The Brink of Darkness

by Jeff Giles

  “You know, it is possible to wonder something without immediately blurting it out,” he said.

  “It is?” said Zoe. She took out some more sweetener packs and built a tower. “Were you in love with her?”

  “No, as it happens, I was not,” said Regent. “If you must know, my heart expired many years before I did.”

  “I don’t understand that,” said Zoe. “What does that mean?”

  Regent exhaled.

  “In my nineteenth year, my father hired a woman to plant black cherry trees in his vineyard,” he said. “After two months, I announced that I loved her, for I was enormously vain and assumed that she loved me, too. I remember saying to my younger brother, ‘How could she not be smitten, when it is I who am the smiter?’ ”

  “Is ‘smiter’ really a word?” said Zoe.

  “It was once,” said Regent.

  He went to the pool table, and bounced the cue ball off the cushions. The ball careened around the table without stopping or even slowing down. Regent dug into the pockets, and set three more going. The balls rushed by one another without colliding.

  “What happened with the girl in the vineyard?” said Zoe.

  “She chose my brother,” Regent said. “So I killed him.”

  He crossed the room to the windows. The night had turned them into mirrors.

  “I strangled him,” he said. “Our mother screamed for me to stop. Servants came running, but no one could pull me off. My father could have, but he was elsewhere, as he often was. Testing grapes, probably.” Regent paused. “Would you believe me if I said I loved my brother very much? I did. Yet in that moment I did not see my brother. I saw only a wall standing between myself and what I wanted.”

  He drifted back to Zoe.

  “Have I explained the death of my heart sufficiently?” he said.

  Zoe nodded.

  “How long have you been carrying this guilt around on your back?” she said.

  “Two hundred and seventy-eight years,” said Regent.

  “Dude,” said Zoe, “put it down.”

  “I cannot,” said Regent. “The weight on my back is now a part of my body. The point is, I loved someone once, too, and well remember how it sets everything in you on fire.”

  “Nothing feels real right now,” said Zoe. “I can’t sleep. I can’t concentrate. People talk, and it takes me forever to figure out that they’re actually talking to me.”

  “I remember the symptoms,” said Regent. “And I believe I can alleviate yours a little by offering you a task. There is someone that X is desperate to find. If you can locate the man—perhaps talk to him a little—I believe it will soothe X greatly.”

  Regent asked for a piece of paper and a pen. Zoe found a magic marker behind the bar, and plucked the Find Something Else to Do with Your Life sign off the door so he could write a name on the back.

  Regent’s handwriting looked like an invitation to a wedding.

  “This,” he said, “is X’s father.”

  Zoe burst out of the lodge, desperate to google the name.

  She lifted her phone up high, hoping it would help her get a signal. It didn’t.

  Regent swept across the snow behind her, as she descended the slope beneath the chairlift, first slowly and calmly, then not so slowly and not so calmly. The paper was rolled in her hand. She couldn’t bear to fold it. The paper, the name, the handwriting—it all seemed sacred.

  There were stars thrown across the sky, but otherwise darkness had descended completely, like a dome. She could barely see.

  She called back to Regent.

  “Thank you for this,” she said. “For everything.”

  “X’s father is closer than you may imagine,” said Regent. “X’s mother lived in these mountains and, when she became a lord, she would sometimes return just to lay her eyes upon them.”

  “She lived here?” said Zoe.

  “Her entire life,” said Regent. “She met Timothy Ward twenty years ago.”

  “I’ll find him,” said Zoe. “I bet I can find him tonight.”

  She looked up at the chairlift, watching for Val and Dallas. Empty chairs and gondolas creaked overhead.

  “A word of caution,” said Regent. “Mr. Ward is likely unaware that he has a son—and he is certainly unaware that his son was born into a darkness beyond life. Do not let word of the Lowlands pass your lips. If the father is anything like the son, he will go on some passionate quest, enrage the other lords, and never be safe again. Even now, this gold band singes my neck to warn me that I take a grave risk in trusting you.”

  “I understand,” said Zoe. She gestured to the band. “Why don’t you just take that thing off?”

  “Because my powers would disappear if I did,” said Regent. “And then Dervish and others like him would run riot.”

  Zoe heard Val calling for her.

  Regent took her small, cold hands in his own. Warmth seeped through her.

  “Be well and be safe, Zoe Bissell,” said Regent.

  “You, too, Mr. Regent,” she said.

  There was something else Zoe wanted to say, but she couldn’t get it out. Regent turned away. He’d be gone in an instant.

  “Will I get to tell X what his father is like?” said Zoe. “Will I get to bring X to meet him?”

  The next sentence was the hardest to speak aloud. The words seemed to be sewn inside her.

  “Will I ever see X again?”

  “He believes you will,” said Regent. “I am not so certain. I see no advantage in lying to you.”

  “Will you tell him I love him?” said Zoe. “Will you tell him that I’m smitten, and he’s the smiter?”

  “I shall use those very words,” said Regent.

  A thought seemed to occur to him. He glanced around, and his eyes fell on a steep white slope where a neighboring mountain rose above them.

  “I shall leave you with a gift,” Regent said. “Perhaps it will give you solace.”

  He lifted his palm toward the cliff face, and the snow began to glow. A movie played in the wilderness.

  The movie was of X.

  Zoe saw him as he was that very instant. He was resting against a rock wall in a tunnel, his face in his hands. Zoe pleaded silently for him to uncover his face, so she could see his eyes.

  Val crunched toward her through the snow, shouting, “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Why are you making me endanger my beauty?!”

  Zoe didn’t answer.

  Up on the snowy screen, X finally lifted his head, and seemed to look right at her. Zoe went still—her breath, her blood, everything.

  She would find X’s father. And she’d see X again—she had no idea how, but she was going to. It didn’t matter that even Regent doubted it.

  Val trekked down to Zoe, and plopped into the snow beside her.

  “What are you looking at?” she said.

  Zoe gestured toward the cliff.

  “X,” she said.

  “There’s nothing up there but snow,” said Val. “You’re losing it. How long have you been out here?”

  Zoe realized then what Regent had done.

  X was only for her.

  Dallas had gone to the bottom of the mountain to finally ask Mingyu out. Zoe and Val rode a chairlift down in the dark. Just the underside of the moon was lit. It dimmed and brightened, as clouds passed in front of it. Zoe bounced her knee impatiently, as if it would make the lift go faster. She didn’t tell Val about X’s father. She wasn’t ready. When they got off the chair, she raced for the parking lot, where she knew she could get a signal. The slush was ankle-deep, and splattered her as she ran.

  Zoe could only get the call to go through if she stood on the bumper of Val’s Jeep. She pulled off her gloves, and tried typing “Timothy Ward Montana.” Her nerves were a mess. She misspelled the name twice. On the third try, she got 459,000,000 results, most of which weren’t even close, like Tim Montana of Ward, Florida. Zoe had to stop herself from flinging the phone.

  But wait. There w
as an article, from the Flathead Beacon, about a wilderness biologist in Glacier National Park. The headline was “A Life Apart.” The photo showed a fiftyish man in his living room, a sculpture of a grizzly at his side. Zoe recognized his shy smile from X.

  Holy crap. There he was.

  She heard footsteps, and looked up to see Val and Dallas coming across the lot.

  “What’d she say?” she shouted. “WHAT DID MINGYU SAY?”

  Dallas didn’t answer. It couldn’t be good.

  Zoe jumped down from the bumper, and walked toward them.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  They stood in the cold lot, wisps of vapor slipping out of their mouths, like they were smoking pipes.

  “She said maybe,” Dallas told her. “I didn’t even know that was an option, but it’s cool. I’m cool.”

  “Tell her about the lists,” said Val.

  “She wants a list of my five favorite books, albums, and TV shows—before she makes a decision,” said Dallas. “It’s like, I don’t know, an application process? She was pretty hard-ass about it. I said, ‘Come on, I gave you a Pop-Tart!’ And she goes, ‘I can’t be bought with a Pop-Tart!’ So I said, ‘What about a Goth-Tart?’ And she goes, ‘Okay, maybe with a Goth-Tart.’ That’s good banter, right?”

  “Totally solid,” said Zoe.

  She told them about Regent, about the sign that said Find Something Else to Do with Your Life, about the name that Regent had written on the back of it.

  Their faces fell. The whole outdoors seemed to get chillier. Zoe looked at her phone. She recognized the sculpture of the grizzly now, too. It was one of Rufus’s chain-saw things. It had to be.

  “I bet this guy knows Rufus,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be amazing? What are the chances of that?”

  “They’re actually pretty good,” Val said coldly. “There are, like, nine people in Montana.”

  Zoe knew Val was just worried about her.

  “Let’s go find this guy,” she said.

  “Slow down, dawg,” said Dallas.

  Zoe thought of the tattoo on Dallas’s shoulder.

  “Whatever happened to Never don’t stop!?” she said.

  “Come on, I was sixteen when I got that,” he said. “Now I know there are consequences to stuff. You can’t just go around never-don’t-stopping all the time.”

  “I’m with Dallas,” said Val. “You need to think this through.”

  “I have,” said Zoe. “Now, I just need a ride.”

  She was sure they’d come around. She stepped back up on the bumper and texted her mom.

  Gonna be later than I thought. 1 a.m. at least. Cool? Cool.

  Her mother wrote back before Zoe could even get her phone into her pocket: Wait what no! UNCOOL. This is NOT how we do things.

  How do we do things?? I’ll send you a selfie to show you I’m OK and not high on meth. (Did you smoke all our meth, btw?)

  The flash on the camera lit up the parking lot.

  “Val can drop me off, and you two can go,” said Dallas. “But I’m not into it. I’m sorry, Zoe. Old Dallas would have gone. But old Dallas was waiting around for you.”

  “I get it,” said Zoe. “I’m happy about you and Mingyu. It’s gonna happen. I know it is.”

  Her phone buzzed. It was her mother again.

  We do things w/ INTENTIONALITY & FORETHOUGHT, Zo. This pic only tells me u r beautiful, which I already knew. I want u back here in 20 minutes.

  No, mom. Sorry

  Zoe looked at Val: “Please go to Glacier with me? I’m using my sweetest voice.”

  Another text from her mother: NO? SORRY? Why are u behaving like this, Zo? Are u dehydrated? NO MORE BAD DECISIONS. Is Val with u? Val knows better than this.

  Crap. Now the phone was ringing, too.

  Wait, mom!! Zoe texted. Somebody’s calling me.

  It was … Val.

  “Oh my god, I’ve told you not to call me when I’m standing right here,” said Zoe.

  “Hang on a sec,” said Val. “I’m on the phone.”

  “I’m not gonna answer,” said Zoe. “Why are you so weird?”

  “Huh, they’re not answering,” said Val. “I’ll leave a message.”

  Val tilted her head back and forth in a tick-tock sort of way while waiting for the beep, then left the following message: “I’ll take you to Glacier because you’ve emotionally manipulated me, but just to be clear: you’re making a mistake, and this whole thing sucks ass.”

  Zoe went to hug her. Val wouldn’t allow it.

  When they got to Dallas’s house, he told them to wait a minute. He opened the trunk of his 4Runner, in which lay a paradise of caving gear, and pulled out two orange backpacks. He gave one to Zoe and the other to Val.

  “For Glacier,” he said. “Just if you need it.”

  When Zoe asked what was in them, he said, “Survival shit.”

  She turned her pack around.

  “I see,” she said.

  On the front of the backpack, in thick block letters, Dallas had written, SURVIVAL SH*T. On the front of Val’s, he’d written, MORE SURVIVAL SH*T. The asterisks made Zoe smile. Dallas always worried about offending grown-ups.

  “I need them back,” he said. “I made them for me and Mingyu. I got ahead of myself, I guess.”

  Zoe and Val thanked him, and they backed out of his driveway. Val was still irritated, and turned on the pop station that Zoe hated. Zoe just stared down at the picture of Timothy Ward on her phone. She was going to meet X’s father tonight.

  Her mother wouldn’t stop texting. The little bzzts kept coming, like she was having a cavity filled. Zoe stuffed her phone into her coat. Every so often, it lit up angrily and made her pocket glow.

  The last text she bothered to read was this one:

  Zo? U there? PLEASE PLEASE think about what bad decisions have done to this family.

  EIGHTEEN

  Val drove worse when she was annoyed: even Mad Max would have pulled over and let her pass.

  The road curled and uncurled as they wound down toward the valley. Val swerved, hit the brake, swerved again. Twice, Zoe felt the tires drop off the edge of the pavement and rumble over dirt. It made her jaw chatter.

  “I’m gonna go ahead and deploy the air bag now,” she said. “Just so it’s ready.”

  Val took her eyes off the road—not that they were actually on the road—and glared at her.

  “You’re being a dick tonight,” she said.

  “I don’t think I am,” said Zoe.

  “ ‘I don’t think I am,’ ” said Val. “That’s a dick-ish thing to say.” She pounded her fist on the steering wheel. “When Dallas and I both think something is a bad idea? It’s a bad idea.”

  “Why are you so pissed?” said Zoe. “This is not even in the Top Ten of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.”

  “Glacier is going to be deserted and dark as shit,” said Val. “And I’m not all woodsy and intrepid like you, Zoe. I like TV. I like doing Gloria’s nails. I like napping.”

  “I like napping!”

  “Oh, please. You say you like napping, but you don’t—not like I do!”

  A pair of nervous deer appeared at the edge of the road, looking to cross. Val barked, “Don’t even!” and shot past them.

  “You’ve been out of control since you met X,” she told Zoe.

  “Wow,” said Zoe.

  “You’re telling lies right and left,” said Val. “You’ve got me lying to Gloria, which I’ve never done. The first lie I ever told her was to protect you—and the second and the third. Now I’ve got to lie about where I’m going tonight. That’s gonna be lie number four.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Zoe.

  “Lie number four!” said Val.

  “I had no idea—” said Zoe.

  “I know you didn’t,” said Val. “Because I’m your best friend and I want you to have all the cute boys and all the cake and soda you want. But you’re dangerous to be around. Seriously, Zo. Have you noticed that
your family doesn’t even have a house anymore?”

  “Okay,” said Zoe. “Okay, okay, okay.”

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay stop.”

  Everything Val had said was true. Zoe knew she should tell her to turn around, but couldn’t make herself say the words. The car felt hot now. Claustrophobic. Zoe leaned forward to turn down the heat.

  “I found somebody I love, and he loves me, too,” said Zoe. “You know how hard that is?”

  “I’m a lesbian in Montana—with blue hair,” said Val. “Yeah, I know how hard it is, thanks.” She paused. “I’m gonna say something now that’s gonna piss you off. But honestly, I don’t care.”

  “Say it,” said Zoe. “Go.”

  “I think you fell in love so fast because a ton of bad shit had just happened to you,” said Val.

  Zoe stared at her.

  “That’s your genius theory?” she said.

  “Yes,” said Val. “Shut up.”

  “Okay, yeah, it’s true,” said Zoe. “I was messed up because of my dad and the Wallaces. Obviously. I fell for X faster than maybe I would have because I needed it more. However.”

  “Here it comes,” said Val.

  “However, that doesn’t mean I don’t actually love him,” said Zoe, “or that anything you say is going to make me stop.”

  She stared out the window as the trees flew past.

  “I don’t want you to stop,” said Val. Her voice was quieter now—barely audible above the radio. “I didn’t say that.”

  “It’s just …,” said Zoe.

  “It’s just what?” said Val. “What is it just?”

  “I know I’m being erratic,” said Zoe. “I know I’m being selfish. But I’m in love with somebody I may not be able to see—or talk to, or touch—ever again. I’ve got a dog dying in the living room. I’ve got a father who lied to us forever and then just took off …”

  “Plus you suck at Spanish,” said Val. “I mean, if we’re gonna whine about everything. In Spain, they’d put you in kindergarten.”

  “Yes,” said Zoe, “there’s that, too. So I need a win tonight. If all that happens is I meet Timothy Ward, and he reminds me a tiny bit of X, it’ll help me breathe for a while. I know it sounds dumb.”

  “Okay,” said Val. “Okay, okay, okay.”

  “Okay what?”