________ "You don't have to sneak, you know," I told my sister Kara. She looked back at me like I was somehow the insane one, and held up a finger to her lips to shush me.
________ "It's 4:30 in the morning, of course we have to sneak. Come on, Julie, you're ruining the thrill."
________ I sighed and raked fingers through my hair in a vain attempt to make it settle down, then followed her again. The hotel hallway was dark and quiet, no light flickering from under any doors and no cleaning service rattling around yet at this early hour, and I just shook my head as I followed my sister's scuttling, peeking form around corners.
________ "I don't see why you have to drag me into this."
________ Kara gave me the raised-eyebrow look, then snorted and shook her head, her long braid ticking back and forth like a pendulum on her back. "You're so boring. Just do this one thing with me, okay?"
________ "Fine...like that's supposed to make me want it more." Still a little groggy from sleep, I shuffled along after her, ignoring the disdainful looks she sent me at my less-than-silent pace. She had really gotten into the sneaking thing, all dressed in her tech crew blacks with her camera swinging around her neck, and skulked along toward one of the side doors like a thief in a movie. I guess it amused her. She popped up to peer out of the window quickly, then pushed the door open and took a deep breath of the Edinburgh air. I rolled my eyes.
________ "Just go, just go. I want to get there this century at least."
________ Kara flicked her tongue out at me, then scooted through the door into the darkness. The air was cooler outside and smelled a bit fishy, and I made sure to check that there was a keycard swipe by the door before letting it close. The sky was black, with a few prickles of light here and there; I squinted at them but couldn't make out any constellations yet. Off to one side, the city lights tinged the sky faintly orange, but that was all; even the hotel's outside lights were off. I could barely see Kara in the dark, just her hands and face as faint pale spots against her clothes. She nabbed my sleeve. "This way," she said, and tugged.
________ "Are you sure you know where we're going?" If I squinted I could see trees off in the direction we were heading, then a big blackness that blotted out the stars. My sneakers scuffed on concrete, and I could only barely see a sidewalk like a pale ribbon winding through the grass.
________ "It's not hard," Kara said. "There's a road all the way to the top. Though we're gonna take a shortcut." I didn't ask her how she learned about a shortcut if we'd only been here three days. She just seems to find those kinds of things.
________ Kara's been like this as long as I can remember. Somehow, when I lived at home, she'd always drag me into these weird jaunts or walking daydreams, and they would usually get us in trouble, like the time she wanted to watch the stars from the garage roof and Dad caught us climbing out the second-floor window. She had a weird idea of fun, which seemed to involve making me crawl through the azalea bushes with her at home and pretending we were dragons when I would rather be doing something else. Like, oh, sleeping. "At least someone in this family has a sense of adventure," my mom used to say if I complained, even when Kara did something like the window trick. Dad and I got to the point where we would roll our eyes in tandem. And thus, the current excursion: climbing Arthur's Seat in the dark and watching the sun rise over Edinburgh.
________ "We couldn't watch the sun set, now could we... No, of course not, we have to watch it rise..."
________ "If we watch it set it would be dangerous coming down in the dark."
________ "Like it's not dangerous going up in the dark?"
________ "Oh, just trust me."
________ Dad was probably still asleep, back in the hotel room next to ours. He would kick our butts into next week if he knew what we were up to, especially Kara's. The grass under my sneakers was damp and squelched softly as we cut through the field between us and the mountain, and there was a faint soft hum of insects all around, like crickets underfoot. Here and there, house lights peeked through the screen of trees in the direction of the hotel.
________ We walked a while in silence. The land slanted up rather quickly after the field, and we soon hit one of the little paths that run through Holyrood Park. The wind was cool for summer and flicked my hair into my eyes as I tried to watch the trail; a few minutes of the uphill slant and my legs were already aching. Kara turned back often to grin at me, perched a bit higher on the trail than I could immediately reach.
________ "Come on, slowpoke. Didn't you ever get any exercise in college?"
________ I threw pebbles up at her in irritation. "I don't climb mountains in my spare time, you know. I'd rather be in bed."
________ "You'd rather be a lot of things, huh." She waited until I was just about within grab distance, then darted off again, kicking up small rocks to tumble down at me as I made my way after her.
________ "If there's a road all the way up, why aren't we taking it?" I yelled at her back, as she scrambled up another short incline like a black-shirted goat.
________ "That wouldn't be any fun!"
________ "Fun for who..." She disappeared around an outcropping, and I paused to wipe my dirty palms on my jeans and look back the way we came. If I looked hard enough, I was sure I could spot the hotel. Turning back now would be tough in the darkness, but I would just have to go straight there, not crawl up this mountain like a nut.
________ "Come on!" came Kara's reedy voice from above, and I sighed and started again.
________ I tried telling myself I didn't really mind it. I was in Scotland, after all! I might as well do something adventurous while here, and watching the bagpipers through tour-bus windows or wandering through a castle-turned-museum weren't really the most exciting things. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival was going on, a huge theatre event that pulled in theatrical companies from all over the world; it even had a high-school portion, which was why Kara was here to begin with. There was plenty to see and do in the city, in the daytime, that wouldn't ruin the knees of my jeans. My legs hurt. So what if I hadn't gotten much exercise recently, that didn't mean I wanted it at five in the morning.
________ A low stone wall heralded the road, and I planted myself on top of it for a few moments to catch my breath. Kara had vanished somewhere up ahead, but I was reluctant to yell after her. My sides had begun to ache too, and there was a faint metallic taste in the back of my throat. It had really been too long since I'd exercised. Probably two or three years since I'd really put any physical exertion into anything beside running up and down stairs between classes.
________ The stars were coming clearer, now that the city was a bit distant. They weren't very different from the constellations I knew I'd see from the University all the way back in California, just off-set. Draco, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Cassiopeia and Polaris were all showing, and just peeking over the horizon was the edge of the moon and a bright star that must have been a planet. It would have been nice to have a pair of binoculars, or a notebook or something on hand; at least, when I went back to school, I'd have something to show my astronomy teacher. Tomorrow would be the first day of the semester, and I wouldn't be there.
________ Movement caught my attention up the road: Kara, flagging her arms as if she were bringing a plane in for landing. I stood up reluctantly and started after her while she danced in place.
________ "You weirdo," was my only comment. She latched onto my coat sleeve, bouncing up and down.
________"We're almost there. Hurry up hurry up!"
________"The sun's not gonna rise at least for another fifteen minutes," I said. "The sky's barely lightening. Calm down, it's not like we're gonna miss it."
________ "You never know. Please hurry up?"
________ "You are so weird."
________She beamed at me and bolted on ahead again. I could not figure out why she was so excited. It was probably something about the place, I decided. Scotland, new and fantastic and literary. At least her high school troupe wasn't putting on Macbeth, then I would probably never have been able to get away from quotes. As it was, they apparently brought over a musical for the high-school splinter festival and Kara seemed unable to keep from blurting out the songs sometimes. Dad was determined that I go see one of the shows. Less than a thrilling prospect, when the professional shows were absolutely crowding the city. After all, who would want to go see their little sister do crew work in an amateur play when there was everything from the Royal Shakespearian Company to classical Japanese Noh shows to African dance troupes?
________ And who wants to climb a mountain in the middle of the night?
________ Perhaps it had something to do with the legendry, or just that it was there. When the tour-bus paused at a scenic spot en route to Edinburgh, my sister could not be dissuaded from pulling off her shoes and walking in the heath, or tromping around in the icy cold stream that paralleled the road. I watched from the bus. It was a weird feeling to see her like that, almost like a stranger through the tinted glass. Like a snapshot, with her arms thrown out and her jacket catching the wind. I don't think, if I'd looked away then back again, that I would have recognized her. She looked so much like Mom.
________ But the stream was just there, and now the mountain was just there, and so obviously she had to do something about it. It couldn't claim the name of King Arthur and expect not to be conquered by Kara the Mighty, especially as it was leaving itself so vulnerable as to just sit there within her reach. Anything mystical was her territory. I wondered if she still kept her shoes pointing away from the bed at night, to keep fairies away.
________ The walk was much easier by way of the road. It clung along the side of the mountain, hemmed by the low wall, and off down the slope I could see the black water of the Firth of Forth coming into view. On the other side of that was the barely-discernible edge of the district of Fife; at the edge of the firth were the twinkling lights of one of Edinburgh's satellite towns. I had to admit that it was shaping up to be a nice view, even if the wind seemed determined to blow me all the way back to the hotel.
________ Kara was waiting for me again around another bend of the road, this time standing at the edge of a trail that veered away from the slow ascent of the road and shot straight up the mountain. She kept shooting anxious glances at the bay, where the sky was slowly whitening, then back at me in anticipation. I craned my neck to look up at the path.
________ "This is going to be hell, you know."
________ "It's your fault. You've become a withered prune scientist. Here I thought I was going to get a cool college sis, but no..."
________ "Withered prune, my butt. I could still throw you out of my room, no problem."
________ She stuck her tongue out. "Who wants to be in your stinky room anyhow?"
________ "You, apparently."
________ With an offended huff, she kicked some pebbles down at me and started up the trail. I was gratified to see that I wasn't the only one who had to grip onto the vegetation now and then to get anywhere. I was starting to wish I'd brought gloves, though.
________ The whole sky was brightening slowly, enough so that I could see the grass as more than just fuzzy patches of grey. My feet hurt inside my sneakers, and my fingers felt raw; now and then a twig would skid up my sleeve when I grabbed for a steadying branch, and raise a scratch on my arm. I was sure I'd chipped at least several nails in the climb, which meant I'd need to trim the rest evenly when we got down, if we ever got down.
________ When I looked up to try to spot her, one of those weird moments hit again. She was standing on a rock outcrop, silhouetted against the sky, and for a second it was so different but so damn familiar. The wind had picked up, stinging my face with my bangs, making my eyes water. It felt like some part of my stomach had just dropped away into oblivion. I turned and had stumbled a few steps back down the rocky path when Kara said, "Wait. We're almost there."
________ I don't know why I kept following her. I kept telling myself, with each step, how much I didn't want to be there. How much I hated flying, how much it would suck to miss the first three days of classes, how many of my teachers might have already dropped me from the roster by the time I got back. How much I didn't care about the theatre, any kind of theatre; how much I just wanted to go back to my dorm and my school friends and my actual separate life. How often I just 'forgot' to go home because I didn't want to deal with either of them, Dad or Kara. How much I resented being stuck here for the sake of my weirdo little sister while my school career could very well be fracturing to bits in a matter of days. How much I'd just like to tell her that so she'd leave me alone for once, and not wake me up in the middle of the night, and not fling herself on my bed when I came home from school and refuse to leave until I drag her out. And not talk about anything. Just not bug me at all.
________ The summit sort of surprised me. One second I was glaring at a section of trail, and the next there was nothing but rippling grass and a few little rocky humps. All the stars but a few on the western horizon had been bleached out, and when I looked around the city spread out through the surrounding lowlands like a web of orange sparks. Kara was sitting in the shelter of one of the hillocks, half-bent over a pocket notebook as the wind tried to rip the pages away. The camera was in the grass beside her feet. I picked it up, turned it over in my hands, and thought about tossing it down the path. She looked up from her notebook and smiled at me. I glowered back, which only made her smile bigger, and I started contemplating how big a dent I could make in her skull with a hard camera. It was a nice, solid weight in my right hand, an older style camera that was mostly metal, not some cheap disposable plastic type.
________ "I'm really glad you came," she said. "I've missed you."
________ I sat down in the grass and stared out at the water. The sky at the very edge was getting bright. I just pointed that way with the camera and tried not to look at her, but she wouldn't turn away, just fixed her eyes on my face and didn't move at all.
________ "You're gonna miss it," I said. She didn't reply. The bottoms of the clouds were ruddy now, and the sky was taking on hints of orange and blue. I squinted at it, the water throwing glints everywhere and the thin rim just beginning to crest. It was dazzling; I turned my head slowly from side to side, just staring and watching the afterimages wipe out my vision in swaths until I couldn't see her anymore. The camera felt cold in my hands.
________Grass rustled, then there was a thump, and a weight against my side, and I remembered laying awake in bed a long time ago, with Kara next to me and our bare feet stuck out the window into the cool night air, watching the moon through our toes. Her head resting on my shoulder, and our parents dreaming in the room next door. She reached out and slipped the camera from my hands, and leaned against me as the sun rose.
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