At least it looked like a castle. Weary with fatigue, Terah lacked the motivation to cross the bridge. The energy required to lift even one worn boot was too much. He stood staring across the expanse that married New Jersey to Pennsylvania along I-80. Probably because the Appalachian Trial, this interstate bridge had a pedestrian lane for vagabond hikers like himself. Back when he was at least partially employed, he’d driven through the Gap many times. The dramatic cliffs along curves that teetered above the Delaware River would be an inspiring sight, he always thought, if one didn’t have to keep one’s eyes on the road. Now that he stood here, oppressed by the magnitude of nature and his own insignificance, he rubbed his eyes on a dirty sleeve. A castle? In Pennsylvania?
Back in his Scotland days he’d visited many medieval castles. America was just being “discovered”—“exploited” was the more accurate word—when the era of castle building slowed. Cannons proved natural enemies to these stone structures, eventually making them obsolete. Nobody lived in Pennsylvania to build authentic castles, in other words. Mock castles had been all the rage in the nineteenth century, so this was likely what he was seeing. He’d neither noticed it, nor had he heard of it before. Delirious with lethargy, he began to cross the river.
The problem with hills is the constant shifting of perspective. Once in Pennsylvania, at the base of the incline, he could no longer see the structure. Forcing the fuzziness from his tired head, he reasoned that like solid land waves these northern Appalachians were kind of like the ocean. The castle hadn’t been on the nearest crest, otherwise he’d have seen it before, while driving. He’d always glanced at the massive slide of scree down the side of the crumbling mountain. These ridges had to have names, but Terah had no idea what they were. There was nothing left to do but climb.
Light was beginning to fail and that icy embrace of January, like the memory of Danielle, kept him moving. They were no doubt looking for him by now. In the many hours of putting one foot in front of the other, and occasionally accepting a ride with a naive stranger, he’d toyed with the idea of investigating who’d really killed her. Thing was, investigation took resources. As an adjunct professor who’d been surviving largely on her salary, clearly assets weren’t a strong suit. He had brain power, but that was nothing in the American economy without business acumen to back it up. Terah was an abstract, deep thinker, not an entrepreneur. Since the circumstantial evidence would suggest he’d done it, if he’d stuck around he’d have been in jail, trying to get some court-appointed lawyer to do the thinking for him.
As he trudged through the snow, up the hillside, he reflected on life with Danielle. They’d been a team, but not always. At times she’d threaten to throw him out—the student firing the professor. He didn’t make enough money, and finances were strained. The impossible cost of living in New Jersey, despite everyone joking about its undesirability, led to fights and tears. It was nobody’s fault, he reasoned. He’d gone about as far as you could go getting an education. It was society that’d pulled the linoleum out from under him. He’d been quite fond of Danielle. They avoided the “l word” because love implied a little too much. Everyone understood lust, though. The other “l word.”
Such unorthodox thoughts helped keep him warm, but he was now reaching an altitude where he’d have to stop and sort through the pilfered goods he called food. Terah recalled that eastern Pennsylvania had areas of karst geography, which meant there should be caves. He couldn’t build a fire in an opening facing I-80. It’d surely been seen and reported, at least as something anomalous. The idea of spending the night in a snow blanket didn’t appeal, but the wind had been coming from the west. On the leeward side of this stone wave he was in a natural break from the occasional gusts. Now that twilight had set in peeing toward the onrushing cars, oblivious far below, sudden felt liberating. A jubilee. He jerked down his zipper, fumbled through the long underwear for the opening, and celebrated. Lord, let us spray.
Years of commuting had conditioned him to awake without alarm clock around three a.m. This had been yet another bone of contention with Danielle. She kept normal human hours, but sleep settled on Terah around 7 p.m. As a kid he begged to stay up until midnight. Now he fell asleep just as the night life began. It meant he’d be able to climb unseen in the predawn hours. And he’d have to find some new sources of nutrition soon. This wasn’t his finest hour.
After an uncomfortable night, he shivered in the predawn, but the cold light of a half moon saw him safely over the ridge and moving recirculated the blood in his limbs. The castle rested on the military crest of the next ridge, still some hours’ walking uphill in this steep terrain. As he drew closer and the reluctant sun spilled over the ridge at his back, he could see it wasn’t a castle at all. The building, although clearly once industrial, had been designed with a flair for poured concrete aesthetic. He recalled a visit to Fonthill Castle in Doylestown. Henry Chapman Mercer, a tile tycoon, had been inordinately fond of poured concrete. He’d poured a revival-style castle just before the First World War—could you call it “built”?—and on a tour in November, Terah had noticed just how chilly it was inside. Could Mercer have tried to establish something here, some sixty miles north of his other holdings? If so, the neglect evident under numerous highway bridges would’ve been at work. Still, he would surely find a windbreak here, and if it were concrete fire wouldn’t be much of a problem.
Seeing no footprints in the snow, Terah surmised that although graffiti made it evident that others had occasionally stopped in, the place was currently vacant. The heavy, steel door creaked loudly as he pulled it wide enough to shuffle in. An old board fell down. The place was falling apart, but the concrete was intact. The echoey noise made him wince. Good thing there was nobody else here. Or so he thought.
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