Before I Let Go Page 8

  “I want to be here to say goodbye. Then I’m flying to Fairbanks, then home to see you. Okay?”

  “Better.”

  “You are a punk.”

  “I try. Hey, Corey? I liked Kyra too. She was nice to me. She was your best friend. It’s okay if you’re not okay.”

  “Hey, Luke?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you and Mom okay?”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to call Mom’s cell phone?”

  “No, no. Don’t worry about it. I don’t want to—”

  “Everything is all right here, I promise. Mom and I are okay.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Cor?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you say hi to Tobias for me? And Sam? And will you bring home some of Mrs. Henderson’s cookies? Tell her I miss them, and tell her I miss her too. And that I’m sorry about Kyra.”

  “I will, I promise. See you soon.”

  “Hey, sis?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t freeze your toes off out there.”

  Pathways

  I don’t consciously think about where I want to go, my feet just take me. I head toward the workers’ residences that were built after the gold rush, when quartz mining took off. This is the shabby part of town. Unlike the houses on Main, these houses are small and creaky, with roofs that groan under the weight of snow. But even though the walls could barely keep the cold out, they kept the warmth in.

  Home.

  Before Dad left, we were four against the world. After that, Mom traveled back and forth between Lost and Fairbanks and the surrounding towns more and more, and Luke and I fended for ourselves, with the help of neighbors, especially Sheriff Flynn, the Hendersons, and the Mordens. Kyra would come over to play board games with the two of us until long past midnight. Luke, Tobias, and I would play ball in the yard. Seven months ago, I was at home here.

  Luke’s Lost Creek is the town I remember. Every year, Lost would bond over the Yukon Quest dogsled race. We’d celebrate the new year with large bonfires. And we would eat the most absurd meals when the ice prevented supplies from coming in and Jan’s grocery store from being stocked.

  Once you’ve settled in, you should walk over, Piper told me yesterday.

  I turn the corner and search my pocket for a key I no longer own, for a place that is no longer mine, and I come to a dead stop.

  Because at the end of the street, there is no house. Support beams stand, singed and blackened. Parts of the roof lie half buried under the snow. A magenta ribbon is tied to the remains of the gate. The house that I once called home is gone.

  On what used to be our threshold, a handful of pink flowers peek out of a drift of snow. I brush away the snow and stare at the frozen salmonberry blossoms. They’re crumbled and torn. A message is scrawled on one of the support beams.

  Three simple words: So be it.

  Mrs. Robinson’s voice echoes in my ears. It’s good fertilizer, ashes. If used sparingly and knowingly, ashes will help your garden grow.

  Abandon Hope

  Nine Months Before

  I nibbled on my pen cap and stared at glow-in-the-dark stars that I’d carefully placed on my ceiling. Kyra and I were both working on assignments for one of the remote English classes all the juniors and seniors took. Which was to say, she was working while I was waiting for inspiration. I would take math over literature any day.

  “‘Through me you must go into the city of sorrow: through me you must go into eternal pain: through me you must go among the lost people,’” Kyra read, then scribbled something in her notebook. “‘Abandon all hope, you who enter here.’” She looked up. “Does that not sound like Lost to you?”

  “Dante’s inscription over the gate of Hell?” I laughed. “No, not particularly. It sounds depressing.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Is that what you think my depressive episodes are like? Eternal pain?”

  “I—I didn’t mean—” I stammered. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s a turn of phrase. I don’t know what your episodes are like.” I’d thought about asking her but never actually did. I could never find the right words. Mostly because, to me, her depressions were synonymous with closed doors and loneliness, and they scared me. I didn’t know how to fix them for her.

  Kyra wet her lips. “I was reading through Grandfather’s history of Lost last night. ‘As the story goes, the town of Lost Creek, Alaska, isn’t named after the eponymous stream. It’s named after its first group of colonial settlers, a handful of adventurers, for whom the world didn’t have a place anymore. Lost men, who didn’t belong anywhere else.’” The cadence of Kyra’s voice lends weight to her words. “ʻThey set down their roots, stealing land that was never theirs, and carved their home between the mountains and the mines, the hot springs, the river, and the lake, during those long summer days when anything seemed possible. Then the cold came. And these settlers discovered that they had built their home in the heart of winter. They’d come for new opportunity, but they found that winter is not malleable, and frost settles too. And no matter how hard they tried, they could not escape being lost.’”

  I shivered in delight.

  Kyra didn’t smile. “Or maybe it said, ‘They could not escape Lost.’ Grandfather’s handwriting is hard to decipher sometimes.”

  I gazed out of my window, to the front yard where Luke and Tobias were playing ball. “That’s quite a difference.”

  “No.” Kyra shook her head and picked up her pen again. “It really isn’t.”

  Gifts

  I start awake in the middle of the night. The lights are still on—I didn’t want to be surrounded by darkness. My thoughts and dreams are dark enough. The outbuilding is quiet. Everything is still. I’d locked the closet and pushed the desk chair against it. But my heart is hammering out of control.

  I don’t know what woke me. Despite the room being silent, I do not feel alone. I can feel eyes on me. I can hear the soft sound of breathing. But I don’t turn to my side or look around because I know if I do, I’ll find another presence in this room, someone leaning against the desk.

  Kyra used to do this. She’d sit and watch me. And when she got restless, she’d jump on my bed in the middle of the night, scaring the life out of me. I wait for the covers to move, for the bed to creak under her weight.

  They don’t. But the feeling of being watched doesn’t abate. It grows stronger. A chill runs along my spine.

  I close my eyes, shift my head, and force myself to look into the room. No one.

  Then my gaze travels over to my backpack. I’d dumped my clothes in a hasty pile on top of it before I went to sleep. It had toppled over to lean against the desk.

  A handful of freshly picked salmonberry flowers rest on my shirt.

  I grow cold despite the heavy blankets I’m burrowed in. I push the covers aside and walk over to the backpack. The floor is ice under my feet.

  When I brush the flowers away, the hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

  Tucked into my shirt lies a pencil sketch of me, a scene like the one from the airstrip yesterday. My backpack is slung over my shoulder. In the distance stands a girl who may be Piper. Who may be Kyra.

  Come to me.

  Day Three

  Wholesome Lives and Hot Springs

  Kyra was here. She was here, and she’s waiting for me. I can’t shake the thought from my mind. She’s still waiting for me.

  I have to go to her.

  After breakfast, I tell Mrs. Henderson I’m going to take a walk. I don’t tell that her I’m going to the spa, in case she tries to stop me. But before I can go to the memorial this afternoon, I need to know where she lived—how she lived—as well as how she died.

  With my lunch packed, I make the trek to the hot springs. Although a solitary road leads from Lost Creek to the spa, it’s ov
ergrown and doesn’t get plowed in winter, so I follow the shortcut through the woods.

  In the early morning twilight, it’s an easy walk, more so than in the afternoon when the branches cast shadows and the trees whisper. It isn’t snowing, which is a rare occurrence in winter, and I’m going to see Kyra.

  Part of me knows it’s not rational, expecting to find her at the hot springs, but that doesn’t stop my heart from racing. I’m giddy with hope. I envelop myself in the wild beauty of our nature. The pine forest seems to go on forever. In spring, it’s not only humans who inhabit these parts, but bears and moose and eagles. Many a summer, we’ve had black bears stroll down Main, and if a moose tried to eat its way through Mrs. Robinson’s garden, it wouldn’t be the first time. It’s a coexistence that’s as natural as breathing.

  Yet, in winter, it’s quieter. And even though the bears hibernate and the eagles migrate, the land is still beautiful. The vast layer of snow tucks us in, softening color and sound. I’ve always thought we don’t need a church in Lost because we have nature to inspire awe.

  Gradually, the hot springs come into view, as does the spa. It’s an old, burgundy hotel with two floors, sloped roofs, and rooms for maybe two dozen guests. According to Kyra, it was built at the start of the twentieth century. The hot springs were first used by miners on their way to or from the Klondike. But in the following decades, it became an increasingly popular tourist destination. Although Lost Creek couldn’t compete with the hot springs in Circle or Chena, it had a steady clientele for almost half a century. Now that it’s abandoned, we’ve made it ours. Kyra and me. And before us, Anna. Amy. Will. Those of us who’ve escaped Lost over the years have all carved our names in the banister, leaving a piece of ourselves behind.

  I slow down. Kyra and I always snuck in through the back because, technically, we weren’t supposed to be there. The building was considered by the town to be a monument to its history and therefore out of bounds for us. But if Lost knew that Kyra was staying here, then presumably the front door would be unbolted and unlocked?

  I pause and eye the road leading up to the spa.

  I could ask Aaron, the groundskeeper, who lives not far from here in a small, modern cabin. Or I could simply try the door. But neither option feels right. Kyra wants me here.

  So I stick to the tree line as I circle the hotel, to sneak in like old times.

  • • •

  I haul myself in through a small window on the north side of the building and end up on what Kyra and I had deduced must have once been a kitchen counter. The room itself is yellowed and empty. The floor around the counter is caked in mud. A little snow has blown in.

  I jump down and stamp the snow off my boots. Mine aren’t the only prints here. I crouch and my heart hammers. The others are dry and at least a few days old. It’s hard to tell the size of the boots—the prints aren’t clear enough—but I convince myself they’re Kyra’s. I want them to be hers. I trace the prints, imaging her climbing in through this window on one of her adventures. I imagine her alive and well.

  Kyra.

  I follow the tracks to the hallway that runs along the back of the building, through the service quarters. One door leads directly from this hallway to the entrance, but it’s locked and the lock has long since rusted shut. So instead, I follow the footprints up a narrow staircase to the second floor. It’s convoluted and damp, but a small price to pay for a private hideout. Besides, Kyra and I walked these steps so many times, I could navigate this place from muscle memory.

  The walls here are covered in faded graffiti. In old photos, this place looked resplendent, with thick carmine carpet and gold-threaded wallpaper, but those days passed long ago.

  I head toward the foyer, staying away from the creaky wooden bannister. Leaning on it too hard could send it, and me, spiraling down to the first floor. Instead, I stand at the top of the stairs like a fairy-tale princess in a parka and jeans. And I stare.

  The entrance is a large space that is open to the second floor, and it has become a riot of colors. It’s filled with flowers and paintings and candles and papers. It’s as bright as it ever was dusty, and it looks far more alive than the rest of the building.

  In front of the fireplace, which bears traces of recent use, are two comfortable-looking chairs. A few sketchbooks are stacked on the side table.

  I slowly descend the stairs, and with every step I take, I notice more details.

  On the far side of the room, on a large table, is a collection of sketches and sketchbooks and paints and other art supplies. Candles and melted wax are clustered in front of paintings and drawings that are propped up against the walls. The flower bouquets around them are withered, but I see salmonberry flowers and little specks of magenta everywhere I turn.

  This isn’t a hangout or a home. It’s a shrine.

  Birds with Broken Wings

  Seven Months Before

  In a place like Lost Creek, our entire world was a handful of square miles, bordered by water, trees, and mountains. But when Kyra was painting, she forgot the confines of Lost, of realism. Painting stilled the constant churning of her mind. It gave her an outlet, though she hardly ever remembered it afterward.

  It was either painting or running through the forest, she told me, and when she was painting, she couldn’t trip over roots or fall down a hill. It was self-care, she said. She needed to escape her mania one way or another.

  It was June, and Kyra let me watch. She didn’t usually tolerate observers, but it was the week before Mom, Luke, and I would be leaving for Winnipeg and Mom’s new job at the children’s hospital. We had so little time left together, and neither of us wanted to spend time apart.

  We sat on the dock at White Wolf Lake, and she had a large sketchbook in front of her. I held her paints, although I wasn’t sure if she noticed I was there. She was working so fervently, and I kept holding my breath, as if I were watching an athletic race.

  Despite the fact she used limited colors and shades that were more vivid than the scenery around us, it didn’t take me long to recognize her subject matter.

  Luke was the first to appear on the page. His eyes were a smidge too green and bright, his hair too spiky, but it was him. I’d never seen Kyra draw him like that, and something in the way she made him smile punched me right in the chest. She was so talented. And he looked so happy.

  She depicted him in motion, running toward us. It looked as though he could step out of the page at any moment.

  Next, Tobias. Piper’s brother. Of course they’d be together. The two of them always were. In her painting, he followed behind Luke at some distance, holding something in his hand. As Kyra continued, the details became clearer and clearer. From Tobias’s hoodie to the boots he wore to the bird he held in his palm. A kestrel—in bright magenta—with one wing at an awkward angle.

  It was the perfect Lost Creek scene.

  Kyra continued adding trees and shadows behind the two boys, adding depth and distance. From what little I’d seen of Kyra’s art, she preferred to paint the flowers of Mrs. Robinson’s garden or draw landscapes of places far beyond our hometown, into the realm of imagination. This was the first time I could think of that Kyra had painted someone from Lost Creek.

  She kept going for a while longer, adding nuance and improving on flaws I didn’t see. And she kept messing with the image. She changed colors near the edges. She turned half of the forest blue. All the while, I was mesmerized by her brushwork.

  Then her hands started to tremble, and she swayed on the dock.

  She put down her brush. If she could’ve gone on, it wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d changed the boys’ clothes or their expressions.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said softly.

  She glanced at me and then at the painting, then she looked away. “Eh.”

  Her gaze darted across the horizon, as if the restlessness were building ins
ide her again. These episodes always made her look haunted, and I longed to be the one to anchor her.

  She started to close her sketchbook when I snatched it from her. “Wait a minute. Let it dry.”

  “Why?”

  I shook my head. “Luke would love how you portrayed him and Tobias with that bird—like heroes.”

  Her smile was crooked. Forced. “We could all do with more heroes.” She climbed to her feet, stretched, and began to pace.

  “We could always do with more heroes,” I agreed as I stared at the painting. She’d lost herself in the act of creating before, but I’d never seen her produce work like this. Even with a limited color palate, this looked real.

  Yet she didn’t see how impressive it was.

  “When you’re in Canada,” she said, still pacing, “think of me?”

  I looked up at her. “Do you honestly believe that I could forget you?”

  Before she could answer, footsteps sounded on the dock behind us, and someone gasped. I turned to find Piper, staring at Kyra’s painting. “That is magical.”

  Kyra shook her head but didn’t say anything.

  I didn’t think Piper meant it literally. Maybe she did.

  But the next Sunday, when Luke and Tobias went hiking in the woods, they returned carrying a kestrel with a broken wing. Tobias held the bird in his hands, while Luke ran ahead to find a box and call the wildlife center.

  Kyra had all but forgotten about the painting. She’d gone through countless sketches and paintings since that one, and afterward, she tore them all up. But I’d liberated this painting from her sketchbook before she got to it. It was neatly pressed between my schoolbooks at home. I hadn’t forgotten it.

  And by the way Piper stared at us the next time we went into town, neither had she.