Tell Me

by Strom, Abigail

  “That’s it?”

  He laughed, and even though there was no malice in it, at this particular moment it only added insult to injury.

  “Stop laughing at me.”

  He came closer. “I’m not,” he said, pulling a red bandanna from a pocket and using it to dry the raindrops from her face. “I’m laughing with you.”

  “Well, I’m not laughing,” she grumbled. “Aren’t we ever going to take a break?”

  “Can you hang on a few more minutes? There’s a lean-to up ahead where we can get off our feet and out of the rain.”

  That sounded like heaven.

  “Okay. But it better only be a few minutes.”

  It was. They went forward a few hundred paces and around a bend, and then Caleb stepped off the trail and into a shelter made of logs. It had three walls and a roof and a floor of dead leaves, but best of all, there was a long, low bench at the back.

  In her whole life, she’d never enjoyed the simple act of sitting down quite this much.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Caleb said after a minute.

  With all her muscles mad at her, Caleb’s pleasure felt like a personal affront. She turned to glare at him. He’d taken his pack and his jacket off and was leaning back, his thumbs hooked in his belt loops, his legs extended and one booted foot hooked over the other.

  “What’s beautiful? The rain?”

  “Nature.”

  She wiggled her wet toes inside her sneakers.

  “Nature can go fuck herself,” she said, and Caleb threw back his head and laughed.

  “I hardly ever hear you swear.”

  “I like to save it for worthy occasions.”

  He was looking out at the scene in front of them, and Jane followed the direction of his gaze.

  Across the trail from where they were, a deep, tree-filled ravine dipped low and then rose up to a ridge, pale green and dark green and every shade in between. Sometime in the last hour the rain had let up a little, and she could see the far edge of the ridge clearly.

  Beneath the trees around them, feathery clusters of soft ferns gave way, here and there, to bunches of wildflowers.

  “It is beautiful,” she said, and Caleb turned to smile at her.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I guess I was more focused on my feet.”

  She leaned forward, her eyes drawn to glimpses of white and purple and yellow and pink peeping out from beneath the trees and ferns.

  “What are those?” she asked.

  “The flowers?”

  She nodded.

  He pointed toward a little splash of white only a few yards away. “Lily of the valley.” Then he pointed across the trail, where a river of luscious purple swept down from an enormous maple. “Violets,” he said.

  She thought of the book they’d listened to yesterday. “Like Anne’s Violet Vale,” she murmured.

  He smiled. “Exactly.” He looked right and left, as though searching for something, and when he found it he gave a grunt of satisfaction. “Something else from the book,” he said, pointing to a little cluster of delicate pink blossoms.

  “What are they?”

  “Trailing arbutus.” He paused. “Otherwise known as mayflowers.”

  She looked at them in delight. “Of course! Gilbert offered a bunch to Anne, but she rejected them with scorn.”

  He laughed. “Man, that girl was stubborn.” He tilted his head to the side, thinking. “Remember what she said? She thought mayflowers were the souls of the flowers that died last summer, and this was their heaven.”

  She stared at him. “You remember that?”

  “Sure. Don’t you?”

  “Well, yes. But I’ve read that book a hundred times. I practically know it by heart.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t appreciate nature more, then. Anne loved nature.”

  “She did?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Don’t tell me you missed that.”

  She thought about it. “Not exactly. I mean, of course I remember the descriptions of nature, but I guess I wasn’t as interested in those parts of the book. I noticed other things more.”

  “That was the thing I liked best about Anne.” He paused. “The author loved nature, too, you know.”

  It was her turn to raise an eyebrow. “How in the world do you know that?”

  He grinned. “I looked her up last night.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Sure. There wasn’t anything good on TV.” He reached into an outer pocket on his pack and pulled out the waterproof bag that held his phone.

  “Don’t tell me you can get a signal out here,” she said skeptically.

  “I don’t need one. I took screenshots of the quotes I liked.”

  “Quotes?”

  “From L. M. Montgomery. Her letters and journals and things like that.” He clicked through to something and handed her the phone. “Here.”

  She squinted down at the screen and read out loud. “Once and again, I stray down and listen to the duet of the brook and wind, and watch the sunbeams creeping through the dark boughs, the gossamers glimmering here and there, and the ferns growing up in the shadowy nooks.”

  He reached out with a fingertip and swiped right, bringing up a new screen.

  She read aloud again. “It has always seemed to me that, amid all the commonplaces of life, I was very near to a kingdom of ideal beauty. Between it and me hung only a thin veil. I could never quite draw it aside, but sometimes a wind fluttered it and I caught a glimpse of the enchanting world beyond—only a glimpse, but those glimpses have always made life worthwhile.”

  She sat silent for a minute, goose bumps prickling her skin.

  “I can’t believe you actually looked up L. M. Montgomery,” she said after a while.

  He took his phone back. “Why not? Like I said, she loved nature. We’re kindred spirits,” he added, using one of Anne Shirley’s favorite phrases.

  He wrapped the phone up and returned it to his pack. “Besides, I make it a point to collect quotes about the natural world. It gives me something to tell people on trips. The best I can come up with on my own is ‘Wow, pretty.’ So it helps to have other people’s words.”

  He pulled something else out of a different pocket—a red pouch marked First Aid. “Let’s take a look at your feet.”

  “My feet?”

  “I want to make sure they’re okay.”

  “They’re definitely not okay.”

  “Then let’s do something about that.” He held out his hands. “Give them here.”

  She turned to face him, swinging her feet up into his lap.

  He unlaced her sneakers and pulled them off with a frown. “These are soaked through.”

  “Yep.”

  “Your socks, too.”

  “I know.”

  He reached into the pocket he’d taken the first aid kit from and pulled out a pair of clean, dry socks. “These will help.”

  She took them gratefully. “I take back everything I ever said about you. You’re a god among men.”

  He pulled off her wet socks and used his red bandanna to dry her feet thoroughly.

  “A couple of hot spots here,” he said, examining her heels and arches.

  “Hot spots?”

  She was trying to be as clinical about this process as Caleb was, but the touch of his big hands on her bare skin felt anything but clinical.

  “Points of friction that can turn into blisters,” he explained, taking ointment and bandages out of the first aid kit and applying them to her feet—two on her heels and one on a big toe. “There,” he said, taking the dry socks from her and sliding them on. Then he pulled out two plastic sandwich bags, put them over her socks, and put the sneakers back on over the bags. “That’ll help keep you a little drier.”

  She put her feet back on the ground, marveling at the difference dry skin could make to a person’s comfort.

  “Got any other miracles in that pack of yours?”


  He reached inside the main compartment. “It’s not a miracle, but—” He pulled out a thermos, and when he opened it a curl of steam rose into the air. The aroma was deliciously familiar.

  “Coffee!”

  “With cream and lots of sugar, just the way you like it.”

  He poured out a cupful into the plastic lid and handed it to her.

  The heat felt wonderful against her cold hands, and the coffee was the most delicious she’d ever tasted.

  “I love you,” she said without thinking. When she saw Caleb’s expression, she cleared her throat. “I mean, I love this coffee.”

  “Uh-huh.” He pulled a protein bar out of the pack and handed it to her. “How about now?”

  She hadn’t realized how ravenous she was until this moment. “Okay, I really do love you.”

  They were just joking around, but she was surprised at how easily the words came and how natural it felt to say them to him.

  She waited, but Caleb didn’t say anything else. After a moment she tore open her protein bar and bit into it.

  Yes, they were just joking—but it wouldn’t actually kill him to say it back to her. Even a flippant I love you shouldn’t be left hanging.

  She wouldn’t say anything else, she decided. She’d let him be the next one to speak. I love you, too. Was that so hard? He could say it while tugging her braid or punching her on the shoulder.

  After a few minutes, Caleb slung his pack over his shoulders and rose to his feet.

  “All set?” he asked. “We’ve still got a long way to go.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Her feet stayed dry all the way to the top of the mountain.

  She found herself paying attention to what was around her on the second half of the hike, instead of wallowing in the internal world of her own discomfort. She felt a thrill every time she spotted a cluster of white or yellow or purple or pink, and she put out a hand to feel the softness of fern fronds.

  The trees, too, were beautiful. They seemed ancient and wise, weathered and patient, and the scent of moss and pine sap was sharp and invigorating.

  It seemed to wake her up somehow—and to give her a second wind of strength and endurance that carried her to the summit. Or maybe it was Sam’s spirit, encouraging her and cajoling her and reminding her of the story she’d told so long about this very place.

  It was my first solo hike, and when I got to the top . . . well, you’ll see when you go. It’s the reason I decided to become a trek guide. There might be more famous mountains and spectacular views out there, but Owl Mountain is my mountain.

  She’d only ever understood this part of Sam from a distance. Intellectually rather than emotionally. But now . . .

  She was glad Caleb had made her do this.

  The quotes he’d showed her echoed in her mind. It was amazing that even after reading about Anne Shirley a hundred times, there were still facets of the character she hadn’t appreciated. If that could be true of a fictional character, how much more true was it about real human beings? What else hadn’t she understood about her own sister?

  Or Caleb?

  She thought about what he’d told her last night and what they were doing now. His mother had walked out and his father had killed himself, and this was what Caleb had decided to do with his life.

  This was his way of choosing light over darkness. He devoted himself to the natural world, and he helped others appreciate it, too.

  The rain stopped when they were close to the summit, but Caleb didn’t look happy about it.

  “There’s fog rolling in,” he said. “We won’t have much of a view.”

  He was right. When they finally reached the top, the mist was so thick it felt like they were walled in on the rocky plateau.

  She looked around. For all she could see, they might not have been on a mountaintop at all. There was just the tableland where they stood, dotted with boulders and bushes and stunted trees, and the prison of fog around them. The wind was strong and bitter cold, which somehow made the rocks and straggling spruce trees seem lonelier and more desolate.

  “I’m sorry,” Caleb said. “I was hoping you’d get something spectacular as a reward for all your hard work.”

  He set his pack down beside a large boulder, but she kept hers on. He headed for the leeward side of the plateau, and she followed.

  They stood there for a while, just looking out at the white wall of cloud, until finally Caleb turned to her.

  “This is the best place,” he said. “You’ll want the wind at your back.”

  She wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

  “The best place for what?”

  He nodded toward her pack. “The best place to scatter Sam’s ashes.”

  The shock that went through her was like stepping into icy water.

  “Oh no,” she said, the words jerked out of her.

  Caleb frowned. “I guess we can walk around a little, but—”

  “No. No. This place is fine. It’s just . . .” She slid her hands into her pockets and clenched them into fists. “I’m not ready. Not yet.”

  He looked at her for a moment and then nodded.

  “Okay.” He glanced at his watch. “We only have an hour, though. We need to make it down to the car before it gets dark.”

  “I understand.” She looked out at the fog. “I just need some time.”

  “Do you want something to eat? Something to drink?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “Do you want company? Or do you want to be alone?”

  She liked that he gave her that choice. She realized, suddenly, that Caleb would always give someone that choice. He understood the need for solitude.

  “I think I want to be alone. With . . .” She hesitated. “With Sam.”

  Would he think that was strange? Morbid?

  “Okay,” he said. “If you need me, I won’t be far.”

  She watched him walk away, thinking, You’ll be far when you go back to Australia.

  It was a lonely thought, and she almost called out for him to come back. But then she set her pack on the ground, traded her rain jacket for her down jacket, and sat down on a flat rock with her sister’s ashes in her lap.

  She wondered what Sam would say if she were here.

  Just scatter the damn things already.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the bitter wind on her face.

  I can’t. I can’t let you go.

  What else are you going to do? Stay up here forever?

  Maybe.

  Don’t be ridiculous, little sis. Scatter my ashes and get on with your life.

  She put the urn back in the pack and zipped it up.

  I hate you for leaving me.

  I know.

  I miss you.

  I know.

  And all around her the wind blew, and the fog closed in, and the weight on her lap grew heavier and heavier until she thought it would pull her down through the mountain into the depths of the earth.

  Caleb gave her forty-five minutes before going back to the edge of the plateau.

  She looked small and lonely as he drew closer, sitting cross-legged with her arms wrapped around the pack in her lap.

  He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently.

  “It’s time.”

  She looked up, and he saw the streaks of tears on her face.

  “No.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean, no?”

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Sam asked me to go hiking with her all the time, and I always said no. I know it’s too late now, but I feel like I’m learning something about her up here. Something I never understood before.” She gestured around her. “I can’t let her go yet. I can’t.” She paused. “I want to stay here tonight.”

  He stared at her. “Are you kidding? It’ll be below freezing up here. We have to start hiking down right now.”

  She shook her head, her expression stubborn,
and he’d never seen her look more like Samantha.

  “Didn’t you bring a tent? You must have something in that huge pack besides coffee and Band-Aids.”

  He squatted down beside her. “I brought camping equipment because we were going on a long hike in bad weather, but it’s only for emergencies.”

  Jane’s face was pinched with cold, but her expression was resolute. “Well, consider this an emergency. Because I’m not leaving.”

  His need to get her down the mountain and into a warm motel room grew more urgent.

  “Jane—”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  He knew that look. He’d seen it on Sam’s face often enough.

  He glared at her. “You’re going to have to scatter her ashes eventually, you know. Unless you’re planning to stay here forever?”

  Her eyes lowered. “I don’t want to stay here forever,” she said softly. “I just want to stay here tonight.”

  He sighed in frustration, his breath misting in the cold.

  And it was only going to get colder.

  He could sit here and argue with her, he could try to drag her down the mountain by force, or he could go back to his pack and start making some kind of camp.

  He surged to his feet. “I can’t believe how pissed I am at you right now.”

  She looked up at him again, her eyes grateful. “Thank you, Caleb.”

  “Don’t thank me. I’m close to throwing you off this damn mountain.”

  She smiled. “Thank you,” she said again.

  He didn’t say anything else. He just trudged back the way he’d come, leaving Jane and Samantha to wrestle with eternity.

  He found a relatively sheltered spot to pitch the tent. By the time Jane came back, he had the WhisperLite stove going behind its windshield. They had plenty of water, so he poured two cups into his battered cooking pot and waited for it to boil.

  Jane watched him for a moment before she spoke. “What’s for dinner?”

  She sounded conciliatory, like she was hoping all was forgiven.

  He glowered at her. “If you’d bothered to listen to me, it could have been pizza or Chinese food or a Big Mac. As it is, we’re stuck with whatever freeze-dried crap I threw in the pack yesterday. I don’t even know what I brought.” He tossed the sack with the food over to her. “You pick.”