by Karen Dionne
The minutes crawl by. At last, there is the crunch of tires on gravel. I make an opening in the branches covering the den’s entrance and peer out. A dark green Jeep identical to Trevor’s drives slowly past. Perhaps it is his. I can’t remember if he took the keys. Minutes later, the Jeep returns from the direction in which it disappeared and drives past again. I don’t know if this is because Diana knows where we are, and she’s cruising up and down the access road to torment us, or if she’s still searching. I suppose we’re about to find out.
“Do you think she knows we’re in here?” Trevor whispers after the Jeep drives past a third time.
“There’s no way to know. Sit tight. Better to wait too long than not long enough.”
“There’s no need to whisper,” Diana suddenly says. My heart leaps, then freezes. “We know you’re in there. Next time you want to hide, don’t wear a red shirt.”
Trevor squeezes my shoulder as if to say it’s not my fault and puts a finger to his lips. I wish he weren’t so generous. I got us into this mess. Now it’s up to me to get us out.
“Stay here,” I whisper. “It’s me she wants. Don’t let her see you. Whatever happens, don’t move.”
I push aside the branches and crawl out.
Diana is waiting with her rifle. I put my hands up in surrender and move to the side to draw their attention away from Trevor. The Jeep is parked on the road. Charlotte leans against it with a rifle in her hands, looking for all the world like Bonnie to Diana’s Clyde. Aiding and abetting my sister’s pending crime.
“Okay. You found me. Now what?”
Diana gestures with her rifle. “Now your friend.”
“Trevor? He’s not here. He climbed over the fence to get help.” I toss my head in what I hope is a convincing show of defiance. “You shouldn’t have disabled the gate.”
“Why don’t we make sure?” Diana fires into the den twice in quick succession.
Charlotte gasps. It’s all I can do not to scream. I clench my fists, bite my lip. If I give the slightest indication that I know Trevor is inside, she’ll shoot him again.
From the den, there is no sound. No movement. Trevor is dead. I got him killed. Now I’m going to die.
“Check it out,” Diana says to Charlotte. Charlotte picks her way past us through the underbrush and gets down on her knees and looks in.
“It’s empty,” she says, her voice tinged with wonder. She sits back on her heels and shakes her head. “He’s not here.”
I can’t believe it. Of course Trevor is inside. Dead or wounded, I don’t know. But he must be alive because if he were dead, why would Charlotte say he’s not there? She’s covering for us. She hasn’t gone over completely to the dark side. She still has a conscience.
“Whatever,” Diana says with a shrug. She gestures with her rifle toward the road. “Walk.”
I don’t move. If I do as she says, I will never leave the property alive. I have no idea how badly Trevor is wounded, if he will make it, if he will escape. I hope he’s okay, and that he will investigate my parents’ murders and mine and write the truth about the tragedy that destroyed my family. I hope Diana buries me beside my parents. I hope . . . I hope . . .
No. I can’t give up. This isn’t over until I can no longer draw a breath.
I toss my head again. This time, my defiance is real. “No. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me everything. You owe me that.”
“I owe you nothing.”
“I was there. I saw you and Charlotte kill our parents. I came back after you killed White Bear and was hiding in the forest. I saw you.”
“So, you saw us. So what? What else is there to know?”
“I want to know how you and Charlotte convinced the police that our parents died as a murder-suicide. I watch a lot of true-crime shows. That’s not easy to pull off.”
“Oh, it’s far easier than you might think,” Charlotte breaks in. “Especially when your partner in crime is as clever as your sister.”
Is she proud of the role she played in my parents’—her own sister’s—deaths? Or is she only pretending to be on Diana’s side to mislead her?
“After we killed them, we loaded their bodies onto an ATV and brought them back to the house and staged the scene in the front hallway,” Charlotte continues. “Your mother had been shot with Diana’s rifle, so we shot your father’s body with the Magnum as well to make it look as though the same rifle had killed them both, then wiped off our prints and put his prints on the rifle and left the rifle beside him. We even wiped our hands on his palms so the police would find gunshot residue on them. We couldn’t do anything about the blood at the gun range, but we figured if the police found it, they’d assume the blood belonged to White Bear. Which is exactly what happened.”
“People are stupid,” Diana says. Considering how easily she and Charlotte were able to deceive trained professionals, in this instance, I have to agree.
“Diana was going to track you down and kill you as well,” Charlotte prattles on. “We looked a long time before we gave up and called in your mother’s murder. Later, after you wandered out of the woods and wound up in the mental hospital and we realized your memories were gone, killing you was no longer necessary.”
Until now, she may as well have added. Charlotte’s perfunctory account of my parents’ murders leaves me cold. How could she live with herself all these years knowing what they’d done? I spent fifteen guilt-ridden years in a mental hospital because I believed I’d accidentally killed my mother. How much worse would it be for someone who’d killed deliberately? There’s so much I want to say to her, so much I want to ask. Why did you kill my father? What happened to you? When did you change? The Aunt Charlotte I remember was fun-loving and kind. She read me stories, took me sledding, taught me how to bake and to draw. Impossible to believe that she has become so corrupted by her love for my sister that she would help her hunt me down to kill me with no more care or concern than if I were a rabbit. And yet here we are.
“Why are you doing this? What did I do to you? I loved you,” I say. Charlotte is still the weak link. She lied about Trevor to protect him. She has to help us now.
“Enough,” Diana says. She gestures again toward the access road. “Move.”
“I won’t,” I say, not only because I still have questions but because the moment I do as she tells me, I am dead. “This isn’t finished. I have to know why. Why you’re doing this. Why you killed our parents. Why you killed that girl at the roadside park.”
“Why not? She was nothing to me.”
“And Max? Does Charlotte know you killed him as well?” Playing my last card as the final missing piece of memory slides into place.
Charlotte’s face drains of color. “Wait. What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I remember everything I saw that day. Diana killed Max. After she shot White Bear, Max came running into the clearing—I imagine because he heard the gunshot. They argued, and Diana shot him.”
“I don’t believe it.” Charlotte looks toward Diana. “Tell me this isn’t true.”
Diana shrugs. “Of course I shot him. He was going to ruin our plans. I hid his body in the woods before I lured my parents to the gun range, then went back later and buried it.” She smiles. “Our little family cemetery is much more crowded than you know.”
“How could you?” Charlotte screams. “I loved you. I killed for you! Now I find out that as . . . I was doing that . . . my boyfriend was lying dead not fifty feet away? I loved him! We were going to get married!”
She points her rifle at my sister. Her hands tremble. “You’re evil. Horrible. Despicable. I can’t believe I ever loved you.”
“Oh, please,” Diana says, her voice dripping disgust. She raises her rifle and shoots before Charlotte or I can react.
Charlotte falls and lies still.
I can’t belie
ve it. Charlotte is dead. I’ve just witnessed another murder.
And I’m next.
Then from the corner of my eye, I see movement. At first, I think it’s Trevor. He’s alive. Diana’s bullets only wounded him and, weakened by pain and shock and blood loss, he’s crawled out of the den looking for help.
Only it’s not Trevor. It’s the bear. Huge. Powerful, healthy, and strong. Every bit as big as I’d imagined. The bear swings its massive head from side to side and chuffs and takes a step toward my sister. I want to let it kill her for all she’s done. But I am not my sister.
I point. “Behind you. The bear. It’s come back.”
Diana smiles her disbelief.
“I’m serious. Look.”
She turns. The bear rears up on its hind legs and paws the air, then drops to all fours and chuffs. She shoots. It stands up on its hind legs and claws at its chest and roars. Drops to all fours and keeps coming.
Diana shoots again. Still the bear keeps coming. I don’t understand. She killed White Bear with two well-placed shots from my Remington, yet multiple shots fired from a rifle that’s larger and more powerful won’t bring this bear down.
I watch, utterly riveted, as the bear who should have been dead continues to run toward my sister. Its fur becomes lighter and lighter. Diana shoots again and again. Yet the bear keeps coming. By the time it leaps onto my sister and sinks its teeth into her throat, the bear is completely white.
I cover my eyes. Wait for her scream. Instead, a raven calls.
I open my eyes. The bear is not white. My sister is not dead. It’s an illusion. Another vision. A trick of the light. There’s only me, one very dead black bear, and my sister shooting like a madwoman into its carcass.
I dive for Charlotte’s rifle without thinking and flatten myself behind her body and shoot.
Diana falls.
She doesn’t get up.
“Trevor!” I cry when the forest falls silent. I run to the den and look inside.
But the den really is empty. Charlotte wasn’t lying. Trevor is gone.
I fall to my knees, put my head in my hands. I was so sure Trevor was inside, so sure Diana had killed or wounded him. Nothing makes sense. Maybe none of this is real. Maybe I really am crazy. Maybe I belong in a mental hospital after all.
And then Trevor is standing over me. He reaches down and pulls me to my feet.
“Are you okay?” He brushes the hair from my face and takes me in his arms and looks down at me. I read worry, care, concern, and something else. Something I’m not yet ready to put a name to.
“How did you? I don’t understand—”
“After you crawled out of the den and you and your sister were talking, I didn’t feel safe, so I broke through the back. There was a low spot behind the tree, so I rolled into it and pulled some branches over me.” He looks down at his clothes. “It was a little wet.”
“I can’t believe you’re okay.”
“I’m sorry about your aunt and your sister.”
“So am I.”
I look at Charlotte’s ruined body, think about how she tried to help me, think about how she killed my father. She wasn’t fully evil. Neither was she entirely good. I think about how easily I shot my sister. Maybe we’re all a little of both.
I pick up the rifle from where I’d dropped it and turn it over in my hands. I recognize the scuff marks on the gunstock. It seems somehow fitting that the Remington I used to shoot my sister is mine. My sister was a killer. Now I am a killer, too.
“Don’t worry,” Trevor says. “I saw what happened. It was self-defense. I’ll tell the police that. In fact . . .” He reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out his digital recorder.
“Seriously? You got everything on tape?”
“I wouldn’t be much of a reporter if I didn’t.” He grins. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
We start walking toward the lodge. “First order of business is to restore power to the security gate. Then we can drive out to the highway and call 911.”
Cr-r-ruck tok, cr-r-ruck tok, the raven calls in warning. I whirl around.
Diana has rolled onto her stomach and propped herself on her elbows. Her rifle is pointed at Trevor.
“Get down!” I yell and give him a shove. We tumble to the ground. The bullet that would have killed him passes over our heads.
Diana quickly ejects the cartridge and loads another. I jump to my feet. Swing the rifle that Charlotte never got the chance to fire in her direction and take careful aim and pull the trigger.
The bullet hits exactly where I intended. I wouldn’t have expected otherwise. I am a very good shot.
THIRTY-ONE
FIVE YEARS LATER
Rachel
After everything was over, I tried living at the lodge by myself. Everyone said I shouldn’t. They said that too many bad things had happened there, and too many people had died, and the best thing for me to do would be to sell out and move on. Some thought I should leave the U.P. entirely. Get as far away from my past as I could and make a new start. When I asked them where exactly they thought I should begin this new life and what I should do and how I should go about it, the answers were a lot less specific. The only thing that everyone seemed to agree on was that I shouldn’t live at the lodge.
So, of course, I had to prove them wrong. It wasn’t only stubbornness that made me want to give it a try. This was my home. The lodge and the acreage have been in my family for generations. I loved living here before everything fell apart, and I had many happy memories. My mother’s work was here, and I was hoping to take it up. My parents are buried here, as is my unborn brother.
I lasted a week. Part of the problem was the way my memories threatened to overwhelm me, as everyone had predicted. But the bigger reason was me. After Diana killed Aunt Charlotte and I in turn shot her, I felt unmoored. Unsettled. Intellectually, I knew that I was free to do as I wished, yet I couldn’t seem to move on. I think I was so used to believing that I was worthless, it was hard to accept that not only did I have a future, I deserved one.
The other problem with living at the lodge was that it seemed as though my parents weren’t ready to leave. Whenever I walked into a room or turned a corner, my mother and father would be reading in their chairs by the fire, or filling the wood box, or cooking dinner, or talking about something they’d seen or done or learned that day. Sometimes I’d catch them laughing over something silly that I did, such as when I forgot to turn on the pump and the water tank ran out, or when I didn’t realize that before you could build a fire in the cookstove, you had to open the damper in the chimney and the kitchen filled with smoke. Other times I’d catch them with their arms around each other kissing. At night, I’d hear them talking softly in their bedroom when they thought I couldn’t hear.
After a week, I took a room in a motel. I stayed there three months. Still, I went back every day. I wanted to learn how to live in the place where I grew up, wanted to take up my mother’s research not only out of love and respect for her and for her memory, but because I truly love bears and I love what she was doing. I knew I should put the ghosts of my parents to rest, but instead, I’d talk to them when I was feeling lonely or when I needed advice because the birds and insects and animals had stopped talking to me.
I didn’t tell anyone that I was struggling. But somehow, Trevor knew. When he offered to stay at the lodge to help during the transition, I said yes. One thing led to another, and five years later, here we are.
“I’m hungry,” our daughter says now as we crouch inside the observation blind watching a female black bear and her cubs feed at the bait station a dozen feet away. “Can we go home, please?”
Our daughter always says “please” and “thank you.” She’s a very well-mannered child. My mother would have loved her.
“Just a little longer,” Trevor says. “Mommy and I are
hungry too, but Midnight will tell us when it’s time to leave.”
Midnight isn’t a particularly original name for a black bear, but our daughter was only two when she named her. For that matter, White Bear wasn’t a particularly original or creative name, either. Midnight is a female, four years old, the same age as our daughter, the only survivor of a litter of three that was born the spring that I took up my mother’s research. The smallest cub drowned when he fell off a log as the family was crossing a stream, and the other died after the wound she suffered when she fell out of a tree became infected. It’s a tough world when you’re a bear.
By the time Midnight has led her brood into the forest and we’ve hiked back to the lodge, our daughter is almost asleep on her feet. We go in the side door. The kitchen is warm and welcoming. A pot of what smells like beef stew simmers on the stove. A smaller pot beside it contains a vegetarian version for me.
Scotty sits at my old place at the kitchen table. “Ursa!” he calls when he sees me and flaps his hands. Lynette—Scotty’s babysitter, therapist, and teacher, and our chief cook and bottle washer, as she likes to call herself—smiles and ruffles his hair. We pay her a small fortune to live at the lodge and look after Scotty, but when I think about all the years that Scotty suffered in the mental hospital, and how the halfway house that Trevor found for him wasn’t much better, she’s totally worth it.
“Would you like me to put the kids to bed tonight?” Trevor asks when we’ve finished eating.
We call them “the kids” though our daughter is four and Scotty is forty-three. Scotty loves it. Normally I enjoy putting our daughter to bed and reading bedtime stories to her the way my mother used to do with me, but climbing stairs is difficult for me. Our second child is due any day. Another girl. Raven is looking forward to having a sister.
