WARNING: This is NOT the BEGINNING of “EVEREST & THE EXCEPTIONS.” To start at the beginning, go HERE.
Rosetta breathes. The dappled sun reflecting off the waves dances across the bedroom wall of the Mexican villa like it is catching wind chimes. Naked and curled up in silk sheets, she rolls over, hugging the still warm but empty pillow beside her and reveling in the beautiful events of the morning with Armand. Refreshed now and knowing that another ten minutes of lounging would cloud her thinking with dust, she sits up and pulls a robe over her bare, smooth shoulders, waltzing to the open window to meet the breeze, fondly recalling the last few hours as her feet continue to tingle from earlier.
The scent and sound of the waves rolling in jogs her memory back to Viareggio, the Tuscan coastal town where she was born. Seven sweet and innocent years on the Italian coast before her parents swept her away to Chiswick near London. Lovely, but no ocean. Even now, she is thankful for her Brit accent flavored with the romantic long vowels of Italy. It has always enticed - required those in the room to hush and listen when Rosetta has something to say.
She seizes a cup of coffee Armand has prepared for her and hugs it under her chin. The steam and scent of it extraordinary as she inhales the Yucatan sunrise. She does this intentionally three times a day. Pause. Face the sun. Close the eyes. Appreciate. And deeply - richly - breathe. Absorb the world around you. Every good and imperfect thing it gifts that refines you. Gives you the tenacity to become strong. Breathe it in deeply. And then go prove yourself.
Not that Rosetta Moltovani isn’t one to barrel forward with accomplishment, intention. There is too much to do and never enough days - the sunlight always gone too soon. Too much land to investigate and restore. Too much ground to cover. She was the top of her class at Cambridge in archeological studies - and she rode that wave of favor to this moment. To the cave. With only forty-eight hours remaining in their funded research expedition on the peninsula, Rosetta can hardly afford a minute to exhale. But last night, she promised her husband a pause. To be thankful for all that has recently transpired - yes, for which she worked long and diligently - but also, for the good fortune and favor that she could never have controlled. She had somehow been smiled upon and, after years of fight and grit, her plans - their plans - were finally coming to fruition.
She hears the swip of the pages as the data is slipped underneath the door. A brief inhale and a sip of the steaming mug and it is time to redirect. She takes the latest stack of seismic readings and spreads them out across the table as Armand returns from the shower, patting his newly-smooth face with a hot towel.
“You are extraordinary,” his smile of romantic knowing warms her.
“I know. It took work.”
He sighs, “Only out of bed for five words before one of them is work.”
“You shaved the beard. I love the beard. I hold it as I fall asleep.”
“Can’t go back to the civilized world of finance looking like a tenured Lit Professor. You up for round two?”
She slips her arms underneath his from behind, feeling his warmth, “I needed this morning. We haven’t truly connected since home, but I don’t have much time left to make certain that the discoveries are precisely what I theorized.”
“It’s only one morning.”
“We’ll have mornings when we get back to London.”
The drive to Cenote Xkeken is short, but not brief enough to keep Rosetta’s impatience at bay. The sun is a third of the way across the sky already and she needs every spare moment of light if she is to venture far enough into the tribally-forbidden portions of the cave she has worked so diligently to access. It is difficult right now not to resent the lingering romanticism of her husband, but she feels momentarily lighter as she sings along to Kate Bush on the radio.
If I only could - I’d make a deal with God
And I’d get him to swap our places
Be running up that road - be running up that hill
Be running up that building
Her affection for the oldies is interrupted by a news report in the native tongue: only two of the three children rescued in a local fire on Saturday have survived. The third will be laid to rest over the weekend. The idea of the responsibility of children overwhelms Rosetta until she shakes it off, reframing her thinking toward the expedition at hand.
The only female of the seven, Rosetta lays the map out before Enrique and the crew. These are her charts. Her seismic readings. She is the only one who has seen what they all missed - the passageways disguised as crevices. The legendary chamber that is rumored to be accursed. Not a myth - but very present deep within the dwelling as the science suggested. But, the men could not see it. They did not consider nature’s role in its finding. The cracks and crevices that allowed in meager sunlight. They were the road map. At specific times and trekked at specific patient paces, the line of the sun through nature’s rip in the rock would map the way - the only way. Of course, this was impacted by cloud cover and wind, but according to Rosetta’s calculations - today was the day that all was finally aligned. Apropos, because they finally received the permissions. After so many blockades of international red tape, this was the day she could prove herself - and usher her team into the cave. The day that nature itself would lead them to the sanctum.
Convinced and prepped, her entourage packs up all supplies and stands at the mouth, awaiting her sense of the minute timing of the launch. Not knowing when she will stand in full sun again, she repeats her ritual. Pause. Face the sun. Close the eyes. Appreciate. And deeply - richly - breathe. She opens her eyes and glances at her men with intent, “Time to move.”
Over three hours and seven miles in, Rosetta pauses. She stands for some time, the air static, the crack of light burrowed into a dead-end, a thin path toward the left, another equidistant to the right, but neither obvious from the suggestions of her theory. She has stood silent for eleven minutes, weighing all factors and determining an evaluation. The men are sweating, the air stale and oppressive. Impatience grows in the silence and she knows a singular, opinionated woman makes an easy target. There will not be a second chance to locate the sanctum, so Rosetta must choose wisely - and she must choose now.
Her eyes rove. Why is the way not clear? She reconsiders the factors. The trajectory of the sunlight. Humidity’s force upon the fissures. Even the wind. And then, it hits her. Not the wind.
Oxygen.
The breathing in and the heaving out of this mound of living stone. Infinitesimal. Near invisible. The nuance of what could never be seen, but only - felt.
Rosetta closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. She holds it - and slowly, meticulously cracks her eyelids open as she expels her air. The floating particles of the cave waft like microbes before her breath, and ever so gently, they lilt - to the left.
“To the left.”
The entourage enacted, urgent voices take command, equipment gathered - and all follow the savant of science into the promised land.
Another forty-five minutes and a rib-crushing squeeze through an impossibly small series of fissures, the cave opens up into an enormous but empty two-story high wall of ancient, stunning stone. The men groan - another dead end, but Rosetta knows it is nothing of the sort. It is the hallowed final hurdle. The entrance to Eden.
She stands at its base and caresses her hand slowly up the irregular and wholly unique surface. None other exactly like it in the world. This is where her love for the work began. As a little girl, her friends would play in the river while she would search the shore for smooth stones. She found them intoxicating, as if she were tethered to that lone element of nature. Stone. So unpredictable in every way. As irregular and tactile as each unique human existence. She had built her life upon it.
Rosetta steps backward ten paces - and she waits. But a mere moment, and the sunlight squeezes in, shakes and shimmers at a low point on the left third of the towering wall where colored layers of the stone lay parallel, “There. Along that veining. Go!” The tools of the trade are engaged and, within moments, a pathway begins to crumble and tumble of its own accord, a hallway into this hallowed space previously sealed by the elements for only God could know how long.
Rosetta leads the way, through the newly-created crevice and into the most beautiful sight she has ever seen: the sanctum. She has found it.
The sanctum is a wonder. A gaseous natural glow of some sort emanates from deep within the earth and sprays geysers of color upward: fluid and light erupting upward across the back formation. Steam rises from ruptures, crafting howls of a haunting atonal earth melody. And in the center of it all, just as Rosetta had known it would be - a pool of liquid glowing from within - its own source of both hydration and light - a deep rich purple, cool to the touch but with a sort of unusual burn like a paper cut in hydrogen peroxide. The whorl of eternity. If she didn’t know for a fact that this anomaly was science, she would assume it was spiritual - or from an entirely different world. The population of the room is in complete awe, the men grateful they put their trust in the woman standing before them.
“Assess the periphery,” Rosetta instructs as the men disperse, “Secure the space. We don’t have much time to collect adequate samples.” Rosetta is in full-on geologist mode, instructing processes and procedures at every turn, the cave alight with data and scientist chatter when a gasp halts the proceedings, “DIOS MIO! THERE’S A WOMAN HERE!”
Rosetta hurries to the voice. A fully decomposed corpse? A sustained and gender-identifiable set of skeletal remains? Implausible, not after being sealed off for centuries…
Rosetta stops short at the corner of the stone formation. Surrounded by her entourage, all aghast, each aiming a flashlight toward the subject, Rosetta is dumbstruck. For there is a woman indeed. Cowering, half of her face paralyzed and drooping like melted wax, pale as a painted geisha, but very much alive. She opens her mouth in a silent scream, no sound emanating. Her eyes clenched from the brightness of the beams, the panic of companionship. She seems animal, terrified and cornered. Hushed and undone, Rosetta whispers the order, “Enrique, rush in the paramedics.”
Burning valuable hours, the woman is strapped to a stretcher, medics prepping to evacuate. With sedatives already administered to calm her panic, her pupils are small. She stares at the tips of her own fingers as she wiggles them like butterfly wings. The chief paramedic makes it known, “We need to clear out, Rosetta.” But, she asks for just a private minute.
Rosetta leans in to the woman, stupefied by narcotics and asks, almost to herself, “How did you do it? How did you get in here?” She eyes the woman up and down, “How did you even survive?” For the slightest of moments, Rosetta is certain the woman locks eye contact with her. An unexpected moment of connection. Dumbed by the dopamine, the woman slowly whispers, Don’t.
Rosetta, undone, leans in, “What did you say?”
The woman, eyes now catatonic, Don’t. Drink.
The room clears, the sanctum filled with only the echoes of solitude. Enrique doubles back, “You coming?”
“Give me a minute.”
“Not much light left. We still have tomorrow.”
“I said - a minute.” It is too terse. Enrique gets it. He shrugs a “you’re the boss” and pursues the team on the marked trail back.
Now isolated, Rosetta crosses her arms tightly. Damn it. This was her find. Her crafting of history and establishing herself both as expert and, well, legend. She will never be credited with the discovery when word gets out that someone else was already here. It was, in every scientific approach, impossible. Who was this woman - and how did she get trapped inside the sanctum?
Ever stubborn, Rosetta begins to walk the edges of the room against her better judgment. She knows that she shouldn’t expend the time or the energy as the shadows continue to swallow the sun. But, she knows that she will. There is still tomorrow - but tomorrow, she will not be alone. She has this one chance to think. To arrive at a working salvageable theory before the others - the men - attempt to debunk her for their own selfish ends.
She approaches the whorl of eternity. The source of hydration. Certainly, this is to what the woman was referring when she said don’t drink. Does that mean the woman did? What organic chemistry is at play here - and what might it have done to that poor woman’s state of mind? Gingerly, Rosetta removes her steel-toed boots and wades barefoot into the whorl. Only a few inches shallow. It feels extraordinary against her calloused feet. She squats down, inspecting it with barely the epidermis of her hand, patting it like a child would a lily pad. Both cool to the touch and a slight sting. Like cleansing a hangnail. Perhaps healing properties. Oxidizing minerals and the like. Rosetta allows her hand to sink slightly below the surface. As she does, shapes illuminate around the periphery. Carved by light. Like letters. Like - no, wait.
Rosetta stands. Like Latin. That was a Latin word that appeared on the rim of the stone when Rosetta placed her hand within it. Voluntatem. What is that word? She struggles to access her memory. Voluntatem. That means will - as in willingness? Or no, will as in plan. She had studied the influencer of romance languages, but only perfunctory for the credit. She never thoroughly learned to translate.
She kneels again, balling her hand into a fist and placing it all the way to the bottom of the pool. As she does, words complete the circle. The entire periphery of the whorl illuminates one complete phrase. Rosetta, attempting to decipher, mutters it unintelligibly in her head, then in a whisper. But, as she does, something inside her rises. At first unintentional, she finds herself reading every word - bold and out loud. Almost as a statement of belief, though completely blind to its meaning.
Ad voluntatem in tenebris venit
Sepeliet autem omnis quae sub caelo
Abrupt silence. The constant whisps of chemically-induced atonal music that had filled the space since they first entered abruptly hush. The air flowing through the crevices calms. It is as if nature has rushed to hide itself from a grave intruder.
A fearsome rumble begins to build. The ground shakes and swells underneath her, the ceiling above starting to crumble. Oh God. Oh God, no. Rosetta hurries out of the pool, seizes her boots, and attempts to dodge the danger tumbling all about her. But the entryway is swiftly blocked and Rosetta turns, seeing the buckle and the tremor and knowing far too much about what is about to come down upon her to feel safe. She dodges and ducks, eyeing any possible way through, but equally careful to make certain she takes cover in the case of a full cave-in.
But instead of falling from above, the earth below her rises.
Emerging from the burning glow of the whorl of eternity, boiling the liquid beneath it like hot sulfur, what can only be described as an enormous stalagmite begins forming together in real time, curling and clawing upward, emerging from the depths while drawing the falling rocks to it like a magnet, crafting a foreign form - rising as a tower into the overhang, shaping itself into a statue, but grotesque and without detail. Growing at an alarming rate - an impossible rate - and then ceasing - a monolith lit by a released hiss of color and gas, coated in glycerine, majestic - like nothing Rosetta has ever laid her eyes upon.
She gasps, approaching the thing she has just witnessed being born in its majestic glory. She touches it gingerly, tentative. It emanates heat. It trickles water onto her finger. Water that smells surprisingly - sweet. Impossible. Awestruck curiosity compels - and Rosetta carefully, cautiously, but against all better judgement - touches her wet finger to the tip of her tongue.
Without warning, an appendage bursts out of the stalagmite. A protruding stone - no, an enormous arm made of stone. It seizes Rosetta swiftly by the neck and pulls her close. Suddenly, blackness.
Rosetta awakens with a bolt upright in the bed of the hotel, sheets tangled around her leg. A cold sweat. A headache pounds. How and when did she get back here? Who came for her after the cave-in? Why doesn’t she remember - and thank God that someone did. For a moment, she thought she was a goner.
She coughs, her lungs burning. Of course. No telling what she inhaled when the cave collapsed. She makes a note to get up early enough to take a quick run and shake out the dust.
Feeling the ramifications of a legendary hangover without any of the benefits of having had a drink, she holds her cool backhand fast to her forehead in the darkness, attempting to recall the details of the strange creation of the stalagmite before she loses the memory. She reaches for Armand, discovering he is not there just as he tiptoes out of the bathroom and spoons her from behind. She yawns, a burn in her throat, “How did I get here?”
Barely awake, Armand mumbles, “You always get existential right before the big day. Stop worrying. You’ll do fine. They know you’re in charge.”
She opens her eyes. Not at all what she meant, “Of course they know I’m in charge. I just proved it.”
“Go back to sleep. Still an hour before the sun.”
“My head is pounding.”
“I told you not to have that third drink.”
“What third drink?”
“Forget it. Go back to bed.”
“Armand, I didn’t have a first drink. I wasn’t even here. You know I was in the cave!”
“What are you talking about? You drank with Enrique for hours and went over the seismic charts regarding the cave expedition on Thursday.”
“Yesterday was Thursday. I just returned from the expedition.”
“Damn it, Rosetta. You were dreaming. I don’t see how you sleep with those gears turning. You are fully prepared and you’re supposed to receive the permissions tomorrow. Thursday will go just as you have imagined. Now, I have meetings in the morning, so can we please go back to sleep?”
Armand falls silent. Rosetta stares at the ceiling. Could it be possible? The stalagmite? The cave-in. The woman with the paralyzed face. Was it only a dream? Had she not yet actually led the team into Cenote Xkeken? It did not feel like a dream. It was extremely real. And yet, the more she considered the science of it, the details, the more she realized that a dream state was actually far more plausible. Nothing she thought she had experienced was actually reliable as a human experience. Her subconscious must be trying to tell her something about the risks and rewards of the expedition. Whatever they were, she would assess them more thoroughly in the morning. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and - coughs.
“You okay?”
“Mmhm.”
She rolls over in the darkness, curls up - and instinctively wraps her hands around Armand’s face. His beard is there. A full beard.
As she drifts away, returning to slumber, she barely registers the thought that she could have sworn he shaved it off.
Rosetta rouses to the sound of fire engines tearing down the riviera. It is, to say the least, an unpleasant beginning. She rolls over - her head still not quite right. She rouses herself to a seated position. Come on, Rosetta. So much to do. So little time left in the expedition. You can’t afford to feel under the weather.
Out of sheer discipline, she stands for her morning ritual. She steps out toward the open window. Pause. Face the sun. Close the eyes. Appreciate. And deeply - richly - choke.
Her throat feels of acid. Hard to swallow. Difficult to get a solid inhale. What is this? She never gets sick. Never.
She simply cannot be falling ill. Not today of all days. Today is the only remaining opportunity to explore the - no wait. That was the dream. This isn’t the last day. It’s earlier in the week. Isn’t that what Armand said? Yes. A planning session with Enrique. But, that was Monday. And she knows she remembers the prep meeting Tuesday. Or perhaps that was the dream as well. Armand steps into the room, fully dressed, full beard, with sunflowers.
“Sweet. But, you just bought me some.”
“What? No I didn’t. I just now discovered the street girl. Even had to haggle.”
“You bought them last weekend. I put them in the - “ she points to the vase she remembers purchasing at the market - but there is nothing there.
“A vase is a remarkable idea. I saw a pottery vendor at the marketplace. That can be our Saturday.”
“We leave on Saturday, Armand.”
“We leave next Saturday. This can be what we do today. You and I haven’t connected in a while.”
“Okay - somebody’s being a glutton. Let me finish the expedition and we can have mornings when we get back to London.”
“You’ve been saying that for a month.”
“Why the hell are you upset?”
“Forget it. I’ll be at the market looking for a vase. Why don’t you take your time and decide if you want to have a Saturday.”
“We LEAVE on Saturday!”
“We leave NEXT Saturday! If you didn’t intend to actually spend time together, you shouldn’t have begged me to move heaven and earth so that I could be here. Get your damn expedition done so that I can have my life back.” Armand throws the sunflowers to the floor and slams the door behind him.
Rosetta considers running after him, but sudden pain at the bottom of her lungs seizes her up, doubles her over. A coughing fit shoots fire up her throat. Something is not right.
She dressed hurriedly and then wandered the local road, intending to stumble upon Armand’s market, Rosetta grows increasingly troubled by the rapidly-declining state of her breathing. Please not some foreign microbe. Not with the expedition in a few days - or a week. Or is it tomorrow? Wait. What day is it? Why can’t she get a handle on it?
Along the strip, she eyes a medical center. Couldn’t hurt to get checked out, just to make certain there is no significant cause for concern. The thought of any health setback, any loss of momentum, fills Rosetta’s already-pounding head with dust. I must be well. My career depends upon it.
As Rosetta approaches, an ambulance rushes in, a mad scramble to admit three child burn victims, each in critical condition. Oh, Rosetta pulls her hand to her mouth with empathy, remembering this news report on the radio. These poor girls. One of these girls doesn’t…
Wait.
What is happening? One of these girls doesn’t make it. Rosetta knows this is true. Is certain of this. She heard it stated past tense. But right now, they are all three fighting for their lives. When and where did she hear that? What day is today? Why does she vividly remember days that no one else seems to understand have already occurred? A spasm tightens in her lungs. A pollution. Rosetta is a woman of science. She knows the facts. And she knows when something is terribly, terribly wrong.
Rosetta wanders into the medical center, beginning to sweat, either from the onslaught of conflicting thoughts or the dust storm raging in her chest. She feels a fever begin to rise, growing exponentially as she paces the hall, not really knowing what or whom she is looking for. Someone to help her, answer her questions, calm her confusion - someone who can please - please help her breathe.
And then - Rosetta sees her.
Unattended and strapped to a hospital bed, staring through the glass across the waiting room, eyes boring directly into Rosetta as if they are the only two people in the building. The pale woman. The woman with the paralyzed face. The woman who was trapped inside the sanctum.
That wasn’t real.
It must have been.
But, it hasn’t happened yet.
Yet, I remember.
But, this is last Saturday - before it happened.
Yet, she is here. And she knows me.
Every other individual in the hospital a ghost, Rosetta walks methodically to the woman’s room, their eyes never disconnecting. In the cold sterile fluorescent light, Rosetta can see the true damage of the woman’s condition. As if the left side of her eyes and mouth are melting off. As if half of her is already dead. The pale woman clutches her own right hand and stares unblinking at Rosetta. She quietly enters the room - and seals the door silently behind her.
“What is happening to me?”
The woman does not blink. She does not speak for a solid minute and then states ominously in a choked and burnt out voice, “You. Drank.”
“My name is Rosetta Moltovani.”
Hesitant, slow, the pale woman opens her mouth a spell before an answer is able to emerge, “I am - I do not know who I am.”
“There were words. Latin words.”
“You spoke the words.”
“I said them - out loud. Why does that matter?”
The pale woman leans back, “Then, it has passed. Nothing can be done.”
“What has passed?”
“The reversal. From my life - to yours.”
Rosetta collapses into the chair. A painful expel of oxygen is forced out of her lungs. She seizes up in a coughing fit as the woman continues to stare. Rosetta wheezes, gasping to pull good air in. After a moment, she settles - and looks to the woman, “The reversal. What does that mean?”
“You will no longer live as you were intended to live. You no longer live toward your own ending.”
“My own ending?”
“Forward. In a straight line. Birth to death and all that occurs in-between. You now live only - for the stone.”
“The stone.” And Rosetta knows exactly what the pale woman means.
“And the stone now requires that you live in a different direction.”
“A different - purpose?”
“No. A different trajectory. It cannot be stopped. Your life is now tumbling toward a collision.”
“I’m trying. Please. I don’t understand.”
“Tumbling as I have for so long. In reverse.”
The pale woman, perhaps still under the influence of something severe in that IV bag, takes her fingers to the air and outlines a circle, her gestures wandering as if this is all reasonable inside her mind’s eye.
“The collision to which you are headed has already occurred, yet you must still travel there from the moment you determined your fate.”
“When I spoke the words.”
“You will live, not in days - but in windows - sometimes a single day, sometimes an hour, sometimes perhaps weeks - each window lived in order and in full - as long as you can bear.”
“As long as I can bear?”
“Until you sleep. For when you awaken - “
“I’m going backward. That’s it, isn’t it?” The tears dripping down her own cheeks confirm that Rosetta knows it is the answer, “Every time I fall sleep - I will leap backward.”
“That,” sighs the pale woman, “is the curse.”
“How long?”
“Until it ends. Until you reach the collision for which you are now destined.”
Rosetta stands. This is nonsense - and yet. It is the only truth she has heard in these last desperate hours that brings any clarity. A sinking sensation hollows her. Rosetta knows it is real. She knows the pale woman speaks the truth.
“So, what - I’m going to miss everything? My - my plans, my expedition and my science?” Rosetta bursts into tears, “My future with Armand?!”
The pale woman is emotionless. Emptied, “You will share beautiful moments still. Relive beautiful moments. Not all. Not most. But there is still beauty. For a season.”
“For a season?”
“Until that season is passed.”
“You mean, I will keep going backward - to before I existed?”
“You will continue to age - until before there was you. And that is when you will slowly go mad - unless I gift you my anchor.”
Rosetta seizes up in another coughing fit. Virulent and vile, a pollution invading her insides. When the pain subsides, she sits up carefully, bruised, stretching her torso to relieve the near-unbearable pain.
“But this - THIS - I do not understand,” the woman states, perplexed, “I do not recognize. In this one way, you are different.”
“How am I different?”
“I do not understand - why you cannot breathe.”
Tears well up in Rosetta, her voice cracking, “I need to understand.”
“There is a way.”
The pale woman reveals the hand she has been clutching all this time. In the center of her own palm - the burning hot outline of an eye within a seven-pointed star. It glows like lava and sears as an image inside Rosetta’s brain when she looks upon it.
“Oh God, what is that?!”
“It is my anchor - and it will be yours. It will be - your memories. Without them, your mind will be lost. Now that you have seized my trajectory from me, it is my only tether to the collision. Will you take it, too? Will you take it from me? Please?”
“What will happen to you?”
“One last sleep.”
The pale woman extends her arm toward Rosetta. Rosetta, hesitantly, uncertain, reaches her arm out as well. They press - palm to palm.
Scorching, searing pain shoots up and down Rosetta’s hand, wrist and arm as both women moan and vibrate. The fluorescent lights stutter. The medical equipment in the room beeps and flashes - the sensation a cleansing fire. And then, silence.
Knowing what she will see there, Rosetta opens her own palm. The anchor is now hers. She looks up at the pale woman, imagining to see resolve - but instead seeing great tears.
The pale woman, showing the first signs of emotion, heaves with a sob. The paralysis begins to shift, slowly undone, her face reforming into beauty, “Oh woman of great sorrow! I did not know.”
“What? What did you not know?”
“Your last good day. Your last forward day - was also your first tainted day. Your last day in the right direction was also your first day in the wrong direction.”
“I don’t understand.”
“On that very day - you conceived.”
Rosetta grips her stomach. No. “I am with child?”
“Two children. Fabrizio and Egidio.”
“Those,” Rosetta is perplexed at the depth of the woman’s knowledge, “are the names of my grandfathers.”
“And so you shall name these twin boys after them,” she howls in sorrow, “But there is tragedy - for the spark of life began for them both backward and forward at the same time. In such a way that they will have no time at all of their own. No throughline or tether. Neither moving truly forward nor backward, their lives already lost to the chaos of forever living outside of time.“
It is Rosetta who is sobbing now, “What does that mean? What will become of my boys?”
“Some days, they will live as old men - other days as children, other days not quite born. Always out of order. Changing every evening at the very minute of midnight. It will push them to insanity, never belonging to any true trajectory of this world. Never moving in a straight line toward something and therefore, never truly human. Aimless. Only madness. But, you will carry the overwhelming weight of it. You are the one who will carry them through - but at great cost. For the boys will, in the end, completely - deplete you. Empty you.”
“Of what?”
“Your oxygen. Until there is nothing. Absolute zero.”
Rosetta clutches her stomach - and weeps. She grips the pale woman’s hand, “Can nothing be done? Is there no way to help my boys? To guide them? How do I save my boys?!”
The pale woman looks Rosetta in the eye, “Try not to sleep.”
Rosetta, undone, walks to the corner of the room and burrows there, fingers pursed to her mouth, a panicked fear in her eyes. Her lip quivers and she holds her thoughts and words close, “Would it be better - to end matters now?”
“Have you not realized?”
“Realized what?”
“Until due time, you cannot die. Your boys cannot die. You will suffer. You will, in moments, teeter on the devastating brink of it - but you will not succumb to death.”
“Until due time?! When is that?”
“The Collision.”
“So, it will end?”
“It must. For you are the last. I have seen it. You will serve the stone until the moment you meet them all in the middle.”
“How long? How long until it will end?”
“I have foreseen it - but it does you no good to…”
“TELL ME! I have to save my boys - if I’m going to do that, then rest is my enemy. And I just need to be able to know - how long must I do this? How long until I will rest?”
The pale woman’s face begins to reshape, move again, her time coming to a close, “The final moon of October. Nineteen-hundred and eighty-five.”
“But, that’s - fifty years ago. That’s twenty years before I was even born.”
“Which is why you are no longer Rosetta.”
The tears come hard now, “Then, who am I?”
“You are nothing. Nothing but this countdown to zero. However, you will not be alone on that fateful night. The sound of my voice will be with you - to instruct you in what must be done.”
“Only that night? Will I not hear you before?”
“No. You will hear me again in the corners of your mind - but not until that night. Now, I must rest and you must begin. We must speak the terrible truth - one last time.”
Knowing she has no choice, Zero slowly takes the pale woman by the palm. They close their eyes and they recite the curse Rosetta was unaware she knew by heart, “Ad voluntatem in tenebris venit. Sepeliet autem omnis quae sub caelo.”
At the will of man in the darkness, it is come.
And shall bury everyone under heaven.
Rosetta awakens with a bolt in the bed of her home in London, sheets tangled around her leg. A cold sweat. A headache pounds. She gasps for air from the memory of the conversation she believes has occurred only in her mind, “Oh, Armand. Armand!”
Armand steps in, cinching his tie for the morning as Rosetta continues, “Thank God. You will not believe the dreams I’m having.”
“I wanted to apologize for overreacting yesterday. I’ve been thinking about what you said. And - you know what, it’s a great idea. If I rearrange my schedule, I think I would be able to go with you on the expedition to the Yucatan next week.”
A cough comes. Rosetta holds fast to study his face, to remember these words - and to process the thought that her husband this morning looks, somehow - younger.
Visit www.EverestandtheExceptions.com for more information about Mark Steele’s forthcoming adventure novel. There, you will find character dossiers, music playlists, and other news to keep you waiting for the book’s debut in October 2024
Next: Read “EVEREST & THE EXCEPTIONS” Chapter 10 PREVIEW: the horrific and thrilling continuation of Mark Steele’s upcoming fictional novel coming in October 2024.