“Would I?” Kyra’s gaze settled on the distant night sky. “Think of your meteors. What if they aren’t all science? What if the burning lights we see are spirits, falling back to earth? What if they’re trying to return to their loved ones before they burn out? What if a falling star is a soul coming home, one last time?”
The differences between us were never more obvious than when we looked at the night sky. I saw supernovas and explosions, while she saw the stories behind these phenomena. I sought understanding, while she gave the stars meaning. Still… “Homecoming?” I replied. “I like that.”
“It’s no happily ever after,” she said, “but it’s enough.”
Kyra grabbed my hands and twirled me, until I started laughing and we were so dizzy that the stars danced like fireflies.
Suddenly she stopped. I tripped over my own feet and skidded across the ice.
“It is enough,” she repeated in a gasp as she tried to regain her breath. “It doesn’t have to be a happily ever after or happily always. Just a happily once. A happily sometimes. Hope. That’d make our pain worth it.” For a few seconds, she looked intensely sad. Then she curled her fingers around my hand. “Come on, we’ll tell each other stories.”
While we watched the stars in the sky, she wove tales of promise and heartbreak. Tales of Lost Creek itself.
As dawn settled around us, I felt Kyra slip away from me. Her smile faded. I clung to her. I hated these episodes. They scared me because I never knew what to expect from her.
In the end, she was the one who spoke up first.
“Rowanne thinks these new mood stabilizers aren’t helping enough,” she said quietly. She wove her fingers through her hair and tugged. “Again.”
“I’m sorry.” That was the best consolation I could offer. She’d tried most of the common treatments, but her manic episodes had become more intense. She went for weeks with minimal sleep. She spent days upon days drawing, painting, listening to tunes that only she could hear. At the same time, her depression had grown darker. Some days, she was so lost within herself that no one could reach her, no matter how much I wanted to lead her out. And both were happening more often.
“She thinks it might be better to try something new.” Kyra picked up a stick and drew figures in the snow. “She’s been in touch with a treatment center in Fairbanks. She wants me to go. To try other medications under more supervision, more intense therapy.”
“Oh.” Plenty of people in Lost talked about sending Kyra to a residential treatment facility, but this was the first time she had spoken of it herself.
“It feels like defeat, you know?”
I bit my lip. “It isn’t.”
“I know, but it still feels like it is. I want medication that helps. I want my therapy sessions with Rowanne to be enough. I want my studies and my stories and our friendship to carry me through. I don’t want to need anything more.” She pulled her knees to her chest and hunched her shoulders forward.
“Do you want to go?” I asked. I didn’t know what else to say.
She didn’t look at me. “If you’re leaving this summer… Without you here, I think it might be a good idea.”
“Oh.” I wanted her to be healthy, and I tried to support her—but I’d started to lose faith that Kyra could find a way back to a life between her extremes.
“Corey…” Her voice twisted in loneliness.
“I think it’s a good idea too.” I forced my voice to sound sincere. “It might help you. It might make you be better.”
“You don’t think I’m enough like this.” She looked at me then, her eyes sad. Because for all we had shared—skinny dipping in the lake, reading horror stories in the deepest parts of the forest—her illness had increasingly been coming between us. She was trying to accept and live with her illness, and I was struggling to understand that.
“I think you could be so much more. I want to see you happy.”
She seemed on the verge of responding, then thought better of it. She was quiet for a time, then asked, “Will you come back to me?”
“Always.” I wrapped my arms around her. “Will you wait for me?”
She leaned into me. “Always.”
Postcard from Kyra to Corey unsent Your postcard arrived today, Cor. Where did you even find one? Mrs. Morden had to dig through the archives to find me this ancient postcard to write. Greetings from Lost Creek Hot Springs, the fountain to cure all ills! It’s fitting, I guess.
Do you remember the first time we snuck out to the spa? Wondering what secrets it held? There are no secrets anymore, or maybe there are only secrets. And this is the one I hold closest: hearing from you gives me hope. Hope that I will see you again. Hope that I may get out of here.
But hope is the cruelest of all.
I miss you.
Now Here’s to You
Mrs. Robinson is as old as the stones, as old as Lost Creek. When she sees me coming up the walk to her home at the edge of town, she opens her door. She wraps her hands around mine, at once stronger and frailer than I thought she would be. She barely reaches my shoulder now, but she’s as fierce as an avalanche.
“Oh, Corey.” She ushers me into her living room, overwhelming me with hospitality and questions about my life.
Once I’ve assured her I’m all right and my mother and brother are well, she pours me a cup of tea from the teapot already waiting on the coffee table. Mrs. Robinson is always prepared to have visitors.
“It’s good to have you back. No matter what anyone else may say, the outside world isn’t made for people like us. You belong here.”
Her warmth wraps around me like a blanket. I want to belong here. “Lost is so different now that Kyra is gone.”
“I miss her too, dear. Everyone does. It’s sad to lose someone so young and talented.”
“She had so many stories to tell,” I say.
“And so much of her art to share.”
“The paintings… Did you believe…” I struggle to find the words. It’s absurd to ask her if she believes Kyra’s paintings predicted the future. Or if she believes Kyra was the prophetess Piper seems to think she was.
Mrs. Robinson says, “Oh, I’m too old for the folly of the rest of the town.”
“Is that what you think it is?” Because I don’t know what to think.
Mrs. Robinson lifts her teacup and regards me over the rim. “Consider it a matter of perspective, then. I’ve spent decades in this town—lifetimes to some. I have seen it resist change, then embrace it countless times. I have seen it fight off financial problems when the mine closed and rise from the ashes. It’s good fertilizer, ashes. If used sparingly and knowingly, ashes will help your garden grow.”
Ashes. My tea suddenly tastes bitter. “Kyra died. How does her death help anyone?”
“Change isn’t easy.”
I’m not naive enough to think that nothing changes. I know that change can be uncomfortable. But it shouldn’t hurt, not like this. “It’s not right.”
“I didn’t say it was. But it’s not the end of the world. Very little is, in fact, although we would like to pretend otherwise.”
“Everything that happened at White Wolf Lake… It was the end of Kyra’s world. Doesn’t that count for something?”
Mrs. Robinson considers me. Her skin is thin like parchment, but her eyes are still sharp. Kyra always told me she couldn’t imagine living to a hundred, but if she did, she wanted to be like Mrs. Robinson: graceful and surrounded by flowers.
“Come,” Mrs. Robinson says. She grabs her cane and gets to her feet, with practiced ease. “Let me show you something.”
Planting Seeds
Mrs. Robinson takes me with slow determination through the house. We walk down the hall covered with sepia photos from another lifetime. In the kitchen, which always vaguely smells of rhubarb crumble, she stops at the back door.
I stare through the window, bewildered, as laughter floats in from outside.
Mrs. Robinson’s garden isn’t winter ready. The plants aren’t protected against the snow. The furniture isn’t covered. And the little shed’s door is open. It makes my fingers itch. This garden doesn’t only belong to Mrs. Robinson; we all take ownership by helping her tend it. And preparing it for winter is a communal task.
But.