“You said nine, right?” Lila had glanced at her watch, which read 9:02. So it was going to be one of those days.

Andi pulled a pair of shoes from her backpack, light and colorful with hard, pointed toes. They looked expensive. “Size six, right?”

“Yeah.”

Andi handed the shoes to Lila and started down the trail without any further greeting.

“We’re doing what’s called a top-rope climb. I’ll be taking a trail up here to go to the top of the wall and set the anchor. You follow the main path until you can’t go any farther. That’s the wall we’ll be climbing today. I’ll meet you there.”

With that, Andi cut to the right, taking a small path into the woods. Lila stopped, hoping to ask a few questions, but Andi was gone.

The path to the wall sloped down to the river, passing a landing where a riverboat was taking on tourists for a trip down the St. Croix. After that, the path turned rocky and followed along the bottom of a hundred-foot-tall bluff, the trail disappearing beneath fallen chunks of basalt that littered the base of the wall.

The coppery river churned a dozen feet away, giving the warm summer air an earthy aroma. Lila followed the trail until she could go no farther, stopping at the bottom of a bluff, dark and scarred with fissures cutting both horizontally and vertically like a Stone Age Tetris.

Soon Andi appeared at the top of the wall, bent over as she connected the rope to the anchor. Lila had watched a video the night before and knew that top-roping meant the rope ran through a pulley so that one person could climb while the other—the belayer—held the opposite end from the ground below.

When she stood up, Andi yelled, “Rope!” Two ends of a blue rope unfurled as they sailed down the face of the cliff. Andi then hooked the rope to a harness around her hips and slid over the side, easing herself down with the grace of a bird.

At the bottom, Andi took off her backpack and pulled out a second harness, which she handed to Lila. “This end goes in front.”

Lila slipped her legs through the straps and pulled the harness on like a pair of pants. Andi gave it a jerk and then tightened the strap around Lila’s stomach, shoving a hand between the padding and Lila’s belly, to check the snugness of the fit. Then she inspected the leg straps, tightening each slightly to account for Lila’s thinner legs.

“How’s that feel?” Andi said.

“Tight.”

“Tight is good. We don’t want you falling out of your harness.”

“Is that a thing?” Lila asked.

Andi didn’t answer.

“Am I climbing today? I thought I was just gonna…you know, belay for you.”

“Oh, you’re climbing, all right. This is a figure-eight knot.” Andi stretched an arm’s length of rope, made a loop, and wrapped the end around and through. “Do that first, then—” Andi slid the rope through two loops on the front of Lila’s harness. “Always make sure you connect through both hard points.”