They came to a group of jagged gray stones protruding from the black dirt like the fingers of a premature burial victim. A fine, chilly spray added weight to the air. The trees thinned and Ace could make out the walls of the gorge. Off-white rock plunged eighty feet down, worn smooth by aeons of running water that had probably started as a ridgetop trickle and then cut its way deep into the skin of the Earth. The rock bore the stubble of twisted, stunted balsams, and veins of quartz crystal glittered in the dying daylight. Though they were fifty feet from the ledge, Ace got vertigo from the yawning space of the gorge.
A section of the ledge had recently given way, judging by the dirt clinging to the upturned roots. The rocks were different, too, not worn and splotched with gray moss like those across the rest of the ridge. Clara had told him the Appalachian chain was the oldest stretch of mountains in the world, which Ace thought was dumb, because the Book of Genesis set down the creation date of the heavens and Earth as all at once. So how could one mountain be older than another? At any rate, Ace didn’t like the thought of standing anywhere near that ledge. The walls of the gorge looked like so many stacked pieces of rock, anyway, and if a piece kicked out somewhere near the bottom, the whole ridge might tumble down.
He moved away from the ledge, heading into the woods. It would be time to camp soon. Clara stood a moment longer, looking out over the ripples of soil and trees that spread as far as the eye could see before vanishing into a soft, blue haze on the horizon. Ace waited for her footsteps in the leaves behind him.