AFTER THE YELLOW BRIDGE, our path fluctuates less. The floors, if not entirely clean, are better swept. We stop and rest, on the far side of the bridge. I pull my shoes off and massage my wounded feet.
Then we continue down our new, gentler corridor. Generic paintings of black-and-white flowers are hung on the white plaster walls. The entire thing seems quaint, tame, and more than a little dull. The building reminds me of a dentist’s office, or at least the hallway leading up to one, but no doors connect to our corridor.
I look at Willow, who walks calmly beside me, but her expression’s a steel trap.
The corridor makes minutes feel like hours, and even Willow seems weary of the hallway’s repetitiveness by the time we reach our next bridge. Wooden and rickety, the bridge is starkly out of place with our surroundings. The floor tiles end abruptly at the foot of the bridge, and the earth spills away beneath us. A white river pushes angrily down rapids, far below us.
I shake my head, mutter, “Weird dentist’s office,” and put a cautious foot on the bridge. The wooden board creaks alarmingly and the ropes swing under my weight, so I quickly step back.
“We’re getting close, finally,” Willow says. She points at the water far below us, “That feeds into the river we traveled down with the boatman. The forest should be near.”
“What’s the river called?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
I suppose it doesn’t. “This bridge is the only way?”
“It’s perfectly safe,” Willow says. She steps out onto the bridge, and I hold my breath, only to exhale when it doesn’t creak or even sway. But of course, ghosts don’t weigh anything. It wouldn’t be dangerous—for her.
“You’re giving me that look again,” Willow barks. “Ghosts don’t feel pain, right? Or fear? Fuck you.”
She turns around and walks, almost runs, across the bridge. It doesn’t move, and there’s no sound of her footsteps, just the quiet roar of water far below us. At the bridge’s far side, she looks back at me. Then she carefully sits herself down with exaggerated daintiness, and looks expectantly at me.
All right. I can do this.
I swallow my fear. I loosen my tie and place my foot back on the bridge. Its far end is tethered to another office building, because of course it is. The building’s exterior is covered in reflective glass panes that mirror the bridge back at me. The effect is disorienting, as if I’m walking backwards, or into a mountain made of funhouse mirrors.
Still, better than looking down.
I reach the centre of the bridge with many threatening creaks, but otherwise without incident. Then a gust of wind bucks the bridge and the beams lurch beneath me. I hold onto the knotty rope railing with the same iron-grip with which I clung to my Grandmother’s fox trotter while learning to ride. I’m bent low now, my knees almost touching the wood. I’m suddenly uncomfortably aware of my bladder.
A second gust lifts the Stetson from my head and Willow and I both watch it tumble into the valley below us. It takes more than twenty seconds to finally be swallowed by the river’s white foam.
“Your loss,” Willow shouts at me. “The boatman’s gain.”
I can’t laugh at her joke. I can’t move. I can’t even look up. I’ve come this far, and now I’m going to give up here.
And then there’s a hand on my shoulder. “Come on,” Willow says in my ear. She pulls my left hand, then my right, from the bridge’s rope railings, and gives me an encouraging smile. “Look down,” she says. It seems like terrible advice.
Nevertheless, I look down. And yeah, it’s a bad idea.
The water far below me bullies its way past rocks, smoothed and lichened by time. The water whips itself into white foam as it eddies downhill, and its passage, while quite loud, I’m sure—is still only a murmur up here. “Rocks and water,” Willow says. “There’s so many other things to be afraid of, it seems silly to chicken out over rocks and water. Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall.”
It’s not the pep talk that I would have made, but those last words lend me strength enough to take another tentative step, then two. Together, we creep across the bridge. Willow keeps her eyes fastened to mine, her lips hooked in a smile. She doesn’t seem perturbed that every step of mine sets the bridge swinging.
We reach the far side, and I drop to my knees. Willow, still standing, pats me on the head like a child. “There now,” she says. “You made it. I guess that means I have to deal with your hat-hair for the rest of the trip.”