Chapter 29: Lights Out

Alexandria shivered as the cold wins bit into her sweater. Her coat was open around her, but she didn't bother to button it up. It gave her clarity of thought and clarity of vision, and she needed to think.

When she had gone to Theresa's she was so sure of what the conversation would be like. Theresa would captured, more or less, by Adrian and the brews, and it would be her job to get Theresa out of it.

But that wasn't what happened at all. The brews hadn't seemed to effect Theresa overly much, and the lack of them wasn't causing excessive pain either. And she and Adrian were no longer together, a decision that had apparently been mutual.

So what the hell was Adrian doing? He can't have just been interested in Theresa, because then he wouldn't have broken it off as easily as he did. But if he was... manipulating her, he wouldn't have let her go this easily either.

She was extremely confused. Part of her mind, perhaps, was still in shock from everything at the lighthouse. There were still things at the back of her mind about the whole event that she didn't quite get, but things she couldn't quite remember, either. Initially, she had just chalked her reaction to the fact that she worked in a morgue. She ran in graveyards for goodness sake. Death wasn't something to be afraid of, it was a natural part of life.

But ever since the lighthouse, she had been feeling increasingly more rattled. And it was abundantly clear that Theresa was right. She didn't have all the answers, and it felt more and more that she didn't have any.

She wished there had been a moon. She wished there had been more lights. But the sky did not oblige, and since most students were still out for winter break, the lights in the houses and apartment buildings were diminished or dark.

Alexandria walked up to her apartment, and thumbed the door to get in.

The person she really wanted to talk to was her brother. And as she stepped in the door, she was painfully aware that this was what she had wanted for a very long time, almost since the beginning of the semester. Theresa's criticism had finally drove home the point: Alexandria didn't understand what was going on in people's minds, and her brother was the first person of which that was most true.

She entered the door, and called her brother's name. She had done this many times this semester, and nearly every time, she had heard nothing but silence.

This time was no different. The lights were on, and the door to Alexander's bedroom was open, but when she peered inside, there was nobody there. His travel bag was open, but nothing was unpacked. His bed was messed up-- but then, he probably hadn't made it before he left for their trip.

And on his bedside table was a small black flask.

Her heart dropped in her chest. She walked over to it, and smelled it. It wasn't alcoholic. It sure as hell wasn't juice, or water. It was a brew.

She stood there, the flask loosely held in her hand, trying to calm herself down.

Alexander was on the brews. And perhaps he had been for some time. But he was still okay. He was still functioning. In that sense, the worst had happened already, and it hadn't been that bad.

On the other hand, that meant that he had been lying to her. Or had he? She tried to remember a specific time when she had directly asked him whether he was on the brews, and he lied. She couldn't remember an instance.

So he hadn't been open with her. Well, she had known that for a while.

Miranda, though, had lied to her. She had told her that Alexander wasn't on the brews-- that was what there whole argument was about, to see whether he should get on them at all. Unless Alexander had lied to Miranda as well.

Alexandria sat down on her brother's bed, heavily. It was time for this to end. She thumbed her phone, and called her brother.

She jumped as a loud buzzing sound came from the bookshelf next to her. His phone was sitting on top of it, forgotten. She picked it up, and thumbed it open.

It would not open. It wasn't Alexander's thumb print. Stupid, stupid, stupid security stuff.

She did the only thing she could think of. She called Miranda.

“Hello?” Miranda's voice on the other end was hesitant, cautious. She probably thought Alexandria was going to yell at her or something. Not tonight, though.

“Hi, Miranda,” Alexandria said. Her voice almost failed her, as she hoped against hope. “Is Alexander with you?”

There was a long pause on the other end. “No.”

“Please don't lie to me,” Alexandria said. She closed her eyes and put her hand against her forehead. “He's not at home; he left his phone in his room, and I found an empty flask of brews in his room. He's been drinking them, Miranda, and I don't know if you planned that or whatever, I don't care right now, but he's been drinking them. And he's gone.”

Again, the silence. Alexandria trembled as she waited. Clearly Miranda was thinking about something, thinking very, very hard. Finally, Miranda spoke. “The Observation Walk. I'm getting my shoes on and heading there as fast as I can. And Alexandria?”

“Yes?”

“If I were you, I would run.”

She didn't need to be told twice.

She shrugged off her walking coat and sweater, and pulled on her athletic K3. After a second's thought, she ripped through her travel bag, and pulled out an emergency blanket, and stuffed it in her breast pocket alongside her phone. As she was doing this, she kicked off her boots, and pulled on her running shoes. Then she stepped out onto Lindon St and ran as fast as she had ever ran in her life.

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Chapter 28: The Drop

Adrian stood against the stone wall of the far side of the library, watching the river far below. He leaned into the out jutting stone blocks, which had been hand picked, so the brochures said, from the surrounding Great Wyoming Plains.

The sky was unusually clear tonight. There were no clouds, no haze from any of the nearby cities, nothing. The stars themselves were softer than he had ever seen them. There was no moon. You could see for miles, if you wanted to. He lights from the library did not reach him down on the Observation Walk.

He turned his head. Alexander had arrived. Illuminated by the lights of the library, Adrian could see that he was dressed in an over sized winter coat that fit him poorly. His hair was on end, as if he had been running his fingers through it in aggravation. He didn't have gloves with him, and it was clear that the winter air was biting through his jeans. Despite all this, he wore a smile on his face. Alexander tried to keep the smile small and subtle, but it would break out into a great goofy grin before he got it under control again. He looked a bit maniacal.

Adrian smiled too. “Hello, Alexander,” he said softly. “You look well.”

“I'm not, though,” Alexander replied.

“I've heard that, too. You've had quite a few people very scared. Why don't you tell me what's going on?”

Alexander's eyes flickered. He looked around for somewhere to sit. In response, Adrian opened his hand out into the light and towards the rail on the Observation Walkway. Alexander walked over to it, and leaned against it as well. They faced each other. Adrian was under the shadow of the walls and could not really be seen, but Alexander was far enough from Cliffside that the windows from above cast light on his face, but nothing else.

“Tell me what you've been up to, Alexander. It's been a while since we've talked.”

“I'm on the brews. Bad.”

“That much I knew,” Adrian said. “Nobody else seems to, though, do they? Why is that?”

“I haven't told them.”

Adrian exhaled. The frost from his breath entered the light, and dispersed. “Of course you haven't.”

“I mean... you know everything already, don't you?” Alexander ran his fingers through his hair again, messing it up even more. “You've been through it. You said it yourself the first time at the brewery that you don't touch the stuff. And now I know why.”

Adrian raised his eyebrows-- which Alexander could not see, of course. He stayed silent. Alexander would keep talking.

“I also know why you gave me Euphoria right away. You were trying to scare me. If this kid is gonna get on the brews, give him the biggest drop possible so that he won't come back.” Alexander looked down, and spoke quietly. “I'm sorry that it didn't work out that way. I wish it had.”

“I also know why you did what you did during the dinner party. Your glass was clearer and more, um, liquidy than the rest of ours. It's because you weren't drinking them that night, were you, even though you served it to everyone else? I remember that too. Because it doesn't effect everyone this way, does it? Just a few of us.”

Alexander's eyes tightened. “Why is it just some of us?” he asked.

It took a moment for Adrian to realize that it wasn't a rhetorical question. But he fielded it back nonetheless. “You seem to have given this a lot of thought,” he said. “You tell me.”

“This isn't the only reason, I think,” Alexander said, slowly. “Realistically, it could be different for any number of people. This might not be your reason. But it is mine.”

He took a deep breath, and spoke. “It's because the brews tell a story. And we know that you can't make up any story you like. Because stories matter. Stories change how you act, they change how you think. And when you take a brew, you're creating a story that fundamentally does not fit with the rest of you. You jam the wrong puzzle piece into the hole, and it takes pressure and force to keep it in there. But when you remove your hand... it pops out, and the hole remains. Empty, and terrible.”

“It's because I know fiction from reality.” He finished, looking triumphant.

Adrian pushed himself off of the wall with his shoulders. He remained in the shadows, but he was standing fully, now.

“Do you?” he said. “You've been awfully talkative tonight. More talkative than I've ever seen you. When was the last time you had a brew?”

Alexander's eyes widened, and Adrian's smile grew full.

“Is this really a genuine moment of blessed and sweet revelation?” Adrian asked. “Or is this just another story? How many moments like these have you had so far, this semester? Moments when you think that you have it all figured out. When you think that everything from here on out is going to be okay.”

“But it never is, is it, Alexander? Things are never good forever. They're not even good for very long. This is not some small pit in the ground that you can fill up with some time and sand, Alexander. This is a deep well, deeper than you could possibly imagine, and the only thing you gain when you try to fill it up is a sore back and wasted hours. After a while, you learn to stop trying and accept it.”

Alexander's face broke, and his hand went to his breast pocket in a gesture of true desperation, and came out empty. Adrian grinned savagely.

“You didn't bring anything with you tonight, did you Alexander? That's a shame. It looks to me like you really need it.”

Alexander's legs gave out, he slid to the ground, until he was sitting back against the railing. He gazed up at Adrian, still enclosed in the darkness, mouth open, aghast.

“I thought... I thought you were here to help me. I thought you had beaten this. I thought you had won.”

Adrian knelt down, and leaned forward until his face was in the light.

“Life is not a game that you can win, Alexander. But it, ah, sure seems to be something you can lose, doesn't it?”

He tipped an imaginary hat, and stood back up, into the shadows.

Alexander barely heard him walk away.

 

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Chapter 27: The Kick

Alexander sat in his room, flipping his phone around and around in his hand. His flask of Comfort lay on his side table. He felt nervous having it out in the open, but Alexandria was over at Theresa's. The chance of her coming home, with all she had to talk about, was negligible.

He was still thinking about the message that he had received.

'We need to talk about some things. Meet me at Cliffside at seven.' It had been from Adrian.

All the uncertainty from a month and a half ago at the dinner party had left him when he saw the text. If Adrian hadn't remembered their first meeting in the brewery then, he sure did now. Miranda had probably talked to him about the Christmas Break trip, and she couldn't do that without mentioning Alexander's problems... and if she had done that, she very easily would have mentioned her plan.

Her plan to get Alexander on the brews to cheer him up. And once Adrian heard that plan, he would remember and realize that Alexander had been lying to Miranda most of this time. And lying to his sister. Lying to everyone, really.

He reached over to the side table, and took a swig from the flask. A few moments later, happy chemicals rushed through his brain, and he tried to think.

Miranda hadn't mailed him about anything. And she would have, if Adrian had told her that he had been on the brews for a while. So Adrian hadn't betrayed his secret.

Therefore, Adrian probably wanted to meet in good faith. He was the one person in this group that probably had any idea of what he was going through. He couldn't tell his sister, he couldn't tell his girlfriend, but Adrian... yes, he could talk to Adrian.

He thumbed his phone on, and sent a message back. 'I'll see you there.'

That was in thirty minutes. He had better start walking, then. He got up and put on a winter coat. He reached for his flask, and paused.

What was he hoping to get out of this conversation? Honest help? Someone to complain to, with no lies or half truths? In either case, he shouldn't bring the flask. It warped his view of his own problems. In an odd moment of clarity, he knew that if he brought and drank from the flask he wouldn't be honest about what he was going through. And if he wasn't being honest, then what the hell was the point of talking? He would just create another person that he had to lie to constantly whenever the subject came up.

He left the flask on the counter, and headed out the door.

The night was black and cold. The stars seemed to him to be unusually dim, tonight. There was no moon, of course.

As he walked, he thought about the man in the lighthouse. He was tempted to believe Alexandria's version of things: lonely, stuck on the brews, and without any kind of a support group... and then they ran out, and he had no where to turn.

He was feeling better and better about his decision to leave the flask at home. It seemed so obvious once you saw the traps, the mistakes, and started to do something about them. The man in the lighthouse had no one, and he killed himself. Currently, he had no one-- and yes, he acknowledged fully that it was his own fault. But that was about to change.

An unlikely friend in a time of need to get him out of trouble. It was odd how much hope he was feeling right at the moment, now that he could plausibly see a way out. Adrian had said that he never drank the brews at there first meeting, but was at the dinner party he showed that he was familiar with them. That suggested that Adrian had struggled with the same things, and had beaten them.

That mean that this unhappiness and emptiness that he felt, achingly, constantly, could be beaten. It had been beaten before. And it had would be beaten again. That was the worst part of it: Miranda, Elanor, so many people acting as if this thing was normal. Nobody ever seemed to consider that the brews did lasting damage, and made people unhappy at the end of it. No one except for Alexandria, but her problems were purely selfish. She didn't understand anything about the problem. She was right, but for the wrong reasons.

Adrian must be right, and for the right reasons. He must have seen this darkness, struggled with these same problems. And won. Even though Alexander didn't know how, he couldn't know how, the mere fact that someone had done it gave him confidence.

He took a deep breath. Yes, this was how the story should go. A former addict-- yes, he had never labeled himself in that way before, but that was what he was, wasn't he? The stories all said the first step was naming the problem. The problem had been named. And Adrian, this former addict, helping Alexander, a current one, to safety... yes. That was it. That was the way out. It all fit together, it all made so much sense.

Let the darkness enclose around. Let the cold eat into his flesh and bone. It was Act Four, it was the dark before the dawn, it was the turn, it was the anagnorisis, and it was time for all of this to be over.

Cliffside Library loomed large and black ahead of him, but he didn't care. For the first time in a very, very long time, he knew that things were going to be okay.

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Chapter 26: The Darkness and the Dawn

Theresa sipped her coffee, watching Alexandria. She was trying to be sympathetic, but mostly she was just amused. Her friend seemed so shaken, but there was no good reason for it.

“Dear, it's fine for you to have worried about me, but I'm quite alright now.”

“Theresa, worried doesn't really begin to cover it. You're one of my best friends, and you totally fell off the map! You were involved with this guy that you didn't know at all, and you stopped talking to me! What was I supposed to think, what was I supposed to do? It was like you were a completely different person.”

“Yes, I suppose I did act that way, a bit, didn't I?” Theresa had tried to reach Alexandria to talk to her about her decision to break it off with Adrian, but then, she had been in the mountains. The fact that it had been a swift decision didn't help it either. “If you want to talk about it, that's fine, but I'm also interested in what your break so far has been like.”

Alexandria waved it off. “Later,” she said. “What happened? Why did you break it off?”

Theresa stood up, and walked over to the window. “It was over Christmas dinner, with my family,” she said. “They asked me whether I was happy with him.” She looked back at her. “You know how families are.”

Alexandria didn't. “It sure sounded like you were happy whenever you talked to me,” said Alexandria. “Which made no sense at all.”

“Yes,” Theresa said, still thinking. “And I told them as much as I told you. But when I said it, dear, I realized that I wasn't happy about it now. Well, then, I mean. I suppose I had that known it earlier, but whenever I would spend time with him, I would be happy again, but whenever I wasn't with him... I guess forget about it. It would take another date with him, to remember.”

“It was the brews,” said Alexandria. Theresa raised her eyebrow. Sometimes her friend just couldn't help herself.

“I'm not going to say you're wrong,” said Theresa, delicately, “but I suspect it was myself, too. Oh, and a whole host of other things. But it doesn't really matter what it was. The facts were that I was happy when I was with him, but I wasn't happy about the relationship when I wasn't with him.” She laughed. “I admit, dear, that I don't really know myself well enough to fully explain why. But that realization was enough for me.”

But it was clear by this point that Alexandria didn't want to hear any other explanation.

“Was Adrian upset?” Alexandria asked.

“Oh, no, dear. The decision was mutual. Well, not mutual. I made it, but he was fine with it.”

Alexandria looked like the didn't believe it one bit. Theresa moved over to her, and sat down.

“Lex,” she said softly, “you need to consider that, sometimes, you don't have all the answers. You don't know what's going on in other people's minds. He wasn't upset. Really.” Theresa felt a bit annoyed at this point. “And neither was I.”

Alexandria nodded. She was showing remarkable restraint, at least.

Theresa eased back into the couch, relaxing. “Now, dear, tell me about your break.”

“Some other time, maybe.” Alexandria stood up. “It was scary, it was sad, it was beautiful. I'm really sorry to do this to you, Theresa, but I need to go home and think about a few things.”

Theresa waved. “I understand. I'll get the full story from you eventually, I suppose.”

Theresa watched her friend put on her winter coat and head out the door. She went to the window again, and looked out at the campus.

She saw the head of the Neptune River, still wide and lazy before the canyon at the library. It had iced over during Christmas, but despite the rigid and broken surface, there was still cold and clear water flowing underneath.

She saw Alexandria exit her apartment building, her long brown hair trailing out from under her winter hat. The winds blew, and Alexandria's coat was pushed to either side, open. She had not buttoned it shut.

She watched the sky grow dark blue, knowing that the sun was setting behind her in the west. Even after the bulk of winter, it felt wrong to have the night come on this early.

As the sky faded to black and Alexandria moved out of her sight, Theresa remembered that the solstice had already passed, and the night would be pushed back further and further, until, one day, she would be walking under the evening sun amidst the flowers of spring.

“That's a very, very interesting story,” Adrian said. He was lying on Miranda's couch, as she sat in her desk chair.

“I thought it was terrible,” she replied. “But it's all true. The cops went up there a couple days after we left, confirmed the whole thing.”

He stretched and yawned. When he had finished, he said, “And you still don't understand why the man in the lighthouse did that?”

Miranda looked at him. “Are you going to tell me I can't be a therapist again? That's mean.”

“True things can be mean. They often are.”

“It just doesn't seem real,” said Miranda, softly. “It's too incredible.”

“Which is why you grabbed at the coldest and simplest explanation,” Adrian said. “Maybe you should consider the fact that you just fundamentally don't understand people.”

Miranda turned to look at Adrian. “Are you like this because that Theresa girl dumped you and you're upset about it?”

Adrian smiled. “Don't diagnose me just yet, doctor. You can't figure out people the same way you can figure out a biology diagram, or solve a chemical equation.”

Miranda folded her arms. “Sometimes, I don't know why I'm friends with you. I've... I've done tons of stuff for people. I'm a great girlfriend to Al, I'm... well, I hope I'm a good friend to you.” Adrian just looked at her, and said nothing. “We've played games where we predict people together! So don't say that I can't do it.” She looked down, afraid to say what she said next. “I don't like it when you belittle me.”

“If you never break, you will never know how much you can safely bend,” said Adrian, getting up off of the couch. “And despite whatever you think, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm trying to show you what you're missing. And you're missing a lot. You think your boyfriend is happy?”

“I know he's not! I'm trying to fix him, and I'm doing the best I can!”

“You can't fix people in that way, Miranda.” He got his shoes from before the door, and started to put them on.

“Well, what are you doing, then? Are you trying to fix me? Are you trying to diagnose me? Huh?” Miranda stood up from her chair, her fists balled. She had worked so hard to keep Al under control all week, and going home to the most unsympathetic person in the world was not what she needed right now.

Adrian looked up at her from tying his shoes. He cocked his head to one side, slightly.

“You're tired,” he said. “You're tired because you don't get along with Calvin, you hate Lex, and you love Al. But you can't be yourself around any of them. You're tired because you've been acting all week; you've been acting strong, you've been acting sure, and you're not. Because if you falter before Lex, she will rip you apart, and if you falter before Al, he will destroy himself. And you've been doing a good job.”

He stood up, and started to put on his coat.

“As to what I'm doing... I'll be honest with you, Miranda. Perhaps more honest than I've ever been to anyone before. You think you can diagnose people individually? You cannot. I cannot. People aren't a puzzle you can solve. People aren't a chart you can follow. People aren't a story you can read.”

The zipper moved up his jacket, slowly.

“And yet... we say people have free will. We say people have choice. You have a choice as to what you do, you have a choice as to what you say, you have a choice as to what you think. But the actuarial tables say otherwise. The advertisement analysts say that thirty percent of a specific group will buy this car, and those people do. The actuaries say that eight percent of another group will die due to car accidents, and those people do. The political scientists say that fifty eight percent of people will vote for this guy, and those people do.”

“All these people, all these souls with their own clever, clever minds, living and dying with roughly calculable regularity. That's the beautiful, horrifying thing about humanity. You cannot predict a person. But people... yes, you can predict people. You can predict them very well.”

“You learn to play the long game, Miranda. You learn to sit night after night at the table, trying to pass off your losses, because even thought you might not get it right away, one of those nights, you're dealt a killer hand. And then you run the god damned table.”

He stepped out the door, and gave her a small smile. “Goodnight, Miranda. Sleep well.”

Miranda stood there, fists clenched, shaking. She felt as if she was a glass doll, fragile and transparent, that some child had picked up and examined, but decided not to smash. She did not understand what Adrian was trying to tell her, what he was trying to say.

Or maybe he wasn't trying to tell her anything. He had said that he was being honest, but did he really believe all that? Especially after perfectly predicting her struggles during that week, did he really think you couldn't model people in that way?

At the same time, she felt that Adrian was exactly right about one thing: she was missing something, she was missing a lot of things, and she knew that it was desperately important that she figure out what those things were.

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Chapter 25: Descending Quietly, Desperately

Calvin watched Alexander and Miranda enter their bedroom. He got up a few minutes later, in order to head over to the couch. He felt very tired from the afternoon's conversation, and confrontation. All he wanted to do was sit back and read something logical, something that made sense, something not about people. Alexandria stopped him.

“I'll take the couch tonight,” she said. She looked miserable, but her voice was firm. “One night it's yours, one night it's mine. That's fair.”

“And the other nights?” Calvin asked, as Alexandria went into her room to get her things.

She stopped, putting her hand on the door frame. She ran her hand up and down it's weathered wooden side. “There aren't going to be any more nights,” she said, softly. “We're going home tomorrow.”

She went into her room, and closed the door behind her. Calvin knocked on Miranda's door. She came to it, and opened it softly, making sure it made no sound.

“I think Al finally fell asleep, thank goodness,” she said. She was pitching her voice as quietly as possible. “So keep it down. What's up?”

Calvin spoke quietly as well. “Did you hear that we're going home tomorrow?”

She passed her hand over her forehead. “That doesn't surprise me. Tensions are running pretty high. But let's all sleep on it, and see what happens. I'll pack Alexander's and my things just in case, I suppose. I guess it was good that I did some cleaning today.”

“You did?” Calvin asked.

“Yes,” said Miranda. “Couldn't you tell?”

Calvin could not.

“After breakfast, Al went back to his room to try to rest. He hasn't been sleeping well at all, you know. You guys were on your hike, and I thought that I would be a poor guest if I didn't do anything to help. So I cleaned up as much as I could. Dusting, mostly. Their friend must keep things pretty clean when he leaves. And since we all have sleeping bags, we should have to do any laundry. I'm not even sure he has laundry here, for that matter. Anyway, we shouldn't have to do too much before we leave tomorrow.”

Calvin nodded, and let Miranda withdraw into her room again. He packed up his things by the couch, and by that point Alexandria was done packing up her things. They switched places, without a word.

He laid his possessions out inside the room, but not too many of them. He put a change of clothes in the closet, and his sleeping bag and pillow on the bed. There was no point in spreading his belongings everywhere if they were leaving the next morning.

Alexandria had probably been upset with him for not siding with her. But he could not get the journal out of his mind. The last entry had been dated for today. One of the two girls was right, and it was impossible to know without the journal. And if they were leaving tomorrow, they would never recover it.

Furthermore, it was probably not a good idea to steal from the dead man's house. And because he guessed that none of them read shorthand, they couldn't borrow it temporarily. It was good that he left it where it was.

Although the puzzle of the whole thing was surprisingly frustrating. And it wasn't helping that, now that he thought of it, the entry could have been anything-- a grocery list, a book he was writing, anything. It didn't have to be a suicide note. And if it had been a suicide note, the man probably would have written it in plain English so anybody could read it-- although, was that really true?

Calvin thought about it a little longer. But he still came to the conclusion that there was simply not enough information to figure out which girl was right. There wasn't even enough information to tell whether there was an answer, somewhere up in those high and cold mountains.

No, Calvin did not regret his decision for staying impartial. The girls weren't really interested in facts, anyway. Was that a bad thing? No, probably not.

It was getting late. He walked over to his window, drew back the curtains, and looked out.

Through the dim and flickering light of the fire coming from the windows of the next room, he could see that a fresh snow was starting to fall. It made no sound as it dropped, lazily, from high above. The tracks that he and Alexandria made on their return were slowly being buried. There would be no evidence that they had ever been here, soon enough, except for a clean house.

Alexandria had been right; it got dark very quickly up in the winter mountains. The slim crescent from the night before had vanished. The moon was new. He looked closer, and high above them he saw the lighthouse, still spinning, still shining. Oddly enough, the light did not seem so far away, now. Perhaps it was the fact that he had hiked to and from it in a day. But perhaps not.

He went back to his bed, and sat down. Would the police turn the light off when they got up there to investigate? He hoped not.

Calvin laid down, facing the ceiling, and closed his eyes. He heard the door open and close a moment later.

Alexandria had entered the room. She was wearing loose pajama bottoms and her oversized sweater. Her brown hair lay tangled about her, messy without the winter hat. Her eyes were red.

Calvin opened his mouth to speak.

“Don't talk,” she said. “Please. Please don't say anything.”

He closed his mouth again.

Alexandria hesitantly climbed onto the bed along side him. Calvin didn't move a muscle. She slid up along his left, and reached over and grabbed his right wrist. She turned away from him, pulling his arm with her as if she was curling up in a blanket. Her body pressed against his, very warm, very light, and very fragile.

Calvin knew that she didn't want to hear any of this; he knew that she had asked him not to speak, but he couldn't just sit there and let her do this to herself.

“Lex,” he said, softly. “You know that I don't feel this way about you. This isn't real.”

“Shut up,” she whispered. “Just shut up.”

And so he lay there, thinking of Alexander, and how stories matter. He could let her have this story for tonight, couldn't he?

As he held her, he noticed that she started to shake imperceptibly. And then she started to cry, softly, but desperately.

Yes. He could let her have this story for tonight. Yes he could.

The group drove back to campus the next morning.

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Chapter 24: The Things that Matter

Miranda listened to Alexandria's story. She was still red faced and breathing hard from traveling down from whatever lake she went to. And Calvin had not yet returned. That was particularly disturbing. What kind of a person just leaves their friend high in the mountains?

Miranda knew that Calvin was, given his very low level of emotions, very difficult to offend, or upset in any way. And it was clear to her that Alexandria had blatantly exploited that fact to get down the mountain as fast as she could, with total impunity.

This story seemed incredibly improbable. And morbid. But then again, Alexandria didn't exactly seem the type to lie about something like this. Especially if Calvin could collaborate on everything-- and he wasn't the type to blatantly go along with some pretty girl for no reason. It was probably best to believe her, for now.

But she made darn sure to keep her to the facts.

“You say he took the brews, and then killed himself. What did you actually see?”

Alexandria rolled her eyes. “I saw an garbage can of empty gallons of the Comfort brew.”

“Was he clutching an empty bottle in his hand?” Miranda pressed her on this point, as she had many of the other ones.

“No,” Alexandria said.

“So he could have ran out of the brews weeks ago,” Miranda said.

“Yes, I suppose, but that's not how it happened.” Alexandria insisted.

“Did you see what happened? No. You didn't. So stick to the facts, Lex, and none of this bullshit story you've added on.”

“Well what do you think happened? Oh, wait, you weren't there, so how could you know?”

“That's why I'm asking you to only tell what you saw, and not add on any of your bias,” Miranda sad. “Otherwise you're going to add on your version of the story, and it could be wrong.”

“You weren't there! You're not qualified to speculate in any way!” Alexandria was getting furious, and flustered.

“I know you've built up this fantastic narrative, and I know damn well where it's going. Brews make people kill themselves, so don't tell my brother to drink them. Well, guess what, brews also make people not kill themselves, and that's a clinically proven fact, which is a damn sight more than anything you're trying to spin, right now, okay? So just keep to what you saw, and nothing else. Got it?”

It sounded like she tried to, if only to keep Miranda from arguing. Hints of bias crept in every now and again, but Miranda just ignored it for the time.

Every time either of them shouted at each other, Miranda winced inside a bit. She was as guilty of it as Alexandria, but she couldn't help herself. At the same time, Miranda had wanted Alexander out of this conversation-- which she was sure Alexandria wasn't too happy about. But nothing could be worse for Alexander in him moment of indecision than to have his stupid overbearing sister screw with his head some more. He said that he would think about Miranda's recommendation, and the more that thought came from him and not his sister, the better. But hearing all this from his room was certainly very hard for him. Alexandria didn't seem to care. Why would she? She had never really cared about him before.

“Look,” said Miranda. She was trying to be as calm as she could. “You've laid the facts before me. But, I say again, there's nothing inherent in those facts that cast a condemnation on the brews, okay? You can't just take these things and make up whatever story you want from them.”

Alexandria opened her mouth as if to say something, but Miranda could see where she was going to go, and got there first.

“Okay, maybe you can, but if you can I can too. And our stories both explain the facts,” Miranda said.

Alexandria snarled. “My version explains the facts much better. If he just drank the brews occasionally, there would still be some left.”

“You can't draw a, a line of causation between the brews running out, and him killing himself. That's statistics one zero one, Lex. And you're biased towards your side, anyway, so of course you're going to say your version is better! Look, what we need is some impartial observer to judge, if you really want to go down this road,” Miranda said. “Which leads me to a related point. Why the actual hell did you leave Calvin up on that ridge! Are you insane?”

“The way back is easy to find,” Alexandria said. “You go down to the lake, that's as obvious as it gets, and from then the trail is thirty feet across at all times. There's no possible way he could get lost, and it's not difficult either. You worry too much.”

“I don't think you worry enough,” Miranda said. “See, this is the problem with you, Lex. You don't think about anyone else except yourself. You have to realize that people just can't do the things you can do. You can hike up and down these mountains all day long; Calvin can't. You can be perfectly happy by yourself without any help from anyone else. Alexander can't. Do you get it yet? You can't hold people to you standard. It isn't just, and it isn't fair.”

Miranda stood up, and started to walk towards her room, where Alexander was waiting. She was surprised Alexandria wasn't defending herself more, but it hardly mattered. She gave one more parting shot. “We'll finish this conversation when Calvin gets back, and he tells us what he thought. Maybe you should get your stuff back on and find him.”

She closed the door. Alexander was sitting on the bed, waiting for her. She opened it again, having a sudden thought.

“Um, actually, maybe going after Calvin is second priority. You probably should call the cops or someone, and let them know there's a dead guy on these slopes. I'm sure they'd want to know.”

She went back through the door, and collapsed face down on the bed along side Alexander.

“Your sister can be incredibly aggravating sometimes,” Miranda said.

“I know,” said Alexander.

She pushed herself onto her elbows, and looked at Alexander. She couldn't tell what he was thinking. She usually couldn't.

“Are you ready to talk yet?” she said, softly.

“No.”

“That's fine,” she said. “That's totally fine. It's a pretty big decision.”

She rotated to her side and put her arm across Alexander's chest. “Just don't worry about it, ok?”

“I'm not worried,” he said. He turned towards her, and he gave her a now rare smile. Content, she tried to rest a bit.

She awoke from her nap later, she couldn't say how long, when someone knocked on her door. She got up, drowsily, and looked at Alexander. His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling. She wondered if he had slept at all.

Calvin's voice came through the door. “Miranda, I was told you wanted to speak to me.”

“Yes,” she said, and got to her feet. “Al, you want to come?”

“No, thank you.”

“No worries,” she said. “It's okay.” She went to the door, and entered the living room. Alexandria was sitting at the table, arms crossed. There was fresh snow in her hair; it seemed as if she had gone after Calvin.

“Did you call the police?” Miranda said, sitting down.

“I did,” she said. “They told me that they would send someone up to check in a day or two, and thanked me for telling them.”

“They're not going to question you two or anything?” Miranda asked.

“They said they would just mail us if they had any troubles,” Alexandria said. “No need to ruin our vacation.”

Miranda turned to Calvin. “So,” she said. “You've heard the dispute, I take it.”

“I have,” said Calvin. “But I still don't know why you want me. I have no opinion on who is right; I understand both your cases. It seems impossible to judge, based only on what we saw.”

The girls looked at each other. Miranda saw in Alexandria's eyes that she had probably argued with him already about how cheap that position was. Arguing further would get them no where. But Calvin was still talking.

“If you are asking which is the better story,” he said, thoughtfully, “I suggest you ask Al. He would be much better at it than I. But does it really matter?”

“It does,” said Miranda. “Because Lex is trying to make some sort of twisted point about the brews with her interpretation of the events.”

“Stories matter, Cal.” Alexander had gotten up from the bed, and walked into the room. He sat down beside them at the table. He looked around at his sister, and Miranda. “I'm sorry,” he said. “But I'm very tired, and I don't want to think about this right now. I'll get back to you on it, I suppose.”

Miranda bit her lip, looking at Alexander. He looked back. “I'm not making a decision tonight, Miranda. I'm sorry. I'll make one when we get back, probably.”

“As I've said before, that's totally fine. There's no hurry.” Miranda looked at Alexandria. “We all want you to make the decision that's right for you.”

Alexander nodded, and went back into his room. After a few moments, Miranda followed him. Alexander got back on the bed, and went back to staring at the ceiling.

“You didn't sleep well last night, did you?”

“No,” Alexander said. “It was the night of the wolf.”

“What's that?”

But Alexander's eyes were closed, and he did not reply.

Chapter 24: 1,675 | 45,268/50,000

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Chapter 23: The Lighthouse

Calvin watched Alexandria enter the structure in front of him. He sat down on a rock. Now that she was inside, there was no reason to try to keep up with her anymore. Or was there?

He had thought that she would wait for him, and that they would enter the structure together. It would have been less dangerous. But, then again, if there was someone or something harmful inside, it was unlikely he would be any help. He was too tired to really do anything.

The wind blew softly as he looked down at the lake below. It was hard to believe how high he had gotten. If he hadn't felt it in his legs, in his stomach, in his lungs, he might have been tempted to not trust what he saw. It was an odd feeling, looking out at the sea of clouds below, and not thinking it was real.

His breath slowly came back to him. Alexandria still hadn't returned. He pushed himself to his feet, concerned, and started to walk along the ridge towards the structure.

The first thing he noticed was the generator and the light. The generator was fairly large, and covered in weathered solar panels. It was possible that this generator, with that amount of panels, could power a small heating unit and the light for an hour or two a night. This would be change, of course, depending on how cloudy the day was. But looking down at the Wyoming plains below, he guessed that most days, this peak was above the clouds.

This must have been difficult to construct. It was mostly made out of rocks, with some sort of cement and straw mixture pressed between the stones to keep out the wind. The door was wooden, probably for ease of transportation up the mountain. Was it possible that this was the effort of one person? Calvin decided that it could have been just one person, if the builder had worked faithfully on it for a summer or two. The generator would have been a pain, but he could have had it helicoptered in for an medium fee. So the builder was probably rich.

But why? What was the beacon for? What was the lighthouse for?

The door, opened by Alexandria, slammed shut as the wind picked up. Calvin pulled his scarf around his head, and went to the door. He fought against the howling blasts, and managed to pry it open enough to get himself inside.

It was utterly dark inside. Whatever sealing mixture kept the wind out also did a good job of keeping the light out. Either Alexandria hadn't found the light switch, or there was no light switch. Or there was no power.

That was obviously false. There had been enough power to turn on the bulb on the peak above and set it spinning, there was enough to turn the lights on in the lighthouse.

He ran his hands swiftly across the walls on either side of the door, alternating them high and low. He finally found a switch, far at the other end of the room, and threw it. Harsh electric light illuminated the room. The dust hung in the air.

There was a desk below him, one that he had almost ran himself into, filled with charts and paper. There was a small book that looked a lot like a journal. There was a network of wires, with what looked like an old radio, and a variety of switches on the walls. In the other corner there was a fridge, which had started humming again, eerily.

Suddenly, Calvin heard a scream from the upstairs. He ran as fast as he could up the creaking wooden stairway on his left, though the stitch in his side burned.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he stopped suddenly. There was a terrible stench coming from the room that he hadn't noticed before.

Alexandria was sitting against the wall, knees pressed to her chest with her arms tightly around them.

The room was cramped, with a small bed on the other side of the room, and a low ceiling. On the bed was a body.

The white sheets were a crusty brown, with frozen blood spreading from the side of the man's temple. On the floor was a small hand gun. The rock near the bed had a large crack in it, but the bullet had not broken through to the outside. Calvin couldn't see the man's face.

He knelt by Alexandria. She was not crying, nor was she shaking. She was just staring across the room very intently. The smell was making him nauseous. She seemed to be alright.

“It was just the initial shock,” she mumbled. “I've seen dead people before.”

“Like this?”

“Gunshot wounds, yes. And cold. But not frozen.” She looked at him. “You don't know how to react to this, do you?”

Calvin got to his feet. “Let's go downstairs.”

“I'll join you in a second,” Alexandria said. She got up too, and walked over to the corpse. She turned him over. The man was old, approaching forty, but well built. Thick stubble caked his chin, the right side coated with brown blood. His eyes were wide open, and horribly frozen.

Calvin watched Alexandria lean down, and kiss the man softly on his bare forehead. She whispered something to the corpse that Calvin could not hear. Then she turned around, wiped her mouth on the sleeve, and spat on the ground. “Yes, let's go downstairs,” she said.

Calvin sat in the chair at the desk, and studied the charts. Alexandria sat on the floor, in the same position she had upstairs. She didn't say a word.

“I think our initial guess last night was correct,” said Calvin. “These are charts for airplane flights over Wyoming. From the year two thousand eleven onwards. It's interesting to see how the lines decrease as time goes on. There's only one flight that goes over the range this year, compared to dozens in this first chart.” Alexandria didn't react at all to this. “This probably was a sky lighthouse. I don't know how useful it would be, necessarily, but it could be a decent precaution.”

“I can't read his journal. It think it's in shorthand.” Calvin wished that someone else had been up there with them. Somebody who knew how to deal with emotions better. It looked to him like Alexandria was fine, and she said that she had dealt with death before-- after all, she worked in a morgue. He got up and went to the refrigerator.

“There's a lot of frozen and dehydrated food in here,” he said. “I suspect he just hauled up a bunch of it in the summer.” His eyes fell to the garbage cans beside him. There were several gallon sized containers, each bearing the word 'Comfort' on it in beautiful, cursive letters. He looked back at Alexandria. She had seen them. She had been staring at them ever since she came downstairs.

“That's it, then.” He heard her speak quietly. “That's god damn it.”

He folded his hands in his lap, and listened.

“He probably had a good life,” she said. “A prosperous life. A single man, growing old with no wife, no children. He retired young, younger than of his friends. And he thought... I'll build a lighthouse. A lighthouse on a mountain.” She laughed, sadly. “It's a cool idea, isn't it? Keep the planes away from the peaks. You can be seen from miles around on a clear night. As you pointed out, practically useless given technology today.”

“I shouldn't have said that,” Calvin said, carefully. But she continued on.

“He built this himself, over the course of a few summers. He got out charts and maps every year, so that he could see when the planes would come. He would stand out here on those nights, and turn on the lighthouse. The planes would blink their lights on and off in response, and he would stand outside, drinking hot chocolate, thinking of all the people inside looking down on him.”

She took a deep breath. Her eyes never left the brews.

“As the years went on, the planes came by less and less. Why won't they come, he thinks to himself. The bulbs stay fresh, the gears cleaned and oiled. But no one comes. That's alright, though, because people still come up to the lake. He sees their headlights far below, winking and blinking as they wind through the forest. And he would stand here on those nights, and turn on the lighthouse, thinking of all the people down there looking up at him.”

She took another deep breath. There were tears beginning to form at the corners of her eyes.

“But as the years go on, those people stop coming too. The bulb gets dusty, he doesn't clean it. The gears get rusty, he doesn't fix them. Why would he? Why does it matter? He gets lonely up here, and he thinks... well, there's a solution to that. The next time he goes down to the towns, he brings back as many gallons of Comfort as he can carry. And every night when the planes and the cars don't come, he has a glass of Comfort. To remind him that, it's okay. To remind him that, life is worth living. To remind him not to god damn kill himself.”

She slammed her fist down upon the coarse wood floor, hard. She did it again. And again. Her hands were growing red, bruised. The skin on her right palm tore, and bled a bit.

“And then he runs out of this stuff, and he has nothing. Nothing.”

Calvin didn't say anything. What was there to say?

“Why didn't he see our lights? Why didn't he notice us?”

“Maybe he did,” Calvin said, quietly. She didn't hear him.

“Just look around,” she said. “It's beautiful up here. Why isn't that enough? Why the hell wasn't that enough for him? You use this stuff, this cheap lying poison, and you forget how to be happy any other way. It's too easy. You know there's probably a beautiful view at the top of the ridge, a beautiful view just out your door, and you don't go there. You don't even try. If it's not at your fingertips, you aren't strong enough to get it.”

She stood up. “We're going down. We're finding Miranda, and my brother, and we're making sure they don't go near these things. You get me?”

Suddenly, Calvin thought of his roommate, Theresa, and, quite unexpectedly, a chill ran over him. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before. “I think I should tell you something,” he said. Alexandria just looked at him. He couldn't tell whether she was going to get angry or not.

“I think Theresa has been drinking the brews. With Adrian.”

Ten words shouldn't be so hard to understand.

Alexandria screamed, her hands slamming down on the floor again. It wasn't a frightened, sudden scream. It was a full throated, prolonged, blood freezing roar.

“I'm going to kill him,” she said. Calvin had no idea whether or not she truly meant it. And then she looked at him.

“You knew,” she said.

“I suspected,” Calvin replied.

“And you didn't once think to tell me?” She glared up at him through eyes wet with tears. They seemed terribly full of pain.

“It seemed to me to be her business.”

Alexandria looked as if she might say something. Calvin was worried she would scream again. But she didn't. She just got up, slowly, and put her gloves back on. She would not look at him.

“I'm hiking back down. Alone,” she said. Her voice was very, very calm.“You can find your way back, right?”

“Yes,” Calvin said. He stood up, and thought for a second about walking over to her.

“Good. Be careful.”

Without a further word, she exited the structure. Calvin stood there for a few minutes. By the time he went to the door and looked down, Alexandria was already across the ridge and starting down the gully.

He went back over to desk and the switches. They were all set to the off position.

Calvin reached over, and flipped the switch that kept the outside beacon on. The heat and internal lights could stay off. Then he reset his scarf and his hat, and walked out the door.

Chapter 23: 2,118 | 43,593/50,000

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