FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA

by Ruby

 Fall 2012

August was the sunflower month. You saw them everywhere, gawky-tall flowers straining to the sky. Some with blooms so big they bent the stalk in half.

Isabel loved sunflowers. And she hated them too. Because it meant summer was over. That season of too much baking heat and blessed cool rainstorms and everything stretching its arms out and yelling into the starched blue sky that it was alive. Soon, fall would come. The season with the rust colors of hinges that creak and locks fused shut. She closed her eyes tight. She did not want to go to New York.

She wanted to stay here in this small, safe town in the mountains where it was green and more green and then the wet black of river stones. She had told Grandfather Eli she would stay with him through the winter and see if she felt like staying on in the city after that.

The answer was already no. But Grandfather needed help, and it would give her time to arrange a caretaker for him and see if he would finally let that repair shop go. He owned the building too, and it was worth a small fortune now. But he was set in his ways and did not want to give up the shop or move. Isabel believed in letting people have their own way, but she worried about it. And about the strange people in rags who seemed to shadow him the few times she’d visited.

They weren’t homeless. They smelled of soap and freshly dug earth, but their clothes were pieces of leather and moving blankets and the occasional jolt of patterned fabric whip-stitched together. They looked like chorus members from a touring company of Les Miserables. They came to pick up slips of paper and sometimes packages.

They’d say hello to her and Isabel would smile like it hurt her to do so and then quickly slip out to the drugstore next door to look at magazines until they’d gone away. They were never there when she got back, and she wondered why she never caught them walking past the drugstore’s windows. She didn’t ask Grandfather about them, afraid he might tell her about them and they’d become her problem too.

“All winters end, Isabel,” she said aloud to herself. She would endure this and see that Grandfather ended the year in better conditions than he began it.

The trip to New York was uneventful, but she gritted her teeth at the confused mass of people she pushed her way through in Penn Station on a Labor Day Monday. Grandfather was waiting there with a cab. The driver was a woman about her age, mid-twenties.

She grinned at Isabel. “Hi. I’m Cate, a friend of Eli’s.”

“Oh,” Isabel said, trying not to wish she was sullen and focused on her work like most New Yorkers. She forced the small talk that did not come naturally to her. “How long have you known him?”

Cate winked at her grandfather. “Since the day I was born practically. He was at my naming ceremony.”

Grandfather’s face got cloudy for a moment. “What she means is I visited her at the hospital when she was born.”

Cate seemed to get an unspoken message and became a lot more quiet. “Well, it’s nice you’re here, Isabel. I hope I see you again.”

“Sure, that would be great,” Isabel replied, with the silent hope she wouldn’t see Cate ever again. Something was going on, and as much as she wanted to find out what a naming ceremony was, she wanted to not find out what it meant all the more.

They arrived at Grandfather’s shop, where he lived in the rooms above it. Eli handed Cate a handful of bills with a slip of paper among them. Isabel pretended to be busy with her purse.

Cate pocketed the money. “Thanks, old man. Hope to be seeing you soon. Aunt Cathy is having a party at the brownstone.”

“I’ll remember that.” He looked at Isabel. “Well, we’re here, still as shabby as ever.”

“Oh, Grandfather,” Isabel said. She got out of the car with her purse and small suitcase. “There’s nothing wrong with this place. I just think-”

“I know, know let’s have that argument over some soup, okay?” Grandfather said. Cate laughed and Isabel felt embarrassed she’d overheard that. But Grandfather closed the car door and Cate drove away.

They settled around the cozy dining table in front of the kitchen. Her grandfather lit a candle on a blown glass stand that shimmered in purples and blues. The soup was good and they talked little until they were finished. Isabel gathered up the bowls and put them in the sink in the kitchen. She came back to the table where her Grandfather was pouring two glasses of kompot.

Eli smiled at her and handed her a glass. “I figure this will make a difficult conversation go down easier.”

Isabel sighed but took the glass and sat down. “I just think it’s time you let this place go. You’d really like it where I live. There are a lot of retirees there and you wouldn’t have to worry about the repair shop anymore.”

“Play shuffleboard all day in the mountain sun, eh?” Eli took a sip from his glass.

“There are a lot more things to do there than shuffleboard. It’s safe. And it’s not just crime. How long until New York goes underwater?”

“It hasn’t yet, and I have friends here; my life is here. I was hoping to leave the shop to you.”

Isabel became firm. “You can’t. I won’t accept it. I’m never coming back to New York to live. Never. I can’t Grandfather…” And she trailed off, taking a sip from her own glass for comfort.

Eli sighed and Isabel watched him drink for a few moments in silence. She knew he knew she had never recovered from losing her mother that fateful day in September. Her grandfather was careful with her after her father hadn’t wanted to be bothered with a deeply traumatized teenager spoiling his new family and shipped her off to an aunt in the North Carolina mountains. There at least she’d found some measure of peace. But it came at the cost of being terrified of leaving it, fearing it wouldn’t be there when she got back.

Her grandfather was an old man now. She could see him thinking about what would become of him and his place. He shook his head and finished his glass.

“Well, don’t be frightened I’m going to stick you with an old building full of broken toasters, Izzy. Why don’t we go to the Met tomorrow?”

Isabel smiled one of her rare genuine smiles. “That sounds nice, I can see my Sargents.” And Eli laughed gently.

The next day Eli and Isabel wandered the galleries of the museum in amiable silence. Isabel looked at Egyptian Woman with Earrings. She liked the figure in the painting’s enigmatic smile. She loved Sargent, and as much as there was a feeling of safety in his technique, there was something so terrifically alive about each of his canvases. It made Isabel feel things she normally kept folded away neatly in a drawer inside her.

It also made her tongue looser. She and Eli stopped in front of Man and Pool, Florida. As they both looked at it, Isabel asked, “So what is a naming ceremony?”

Eli held himself still. He seemed to be looking into the pool as intently as the figure in the painting was. He spoke carefully. “It’s a fancy word for a baby shower. Welcoming the child home after they’re born with a little party.”

“Oh,” Isabel said, almost disappointed it was something so ordinary. “Do the people I saw sometimes wearing all patches call it that?”

Eli spoke even more carefully. “They do. They have their own ways, but they are good people.”

Isabel had to ask it. “Are they…a cult? Like, do they live in a building all together and chant and refuse to wear new clothes and depend on you for money and food? Like, it’s your business, but I just don’t want you to be taken advantage of. I’m sorry I haven’t been around more to protect you, but people like that take advantage of older people sometimes.” Isabel was startled by her grandfather starting to laugh.

Eli walked to a bench in the gallery and sat down, still laughing, and dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief. “Oh, Izzy. You worry about the clouds and the air and everything. You have a worried heart.” He looked at her tenderly. “No, they are not a cult. And no, they do not take advantage of me.” He looked at her. “I help them, and they help me. We take care of each other. Because we are all part of one another.”

Isabel sighed. “I hate that, sometimes. Knowing that we’re helplessly stuck together and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Eli looked at her with tender sorrow. “You talk as though it’s a curse and not our greatest blessing for being human, that it’s what makes us human.” He got back up. “You lost too much too early, and now you’re afraid all the time.” He said it without reproach and Isabel got up too and was not defensive.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I did, I guess. And there’s no help for it. You just have to get through each day the best you can and try to protect yourself from all the ways life is going to break your heart.”

They wandered to Astarte and paused there. He spoke softly. “I can’t tell you not to be afraid. But there’s so much else in life besides fear. Don’t protect yourself so hard it can’t find you.” He looked at the painting. “Why don’t you come with me to that party Cate talked about? It’s on the twenty-fifth. I’d like to introduce you to some of my friends.”

The next three weeks passed in an easy rhythm of shared breakfast, then running the register in Eli’s shop and going for walks in the park. Isabel took off on her own sometimes. She visited her mother’s name at the memorial. She very much did not want to go there on the day of the anniversary, and when that day came, Eli closed the shop and they sat in the apartment, the memorial candle burning.

That night Isabel went to bed early after forcing down a few bites of dinner for her grandfather’s sake. She awoke around midnight to sounds coming from the shop below. Her throat dry, she crept down the stairs, a bat raised in her hands.

She saw a large figure at the counter. The figure wore a cloak. He must have heard a step creak, because Isabel saw the shadowed figure turn toward her. She froze.

The figure spoke. “Please don’t be afraid. I’m just leaving something for your grandfather and you. I know this is a difficult day.” The voice was soft and raspy at the edges.

Isabel had enough control of her fear to recognize burglars usually did not wear cloaks like Aragon or sound like they were about to start reciting a poem. She cleared her throat. “How did you get in?”

“I have…a key,” the figure said. “You must be Isabel. Eli tells me the mountains where you live are very beautiful.”

“Yes…they are. Very beautiful.” Isabel couldn’t believe she was having this conversation.

“I imagine the colors of the leaves when they start to turn are spectacular.”

“I’ve never liked fall.” Isabel really couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. “We get a ton of tourists coming to look at them. But I love them best in high summer, when it’s just this explosion of green, and especially at dusk when all that green gets outlined in gold by the setting sun. It shimmers.”

The figure nodded. “That sounds truly special. Thank you for telling me about it. I won’t be here long and I’m sorry for waking you up.”

Isabel realized he wasn’t going to leave while she was here. But he wasn’t going to harm her or her grandfather. “Well, just lock up after yourself.”

“I will.”

Isabel walked back up the stairs and locked the door behind her. She crawled back into bed and was surprised by how quickly sleep found her.

She awoke to her grandfather cutting slices of a chocolate babka that had been wrapped in an old, clean tea towel. She saw the basket it’d come from, filled with pebbly oranges and tea in muslin bags.

Isabel took a slice of babka and ate it hungrily. So this must have been what the figure had left, which meant it hadn’t been a dream. Isabel thought to ask her grandfather about the person, but decided to let that be her secret for a change.

They walked down to the shop and Zach was at the door. She had met Zach a few days ago. He had been a first responder digging through the rubble for months and now his lungs were shot. Being search and rescue had been his life and he had kept going until he couldn’t anymore. He was tall and lean with shaggy hair that sometimes fell into his eyes. His hands had been ruined by his work.

Isbael had tried not to flinch the first time she saw them when he pulled out his wallet to pay Eli for repairing a small TV set he owned. His hands were red and the skin mottled. The fingers clearly had been broken and were repaired so the fingers had mended into thick slabs. Zach caught her trying not to stare and grinned.

“They look like they hurt like hell, right? They don’t, just ugly as sin. No good deed goes unpunished, huh?”

Isabel tried to smile. “I’m sorry for staring.”

Zach shook his head, his grey eyes catching the light in the shop and making Isabel’s heart clench. “It’s okay. So you’re going to be staying with your grandfather for a while?”

“Just through winter. I want to help him downsize and sell this place and come live with me.”

Zach kept his counsel and picked up his TV set. “Well good luck with that. Tell your grandfather I’m just about ready to finally admit it and sell that kayak.”

The kayak had been propped up against the wall of the shop when Isabel had arrived. Her grandfather had explained Zach had thought about moving upstate for his lungs, to get some of that fresh mountain air, and was planning to take up kayaking and make some money eventually as a guide. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave New York either. And so it had rested there waiting on Zach to finally tell Eli to sell it.

He still hadn’t, and Isabel wasn’t surprised when she opened the door for the day and let Zach in, that he left without telling Eli to get rid of it for him. He had left a bundle of messages for Eli. Some were clearly stamped envelopes, while others were simply written on loose-leaf paper and the backs of flyers and folded over. She was itching to open one and read it, but went to the drugstore next door to get two Cel-Ray tonics for her and Eli. When she came back, the bundle of messages was gone.

On the twenty-fifth, Cate picked them up in her cab and took them to the party at a brownstone. It belonged to a woman named Catherine Chandler. Isabel shook hands with her.

“It’s nice to meet you Isabel. Eli has told me so much about you.”

Isabel smiled, embarrassed. “I’m afraid there’s nothing exciting to tell. You have a lovely home.” And Catherine smiled and walked them into the living room where several people were already gathered, Zach among them.

Catherine addressed the room, “This is Isabel, Eli’s granddaughter. She’s back in New York and doesn’t know yet about all the great new hideaway places we have in the city.”

Isabel didn’t miss how the rest of the people in the room seemed to hear something else in that sentence and looked a little like grandfather had when Cate had mentioned the naming ceremony.

But they were friendly and they introduced themselves. Cate was the chattiest of all. She had brought her girlfriend Victoria, who was the granddaughter of Mister Wong. Isabel had remembered meeting him a long time ago, one of the other old men her grandfather would play dominoes with in the park.

Victoria and Cate found a corner to curl up together with and were talking to a young woman named Melody who looked a few years younger than them. Melody’s dress was a contrast in patches and wool to the street clothes they wore, though Isabel noticed both Cate and Melody wore knitted fingerless gloves. Isabel found a glass of cider and a slice of currant cake and walked to the Brownstone’s courtyard patio.

Zach followed her there.

“It can be overwhelming huh?” he said, taking a sip from his beer.

“Yeah, they’re nice though. I see why my grandfather likes them.” Isabel took a bite of cake and tried not to feel Zach watching her.

She swallowed. “So, how do you know these people?”

Zach took another sip and looked at the paper lanterns glowing gently on the patio. Isabel noticed how many seemed to be decorated in crayon with lumpy drawings of animals and people and names written in determined strokes. One even bore the words “SHARE THE LIGHT.”

Zach cleared his throat and spoke in that careful way people did when they were leaving a lot of things out. “I was a runaway. Not worth talking about what I was running away from. They took me in. They look out for runaways, outcasts, the people nobody wants. They take care of you; they teach you how to take care of others. And how to accept help, which can be the hardest thing of all. I wanted to help people, and I did for a while. And now that’s over and I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do next.”

Isabel felt terribly sad. “I don’t think just because you can’t do search and rescue anymore means you stop being able to help people. There are a lot of ways to help people.”

“I guess.” Zach’s mouth quirked. “I’m not much of one for parties.”

“Me either,” said Isabel, finishing her cider and setting the cup and plate down on a patio table.

Zach looked at her and Isabel remembered that feeling of making a long drop from the ledge of the rock into the swimming hole beneath like she did back home. As much as you were terrified of the jump, it kind of thrilled you to make it all the more. She looked away.

“Why don’t we cut out early and I’ll walk you home.”

Isabel felt like someone else’s voice was speaking as she heard herself say, “Sure, I’d like that.”

They walked back to the shop talking a little. Isabel laughed a couple times at Zach’s stories. They got to the door of the shop and Isabel took her key out.

The old fear was clamoring loudly in her ears. “I know I should invite you up for a drink, but I’m kinda wiped out by that walk.”

Zach smiled gently. “No problem. I’d like to see you again. Do you like old movies?”

“Yeah, I do.” Isabel smiled warmly.

“So do I. It’s why I couldn’t get my TV fixed fast enough. Wouldn’t be able to endure my early retirement without TCM.”

And Isabel really laughed. “I hear that. I saw in the paper The Lincoln is doing a Billy Wilder retrospective. Do you want to go see Witness for the Prosecution this Saturday?”

“You bet.” Zach smiled again and turned and walked away. And Isabel walked up the stairs to the apartment admitting her disappointment he hadn’t tried to kiss her.

They went to the movies on Saturday. And they saw each other a few more times after that as the calendar rolled into October. But Isabel knew she couldn’t take it further. Not only would she be leaving after December, she had lived too long not letting anybody ever get close to her again to change that now.

She knew it was too late because she couldn’t even cry about it. You’re a dried up lake bed, a frozen stream m’dear, and that’s all there is to it, she thought to herself while brushing her hair one night. She didn’t even think about it with much venom, as there was no use being angry about something that basic.

A crash from the living room sent her running from the bedroom to see what had caused it. Her grandfather was lying on the floor. Panic swamped her for a moment before she beat it back. She called an ambulance, shoved shoes on her feet waiting for the EMTs to arrive. Her grandfather was bundled down the stairs and into the ambulance. Isabel rode with him, holding his hand.

She had the presence of mind to grab her purse and a book of telephone numbers her grandfather kept on the top of his roll top desk. As she waited in the over-lit waiting room she placed a call to the number listed for Catherine Chandler. Within twenty minutes Catherine was at the hospital, along with a man in doctor’s clothes. He was around Zach’s age with cropped blonde hair and a smart pair of wire frame glasses.

He introduced himself. “Hi, I’m Doctor Eric, and I’m your grandfather’s primary physician.”

Isabel nodded dumbly. “Is he going to be all right?”

“I’m about to find that out.” And Eric left to see her grandfather.

Hours later Eric came back to where Catherine and Isabel had been waiting. He looked serious but not despondent. Isabel felt her heart pressing like lead against her ribs.

“It was a stroke,” he said, “but not a catastrophic one. He will make it. But he’s going to need a lot of recovery time.”

Isabel felt like she was slowly being dissolved. “Can I see him?”

“He’s resting now and can’t hear you, but I don’t think it would hurt for you to just come in the room for a moment. He’s a strong man, Isabel. He’ll find his way through. I want to keep him here for at least a couple of weeks.

After that, the shape of Isabel’s days changed into visiting her grandfather every day, and speaking with him when he was able to, and returning to the shop to run the register for the few customers there were. No one had brought any messages since he’d gone into the hospital. Isabel almost had to laugh as the end of October approached and the weather predictions were for a hurricane due to make a landfall on the city.

She hadn’t seen Zach since her grandfather had gone into the hospital. He came by with a truck filled with plywood boards and several young people with hammers and nails.

He looked at her gravely. “I thought I’d help you board up the place before the storm hits.”

Isabel felt like her throat was full of wet sand. “Thank you. That’s very kind.”

He and his crew quickly did their work, and the others went back to the truck. Zach looked at her and reached a hand out for her face.

Isabel was ashamed at how she took a step back; she didn’t want him touching her with those hands. Those red, raw hands that had seen too much dying. She was sick of dying and storms and just waiting for the one that would finally sweep you out to sea and drown you. Leaving you a coral-covered skeleton somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, streamers of seaweed where your hair had once been.

Zach looked hurt and she hated herself even more. He covered it and nodded. “Well, take care of yourself Isabel. If you need anything just call Catherine.” And he turned to get inside the truck and drove away.

Isabel prepared the rest of the house for the coming storm, pulling out candles and filling pitchers with water. She was late getting to her grandfather’s room; evening had already fallen. She walked up to the room and heard a voice speaking to him. She recognized it as the voice of the cloaked figure she had accidentally met last month.

Something stayed her hand from knocking and she pressed her ear against the slightly open door. The figure was reading something to her grandfather. It was Du Maurier, one of her grandfather’s favorites. She recognized it as Jamaica Inn. Her grandfather had given her a copy for her 20th birthday.

The heroine had to leave her safe places and walk empty handed among her enemies. She had to learn to trust a wild man of the moors. Isabel knew she shouldn’t disturb the man and her grandfather. She’d see him tomorrow. She turned on silent feet, reached into her purse for grandfather’s address book, and looked up where Zach lived.

Zach opened his door and looked at her with some surprise. “Isabel, is it your grandfather? Do I need-”

“No, it’s nothing serious. I just felt I should come over and apologize for how I acted this afternoon.”

Zach shrugged. “It’s all right. You’ve been going through it lately. Would you like to come in?”

Isabel stepped into the small apartment. It was spare but not sterile, the simple furnishings obviously salvaged and repaired but had all the more character for that. A cinderblock bookcase was full of First Aid manuals and biographies of Old Hollywood stars. Janelle Monáe was playing on the stereo. Isabel noticed the lack of photos.

Zach went into the small kitchen and came back with two beers. Isabel took one and sat down. A patchwork quilt was draped over the back of the sofa. Isabel ran her fingers over the stitching and smiled.

“Someone put a lot of care into making this.”

“Yeah.” Zach smiled. “Me and the rest of my sewing class thought we’d never get it done, but then we did. When I moved here they gave it to me as a gift so I would always have a bit of home.” He was looking at the scraps of fabric and letting himself speak unguardedly.

“Where is home, Zach?” Isabel asked softly.

Zach looked at her, and his eyes were so warm and tender. But he looked away and spoke in that careful voice again. “Home is a safe place. It stays that way by not talking about it too much.”

Isabel sighed. She felt like she’d ruined things again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” She put down her beer. “I should probably go.”

“Please don’t,” Zach said, and he almost reached for her again, but remembered himself and set his hands on the quilt, running his thick fingers over the stitches.

Isabel watched those hands, those terrible hands that nonetheless had saved so many people at the cost of their owner. She reached out and took his hands in hers. She rubbed her thumbs over the red, angry skin and traced her fingers over the smashed knuckles.

Zach was watching her very carefully. “What do you want Isabel?”

She looked at him. “I want to know I’m alive and there’s something more than death or storms waiting for us. I just want to feel not scared to death, just one night.” She was breathing more rapidly, Zach’s hands tightening on hers.

“You are alive Isabel, and so am I.” He gathered her into his arms and kissed her.

Isabel forgot the over-lit waiting rooms and the agony of a row of people saying “I’m so sorry for your loss” as though that made it somehow okay your mother was never going to take you out for sushi on your birthday again, forgot about storms that sent choking waves of seawater over everything and everybody. She only knew those hands, those wonderful hands as they undressed her and held her close as he took her. She clung to him with her hands tight on his shoulders and answered him with the crashing sea of her own body. And they were the only two people in the world floating in a sea that shimmered with dancing light.

It was close to one o’clock in the morning when she left him as he slept. She watched the rise and fall of his chest like a gentle swell in the water and ran her fingers across his face. She dressed and slipped out the door and hailed a cab.

She made it into the shop before the fear came back. She sat down right on the floor of the shop and pressed her fists into her eyes and started to cry. To cry for her weakness and need, for her stupidity to think she could have someone like Zach and not have it hurt. That she had broken her own most sacred rule and now was going to be punished for it like a luckless mortal in a Greek myth. That she did not care and it was worth it made her cry harder. She cried until the headache came and she rose to go to the apartment. She slept all day to be woken by the hurricane making landfall that evening.

The next several days were some of the most terrifying in her life. The building made it, but she was unable to visit her grandfather. She walked into the hospital room at last to overhear Doctor Eric talking to her grandfather.

“Everyone made it through?” Eli asked with clear effort.

“We don’t know, Eli. Some are still unaccounted for.” Eric squeezed her grandfather’s hand.

“Nikki?”

“She’s all right. She was out of town this week thank god.” Eric noticed her. “Oh, Isabel. I’m afraid it’s going to have to be brief. We’re getting so many patients from the storm we need all the space we can get.”

“I understand,” Isabel said. Eric left to attend another patient.

Eli was looking at her strangely. “It’s me, Grandfather,” Isabel said slowly.

“I know it’s you, Izzy. My brains have not been that scrambled out of me.” He chuckled faintly. “I’m afraid I’m about to throw you in the deep end. Quite literally.”

“What do you mean?” Isabel asked.

“I know the storm flooded the basement, yes?”

“I’m afraid so, Grandfather. I’m sure in-”

Her grandfather continued to speak as though she hadn’t answered. “Call Zach. Tell him to take the kayak into the basement. He’ll know what to do.”

“Grandfather, what do you mean?”

“Please, Isabel.” Her grandfather’s strength was fading for the day. “I will answer all of your questions later, but for now I need you to promise me you will do this.”

“I promise.”

“Good. Now go. You haven’t any time to lose.”

Isabel returned to the shop. She pulled her cell phone out of her purse. She called Zach, but got his voice mail. Speaking with a calmness she didn’t feel, she left a message. “Hello, Zach? It’s me, Isabel. I know this sounds crazy, but my grandfather wanted you to take the kayak down to the basement. It’s flooded. I’m going to go ahead and do it myself. Call me soon okay?”

She carried the kayak down the steps, the water knee level at the base of the steps. She stood there stupidly for several moments before she heard it. It was a faint tapping and rattling on the pipes.

She listened. It wasn’t the random noise of old pipes, but a clearly repeating pattern. She waded toward the back wall and placed her hand on the pipe. It vibrated under her fingers. She searched and found a lever, flipping it. To her shock a section of the wall swiveled open on a pivot. She grabbed a battery-operated lantern from the top of a shelf and waded into the darkness, dragging the kayak behind her.

The pipe now ran along a jagged rock wall and the sounds were louder. The water became deeper too. When it reached her thighs, she slipped into the kayak and began to paddle. The length of pipe zigged and zagged through multiple tunnels, but she felt as long as the sound was becoming louder she was headed in the right direction. The light from the lantern in her lap gave off a faint glow.

She was breathing hard from fear and the effort of paddling when she heard a different noise. People. There were people down here. She came around the curve into a cavern and saw them. They were trapped. The water had pushed them on the ledge of rock at the top of the wall, but it was slowly filling up the space as there was no outlet for it.

She saw a group of people. And she saw a woman…whose eyes glowed in the light of her lantern because she was not a human woman. She had the face of a cat. Isabel gasped. The woman with a cat face was holding something. Isabel realized it was a little girl. Isabel looked at the other faces seeing the mixture of surprise, desperation, and exhaustion on them. She looked at the cat woman again. She was rubbing her hand in small circles on the child’s back to comfort them. Isabel remembered her mother doing that.

From somewhere Isabel found her voice. “Don’t be afraid. I’m Isabel. Eli is my grandfather. I’m here to help. How many of you are down here?”

* * *

Isabel waited for her train to take her back to North Carolina. Zach was sitting beside her. She’d said goodbye to Eli in his new room in the brownstone. That was only temporary until he would move into the building Catherine had bought for the people who lived Below.

Below, what a simple name for such an amazing place. The water had spared much of Below, but they knew their luck could not hold forever. By sacrificing many of their home tunnels they might preserve spaces like the library and the great hall. It was going to be an interesting few months of arguments, Isabel could tell.

She was going home not having kept her promise to stay through the winter, but Eli had the care he needed and she needed her mountains again, to think over a great many things. The early December light strained through the windows of the building. Isabel got up to leave when she heard her train called. She looked at Zach.

“Thank you for helping me, all the time I’ve been here, really.”

“Don’t mention it.” He looked worried and almost like he wasn’t going to say it, but did. “Will I see you again?”

“I think so,” Isabel said. “I’m coming back. I don’t know when or for how long but I’m definitely coming back to visit my grandfather.”

Zach seemed to accept that for an answer. He cupped the side of her face and rubbed her ear with a rough finger. Isabel learned into the caress and closed her eyes for a moment.

“Take care of yourself, Zach. Would it be okay if I called or wrote sometimes?”

His radiant smile made her glad she asked. “Yeah, I’d like that, and would it be okay if I did the same?”

“You bet.” Isabel bent down to pick up her suitcase and Zach pulled an envelope from his pocket.

“I asked your grandfather about getting you something you’d like, but don’t open it until you’re on the train, okay?”

Isabel took the lumpy envelope and smiled. “Okay, but you really didn’t have to get me anything.”

“I think I did.” Zach smiled and this time Isabel leaned in to kiss him. The kiss made her blood feel like hot coffee and she took a step back. Both of them knew not to say anything to spoil the moment and waved as Isabel turned to leave.

As the train rolled out of the station, Isabel opened the envelope. Her eyes filled with tears and she laughed out loud at the same moment. It was a packet of sunflower seeds. She ran her thumb over the glossy packet paper and looked out the window into sometime in the future.

She’d plant these seeds in the chill of some spring morning, and in between then and the riot of their blooming? Well, a lot could happen. Like maybe Zach would want to spend a summer in a different chain of mountains. Where he could breathe that good clean air that made every cell of your body feel like jumping for joy. She was sorry she’d have to wait so long to plant them, but then she gently chided herself.

“All winters end, Isabel,” she thought as she drifted off to sleep, the spires of the skyscrapers behind her winking like stars in the bitter winter sun.