Chapter 3

The lake wasn’t large. Nestled between two hills, it resembled a clenched palm.

Its water was blue-green, not the color of the reflected sky, but its own shade, like melted gemstones.

On the opposite shore, a slender waterfall cascaded down from a higher cliff face. The flow wasn’t strong, and by the time it reached the ground, the wind had scattered half of it, turning it into mist. Where the sunlight pierced the mist, a bright rainbow appeared.

Maya stood by the lake, forgetting to breathe.

When she came to her senses, she took a sharp breath and looked down, coughing twice.

Erik stood beside her. When she finished coughing, he said, "You didn't cough just now."

She paused, startled.

On the walk back to the cabin, she couldn't stop thinking about his words.

She thought about them as she walked, as she returned to town, and even as she pushed open the door to her cabin.

It wasn't about whether she had coughed; it was that he had noticed. It was something she had only just realized herself: when she stood there watching the rainbow, her breathing was smooth.

She took the painkillers out of her backpack, looked at them, and put them back.

The following days became a strange routine.

Every morning, when Maya opened the door, Erik was already waiting outside.

Sometimes he’d be leaning against a porch pillar with his arms crossed and his eyes closed as if dozing. Other times, he’d be crouched on the ground, drawing patterns with a twig. The moment he heard the door open, he’d smudge the design and stand up.

He never knocked to call her. She asked him why. He replied, "You don't know what you look like when you're sleeping. You shouldn’t be interrupted.”

She didn’t know what he meant. But she remembered it.

He started taking her running.

The first day, they ran along the fjord. She stopped after less than a hundred meters, her hands braced against her knees as she gasped for breath. "I don't run."

"You just ran."

"That's called moving. It's not running."

He stood a few steps away, waiting for her, neither turning back nor urging her on. Just waiting. When she’d caught her breath, he started walking again, a little slower than before. She kept up.

The next day, she ran about three hundred meters. When she stopped, she leaned against a roadside boundary marker. The marker was engraved with characters she couldn’t read, and gray-green moss covered the stone’s surface. She pressed her forehead against the cool stone and waited for her heart to slow down. Erik stood on the other side of the marker and handed her a water bottle.

On the third day, she ran one kilometer.

Not a continuous kilometer. She stopped to rest many times along the way. But after each rest, she was able to run again.

By the time she reached the final stretch, she realized she was truly running.

The rhythm of her feet hitting the ground was steady, and her breathing was deep. The cotton in her lungs seemed to have been compressed, no longer blocking her airways so tightly.

She stopped and bent over to catch her breath. Then she straightened up and looked at Eric beside her.

He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the mountains across the fjord. But there was a slight curve at the corner of his mouth.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I’m not smiling.”

"Your mouth twitched."

"The wind."

She didn’t press the matter. But that evening, when she returned to the cabin, she caught a glimpse of herself in the windowpane. The corners of her mouth were turned up, too.

He took her to more places.

At the end of the fjord, there was an abandoned fisherman’s path hugging the water’s edge. It was narrow enough for only one person to pass.

He walked ahead and she followed behind. The water was just a meter or two below their feet. It was a deep green and clear enough to see the stones and water plants at the bottom. She asked him how deep it was. He replied, "You'll find out if you fall in."

She didn’t fall in.

Across the fjord, a path led up the mountain to a summer pasture.

The pasture had long been abandoned, leaving only a few crooked log cabins and a stone sheep pen. The grass grew knee-high and was dotted with white and yellow wildflowers. He taught her the names of the flowers—one was called "Cat's Footprints," and another was called "Old Woman's Hat."

She said the names were far too arbitrary. He said the people who named them had been dead for centuries and that she should go argue with them.

She lay on the grass, watching the clouds drift in from behind the snow-capped mountains. The clouds were low, as if she could reach out and touch them. She stretched out her arm, fingers spread wide. The clouds flowed through the gaps between her fingers.

"What are you doing?" he asked, sitting down beside her.

"Measuring the clouds."

“Did you measure them?”

"About four fingers wide."

He was silent for a moment. Then, he lay down and stretched his hand toward the sky.

"I measured three."

"Your hand is bigger than mine."

"That makes sense."

She turned her head to look at him. The sunlight bathed his profile in gold and cast a small shadow from his eyelashes. He was still looking at the sky, but the corners of his mouth curved into his familiar smile.

She found herself smiling, too.

One day, he took her out rowing.

The wooden, old boat with peeling paint was moored at a small dock along the fjord.

She didn’t know whose it was. As he untied the rope, she asked, "Did you borrow it or steal it?"

He replied, "Borrowed. People here lend things to each other. Even without asking, it counts as borrowing.”

She didn’t believe him, but she got into the boat anyway.

He rowed, and she sat at the bow facing the stern—and him.

The boat pulled away from the shore, the water making a soft sound beneath it.

The mountains on either side of the fjord looked taller from the water's surface, like two doors closing in on each other. The water reflected the mountains and the sky. As the boat glided over the reflection, the snow-capped peaks shattered, only to reassemble into their original form once the boat had passed.

She dipped her hand into the water. It was the kind of cold that comes from a glacier, shooting up from her fingertips to her wrist. But she didn’t pull her hand back. The cold water made her feel alive.

“You’re not afraid of the cold,” he said.

“I am.”

“Then why didn’t you pull it back?”

She thought for a moment. "Because after the cold comes the warmth."

He rested the oar on the gunwale and let the boat drift. Sunlight fell on the water, shattering into countless fragments. In the distance, a white bird took flight from the water's surface, its flapping wings echoing through the fjord for a long time.

"Maya."

"Mm."

"What's wrong with you?"

This was the first time anyone had asked her so directly. Not "How are you feeling?" or "Are you okay?"—not those probing questions cloaked in concern. Just straightforward words.

She pulled her hands out of the water and shook off the droplets. Her fingers were already red and frozen, but her fingertips were starting to feel warm.

"Lungs," she said. "It started with my lungs. Then it didn’t stop.”

“What do you mean, ‘it didn’t stop’?”

"It means other parts started having problems, too. The bones. The blood. The doctor said this thing is like a vine—it starts in one place and slowly spreads to others.”

He didn’t speak right away. The boat rocked gently on the water. The white bird in the distance had already flown far away and become just a speck in the sky.

“What else could they do?” he asked.

"Chemotherapy. Radiation. All kinds of treatments,” she said calmly. "But at the last checkup, the doctor said it wasn't worth it anymore. He was delicate about it, using percentages and cycles, but what he meant was, 'Don't bother anymore.'”

“So that’s why you came here?”

"Yes."