“Have a look at that. Pictures don’t do it justice, do they?”

“No, they certainly don’t.” Andie yanked one of the two sweaters that she was wearing up and over her head. She stuffed it into her pack as she stole a sidelong glance at her climbing guide. The kid was like a rooster strutting around the pen, all puffed up and full of himself. The fact that he was one of the top guides on the mountain circuit was what kept her agreeable, period.

“I will never forget my first time seeing Everest,” Dan Hanson went on, “Did I mention that I was only 23 at the time?”

“You might have mentioned it a time or two.” Andie unclipped her water bottle from her waistband and took a long drink. She let her eyes wander around their group, wondering why Dan had singled her out for his attention. Perhaps he’d already regaled everyone else of his accomplishments and it was just her turn to humor him.

“Well, I mean, word gets around, I guess.”

“It does.” Andie crossed her arms over her chest and waited for him to take the hint.

“Well, I should check on some of the others.” Dan smiled, tightly, and moved off.

Andie watched him smoothly integrate himself into another group’s conversation and breathed a sigh of relief. She was in no mood for pointless small talk. Hadn’t been, for a long, long time now.

A group of porters led a herd of yak through the crowd. The beasts were loaded down with three foot tall packs that swayed as they moved up the incline towards Everest base camp. Their clanging bells added to the cacophony that Andie found slightly maddening. She took a deep, centering breath and willed herself to wait patiently for the group to begin moving again.

************************************************************************

Andie groaned as she pulled her sleeping bag up over her ears. Outside, tents unzipped and conversations grew louder as base camp quickly came to life. She understood now that she’d made a mistake. She should have never come to the mountain, not in the state that she was in. It shouldn’t have mattered that climbing Everest was something that she had to do. It shouldn’t have mattered that she’d already paid the considerable fee already, either. None of it should have mattered. She should have stayed home. She should have waited until she had gotten to a better place with herself.

“Rise and shine, Andie,” Josh Sander’s chipper voice called, as he thumped the outside of her tent, “The good stuff goes fast.”

Inside her dark place, Andie silently agreed with him. It had been difficult getting used to being around so many people again. She was used to being in her own, self induced solitary confinement, and the daily struggle to pretend otherwise felt almost insurmountable. She slid out of the sleeping bag and quickly got ready for the day.

Inside the communal mess tent, Andie took a seat at the full table and served herself a bowl of oatmeal from the pot that sat in the center.

“Now that we’re all here,” Ed Chastain, their group leader, stood up and addressed them, “I implore you to eat quickly because there’s another team wanting to leave for camp 1 and it is my desire and intention to beat them to the punch.”

Cheers rang out, but Andie had to force the bite of lukewarm oatmeal down her dry throat. This was it, then. It was time to make a decision. She could turn back right now. She could say that she didn’t feel well. No one here would fault her. She’d already paid her non-refundable fees, and she would be one less body to haul up the mountain. But, she was strong, in the physical sense, at least. Just not mentally. No, definitely not, she thought, as she returned a half hearted high five to the man seated beside her. The intense drive that had brought her here, all the way from her home in Michigan, had disappeared and left her with nothing but a ghostly veil of wonderment at how she had gotten here at all. Here. In a tent with a group of strangers that were determined to conquer a mountain that could kill them.

************************************************************************

“Andie, isn’t it?”

Andie glanced behind her, surprised to see Shay Denning climbing on her heel. He was one of the young guns of the group. An accomplished climber, too, or so she had surmised from the countless conversations that he, and Dan, had about their amazing, radical feats, and blah, blah, blah.

“Yes.” she answered.

“I’m Shay …”

“Shay Denning. I know who you are.”

“This is your first climb?” he asked her, as he paused briefly in order to take his jacket off and tie it around his waist.

“I’ve climbed a handful of smaller ones, but, yes, this is my first major mountain.” She had paused to wait on him, though it irritated her.

“I figured as much. And listen, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re moving kind of slow. Do you have a headache? Or trouble breathing?”

Andie whipped her head around to look up the slope; the other climbers were already far ahead of them. She’d been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t realized just how far the others had surged ahead.

“Sorry,” she looked back down at Shay, “I guess I just wasn’t paying attention.”

“No worries, but I’d feel better if we could catch up with the team.”

Chastened, Andie climbed steadily until she hit a roadblock that was Ron Thurman. He was one of the older climbers on their team, and it only took a moment for her to note that he was in distress and breathing heavily. Dr. Ben, the team physician, was comforting him as she and Shay reached them.

“You need me to take him back down?” Shay asked, as they stood on a slant, their crampons digging into the blue tinted ice.

Ron shook his head, violently, in answer, “I can keep … going. I just need to … rest and ca … catch my … breath is all.”

“I’ll stay here with him for a bit. You two go on ahead.” Ben told them.

Andie and Shay unclipped their carabiners and moved to go around the men.

“I wouldn’t stay too much longer,” Shay warned, “It’s getting pretty damn warm and …”

At that moment, the mountain above them creaked eerily, and a wave of terrified cries echoed down to them.

A white plume was rising up into the crisp, blue sky, but that image was quickly replaced by an enormous serac of ice that was hurtling down the mountain straight towards them.

Unhooked from the fixed ropes, Andie and Shay both reacted by instinctively leaping to the side.

Another sound, this one closer and louder still, filled their ears as the ice beneath them gave way. Their bodies shot straight down into an abyss filled with shards of ice that felt like glass as they bounced and thudded into them before finally, blessedly, coming to a rest.

************************************************************************

When she came to, the first thing that Andie was aware of was a low, tortured moan that echoed up from somewhere below her. She opened her eyes slowly and looked around, momentarily awed by the stunning blue sky that was showing through an opening far, far above her. A sharp pain in her forehead made her reach up to touch it. Her fingers felt a goose egg sized bump that was so tender to the touch that she whimpered. Next, she became aware of a warm trickle that was running down her chin. Alarmed, she tired to sit up, but a searing bolt of pain shot through her thigh, forcing her to drop back down to her back until she could come to grips with it.

Another groan, full of intense agony, echoed up to her. Shay must have landed somewhere below her in the crevice. It was obvious that he was worse off than her, Andie realized, as she slowly tried to sit up again. Once she finally managed to sit upright, she remembered that she had a flashlight strapped to her belt, and she found it and switched it on. There was some light streaming in from high above, but the inside of the abyss was full of shadows that only the flashlight could illuminate. Her gasp of shock at seeing that she was sitting on an ice shelf only six or so feet wide, reverberated through the chamber. It was a miracle that she had come to rest there.

Another bolt of pain made Andie turn the flashlight on her leg. There was a rip in her pants and she could clearly see the long, deep, jagged wound in her upper thigh. It was bleeding in a way that frightened her, and she knew that she needed to find a way to staunch the flow. She reached up and untied the scarf from around her neck, and used it to wrap her leg tightly. A drop of blood fell on her hand, and she reached up and felt her chin. A timid examination with her fingers told her that there was a cut on her chin that had left a flap of skin hanging, but she couldn’t see how she might bandage it.

Satisfied that she had done all that she could, Andie slowly and carefully inched her way over to the edge of the ice shelf to peer down below. There was another shelf jutting out from the opposite wall of the fissure, but it took a bit of searching before her flashlight beam landed on Shay. Immediately, she could see that his leg was bent at a very unnatural angle, and she closed her eyes in dismay.

“Shay?” she called, “Shay, I’m here. I’m right above you. Can you talk to me?”

Silence.

“Shay, answer me. I’m here. You’re not alone. Say something. Please.”

“Andie?” His voice was a whisper, but it filled Andie with hope.

“Yes, I’m here, Shay. I’m right here.”

“My … my leg’s broke, and I … I can’t bre … breathe. It’s hard to … take … take a breath.”

Andie nodded, “Yes, you probably broke a few ribs. Shay, listen, you’re going to be fine,” she rushed to assure him, “They’re going to send help. Any minute now. They will. Ron Thurman and the doctor knows exactly where we are.” Even as she said the words, Andie realized with dread that the enormous boulder of ice might have mown the men down, instantly killing them and leaving no one to know that they had fell into the crevice.

“My … my wi … my wife, Hanna …”

“You are going to see her again, Shay. You will. You’ll see her soon.”

“And my … my son …”

Andie felt a prickle at the corners of her eyes.

“What is your son’s name?”

“Liam.”

“That’s a very good name,” Andie said, feeling her throat tighten, “You’ll see Liam again, Shay.”

“He is … he is … four.”

“Four? That’s the best age.”

“You? Do you … have … kids?”

Andie closed her eyes as Shay’s voice dissolved into a coughing fit. It sounded bad. Really bad.

When it stopped, Shay gasped for breath, but eventually he prodded, “Do you?”

“One,” Andie snapped, “I have one. Had. He’s gone now.” She didn’t want to talk about it, and hoped that her tone told him so.

“I am sorry. What hap … happened?” Shay’s voice drifted up to her.

Andie’s face collapsed in grief. Jamie. Her golden child. Her beloved boy. Hers and Mark’s. She’d been so in love with Mark. Had loved him from the moment that she’d met him in a campsite at the base of Yosemite. He’d been a world class climber, but she’d lost him to a mountain. From then on, it had been her and Jamie against the world. She’d done everything that she could to keep Jamie off of the mountains. But, it had been in his blood, and, in the end, she had been helpless to stop him. Even now, five years after losing him, she felt like she was still losing her mind to an endless, overwhelming heartbreak.

“It doesn’t matter.” Her words whispered out into the abyss, so softly that she wasn’t even certain that he would hear them.

“It does.”

“Annapurna.” That one word was all that she needed to say. He was a climber. He would know.

“I am … sorry, ” Shay collapsed into a fit of coughing that was prolonged, before saying, “I don’t want to die … here.”

“You won’t.”

“You … should go,” Shay sucked in a harsh, trembling breath, the rattle from his lungs so loud that even Andie could hear it, “Use … use the picks.”

Andie used the flashlight beam to do a quick search, “I only have one. I must have lost the other one.”

“I have mine.”

Cautiously, Andie peered over the edge again, weighing how in the hell she was going to get his ice pick, or even if she should bother. She rolled over and stared up at the sliver of blue sky. It seemed so very far away. Even if she could get one of Shay’s picks, she wasn’t sure that she would be capable of climbing her way out.

“There’s no point.” she said into the abyss.

A long silence passed, as she lay remembering that she had planned on throwing herself off of the peak. It had seemed fitting that she, too, should die on a mountain. Perhaps this was meant to be.

Gradually, she became aware of Shay’s quiet sobs, and she knew that he was thinking of his wife, and his little boy. If she stayed there, waiting to die, Andie knew that she was dooming that woman and child to the same awful fate that she had endured when Mark had failed to return.

She sighed. It didn’t have to be that way. Maybe her purpose on the mountain wasn’t to lose herself, but to save him, instead. She rolled over, and called down, “Shay, how am I supposed to get your pick?”

His sobs quieted, “Gi … give me … a min … minute.”

She used her beam of light to watch as he painstakingly unhooked the strap from around his wrist and slid it across the ice.

“You’re going to have to help me,” Andie’s breath caught in her throat as she ever so carefully leaned out over the edge of the ice shelf, terrified that it was going to break off and fling her down into the maw of the abyss, “I … uh, I can’t reach it.”

“Use … use your pick … grab it.”

She reached behind her and felt for her axe.

“Okay, can you hold it up for me, Shay? I’m going to try to grab it.”

Shay groaned in agony as he slowly lifted the pick towards the sky.

Andie heard a cracking sound as she used her pick to reach for the strap. It just caught the leather by the edge, but she was too frightened by the sound to try for a better angle. She started lifting her axe.

Her heart was pounding out of her chest as she brought the ice axe up to eye level. She reached out for it with her other hand but misjudged the distance. Her hand glanced the pole and her pick lost its purchase on the strap. It clattered against the wall of the fissure as it fell down, down, down into the darkness.

Hot tears stung her eyes as she screamed in frustration.

“It’s okay … I … I’ve got another one.” Shay whispered, before another agonizing coughing fit overtook him.

Guilt clawed at her, but Andie steeled herself as she waited for Shay to try again. It was on her. It was all on her. She had to do this. She could cry later.

“Are you ready?” she called down to him, when he seemed to have finally gathered his breath.

She watched as he unstrapped the last ice pick and held it tremblingly up to her.

Andie reached down with her own pick, crying out in fear as the ice creaked alarmingly beneath her. The steel curved hook caught the leather strap and she didn’t dare breathe as she haltingly lifted it up towards her hand.

“Got it!” she exclaimed, as her fingers wrapped around it.

“Tha … that’s good.” Shay said, with a shuddering moan.

Now that she had both picks, Andie lay on her back, silently contemplating the daunting task that lay before her. From her estimation, and she’d never been good with measurements, she had, at the very least, a thirty to forty foot wall of ice to climb. She’d taken an ice climbing course, and, technically she knew how to do it, but that still didn’t prepare her for what she was facing. This was going to be an almost vertical climb, and her injured leg was throbbing like hell wouldn’t have it already. What was the likelihood that she was going to be successful, she wondered.

Below her, Shay was moaning softly, and that was what she decided to concentrate on. It was up to her to save him. It was up to her to give his wife back her husband, and his little boy back his daddy.

“Okay, then,” Andie got to her feet and approached the wall, “Let’s do this.”

She raised her arms above her head and stuck the picks into the wall of ice. She tugged on them, making sure that they had purchase in the ice before using her crampons to kick into the wall. She started climbing, slowly at first, but, as she got the feel of it, a little faster. She kept going, even though her leg was throbbing and her arms burned like fire. So many times she wanted to stop, wanted to give in to the limits of her body, but her will drove her on.

Tears were streaming down her face as she finally neared the top of the fissure. She heaved herself up over the lip of the crevice, and collapsed, heaving for each breath.

As she lay there, the wind picked up and she finally sat up and looked around. The sky was steely and heavy with clouds, and the wind whipped so strongly against her that it took her breath away. Andie looked in the direction of the fixed lines, but they were gone, completely covered by enormous ice shards and boulders that had broken off far up the mountain.

Stunned, Andie got to her feet, trying to figure out if she could even get back down to base camp before the impending storm hit. Her movements were cautious as she moved closer to where she thought the fixed lines had been. The enormity of what had happened, of what lay beneath the tons of ice, nearly brought her to her knees. Where were the rescue teams? Why weren’t they up here looking for survivors?

Without a line to hook onto, each movement that she made had to be deliberated with utmost care. The wind was ferocious and every step was a lesson in agony, as she trudged a path down the mountain. Hours passed. At least, it felt like hours passed, but she couldn’t be sure anymore. Her mind seemed to be playing tricks on her. What time was it, even? She couldn’t tell. The sky was dark. It was snowing heavily now, and her legs felt like boulders as she kicked through the deep drifts. The cold was insidious, leaching into her bones like a poison that was going to destroy her.

The desire to sit down was growing stronger now. She was just so tired. So, so tired. She couldn’t go on. No one would expect her to. Not after all that she had been through.

Andie stopped, weak and swaying as the wind buffeted her, wanting so desperately to relinquish her body to the will of the mountain. Her mind sought comfort, and Jamie answered. There he was. Her beautiful little boy, with golden hair and a smile that lit up every room. He was so real. Right there, in front of her. She could touch him if she could just reach out. Maybe she could just rest for awhile and see if her would sit with her.

Andie bend her knees and sank into the snow. There. That wasn’t so bad. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the fact that she couldn’t really feel her fingers or toes anymore.

“Mom, Mom, come here,” Jamie was back, and he was talking to her, “I want to show you something, Mom.”

Andie blinked hard, trying to get a fix on him. She felt so discombobulated.

Jamie grabbed her hand, tugging on it, “Come on, Mom. You’ve got to see this.”

Andie groaned. She didn’t want to get up. Why couldn’t he see that? Still, she could never say no to him. Not to her sweet, sweet boy.

He had let go of her hand, so she stood up and reached for him, but he kept slipping away, forcing her to keep going. When she wanted to sit down again, he prodded her, allowing her no peace, staying just out of reach. She was so angry, so damn angry with him right now. Why was he doing this to her?

Suddenly, glittering lights appeared in front of her. Andie stopped moving. Where had Jamie gone?

A man approached her. He looked stunned at seeing her. He was talking to her, but she couldn’t understand him and she wasn’t sure what to do. Where was her Jamie? Why had he abandoned her? She dropped to her knees just as the man reached for her.

***********************************************************************

Andie parked in the underground lot. She grabbed her purse and coffee and headed for the entrance. A quick check with the woman at the desk, and a short ride in the elevator, brought her to the right floor. She moved down the hall checking room numbers. When she reached the right one, she poked her head in. The room was full of balloons and flowers, and Shay was sitting up in bed, beaming in her direction.

“Andie, you finally made it!” Shay flung his arms wide open.

Andie hugged him carefully.

“It’s all right,” Shay explained, “Doc says my ribs are fine now.”

“Yeah?” Andie stepped back and assessed him, “When are they letting you out of this place?”

“Soon. Just waiting for Ortho to clear me, and then I’m a free man. How long have you been out?”

“A couple of weeks now.”

Shay’s expression grew serious, “Can you believe it’s only been a month since, since …”

“Since the mountain?” Andie sat down on the chair beside the bed, “No. No, I can’t.”

“You saved my life, Andie.”

Andie shook her head, dismissively. She was uncomfortable with all of the ‘hero’ stuff, and had absolutely hated all of the press coverage that she had had to endure.

“Because of you, my wife and son have me here. How can I ever repay you for that?”

“Stop.”

“Did you know that when they found me, when they brought me out of that crevice, they told me that you had stumbled into camp, half frozen in the middle of the worst storm they’d had in years, nearly dead yourself, and that you still managed to tell them where to look for me,” Shay shook his head back and forth in disbelief, “Man, it was a miracle, Andie. You were a damn miracle.”

“We were the lucky ones …”

“Shay?”

Andie turned around. A young woman was at the door, her hand holding on to a little boy.

“Hanna, this is Andie,” Shay waved them in, laughing as his son lunged for the bed exuberantly, “This is the woman that saved my life. Come, say hi.”

Andie waved Hanna’s adulation off, feeling uncomfortable with it. Instead, she smiled at Liam, and when he returned her smile, she reached into her purse and found the toy car that she had picked out for him. She held it out to him, loving how big his eyes grew when he reached out and took it from her hand.

“Say thank you, Liam.” Hanna encouraged him.

“Thank you.” Liam said, as he tried to hide behind his daddy.

“I should get going,” Andie stood up and edged her way to the door, “I just wanted to stop in and make sure that you were on the mend.”

“No way,” Shay sat up, “Stay. Stay and talk for awhile. Trust me, Hanna would rather talk to you than me, after three weeks of being my constant companion, right, Hanna?”

“He’s not wrong,” Hanna said, ” I would love to get to know the woman that gave me my family back.”

“Well, I guess I could stay for a bit then.”

“You want to see my other cars?” Liam suddenly jumped off the bed and pulled a little backpack off of his mother’s arm, “I have lots of ’em.”

“I would love to see your cars, Liam.” Andie sat back down.

Hanna slid into the bed with Shay and kissed him.

Liam brought a handful of cars over. He sat them on the side table and then climbed into her lap, “You saved my daddy.” he said, as he reached up and patted her face with his little hands.

Andie felt her heart clench. He had it wrong, she knew. They had saved her. They had saved her.