You might not have a reason to drink it for much longer, a sinister voice inside my head whispers, but I push it out.
Eventually, we make it to what appears to be the end of the path—until Victor points upward.
“We’ll have to scramble,” he says.
“Wendy, do you think you can handle that?” asks Maddox.
As clumsy as I’ve been walking up the mountain, as soon as I’ve placed my hands on the cool rock, I feel the surety return to my muscles, to my bones.
I don’t answer. I simply climb.
The climb is arduous,but the aching in my muscles I welcome. The blissful soreness of feeling useful again.
I’m halfway up when, from above, I hear a scream.
At first, I think it’s Charlie, and panic causes my muscles to seize. I glance upward but see nothing except for the overhang of the cliff and the moon shining through the speckled clouds. It takes me a moment to remember that Charlie is below me.
I glance down just to check again that she’s there. She’s still climbing up the cliffside, not too terribly far behind me. Below her the ground grows further and further away as my vision tunnels.
Another scream—this time, one belonging to Maddox. Except I’m sure that it’s not Maddox, because I just saw him on my right.
“Did you hear that?” I ask Maddox and Charlie.
“Hear what?” they practically yell back over the howling wind that has just started to pick up.
I glance to my left. Victor’s eyes are wide, his face ghost-white.
So you heard it too,my eyes say, though my mouth does not have to.
“There’s something up there,” I shout, though I’m not sure Charlie can hear me as she grunts down below, not as adept at climbing as I am.
“What kind of something?” says Maddox. “I don’t like the sound of something.”
I turn to Victor, still clinging to the wall. He shakes his head, breathing heavily.
“Do you want to turn back?” Maddox asks.
“No. No,” I say. There’s nothing down there for me except a dead husband.
We keep climbing.
Maddox reaches the overhang first, Victor next. Charlie and I take up the rear, and I’m the third to reach the top. Maddox and Victor are already hanging over the edge, arms outstretched, ready to pull me up.
I swing my arm up and over. Maddox clutches it and yanks. My knees hit the solid ground just in time to hear another scream.
Charlie’s—again.
Except this time, instead of coming from the cliff, it’s coming from down below, where Charlie was just behind me.
“Charlie, no!” I say, whipping around.
“I hear it!” Maddox yells, then lunges over the side, his belly on the ground.
I have to scramble over to see what’s happening down below. Charlie is hanging from Maddox’s arm, her feet having slipped.
“Something swiped at me!” she yells, half-screaming.
Maddox grunts, the muscles in his back flexing as Charlie tries to climb up his arm, but the ground at the edge of the cliff is slick, and he starts to slip.
