Owning Mountaintop was supposed to bring him a new level of satisfaction. It was the accomplishment meant to appease his ambition and soothe any lingering disappointment in the direction of his life post-injury.
If Raven stayed, Silas didn’t know if there was a space for him here. And if that were true, where the hell would he go?
ChapterTwenty
Raven had spenther weekend holed up in her motel room trying to figure out how to break the news that she was leaving Cedar Lake. It was days after she’d made the decision, but she’d yet to inform Silas and the rest of the Mountaintop team.
She was self-aware enough to know she was stalling to avoid the moment when she would witness Silas’s face light up at the thought of her departure.
To combat complacency and force herself to finally reveal the news, Raven had approached Silas that morning and told him she needed to speak with him at the end of the day.
Now she was accountable. There was no way to back out of it. Unless she died. Which was a possibility since soon she’d be rappelling down a twenty-foot cliff along with eight other newbies in Halo’s Rappelling 101 class.
“You will be defying gravity today,” Halo said to the group, pacing as if she were a sergeant. “The rope that will help you achieve this can hold up to three thousand pounds. Trust in it.”
There was a swirl of excitement and nerves among participants as Halo’s daughter, who’d been put in charge of carrying the first aid kit and helping her mom facilitate the lesson, handed out the gear.
“Do we really need to wear helmets?” someone asked.
“No,” Halo said bluntly. “As long as you’re okay with cracking your skull against the rock formation.”
And that was enough for the tourist to plop the protective headwear on her head and fasten it tightly.
Throughout Halo’s introduction and lesson, Raven went back and forth on whether to participate or sit out. She made her final decision after watching Libby, only fifteen, and a man in his sixties descend the steep slope. How could she not at least attempt it?
When Halo approached Raven to check the placement of her harness and carabiners, the older woman must’ve seen Raven eyeing the trees the rope was being anchored to and said, “They’re healthy. Green leaves, deep roots, strong bark. You’re safe.”
She sounded so assured that it worked to allay Raven’s nerves. That didn’t mean when it was her turn, she didn’t shake while standing backwards at the cliff’s edge.
“Lean back,” Halo said.
Fighting against all human instinct, Raven, while holding her breath, took a step. Her hold around the rope tightened as she felt herself drop. Her back now faced the forest ground below.
However, she was still in suspension, so she started moving her feet over the perpendicular surface, not allowing her mind to ruminate too long on the activity she was participating in. The harness cut into her body, but she appreciated the discomfort because it let her know she was being supported.
“That’s it. Go as slow as you need to,” Halo said from above. Her voice had grown more distant, giving Raven another indication that she was moving and not floating in place.
Halfway, she started to embrace the feeling of being above the earth. She still didn’t look down or loosen her grip, but she decided to take stock of the moment.
Amongst the clouds and the treetops, Raven felt sort of free, and for the remainder of her journey to solid ground, all her worries momentarily fell away.
“You did it!” a woman said at the bottom, and Raven hugged the woman whose name she didn’t know.
She rappelled two more times with increasing confidence every turn. It left her invigorated, and at the end of class, the daunting parts of her life, namely the conversation she was about to have with Silas, didn't seem so bad.
She took the back of the group on the walk to the cabin, in step with Libby who’d returned to her phone.
“Crap,” the teen said, stopping in her tracks. “I forgot the first aid kit at the site.”
“Keep going. I’ll go grab it,” Raven said, turning back to speed-walk the few minutes to the cliff. She spotted the bright red kit leaning against a tree long before she’d reached it.
Once she’d slung the bag across her shoulder, Raven set on the straightforward path out of the woods. But when, out of habit, she reached for her citrine pendant and didn’t find it around her neck, she stopped.
Raven palmed her collarbone, neck, and chest, then looked down at her clothes, hoping to find the necklace caught on her jeans or the pocket of her lightweight jacket. She searched the ground around her for the amber stone, shoving aside the dirt and leaves with the toe of her boot.
She’d definitely put it on that morning. Or had she? She’d been a bit distracted the last few days. Maybe she was misremembering one of the other times she’d worn it. No, she’d been playing with it that morning while on hold with the electrical company.
But there was no way, if she did lose her necklace out here, that she’d spot it amidst similarly colored foliage. It wasn’t an heirloom, at least. She’d bought the necklace in a store in New Orleans years ago; she’d get another.
