it is?” I gasp out, bending over with my hands on my knees, hardly able to catch my breath from laughing so hard.
“I thought you knew!” Tulip responds, tears springing from her eyes at the force of her laughs.
I shake my head, inhaling deeply to calm my body. “I never even thought to ask. It felt so foreign, like just some sort of magic. I cannot believe we don’t know what we’re looking for.” The idea is ludicrous. Max died for something we do not know if we will recognize when we find it.
I shake my head as Tulip comes down from her hysteria and move to grab the Witch’s Ladder.
It’s gone.
I sweep my eyes across the rock face, trying to find it. “Tulip, where’s the Ladder?”
Confusion flickers across her face, followed swiftly by fear. “We lost it? How will we find the elevator now?” I drop to my knees, moving rocks and debris to search. I see a flash of black down the mountain face several feet below us. There’s a small platform on an outcropping of rocks.
“Is that it?” I ask, pointing down to the darkened section of rock.
Tulip scrunches her nose, squinting to see. “I can’t be sure.”
Without thinking, I swing my legs down and drop to the platform. The landing rattles my bones, my teeth knocking together, the force leaving me tasting copper.
