Towering - By Alex Flinn Page 0,90

and only you, can reach the waterfall that feeds the rhapsody. You will destroy its water supply and the rhapsody will die. We will be free.”

“What? Really?” It sounded far too simple. “Turn a key in a lock, and then, it will all be fixed. Let me at it. Where is the lock?”

The woman shook her head. “No, that’s not all. If it were all, I would have done it myself. There is something else, something only you can do.”

“But what?” I asked.

“I do not know,” she said.

Of course she didn’t. How would she?

“We were told that only you could destroy it.”

I sighed. “And where is this, this lock?” I asked again.

Her eyes, every eye, scanned upward. I looked up too and saw that the ceiling was high above me, high as the staircase I just walked down, higher than my tower. The woman pointed to a sheer wall. At the top of it, there was a platform. Above it, a little door.

“Up there,” she said.

I wanted to say it was impossible. I could not climb such a wall. I had only done so with Wyatt’s help, and this wall was much higher. Only yesterday, I did not return to my tower because I knew I could not do it.

Yet, I remembered my newfound strength, and I wondered if I could. I had to.

I said, “I will try.”

55

Rachel

Several of the blue-clad crowd escorted me to the wall. Some held my hair, caressing it to their cheeks as they walked. I wondered that not one of them could help me, lift me up, perhaps, so I could climb it. But as they moved about, I saw that they could not. They were weak, fragile. All who possessed any strength stayed behind to grapple with the dissenters who, even now, fought against them and sometimes broke free. Only the weakest stayed with me. With neither light nor adequate food, it was a wonder they were still alive at all. I had to help them. I had to.

The wall was made of stone, unlike my tower. At different, odd places, bits of rock stuck out. Could these be footholds? They would have to be. It was the only way. Some were very small, though, and my shoes are worn and wet. Still, I would have to try. I had lived seventeen years as a captive, a prisoner, feeling that my life had no purpose. Now, I could show that it had.

But where was Wyatt? Selfishly, I wanted to save him too. I wanted him with me. If he were here, he could help me. Yet, he had not answered. I could not find him anywhere.

There was no rope to grasp on to, to steady me. If I fell, I would be hurt, possibly killed, and all would be lost. I saw the first outcropping of rock, above my waist, nearer my shoulders. I stepped upon it, then reached up with my right arm, finding something else to hold.

I was able to pull myself up, but the next outcropping was even higher. Also, my full skirt obscured it somewhat, and my hair. Still, I stepped up on it with my other foot. A gasp went up from the crowd, then a cry.

“Can they stand below me?” I asked the woman. “In case I fall.”

She looked disappointed and I thought, perhaps, this was not the right thing to say. Still, I was not their mother. I was not here to comfort them. I needed help.

The third set of rocks was a bit less of a stretch. I was able to advance a bit, then to the fourth. But on the fifth, I felt a scrape against my hand, then saw blood. Tears sprung to my eyes, but I could not wipe them, could not heal myself, at least without risking a fall. My arms ached from holding on already. I stepped on the next stone, almost slipped. Another gasp from below. I looked down to see them all moving backward. So they would be no help if I fell! I was high, nearly a quarter of the way there, and the world swam beneath me. The smell of the flowers, the rhapsody, comforted me, but it also made me tired, so tired, like Dorothy and her friends in Oz, when they fell asleep in the poppy field. I wanted to fall, simply fall down and go to sleep, immerse myself in it, forget about them.

“Eat it!” a voice in my head said, and again, I