| To Saralinda: Part 5 |
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To Saralinda: Part 7 |
Keith’s climb down the cliff face is slow going. He tests for patches of crumbling rock by kicking gently with the toe of his boot before he proceeds with the next step. It’s a turtle’s pace, but he won’t be stopped now. I can tell by the gleam of raw determination in his eyes.
It’s too bad we couldn’t have gotten to the spot directly above the doll so he could just climb straight down to get it, but this is good in a way. Breaking the rubble loose above her could have knocked her right off the ledge and sent her into the water below. And it’s ugly down there. Pieces of floor struts are sticking up from the pool like spikes, and jagged bits of broken furniture are floating everywhere.
Keith is finally down to a point where he’s even with the ledge, so now he begins to work his way across the cliff face. At one point his kick sends move rock sliding than expected, and he loses his footing for a second. He has to use his right foot to brace at an odd angle, and I hear him bite back a yelp.
His ankle is a lot worse than what he let on. Damn it, I knew it!
He recovers and moves on with much more caution. Soon he comes to a deep recess running vertically down the pit. He kicks off sideways with his left foot, gives some slack and clears it easily. Now he’s just shy of arm’s reach to the doll. He takes a small step, reaches, gauges his distance, steps, extends his arm again.
Allura gets her kiss tonight, Allura gets her kiss tonight. Neener neener neener...
I suddenly hear an odd sort of tearing sound by my left foot, and I look down. Keith’s sideways jump has dragged his rope across a broken section of floor strut just beyond the far side of the crevasse, and the jagged metal edge has sliced nearly three-quarters of the way through. The rope is fraying at an alarming speed.
I swallow my heart back down from where it’s lodged in my throat.
“Keith!” I bellow at him. “Freeze! Grab rock!”
He halts in mid-reach and presses against the cliff face. I run back from the edge to secure the second line, my mind racing. I’ve got to get the rope as close to him as possible, yet avoid placing it at a point where it’ll cross that strut again. That means risking the area where the floor hasn’t been tested, and I certainly don’t have the time to do it right now.
So be it. As long as my buddy comes out of this in one piece. Besides, if I do plummet to my death then I definitely won’t have to worry about singing to Nanny.
I ready the coil of rope, quickly step as close to the spot near Keith as I can and toss the rope over. Some bits of rock break loose but it’s nothing major.
The rope starts to skip back toward me as it uncoils over the edge but halts when it snags in a crack in the tiles. I head over to try and loosen it, and the floor sags dangerously where I step, sending a handful of pebbles over the edge.
“Don’t risk it, Lance,” Keith calls up to me. “I’m going to make a try for the rope. Stand by to lend me a hand once I grab it.”
“Okay, Cap’n,” I call back to him.
I retreat to the safe area and look over the edge. He’s still in cling position against the rock. The fresh rope is overhanging the edge and running right down the middle of the crevasse he bypassed just moments ago. It’s two feet out and just beyond arm’s reach on his left, same as Saralinda is on his right. His own rope has frayed to a single filament; he is literally hanging by a thread, caught between success and oblivion.
He twists his head around to study the doll, then his frayed rope, then the good rope, then finally returns his attention to the doll again. I feel my stomach tie up into a hard knot. I know exactly what he’s thinking, and worse still, I think he’s actually going to try it.
I hate feeling totally helpless. It’s got to be the absolute worst state of being in the universe.
I was seven years old when my mother died. She was suffering from a terminal illness that I could not and did not want to understand. The day I went to see her in the hospital for the last time, I hoped and prayed and cried and wailed. It was all so much wasted air. She squeezed my father’s hand, touched my hair, smiled at us both. Then she closed her eyes and she was gone. Just like that.
And I raged. At my father for letting her go. At the doctors for not making her well. At my little brother just because he happened to be handy at the time. At the whole world.
Then I bumped into this new kid at school one day. Dark hair, dark eyes, quiet manner. The girls sighed after him, the boys kept a respectful distance from him. I of course had to confront this intruder onto my turf. He was neither impressed with me nor intimidated by me.
We had a knock-down, drag-out in the playground one sunny afternoon and though I gave nearly as good as I got I received a stomping unlike any I had experienced up to that point. And after it was all over he helped me up, dusted me off, and offered his hand to shake and make up.
Now that same dark-haired kid, my best friend on this world or any other, is trapped on the side of a cliff beyond my help and I am the same useless seven-year-old all over again. I wish I’d never heard of Saralinda. I wish I’d never told him about her. He wouldn’t be in this position right now.
Please, Keith, please. I’ll accept defeat. I don’t care if everyone in the whole castle laughs at me. Don’t go after that doll. Please.
I hear his words in my mind as clearly as if he were right in front of me, repeating them all over again: ‘I have to find Saralinda. I have to give her back to the Princess. That’s the only way I can do it. It’s what she represents, Lance’.
A glass cage holding something deeply cherished, always within sight but never within reach. He’s been hanging from his own emotional cliff since the day he met Allura. And the rope he’s been clinging to is just as frayed as the one he has now.
All right, I understand. Good luck, Cap’n...
He responds as if he’s heard my silent wish. With infinite slowness, he reaches down with his left hand to give some slack to his rope. He presses tight against the cliff face as he inches his way toward Saralinda, step by calculated step. His fingers brush her foot. The doll falls onto its side, her one hand seeming to reach out to him in kind. With one fluid movement he grabs her arm, places her on his right shoulder and tilts his head to pin her there like a telephone receiver. Slowly he turns his upper body just enough to locate the other rope and checks his own again. The remaining uncut strand is no thicker than a piece of yarn.
He takes a deep breath, then he abruptly kicks off with his right foot, grimacing as he does a sideways leap. His rope snaps a little past mid-swing, but he’s already closing his hands around the good one as the other drops away. Tarzan would be proud.
The sudden weight on the fresh rope makes the piece of overhang it was resting on break off. Keith gets slapped against the cliff wall, and the debris stirred up from his impact rains down on him. He keeps his head down and braces with his feet.
One large chunk of rock about the size of a brick glances off the right edge of his helmet, knocking it loose and sending it flying. He startles and gives a small yelp of alarm, reflexively tucking his head to the left. Saralinda slides off his shoulder and tumbles past his chest. He lets go of the rope with one hand and snatches her out of the air by one of her ponytails. Then he tucks her down the front of his shirt and begins to work his way back to my side of the cliff.
My chest begins to heave, my lungs start protesting and it dawns on me that I’ve been holding my breath for the past minute or so.
I suck in a lungful of air and move to the rope, gripping it with one hand and holding out the other to help him up as soon as he gets within reach. When he’s a safe distance from the edge he plucks the doll out of his shirt. Then he looks up at me and gives a shaky smile.
“That,” he says to me, “was just a little bit tricky.”
“That,” I say to him, “is the understatement of the century.”
He looks down at the doll, and so do I. She really is a cute little thing now that I see her up close. Her eyes have a sparkle to them that’s almost eerie in its accuracy. She has a faint touch of rose color to her dimpled cheeks, her mouth is upturned into a smile that threatens to become a giggle at any moment. Her arms seem to fall naturally into a hug position. Keith studies her with a similar look of admiration.
“Okay, little lady, it’s about time we got back so I can get you cleaned up for the party,” he says as he brushes a fingertip across her face. Suddenly he frowns and carefully moves her bangs aside.
“What the...? I think I just wiped her eyebrow off!”
“What?” I lean close to look. There’s a bit of tan-colored dust where the painted
arch should have been. We exchange looks.
“Now what do we do?” I ask him. “Repaint her face?”
“No, we could do more harm than good. There’s a toymaker in Arus city that also specializes in restoring antiques. I remember her because Pidge looked her up when he was searching for someone to fix that brass wind-up toy he found at a flea market a couple of months ago. Remember it?”
“Oh yeah, that goofy waddling duck. The spring in it was busted.”
“Uh-huh. I think I can talk her into making this a priority project since it’s a gift
for Allura. Not a problem.”
“Great. That’s just a ten-minute drive both ways. We can drop her off first, get you to Doc Leslie in the medical ward, get cleaned up and -”
“I don’t need to go to medical, Lance.”
“Oh yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t. Not for a little ankle pull and a couple of bruises.”
“Look, either you go to medical to get checked out, or I tell Allura a birthday
story starring Indiana Keith in Raiders of the Lost Doll.”
He glares at me. “Two words, Lance. Liquid lunch. Think about it.”
“Sorry, Cap’n. I’m not backing down on this one.”
He tries to stare me down, but there’s no way I’m going to give in. I get to walk away from the playground the winner this time.
Keith finally averts his gaze and reaches back to brush the rock dust out of his hair. “Fine, let’s go.”
| To Saralinda: Part 5 |
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To Saralinda: Part 7 |