It took most of a day to get down to it, and the last two hours of that were the strangest walking I have ever done, because the air kept getting better.
That is the only way I can put it. Everyone felt it and nobody said anything for a long time. The cold went out of the rock in stages. My fingers stopped aching somewhere around the third shelf and I did not notice until later, the way you do not notice a noise stopping.
Bren started crying about an hour above the seam and could not tell us why.
She was furious about it. She kept walking and wiping her face with the back of her wrist and saying "I don't know, I don't know what this is," and the big man put his hand on her shoulder and left it there, and she let him.
The silent one lifted his face to it. That was the first thing I ever saw him do on purpose.
