Our Mother the Mountain

37. The Question

Ethan refused to ride a horse of his own; he wasn't a cowboy just yet. Although, something told him that if Karl had his way, Ethan would be wearing the Lone Ranger costume by springtime. Regardless, that was a while away, so he settled for riding behind Donna. This amused both Donna and Salvatore greatly, and Salvatore even insisted on taking a photo of Ethan with his new phone (which he barely knew how to use.)

After the embarrassing moment, in which Ethan hid his face from view (a common habit he had around cameras) Ethan chose to bury his gaze in Donna's hair, which flowed out underneath her black bear fur hat. He was too afraid to stare at the valley. It filled him with dread, and turned his veins to ice.

God, how was he going to get through the rest of the winter? It had just started. Ethan woke up in Heisenberg's basement sometime in February, and that first month had been absolute torture. All he'd thought about was getting away. And all he'd focused on was taking care of little girl.

The girl who was walking and talking now....how fast things had changed.

Hopefully she would remember none of the horrors associated with her arrival here. She seemed to enjoy the snow, for the few minutes she'd gone out in it this morning.

And here he was contemplating staying here forever, and how to do it without BSAA interference. If he was going to do that, he was going to have to figure out a way to look upon this winter landscape with some other emotion than horror. Ethan exhaled and raised his unfocused gaze past Donna's shoulder. It looked so similar to how it had before. But with no trace of those very lived-in houses, the toys scattered across the dirty ground. No view of slaughtered horses. Nothing stood that looked remotely religious anymore, just simple homes and interim buildings, as well as the wagons.

He was gripping the back of the saddle unreasonably tight; Ethan felt the fear well up in his chest, but then the horse stopped right as he began to hyperventilate. Donna stood stonily atop the steed as he slid off, dismounting as he'd been taught. Ethan's breath was still ragged, but the view of the former factory property distracted him from his woe.

The bridge had appeared suddenly to his left; a new bridge, he realized. A sturdy wooden one, that was now coated in icicles. It took the place of the old stone road, the one he'd crossed in his dream last night, the dream that took place during Miranda's time. He'd also crossed that one last year, but Chris's explosives had pretty much obliterated it.

The river rushed underneath the new structure, curving around to the west and into a craggy mountain pass. He could see now why it was called the power plant; much of the original substation was restored. The rest of the field lay empty, a swathe of fallen rock was all that signaled where the farther reaches of the facility had lay. Likely all of that had caved in. Eh, good riddance. It had been a miserable few hours.

If there was any debris in the field, it was now covered in snow. In fact, everything was covered in snow, but Heisenberg was running current through the transformers. At least, Ethan intuited he was, because the engineer was peering up at the coils, and they were buzzing, nearly glowing. All of the snow on them had melted away.

Ethan felt strange as he approached; he didn't know why. Moreau's giggle carried a few feet toward him and he stared sharply back at the pair before they rode away; he could only roll his eyes. But when Ethan turned back toward the engineer, Karl was staring at him contemplatively. His face was hidden in the bleak afternoon by his hat and glasses. Ethan's lips twisted up into a smile. As deranged as Karl looked in the entire getup, it was something of a comfort to see. Not even becoming domesticated and hosting a full family in a centuries-old manor could deter Karl from his own peculiar fashion, and way of being.