Wraith

by Gwenan Haines

Usually I wake up early, around the time the sun rises, and try to get most of my deliveries done before sundown. It’s not that I mind flying after dark. When it’s a clear night with a full moon the world turns eerily beautiful, especially after a fresh snowfall. On nights like those I always feel closer to my father, as if the door between our worlds is wide open and I could fly my plane right through. But as a rule I try to get people what they need when it’s still light enough to transport supplies. And I like to keep my evenings free.

  Not that I’ve got tons of dates, despite the fact that the odds are definitely in my favor. The male-female ratio in Alaska is about ten to one so it’s almost a challenge to stay single. I guess after my brother disappeared and my father died—not to mention my mother becoming a living ghost—I became self-sufficient. I didn’t have much choice, not if I didn’t want social services to swoop down and take me away from my mom forever. Even if she wasn’t truly there all those years when I was growing up her presence was necessary to me. I couldn’t lose the one person I had left in the world.

  I suppose somebody looking at me from the outside might say I shut out the world as a defense against more pain. That’s what I imagine a psychiatrist would tell me, if I ever went to one. But I just can’t see myself lying back on some fake leather couch, spilling my guts to a guy taking notes while the clock ticks down. The nights get quiet here and when I’m sick of reading novels sometimes I’ll read this book I got at a yard sale. It’s about the human mind—it still amazes me, all the shit people will do to avoid dealing with the thing that’s really bothering them. Kind of ironic, too, since most of the time if they just allowed themselves to fix that one thing their whole lives would be different.

  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, right? Aka irony. I guess I still hadn’t fixed the one thing that really bothered me.

  No matter how much I wanted to undo what happened to my brother I couldn’t. But I could keep Annie safe. And maybe keeping her safe would be close enough. Maybe if I fixed that I could change my own life.

  I was drop-dead tired when I walked through my door the day I saw the article. I hadn’t gone on the internet yet and after checking my company email I was ready to get some sleep. I was logging out of my account when I decided to click on the Anchorage Daily News, mainly to check out the weather forecast. Nothing struck me at first. I skimmed through the usual stories—somebody had killed a three-tusk walrus, a couple of inmates overdosed on heroin, giant Arctic waves were wreaking havoc on the traditional Inuit way of life. At the bottom right-hand side of the screen, just under the AK Police Beat icon, a headline caught my attention. Search Still on For Missing Boy. I touched my fingertip to the screen and started reading.

  Police continue their search efforts for a four-year-old boy missing since February 11. Tommy Muller disappeared the day after his birthday, when he was out sledding with his siblings. Search efforts in wooded areas by law enforcement are still occurring, but have been isolated to areas of potential interest based on information police have received, according to local officials involved in the case. Volunteers on snowmobiles and on foot have searched the trails on the outskirts of Red Dog Mine for weeks while a pilot, Larry Divoll, offered his time to fly over the area to help in the search, according to officials. A line search for the missing family is set for 9 a.m. Saturday at the trail at the end of Pine Street. Search organizer Rita Muller, Tommy’s sister, told the newspaper she’s grateful for the outpouring of support from the community. ”We are encouraging any friends, associates, or acquaintances to come forward with whatever information they may have,” Red Dog Mine police said yesterday, adding such information could include direct or indirect contact with the boy over the past several months or “information about him that is even older.” People who have information are requested to call the police and speak with an investigator.

  I stared at the grainy photo next to the article. A boy with dark blond hair and brown eyes gazed out at me. He wore the fake, uncomfortable smile kids always have when posing for formal pictures. There was no rational reason for me to believe the boy’s disappearance had anything to do with my dreams about Annie. But the non-rational part of me took that story and ran with it. My non-rational side had no doubt whatsoever that Tommy Muller’s disappearance wasn’t the work of an angry ex-husband or even a serial killer. Whoever had taken Tommy was the same person who would take Annie.

  My rational side, on the other hand, needed convincing. Kids went missing every day, especially in a state as big as Alaska. True, Tommy lived close by and he’d gone missing the night before a snowstorm just like my brother had. But it was Alaska. The odds of going missing around the time of a storm had to be pretty high. Sure, he’d only been gone a short while and another kid a couple of towns over had disappeared right around the time my brother did. But that didn’t mean Annie would be taken in a few days too.

  Long story short: my rational side needed evidence.

  I bookmarked the article and turned off my computer then walked over to the stove. Maybe if I brewed myself a cup of chamomile tea I’d be able to fall asleep. I filled the kettle and set it onto the burner, grabbing a mug off its hook and setting it onto the counter. The huskies must have sensed my unease because they followed me into the kitchen and laid down on the braided rug, watching my every move. When my cell phone went off a few minutes later I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  I glanced at the number and then at the clock on the wall. Hunter.

  “Don’t you ever sleep?” I balanced the phone between my ear and my shoulder while I poured boiling water onto my tea bag.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Actually,” I told him, “that’s exactly what I was trying to accomplish. Then the phone rang.”

  “Sorry,” he said, though he didn’t sound sorry at all.

  “What do you want, Hunter?” No point beating around the bush with a guy like Hunter. He wasn’t one for polite banter. Neither was I.

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “A couple of days ago my dad came across something you might want to see,” he said, lowering his voice almost to a whisper. “If you’re not doing anything tomorrow I thought we could meet so I could show it to you.”

  Classic Hunter. He probably loved the idea I was dying of curiosity. “He found something?” I asked, trying and failing to act as if his answer wouldn’t matter all that much. “What? Does it relate to Annie?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It might. Possibly.”

  It was a good thing Hunter wasn’t close by because I would’ve smacked him on the side of the head for driving me nuts with his elusive answers. “Okay, you win. You’ve got me hooked. What time do you want to meet?”

  “I don’t think anybody’s got you hooked, Pakak. But I’m glad you can meet me. How about tomorrow around noon. We could meet at the Blue Moon for lunch and then go for some late-afternoon snowmobiling.”

  I hesitated for a whole bushel of reasons, wishing I’d scheduled a delivery for the following day. If Hunter’s dad had found something that could relate to Annie I wasn’t sure the Blue Moon was the best place to talk about it. Then there was the uncomfortable vibe I’d gotten from Liv and Gavin after I told them about my dream. Last but definitely not least was the idea of riding the trails with Hunter.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. I did. Maybe I was the one I couldn’t count on when it came to solitary rides with Hunter to isolated locales.

  The pause went on for so long Hunter finally jumped in. “If you’re not up for snowmobiling it’s not a big deal. I know you get up at the crack o’ dawn to fly that metal death-trap of yours. If you’re busy working I can just tell you about what my dad found at the Blue Moon.”

  That was another thing about Hunter. He still backed my passion for flying even though he positively hated flying himself. Even the flights to Anchorage and back kept him pinned to his seat, white knuckles and all.

  “Actually I’ve got the day off,” I t
old him. “Snowmobiling’s fine. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “That makes me feel so much better.”

  I wrapped the string around the teabag and squeezed it before setting it into the saucer. “Consider me the reason you’re not unbearable to be around.”

  “Want to try explaining that? Not that your logic doesn’t usually floor me.”

  “If I explained it to you I’d be defeating my purpose, which is to keep you meek and malleable.”

  Hunter wasn’t meek or malleable, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. Just like I wasn’t going to tell him the reason I never gave him a compliment was because he really was gorgeous and funny and brilliant. Let a guy know that—or even worse, let him know you know that about him—and his ego will go into turbo drive. And that’s the death knell for a cute guy.

  Hunter laughed. “Then my opinion of your logic remains unchanged,” he said. “Just don’t ask me to tell you what it is, since there’s no word to describe it.”

  Another thing about Hunter was he wasn’t into flattery. I wouldn’t have minded a compliment now and then, but on the other hand his teasing did keep my ego in line. “How about brilliant?”

  “Nope. That’s not it. Definitely not it. I was thinking more along the lines of nonexistent.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “I guess you’re the reason I’m not unbearable to be around.”

  “I guess so,” he said. “See you tomorrow, Kira.”

  “Night,” I said, ending the call before the conversation could veer into sentimental territory. Bad enough to say good night to each other. It reminded me of the restaurant, in a way. Somehow even the simplest things seemed complicated with Hunter. Or maybe just romantic.

  But I wasn’t going to think about that. I grabbed my tea off the counter and headed upstairs to my bedroom, the huskies close behind me.

  ****

  The next day my rational side still wasn’t convinced Tommy Muller’s disappearance was connected with my dreams. Everything seemed far too ordinary. Morning sunlight streamed through the windows and fell in wide squares across the bedroom floor. Boris and Natasha lay side by side on the rug at the foot of the bed, sleeping with their tails curled around their noses. Even I was in normal mode. I sat on the edge of the mattress, listening to Panic! at the Disco as I debated what to wear to town. I even repeated the cliché about having an over-active imagination to myself.

  I almost believed it. But my mind kept fixating on the elders in the village, who had their own idea about what happened to my brother. These were the men and women who’d learned the Inuit legends as children, the ones who believed the tupilak were behind it. According to them, the tupilak were restless ghosts who stole children away and trapped them in the void, the place where the uncreated lived. On the nights before a child disappeared the tribe’s shaman or someone close to the child would see its spirit, or wraith. The wraith looked exactly like the child, the only difference was its transparency. Even if a child died after such a sighting all was well. The child would shed its earthly skin and join the sky beings and the other earth creatures without skins in Summerland. But if the child didn’t die after such a sighting—if they simply disappeared—then they’d been taken to the void for all eternity. They were the soulless.

  The fact that I’d never seen my brother’s wraith or even dreamt about it is the reason I know he’s still alive. A few years back I saw the wraith of an old woman who lived across the street and the next day she died of natural causes. Once I saw the wraith of a girl at my school. She died too, only the causes weren’t natural that time. She was in a car crash after a night of drinking. I’m not sure if I believe the old legends but they do give me some comfort. I like to think the old woman and the girl are both walking around wearing just their souls, living the good life in Summerland.

  There have been other kids who went missing too. Not too many, maybe only one every four or five years. They weren’t all taken from Amarok either. Some were taken from the surrounding villages. One advantage of being a pilot is that you get around. And people always want to talk. Everybody likes a ghost story.

  Even after all those years I wasn’t sure which theory I believed the most. There were two things I did know for sure though. I was going to do everything possible to find out the answer to what happened to my brother all those years ago. And I wasn’t going to let anything happen to Annie.

  You’re not going to save her if you don’t get your ass in gear.

  As usual, my inner voice—which sounded a lot like my mother—was right. With a sigh, I pushed myself off the bed and headed for my closet.

  ****

  When I pulled up and parked my snowmobile in front of the Blue Moon, Hunter was already there. He walked over to me, helmet in hand, the sunlight glinting on his dirty-blond hair. “Hey.”

  “Ready to eat?”

  “Um, yeah, about that.”

  Hunter raised an eyebrow. “What about it?”

  “I’m actually not that hungry. Maybe you could just show me out here what your dad found and then we could take off for the trails,” I said quickly, adding, as an afterthought. “Unless you’re starving or something. I mean if you really want to—

  “So you’re afraid to go in there now.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said, though as usual he’d hit the nail right on the damn head. “Why would I be afraid to go in there? Just because I told Liv about my dream and she didn’t believe me?”

  Hunter didn’t say anything.

  “What?”

  “I’m waiting for you to make that fake laughing sound you always make when you’re lying.”

  “I’m not lying.” Yeah, right. Luckily I wasn’t related to Pinocchio.

  “For the moment I’m going to pretend I agree with you. And you’re in luck, because I’m not all that hungry so I don’t mind skipping lunch. But I can’t show you the thing my dad found right now.”

  A stab of disappointment cut through me. “Why not?”

  He pulled on his helmet and fastened the buckle. “Because it’s not something I’ve got in my pocket. You have to follow me first.”

  “Follow you where?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.” He walked over to his snowmobile and turned on the ignition. “Just stay as close behind me as you can. The trail gets a bit sketchy in places.”

  He pulled away from the Blue Moon and headed down Main Street before I had time to answer. Apparently now that we’d agreed not to eat he didn’t want to waste any time on small details like telling me where we were headed or how long it would take to get there.

  Before I could think about that too much I hit the throttle and rushed off after him.

  ****

  Hunter hadn’t been kidding when he said the trail got sketchy in places. The first couple of hours weren’t bad—I’d been on the trail many times before and could handle it with my eyes closed. For the first half hour I thought he’d been messing with my head, just like he always does. It was even fun, rushing across the wide open spaces in the shadow of the mountains, riding side by side with Hunter at full speed. At the beginning of the trails we passed by some snowmobilers and even a couple out snowshoeing. But after a while it was just the two of us flying across the snow. We weren’t officially racing but there was definitely an unspoken competition going on.

  We turned off onto a trail I’d never seen before. The snow wasn’t packed down and there was hardly room for our snowmobiles to clear the trees. Hunter slowed down and I did too, keeping close behind him. The mountains were closer together and the passage narrowed to the point where we couldn’t ride side by side. The steep slopes loomed above us, blocking out the sun so that everything was bathed in shadows. About thirty yards ahead of me to the right, a dark spot yawned in the mountain. Hunter steered toward it and I followed.

  A cave.

  Networks of caves ran through the mountains that surrounded Amarok and I’d been through dozens of them. Most of them were empty but
occasionally there were signs that wolves lived there or that trappers had camped in one for the night. Once I’d even stumbled into a cave and seen a bear sleeping. You can bet I ran out of there faster than I’d ever run before. The bear didn’t wake though. Most likely it went on sleeping until spring but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  Hunter killed his engine and placed his helmet on the seat. He grabbed a flashlight out of his pack and switched it on, motioning for me to follow. When I caught up with him he threw me a smaller flashlight. “You’re going to need this. This place goes pretty far back.”

  I switched on my flashlight and crouched down at the entrance. Outside, the snow looked blindingly white. I turned back toward the cave and hurried after Hunter, who was moving through it quickly. Maybe a little too quickly.

  It took me a couple of minutes before I realized my hand was shaking. I wasn’t scared, well, not exactly. But there was something about the place I didn’t like. Not just the gloom or the size of it, which was impressive. After we moved away from the entrance the ceiling rose higher and higher until it was about thirty feet above us. The cave got wider too, though from the size of the hole on the other end, it diminished quite a bit as you got deeper into the mountain.

  Like I said, the size didn’t bother me. The aura of the place on the other hand was a definite problem.

  I don’t see auras, at least not the way most psychics do. There aren’t miniature rainbows hanging over people as they walk through the streets. It’s more like an invisible musical scent, one that’s as original as a fingerprint or the lines of the iris. Hunter’s aura was kind of a C note with a bit of cinnamon thrown into the mix. I guess if you pinned me down and made me translate that into color I’d say his aura would fall along the red end of the spectrum, somewhere between the crimson of fallen leaves and the orangey-red of a burning campfire. As for me—C sharp with citrus and maybe a touch of lavender. Translation: somewhere between river ice and aurora borealis green.

  This place wasn’t even on the spectrum. Maybe lower F with a scent of formaldehyde and coffin dust. Translation: somewhere between funeral-suit black and nuclear winter.