1.06

Her grand­fa­ther was here. It was go time. Now or nev­er. Could she do it?

Car­nelia bit her lip and looked down at her hands. They trem­bled with fatigue, even as she rest­ed one against the fam­i­ly totem. Her body, too. She was sore all over. She’d been climb­ing and falling all week, and her ear­li­er tum­ble had hurt more than she liked to admit.

The answer was no. At least, not if she kept going at it like she was.

Car­nelia glanced at her real name­stone on the ground. The sack of tools still lay in the same spot beside it, exact­ly where she had left it at the start of the week. Untouched. She had hoped nev­er to use it…

But now was the time to pull out all the stops.

---

Much to Jeorr’s sur­prise, the first thing Car­nelia did after meet­ing their silent back-and-forth was to step away from the Blaze­bright totem. She also removed her har­ness and let the fake, rub­ber name­stone on her back fall drop. A fool­ish hope bloomed in the old man’s heart for a moment as it set­tled heav­i­ly on the cav­ern floor.

“G--”
     “Giv­ing up, girlie?”

Ms. Zenic stole the words from his mouth before he could muster them. Car­nelia smiled and shook her head.

“Of course not! This is just… plan B.”

With a wink, Car­nelia saun­tered over to the sack that lay on the ground next to her real name­stone. She pulled out a thick coil of rope from inside. Then, with a grunt, she lift­ed her real name­stone on its side and began loop­ing the rope around the name­stone. It took a few rolls and criss­cross­ing knots before it was secure. Once it was, Car­nelia let her name­stone drop back down with a heavy, dusty thump, and she fin­ished things by fish­ing out the oppo­site end of the coil of rope and tying that around her waist.

As his ward did that, Jeorr won­dered what her plan was. Why use a rope if the har­ness she was using ear­li­er was the lighter, eas­i­er option? Even after secur­ing her name­stone with the rope, a con­sid­er­able length of it was left coiled on the ground. Now, she would have to car­ry all that excess weight in addi­tion to her name­stone as she climbed, and it all would be swing­ing below her too, unse­cured, instead of strapped to her back. If she wasn’t care­ful, she could be yanked right off the pil­lar while climb­ing.

The mur­murs and con­cerned nois­es com­ing from the sur­round­ing crowd told Jeorr that his fel­low Down­tow­n­i­ans were think­ing along the same lines. Car­nelia ignored them all, giv­ing her work a few hard tugs to check that every­thing was nice and snug. It was. She stood up and nod­ded, paus­ing only to secret a few more items from the sack into her pock­ets, then approached the totem once more.

Jeorr watched as Car­nelia took a beat at the foot of her fam­i­ly totem and raised her eyes sky­ward. With­out the weight on her back, her move­ments were light and free. She bounced on her toes, rolled her shoul­ders, and cracked her neck. Plumes of white dust scat­tered from her hands as she re-chalked them. She took a deep breath.

Then, she began her climb with a leap.

She flew almost a yard high before latch­ing onto the smooth pil­lar like a gecko. Then she start­ed to pull her­self up, her hands find­ing and grasp­ing the bare­ly per­cep­ti­ble div­ots and bumps in the stone with ease. With the name­stone still on the ground and a week’s prac­tice under her belt, she moved fast, a far cry from her pre­vi­ous plod­ding attempts. In less than a minute, she reached the point where Jeorr had first spot­ted her. The same smooth spot that had caused her so much trou­ble before.

--and she leaped right past it, not giv­ing the crowd even a moment of antic­i­pa­tion.

By the sec­ond minute of her climb, Car­nelia was already hang­ing off the top of the totem, slap­ping Diamme’s name for good luck.

“Hiya, every­one!”

Carnelia’s greet­ing echoed as she waved from high above, and the crowd of excit­ed geri­atrics and retirees cheered in return. All except for two. Jeorr, who watched her progress with stiff and silent wor­ry, and Ms. Zenic. She ges­tured drunk­en­ly at the name­stone, which still sat on the ground exact­ly where Car­nelia had left it.

“It’s very nice you got way up there, but you for­got your spe­cial stone, sil­ly!”

It was true. Car­neli­a’s real name­stone, that ter­ri­bly incon­ve­nient slab of lime­stone, was still on the ground. But Jeorr noticed the rope con­nect­ing Car­nelia to her name­stone. It only had a coil or so of slack left. An odd­ly pre­cise length.

Jeor­r’s eyes widened in hor­ror as his idle obser­va­tion led him to a ter­ri­ble, heart-sink­ing real­iza­tion. Car­nelia had already defeat­ed his chal­lenge. She’d defeat­ed it the day he’d giv­en it to her.

“You’re right, Ms. Zenic!” Car­nelia shout­ed back from above. “If I don’t keep an eye on it, you might eat it!”

“You bet!”

Cran­ing her head back, the woman bran­dished her false teeth and gnashed them, elic­it­ing laugh­ter from friends and neigh­bors. She laughed too, the loud­est and most rau­cous of all.

Real­iz­ing what Car­nelia was about to do, Jeorr hol­low­ly watched as Car­nelia final­ly clam­bered atop the pil­lar and stood tall. It was so sim­ple. At this point, all she had to do was pull up the stone. It would take a while, and it would be stren­u­ous, but she would get it up there even­tu­al­ly. There were ways for her to take a break if she need­ed to, too.

She could’ve done this any day of the week, he real­ized glum­ly. She had sim­ply been wait­ing for him to crawl out of his work­shop.

As Jeorr wres­tled with his feel­ings, Car­nelia began a series of stretch­es on the nar­row space atop the pil­lar. Fin­gers to toes, hip twists and shoul­der rolls; Down­tow­n­i­ans exclaimed in wor­ry as sev­er­al stretch­es brought the girl tee­ter­ing near the edge. But even from far below, they could see the white flash of her con­fi­dent grin. On the ground or a tightrope, it made no dif­fer­ence. Car­neli­a’s bal­ance was impec­ca­ble.

“Don’t wor­ry,” she called out. “I have every­thing under con­trol!”

The truth of that state­ment became all the more appar­ent to Jeorr as she pro­ceed­ed with the next step of her ‘plan B’.

With her warm-up fin­ished, Car­nelia pulled out from her pock­ets what she had secret­ed ear­li­er from the sack. Four small, wood­en wedges and a long-noz­zled tube of adhe­sive. Jeorr imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nized them as being from his work­shop. Car­nelia lath­ered the sides of each wedge with the gray paste, crouched down, and stuck them in pairs against the side of the Diamme’s name­stone. The pairs were placed on oppos­ing sides of the pil­lar, point­ed down­wards, and with a slight gap between them.

The adhe­sive she’d cho­sen cured near-instant­ly. As Car­nelia tried to wrig­gle the wedges from side to side to test their bonds to the stone, Jeorr heard Miss Eleina make a noise of com­pre­hen­sion.

“Ah, I see. Clever girl.”

“What is it, Miss Eleina?” asked Opal.

“It’s--” Miss Eleina caught Jeorr sneak­ing a glance at her. She quick­ly turned away and pat­ted her young stu­dent on the head. “--a sur­prise. You’ll find out soon enough.”

Back atop the pil­lar, Car­nelia was nod­ding, appar­ent­ly sat­is­fied with her work. Then, plant­i­ng her feet wide, she lined the rope up between the set of wedges in front of her--the gap between them per­fect­ly match­ing the width of the rope--and pulled the rope taut. What few coils of rope remained on the ground van­ished as she wrapped the excess length around her­self, and after a few test pulls, had the name­stone buck­ing up and down off the ground.

Then Car­nelia backed her­self to the edge of the pil­lar as close as she could. The crowd hushed as she gazed over her shoul­der at the long drop behind her.

It was clear what she planned to do.

“Oh, I can’t watch!” Opal cried out. He clapped his hands over his eyes and tucked his face into Miss Eleina’s dress. The gov­erness her­self clutched Jeorr’s arm ner­vous­ly.

“The stones on that girl!” she whis­pered.

Though his stom­ach was as tight as a vice, Jeorr didn’t turn away. He knew, at least in his mind, if not his heart, that Car­nelia was not about to trau­ma­tize them with the sight of her young corpse splat­ter­ing on the hard, stone floor. She had a plan, even if it didn’t quite match how he’d envi­sioned her beat­ing his chal­lenge.

With every­one in silent antic­i­pa­tion, Car­nelia took a deep breath. Then, with a deep breath and a spring of her tight­ly bent knees, she hopped off the pil­lar.

She dropped like a stone.

The crowd gasped. But before she could drop too far, Car­nelia grabbed hold of the pil­lar and skid­ded to a halt. The crowd let out a col­lec­tive sigh of relief.

After a moment, those sighs turned into excit­ed whis­pers as they real­ized what Car­nelia had done. Match­ing the exact dis­tance she had fall­en…

…the name­stone had risen a meter above the ground.

Jeorr cursed as he belat­ed­ly put the pieces togeth­er. Car­nelia had fig­ured out an even eas­i­er way to beat his chal­lenge than he had ini­tial­ly thought. She was using the pil­lar like a pul­ley, with her own body as the coun­ter­weight to her name­stone. After all, why pull up the stone when she could rely on grav­i­ty to do all the work? The wedges were guide­posts to keep the rope from slip­ping free of the pil­lar.

It was easy. Too damned easy.

Indeed, Car­nelia made it look prac­ti­cal­ly effort­less. After adjust­ing the rope to make sure it was still aligned with the wedges, she began to descend. And with her weight par­tial­ly can­celed out by the name­stone, she looked like she was float­ing as she rap­pelled down. Like an astro­naut land­ing on the moon. Her quick arrival back on the cav­ern floor was met with a storm of applause.

How­ev­er, Carnelia’s task wasn’t quite fin­ished. While she had reached the ground with­out a prob­lem, back at the peak of the pil­lar, her name­stone was still stuck at the lip. Noth­ing a few hard yanks could­n’t solve, but Jeorr could tell right away that Car­nelia didn’t want to end it that way.

As she loos­ened the knot around her waist, Car­nelia turned to the crowd of neigh­bors, men­tors, and friends that had shown up to watch her climb. She held out the taut rope with a bright smile and a showman’s flour­ish.

“I need three vol­un­teers to hold the rope in place for me!”

Jeorr scowled and crossed his arms, but it did­n’t mat­ter. Car­nelia had no short­age of oth­er vol­un­teers. Start­ing with Miss Eleina--who rough­ly elbowed past him--a flood of towns­folk con­verged towards Car­nelia with eager­ly raised hands. It end­ed up with Miss Eleina and Ms. Zenic hold­ing the line, with Opal also help­ing to mixed effect.

In the mean­time, Car­nelia returned to face her neme­sis, the pil­lar. But this time, with­out any bur­dens hold­ing her back.

It was no chal­lenge at all. Before Jeorr could even have a chance to wor­ry, she was back at the peak of the Bright­burn fam­i­ly totem, perched right under her loose­ly swing­ing name­stone.

For this last hur­dle, Car­nelia didn’t use a fan­cy workaround. She mere­ly gripped her legs around the pil­lar, locked her feet, then with her free upper body, grunt­ing and strain­ing, lift­ed the name­stone…

…and dropped it in its final posi­tion with a heavy thump.

The sound echoed loud­ly in the silent antic­i­pa­tion that filled the cav­ern. The Down­town was qui­et as it ever had been. Jeorr stiffly turned to regard Miss Eleina and Zenic.

Shar­ing smiles, the two women count­ed down.

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One.”

They let go of the rope. It fell slack to the ground and no name­stone came tum­bling down from the sky.

Car­neli­a’s dis­tant whoop echoed across the whole cav­ern.

---

As the Down­tow­n­i­ans also explod­ed in cheers, hoot­ing and hol­ler­ing, grasp­ing and shak­ing each oth­er’s shoul­ders, Jeorr watched his ward fol­low through on the final touch­es of the chal­lenge. Before she came back down, she lev­ered free the wedges she had attached the totem with a knife she’d also bor­rowed from his work­shop and cut the name­stone free from all that rope wrapped around it. Last­ly, with a few hard knocks, she made sure the name­stone was prop­er­ly aligned with the fam­i­ly totem. She was mak­ing cer­tain that when she final­ly arrived back on the ground, there was noth­ing wrong, noth­ing he could say.

The towns­folk were still chant­i­ng her name when she land­ed back on Aerth. They clapped her back and ruf­fled her hair as she approached him. Her eyes were bright and shin­ing.

Every­one fell silent, wait­ing for his response. Jeorr crossed his arms.

“You know, you’re not sup­posed to have help dur­ing the rite of pas­sage.”

“You’re the one who always says there’s noth­ing wrong with a lit­tle help,” Car­nelia replied eas­i­ly.

“And my tools. You took them with­out ask­ing.”

“Oh, you gut­less--!“

Miss Eleina clapped a hand over Ms. Zenic mouth and hauled the drunk woman back. She waved for them to con­tin­ue.

“I can put them back,” Car­nelia replied, unphased and unblink­ing.

Jeor­r’s frown deep­ened as the pres­sure from the watch­ing crowd inten­si­fied. Then he let his true feel­ings show. The hurt he felt.

“I don’t under­stand,” he said. “If you knew how to get your name­stone up there from the start, why spend a whole week going through this song and dance? To make me look like a fool? To give me false hope?”

“Of course not!”

“Then why? Tell me.”

Car­nelia hes­i­tat­ed. She looked up at the totem of names, stand­ing in its twi­light shad­ow.

“I real­ly did want to do it the right way, Gramps. Like Diamme and all the oth­ers. I want­ed you to know I was ready. But…” Her gaze dropped. “…it was too hard.”

Jeorr fol­lowed her gaze and imme­di­ate­ly felt more fool­ish than he already did. His ward’s hands were vis­i­bly raw and red, even through the chalk and tape that thor­ough­ly cov­ered them. Her legs were in no bet­ter state, cov­ered in fric­tion burns wher­ev­er there was no cloth pro­tect­ing her skin. And though he couldn’t see it, Jeorr did not doubt that under­neath her clothes, the rest of Carnelia’s body was pur­ple and blue with bruis­es.

Of course, Car­nelia had attempt­ed the tra­di­tion­al climb with every­thing she had. Noth­ing less was in her nature. What’s worse, she would’ve endured ten times worse with­out a hint of resent­ment or blame. Lies? Decep­tion? Her earnest effort made Jeorr feel like an ass, a true horse’s ass, for accus­ing her.

A tap on his shoul­der brought him back into the moment.

“You promised,” Miss Eleina remind­ed him with a mixed smile.

Indeed, he had. He’d been the one to set out the rules, so he had to pay the price when she won. So with crossed arms, Jeorr con­sid­ered Car­nelia like he had Diamme, long ago. Fair­ly.

It was true, she had­n’t been strong enough to car­ry her name­stone up the pil­lar the tra­di­tion­al way. It was true, she defied the vision of his chal­lenge by using tools and lever­age. It was true, she had bent the rules by recruit­ing Miss Eleina and Zenic to hold the rope at the end.

But so what?

Didn’t the help she received from peo­ple near her prove her abil­i­ty to con­nect and gal­va­nize those around her? Didn’t the way she used the pil­lar as a pul­ley prove her inge­nu­ity in the face of a phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers? Didn’t her many failed attempts to do things the ‘right’ way prove her incred­i­ble resilience and deter­mi­na­tion?

Didn’t all those qual­i­ties mat­ter more than whether she could car­ry a heavy rock?

He glanced around at the sur­round­ing crowd, silent­ly and expec­tant­ly await­ing his answer. Real­iz­ing that he’d already decid­ed on what it was, he sighed.

“Fine… You can go.”

Exact­ly the words Car­nelia want­ed to hear.