End of the Valley

Last August, Archibald lost his wife. The woman had presumably fallen off the notorious cliff located at the foot of their high-perched mountain village. No barrier protected those who wandered close to the precipice. Though a tight row of houses prevented deathly chutes along most of the dangerous area, it was possible to access the clifftop by following a tiny footpath that wandered through a beautiful garden, lush with carefully labeled mountain flowers. Daredevils and foolhardy hikers enjoyed looking down into the great nothingness; it was a humbling once-in-a-lifetime experience. The incident left one big question unanswered: How could a native-born woman with a solid experience of mountain climbing fall so carelessly to her death? According to a group of girls who were picnicking in the flower garden at the moment of the incident, the woman had jumped.

Archibald had no kids and little family. His niece, Rosemary Oswald, believed that it would be a good idea to visit the old man and spend a few days with him in order to provide comfort, even if she had not seen her uncle in a very long time. Rosemary's husband Jacob and nine-year old daughter Stella barely remembered him at all. Jacob was looking forward to their escapade, mainly because of the hiking opportunities the region provided. Rosemary enjoyed the mountains too, but her decision to visit had been triggered by one curious incident: Shortly after hearing of her aunt's death, she had a strange dream.

'I saw my uncle walk out of his house, in the middle of the night,' the woman said over breakfast. 'He jumped off that cliff to join his wife.'

'It was a nightmare,' Jacob said.

'It was a vision,' she corrected.

'Was Archibald carrying a torch?' her daughter Stella asked.

'No, he was holding an oil lamp,' Rosemary replied.

The Oswald family departed early on a sunny Saturday morning. A few hours later, the landscape had radically changed. Stella noticed that the mountains on either side, far off at first, were getting closer and closer.

'We missed the flower-throwing ceremony,' Rosemary said, while checking messages on her phone.

'Your aunt won't have a real funeral?' her husband Jacob asked, surprised.

'Oh no, the terrain below the cliff is far too rough to even consider a body rescue. Whenever someone falls off, the villagers gather above and throw down flowers.'

At long last, the Oswald family reached a small parking lot from which they boarded a bright red cable car. Jacob was peering out of a window while ascending.

'Do you happen to know what your aunt was wearing when she died?' he asked.

'I'm quite sure the woman had a flowery dress on. She never wore anything else during summer.'

They all scanned the grounds but spotted nothing unusual apart from a gathering of vulture-like birds above a spiky rock formation.

***

Stella was very impressed by her first sight of the village from the cable car. A row of white buildings stood above a mind-spinning drop, with the fatal unfenced garden on the far-left side. One of the constructions, a mansion with the words Hotel Vertigo painted at its top, leaned towards the precipice, like a misaligned tooth in an otherwise perfect mouth. Five minutes later, a loud beep indicated that their ride had come to an end. The Oswald family hopped out while the cabin slowly clanked around a large iron wheel before heading back to the parking lot. They stood in a draughty and deserted hall, on the lookout for Archibald. After a while, Jacob spotted him in a far corner, slumped like a sack of grain, on a small wooden bench. When Stella walked up and delicately prodded her great uncle's shoulder, the man raised his head and greeted everyone with a sad smile.