Amongst Fire

The craggy black rocks towered up on either side of the mountain trail. No sign of life anywhere. In every direction stretched a sea of unfriendly, ominous black granite. The rocks formed shapes like drooping faces, leering at the two children as they walked past. The girl had a cloak wrapped around her, with only the ragged blue hem of a skirt and worn black boots showing beneath. Her face was pale as chalk. The girl beside her stumbled on laceless boots, her ankles nicked with cuts. The cloak flurried behind her like a grey wing, frayed at the bottom. A thick ribbon was tied around her forehead and under her hair, trailing in the wind.

"Oh," moaned the first girl, "I'm too tired. We've got to stop, Angie!"

The second paused, letting the breeze skim her face. She shuddered at its touch. Turning wearily back to her friend she said,

"No, Cee, just a little further. I want to get beyond these rocks."

"What you want, fine," Cee scoffed. "Angie, I'm frozen stiff. And so are you. Come on, let's stop and sleep. For a bit anyway."

"I'm too cold to argue," Angie replied grimly and marched on ahead. Her friend waited a moment before grudgingly struggling on behind. She caught up and they walked together, heads bowed to the wind. Cee glanced at her companion and saw the redness in her cheeks and ears. She shivered herself and drew the cloak closer towards her. Angie's sense and calmness was comforting now. At first it had been annoying, as if she didn't care what went on around her. But now Cee understood a lot more and it helped ease her fears. In a rush of affection, she clutched Angie's whipping cloak and pressed it around her numb body. Angie looked up in surprise then smiled gratefully, pulling it tight to her sides.

"Thanks," she said weakly. Her voice cracked but she quickly turned her head away. There was a small sniff and then she rose again, hand outstretched to the horizon. "See that cleft? That's where we'll stop."

"How long do you reckon it'll take," Cee asked. Angie shrugged,

"I don't know. Perhaps half an hour or so."

She put out an arm and gave Cee a hug. "Gosh it's cold," she muttered sourly, tucking her hands into her cloak.

Wind tugged at their hair so that it waved about their heads wildly. The landscape was scuffed with cliffs, faces haughty and uncaring as the girls passed beneath them, cowering with the power that seemed to bore down on their shoulders.

"I don't like it here, Angie," Cee murmured, holding out a hand to the rock and brushing it with her fingertips.

"Don't!" Angie hissed through her swollen lips. It came out in a rasping cough so angry that Cee jumped. At her inquiring glance, Angie closed her eyes and shook her head stubbornly, "Just don't."

Suddenly a huge gust of wind was hurled at them, a veritable gale that whipped pebbles into a frenzied dance among their feet. Angie's ribbon was caught in its searching fingers and spiralled up into the stratosphere.

"Oh God, no!" she cried, letting her cloak billow wide again and her arms stretch and claw at the air. "Please, not that!"

They watched helplessly as the ribbon drifted about in the squall, whipping and coiling until it snagged on a branch of pocketed granite at the very top of the cliff. Calmly and carefully, Angie began to climb up the rock face, red fingers clutching at any hold in her path.

"Leave it, Angie, you'll be killed!