Mark Dunn - Under the Harrow

It was not long before Alice, who had not put on the proper shoes, soon began to slip and slide upon the loose stones and upon the slick exposed roots that made the mountain trail less smooth and friendly than it appeared from afar. As her pace slackened, she found herself quickly overcome by some of those who climbed behind her. It was all that Cecilia could do to keep from pushing ahead and leaving Alice alone with her stumbles.

“Why did you wear those shoes?” snapped Cecilia. “They are like the tallest pattens ever made. You look as if you’re climbing upon clown stilts!”

“They were the nicest shoes I had,” was Alice’s weak response. “Go ahead if you must, but I simply cannot go along any faster or I will trip and fall.”

“I will not leave you, but you so try my patience, goose!”

Alice had made it to within several hundred yards of the Summit when the very worst thing happened; she slipped and fell to the ground in such a spectacular way that heads were turned and there was even a gasp or two from several of the women who climbed ahead of her, thinking for certain that she would somersault all the way down the mountain. Alice dropt to her knees, catching herself upon the hard, rocky path with the palms of both hands to prevent a dramatic tumble. “Have you hurt yourself, dear?” asked Mrs. Gallanbile.

“No, no, I am fine,” grunted Alice.

Cecilia shook her head in jocular judgement. “My friend is a walking mishap,” said she, while reaching out her hand to help Alice to her feet.

Alice gratefully accepted the proffered hand, but was suddenly thrown into a state of panic. She released a wordless cry of anguish.

“What is it?” There was no more glee to Cecilia’s address.

“The pendant which was in my hand — I have just now dropt it.”

“Then let us look about our feet. We’ll quickly find it.”

“No, no, no. It went down there. Into that little indention, below that rocky ledge.” Alice was pointing and peering down into a concave portion of the ridge, darkened by the shadows of the angled afternoon sun.

“Then it is lost forever. Let us resume our climb, Alice.”

“But I must have it! I really must have it!”

“Don’t be a blockhead. You cannot go down there and look for it. There is no time.”

Alice shook her head with such violence that she surprised even herself.

“If you do not leave the pendant where it is, I will call for my father to come and carry you the rest of the way. And he would do it, I’m certain, for there is not that much farther to go to the top.”

“Please, I beg of you, Cecilia. Give me but a minute or two to climb down there and give a look. The pendant is all that I have left from my mother and father. I must take it with me to remember them by.”

Cecilia gave a heavy sigh of exasperated displeasure. She tapped her toe. She put her hands upon her hips. “Take only the time required for those behind us to pass, and then I will not let you delay us even a second longer.” Even as Cecilia was granting Alice permission to slip down a little into the brushy indentation to search for the lost pendant, Alice was doing that very thing, removing herself from the trail and proceeding down into the thick foliage that would make for a most challenging hunt-and-probe even under the best of circumstances. “Oh, look at you!” bellowed Cecilia. “You have lost your mind. I’m certain of it.”

“Is that what the girl has lost — her mind?” chuckled Dr. Fibbetson, who now approached Cecilia, quite winded and no doubt happy to take a brief rest from the arduous climb.

“She has dropt some stupid little thing given her by her mother and father,” answered Cecilia with a roll of the eyes. “But you know that the Trimmers are daft. They always have been.”

“I have known it for years, my dear. I have known it for years.” Fibbetson took a few more breaths whilst excavating dust from his nose with his finger.

Alice was inclined to shout up in response to the arrant rudeness of her friend Cecilia and the disgusting medical practitioner that “no, the Trimmers are not daft. They may be different, but they are not half so daft as all of those climbing this mountain round me.” But she bit her tongue and narrowed her gaze upon all the green and brown in search of something green and grey and glistening.

“Will you come up now ?” pleaded Cecilia, as Fibbetson, representing the very last of the train, moved on. Cecilia reached out her hand to assist Alice in climbing back up.

“A moment longer, I beg you.”

“Absolutely not. Take my hand. There is no time to lose. They will leave without us if you tarry.”

“One moment more. That’s all I ask. There is something reflective in that litter of dead leaves. I must have a look at it.”

Cecilia retracted her hand. “You blithering, dunderheaded fool! You don’t deserve to come with us. You should die in this place for your stupidity. I am going. I have done with you!”

Cecilia righted herself and proceeded to climb up the trail now unaccompanied by the girl who was once her very best friend and then her near-sister, and now was someone who apparently meant nothing to her. “Over a pendant,” she muttered to herself. “A ridiculous pendant, which should mean nothing to any sane person.”

But the pendant did mean something. I meant everything to Alice Trimmers, in fact, for as it turned out, it meant her very life.

For here is what happened next. There was a woman’s scream. And then another, easily perceptible to Alice’s ears, although she was still a few hundred yards removed from the Summit and situated in a small hollow. Then came the booming sound of a man’s voice. “At will, men.” And then a sound that would echo in Alice Trimmer’s ears forever thereafter: gunfire, terrible thunderous gunfire, that did not relent for a long time — the guns firing away to be thorough, to be certain, to leave nothing undone. Alice clapped her hands over her ears but the terrific sound could not be fully blocked out. She felt faint. She reeled, losing her footing. She fell backwards into a crevice — fell directly into a break in the ground that nearly swallowed her up, that placed her into rocky, cobwebbed half-darkness, but did not dull the sound of the guns, which continued to fire away, to tear at her delicate ears with the intensity of their blasts. Then Alice heard a different sound; she heard something topple down the path as if it were a body falling, tumbling downward. She saw something in the crease of light above her that looked at first like dripping water, but was too dark for water, too red for water. There was blood spilling off the Summit of Exchange — fresh rubiginous blood — blood mixed with the soil and sand of its freshly made rivulet. She heard a rustle and the thumping of feet as unseen persons now descended the path. Was she missed? Had they come looking for her? Or was it the tumbling, somersaulting body they were after — the body that had fallen off the mountain when all the others were felled neatly upon their spots. Was it the last to have reached the top? Was it Cecilia? But no, it was not Cecilia, for there was a moan — a man’s anguished moan that could be faintly heard.

“Holy shit! This one’s still alive,” said a voice. Alice did not recognise the voice. It belonged to a man, and the accent was strange to her ear.

“It’s Fibbetson. Don’t you know him? It’s the doctor — the screw-up— probably killed more people with his one scalpel than all of those we just took out.”

“Help me,” Fibbetson moaned.

“Be glad to, Doc.” And then came a sound like ripping cloth, like tearing flesh, and an agonising cry — a blood-clabbering cry.