“Shouldn’t I take a class first? I’ve never climbed before. I mean, I did a wall at the Y, but not—”

“Pay attention,” Andi snapped. “Your life depends on doing this right. Now take this end and follow the path of the figure eight.” Andi moved the rope, snake-like, through the figure-eight knot. Lila was lost.

“Is there going to be a test, because I have no idea what you just did.”

“You’ll just have to trust me, I guess.” Andi gave the knot a yank and then took the opposite end of the rope and passed it through what Lila recognized from her brief research as a belay device, connected to Andi’s harness.

“You don’t have your shoes on,” Andi said.

Lila hadn’t thought to put on the climbing shoes Andi had given her, and sat down to swap out of her cross trainers.

“Now, before you start climbing, you’ll need to plan your path. I’ve always found that rock climbing is a little like handling a case in court. You don’t just charge in; you plan it out—have a strategy that covers every contingency. If you make a wrong turn on the wall, you’ll end up under an overhang or stuck in water or mud.”

Lila stood in her new shoes and pressed her toe against a rock, getting the feel for the hardness in the soul. Andi handed Lila the helmet, and as she strapped it on, Andi attached a bag of chalk to the back of Lila’s harness.

“The object of top-roping is to climb to the anchor. Touch it and I’ll let you down.”

“And if I don’t touch it?”

Andi didn’t answer, but instead gave Lila a look as if she had just been insulted. Then she pointed at the bluff. “Start wherever you want.”

Lila walked to the face of the wall and put a hand against it. The east-facing rock was warm to the touch, but cool in the fissures where sun didn’t reach. She was about to start climbing when she remembered Andi’s instruction: Have a strategy. Lila stepped back.

The place where she stood seemed the obvious starting point, the cracks in the wall rising like a ladder. She followed the ladder with her eyes to the point where it ended, about forty feet up. From there, the wall turned smooth. That route was a trap.

A second starting point angled into a corner about halfway up and looked doable after that, but then Lila noticed the trickle of water painting the rock green. There would be no way to get to the top without climbing through mud and water for several feet. It might become impossible to climb with wet shoes. Another dead end.

On her left, the wall rose with very few places to grip, but seemed to offer relief about halfway up. She followed that path with her eyes and saw every step she would take until the last ten feet, where shadows obscured her view. She decided that that would be her path. If she was going to struggle on her first climb, she preferred that it be at the lower elevation.