Meteorites
Page 21
Oh, but how would Iain and Alicia even get there, if not with them? This thing had become a complete shit show. They’d made a massive mistake.
Cassie’s whole body tightened below her goosebumps. No decision was a good one, no way to sanctify their position, their actions—except one. Cassie pulled away from Pete and took off her coat and shoes.
“I’m going in,” she told Pete. Soon Alicia and Iain would be too cold, too tired to continue swimming. She remembered from her training how quickly hypothermia could set in, especially when people panicked. She had to bring them back alive.
“No way,” Pete said. “I’ll go.”
“I float better,” Cassie said, and before he could stop her—and before she could talk herself out of it—she pulled her hat down tighter over her head, took a deep breath, and jumped.
She hit the icy water still holding her toque and went down what felt like ten metres before kicking her way madly back to the surface. With her first breath she tried to swear, but the cold turned it to a gasp.
She oriented herself, then waved her hands at Pete and croaked out instructions for him to throw her one of the fallen saplings. He did. She tried to ignore the horribly cold water and the thickening snowfall as she one-arm breast-stroked her way toward Alicia and Iain, the spindly tree beneath the other arm.
“Stop!” she called, every so often, her faint voice growing fainter from the effort, until she was near enough to touch them.
“Stay. Away,” Alicia wheezed. “You—two—are—monsters.”
Iain was lying on his back, his face nearly blue. Alicia seemed to be pulling him by the sleeve. Both of their heads were barely above the water, and Alicia’s pace was slowing by the second.
“You have to come back,” Cassie said. “There’s no other way out.”
“No,” Alicia said. “Fuck off!”
“Ladder,” Iain croaked.
Cassie looked again at where they were headed. There was a ladder, some kind of rope affair against the orange rock. “Oh!” she said. “We couldn’t see it through the snow!”
Alicia looked like she could kill her. Would kill her, shortly. She had to ignore it, and get this job done.
“Hold on,” Cassie said, moving the sapling within Iain’s reach.
“He’s fine. Iain, don’t do it!” Alicia said.
He didn’t look fine. He looked, in fact, like he was going to die. Like he would need to be lifted out of the water by ropes tied around his lifeless shoulders. Then there would be a post-mortem in a matter of hours, and the cause of death would be evident in his blood: little fingerprints of evidence that revealed Cassie and Pete, upstanding citizens, to be at the heart of it all. But it wouldn’t be true! The beating heart at the centre of this was an accident. A prank gone wrong. A couple, just out to protect the place they loved.
Cassie swam close enough to Iain that she could slide the sapling under the arm that Alicia wasn’t pulling. He grabbed on. Suddenly, it seemed, their fury was gone. Alicia let go of Iain, then took hold of the tree as well.
They just wanted to survive. And Cassie, well, she was in charge of everyone. She liked that role, if she was honest with herself; she liked being the one to rescue. That was the crux of her job, wasn’t it? Making people’s lives better, by rescuing them from dull complexions and rosacea. Bringing out their best, post-chemo, beneath their rented wigs. She was good at her job, task oriented. She got stuff done, and with a smile!
Except that right now, every muscle was turning to stone; every inch of her leaner, lighter body responding less and less to the one task she had to complete. Cassie held her wooden tow-rope as best as she could with her numb fingers and kicked her frozen feet, aiming them all toward the ladder, that miracle hanging there against the rock face, cursing the fat she’d lost, because fat makes you float, and she was less buoyant now, especially with clothes on, and she was sinking, but she felt lighter and yet, somehow, so heavy, her limbs like lead, sinking . . .
Cassie squinted to see the ladder through the gritty snow in her face, and all she could hold onto was one slender thought: if there were meteorite hunters out here, they would be nearby, with warm layers to spare. Because most people born and raised in Stevens Falls had descended from pioneers, or had been Guides or Boy Scouts, at home in nature and always prepared for the worst.
//// Acknowledgements
These stories were written over many years, out of love and compulsion. I am grateful above all for having the affliction/passion/practice of writing in my life. It has saved me and my relationships on many an occasion.
What else—rather, who else— has saved me? My family, especially my husband, Ryan, and my daughter, Avery Jane. Their love, their belief in me, and their inspiring focus on creativity continue to sustain me. My three (!) writing groups—the Fiction Bitches, the Wildwood Writers, and the Writaminers—have been by my side, or in my inbox, through it all. Special shout-outs to Sara Cassidy and John Gould for last-minute editing help and ongoing friendship, and Traci Skuce, my near-daily writing partner and friend, who’s seen these stories in bits and pieces for many years and helped me through the muck on many occasions.
The day I signed this book’s contract, high fives streaked across the sky like meteors. I am so grateful to have Brindle & Glass as my publisher: Taryn Boyd, Tori Elliot, Colin Parks, and the whole gang at the office; Kate Kennedy, my astute, kind, and generous editor; keen-eyed copyeditors Renée and Warren Layberry; proofreader Claire Philipson; and talented cover designer Tree Abraham. Thank you to mentors Annabel Lyon and Elisabeth Harvor for their help on early drafts of a few of these stories, many moons ago, and to my readers: thank you for taking a chance on these stories and their imperfect, oddball characters.
Thanks to the journals The Rusty Toque, The New Quarterly, Dreamers and carte blanche, where versions of some of these stories previously appeared. The story “The Expansion” appeared as a stand-alone chapbook after winning the Rusty Toque’s 2016 contest judged by Suzette Mayr, and a previous version of “Hangman” placed second in the Rona Murray Competition.
I am grateful for the financial support of the Canada Council and BC Arts Council over the years, for the land on which I write and live in Victoria, BC, which is unceded Coast Salish territory, and for my first home in the Lanark Highlands, ON, unceded Algonquin territory.
JULIE PAUL is the author of two previous short story collections, The Jealousy Bone and The Pull of the Moon, and the poetry collection The Rules of the Kingdom. The Pull of the Moon won the 2015 Victoria Book Prize and was a Globe and Mail Top 100 book. She lives in Victoria, BC.
Copyright © 2019 by Julie Paul
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For more information, contact the publisher at touchwoodeditions.com.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Edited by Kate Kennedy
Cover design by Tree Abraham
Interior design by Colin Parks
Author photo by Ryan Rock
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Meteorites : stories / Julie Paul.
Paul, Julie, 1969–
Canadiana (print) 20190053410 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190053429
ISBN 9781927366820 (softcover) | ISBN 9781927366837 (PDF)
Classification: LCC PS8631.A8498 M48 2019 | DDC C813/.6—DC23
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts,
and of the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.