“What if they don’t find it?” the skinny one asked.
“... just a backup. There’s enough for them to find.”
The stocky guy took something out of his pocket. He was wearing gloves, she noticed, which was odd for a warm September day. It was a scrap of something, maybe material. He put it into the creek. Elena wished she could see what it was, but the men diverged from the stream and she had to leave the creek and creep through the trees to keep up with them.
Elena followed the men until the forest was broken by a narrow dirt road. The skinny one put something to his ear and she could hear the crackle of a radio. Elena waited patiently, curled into the coarse branches of a sprawling juniper, trying to control her shivering.
A few minutes later, she heard a vehicle approaching. It wasn’t like the military trucks she’d seen outside the school. It was just an old banger and it barely stopped long enough for the two men to jump in. After a U-turn it headed her way with its nose pushing into the forest. She saw the driver. It was Frank.
Elena found Rob hiding in the trees near Dad’s truck. She almost screamed when he popped out in front of her but she could tell he didn’t mean to make her jump. He didn’t ask where she’d been, or what she’d seen. He grabbed her arm and dragged her back to their bikes.
The way home was quicker. They flew down the hill and over the bridge and Elena pedalled hard to keep up with Rob.
At the house, Elena was red-faced and breathless. Her clothes had dried a bit, but Mamma still wanted to know why she was wet and what happened to the groceries. Rob sat Mamma down in the living room and started to explain but he got it all wrong.
“What were you thinking?” Mamma snapped at him when he admitted where they went. Her mouth opened and her eyes watered when he told her about the truck. “Are you sure it was our truck?” she said. Both kids nodded. The two of them agreed on everything until Rob mentioned what happened once they reached the trapper’s cabin.
“We heard voices coming from the cabin. We didn’t know who they were so we came straight back.”
Elena shot a glance at him, “No ...”
“... that’s what happened.”
He didn’t want to tell Mamma the truth. Sometimes he had a good reason for it but not this time. He just didn’t want Mamma to know what a coward he was.
Elena piped up again. “No. Two men came out of the cabin and Rob ran off ...”
“I didn’t! She’s lying ...”
“Let her finish.”
Rob let out a massive sigh but Elena kept going.
“I hid in the creek and followed them.” She spoke quickly as she explained the rest, keen to deprive Rob of an opportunity to interrupt.
Rob rolled his eyes. Elena glared at him. “He just doesn’t want to admit he was too scared to come with me.”
Rob tried to object, but Mamma shushed them both by raising her hand.
“Enough fighting!” She turned to Elena. “Did you see who they were?”
“I didn’t know the two men but I saw the driver. It was Frank.”
Rob threw up his hands, “Mom, she’s obviously making this up!”
Mamma stared at him. “How would you know?”
“Okay, but ...”
“So she did go off without you?”
Rob realized too late that Mamma had caught him in his own lie. She was good at that.
“I didn’t run off. One of them had a gun!”
Mamma gasped. “Who had a gun?”
“No they didn’t!”
“They did!”
Mamma hushed them. “Tell me the truth, Elena. You won’t be in trouble.”
“I just told you the truth.”
Mamma got up and went into the kitchen and stared out of the window for a while. Elena heard her pick up the phone, her voice cracking.
“Ken? The kids found something.”
Ken arrived about 20 minutes later. He barely looked at Elena when he came in the door, but she saw the dark circles under his eyes. The thin hair he usually tied back was hanging loose and greasy around his shoulders. His breath reeked, and Elena could tell Mamma had noticed too, although she didn’t say anything. Mamma led him into the kitchen and they had a hushed discussion that Elena only caught pieces of: “Rob said they had guns ... wouldn’t the police want to talk to them ... I’m worried about the kids.”
Once Mamma and Ken reached an agreement, it was Ken who came to speak to them while Mamma hung back, hugging herself nervously. His voice was slow and his hands shook.
“I called the cops before I came over. They said they’re looking into it. They told us to stay away because they don’t want any evidence disturbed.”
“Did you tell them about the men who put something in the creek?”
Ken looked at the floor as though he hadn’t heard. Elena was about to ask again but Rob interjected.
“Are they going to talk to Elena and me?”
Ken coughed. “They might, but I gave them a good account of what you saw, so hopefully that will be enough for now.”
“What about Frank? Are they going to talk to Frank?” Elena asked.
“I’m sure they will,” Ken said.
He left quickly and didn’t hug them. Maybe he knew how bad he smelled. Ken wasn’t himself and Elena wondered why he was so different around them.
As soon as Ken left, Elena began working on Mamma. If they couldn’t go back to Dad’s truck, they at least needed to speak to Frank. Maybe he could explain the whole thing so they wouldn’t have to sit around and wait for the cops. Maybe he knew what happened to Dad.
Mamma pretended the whole thing was a bad idea, but Elena sensed she wanted to be persuaded. She wanted to know what had happened to Dad just as badly as they did. And though she’d hate to admit it, Frank was the kind of guy who knew things, especially things other people weren’t supposed to know.
“Elena’s just making up stories again, Mom.” Mamma didn’t even look at Rob so he went to his room and slammed the door.
“Elena, if we go to the Inn, you can’t get your hopes up, alright? Frank might not have anything to tell us.”
Elena shot out of her chair and dashed to the front door. Before they left, she stuffed the little jade turtle Frank gave her into her pocket for luck.
As they approached the Inn, Elena scoured the parked vehicles on Main Street for any sign of the truck she’d seen Frank driving. Whatever those other men were doing she wanted to believe Frank was on their side.
Mamma said they should go in through the reception area because kids weren’t allowed in the bar. The foyer was a mess. An old armchair sagged next to a table cluttered with leaflets. Flyers and newspaper clippings pinned to the walls fluttered in the draft from the door closing behind them. No one was around. Elena rushed ahead and slammed her hand down on the little bell so hard that Mamma flinched.
Nothing, for a minute or so. Then they heard creaking floorboards and the bar door opened. Frank was calm and casual as always. Elena’s mouth burst open as he neared.
“I saw you this afternoon.”
Frank’s brow crinkled. “I don’t think so, kid. I’ve been here all day.”
“No, you were on a back road near the mill and you were driving a truck and you picked up two men.”
Frank’s frown deepened and he shook his head, miming puzzlement.
“But I saw you! You were wearing a green t-shirt just like that one!”
“I got a few green shirts. Your mom probably doesn’t wanna hear this, but I’ve been wearing this one for the last couple days!”
Frank put his nose to his armpit and pulled a face like it was all a big joke. It wasn’t funny. None of it was funny. Dad was missing. She thought again that maybe the curse was real. It was like a bad dream. People were flat-out lying.
“But I saw you!” she said again, exasperated. He had to tell the truth. They needed to know what happened to Dad.
“I don’t know what else to tell you, kid. Maybe I got a l
ook-alike.”
“If you can think of anything at all that could help us, Frank ...”
Mamma tried, but he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
Mamma took Elena’s arm and tried to lead her away gently, but Elena shook her off. She pulled the turtle out of her pocket and slammed it down on the reception desk. She rolled the turtle on its back so he could see the “MADE IN CHINA” imprint.
“I don’t want it anymore. You lie about everything!”
Mamma apologized to him. “Elena’s very tired,” she said. “We’ve been through a lot in the last couple of days.” Elena scowled as Mamma led her out. She turned around as they left and caught a glimpse of him through the crack of the closing door. He had collapsed into the old armchair and buried his head in his hands.
The Inn was a big part of Stapleton. It was one of those buildings people referred to when they were giving directions to out-of-towners. It was where people went for “Ribz Nite” and “Wingz Nite” and to watch the game.
The Inn had always been at the core of the town, and at the heart of the Inn was Frank’s family. Elena imagined they all had the same quirky smile, and every time they smiled, things that were there a moment ago vanished, and new things appeared. They could create anything or make anything disappear with their stories and their smiles. Like the murdered brothers and the men Frank picked up in the forest.
Maybe Frank had some kind of power over Stapleton. He was always busy doing something that Elena didn’t quite understand. Did he want her dad to disappear, or was he trying to help bring him home? If she could understand that, the mystery surrounding the mill explosion might start to make sense.
CHAPTER 8
2 0 1 8
CELESTE DESCRIBES HERSELF as an energy healer. Vivian releases a long, withering sigh. The 20-something year-old recently moved to Stapleton with her boyfriend, who took Rhonda’s husband’s job as the village maintenance manager. Had Vivian been younger and faster, she would have sped past Celeste’s Fall Fair poster board with its bizarre symbols and healing hands, but spritely Celeste cornered her easily.
“What I do is I channel energy to relieve emotional stress, which I see you carry a lot of.”
Celeste’s beads jangle as she opens her silver-ringed fingers, inviting Vivian to take her hands. Vivian takes a half step back while Todd quietly slips his hands into his cardigan pockets, a bemused expression on his face.
“A past trauma, or a family conflict?” Celeste asks gently, as though Vivian would willingly divulge such a thing in the middle of the Community Hall. “It is never too late in life to clear those energy channels.”
“At which fine medical establishment did you qualify?”
“I trained with a master energy healer. Those who open their minds to experience their life force flowing through them can achieve true happiness.”
“Do you have a business licence?”
That shuts her up.
Vivian wastes little time thinking about “higher powers” but sometimes it feels as if the forces that be, whatever they may be, are working against this town. “Perhaps you could use your special abilities to improve Stapleton’s fortunes,” she suggests to Celeste as she continues on through the decorated hall.
Last week, a mudslide swept across the highway and cut them off from the rest of the world for an entire day. Mudslides are a new problem, a consequence of the previous summer’s wildfire. The blackened vegetation does a poor job of holding back the earth beside the highway. The road has since reopened but with more heavy rain in the forecast, the handful of people who usually travel from Stony Creek to catch a glimpse of life in the ghost town have chosen not to attend the Stapleton Fall Fair this year.
The mood inside the Community Hall is subdued. Vivian recognizes the disappointment on the faces of the old-timers. There used to be enough people participating to add a bit of intrigue in every category, and there was a category for everything from quilting to braided garlic. Back when the schools were still open, a local ranching family would set up a miniature petting zoo in the empty lot beside the hall. Even Lloyd Bryant’s table-breaking pumpkin fails to cause much of a stir this year. Their hearts aren’t in it anymore.
They’d had a hot, dry spell when the plumes of smoke erupted from the hills. Then the plumes became the sky itself, dark and threatening by midday. Ash dropped on their heads; pieces of dead matter a warning that the fire was coming. The flames advanced with enough speed to risk cutting them off at the highway and there was only one way out of town. It was the first time since the Gold Rush that there had been a line of traffic moving in or out of Stapleton.
Todd drove. Vivian stared out of the passenger window, eyes and throat stinging. The flames were out of view but rushing towards them eating up leaves and blackening thick trunks. As they wound up the hill, more vehicles joined the highway from the reserve. Only the houses right beside the road were visible, the land behind them greyed out. The old mill site was completely shrouded in smoke, but she felt it, like an old scar. Land that had burned before.
Then the wind changed, and the threat was gone. As if someone had snapped their fingers and decided that the little town at the end of the highway deserved one more chance.
“Would you like to see an ancient knife blade?”
A middle-aged man, long black hair tied back beneath his baseball cap, points at a chiselled rock on the table in front of him. “That’s approximately two thousand years old.”
Vivian hums politely.
“We’ve found a lot of artefacts where the fires burned through the forest last year.”
The table is filled with small stone objects that could be a collection of pebbles for all Vivian cares. The man has dark brown eyes, thin wrinkles creeping in around them. She can’t make out the logo on his lanyard. She doesn’t recognize him from the reserve but she heard they’ve taken an interest in digging up bits of history. He could be from the university.
An unmistakable figure stares at her from the far side of the table. Mary Jones in a shapeless black sweater; flat white hair, thick lenses and wobbly pink lipstick.
“Mary told me there’s no council support for heritage funding,” the man who might be from the university bemoans. “That’s a real shame. There are so many stories that could be told about this area, enough to support a small visitor attraction ...”
“... I look to the future, not to the past,” Vivian says dismissively as she spots her neighbour, Liz, and waves. “We already have an economic plan for our town.”
She refuses to make eye contact with Mary or the archaeologist as she moves towards the safety of her sensible neighbour, whose conversation points rarely extend beyond the day’s weather. Mary can complain to whoever she wants. This is Vivian’s town.
CHAPTER 9
1 9 9 4
“WHY DO BUILDINGS burn down?”
St. Margaret’s was a white church, inside and out. White siding, white walls, white cushions on the hard pews. Even the roof was off-white. It had been around a long time, but in other incarnations. It had burnt down twice since the gold miners first built it.
“I told you to behave.” Mamma’s hissing aggravated Elena’s eardrum. “Nobody wants to hear about burning buildings right now.”
Today was a serious day, and Mamma’s face was solemn, her hair pinned neatly to the back of her head. She patted down the butterfly collar on Elena’s cotton dress and the three of them sat uneasily in their pew. Mamma made Rob wear a tie. He kept tugging at it. Elena wondered if it was horribly uncomfortable, like an itchy sweater. She nudged him, but he wouldn’t look at her. She knew he was thinking about Dad.
Elena sensed eyes settling on her. She turned around and stared back. They were pitying her because her dad was missing. They didn’t know him like she did, so they didn’t know he was fine. Her nights were restless as she fought off the horrors her mind conjured up, but during the day it was easier to convince herself they weren’t true.
The pews were hard even with the thin white cushions on top of them. Elena wriggled. Mamma reached out and held her hand firmly. Her hand was cold, so Elena wrapped both of her own around it to warm it up. Mamma almost smiled.
Elena hadn’t wanted to attend the memorial service. The explosion was everywhere. Every conversation, every news report was littered with reminders that Dad wasn’t there to hold her or explain things. That morning she’d complained of having a headache but Mamma ignored her whining.
No one knew yet exactly what had caused the explosion, or they weren’t telling. A group of older kids who were hanging out at the park said some people’s skin came off like layers of clothing, and one man lost his sight and another died when a wall crushed him. With each new rumour, she wondered if her dad was part of that. Had he felt it? Had he seen it? Two died; then four, then five, until Dad was the only one still missing. They’d found the remains of all the others in the mill. She’d heard the teenagers talking about one guy had to be identified by his teeth because his whole body had burnt up. Maybe Dad’s teeth were in there too and the firefighters hadn’t found them yet. Elena tried to push her mind away from the awful thoughts. Anyway, he must’ve got out. They’d found his truck.
Elena looked back at her brother. He was rubbing his eyes with his sleeve, casually, but his eyes were red. He had barely eaten or slept since the explosion. Elena never lost her appetite and wondered if that meant she was a bad person.
“Such a terrible tragedy,” an old lady murmured to them as she squeezed in at the end of their pew. Mamma um-hummed politely as she shuffled closer to Elena, who was jammed into Rob. Elena looked back at the stuffed pews and the line of people still trying to make their way in. The whole community was inside the church or waiting to enter. Their bodies dripped sweat and service cards fanned glistening skin and puffy eyes.
Gathering in the pews at the very front were the families of the men that had died. It was hard for Elena to understand the weight of their sadness. One woman was crying so hard she was hiccupping. The woman beside her took the baby out of her arms to help calm its wailing.
Unravelling Page 8
