Chapter 29: The Returned Breath

They left the mountain at four Tuesday morning. Su had slept two hours in the trail crew's shed Sunday night and none since. By North Bend, the lingzhi had eaten through the cream lining of her charcoal coat and stained Qing's borrowed Subaru dark red. Qing pressed a towel against the spreading patch on the passenger seat. "The mountain has injured the upholstery." "The upholstery was injured before we met it." "It still had aspirations." The crown pulsed against Su's chest. Each wave of heat entered her arms and stopped at the wrists. Smoke gray darkened every nail. Her right hip had slipped so often on the descent that Qing had bound it with a torn strip from the canvas pack. One knee would no longer straighten. Qing drove faster. White Pine's front windows were dark beneath the gray Tuesday sky. A sheet of paper covered the posted clinic hours.…