Painted Blind (27 page)

He knelt beside me. “Roll over on your belly,” he said.

“No, thanks.”

Titus let out an irritated sigh. “You’re in pain. Let me help.”

“Because you’re a servant,” I muttered. “It’s what you do.”

“You’re mocking me,” he replied. “Your feet are nothing. This is what I’m best at. Give me two minutes, and I’ll have you convinced.”

“I’m okay.”

“We’re most likely stuck in this tent until tomorrow. I thought you trusted me?” He blew on his hands and rubbed them together.

I relented because I was in too much pain to argue coherently. I rolled over and used my sweatshirt as a pillow as I lay face down in the sleeping bag. My long-sleeved undershirt and T-shirt didn’t feel warm enough and in two minutes I was going to put my sweatshirt back on and tell him to leave me alone.

“First I inspect, then I fix,” Titus said. He placed two fingers over my spine just above the waistline of my jeans.

“Hey!” I protested when he slid those fingers under my shirt.

“The friction on your skin will keep you warmer,” he countered.

I clenched my teeth to keep from growling at him. Which part of not liking to be touched didn’t he understand?

He slid his fingers along my spine all the way up to my neck. As he dragged his fingers down my neck, I flinched. “That hurts?”

“Everything hurts.” I started counting down from a hundred in my head. When I reached one, he was going to get his hands off me.

He started at the base of my skull, rubbing so gently I could barely feel the pressure. Then he moved down my sore neck and over one shoulder blade. With his strong palm he soothed the knotted muscle where the strap of the pack placed a strain.

Somehow I lost count of the seconds. My head hurt less as the tension in my muscles released. I had to hand it to Aphrodite. She trained her servants well. “You swore to stay with me until my dying breath?” I mumbled.

“Yes.”

“Awesome.”

“I told you I was good.” Good was an understatement.

Once I went to a spa with Savannah. It was her sixteenth birthday present from her parents. We drove to Boulder Hot Springs and stayed at the resort. We enjoyed facials, the sauna, and pedicures. Both nights before going to bed, we scheduled massages. Of course, the masseuse had been a woman, so lying there with nothing but a towel over my behind wasn’t a big deal. Still, I had enjoyed the sauna more than the massages. If the massage at the spa had felt like this, I would have stayed on that table all day.

“Are you still awake?”

My reply didn’t quite make it past my throat. It sounded like a weak groan.

“Do I pass?” Titus teased.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Is this going to give you nightmares?”

“No, I’m comfortable with this,” he said lightly. “It might give you nightmares, though.”

“Maybe you should teach this to Eros,” I offered.

“Not a chance,” he replied. “Then I’d be out of a job.” He had me sit up while he massaged the muscles in my arms and shoulders. “What will you draw today?”

I shrugged, which no longer hurt. “Whatever you choose.”

He thought for a moment. “An animal. You don’t have a single animal in your book.”

“Except the caricature of Theron.” I pulled away from him. Though it felt good to have him work the pain out of my muscles, I still wasn’t comfortable with his hands on me. I didn’t understand the boundaries between a mistress and her servant. How much of me did he think he could touch?

He took this rejection without comment. Instead he sat beside me and watched me draw.

“I will draw the most beautiful animal I’ve ever seen.” It wouldn’t be difficult. I used to have a book that was all about drawing horses in various actions. I drew Pixis rearing with his wings unfurled, the way he’d shown himself to Savannah.

It snowed until well after noon, and by then we didn’t have enough daylight left to reach the next camp site. We had to stay where we were for another night and hope we could finish the journey tomorrow. We ate more food than we should have, but Titus assured me we would need the energy tomorrow. I knew the way was going to be more difficult, and I was dreading the climb.

Eventually, we just lay side by side in our sleeping bags listening to music. We split the headphones and listened to the operas on Titus’s iPod, which he translated in between humming the melodies. Afterward, we listened to the music on mine. At first he balked at it, but eventually, his fingers began tapping on his chest. “Play that one again,” he would say, and he would hum along the second time through.

I was glad when night fell with no wind. It brought colder temperatures, but also the hope that tomorrow our journey would be finished. We turned on another heat cell, which warmed the tent and allowed us to fall asleep. I didn’t offer to share Titus’s sleeping bag again. Even if I was cold, I would sleep alone.

He didn’t have trouble sleeping that night either, because when I woke in the night and looked around, he had disappeared, sleeping bag and all. If I listened carefully, I could hear him breathing.

I lay there in the stillness. We seemed so utterly alone up here. For some reason, a junior high school retreat came to mind.

A group of us were selected to attend an overnight camp one weekend. Five or six teachers, the principal and the school counselor went with us. They taught us all about peer pressure and how to be leaders, then they spent the weekend taking us through trust-building activities. We led a partner around the camp blindfolded. We stood in a circle and the person in the center allowed himself to fall backward on the faith that we would catch him. We played games and shared our fears. Then we returned to school. I remember passing a few of those students in the hallways and thinking, “I know them deep down,” but at school, we were still strangers, who belonged to different groups of friends and whose paths did not intersect.

This climb with Titus was like one, big, trust-building journey, and I wondered when we returned to Eros if Titus and I would still be friends, or would we pass one another, nod and move on like strangers? He helped me feel safe on this dangerous mountain, but once we reached the cave, that would be gone. I would be on my own again. This time Eros wouldn’t be watching over me, and Titus wouldn’t be there to catch me. Rory wouldn’t be using his friends to help me, and Aeas wouldn’t be standing by ready to heal my wounds. I would be utterly alone.

Through my mind flashed images of Theron and his flying fist, the crowd outside the Kappa Sig house, and a pack of hungry wolves. I shivered and bit down on my lip to keep from whimpering. This task would be worse than anything I had faced thus far, and terror so dark and formidable shook me to the very soul. I said one silent prayer. If I couldn’t beat the enemy that waited, I wanted to die quickly.

Chapter 25

It was barely light when Titus knelt beside me and laid his hand over my forehead. “Psyche, we should pack up camp.”

I opened my eyes to see him already dressed in his snow gear with his pack loaded.

“I’ve warmed you some breakfast and apple cider. While you eat, I’ll take down the tent.”

Shaking myself awake, I looked at my watch. It wasn’t even six a.m., but I knew this was our one and only chance to finish the journey. It was better to get an early start than risk running out of daylight before we reached the top. I pulled on my snow pants, coat and boots. During the night I’d ended up wearing my sweatshirt instead of using it for a pillow.

“Did you sleep all right?” Titus asked.

“Fine,” I replied.

“Really? Because, you don’t look well-rested.”

“I’ll be fine.” I dragged my pack outside and leaned against it while I wolfed down the warm meat and potato mixture and apple cider. My muscles were mostly recovered, all except my legs, which I wouldn’t let Titus touch. Still, I knew once we got moving the soreness would wear off.

The sky was clear. It would be a bright and calm day, a perfect day for climbing. With the tent packed, Titus loaded it into his own pack.

“That one is mine,” I protested.

“I’ll carry it.”

My pack was much lighter than it had been before. He’d taken the heavy gear out of my pack and replaced it with light, bulky items like the sleeping bags. It was a bad sign. He didn’t think I could make it with the heavier pack.

With everything loaded, Titus checked our safety ropes and made sure the knots were tight. The first leg of the journey was a gentle slope running along the crevasse. Luckily, we already knew where the drop-off was, because it had drifted over during the storm. An unknowing climber might try to cross the fragile shelf and fall to his death. Our navigation system, however, kept us on a safe path.

Over three feet of powder had fallen during the storm, and we were forced to use snow shoes. Stuffing my boots into the bindings and tightening them down, I took a few trial steps around camp to make sure I wouldn’t fall on my face in the deep snow. Once I got the hang of the shoes, I hefted the pack onto my shoulders and waited until Titus had done the same.

Snowshoeing was hard work, but it was easier than sinking deep into the snow with every step. After only a few hundred feet I was breathing hard and my muscles were complaining, but I pushed forward knowing it was only going to get worse. We were on relatively flat ground and once we reached the cliffs, the glaciers would lay below us, and we would be climbing the rocks.

We broke from the cliffs in less than two hours, just as the sun fully appeared on the eastern horizon. The snow around us was set aflame by the sun’s rays. It nearly blinded us. Titus found our tinted goggles, and we traded snowshoes for crampons. The rocks were icy, and the way before us was steep.

For much of the morning, we climbed the rocks like icy steps that lead into the sky. The rise seemed gradual, but when I looked over my shoulder, I froze with fear. Realizing I’d stopped, Titus tugged on the rope at my waist and rebuked me. “Don’t look down again!”

I faced the mountain and kept climbing. I forced myself not to think about the nothingness that lay behind me. I climbed with firm determination until the sun rose high overhead warming my back and lifting my spirits. I was succeeding. It wasn’t that hard. I could do it. With this cheerful attitude, I reached the spot where Titus had stopped.

He stood at the peak of the section we had just finished climbing, and he gazed across the way before. As I crested the peak, I tugged on his pant leg triumphantly.

“I made it!” I exclaimed.

He turned with worried eyes. “Don’t stand up,” he said. He blocked my view as he helped me over the last ledge and sat beside me. “This looks like a good place to stop for lunch.”

I leaned around him to see what he was hiding. The mountain’s spine lay before us. While I’d envisioned the spine of a horse, a narrow line between two gradual slopes, this was a rocky twelve-to-fourteen-inch path with steep drops on either side. The spine wasn’t like standing on the edge of a cliff; it was like walking a pencil line between two of them. Maybe if I hadn’t been afraid of heights, if it hadn’t been snowy, and if I had been a more experienced climber, the walk across the spine would have been doable. As it was, Aphrodite could not have chosen a more difficult mountain for me if she had picked one double in size. I dropped my face into my hands, the anguish of fear and disappointment crushing all my optimism.

“I can’t do it,” I cried.

Titus dropped food packets onto the ground between us. We didn’t bother to heat them while we were climbing. “You
can
do it. And you will.”

He didn’t understand. It wasn’t just fear. It was terror that gave me vertigo. I would get dizzy and be unable to keep my balance. I would fall, and I would take him with me. I would kill us both.

While we ate, Titus tried to soothe me. “The cave is straight ahead. It’s maybe half a mile away. That trail is all that lies between you and finishing this task. It’s an easy grade. Some of it is even downhill. If that trail lay in a valley, you would skip across it in a quarter of an hour.”

“But it’s not in a valley.”

“You’ve come halfway across the world. You can’t quit now.”

“Titus, I can’t do it!”

Angry, he reached into my open pack and pulled out the sketchbook. He laid it open on my lap, and Eros’s face looked back at me. “Do you want to see him again? Do you ever want to hear him tell you that he loves you?”

I couldn’t hold back tears. I promised myself I wouldn’t quit, no matter the cost.

“That trail is no worse than looking into Theron’s eyes and knowing he wants to kill you. It’s no worse than nearly freezing to death in a storm.”

“If I fall, I’ll take you with me,” I said.

“You’ll go first, so I can see you. You just look at the trail, and ignore what’s beside it. You focus on walking. Just walking. It isn’t as hard as it seems.” He put his arm around me. “You must at least try.”

I took a deep breath and thought of my dad, his tireless hard work and his courage to face any task great or small. How hard must it have been for him raise a daughter alone? How much harder must it have been when she turned out to be so beautiful that every man he met wanted her? I wondered if he had spent the last six years walking a trail more terrifying than this one so I would make it safely to adulthood.

“I can’t carry a pack,” I said. “Leave behind everything we don’t have to have. Put all the essentials into your pack. Tie the rest down here, so we can get them on the way down. Whatever you do, don’t forget the box.”

In one of the pockets of the pack there was a small satchel for day hikes. I stuffed a few energy bars and a water bottle into it and slung it over my shoulders. Titus wrapped the gear we were leaving behind in a piece of canvas from the extra tent and staked it into the ground. He lifted his pack onto his shoulders and shortened the tether between us.

“As long as you don’t take me by surprise, I’m strong enough to catch you if you fall. So… well, scream if you lose your balance.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem.”

He helped me stand, and I had to close my eyes to stop the spinning in my head. While we stood there, Titus slid a finger down my neck and came up with his chain and Eros’s ring. “He gave you wisdom and safety.” Titus kissed my forehead. “Now take courage and go.”

The first five steps were the hardest. Leaving the safety of the small plateau and stepping away from Titus’s firm grip brought on a new wave of nausea. It literally felt like I was walking in the air. Of course, there were rocks below to kill me if I fell. I had to find a way to walk the trail without seeing them.

It is possible to trick the mind and make something three dimensional look two dimensional to your eyes. I’d done it hundreds of times when drawing. Now I forced my mind to see the way before me two dimensionally. The trail became my only focus, and everything around it fell into a plane equal with it. I didn’t look back, and I didn’t wait for Titus. I walked slowly, coaxing my body to put one foot in front of the other.

My head began to feel thick, and I realized I wasn’t breathing. After that I inhaled as I set my right foot down, and exhaled with the left. I didn’t allow myself to think or feel anything along the way. The warm sunshine and the cold air ceased to exist. The farther I went, the more at ease my steps became until I felt my shoulders relaxing and my gait flowing more naturally. Still, I didn’t allow myself to lose the visual focus of a two-dimensional trail, because without it, I would be helpless and afraid again.

I walked and walked and then the trail broke off. It ended inches from my feet and fell away. Blinking, I looked ahead. I was only about a hundred yards from the end of the spine. There the ground widened into the area where we would camp. Just above it was the opening to the cave where I would meet Aphrodite’s messenger. I looked down at my feet again. The trail had collapsed leaving a gap about three feet wide.

“You’ll have to jump it,” a voice said.

Startled, I looked back and found Titus standing there. He rested a hand on my shoulder. I had walked in lonely silence all across the spine. I had forgotten he was following and that I was wearing a rope which bound me to him.

“It’s only a few feet, not much wider than the crevasse you jumped the other night. And you’re much stronger today.”

“I could fall.”

“You won’t,” he said confidently.

I looked down and grew woozy, suddenly aware that I was standing on a trail only fifteen inches wide and thousands of feet above flat ground. I felt all my resolve starting to crumble. Tears threatened my eyes again. I bit down hard on my fear and leaped. My right foot landed and kept me moving forward until my left foot landed. I crouched to the ground to keep from falling off the edge.

“Perfectly done,” Titus praised. He took a step back and leaped. His foot landed almost exactly where mine had, but as it did the rock groaned and crumbled. He landed his second foot, and there the trail fell away also. Fear shot through his eyes, and I screamed.

I straddled the trail and dug my knees into the rock knowing he would pull me off the cliff when he fell.

Titus threw his body forward as his legs fell from underneath him. I reached out and caught his hand, only to have his glove come off in my fingers. Then he slid. The momentum of the collapse and weight of the pack pulled him down. I braced myself for his weight, but it didn’t come.

Shaking, I inched forward, afraid I would further collapse the trail if I went too far. The rope had fallen to the side of the trail. I looked down and found him hanging by one bare hand, trying hard to reach for a foothold.

“Pull!” he yelled.

I pulled. I took up all the slack of the rope and pulled as hard as my arms could. Then I wrapped the rope around my body, leaned back and pulled harder. Below me he grunted, and a second hand appeared on the ledge. He pulled himself around the side of the ledge and climbed the rocks until he surfaced on the trail between me and the cave.

Panting, he wrapped both arms around me and rested his face in my hair until he gathered his composure. “Good thing you pulled off my glove,” he said finally. “Let’s keep moving.” He probably hoped I wouldn’t notice that his hands were shaking, and there was a slight glisten to his eyes.

I managed to stand and follow him. It was harder now that the mountain had tried to kill us again. The trail widened slightly, so I didn’t have to watch my feet every step. Instead I watched Titus’s back as he navigated the rest of the spine. When we reached the end of the trail, the ground spread out and flattened into a long, narrow dale which bowed before the cave. Along each side were waist-high stones that looked too symmetrical to have occurred naturally. Titus surveyed this warily.

“We should just camp in the cave tonight,” I said. “Might as well use the shelter.”

“Maybe,” he replied, dumping his pack on the ground. He looked mostly recovered from his fall, but he was stepping lightly wherever he walked.

I unclipped from the tether and moved toward the cave.

“No, Psyche, wait!”

Because he ran after me, I jogged ahead. I ran a very slow fifty-meter dash and crested the rise to the mouth of the cave only moments before Titus caught me. I pulled in a deep breath and held it. Running at this altitude was an inch short of downright stupid.

The cave was about fifteen feet deep and equally wide with a peaked ceiling at least double the breadth. At the back was a solid stone wall. There were small hollows in the cliff walls as they rose, but other than that, the entire cave was visible, and it was empty.

I faced Titus and raised my arms in triumph. “I made it with seventeen hours to spare!”

“I knew you could.” He smiled as he approached and was about to hug me until he looked over my shoulder, and his immortal eyes saw something that was veiled from mine. His expression fell. He grabbed my arm, pulled me away from the cave’s mouth and literally dragged me all the way back to where his pack lay on the ground. “No,” he murmured to himself, “it can’t be. I didn’t want to believe it.”