I’m about to ask where he is from, if not Russia, when Svetlana returns with a tray. She sets down a plate with two slices of toast and a serving dish filled with creamy swirls of almond butter. Then she brings over a pitcher of orange juice and pours me a glass.
“Thank you,” I say, in English of course, but she seems to understand.
“How is your toast?” Roman asks.
“It’s delicious. Cruelty-free food always is.” I notice that Svetlana hasn’t brought him anything. “Aren’t you eating?”
“No, I’m not hungry.”
“I’d be happy to share my toast.”
“Some other time, perhaps. We’ll trade meals.”
I sigh. “Are you still trying to convert me?”
“I might ask the same of you.”
“Why shouldn’t I? My diet saves lives. Your diet takes lives.”
“Guilt is not a healthy emotion,” he says. “It rots you from the inside out, turns you bitter. When you live in a world in which cruelty must be committed for one’s survival, guilt is of no use.”
“That’s the worst defense I’ve ever heard. Especially since you can choose another way to avoid the guilt.”
“I learned a very long time ago to leave that emotion behind.”
“What’s so wrong with guilt? It teaches us to be better human beings. Without it, we’d go around ruining the world and not think anything of it.”
“And where, Katherine, has your guilt gotten you?” he asks.
I know he is talking about Stacey, but I’m not ready to talk about that. So I give him another answer. “Well, it’s made me a vegan, which means I save the lives of close to a hundred innocent animals a year. I sleep better every night knowing that.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“I should get going. Thanks for breakfast.” I stand up, then realize I don’t have the slightest clue as to how to find my way out of this house.
Roman has gotten up, too, and he’s standing right next to me. “Have you ever kissed a carnivore?” he asks.
“I try to avoid it.”
“Perhaps you should consider it.” He moves a little closer, and I have to crane my neck to look up at him. Despite what I’ve said, I want him to kiss me, and I am hoping he will—but just then he steps away.
“I have to leave,” Roman says.
“Now?”
“It’s just an overnight trip. I’ve had it planned for some time. But you are welcome to stay here as long as you wish. I would like to see you here when I return.”
I think of David, of his empty house. It’s a fraction of the size of Roman’s, but I know it must feel a hundred times as lonely.
“No, I should go, too.”
“Where?”
“Back to my own place. To the store. David’s going to need me.”
Roman says nothing.
And just then I remember something he’d said to me last night in the car, as I was drifting off to sleep. “Roman, can I ask you something?”
“What is it?”
“Remember last night, when you said that Alex told me I might’ve been killed, too, if I’d been with Stacey on the trail? How did you know he said that to me?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You weren’t there when he said it. There’s no way you could’ve known that.”
“What I meant was,” he says, “I don’t know what conversation you’re referring to.”
Now I’m wondering about my sanity again. “You said I should remember what Alex told me. That if I’d been with Stacey—”
“Yes, I heard what you said just now,” he interrupts gently, as if I’m a confused child. “What I’m telling you is that I did not say such a thing last night. You must’ve been dreaming.”
“I don’t think so.”
“There is no other explanation, is there?”
“I guess not.” But I’m almost certain he said it, and the way he’s looking at me makes me think that he knows it, too.
Then Svetlana enters, carrying my clothes, dry and folded and smelling better than they ever have. I take them and thank her, and when I turn around, Roman is already gone.
Twelve
We say goodbye to Stacey on a rainy Wednesday afternoon in Lithia Cemetery. The cemetery is on a hill above town, and I watch clouds scrape the tops of the ponderosa pines, creating a dark and gloomy canopy above us.
There are only a handful of us here, huddled under umbrellas. David wanted the ceremony to be small and private, so he made no announcements. There was no procession beforehand; there will be no gathering afterward. It’s just this small group at the cemetery, just Stacey, family, a few friends.
And me.
The casket has been lowered. A priest stands at the grave and reads from the Bible. I can’t bear to think about what’s actually happening, about the fact that David will toss some dirt into this grave, and Stacey will be gone forever. So I let my mind wander in and out of the moment. The air smells fresh with rain and pine needles, and when I close my eyes I am back on the trail, alone, back when I used to love being there, when it was my respite, my escape.
Now, there is no escape. From what I’ve done, from missing Stacey. I think about the day I met her, how she was so kind, and I think about our last day, the look on her face as we raced up the trail, trying to outrun each other. She was trying to reclaim her place; she thought I’d taken something from her.
Roman.
There was something odd about her feelings toward Roman; it was more than a lingering attraction. He had a power over her, and somehow she’d been drawn back in by him. Enough to be jealous of me. Was it enough for her to reconsider marrying David? Was there more that I don’t know?
Now I’ll probably never know.
The priest is reading a passage from John:
Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.
I feel that this is true, that I am stuck in a place of eternal guilt, that there is nowhere else for me to escape. But I’m glad I returned to Lithia. If nothing else, I can try to make it up to David for not keeping my promise to him. I can try to find out what really happened to Stacey.
A few days ago, an adult male brown bear was shot and killed. Just like that. Eye for an eye. The bear received his sentence before even having a chance—guilty before being proven innocent. And the bear was innocent. They conducted an autopsy that revealed no signs of a human within its stomach contents. How many more bears will they put down before they realize that it may not have been a bear? Before they realize that even if it was, we are punishing it for doing what it’s programmed by nature to do.
No one is talking about what else it could be. David told me that the medical examiner who autopsied Stacey’s body did not identify what caused the wounds other than “claws of undetermined nature.” But there were no other telltale animal signs. No hairs. No teeth marks. And then there was the blood, or lack of it. If Stacey died of blood loss, where was all the blood?
I think this is why I have rivers of blood flowing through my dreams. I am looking for the trail that should’ve been there but wasn’t. I’m trying to figure out, even in my subconscious mind, what really happened up there.
But the police and the media seem determined to keep the blame squarely on an animal. And no one is asking questions. Including me. But it’s time for me to start. I owe David that much.
David now has a shovel in his hands, and I follow the small line to add a rose to the pile on Stacey’s casket. David’s face is blank, devoid of color, as he picks up a scoop of dirt and tosses it in.
These rituals today are supposed to bring closure. But for me, saying goodbye feels like a beginning. Because the only thing that I know will bring me closure is to find out who, or what,
killed Stacey. And why.
People begin to walk silently back to their cars. I’m supposed to ride with David’s parents, but I tell them I will meet them at home, that I need to walk. They nod at me, and I can tell they are somewhere else. Everyone is somewhere else now. Or trying to be.
I stay in the cemetery, walking away from Stacey’s grave. I meander from there to another row, looking at every headstone, stopping to brush the leaves away, reading the names. Some headstones are elaborate limestone markers from the 1800s, with angels kneeling above, praying. The ones with lambs are children’s graves. The limestone markers are melting away, even more so than the granite and marble headstones. Others are tilting to one side or another, tree roots having their way with them. Even in death, nothing remains static. Even here, there is chaos. Perhaps the only permanent aspect of death is death itself.
I bend down to brush away the leaves on one of the older headstones, and then I nearly jump back when I see it:
Roman
B. 1836 D. 1861
The headstone is so weathered, the letters so washed out, that I can’t tell if this is a first or last name. But seeing the letters that spell out Roman’s name gives me a chill. As if the name jumped out at me to remind me of what came between Stacey and me, how it led to that fateful moment on the trail.
Why can I not seem to escape Roman, even here, even today? Why do I want to be with him despite Alex’s warnings? Roman seems to have the same hold over me that he’d had over Stacey. And that can’t be anything but bad.
Roman is still out of town, or I think he is—I haven’t heard from him. I look down at this old grave and wonder if it’s a relative of his, or only a coincidence. I’ve assumed he’s from some other country, but he’s never actually answered my questions about where he’s from. He’s a mystery in so many ways, and it seems as if he wants to keep it that way.
I keep walking, feeling the squish of wet earth under my once-new running shoes, soaked again with rain, splattered with mud and grass. They were so beautiful and fresh only a few weeks ago, and now they look like I feel—worn out, beaten down, ugly.
Row by row, I continue my walk. When I look up and glance around, I see that everyone else is gone. There’s nobody here but me—me and the rain, a few noisy birds in the trees, and a few hundred bodies six feet under.
Finally, I see what I’ve been searching for all along:
Elizabeth Healy
B. 1966 D. 1999
My mom.
The tears that I thought I had used up on Stacey come back in full force. It’s been eleven years since I’ve been here, standing before this grave, and I can’t tell whether it looks different or whether it’s me who’s different. Already her headstone is tilting a few degrees to the left. The closest tree is bigger now. A few birds have left their marks on the gray marbled stone, and a vine is stretching a skinny arm around it from the back.
I kneel on the grass and rip out the weed. Then I touch the stone and lean into its coldness. I talk to her every so often, and I usually feel as though she can hear me. This is one place I’ve longed to return, as if by being back in Lithia I might be able to hear her talk back. I’ve also been afraid to return. I’ve believed since I was eight that if only I could be here, we could communicate somehow—and I don’t want to find out that’s not true.
But I’m here now. And I tell her, “I’m sorry I was gone so long. I miss you.”
I wait and listen, but I hear nothing but the sounds of birds in the trees and the droplets of water off the leaves. I push myself back to kneeling.
All I remember about my mom’s funeral was the police car that led us in our long, dark car through town, how I sat next to my dad and how we never stopped at any street lights. We sailed right through like we were special. Until my mom died, we were never special.
My dad always found it impossible to hold a job, so my mom usually was the one who kept us going. She taught English at the high school. She’d grown up in Lithia herself and never minded that we were just scraping by. She used to say, Look around you, and you’ll see what’s important in life. I’m not sure I ever truly understood what she meant. But I do now; she was talking about nature. She thought it was more important than anything else that I grow up here, where we could be near what matters.
When my dad lost the last job he had in Oregon, he spent all his time at home. He and my mom argued and yelled all the time. This was around the time I started running, to escape the noise. I began to run faster and farther because it seemed as though their voices stuck with me, that I couldn’t outrun all that anger. So I just kept trying.
I used to pray that my dad would leave us. For years after Mom died, I wondered if God had heard me wrong.
She was walking in the woods with our dog one weekend, early in the morning, when she was attacked and killed by a bear. We never saw our dog again, and police assumed he’d been consumed by the bear. No one questioned her death back then, even though they never found the bear that did it. At least, I don’t think they did. We left before winter was over, as soon as the weather allowed us to go over the pass.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking of my mom and Stacey dying in the same way. Alone on a trail. It’s certainly not unheard of—Lithia is on the edge of a national forest, after all, thousands of acres of unbridled wilderness. It’s a risk you take to live in a region like this. Natural beauty brings natural risks.
I no longer believe that Stacey died of a bear attack, and this makes me wonder whether my mom did. Maybe it’s because my mom loved nature so much that it’s hard to believe it would turn on her. But there’s something about this, about all of this, that isn’t right. And I have no idea what that might be.
I stand up and look at Mom’s grave for a few more minutes. I feel some comfort in knowing that she is at peace, that she and Stacey are both at peace. Wherever they are, I have to believe that they’re in a better place than I am. As many times as I try to run away, I can never seem to change the fact that I’m still the one who’s been left behind.
Thirteen
Today I’m headed to the library, and David will be going to the store on his own. He said he needs to get back to work, to be alone on his first day there after Stacey’s death. He probably isn’t going to open for business, he said; he just needs to be there and see how it feels. He’s thinking of selling the business, he told me, but it’s a big decision, and he doesn’t want to do anything rash. He has asked me to stay on, full-time, until he decides.
Inside the library, I find an empty computer terminal and begin searching newspapers for articles and police reports on bear attacks in Lithia. There aren’t many, but when I find them, I note the date and location in a small notebook. Then I look for missing runaways reported in Lithia, or even missing tourists. I also note names, dates, and locations.
I do this for hours, until my back begins to ache and my eyes are strained and blurry. But I think I have enough to go on. I log off and take my notes to the main room, where I sit in one of the soft chairs near the windows.
Because my eyes are so tired, I take a few minutes to look around and reminisce. The library is in an old, one-story granite structure dating back to the 1800s—I remember coming here as a little girl. As I have grown, the library has grown, too. The old building is still here—it’s where I’m sitting now—but it’s been expanded, now connected to a vaulted two-story building.
My mom used to bring me here often, and I’d sit on the thin carpet and read picture books while she sat at a table and graded papers or read books. I never knew what she read, just that my dad criticized her whenever she brought books home, as if she was getting too smart for him. So she started reading at the library, away from the house.
I close my mind off from my memories and turn to my notes, flipping the pages, trying to piece these bits of information together into something that makes sense. Eventually, a picture emerges—and it isn’t a pretty one.
I discover that there have bee
n three fatal bear attacks in Lithia over the past five years. The attacks all happened deep in the woods, on the trails above the town, and three of the victims were young women. In all three cases, the cause of death was blood loss. And in all three cases, there were no witnesses, only bodies.
What is even more disturbing is the number of people who have gone missing in this area—more than twenty in the past five years. They are mostly women and mostly young, like me. The one difference is that these young women have family who come looking for them.
The feeling of dread that has been with me since Stacey died seems to deepen. What if I had been the target all along, not Stacey? What if it really should have been me instead?
I return to the computer and begin a new search: serial killer Lithia.
I get only one result. It’s an interview with police based on “rumors” of a killer high in the hills. The police told the reporter that it’s an unsubstantiated rumor, that people should not spread fear and panic.
But a parks department official claims it is not a rumor at all. His name is Doug Gibson.
~
At the parks department office, I’m told Doug is clearing a trail in Manzanita Park. It’s the same park I wandered into that first night, where I saw that warning sign about bears. The park follows Lithia Creek high into the hills, and while it was so much scarier that night I arrived in town, I’ve jogged there many times and have come to love it. Once you get a mile or so in, the tourists disappear, and the only sounds you hear are from the water. The ducks hang out along the creek, standing on rocks or swimming in eddies; the deer trot through the brush nibbling on everything in sight. It’s beautiful during the day, but I’m always careful to leave well before sunset.
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