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Loren’s brother-in-law fell sick six weeks after the last rack-and-pinion train departed for the base of the mountain and three weeks after winter closed over the mine like a frozen diamond pane. A layer of cloud hid the world far below, gray and silver in the winter-long night. Thunderheads drifted past, stately as tall ships under starshine, and you could watch them rise and collide and throb with lightning until your eyes froze over. Which took about eight seconds.
And in the stone hollow of a second-shift barracks within the mountain’s peak, Loren tried to do what he’d seen the old witch do. Start with the pulse, he thought. That’s simple enough.