Before I Let Go

by Marieke Nijkamp

  I manage to get my breathing under control. “I know,” I say, although I don’t. I really don’t. “The smell—I can still taste the smoke. I still can’t believe that fire…”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Roshan says. He tosses a sleeping bag on the floor. “After last night, you shouldn’t be alone. With grief, you shouldn’t be alone.”

  Sam nods. “I’m sorry. I should’ve changed.”

  “It’s okay.” I’m not sure what else to say. Thanks? I appreciate your being here? I like Roshan from what I know of him, and once upon a time, Sam was a friend. But so many of the people I used to trust have hurt me over the last few days, and I don’t want to be caught off guard again. Besides, if they stood by and watched this happen to Kyra, I don’t want to be their friend anyway.

  Roshan looks around with a frown, then swings his backpack off his shoulder and places it in front of the fireplace. He starts to unpack what’s inside—a loaf of bread. Cheese. M&M’s. Two bottles of soda. More chocolate. Goldfish crackers. Pop-Tarts. He hums while he works, and I recognize the tune as a Christmas carol, not the terrifying melody I keep hearing from the rest of the town.

  And despite myself, I laugh. “Are you preparing for a siege?”

  “We didn’t think you had time to eat—or a place to eat, for that matter,” Sam says. “But Dad isn’t much of a cook, and…”

  “The rest of the town wasn’t very generous,” I finish for him.

  “Fortunately, my father keeps our pantry well stocked,” Sam says. He shrugs. “Dad was an Eagle Scout. We could’ve brought you gas, rope, and dried peas too, but that seemed a bit too ‘end of the world.’”

  A small part of me wants to challenge him that this is, in fact, the end of the world, but I know better. Especially when Roshan unwraps the cheese, and my mouth begins to water.

  “I don’t trust you,” I say, honestly. “But since you come bearing food, I won’t say no.”

  Sam looks crushed at that news, but Roshan nods. “I can work with that. And company?”

  I glance around the spa. “I’m counting on you to keep the nightmares at bay.”

  I want him to laugh. I want to laugh too. But I can’t. The words are true.

  I pick up my parka from the floor and shrug into it. “I’ll be at the springs.”

  • • •

  I sit at the edge of the hot springs. I’m dressed warmly enough, and there’s a weird temperature balance between the deep snow and the hot water. I don’t know how much time has passed. Minutes? Maybe days or hours. Silence always seems to make time go slower. Loneliness too.

  I smell the food before I hear the footsteps, and this time, my stomach actually groans.

  But it isn’t Roshan as I expected. It’s Sam. He holds an old blanket from one of the upstairs bedrooms.

  Sam hands me a cheese sandwich, the bread fresh and fragrant. I never thought a sandwich could look like food from the gods.

  “If we had a fire here, we could grill it,” he says.

  I munch on the sandwich. “We could have s’mores.” Kyra and I made s’mores here, every summer.

  “Picnic around the fire, under the stars?”

  “Don’t go getting any romantic notions,” I say. “Besides, it’s still snowing.”

  Sam smiles. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I say after I’ve devoured a handful of Goldfish crackers, “but there were entire months where I don’t think I heard you say a single word. It almost made me wonder if you could talk.”

  “I didn’t feel like I had much to say. Not anything worth contributing to a conversation, at least.” He shrugs—or winces, maybe. “Besides, it’s much easier to observe in silence. When you don’t draw attention to yourself, it’s amazing how easily people forget that you exist.”

  I’ve heard those words before.

  “Kyra used to say the same thing,” I whisper.

  The snow crunches and Roshan appears with more food. He sits next to Sam, close. “What are you talking about?”

  “Invisibility,” Sam says.

  I shiver. I have so much to ask the two of them. Sam, who was here, the sheriff’s son who learned to smile. Roshan, who didn’t know my Lost, but must have seen how the town changed. But it feels so wrong to be here with them without Kyra, and I can’t find the right words yet.

  “How did you even find Lost, Roshan?” I ask instead. “It’s not like Lost Creek is known outside of Alaska. Or outside of the town itself, even.”

  Roshan nibbles at a bit of cheese. “How much do you know about geology—or chemistry, for that matter? Because I can try to explain why the ground is rich here, but it can get pretty boring. The gist of it is, Father owns a company that produces tungsten alloys. He’s been on the lookout for private mining opportunities, and he stumbled upon Lost. Between the mining history here, the temperature, and the geology of the earth’s crust, he thought it would be the perfect place. Plus, there are fewer competitors here in the middle of nowhere than in, say, Russia or Canada. Though, of course, he has to consider the environmental impact and the local effect on Native communities. He wants to do this right, if there is such a way.”

  He’s more matter-of-fact about the possible consequences than all of Lost has been. “How did he stumble upon it?” I wonder.

  Roshan scratches his ear, a little self-consciously. “I’ve spent a lot of time traveling with Father during school holidays. From rainy old England to Dad’s family in India to everywhere in the world. Alaska always sounded like the stuff of legends to me. I wanted an excuse to travel here, so I traced down the geological surveys and investigation reports.”

  “Is Lost everything you expected?” I try and fail to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

  Roshan looks at Sam. “Yes, it is.”

  Sam smiles, and vague blotches of red appear on his cheeks. He peeks up at the overcast sky. “You know the town never meant for any harm to come to Kyra, don’t you, Corey?”

  I don’t think they cared enough to consider harm. But even if they had… “I never meant for any harm to come to Kyra either, and yet here we are. Intent only takes us so far. It’s a shield people hide behind, but not a weapon.” I sigh. “I’m glad you love it here though, Roshan. I did too. It was home to me.”

  “Not anymore?”

  “Not anymore.”

  He squeezes my shoulder. “Outsider.”

  He means it as a joke, but… “Yeah.” I hug my knees close. “Sam? You came here to see Kyra, didn’t you?”

  He smiles a sad smile. “Not for the paintings. She seemed lonely, and I was lonely too. I figured we could be lonely together. I regret not having done that a long time ago. But when you were here, the two of you were inseparable. I didn’t think you wanted anyone else to intrude. When you left… I didn’t want her to be completely on her own.”

  “Was she… Was she happy?”

  He glances back at the spa. “Sometimes. But I think she wanted more from life. She would’ve escaped if she could have.”

  As he says that, movement near the tree line catches my eye. The shadows outside the spa grounds are deep and dark, so I can’t tell what it is. A tree bending in the wind? An animal, perhaps? A person?

  I squint, but I can’t be sure. Maybe I’m imagining things. The lines between reality and the imaginary have blurred too much already.

  “Corey?” Sam’s voice draws me back.

  “Hm, yes?”

  “Do you remember Kyra’s presentation about the stone labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky Island? I don’t even remember what class it was for, only that Kyra happened to be reading Russian folklore and wanted to talk about mysteries rather than explanations.”

  “I remember.” I smile, even though it feels unnatural. I remember that Kyra. But I also remember how some people laughed at he
r poster presentation. (Maybe not Sam. Maybe this is revisionist history.) They already thought she was odd, and that presentation further proved to them that she was.

  But studying the island hadn’t just been about the school project. That week, Kyra was cycling back into depression, and unlike with her highs, she couldn’t turn to painting to cope. The mysteries were soothing, ideas that her mind could ponder in loops. She’d been curious about the labyrinths for months, and the surrounding areas—Onega Bay and the Solovetsky Islands—were high on her list of places to visit. But that week, talking about the labyrinths simply made it easier for her to function.

  And eventually, she felt better again. Or at least, I thought she did.

  But right here and now, at this abandoned spa, I can’t help but wonder about time and the death of stars. The stars we see in the night sky are so far away that it takes years for us to see it when they die. I can’t help but wonder if Kyra had burned out long before I left—and if we simply hadn’t seen it.

  Northern Lights

  Home is a thousand small details. The feel of plowed roads beneath my feet. The gardens protected against moose. The smell of the air when the snow clears. The brilliant colors in the night sky. The stars see everything, and I wish I could ask them my questions, but I know they won’t answer.

  Sam leans back on his elbows and stares up. “We get so used to these skies. It’s easy to forget how beautiful and terrifying they are.”

  “Terrifying? Does the scale scare you?”

  He shrugs. “The emptiness, mainly.”

  “But the heavens aren’t empty,” I say. “They’re endless. We live in this tiny corner of the universe, up against impossible odds. And yet, here we are. We’re made of stardust. We’re supernovas. We’re entire constellations. That comforts me.”

  And when the first flames light up the sky, something inside me unclenches. And I smile.

  Home is awe and wonder.

  Home is the aurora borealis.

  • • •

  One Year Before

  “People have told stories about the stars since the dawn of time.” Kyra wrapped her arms around her knees and kept her eyes trained on the heavens. “They told stories to make sense of these lights in the sky and of the shapes they made.”

  I lay back to take in the northern lights. With the warmth of enough blankets, the soft snow was surprisingly comfortable. I rested my head on my arms and stared at the spectacle above us. The aurora was red tonight. “We told stories before we knew better. We have science now. The constellations. The colors. We know now that what we’re seeing is excited oxygen atoms.”

  “Excited? Are the atoms really excited? Maybe they’re terrified,” Kyra said, challenge in her voice. “Science is a form of storytelling too.”

  Two could play that game. “Excited is a technical term. When the sun’s electrons hit Earth’s atmosphere, they hit atoms. Depending on the type of atom and the altitude, the color changes. Excited oxygen at a high altitude appears red, but auroras that are entirely red are quite rare.”

  “Aren’t red skies a harbinger of doom? I’m sure I read that somewhere.”

  I glare at her. “At a lower altitude, excited oxygen gives off a green glow—which also happens to be far more visible.”

  “Hm, let’s see… Green skies must be a sign of prosperity. Or tornadoes.”

  Kyra knew exactly where my buttons were and how to push them. “When you reach lower altitudes, the particles are less likely to hit oxygen atoms and more likely to hit nitrogen. Nitrogen turns blue or purple. That’s why the sky changes colors. It’s science, not fortune-telling.” I glared at her again, and I could feel her smile.

  “It’s a veritable rainbow of colors.”

  “Oh hush, you.” I rolled my eyes. “Four colors. Not at all an entire rainbow.”

  “Poetic license.”

  “Science.”

  She didn’t respond immediately, but as hints of green started to appear amid the red in the sky, she continued. “In Norse mythology, the gods built a bridge between their realm and the mortal world. Bifröst. A rainbow bridge. A burning rainbow bridge, according to some. What if this is what they meant?” She pointed to the arcing colors above us.

  “Maybe it is, but you can’t walk on light,” I say. “Or breathe that high up in the atmosphere.”

  Kyra laughed. “My point is, if there were a bridge between earth and heaven, wouldn’t it be magnificent?”

  I relented. “Yes, it would.”

  She nodded. “This is it, I think. Our bridge from this piece of frozen wilderness to the rest of the world. From here, we can go everywhere.”

  • • •

  As much as I know that the aurora borealis can be explained by science, I can’t help but feel some of the magic that Kyra always saw. And tonight, that is the reassurance, the bridge I need, to ask the question that has been burning inside me.

  “Sam?” I keep my voice down and glance at him sideways. “Did anyone try to help Kyra escape?”

  Sam seems at a loss for words and, for a moment, he is the quiet boy I remember.

  Then he shakes his head. “I wish we’d tried, but Kyra’s father never would have let us. We all knew that Kyra’s death was foretold.”

  Day Five

  The Smell of Changing Weather

  Nine Months Before

  “Close your eyes and clear your mind,” Kyra told me. We sat on the steps of the spa. She had her arms wrapped around me as I leaned into her, and around us, the landscape was frosted, but we were warm.

  I closed my eyes and focused on Kyra’s presence. It had been a good day, but she was becoming restless again.

  “Breathe in, slowly.”

  The smell of snow and ice was crisp, cold, and unyielding.

  “Can you smell the difference?”

  I tried again, then shook my head. “Do you think it’ll storm again?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t know what you want me to notice,” I said and tilted my head to look at her. “The air smells the same as it has all winter.”

  “There’s an earthiness beneath the frost,” she said with a hint of impatience. “It wasn’t here a week ago, and it’s getting stronger.”

  She pulled away from me and got to her feet, then started to walk toward the hot springs.

  These were once natural springs, but when the spa was built, the swimming area was plated with concrete, which had gone green with age. It looked like an old swimming pool under a cover of mist.

  In years past, the hot springs were said to be a source of natural healing, but few people used them these days—certainly not the people of Lost. The spa looked too dilapidated, although in the summer months, a few backpackers would occasionally set up camp nearby to take advantage of the springs.

  I joined Kyra at the edge, looking out over the misting water. “Can you smell it here?” she asked.

  “I can hardly smell anything but rotten eggs.”

  Kyra turned to me and instead of the frown I expected, she was smiling, radiantly. “It’s the smell of hope, Cor. It’s the smell of earth and sunlight and life. The rivers will break up soon.”

  I stared at her. Breakup was the dawn of spring, the time when the ice on the rivers started showing cracks, when the snow melted, and when, for a while, Lost turned into the muddiest mess on earth. But spring was still weeks away.

  I must have looked dubious, because she shrugged. “They will. The weather is changing. The birds are returning. I’ve seen buds in the trees. Spring is everywhere.”

  I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed tightly. “You know I always believe you.”

  “But?” She always heard the words I didn’t speak.

  I looked out over the springs again. We’d planned to go camping here this summer, before Mom decided to upend our l
ives and accept the job in Winnipeg. Spring may have been a sign of hope for Kyra, but I wanted to cling to winter, to here, to home, a little bit longer.

  “It’s too early in the year. The temperature is freezing. We barely have any daylight yet. I would love for spring to arrive, but we’ve never had such a short winter.”

  Kyra didn’t seem fazed. “It’ll happen. I promise you, it will,” she said. “Trust me.”

  I nodded.

  Two days later, the rivers broke up.

  Understanding Dawns

  Without my phone, I don’t know what time it is. Without daylight, it’s even harder to tell. Bleary-eyed, I reach for my makeshift pillow and cling to it. It’s morning. At least, I think it’s morning. I replay what happened last night. Friendship. A fragile sort of community. And the drama of the night sky.

  I slept. Not enough to make up for all the nights without rest, but enough to make me feel halfway human again, enough to make me feel more at ease.

  I switch on the bedside lamp, and the calm I’d found shatters. The sleeping bag is covered with pink salmonberry blossoms. I scramble out of bed to put distance between me and them. These flowers weren’t here last night. Someone spread them on top of me while I was sleeping, and I didn’t even notice. Sam? Roshan?

  Kyr—no. I can’t keep hoping that she’ll appear. And whoever this was, they could’ve taken my stuff, they could’ve hurt me. Or worse.

  I snatch my clothes off of the portable radiator and slip into them. The warmth envelops me. I pull Kyra’s letters from under my pillow and hug them close.

  I head out to check on Roshan and Sam but come to an abrupt stop in their doorway.

  I’d expected to find them in separate sleeping bags. Instead, they lie together on the raggedy bed. Roshan’s arm hangs across Sam’s shoulders, and their legs and the blanket are all tangled together. Sam snores softly.

  As quietly as I can, I step back into the hallway. A floorboard creaks and Roshan shifts, but neither he nor Sam wakes.

  So this is why the sheriff’s son smiles.