Twelve Stories

Kathryn Good-Schiff

A student goes to discover a mountain. She packs warm clothes, waterproof clothes, clothes that look all right when dirty. She kisses her boyfriend goodbye until autumn. The head park ranger is a jolly guy who acts like her brother. He gives her a cabin to stay in under an owl’s nest. The head ranger’s assistant captures her attention. He is young, strong, and surprisingly bald. He takes her to dinner; they eat greasy chicken, barely green lettuce. On the drive back, she talks excitedly about music. The bald man holds onto his silence.

This mountain is famous for being treeless on top. The student memorizes the view, learns the names of lakes and distant peaks, notes the sun rowing across clouds at dawn. Tiny gardens of lichen and moss grow on the summit. Something about the open space, the rocks and wind, reminds her of the ocean. Hikers eat their lunches, perched like chipmunks in nooks and ledges, watching vultures circle below.

She meets many people who love the mountain. One man has hiked it every day for eight years. Another climbs it twice on Sundays. Still another has traveled to the world’s highest peak and yet adores this one; he takes the student to a blueberry patch where they pretend to be bears.

When rain drums on leaves, it paints the forest a darker green, and the trails she hikes become rushing rivers. Red-spotted newts in their land-dwelling eft stage come out after a rain; the woods bloom suddenly with their tiny orange bodies. The student watches them deftly climb rocks, aware that the same principle that allows the newt to walk, to be, to transform, also animates her.

Late in summer, when the ghostly gulping of green frogs replaces the spring peepers, she realizes she’s no longer scared of the wind’s night rustlings. She trusts the mountain. Sometimes, she hears it roar. Everyone knows of this, but no one can explain it.

“Something to do with the wind,” says the assistant head ranger. When the earth enters the Perseid meteor belt, he and the student find a field and watch the show. The blanket is small and the grass wet, so they lie close. Obligation and fear are absent. Burning as they fall, they roll over and into each other: dark patches of desire, brief bright screams.

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Kathryn Good-Schiff holds an MFA from Goddard College, where she also served as an editor for The Pitkin Review. Her work has appeared in Kalliope, The Equinox, Flutter, Pank, and other journals. She lives, writes, teaches, and stargazes in western Massachusetts.