Mountain Flower

Ruth woke to her mother gently stroking her cheek, feeling her forehead, as she always did on the mornings when Ruth was sick. She whispered softly, perhaps something about a warm breakfast, hot lemon tea to soothe Ruth’s aching throat. The room was strangely cold, but mother’s hand was warm, so Ruth ignored it. “I’m alright, Mama” Ruth murmured, turning away from her mother. But instead of meeting the end of her straw-stuffed pillow, the edge of her own bed back home, instead of hearing the sweet lull of her mother’s reply, she hit her head on a nearby rock and nearly fell off the edge of a cliff. Ruth’s eyes sprang open and she shot upright just in time to stop herself from going over. She felt a hand on her shoulder, steadying her and pulling her back a ways. 

“Careful.” The man’s voice was as harsh as the wind, which was beginning to strengthen, but Ruth could see that his eyes were kind. Unlike the rest of his traveling companions. Ruth heard laughter. 

“The little girl thought she might get away by falling off the mountain,” said one of the men.

“It is the quickest way, after all,” jeered another.

Ruth rose to her feet and brushed the powdery snow off her skirt. The kind-eyed man watched her, perhaps waiting to see if she really was going to take a running leap off the edge. When she didn’t, he returned to the campfire. Ruth followed unsteadily behind. These men had her more nervous than her almost-fall. They sat in a half-moon circle around the fire. Their looks sent a clear message, one that made Ruth uneasy. She sat as far away from them as she could while still receiving the heat of the flames. They flickered and flashed, almost as if they were trying to escape. “I feel quite the same, my friend,” she said quietly, holding out her hands. 

But she had to stay. She had to go on. 

“You look a little flushed there, girl,” one of the men said. “You sick?”

Ruth shook her head vigorously. She knew they thought she was disposable - and at this point, they were looking for any excuse to get rid of her. They would gladly reason that a sick girl would weigh them down, leave her behind. Ruth knew they weren’t completely wrong - she wasn’t adapted to the mountain climate, and she already lagged behind after an hour or so. But more importantly, she knew that if they left her, she would never make it to the top. She couldn’t let that happen. “The wind,” she said, trying to make her voice even and convincing. Her mother had always been able to do that, not exactly lie, but twist the truth enough so that it still sounded unaltered. Not had, a small voice in the back of her mind scolded. Not yet. “It’s making my cheeks turn red. My nose, too.”

“Your dainty little nose,” said the man, teasing. “How terrible your lovely complexion would be ruined up here. Perhaps you should go back home.” His mouth turned down in a sympathetic frown. Ruth’s cheeks flushed even brighter from the anger that swelled suddenly up inside of her. 

Shoulders back. Chin up. Look them in the eye. That’s what her mother always said to do. You look like a woman who commands respect, and so you are. “If I cared a bit for my complexion” Ruth spat, disgusted, “I wouldn’t have come here in the first place. But obviously” she sat up a bit straighter, for good measure, “Anyone who comes up this path thinks of more important things.”

The man smirked, but did not reply. Ruth made sure her straight spine and hard look did not falter. First you make them see that you respect yourself - then they will respect you in turn. 

Of course, Ruth was sick. But that didn’t matter. She couldn’t let it matter. 

~~~~~

Since she had started out, Ruth had considered turning back at least a hundred times. 

She was ashamed of every one. 

She had considered it when she had seen the mountain the first time from a distance, then again when it loomed over her as she slept the first night. Then again when she arrived at its foot, and countless times since then. 

But she hadn’t turned back yet. That she was proud of. It was small, but it could mean something so much bigger in the end. If she made it to the top. 

If she lived. 

She had encountered the group of men at the beginning of the path. There were six of them, she had counted them when she saw them from far away. She had watched them that night, and she was sure that they had watched her. She was the kind of girl that men liked to look at - it wasn’t a good thing, but perhaps it was the only reason they had allowed her to join them. Because she was pretty. Ruth hated to think that was why. But she was almost certain that it was, and it didn’t matter, anyway. Not really. 

Since they had started up the mountain, seven now, the men had commented constantly on how her lovely long hair was being tangled by the wind, how her skin was going to become too callused from climbing up the rocks, how she was becoming too thin. She ignored them the best she could. 

It had been two days since she had joined them, and the sly comments had diminished a bit. Ruth was grateful for that. She was afraid, more than anything, that something would distract her, so that by the time she found her way to her destination and back to her mother, it would be too late. The only fear that eclipsed this one was that she was already too late. 

Such thoughts are simply counterproductive, my sweet, her mother would have said. 

Ruth did not know why the men were after the flowers that were said to grow at the top of the mountain, but this, too, she decided to ignore. It didn’t matter. 

Ruth had lost count of all the things that had ceased to matter in the past month or so. As long as she never forgot the thing that did matter, though, it would be alright. 

How many had she tried to tell herself that it would be alright? How many times had she failed? She had lost count of those things as well. 

Now, Ruth trudged behind the men, tripping over her long skirts. She hurried as fast as she could, and still she could barely keep them in her sights. She checked her bag of provisions, wondering again if perhaps she could survive, make it to the end of the road without them. But, no, there was hardly any food left in her bag, and she had never made a fire before. If she lost them, she would be forced to turn back; that, or die. Both options were too terrible to consider. 

The path sloped then; it was nearly vertical, and Ruth stared at it in dismay. The men struggled up it, occasionally slipping, but barely slowing down. They would soon be gone. Ruth took a deep breath, and, hiking up her insufferably long skirt, began to climb.

The ground was practically solid ice, with the occasional rock protruding. Ruth grasped at these desperately, wishing she had grown up nearer to the mountain ranges, climbing for entertainment like some of the children she had known when she was younger, instead of the peaceful, mild valley villages. Fishing and picking flowers had been a living back home, but here, they were about as useful to her as the lump of cheese and bread in her satchel. Ruth flung herself at a stone that jutted out above her head. For a moment, it felt as if she was falling, that she was about to crash back to the ground, then the rock collided with her palm and she closed her fingers around it. Her head was spinning. Perhaps she was going to vomit, which would be unfortunate at this angle, since it would probably go all over her front. Finally she managed to steady her breathing and continued up the path. Once, she mustered the courage to look up, hoping to see that her traveling companions were still just ahead of her, but saw only an endless stretch of gray sky, as if it were in front of her instead of above. She didn’t look up again after that.

After what seemed like days, perhaps years, Ruth came to the top of the hill. The path suddenly evened out to a flat crest. Ruth pulled herself up, her feet (which were numb from cold) scrabbling at the ice. Crying out quietly, she yanked her limp, sore body over the edge. 

Ruth laid there for a moment, breathing hard. Her mind was clear of anything but relief, for just a sweet moment. Then she remembered the men, who she had lost track of only a few minutes after beginning to climb. Ruth scrambled to her feet, wildly looking around. Were they gone? 

For a terrible second, she couldn’t see them. The wind howled around her, tearing her braid apart and tossing the strands around her face as she frantically searched. “No, no, please be here, please-” she whispered. Then she saw them. Six pairs of shoulders, hunched against the wind and the blowing snow. Ruth sighed and began to run.

~~~~~

“The girl is still following us, somehow.”

“I thought for certain we had lost her going up that slope.”

“She’s becoming a problem. A waste of our resources.”

“Yes. And Have you noticed that flush in her cheeks, and the way she covers her mouth, as if to cough?”

“You think she’s sick?”

“I’m nearly certain of it. She’ll only slow us down.”

Ruth stirred under the quilts she was wrapped in. The words floated through her mind until she realized suddenly what they meant. This was the second morning she awoke to something unpleasant. This time, perhaps the threat wasn’t as immediate, but still it was there, and still it made her anxious. 

This fever - or whatever sickness it was - had gotten significantly worse in the past day, even in her sleep. Snot was crusted and frozen at the bottom of her nose, her eyelids burned, and she felt cold, even under her thick quilts. And yes, she had acquired a cough, as well, it seemed. At home, this might have been only an annoying fever, but here, on the mountain, it could be deadly. In many ways. 

She smuggled her hands, still almost warm, from under the blankets and felt cautiously at her cheeks. Even in the cold, they were blazing hot. She touched her forehead. It was the same. And a headache pounded at the back of her skull. Ruth cursed the fates for their cruel trick, and the ill timing. Then she prayed that, oh, please, it was not the same disease as her mother’s. Surely not, surely it was not infectious… But of course, Ruth had no way of knowing that. 

Even if it was, the flowers at the top of the mountain would cure her, as well. She was not completely doomed.

The whispers started up again. Ruth hated to hear the way they so easily talked of being rid of her, throwing her out to the harsh landscape of the mountain lands. In her homeland, she had never heard of anyone being so thoughtlessly cruel - but perhaps her mother had protected her from such things. From all the terrible things of the world. 

The worst things always happened to the kindest people. Why was that?

Ruth forced her eyes open. Perhaps she would feign waking up, so that the men would see her and cease their conspiratorial talk. But before she could stretch and loudly yawn, she heard a harsh voice cut through the men’s mutterings. It was not a loud voice, but it silenced the others easily, even the winds. “The girl has asked nothing of you, why be rid of her? She has asked us not even to slow our pace or wait for her when she follows behind us, and doesn’t complain when we feed her off our table scraps like a dog.” It said, not angry, but not gentle or calm, either. Ruth realized suddenly that it was the kind-eyed man who spoke, he who had to steadied her the morning before when she had nearly fallen off the edge of the cliff. 

“You wanted a pretty face to look at, there it is. You would have had more trouble having one if you carried a painting of such a woman in your pocket.”

Ruth smiled slightly at his words. He defended her, a girl he didn’t even know, to his comrades, who might in turn decide that they didn’t need him, either, because of it. But they seemed to listen. 

“And if she is truly sick, then she will drop away on her own, you needn’t push her.”

Ruth’s smile disappeared. He may defend her, but he had no intention of truly helping her. Kind eyes did not mean a kind heart, Ruth reminded herself.

Oh, how she missed her mother.

~~~~~

Their journey continued, and Ruth followed behind, struggling even more now because of her ailment. The knocking in the back of her skull was now a pounding, and her cough would sometimes cause her to double over. An aching was blooming in her middle from the way her hacking pulled at her muscles. She wished only to rest, to lie down and perhaps sleep a while. But she knew she couldn’t. Not yet. 

The path seemed to wind on forever, but Ruth knew they must be getting close. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about the trip back down the mountain - all the hills she had conquered that she would later have to find her way down without falling to her death. Not even the flowers would be able to save someone from such a fate. Perhaps that was why the fates had placed the magical plants atop the mountain, to show that even someone who possessed them was not immortal. The fates tended to be the way, greedy with their gift of eternal life. They seemed to enjoy death, but in the same manner that one enjoys a race or a fight - watching in amusement, from a distance.

Ruth hated the fates. She had never liked them much, but now she hated them. Especially in that everything that was important to her seemed to lie so obviously in their hands, and they toyed with it like cat toys with a mouse. Now, stumbling along behind the men, Ruth had a terrible urge to cry out, to the wind, to the sky, to the mountain, to the cruel, cruel world, “I hate you! I hate you all!” But she shook it away angrily. The illness wanted to get to her brain, and she couldn’t let it. It would make her lose her focus, make her delirious, and she could not have that. It would kill her faster than anything else. 

Hours passed, or so it seemed, and still the sun shone just as persistently in the sky, telling Ruth that she had to keep walking, keep moving. It never appeared to move. It was stubborn, but Ruth was too, and kept her legs moving, to the point where she didn’t even really control them anymore, and they went on on their own, like wound-up toys. 

If you ever wonder how that Ruth child is so stubborn, just look at her mother, the people of Ruth’s village used to say. It was not considered a good quality for most women, Ruth knew, but it had kept both her mother and her alive on many occasions. After her father died when she was young, when they were so poor that Ruth’s mother had sold their home and they lived by the lake under a canopy of trees. Mother had told her that it was a game, an adventure, even when their “home” was flooded by the lake, and Ruth was left alone for hours while her mother worked. And now, her mother’s stubbornness kept her sickness at bay, and Ruth’s kept her going so that her mother would not have to eventually give up. 

Of course, Mother had not wanted her to go. She had forbidden it.

Ruth added this to the list of things that no longer mattered. 

~~~~~

Ruth, you know love is a dangerous thing, yes?

I think so, mother. 

My love for your father, for example. Terribly dangerous. See how badly I was hurt?

Yes, mama. I see it every day. But you loved him all the same.

I did, yes. I have not regretted it. 

I know.

Your love for me, that is dangerous, also.

Yes, mama, I know.

Be careful of it, Ruth. 

I will, mother.

Don’t lie to me, child.

No, mama, I would not.

That is what your love tells you, but you lie all the same.

I must go, mother. 

No, you must not. 

I love you too much to let you die.

And I, you. See what love does, Ruth? See what a mess it has made?

It was not love, mama. It was the sickness.

Oh, child, and you said you listened to me. 

Ruth awoke, the words still echoing in her head. 

I love you too much to let you die.

That stubbornness again. It may have kept them alive, but perhaps it would be the end of them, as well. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continued...

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