Ghost of the Abyss

Chapter 4 - 96-Year-Old Mystery Revealed

"Cass!"

My heart nearly jumped out of me as I waited for Sandy to answer the question that many searchers, other mountaineers, and Sandy's family members had longed to know for almost one-hundred years. I let out a breath in annoyance and looked back at Nathan waving at me.

"What?!" I shouted so he could hear me over the icy blowing wind.

"We're heading out! Pack up your tent!"

"Oh, Lord..." I exasperated and looked at Sandy. "That was horrible timing."

"There really never is such a thing as good timing. It's alright. You all are on a schedule. I know how that feels."

"But I want to hear this! Please, tell me where your body is. I can go and tell Craig and we can inform a search party."

"Cass!" Nathan called for me again, and my chest pricked severely in annoyance.

"Oh my gosh, seriously."

Sandy chuckled. "Quite relentless, that lad. Really, go on. Your team wants to head down the mountain. One of them is coming now. I believe it is Adam."

I turned and, sure enough, Adam was heading our way. Sandy stepped away as Adam stopped right where he was standing. "Hey, you okay? Craig said you wanted to be by yourself."

I glanced over Adam's shoulder and saw Sandy smirk in amusement, and he let out a chuckle. No, I was definitely not alone.

"Yeah, um... is Craig okay?"

Adam shrugged a shoulder. "Sure. Why wouldn't he be okay?"

Because he felt Sandy's hand, the hand of a spirit. "Nothing, nothing. I'll start packing. Excuse me."

I said the last bit for Sandy. There was really no reason to be polite to Adam since I had known the guy for a while. As I made it back into camp, I heard Sandy say, "Quite the ball of fire, is she not?"

I had to laugh at that because one, Adam wouldn't hear him; and two, he wasn't wrong. My mom had always joked that I should have been born with red hair because I had the attitude of one.

I made it to my tent and packed everything up. I noticed Craig getting his things together. After my pack was all set, I went over to him and stood there until he looked up at me. He jumped and put and hand to his heart. "Dammit, Cass."

"So I take it that Adam was fibbing when he said you were okay."

"He wasn't fibbing, he was saying what I told him. This whole me-feeling-the-actual-Sandy-Irvine's-spirit thing is going to stay between us. Others know that you saw him, but the two of us know that he actually exists."

I looked over where Sandy and I were talking and saw that he wasn't there. He was nowhere in the camp. "We had a good talk, one that was interrupted by Nathan."

Craig stood up from fixing up his pack. "We, as in you and Irvine?"

"Yes. He told me everything that happened from the time he was a kid, to the time he started school in England, and then to the time he fell to his death. Unfortunately, he didn't get to the location of his body."

Craig remained silent for a moment, then, "Is he around?"

"No, I don't see him. I think he's just letting us move on down the mountain."

He pulled on his pack. "Which we should do like right now."

He shouted at the team to get a move on, and we soon made our way down the Rongbuk Glacier leading up to the North Col to the next camp and passed people as we went. As I stepped in the snow in my massive boots with spikes, I thought about what really happened to Sandy Irvine and George Mallory and their last moments. How horrible it was that Sandy had to let his friend loose and watch him fall to his death. If Sandy would have lived, it would haunt him for the rest of his life. I think it still haunted him, even in death. That could haunt any person. It would haunt me, now that I knew exactly what happened. Well, haunt me not like I was being haunted by a legend's spirit. Sandy seemed more like an angel in normal clothes.