the restricted view, the poor sight lines, the long climb, and most of all the long way down.
But it had been a while, so maybe it would be all right this time. He gritted his teeth and started out after them. At first it was fine, and if he kept his head down on the steps, didn’t look left or right and God forbid up, he’d be okay.
Half way up, he knew it was anything but fine. It was a horror story. He’d broken out in a heavy sweat that had nothing to do with the effort and everything to do with his racing heart. He figured Rand and Rielle had hit the top by now, so he knew he couldn’t take his time. Ideally he’d be up those steps two at a time, but the reality was, all he could do was focus on his feet, take one faltering step at a time and try to steady his breathing. It could be worse, much worse; the ground was solid; it wasn’t like he could see a steep drop, but he knew this was high and that’s all it took—just knowing.
He’d had this thing about heights since he was a kid. First it was just dopey stuff like wanting to jump off fences and rooftops pretending to be Superman and then it became this fear he might fall and hurt himself. No, not just hurt himself. Worse. He thought he might stop breathing, fall down and die.
Acrophobia—fear of heights. It was insane. It didn’t make any logical sense, but there it was. His heart raced; his breath got short; his head spun; he sweated buckets, and he could barely think straight when anything to do with heights was involved.
It was the reason he didn’t fly, unless there was really no way around it, and then he drugged up to get through it. It was the reason he quit being a spark fairy himself. There were just too many times when you needed to go up a ladder, or scaffold, or on top of a roof.
He hadn’t had this happen for some time and a part of him had hoped he’d grown out of it, but now, feeling the hammer of his heart and the sweat running down his face and stinging his eyes, he knew all he’d managed to do was avoid situations like this. Why else would you drive for fifteen hours from Sydney to Adelaide unless you had to?
Now he was stuck halfway up and not game to turn around, with his employers waiting, probably watching, not that he was prepared to lift his head to check. This really was something he needed to fix. There must be a trick to it: behavioural therapy, shock treatment, a well aimed kick to the head.
Meanwhile he was shaking from a flood of adrenaline and half mad from the insistent voice in his brain urging him to get out of there or die, die, die.
Rielle eyed Jake’s glacially slow progress up the stairs towards them. “Are we going to bother waiting for him? What is he doing?”
She and Rand watched as Jake mopped his brow.
“He didn’t look unfit. Maybe he’s an asthmatic?” said Rand.
“He’s not unfit.”
“He looks like he might expire any second.” Rand leaned forward as though his body posture might support Jake somehow.
“He’s fit as! He was in the gym. I saw him bench press a small elephant.”
“You met him in the gym already?” queried Rand. “Shit, does he know?”
“No, it’s fine. He doesn’t have a clue.”
“He doesn’t have a breath left in his body either. Must be asthma, poor guy.” Rand turned to eyeball her. “Be nice.”
She grinned. “Raised by wolves, remember.”
Rand groaned but not quite as audibly as Jake did when he stepped up beside them and slumped into a seat next to Rielle.
“Are you a smoker, Jake?” she said. “They’ll kill you, you know.”
Jake gave a feeble smile and shook his head. He had his eyes down on his feet, as though looking up was a death defying act. He was finding it hard to draw breath.
He coughed a couple of times and Rielle laughed. “Is that a piece of lung there, Jake?”
He mumbled, “Sorry, I’m scared of heights. I know it’s ridiculous. I know I’m ridiculous. I can’t stop it.”
“Shit man, why did you come up here?” Rand reached across Rielle and clapped Jake on the shoulder.
“‘Cause I’m incredibly stupid,” Jake said in a strangled voice, and then he started to laugh. He was a